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.

12. Heiress

Thanks be to Trisa_Slyne, for being the reason this isn't garbage.

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PT 1: BINNE

I'd always accepted Drak Black-Raven as my father. Now, the Black-Raven are known to be barbarous by most standards of the Common-speaking world but having been accepted amongst them by way of my father, I knew them to be a loving, if hard people. They did not lie to each other, and they did not abandon each other. And amongst them they had themselves a sort of rite of passage into adulthood - my father had undergone it when he was a young man, and though I was older than he was when he had undertaken it, I had spoken to him and mum about some of the matters on my mind after I returned home from the War and they'd both agreed the process might benefit me. It was an imbibing ritual that granted you visions of arcane and obscure matters that their elder shamans might interpret for you; I had hoped to put some old ghosts to rest by way of it, but instead had awoken one.

I'd dreamed of it on and off ever since. I'd never spoken of what I'd seen in the ritual, and before it I'd never wondered about the bastard that had impregnated my mother. It had simply never benefited me to ruminate on my demonic heritage. He was just some arsehole that had raped my mother in a planar prison. That was all. It wasn't anything I had ever needed to worry about, because it never had bearing on my life until this fucking moment. I'd taken my powers, my life, my luck for granted. I'd joked that I was cursed. Now I knew what I really was.

After Brega had died . . . That had been my first encounter with hellfire. I'd never seen it before, didn't even know it existed until it engulfed him and permanently quenched his life. It spiraled out of control without my wherewithal - I didn't yet understand what it was, how it worked, or where it came from. I just ran away because I was scared. Hellfire isn't something they teach you about in Blackstaff's Academy. That's not the sort of magic you learn there. Hellfire isn't a part of the Weave, after all. As its name implies, it comes from a particular place. Valen had said once that he'd seen it consume lesser warlocks - I believed him completely, it had very nearly consumed me until I wound up in the Zhentil prison. Oddly enough, being trapped there and tortured had helped me understand how to master that inner fire. How to wield it like a weapon without it burning out of control. I used that fire to free myself, and others, and thought then that I'd truly known myself. I was a fool.

DO IT.

DIE!

That inner voice. I'd heard it before. I'd forgotten, but I remembered now. I'd heard it in the fire, the first time I met it as it engulfed Brega. It spoke to me. It wanted to kill, to rip, to purify and cleanse everything it touched until the entire world around me was ash. I was terrified, and I ran from it and never stopped running.

All because I refused to wonder where the hellfire came from. Why it obeyed my every command after that, why I never felt really cautious or threatened by the dark red flames that licked my fingers as I flung them at my enemies. Now I knew where all that hellfire came from - from the fiend who invented it, more or less. It was all another part of my inheritance. I'd fling it all into the Abyss if I could, and myself after it.

I admit freely that I regretted a lot of things in that lasting moment of death. That no one would be able to tell my parents what had happened to me; that I'd never get to see Valen naked; that I'd never see Solaufein smile again; that I'd never again hear Deekin singing; that I'd never feel the kiss of snowflakes on my cheeks again; I'd never taste another sip of mead; I'd never feel Solaufein's fingers threading my hair into a braid; I'd never get a quiet laugh out of Nathyrra; I'd never get to get Bishop back for shooting me in the arse; regrets fluttered by in my unfettered mind, unrestrained. I'd been living in each moment I was in as hard as I could, only for it to have led me here, with my best friend and lover's body in my lap after I'd slain him and then myself. I wanted to be anything, anyone, anywhere else. But I was trapped in that quiet, awful room, slowly dying, and surrounded by more death with nothing but Enserric for company. I could hear the sounds of distant battle, but they would not reach us in time. I knew it in my bones. They'd find us already gone, past the point of resurrection. Solaufein was already dead. I couldn't feel his pulse fluttering at his neck anymore. He had grown still. I would soon follow. Hopefully, his goddess would look after him. I was probably condemned to the Wall. I was oddly at peace with the thought.

Mephistopheles, my mysterious true father, if he was correct . . . Was gone. After laughing maniacally for a while, he'd simply disappeared to leave me to die in the room and then promised that I'd see him soon. He didn't matter. None of it did. It was all over. My father's hand had stretched across my entire life. Halaster had spoken true, perhaps even seen it yet allowed it anyway. 'A lifelong shadow across the other,' the Halasters had said. I'd assumed they were talking about the others, but after all, I was the other one they'd geased, not Nathyrra or Deekin. It was me, and Solaufein. Maybe it was my destiny. Maybe I deserved this. Solaufein didn't, though. He was too good of a person to die because of my foolishness.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to Solaufein's corpse, and to the sword that had drained both of our lives so rapidly. "I didn't mean . . . I wasn't . . . I wouldn't . . . I . . ."

"Oh, I'm aware," Enserric's tinny voice replied a little bitterly from the red and black blade sticking through my body. It pulsed steadily, as mine fluttered in my chest. "You are quite incapable of harming even a single white hair upon Solaufein's pointy-eared head. There is something greater at work here, my dear, and we are both the victims of it."

"Has . . . Stench of . . . Fate," I managed to chuckle out, because for a fleeting second I smelled that faint green, petrichor-like smell again - damp loam and spicy herbal green - only to realize that it was just how Solaufein naturally smelled to me. With so much of his blood pouring out of him, it filled the room. Perhaps it was an elvish thing, I wasn't sure, I'd never met too many elves. But it was pleasant, and bittersweet, and terrible. Tears had already been streaming through my eyes, warm and unbidden. I was helpless to stop them, and I didn't try. I didn't sob. I couldn't even really breathe anymore, with Enserric's blade lodged between the bottom of my lungs. I just . . . Cried, uselessly, about what I had done. I didn't understand what power my true father held over me, but whatever it was, it had stolen my body, if not my mind. He could control my hands, but he couldn't control me. I still knew who I was, and he hadn't yet taken that from me. Still, I knew I would be haunted by this probably for the rest of my very short life. The only thing blissful in that moment at all was the knowledge that I would soon follow Solaufein into death, and not have long to stew in my regrets.

"I suppose I must wait here until some unlucky soul finds me again," the sword went on, his voice growing fainter or my hearing was starting to fade. "I'm starting to wonder if I really am cursed."

"Nope . . . Just me," I reassured him. I could taste blood on my tongue and turned to the side to spit some of it out weakly. Some of it hit the Valsharess' corpse, which made me happy. I winced around the wound in my chest, my short, hitched breaths became more haggard. "I'm the . . . one who's cursed." I was sure of it. Tymora's smile had waned, and my luck had finally run out.

And then, I died.

It wasn't a grand affair, my ignoble murder-suicide. It was painful, and I died rather slowly because I wasn't able to dislodge the sword due to the same will that had bound me to slay Solaufein which kept one of my hands around its hilt. I remembered the too-vivid dream that I'd decided to not talk to the Seer about and cursed myself for a lot of good reasons. I sat there while Enserric rambled and sang the odd song to me that he still could recall from his human years, and I ruminated for I don't know how long until I finally kicked it - it was tedious, and hideous, and awful, and all the other good words for 'terrible' that I couldn't think of in the moment but that the moment undoubtedly deserved. The world around me sort of tilted away until everything went black and the pain faded to a dull ache, and then finally it all disappeared. I couldn't see Solaufein anymore and I couldn't hear or feel Enserric. I was alone. I was gone.

The first thing I became aware of after that was that I was cold. I knew then that I definitely wasn't dead, because if I was feeling cold that meant I could still feel things, so it was a little confusing for me at first. I wasn't sure what was happening for a while, I was just . . . Confused. I couldn't see anything for a long time, and then finally when I did manage to become aware of having a body again, I could feel everything - my fingers, my toes, I was intact and whole - and half-frozen. I was still in my clothes and armor, but my weapon was missing - and my hand clenched around empty air which meant Enserric had disappeared, as had Solaufein.

I could barely move, but the fact that I could move at all was alarming. I opened my eyes last, and they almost didn't open, having been nearly frosted shut. I sat up in a field of snow, covered in the stuff, sending a pile to the ground as I shook it off my form like a dog. It was falling in thick clumps down from the gray and distant sky overhead. Not having a ceiling overhead threw me for a moment and my heart skipped a beat as the thought occurred to me that I might be home. It had been winter in Neverwinter, in the All-Seeing mirror's vision. The notion didn't last long - after all, why would I be home after I died? Shouldn't I be meeting the god of the dead and getting damned for all time?

"Er, Lord Kelemvor?" I voiced, hoarsely, looking suspiciously about for any lurking masked and cloaked fellows. "You there, uh, sir? I'm ready for my judgment! I know I'm a piece of shit if that helps speed things along judgment-wise? I'll just find the nearest hole in the Wall and lodge myself, why don't I? . . . Hello?" I called out uneasily. Nothing, and no one, answered me.

I stood and noticed something in the distance behind me. It took a while for me to learn how to operate my legs again - I half-stumbled the whole way there and stopped cold when I recognized the black obelisk standing in front of me. It was the one from my dream. The black mirrored obelisk loomed menacingly in front of me, and I hated it. I didn't know anything about it except that I fucking hated the thing and I wasn't going anywhere near it.

Suddenly, there he was in the reflection before I could even turn away. Mephistopheles. I spun about to see my hated true father behind me but he wasn't there - he had simply replaced the reflection on the obelisk with his bat-winged, horned, and clawed visage.

And he smiled at me. "Hello, daughter," he acknowledged filially, which I suppose said something. He could've just straight up called me 'bastard.' At least he was being polite about being evil, you know?

Still, he had just fucked with me and Solaufein was dead, and I still saw his corpse whenever I closed my eyes, so I gave the obelisk the finger. "F-fuck you," I stuttered out defiantly, because I was still colder than a naked gnome on the dark side of an iceberg.

"Your will is bound to mine," he rambled on like I hadn't just told him off the way he deserved, "and now my realm is bound to you. As payment for helping to free me: all of Cania and its mysteries are now yours. Use them well, child."

"I'm n-not your f-fucking child and I d-don't want your bloody realm!" I managed to voice with the last defiant bone in my body.

Mephistopheles frowned at me. "Nonetheless, you are bound here, for all eternity," he assured me quite calmly. "Such is the fate for those who betray those they love. All traitors end here, in Cania. That which was once my sphere; now yours."

I wanted to tell him to fuck off again. I wanted to say that he was wrong, that he was the one who did it, who controlled me, who was responsible for all of this through manipulation and deceit . . . But to acknowledge that truth would mean my entire life had been the product of his meddling. His planning. That all of everything I'd ever done had been because he had set me on this path in the womb, all so he could escape his own Hell and make his way to Prime to presumably rule over a pile of bones and ash. That I, and everything I had done, and everything I had touched, and everyone near me . . . It meant that I was simply a tool of his making - a key perhaps that helped fit the lock to his cage.

"No," I said instead. Tears stung at my eyes and I suppressed them valiantly. I shook my head, sending snowflakes that had gathered on my horns scattering all around me. "No."

"It is not your place to deny your own destiny," Mephistopheles mocked from in the pillar. "Those who try to avoid fate will find it waiting for them on whatever path they take. This was always your fate - to inherit Cania from me, and free me. Accept it. And move on," he suggested blithely.

"No!" I snapped, because at this point it was the only word I had left in my repertoire and nothing I was saying seemed to mean anything to this forsaken immortal psychopath.

"Struggle all you wish," he said and shrugged his massive shoulders rather nonchalantly. "You are bound here. Even should you escape, you will inevitably return. It is your—"

"Don't you fucking dare use the word 'destiny' again!" I raged. "Father or not I will hunt you down and take my foot and shove it so far up your arse you'll be nibbling on my toe-claws!" My temper had sped up my heartbeat and now the cold wasn't affecting me as much. That, or I'd started channeling hellfire again. I looked down at my hands to be sure, but they were clenched in normal rage without flames licking them. I wasn't sure if that was a good thing - I could still try to destroy the obelisk with my bare hands, right? Hellfire just made it easier. I slammed my fist onto the obelisk, testing it, and caused Mephistopheles' reflection to wobble. My hand stung after, so there was no way I would be tearing it down with my bare hands. I summoned whatever came to mind first, but it seemed my powers were largely useless against my true father and no hellfire or eldritch energy came to my call. Instead, I just wailed against the obelisk uselessly.

The arch-devil sneered at me and disappeared in the image, leaving only the mirrored surface behind and my own sorry reflection. I'd stepped up to it when I'd gathered enough courage to shout back at Mephistopheles - and noticed with an abrupt startle that there was a hole in the center of my chest where you could see my red skin. It was the only meaningful change about me - all of my piercings were still in the same place, my hair was in complete disarray but the same general shoulder-length that Solaufein had cut it to, and I looked as battle-worn as I should have been. The only things that were new about me were the puffy bags under my eyes, and the hole in my cuirass. Enserric had pierced directly through my armor, and on the other side I was sure I'd find an identical hole right beneath my shoulder blades. I poked the hole, morbidly curious, and found no raised scar. Not even a trace of a wound. The armor was the only evidence I had that any of it was at all real. That, and the things I saw whenever I closed my eyes for a moment. Those would be fuel for my nightmares for the rest of my strange and possibly doomed life, I was sure of it.

Frustrated for many reasons, not the least of which was that I had been denied my proper judgment upon death, I just picked a general direction away from the mirrored obelisk and stalked off in it, sending piles of fresh snowfall careening to the ground as my boots plowed an uncertain path through the topmost layers of drift. If daddy-dearest was determined to have me inherit his realm, I'd wander it aimlessly until I got some proper answers or died again, trying.

The thought of Valen bittersweetly passed through my mind as I realized there was a good chance he was probably dead too, thanks to my good ol' dad. And here I was, a literal pawn of the infamous arch-devil, just like the suspicious General had initially suspected, and now I was trapped in the Eighth Hell of Baator in a special circle reserved for traitors. Eilistraee truly was the goddess of irony.

I did eventually stumble across other people, although 'people' is a generous term. Spirits, perhaps? They weren't even fully corporeal, but they took the shape of people, shuffling through the cold and the snow. I was shivering bitterly, past the point of being frozen and now in danger of frost-bite, and my hellfire wasn't cooperating - but none of the translucent folks I saw were shivering at all. It was as if they had no idea where they were or what they were doing, and were shuffling about aimlessly, mindlessly through the snow- no better than a mind-flayer's thralls. I decided not to pay them any mind since they mostly kept to themselves and didn't seem to acknowledge my existence - the lot of them just mumbled under their breath about their woes or nonsensical things and puttered on.

I found a couple of strange bushes that were growing abundant, fragrant red berries in the bitter cold. They surprised me by reminding me of rose hips, so I picked a few and pocketed them for later eatings as my stomach started growling at the sight of them. I wasn't sure if they were edible or not. I didn't trust anything that managed to grow in this forsaken, sunless realm.

The blizzard seemed to eventually die down to a degree that I could see through the snow-blind, and I was able to get a better look at my surroundings. Though the direction I'd picked had been random, I had found my way toward whatever excuse Cania had for civilization instead of the real thing - still surrounded by translucent lost souls, but I could spy the occasional shadowy winged form overhead against the gray clouds as succubi and fiends went about their business in Hell, whatever that sordid business was. There were a few structures I could see in the distance - one temple-looking place with dark columns in front and a sign in a language I couldn't read, a few other obelisks here and there, and cliffs and walls that seemed to fence in this one particular area I'd found myself in. I even spied what looked like a tavern sign . . . But that couldn't be right. Why would Mephistopheles allow a tavern in the middle of his Hell-town?

What really caught my eye was the biggest structure of all - it looked like a massive warehouse and office, and it led to an icy cavern full of strange machinery that I could hear and even smell at a distance. The structure reeked of oil and demonic blood in nauseating amounts. A hairy baatezu stood out front with a whip shouting orders at other demons, mostly imps but a few Eryines and slaadi, who milled about the machinery uncertainly. They all turned to look at me as I approached and stopped doing what they were doing to gawk openly. I supposed word had gotten around about the new boss in town.

Uncomfortable with all the staring, I waved casually and tried to smile. The baatezu approached me first, very cautiously, and then engaged in an uncomfortable (for me to look at) bow. His dark, leathery wings touched the snowy ground with his effort. "Heiress," the baatezu intoned in a deep, but surprisingly pleasant, if rumbly voice. His breath emerged as huge puffs of clouds in the chilly air. "We were all . . . Informed of your coming. I, uh, hope you find everything to your liking."

"Word travels fast in Hell," I grumbled and tried to warm myself by crossing my arms in vain. Maybe my anger would keep me warm. "I'm the heir of squat! This place is a fucking prison, like any other, and I've been in others. What's your name? What's all this then?" I gestured to the building. At least I'd run into a chatty demon - too many of them had the well-earned reputation of being psychotically and carnivorously deviant (like dear Hugo).

"This? This is the ice quarry," the baatezu explained. "Here we supply punishment for the damned, and ice. Pretty self-explanatory." He seemed put off by my casual attitude for a second, as if he didn't trust it. "You look like . . . Him," he said a little uncertainly.

"Charming, just what a girl loves to hear: she's her dread father's spitting image!" I snapped, throwing my arms into the air. "I'm Binne," I stressed, "long on the Bee, short on the nah. Call me that, and don't ever call me 'Heiress' again or I'll wear your ribcage as a hat." I wouldn't really kill him just for calling me something I didn't like, but he didn't need to know that and it seemed like I'd developed an unearned reputation already as Mephistopheles' errant daughter. If they all expected me to be like him, they were in for a surprise.

"Binne, then," the baatezu repeated, a little more at ease. "I'm Gru'ul, the Quarry Boss."

"Pleased to meet you, Gru'ul," I offered as pleasantly as I could manage, through half-frozen lips that I was sure were accidentally twisted into a grimace. "Nice to run into a friendly face." He did remind me of Hugo a little bit, just visually, which brought me the odd memory of the smell of burning Zhents. I could almost taste it on my tongue for a too-real moment. "So, you run the quarry here? Why are you mining ice? Other than for shits and giggles, I guess."

"It's for—"

There was a sudden scream behind me, and I turned so sharply my neck cracked toward the source. One of the translucent shuffling and mumbling souls I'd stumbled past to get to the quarry disappeared in an abrupt flash of light after a pained scream, and the other spirits around it looked on in numb terror. I gaped. "What—what in the shiny fuck was that?"

"Another lost to the Devouring," Gru'ul explained calmly like I should already know what he was talking about and be in on it. "Best ignore it, I think. Nothing really to be done, the Lost aren't our problem."

Whatever it was, it was Mephistopheles' fault, and if it had a name like 'Devouring' it couldn't be anything pleasant. I turned back to Gru'ul, hiding my alarm. "What's this Devouring for, then?" I carefully asked, unsure of how many answers now I was warranted for my status.

"Fuel for the undead army he's marching to war in an effort take over Prime, I imagine," he said with a shrug of his wings. He was remarkably incurious about this horrifying revelation, but I suppose if I was a baatezu and managed an ice quarry in the iciest Hell of them all that was part of some ridiculous punishment for people who violate their demonic contracts, I'd kind of be over it too. Gru'ul had probably seen it all, like Valen, and sort of just shrugged off the concept that my biological father was running about abusing the souls of mortals as fodder for his attempt to conquer Prime.

"You know he's going to lose, right?" I wondered, honestly curious. "Have you ever been to Prime? It's unconquerable. Trust me. He'll have moonies and goldies and Fists and Baneites united to get up his backside. Not to mention the infamous staff that Archmage Arunsun will shove there too."

"Yeah? And is he going to fix my number five ice grinder?" Gru'ul drawled. "Production's taken a serious drawback ever since, and I have quotas to meet! War or no, I've got bigger damn problems."

I could respect a man, or demon, with priorities. But, what I really needed at that moment was allies. "I could probably try to help you fix it, if it's not too mechanical," I offered, trying to hide some of the eagerness in my voice because what I also really wanted was to get somewhere warm and I was sure even the ice quarry had to be warmer than where I was standing, half-frozen to death.

Gru'ul shrugged and pointed his thumb behind him. "It's in there, you'll see it right away. It's the one numbered five, with a lazy-ass imp manning it."

I rolled my eyes. "Tell me about it. My familiar is the absolute worst. He has more delicate hands than I do, though, so maybe he might be of use. At the least, I could send him through the grinder for laughs if he annoys me too much," I reasoned aloud, suddenly fantasizing about shoving that imp's head through an ice grinder as final payback for the time he'd abandoned me to the ogres. He had just . . . Plane-shifted away. Useless moppet.

The problem ended up being that the imp wasn't so much as lazy as he was . . . Stuck. I felt bad for him instinctively when he assumed I was there to kill him, or at least put him out of his misery because he seemed pretty sure there wasn't going to be a pleasant way out of this for him. Instead, I summoned Hembercane, let the imp assess the situation and give me his opinion - he delivered it with a few insults thrown in about what he thought about my intelligence for getting myself trapped in Hell first, which I tolerated, because between the two of us we were able to get the imp out of the grinder safely and get it operating again. Well, mostly Hem did it while I watched and asked him inane questions about what he was doing, annoying the piss out of him, but fair was fair. He plane-shifted without me even telling him to as soon as Gru'ul approached - Hem tended to have a rather adverse reaction to every single other demonic presence in the world, really, even me, or maybe he just hated literally everyone - so I took credit for his work and Gru'ul was appreciative. The imp that had been in the grinder grumbled about having to go back to work, but all was well.

"No one really looks out for anyone else here," Gru'ul admitted, a little quiet. "I don't think you'll last long. But, thanks anyway. You have any velox?"

"Is . . . that a proposition?" One of my eyebrows crawled up my forehead. What in blazes was I going to have to do to get out of this situation?

"The berries, berk," he patiently explained. "They're the only things that grow here. The red ones."

I was infinitely relieved. "Oh, yeah, I picked them because they looked tasty, can't remember the last time I ate," I said and pulled them out of my side pocket. "These ones?"

"Do NOT eat them," Gru'ul warned me suddenly. "How the fuck have you even survived so far?" He slapped a clawed hand on his forehead and seemed ashamed on my behalf.

"Hey!" I got a little defensive. "I just bloody got here a few minutes ago after being very dead, and then was immediately lectured by my long-lost-and-unwanted-father about destiny! I don't know anything about this place except that it's cold as balls and that I'm stuck here for-apparently-ever! So what, they're poisonous?"

"They start fires when you crush them, fires that will last in Cania's wind. One berry lasts about an hour. The more you use, the hotter the fire and the longer the fire lasts. Ordinary fires can't survive here." That was when I noticed he had something in his claws, which he brought up and extended to me. It looked like a torch with a funny little metal bowl at the top with a removable mesh covering. "You can carry this and use a berry or two to keep yourself warm."

I took it carefully, realizing in that moment what a valuable gift this was. He had given me one of the means to survive in Hell - portable warmth, so I could keep moving. I was sure all the demons here weren't as friendly as Gru'ul, even if they had been given the orders from on high that I was to be obeyed or treated differently. If I stayed still too long, who knew what sort of monster would leap on me? I had been given a position of deference in the demonic hierarchy of Hell, and that sort of thing was coveted. I knew enough about elder demons from reputation and studies that they warred amongst themselves for power. If I didn't die, I would have to survive the many enemies I had assuredly made with Mephistopheles' proclamation.

"What exactly did my . . . My father say about me?" I asked Gru'ul, clutching the torch tightly, like a lifeline.

"That you would take his place," he said easily enough. "That you were to inherit his position so he could leave for better prospects on Prime. Standard speech from the big M, honestly. We've all heard it before."

"Quaint. Why me, I wonder? Do you know? Surely he has other children who could stand to inherit this dump," I reasoned.

"Why would he share his plans with me?" Gru'ul shrugged, making a good point. "I just run the ice quarry. If he cared about me he wouldn't have punished me by putting me in charge of this shit heap."

Guessing at my true father's hidden motives wouldn't help me. "Well, thanks for the torch, Gru'ul," I said finally after taking a moment of silence to admire the torch. "Take care of yourself. I suppose I'll see you around."

"If you're smart," he shot back. "Watch out for the gith pilgrims near the temple, by the way. They're fanatics."

"Gith?" Did he mean githzerai, or githyanki? What were they doing in Hell?

Gru'ul rolled his red eyes. "You want the story, go talk to the ugly one in the temple calling herself 'Sensei,'" he answered. "As for me, I'm sick of them and their insipid religion. A Celestian has no business taking a nap down here."

I wasn't really terribly curious about them. The temple-looking building hadn't interested me in particular, and as I tended not to have the best luck with mysterious temples, I just avoided it. Plus the mention of celestials hadn't exactly got me excited. There was only one deva I tolerated, and for all I knew, she was dead and still in Lith My'athar. I was sure my dread father wouldn't tolerate her flapping about over his invading army, as much as the mental image amused me.

Dwelling on it was sort of inevitable, but it didn't make me happy so I tried my best to avoid it. I admired the torch in my hands instead and fished out one of the berries, crushing it in my fingers and dumping the remains of it into the mesh-covered bowl. A blazing red fire immediately leapt from the remains that I was startled to recognize as hellfire. Some instinctive part of me responded to it - it didn't burn my fingers but licked at them pleasantly as they were warmed by the fire. I felt better about my predicament immediately, even if hellfire-starting-berries were a little suspiciously convenient to stumble across. But hey, it was Hell. I'd take what I could get.

Some distance away, I found a group of succubi kicking around a hellhound between them and cackling at their antics. It was a strangely familiar sight - almost human-like in its casual cruelty. They scattered upon my approach, skittered really, far and away from the hellhound and from me. The hellhound was at least half the size of the one I'd fought in the Talontar's temple, which meant it was approximately the size of a leggy goat, if that leggy goat only had three legs- he was missing his front right leg. The hellhound was crippled but didn't seem to let it get him down as he almost shyly hobbled over to me, and then sniffed my hand.

I lowered myself to the ground when it seemed like the hellhound didn't mean anything threatening, and even seemed interested in me. I patted his sooty head, and he ate up the attention, leaning into my touch and even waggling his stub of a tail. "Let's get this collar off you," I decided, and pulled on the straps that tied the metal spikes around his neck. Whatever enchantment or such that kept it in one piece came apart unexpectedly in my hands. It looked mighty uncomfortable and the hellhound was relieved to have it off of him. I tossed it into the snow and he ran in circles around me - well, more like bunny-hopped due to the three-legged-thing, which was actually a little comical - and I was startled to hear a laugh come out of my mouth as I watched the hound happily loll. With its great spiked teeth, glowing red eyes, and fiery breath, you'd think it would've been even slightly intimidating, but to me it just looked cute. I'd always had odd tastes, anyway.

I waved him away a few times as I wandered determinedly in no particular direction, but the hound kept following at my heels and begging for pets that I was only too happy to deliver. I was starved for company in this wasteland and had no desire to speak to any spirits or demons that weren't Gru'ul. Honestly, the only thing I had the heart for was moping and patting that hound. "You can follow me if you like," I told the hellhound. "I guess I'm in charge of this place, or something, at least until I kick it again. I'll take care of you as best I can in the meantime. What do hellhounds eat, I wonder? Ah, Valen would know . . ." The thought of Valen again made me grimace and it was too bittersweet to handle when I remembered the way his warm, callused hands felt in mine, so I put the thought away and kept wandering.

I eventually hit one of the ice-walls that fenced in this strange little Hell-town, and followed along it, lighting another velox berry in my torch when it puttered out. The hellhound remained at my side and I kept one hand on his head, buried in his warm, short, and shaggy fur. I followed through the snow as the blizzard picked up and nearly blinded me again, until I stumbled upon a curious cave.

"Well, nothing ventured nothing gained," I decided, and noted that at least in the cave I'd be out of the wind-chill. The hound followed me inside the dark ice-cavern faithfully. As we found shelter from the biting wind, I looked down at him and decided he needed a name. "I ought to call you something. How about . . . Dogmeat?" I joked, and he whined disapprovingly. "No, no. Barkley? Or . . . Maybe Boon? Yeah? You like that? You're sort of a boon, you know. I could sure use more friends right about now and it's a good thing I happened your way, or those succubi might've kicked you to death. Not sure where you came from but it's lucky you found me. Boon it is." It was always the first step I made in binding a summons - a nickname, for summoning purposes. Summoning names were given, and a skilled warlock could tether the utterance of a name to the essence of a being. Unwilling summons had to be a little more . . . Violent . . . But willing pacts were quite easy. Boon seemed like he liked me, so once I gave him the name, I chanted the standard binding spell that would allow me to summon him forth should he disappear or get dispersed, for example upon death, and it took like a charm, settling over him gently with a tightening, then bulging, then finally settling of the Weave around him.

I was relieved I could still form and maintain pacts. It gave me the courage to explore other ideas - I needed allies, yes, but I did already have several allies under my belt. I chanted out the summons' for Mata first since she was by far the most intelligent of the lot I'd made pacts with - Hugo would've just fucked right off without anything to kill, Hembercane I'd already tapped, and the others were just slightly-useful morons. Her voluptuous leather-clad form materialized at my side as she was examining her fingernails carefully for dirt.

"What?" She grumbled out, not even bothering to look at me.

I frowned. This attitude, I hadn't expected. Normally she was ready with a joke, or at least eager for violence. "Has, uh, word gotten to you through the grapevine then about my, um, heritage?" I asked politely.

"You mean do I give a shit that you're the arch-asshole's discarded semen? No," she rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling. "For the record, I knew you were devil-blood from the moment we met. Whichever idiot fiend shot you out of his genitals into your mother's cooch isn't my problem."

"Ah. Then, uh, what exactly is your problem?" I pressed.

"You summoning me for no reason other than to be your pity party," she snapped. "Grow up, Binne. I was once a mortal. You want to know how I got here? By eviscerating all of my enemies! You want my advice? My shoulder to cry on? My sympathy?"

I wanted to say, 'not really, I'd rather eviscerate all my enemies,' but I only really had the one enemy and he could control my body and held my pact with the Hells. I couldn't exactly eviscerate him without dire consequences to myself, and possibly others. And I essentially had summoned her with the goal in mind of having someone whom I could talk to, other than Boon who couldn't exactly talk back to me and so wasn't the greatest conversationalist. I also was starting to feel like I was slowly losing my mind.

"That's what I thought," she summed up, and glared at me. "Look, I'm saying this because I like you. Despite what you look like, you're more human than demon. You're not built for the Hells, and the Abyss. You'll pop like a cherry tomato in some pit fiend's mouth the second you try any of your usual shit. Sure, there'll be an odd Eryines like me who might appreciate your differences, but in general, my prediction is that Cania is going to eat you alive."

"I appreciate your unwavering faith in me," I grumbled. "So what am I supposed to do? Kill everything I see?"

Mata rolled her eyes and sighed. Her wings folded back into a more relaxed posture and her shoulders slumped. She looked me square in the eyes, and for the first time I was startled to really look into them back - they were a surprisingly human shade of emerald green, with flecks of gold. "This isn't the first time I've been to Cania," she admitted. "It was the first stop on my tour through the Hells, courtesy of selling my soul. I used to be a warlock, like you," she admitted. "Well, not like you. I was much worse at it. I trusted the wrong people. This . . . I know this whole thing isn't your fault. You were just born into it. I can't help you though. No one can. You have something you want me to fight? I'll fight for you if you ask me to. But remember that I'm Eryines. It's what I am. I serve the Dark Eight. I serve Baator. Your father is a part of that, and now, so are you. And I think you're just now beginning to understand what that really means for you."

". . . It means I'm fucked, right?" I summarized pithily.

". . . Pretty much," she said with a shrug, and plane shifted out of there with a wave. I waved back, half-heartedly, and stared at my bloodstained and snow-covered boots. Boon pattered over into my field of vision near my feet and sat there and nuzzled my head with his long nose. I patted him in the face a few times, appreciating his warmth and closeness. Frustrated tears stung at my eyes, triggered by Mata's pep-talk and they were blessedly warm for a moment before freezing there upon my facial piercings somewhat painfully at the corners of my eyes. I wiped at them and held my torch high, put my hand on Boon's back, and walked into the cave. I had no idea what I was doing or even why I was doing it anymore. Perhaps I did belong in Cania - I felt like I'd truly betrayed myself, and Cania is where all the traitors ended up.

I revisited that thought later as I came upon a curious sight in the cave. Past the dripping and curved icy sculptures that time had gradually molded were the bones of people. Some had probably been living when they'd been frozen there, some were still mostly intact, and one had her legs trapped halfway into an emergent ice-wall in a position of struggle. She was the one who caught my eye - she was the only one really intact, and from what I could tell, she was just a spirit. She was armored in feminine plate mail and was elven, or at least in part judging from the shape of her ears. Although she was mostly translucent, she was tangible when I touched her frosty form. Though her skin was colder than the ice surrounding her, she stood in the center of the cave with a plaque in front of her. I had to bring the torch up to read it and dust the snow off, and squint, so small was the delicate script. "Lost, Nameless, and now Forgotten," I read, feeling a little sad for her.

I brought the torch to her face as Boon whined for my attention. I let my hand dangle down to pat him on the forehead as I examined her. It took me a puzzled moment to recall where I recognized her from, and when I did, I gasped. "Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande!" I breathed. "Now how in blazes did you end up in the traitor's Hell? Oh, wait, I suppose I answered my own question there." A short distance away I saw her blade that had been stuck into the ground - I knew it was hers from the Neverwinter Nine symbol on the pommel, the bleeding eye. It'd always given me the creeps. This was undoubtedly where the rest of Lady Aribeth had wound up, when her body took a swing from the hanging tree.

I took a moment to examine her features. She was defiant, her brows knitted - she didn't seem to be in pain, or sleeping, like some of the other figures seemed to be. Some of them had just looked like they'd lain down and died, like some of the cursed avariel corpses I saw in the streets of that doomed island town that had been left untended. It was a lonely sight. I took a moment to examine the remains surrounding her, but I couldn't make sense of them. Only she seemed intact, and alive - in part. Everyone else was just either bones or shapeless, frozen-through mounds. She was a spirit, like the other lost souls, but she didn't look lost despite what her plaque read. She looked . . . Angry. Fierce. Righteous, maybe. "At least I haven't forgotten you," I told her.

I'd never seen her face up close really, but she was recognizable alone enough just from her likeness. I remembered her eyes, though, as they swept over the crowd, gray as the clouds overhead. They'd struck me with their hopelessness. I remembered what she'd said, after the crowd had gone the silence of the dead as the hangman had allowed her a few last words. 'There is no justice,' she'd cried out, her voice carrying and ringing over and through the air like a funerary bell. A former paladin of the god of justice, declaring it - and Tyr - a lost cause. 'There is no justice, in this life or the next.'

She'd always seemed so gloomy to me for a paladin, and small in the elvish way that made her seem more fragile than she actually was. I knew she habitually wore full plate and could wield a longsword like no one else - and rumor had it she was a fair shot with a longbow as well. She was a warrior without peer, a champion of the just and savior of the weak. At least, so people had always said. My impression of her hadn't been stellar. I'd only seen her after the Fenthick debacle, and always at a distance. This was my opportunity to admire her up close and personal.

"I suppose it only makes a sick sort of sense to find you down here in the betrayer's circle of Hell," I murmured to her frozen form. I was sure she couldn't hear me and that it didn't matter, but it was still nice to have someone to talk to. "For what it's worth, I never judged you for doing what you did. I didn't think it was my place to. I didn't know you at all, and your home had just turned on the man you loved most in the world and dispatched him just for trusting the wrong sort. That shouldn't have been a crime. That would drive anyone mad, I think. Not that I think you're mad for doing it - just saying, it'd piss me off too. Though after seeing you here, I wish I had known you better. I doubt you would've ever given someone like me even the time of day. You probably don't remember me, I was always just sort of in the background of things during the war. I was the one who kept getting Bishop drunk and in trouble down at the docks while we were under lockdown, and, uh, then I volunteered and got shipped to Port Llast and later Beorunna's Well. I fought against the orcs and Luskans in Old Owl Well, b-but that wasn't exactly my shining moment. Well, now I'm the Heiress to Cania, whatever the blazes that means. The man who impregnated my mother is Mephistopheles, who used to be the big M, the top dog, the chieftain around these parts. And now he's stuck me in his place so he can climb all over Prime's surface and call himself a god or king, or some such nonsense. He's doing something called Devouring to the souls around here, and they just . . . They disappear. And I don't know where they go when they're gone. Shit's really gone downhill, even for Hell's standards. And here am I, Queen Shit of Shit-mountain."

Her silence was enough of an answer for me, broken only by the dripping sound I heard in the distance, and the crackling of the torch in my hand. Boon paced briefly in front of Lady Aribeth, looking restless, before deciding to settle down at her feet near me when he saw I wasn't about to leave. He whined at me plaintively.

"Here's safe enough, I guess," I supposed and parked myself down on the icy ground. It was still cold, but without the wind chill it felt twice as warm. I kept my other velox berry in reserve, the last one I had, and decided to try and get some sleep while Lady Aribeth's ghost and Boon guarded me and kept me company. It was better than asking to crash on Gru'ul's couch - I got the feeling from the demon that if I'd been on his bad side, he would've ripped me a new one. "We'll just rest here a little while," I reassured Boon with a pat as he curled up next to me for some added and much welcomed warmth.

I wasn't sure how I'd interact with sleep, with what I saw every time I closed my eyelids, but I felt different about it with Lady Aribeth's ghost nearby and watching over me. I was able to concentrate on something other than the fact that I'd killed Solaufein, for once. My mind reached back to the war, and the Wailing, and revisited thoughts that I'd attempted to drown in alcohol. It's as if my sleeping mind dived into my memories and plucked a strange and random assortment that Aribeth's presence seemed to awaken in me, like pulling a fist-full of feathers out of a chicken.

I was again wandering No Man's Land near Blacklake, killing plague-mad sods with my tattooed father as he charged in wildly and I threw hellfire, while Bishop thudded them with arrows from a distance. The battle was fairly short and brutal, and left me feeling hollow inside. I remembered Sharwyn there now, a little more distinct in my recollection than she had been previously - she'd been green back then, but nonetheless there at our sides with her double-bladed Uthgardt sword, slicing and dicing through the maddened citizens that used to populate the neighborhood. She'd vomited at one point, and Bishop had given her one of his usual pep talks, which resulted in her nearly slapping him but I did it for her before she could get the chance. He laughed and told me if I ever did that again, I'd lose the hand. Half of No Man's Land was on fire, and the other half should've been set on fire. When we were finished, we were silent about our grim task of gathering the bodies and lighting pyres - and then Bish had shown the guard his pass given to him by the Lady Aribeth, and we were admitted finally into Blacklake so we could retrieve my mother from her family's house where she'd been stuck under lockdown.

When we stepped through the gate, I turned to get a look at my father but he disappeared, as did Sharwyn. It was just Bishop and I, back in Beorunna's Well with the snow falling gently down on the damp tundra, and his wolf paced back to sniff at my hand again. "Wench," Bishop barked, getting my attention.

"Yes, cockbite?" I queried.

"Just making sure you didn't fuck off again in your own head," he explained gruffly, and turned to keep walking. "We're almost there. Don't fall behind, or I'll leave you to freeze."

I wanted to ask where we were going but knew he would just give me a roundabout answer that didn't help me, so I kept quiet and at pace with the wolf. Karnwyr was decent company at least - he kept loping back to me to sniff at my hand and beg for pets, then bounding forward and ahead of Bishop to scout. We continued on in silence for a time until I realized Bishop was ranging farther ahead than me and picking up pace. I ran to catch up to him, but he disappeared, and in front of me loomed something I - and everyone else in Abeir-Toril - had dreaded all of our many lives.

I recognized it instantly as the Wall of the Faithless. How could I not? People were chained to every inch of it, most decaying, all dead, some still in the early process of rot. Thousands upon millions of screaming, wrecked, and sorry souls lined the gray and green surface of it as it stretched up toward the gray sky that swirled with thick black clouds, and out to either side in the far distance. I looked around, expecting to find the god of the dead at any moment to render my judgment, but no one was there. I was still in my armor, with the hole in the chest I'd made, and I was alone.

Just me, and the Wall, and everyone trapped inside of it.

I approached it - tentatively - I was really horrified by it, but I was also morbidly curious. The part of it I approached had a blank space that looked just the size for me, but I wasn't about to jump into it despite what I'd said earlier. Someone next to the hole that was trapped in the Wall locked eyes with me for a moment - or rather one of her eyes did, as the other was gone and covered with fungus and lichen that extended from the Wall and covered half her face. One pale draconic eye stared at me from her face though - almost defiantly, as if she were assessing me. She was beautiful in a strange way, with dark skin and shining black hair that had half-molded into the Wall behind her as if she were growing out of it, and not actively being absorbed by it. She had been striking at some point, and full of life - and was clearly waiting for something, for someone. Maybe it was me?

"Er, hello?" I greeted uneasily, approaching her gently. I eyed the souls around her that were twisting in their torment, writhing in her chains, but she alone was holding still. I wondered if she had surrendered to her fate, to the pain - and what had brought her here? "Can you speak?" I wondered. "Are you . . . Real?"

She did not answer. There was a shifting in the Wall, an adjustment of her chains, as one arm of hers suddenly snaked forward - half-bound back, it looked like it took all of her strength to extend her arm toward me. Something was in her hand and she thrust it forward, her green and brown fingers crackling apart as she opened her fist to offer me what was inside.

I looked down and took the item without hesitating for reasons that escape me, as logic often does in dreams. I couldn't even think of refusing her offer. It was a small wooden piece, carved and of curious make, with unrecognizable sigils etched messily into its surface. There was a gap at its center and it took me a bit of a moment to realize that it was just a piece of something larger, like a puzzle. It had been broken off of a whole and had one jagged side that looked like it should fit a sibling piece. "What is it?" I wondered, looking to the woman in the Wall.

She did not answer. Her arm did not withdraw, and even though the chains and vines tightened around her and drew her further into the Wall she did not scream, did not flinch. She just . . . Let it slowly happen, and kept staring at me with that blazing, defiant, slitted pale eye. I was mesmerized by her.

I woke then to being shaken, and that one pale eye blinking at me stuck in my memory as the sounds and sights of the Wall of the Faithless melted all around me. I was disoriented at first, and then I panicked, realizing where I was and what I'd been last doing. I rolled over and skittered back on my hands and feet, startled as I bumped into Aribeth's ice-sculpture behind me.

It was Solaufein. That clean shorn white stripe, the pointed ears littered with piercings, that beautiful and angular midnight face with those deep-red eyes - he was there. Somehow, someway, he had found me in the cave. Boon sat at my side and seemed to have accepted the drow with aplomb and lolled peacefully, and Solaufein was there!

He was whole, and solid, and warm, and I knew this because the moment his eyes met mine he reached for me and wrapped me in his arms in a gentle embrace and breathed my name, "Binne," like a prayer. I wept, unable to stop myself from the out-pouring of emotion as I remembered our last moments together, with him slowly dying in my lap after I'd betrayed him in the worst way. The memory was so vivid, but he was too real, and so warm that all I could do was cry and hug him back tightly like my life depended on it. In that moment, I didn't care that we were trapped in Hell and doomed. For the first time since I died, I felt a shred of hope for our bleak fate.

---

PT 2: SOLAUFEIN

Solaufein awoke in the gray-and-white Reaper's realm and grabbed instinctively at his chest, remembering his last moments with startling avidity. He took in a long-repressed deep breath, and found no pain, no hitching. He reached beneath his armor and tunic for a desperate moment and felt for a scar that wasn't there, but instead found a hole through the armor where his own blade had been driven through; the Reaper erased death-wounds upon resurrection. Upon full regeneration, he erased scars too; Solaufein was happy to discover that he still had a few scars that he remembered getting and felt a little better about this. He could still feel faint lines at his throat where Akordia's lacerating whip had clenched many a time. With this, at least, he felt more grounded.

He looked over to the cloaked Reaper who hadn't budged from his position in nearly the entire time that Solaufein had known him. The Reaper simply stood watch over the empty realm of doors, patiently awaiting . . . Something. Anything. Him, maybe.

"Send me back now," was Solaufein's impatient greeting to the Reaper and first demand before the Reaper could even make an utterance.

"Sojourner, I cannot do as you command," the creature intoned somewhat regretfully.

Solaufein glared. "Why?"

"I serve the bearer of the relic," the cloaked Reaper said, "and its creator is Mephistopheles. I am bound to obey him as well, just as I am bound to this place."

"Have you served him all this time? Did he put you here?" Solaufein wondered how far back the arch-devil's influence stretched. At least since he had picked up the relic in that shadowy realm during the Undrentide disaster - long before he made the choice to come to the Underdark, before the Blackcloak had geased him, before Eilistraee had given him the dream of the Valsharess . . . Or was it Eilistraee who had Chosen him, and not Mephistopheles? Whose hand was in his fate, or was it a combination of both? He'd had faith that his goddess had led him here, but had she led him to his death? Had she sent Binne into his path, knowing how this would end? Where did Eilistraee's will end, and Mephistopheles' influence begin? Had she not given him the dream of the Valsharess? And what of the Seer? There were too many unknowns.

"I have served you," the Reaper gently corrected. "Mephistopheles created the relic, and bound me here, to operate this Gatehouse."

"Am I trapped here too, then?" Solaufein had to ask.

"One portal is open for you," the Reaper explained after a second of silence. "One that was previously sealed is now open. All other portals are now closed, until I am bade otherwise."

"I imagine no amount of convincing will alter your decision?" Solaufein added wryly.

The Reaper paused again, as if thinking of what to carefully articulate. "I was not always the subject of the arch-fiend," he explained. "Once he learned my True Name, I became his forever."

Solaufein considered this. Drogan had once explained to him what the difference was between a name, and a name that was considered True. It was a denotation in Common used to describe a sound that encompassed the essence of a being and allowed one - when a True Name was known - to use that name to control that being if they so desired. It was considered a sacred knowledge hidden even from the gods, for they too had True Names, and how exactly the arch-devil had gotten his hands on that knowledge to control the Reaper was beyond Solaufein. It seemed, however, that it was the key to his freedom.

"Then if I learned your True Name, you could return me to Waterdeep? To Lith My'athar? Anywhere I had bound a portal?" Solaufein reasoned.

"Yes," the Reaper agreed tentatively. "If you should learn my name, you would no longer be bound to Cania and could command me once more."

Solaufein's eyebrows knitted together as a vague memory of Drogan's lessons stirred. "Cania? I am bound to the Hells?"

"Mephistopheles was once bound there, by Asmodeus," the Reaper further explained. He indicated a pathway to a door behind him that had once shimmered with a gray translucent curtain, closed off. Now the magic curtain was gone and the doorway was seemingly empty, yet active. It thrummed through the Weave and buffeted the occasional gust of snow out of its invisible gate that would chill the air for a moment before dissipating. "The arch-devil turned it into his kingdom. That is the path that has always led to Cania, the Eighth Hell of Baator. You are bound to Cania now as Mephistopheles once was. He has bound you, and the Heiress, for your service in his schemes and has escaped his bondage to the Prime realm."

"Heiress?" Solaufein perked up. It took him a split second to realize to whom the Reaper had referred, and a peculiar cold sensation welled up in his gut as he recognized the title's implications. "You mean Binne."

" . . . Yes," the Reaper agreed slowly.

"She is in Cania?" He pressed eagerly.

"I am . . . Forbidden to give you her location," the Reaper delicately added. "However, I may say that she is not on Prime, nor is she in this plane of Limbo, nor is she here in the Gatehouse. And I add that the path to Cania is the only one now open up to you, as I have been instructed not to give you access to Abeir-Toril, or any other realm."

Solaufein could take a hint. He sighed and ran a hand through his short white hair. "Can you do nothing? Can you recover my sword?" He asked the Reaper.

The Reaper extended a hand over a raised stone pool of water, and the air around it shimmered for a moment before it coalesced into a familiar hilt that extended out of the water. Solaufein approached and closed his hand over Enserric's hilt once more and drew him from the water in dripping, shining blood-red glory.

'Wielder,' Enserric internally intoned. 'I take it to once again be killing time?'

"It is good to see you as well," Solaufein greeted somewhat fondly.

'Yes, yes,' the sword silently dismissed. 'Next time, keep your pet cambion away from me - especially if there are any arch-devils lurking about. I'm a sensitive soul, you know? That really hurt my feelings.'

Solaufein rolled his eyes. "You are a sword."

'And you're alive again, and all is well. Thank you for . . . Not abandoning me in death, Solaufein. We make quite a team. And that's about as sentimental as I'll allow myself to be.'

Enserric was by far one of the best swords Solaufein had ever had, but he didn't want to inflate the smug bastard sword's ego by telling him that, so he kept that thought to himself and turned back to the Reaper. "Can you tell me the fate of Lith My'athar, or those I traveled with?"

"Smug bastard sword?! I'll have you know I prefer to be called a sabre!" Enserric objected aloud. Solaufein ignored him, as he usually did.

The Reaper bowed his head in assent. "Most, Mephistopheles slew after he was freed. Others escaped . . ."

He learned much from the Reaper - it seemed Mephistopheles had not thought, or cared, to prevent the Reaper from speaking to Solaufein as much as he pleased. The Reaper was not allowed to travel to the realms he had access to, but he had insight into them, particularly into places where Solaufein had bound portals. Of Lith My'athar, he learned at least half of the city escaped - the Eilistraeens and the Seer had led the way for many back to the surface, and they were continuing to travel underground by this path as of the Reaper's knowledge. Tomi and Sharwyn had joined them, as had Lavoera, and most of the golems. Ferron's pieces and the remains of others had to be left behind. Aghaaz led them now, and they had thrown in their lot with the mortals. The rest of the city had died in its defense and its remains were claimed by an army of demons and undead, summoned by Mephistopheles who was using the entrance of Undermountain to begin to invade Waterdeep. The Valsharess' forces were slaughtered to a man and used as fuel in his army of undead. The Yawning Portal had been sacked and raided, though most of its residents had evacuated in time when demons began to initially pour out of the Well, including most of the adventurers and Durnan's family. The Blackcloak, and his identical twin, went missing once more and Waterdeep was presently under siege from within. Khelben Blackstaff, Laeral Silverhand, and the griffon cavalry were all that stood between Waterdeep and ruin.

Tragically, Valen had led Deekin and Nathyrra with a contingent of Eilistraeens to invade the Valsharess' compound, where Binne and Solaufein had been unwillingly teleported to and had subsequently been slain. They encountered Mephistopheles and a small army of demon kind and did not survive. Solaufein did not ask to know the details of their deaths. His imagination was up to the task. He liked to picture that they had bloodied the devil before going down.

The Reaper, as it turned out, was not forbidden from aiding Solaufein in any capacity - he was only forbidden from allowing him access to anywhere except Cania, and the Gatehouse itself. When the subject of finding his resurrection stick and other items came up, the Reaper pointed out that he had resurrected Solaufein twice - it was a small matter for him to call forth his allies from their after lives and return them to his side, if they so wished it. Though he did not wish to disrupt any peace of mind that they had found, Solaufein acknowledged that to venture into Hell alone with nothing but his sword and wits would be foolish. He asked for Deekin first.

A few seconds later, Deekin's form appeared at the Reaper's side and the bard was running toward Solaufein with arms outstretched, screeching, "BOOOOSSSSS!" at the top of his lungs and getting teary eyed. Solaufein endured the hug with dignity, and even knelt down to Deekin's level to make it a proper one. "Deekin's heart fell into his shoes when he saws you and Boss-Lady dead! Then, Deekin's heart was literally in his shoes. That not be the most pleasant ways to die," the kobold rambled into Solaufein's ear.

The dark elf drew back and regarded Deekin fondly. "I am pleased to see you as well," he said. "I need your help again, abbil."

"On scales of ones to doomed, how doomed we be?" was all Deekin had to ask.

"What are we always?"

"Oh, then we be more doomed thans usual?" Deekin didn't seem too bothered by this.

"I am trapped in the Eighth Hell of Baator, Cania," Solaufein reported. "As is Binne. She is missing, and Mephistopheles roams free. He is the creator of the relic . . . And her birth father."

Deekin gave him a rather serious look. "That at least be twice as doomed as usual, and as usual, Boss is ups to no good. So, we goings to Hell to finds Boss-Lady next? Any ways to summons General? Deekin only suggests because General knows more abouts Hell than little Deekin does."

The Reaper wasn't exactly ecstatic about it, but he seemed at least positively neutral about bringing Valen and Nathyrra back to life. Solaufein initially thought about summoning all the fallen Eilistraeens but did not trust himself not to waste an army marching through Hell when he didn't have enough resources to even keep himself alive. The Reaper seemed to have some insight into neighboring realms and at least confirmed for Solaufein that most had found their way to Eilistraee's arms upon death; it gave him hope that the Seer and his other allies were still alive. Regrettably, many of their allies and the Valsharess' forces had been condemned to Cania themselves and were being used by Mephistopheles for his undead army. It only meant that more than merely Solaufein's fate rested on his success.

Valen displayed a rather complex series of emotions when his fully armored and armed form finally coalesced in the Gatehouse, mainly oscillating between confusion, frustration, and relief. He looked down at himself in surprise, and stared openly at Solaufein, Deekin, and the Reaper. "How?" Was his only question to Solaufein, rasped out of lips that were parted in breathless disbelief.

Solaufein approached and placed his hand on Valen's pauldron to assure the General that they were real. "We are alive, and I have need of your help once more." He was about to summarize what happened when he found himself suddenly engulfed in a bone-crushing hug from the equally surprised tiefling. Solaufein's arms wrapped around Valen's form instinctively, enjoying the tiefling's innate warmth that radiated like a small sun. Valen pulled back after a moment and looked Solaufein over, as if to check that everything was still in the right place.

"When I, we found you, I . . ." Valen trailed off, looking down and away. "It was—"

Solaufein interrupted him; he didn't want to know, didn't need to. "We are bound to Cania," he explained quickly. "The relic belongs to the arch-devil, as does the Reaper. Mephistopheles has trapped Binne and I here, in his stead, and used us to free himself of bondage. Now he marches on Waterdeep. We are the only ones who stand poised to stop him."

". . . And how exactly do you expect to get out of here?" A crimson eyebrow of Valen's crawled up toward a frustrated wrinkle on his forehead.

"With your help, preferably," Solaufein replied.

Valen stared at him, and then pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. With a sigh, he said, "You're lucky that I've been to Cania before. You're better off with me than without, but we need more than just allies and luck to survive this ordeal, let alone succeed at whatever blinds and barmy plan you've already concocted. And it really all depends on what part of Cania you've landed us in. With what I know about you, we could be walking into a tavern, or a warzone."

'He knows you so well already,' Enserric inwardly laughed.

Nathyrra was next - she returned to life in silence. She was facing away from Solaufein as her body re-formed and took to being resurrected with her gear and kit with a questioning eyebrow. She also greeted him with a hug when he offered her one - he figured that he already had a good streak going on hugs and remembered her awkward embrace with Vaendrith back in the beholder caverns with a little wistful amusement. She was not as enthusiastic as Valen and Deekin and perhaps a bit hesitant, but her relief at seeing him was sincere, as was her gratitude. Truly, she was a unique female. He had forgotten that she had never visited the Reaper's realm, unlike Valen, but she took to the Gatehouse with aplomb and seemed nonplussed by what she saw around her when offered explanation. He was not sure how much of it was the innate female dhaerow superiority toward adaptation, or simply her well-trained facial expressions.

She asked the Reaper many questions about the Seer and their surviving allies, particularly Vaendrith, whom had been evacuated with the Seer, but after this, her only question to Solaufein was, "When do we leave? Hell, and Binne, await."

Deekin had had the foresight to store some potions in the Reaper's realm, so they were not completely depleted by the time they ventured through the last and only open portal. Valen warned them before they went through that Cania was one of two icy Hells, plagued by constant wind and ice storms, with incessant snow, and creatures such as ice trolls and winter wolves that had adapted to living there alongside the devils.

"Our priority is to find Binne first," Solaufein instructed, and received two nods and a contemplative look from Valen. He eyed the tiefling. "Xa?" He inquired.

Valen's lips pursed. "What happened, when you were teleported?" He asked carefully.

Solaufein hesitated to answer. He remembered only too vividly. "We slew the Valsharess. Then, Mephistopheles slew us. He . . . Controlled Binne somehow. It was not her fault," he was quick to reassure them, or perhaps himself. He looked away instinctively when Nathyrra's eyes seemed to pierce the truth right through him. "It had to come from somewhere at my side, where I would least expect it . . . He sent for, or arranged for her to be sent, knowing whether or not she lived or died, she would serve his agenda. She did not know. Another geas, perhaps? The same hold he has on her, he must have on the Reaper - that is why we are bound to this place, and how we will escape. By changing the bond and freeing them both from this hold Mephistopheles has over them."

"It must be her True Name, then," Nathyrra inferred. "If the arch-devil acquired the Reaper's True Name, it is no stretch to believe that he acquired Binne's, being his . . . Progeny. Our priority should then be finding out how he acquired them, after finding Binne herself."

"I doubt anyone in Hell is going to just tell us where she is when we ask nicely," Valen guessed. "Our usual tactics won't work here. We'll have our work cut out for us."

"Our usual tactics be to fall sideways or headways into troubles," Deekin felt the need to clarify. "Sometimes swordways."

Solaufein expected more from one of the Hells - mortals being tortured openly perhaps, demons running amok as the ongoing Blood Wars carved paths of carnage through the tattered and desolate landscape. He walked through the portal leading to Cania with his companions behind him, and his first impression of the icy landscape around him was unimpressive at best. The Gatehouse led to a self-titled City of the Lost, where translucent forms of souls wandered aimlessly and demons went about their business professionally and largely ignored the ghosts around them derisively. Though there were several buildings, including what looked like a fully-functioning demonic Inn, what caught his eye were the massive black pillars that stretched up into the gray overcast sky. There were several of them dotting the landscape, and their surfaces were mirrored and pristine - not even the snow could catch on them, and snowflakes dissolved on impact with the warm pillars.

"These are scrying devices," Nathyrra devised, and tentatively touched one after casting a rapid-fire diagnostic spell. "They are safe," she assured them, "and . . . I . . . I can see Vaendrith!" She cried out in surprise. "He is with the Seer, just as the Reaper said. Tomi, Sharwyn, even Lavoera are all still with her, and . . . Most of our forces. Many . . . Many fell in the evacuation, it seems. I doubt they can see us through this, but if she still has the Mirror, perhaps Malla Seer knows of our location and status and can give word to the others of our predicament. I am unsure of how they would be able to help, however. I will pray to Eilistraee for their safety."

"Can you see Binne?" Solaufein asked immediately.

"I am concentrating . . . It seems to respond to will easily enough . . . No, Solaufein, I am sorry. It seems that this pillar cannot see us, either, which likely means it is attuned to a specific plane or location. This does, perhaps, confirm that she could be somewhere nearby."

"Xsa. What is that nempori lotha bol?" He asked of her, pointing to her feet where a strange creature had suddenly and swiftly approached, and taken to sit.

Nathyrra comically nearly jumped out of her pants in startle, which made Solaufein unexpectedly laugh at her expense, to see the normally dignified and serious young woman in disarray. She yelped loudly and backpedaled in the snow, sending piles of it that had accumulated onto the ground everywhere around her, and she abruptly fell backward onto her hands and rear end. The small being seemed to be a type of undead intellect devourer - it was entirely skeletal and seemed somewhere between lizard and dog, which was Solaufein's best guess. It did not behave like an enemy so he let his grip on Enserric's hilt fall. When Nathyrra fell back, rather than take advantage of her surprise the creature merely turned to observe her actions through bleached eyeless sockets.

"It's not attacking," Valen observed, relaxing his stance as well.

Nathyrra blinked several times as she engaged in a staring contest with the creature. After a couple of tense seconds, she stood up, brushed herself off of most of the snow, and reported to Solaufein, "It is attempting to communicate with me telepathically, through images. I think it must be similar to how the Formians communicated with you, underneath Undermountain. It seems to relate impressions, or sensations that are similar to words it knows. I believe it is asking for my help with something. It is some sort of archivist, if I'm understanding it correctly, for the names of the lost souls who wander here."

"Can you ask it if it knows wheres Boss-Lady went?" Deekin wondered as he rubbed his arms to warm them against the encroaching and biting cold.

"I am unsure," Nathyrra admitted. "But it may be a lead on our circumstances. It is curious enough that I would like to pursue this independently and meet back at the pillar in an hour's time with any results we find in our searches."

Solaufein nodded. "Be careful, dalninil," he cautioned. He trusted her judgment.

Nathyrra gave him an unguardedly pleased smile at his regard, said, "Udossta quar'valsharess mrigg dosst unboi'en," to him, and trotted away through the snow after the tiny creature. Solaufein's eyes followed her form until she disappeared into the falling snow. "Will she be alright?" Deekin worried aloud on all of their behalves.

"Nathyrra can take care of herself," Valen assessed confidently. "She's cleverer than all of us combined and can move faster on her own. We should see if any of the locals are feeling talkative," he suggested. "Someone's bound to have seen Binne. She tends to stand out in a crowd."

This thought gave Solaufein small comfort. There was no guarantee that all the creatures would be as civilized or communicative as the strange little librarian. He, Valen, and Deekin wound their way through the strange town, noting buildings alongside translucent shades that wandered about but largely ignored them.

One crowd caught Solaufein's eye, of a small group of translucent souls gathered around a puttering fire that did its best to stay lit in the biting, chilly wind. As he cautiously approached, one of the souls emitted a startling cry of terror and disappeared in a flash of light that the others merely witnessed and looked on with tired horror.

One of the figures was a dark elf, though Solaufein did not recognize him. The male could have been an enemy in the Valsharess' encampment or one of his allies, he knew not which, and it seemed neither did the shade. "Names are pointless," said the shade in Ilythiiri when Solaufein asked for his name as he approached and called out 'Vendui.'

"You can see me, then," Solaufein surmised.

"We all can," the shade confirmed. "Some of us are too mad to know the difference between life and death."

"Where did the other one disappear to?" Solaufein queried.

The shade grimaced and looked away. The frost that clung to his form gave him an outline, but Solaufein could still see the structures of the city of lost souls all through his body behind him. "Where all the Faithless eventually go, I imagine," the shade answered. "To the Nothing, beyond the Wall. It is called Devouring. Mephistopheles rules this place and uses us as he sees fit. To him, we are fuel for his army."

"Is there a way to stop this?" Solaufein wondered aloud, feeling horrified.

"One tried," the spirit answered tentatively. "She would liberate us - she was the boldest, the brightest, the closest to life. In the end, she was another of the lost. Few living ever come here."

"We are unique," Solaufein replied. "Tell me, who is she?" He anticipated hearing Binne's name, though he doubted that she was the liberator that the spirit spoke of; it was not Binne's style to incite riots - perhaps bar-fights - but it still piqued his curiosity.

"He punished her . . . Locked her away in the ice, so that soon, she will become one of the Lost, and forget her life and name too," the spirit moaned into his hands. "It's the same fate that awaits us all. All we can do is try to keep warm, and hope the Devouring comes for others before you."

Deekin approached from behind and tugged Solaufein's cloak to get his attention. Solaufein turned to his faithful kobold companion with a raised eyebrow. "Deekin thinking lost souls maybe not knows much about big bad stuff," Deekin said. "They be victims of arch-devil, too. Maybe we cans help them when we find Reaper's True Name too, and free them!"

"The devils are more likely to know more than these lost souls," Valen cut in. "As much as I am hesitant to suggest we talk to them, it might behoove us to ask them about the . . . Change in Mephistopheles' management. Although, my presence might complicate matters for us."

"How do you mean?" Solaufein asked.

"My tanar'ri blood calls out to me to rip apart everything here," Valen explained tiredly. His eyes hadn't flashed red yet, but his frame was tense and his tone terse. "I may not be a battle-slave anymore, but part of me still . . . Responds, instinctively, to the sights and smells of Baator. I am doing my best to contain myself."

"Your best is enough, abbil. When were you last in Cania?" the dark elf pondered.

"It was countless years ago. I no longer remember how long ago. I was at the head of a contingent in the outer wastes. We never made it as close as this outpost, or the main city. I was part of one of many incursions into Baator territory, in the Blood Wars. There are a few things I remember, though," Valen added, and suddenly veered off to the left where he encountered a strange and fragrant bush that was growing right out of the snowy ground. He brushed the snow off of the branches which revealed a small collection of bright red berries. He picked a handful and presented them to Solaufein, who eyed them curiously. "These are velox berries," Valen explained. "Very useful find. Crush one and it'll start a fire that the winds can't put out for a while. More berries, bigger and hotter fires that last longer. Thankfully, they grow more or less everywhere here. It's hellfire, so keep your fingers away from it as much as possible, but it'll keep us warm when nothing else does. If we need to set up camp somewhere, this will save our lives."

"Deekin," Solaufein called out, and the little kobold took the berries out of the General's hands and kept them safe in a pocket of his.

"Deekin make sure they stay safe," the little bard reassured. "Though maybes we should keeps moving - little Deekin starting to not feel his kneeses and feetses no more."

"This is what you get for not wearing pants," Solaufein tiredly lectured. "Come, let us explore more of this strange place. Surely someone has seen Binne about."

"Pants be ruining Deekin's whole aesthetic," Deekin complained half-heartedly, but nonetheless pocketed the berries and followed after Solaufein. Valen trudged up the rear, keeping one hand on his flail and his eyes trained on their surroundings. They approached the largest building they could find - a massive stone and metal structure that squatted menacingly upon the land, emitting sounds of clattering machinery and distant shouts. The main double-doors were unlocked, and Solaufein and Valen pushed them open, letting in swirls of snowy air as they entered what appeared to be an office, of sorts.

A massive baatezu stood behind a counter that was built for someone of his size; as a result, the top of it came up to Solaufein's head. The baatezu sized them up instantly with glowing red eyes that flashed in anger.

"Whew! Deekin glad it be warm in heres!" The kobold bard cried out joyfully.

"Oh fucking great!" The massive baatezu cried out in a booming, gravelly voice at the sight of them as they approached and threw his arms up into the air in frustration. "Just fan-fucking tastic! Oh, fuck me with an ice pick!"

The sudden vehemence of the baatezu put Solaufein on edge, but also amused him because it instinctively reminded him of Binne. "I should get this reaction from rivvin, not errdegahr," Solaufein reasoned.

"Go on, make my fucking day, Prime!" The baatezu barked at him with a sneer. "First a change in management from on top, now we got Primes wandering around here like they own the fucking place, the lost are panicking, and the pilgrims are up our asses! What do you want, berk? Make it quick! I'm busy!"

Valen cut in. "First, I'm not from Prime," he felt the need to clarify with a glare. "They are, though," he gestured to Solaufein and Deekin.

"I feel insulted," Solaufein said.

"It's just Baator's customary greeting," Valen explained with a sly smile. "Next he'll threaten us to get off his property."

"I'm not that stupid," the baatezu growled. "I can see that flail at your side, dog. Who let you off the chain?"

Solaufein stepped forward and placed his hand on Enserric's hilt for emphasis as he declared, "He is no one's dog."

Valen was entirely unfazed. "That's cute," he commented lightly. "A smart baatezu."

"The name's Gru'ul, berk," Gru'ul the baatezu introduced, albeit reluctantly. "Look, I don't have time for this shit. Either you trade with me, or get out, because I have a quarry to run. Unless you're here for a job, which you're not, I suggest you get the fuck out." He pointed insistently to the door when it became clear that they weren't about to leave.

And Valen continued to be entirely unfazed. He didn't bother putting his hand on his flail, he simply crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at Gru'ul. "A baatezu with a sense of humor? Now that is a novelty," he drawled.

"Peace," Solaufein assured, "I am here for the one called Heiress. She is tall and horned, with eyes the color of lorrol by firelight, skin the hue of a crimson tagnik'zur, and may have angrily introduced herself as Binne while threatening you at some point in your interaction. You are unlikely to forget her. Qualla, she is in danger and we are trying to help her," he found himself anxiously and somewhat poetically blurting. Valen gave him an amused look.

Gru'ul the baatezu glared at them and his bat-wings shifted forward into a protective shield around his arms. "And just why are two drow, a tiefling, and a . . . Is that a fucking kobold?" He blinked, surprised, and glanced down at Deekin as he leaned over the counter.

Deekin looked up to the massive baatezu without blinking. "Maybes," he chirped. "Whats it be to you, bat-man?"

Gru'ul processed this for several seconds, and then finally leaned back and seemed a little more relaxed - or tired. ". . . Alright, I don't know if you're a part of the circus or something, but this ain't Sigil, and I don't think you're here to kill her," he finally said. "And if you're after her to help her, you can find her wandering off in that general direction." He pointed with a claw out the door and vaguely to the right, in the distance. "Which is where I lost sight of her in the storm about half an hour ago. I gave her a torch so she wouldn't freeze to death, but she ain't exactly the sharpest claw on the hand you know, and well, I'm a little worried," he carefully admitted.

Valen snorted derisively. "You?"

"Yeah, yeah, don't rub it in," Gru'ul said in a slightly more friendly voice. "She thought the velox berries were edible! A cambion from Prime is fucking hopeless. You, of all people, should know that being a devil isn't all about claws and eating hearts and rending flesh, alright? Those are just the best parts. We're a passionate lot, and we take our debts seriously. She fixed my grinder and got my lazy-ass minion back to work, which is more than the big M actually ever did for me ever since he assigned me to this damn shit heap, and I feel like I owe her one. Now, if you're not here to trade, get the fuck out," he concluded seriously.

Deekin cleared his throat and pulled out his bag of holding. "Who says we're not here to trades? Whats goods you got, bat-man?"

Gru'ul blinked and eyed the kobold with interest anew. "A discerning kobold, eh?"

"The names be Deekin," Deekin corrected insistently.

"And I am not a bat, small one," Gru'ul corrected right back. His wings shifted back into a more relaxed position. "Very well, let's see if we can make a deal, Deekin."

Thanks to Deekin's negotiating skills, they managed to purchase a rod of resurrection from Gru'ul and a belt that increased Solaufein's agility immensely (better than his belt that only defended against piercing by far) in exchange, for all things, not gold but rare spices that Deekin had acquired in anticipation of a long journey back to the surface from the Underdark that were for making rations taste more palatable. Gru'ul was extremely happy to acquire them - apparently the baatezu had a hankering for fine cuisine, which was hard to come by in Hell. There was indeed a tavern that was nearby, which demons and the lost frequented alike, but the food they sold was apparently quite tasteless, even as far as bar food went. Solaufein anticipated a bland adventure ahead of them, should they even find rations to purchase down the road.

Before Solaufein could simply march off in the direction Gru'ul had pointed to, Valen and Deekin stopped and reminded him that they had to regroup with Nathyrra at some point. They back-tracked to the obelisk, and found Nathyrra waiting patiently for them, brushing fallen snow off her shoulders, with the little strange archivist at her feet.

"I take it you were successful in your endeavor?" Solaufein asked her upon greeting.

"I assisted the Scrivener in its task," she indicated down to the little bony archivist. It switched its sightless gaze from Nathyrra's form to Solaufein's, and abruptly the male dark elf experienced a sharp and clear image in his mind's eye of an ice-cave. "He has shown the cave to you?" At this, Solaufein nodded, and Nathyrra nodded back. "It is not far. It was warded from the outside, to keep something or someone in. The Scrivener scribed a name in Common outside the cave, but I did not recognize it, and I dared not venture into on my own for fear of being overwhelmed by whatever lurked inside. I have begun to wonder what sort of creature would be kept in such a prison, by Mephistopheles' command," she added contemplatively. "Ol zhah alur ulu elgg ul'naus taga tlu ogglinnar."

Solaufein considered this - it was a common enough saying on both the surface and the Underdark - a sort of 'my enemy's enemy is my ally.' They had desperate need of allies, but he also viscerally needed to find Binne to reassure himself that she was, at least, alive. He did, however, need more than general whereabouts to discover where she had gone. Wandering off after Binne would surely only result in him becoming lost, and right now, they had no certain leads on her other than the direction of Gru'ul's pointed claw at the distance. Nathyrra, however, had discovered a certain lead on a potential ally - or even better, answers. "Lead the way," he told Nathyrra despite his misgivings on the matter, and the short-haired female gave a single sharp nod before turning on her heel. The Scrivener at her feet scrambled in place to get ahead of her, looked back at her once as if to reassure itself that she was following, and then hopped off into the distance.

They followed at a sedate pace, but it was brisk enough to get their blood pumping. Deekin began to shiver as they approached the cave Solaufein had seen in his mind's eye, a bluish white hole in the ice wall that fenced in the City of the Lost. He saw an etching in the ice in Common, but as usual the words swirled meaninglessly and out of order before his eyes, so he turned away from it, disinterested.

"White dragons like to live in ice caves," Deekin noted between chittering teeth. "Boss think maybes Old Boss be in there?"

"That would be too fortunate for our idiom," Solaufein noted with a hint of tired sadness bordering on depression. He missed Binne. Normally she would crack a joke at his expense by then, and her absence was keenly felt. "We should prepare for battle."

"I'm ready," Valen announced, somewhat needlessly as Solaufein had never known the tiefling to not be ready to throw down at a moment's notice.

"My offensive contingencies are set," Nathyrra added, which made Solaufein feel slightly better.

"Deekin just be glads to get out of winds, brrr!" The kobold complained.

The tiny Scrivener stared at them all for a little while before trotting off into the distance behind them and promptly disappeared. They entered the cave with Solaufein leading the way and were engulfed in momentary dark so deep it was nearly pitch. Solaufein switched to the spectrum of heat and noted a faint trail that was slowly fading. It got stronger and more pronounced the further they went into the cave, which is when Solaufein crouched instinctively and noted two heat signatures that seemed to not be aware of their presence as of yet. He knew that the others could see him - it was not so dark that it obscured Valen's enhanced vision or Deekin's darkvision - so he gave the dark elven hand signal for 'stop' and slowly crept ahead. There was a light from an unknown source that illuminated three figures, but only two of them emitted heat signatures, one smaller than the other.

He slipped back into the visible spectrum and first noticed a translucent spirit frozen into the wall, as if she were growing out of it, or had been imprisoned inside. She was elven, armored, translucent, and sharply beautiful - one of the lost souls, but frosted into an uncharacteristically animated expression of righteous anger.

Then, his breath hitched in his chest as one of the figures at the frozen woman's feet stirred, and he heard a familiar groan. He wasted no time on stealth any longer - it was Binne, curled on her side at the frozen figure's feet. Beside her was a strange three-legged hellhound that woke up at his approach, but it did not attack him and only sniffed at him experimentally. He did not care. Her eyes fluttered open and she suddenly was moving, scuttling back on her hands and legs into the icy wall of the cavern until she backed into the frozen woman and stopped. She did not seem to recognize him initially, stuck in her dreams and only half-conscious when she first woke up if Solaufein knew her at all, but when she did recognize him seconds later, tears welled in her eyes and an ugly sob erupted out of the back of her throat as she covered her face in shame and wept.

Solaufein reached for her; how could he not? He did not know how to tell her that he had already forgiven her. Words did not always come as easily to him as they did her, for she often spoke of what came to mind whereas he more carefully parsed his words out. He searched for the right way to stop her tears from being shed, but the words would not come to him. Instead, he remembered Nathyrra and Vaendrith's teary reunion, and so his arms enfolded around her and drew her to him, and he whispered her name in a sigh of relief, "Binne." Her arms clutched at him desperately; it seemed that was all that needed to be said in the moment.

He could feel every hitched breath and sob wrack her body, such was their closeness, and found he did not mind it. Appearances were deceiving with Binne, or so he had learned - she was terribly human in her way. The others approached and the strange three-legged hellhound pranced circles around them, sniffing at them and nudging them toward the cambion and Solaufein with his nose. Valen eyed it distrustfully while Deekin gave it tentatively pats that it seemed to enjoy. It took Binne some time to calm down enough to be able to form words, and Solaufein held her all the while, cradling her close to his chest. He stroked her head and hair, threading his fingers through the messy length and silently thanked Eilistraee that she had remained safe on her own.

After her sobs had ceased and her breathing evened, Binne pulled back and wiped at her eyes with the heels of her hands. Solaufein remained seated in front of her as she got her bearings, and after a long few tense seconds, her eyes opened and met his. Those amber orbs were stained with hurt and shame and closed on him as she drew further back into herself. "Solaufein, I—" she choked out, and had to cut herself off as the words failed her. He waited until she was able to form them. "I, couldn't . . . I can't . . ."

"I missed you," he informed her, throwing her a little off-guard. Her eyes opened again and stared at him, seemingly startled. "It is not the same, without you at my side."

"I killed you," she blurted, and tears welled up in those eyes of lorrol again. Her hands went up to cover them, but he intercepted and held them in his own.

"You did not," he reassured her. Unbidden, the cold memory of pulling Enserric out of her body in the chamber of the Elder Brain came to him. One day, he promised himself, he would tell her - she did not remember, and this was not the time to inform her. "It was the devil who controlled you, and we will find a way to free you. I promise."

"How?" She blurted out, almost angrily. He sensed this anger was not directed at him, but at herself. "How can you—how can you even look at me?!"

"I have eyes, and you are beautiful," he answered carefully.

"H-how can you say things like that?" She half-rasped, half-choked as she began to cry again.

"Ussta'che—" he began, but did not know what else to say, and faltered.

"Why do you . . ." Binne trailed off and began to sniffle again. Deekin plopped down next to the statue and gave the cambion a sad look. Valen was unreadable.

Nathyrra came up beside Solaufein and sat down slowly at his side, giving him a look askance as if to ask for permission. He looked at her gratefully. She adjusted her position comfortably on the ground and then placed a careful dark hand on Binne's shoulder to gather the cambion's attention. Binne looked at the small woman in confusion. "It is a term of endearment," Nathyrra quietly explained.

"What?" Binne sounded confused.

"'Ussta'che,' means, whom I care for, or love," she clarified. "We do not have words like adore, admire, or even love in Ilythiiri - not in the guiltless, kind, and passionate way you surfacers seem to intend it to mean, where it is given and received unconditionally. Love is . . . Frightful and dangerous to our people because it tethers us to one another and makes us stronger than an individual can be. Our enemies would see us held back and become weak. They can only gain strength from our isolation. We intend to find a way to break the hold Mephistopheles has over you," she added after seeing Binne's hesitation. "I believe it is your True Name. He has acquired the True Name of the Reaper as well and imprisoned you and Solaufein here."

Binne sniffled again but seemed a little calmer. "Hell's really gone to the dogs these days," she joked, and patted the hellhound on the head that was sitting next to her. "Speaking of dogs, this here is Boon," she finally introduced. "Found him getting kicked around in the snow. Figured he could use a friend as much as me."

"You know they have the average intelligence of a tax collector, right?" Valen cut in with a raised crimson eyebrow. He sat down at Solaufein's left brusquely, and Solaufein felt more grounded.

"So he's a smart boy. Oh, what a good boy!" She gushed and petted him more. Solaufein smiled at her antics and felt a bit more at ease now that she had stopped crying and seemed somewhat like her old self. "How did you find me?" She asked, still focused on the hound.

"Nathyrra did," Solaufein said.

Nathyrra bowed her head. "Unintentionally, perhaps," she conceded. "This cave was sealed, I helped unseal it. You being here was, what is the phrase? An accidental happy?"

"Happy accident," Binne corrected with a startled laugh. "An accidental happy sounds like more of a sexual thing. I was wondering—I guess it doesn't matter how you got here. It's enough that you're here. I don't think I deserve the help . . . But thank you." Binne slowly stood up on shaky legs. Solaufein moved to assist her immediately but she pushed his hands away and flinched slightly; it seemed she was still uneasy around him, which he hoped would disappear in time. "I suppose we ought to talk about the elephant in the room," she said and gestured to the frozen woman.

Solaufein just wasn't sure what elephants had to do with it and glanced around to make sure there weren't any of the massive beasts lurking about. He had seen them in a circus once, apart from images, but could find none nearby. "I do not see any," he said, confused.

"Her, I mean her," she pointed insistently. "Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande? The ex-paladin of Tyr frozen in ice here in the cave?"

"The Scrivener outside said that a prisoner was placed in this cave," Nathyrra reported, standing to join them, and was followed by Valen. "Someone who began to stir the lost souls into action against Mephistopheles."

"So she got frozen in a cave for starting a riot? Causing waves even in the afterlife, I see," Binne chuckled darkly and looked at the frozen statue of a woman askance. "Yeah, I can't imagine Lady Aribeth would look too kindly on the operations of Hell, fallen or no."

The name rang a bell for Solaufein, but he could not be certain. "You know this woman?" He inspected the frosted ghost more carefully.

"Her likeness was on every wanted poster for a hundred miles, when she fell from Tyr's worship and betrayed Neverwinter during the Luskan conflict," Binne answered, folding her arms across her chest. When she addressed Solaufein she looked away, or at his boots, and it disconcerted him. It was unexpectedly submissive of her.

"So she is a fallen paladin?" Valen surmised, joining Solaufein.

"She—it's—complicated," was all Binne could say.

As Valen and Solaufein examined the frozen ghost, Nathyrra approached Binne tentatively. "What? Is there something on my nose?" Binne wondered and swiped at her face.

Nathyrra shook her head, and unexpectedly wrapped her arms around Binne's middle in a tight hug. Binne was so startled by the gesture that her arms hung in the air for a few moments before coming down to rest around Nathyrra's shoulders. She sniffled again, tears welling in her eyes but not falling this time. "You looked like you needed this," Nathyrra said into Binne's shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah I did," Binne conceded in a warbling voice, still sniffling. The little dhaerow assassin seemed to have developed emotional intelligence during her time amongst their party and pulled out of the embrace just as Binne began to look uncomfortable. That, or females had a psychic link between each other that alerted them to these matters, Solaufein wasn't totally sure. All he knew was that he wished he was Nathyrra for that brief moment, because Binne seemed determined to shy away from him. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him; he thought back to those dying moments, hearing her grieving whispers as the life fled his body, and he realized that she had been dying herself with nothing but Enserric and her dreaded father for company after he had awoken in the Gatehouse. He had no way of knowing what she had endured, alone.

Aribeth, now that he recalled, was not a complete stranger to him. Though he had never seen her in person, he knew the Lady had worked closely with both the Nine, Lord Nasher, and Imoen during the Wailing. Imoen, Aerie, and Minsc - as Aerie's very determined bodyguard - had been trapped in the city during lockdown. Missives from Imoen would reach Aphra and Jaheira on the outside, where they were stationed at Crossroads Keep, and Aphra often read them aloud to give others the news from the city. Imoen had contracted the services of the man that would later be called Hero, and it was interesting to Solaufein that Binne had been a peripheral acquaintance. They might have met, in another progression of events, but Solaufein and Binne had been stationed in opposite directions of the war, her in the north and he in the south.

His knowledge of Aribeth ended there, however. He had not been aware of the events leading to her death, and subsequent betrayal, because Imoen had stopped sending missives. At a certain point, largely after Aphra had disappeared in the grip of the great red dragon Firkaag, Imoen no longer sent them updates on her work. After the city had reopened, and began to be rebuilt, all he had heard of Imoen was that she had left the city in the company of Minsc and Aerie, and then returned alone when the rebuilding began. He knew that she ran the local operation of the Shadow Thieves and Iron Throne under the guise of the Seven Sails Trading Coster - he had been there when Imoen had first arrived at the building and she had used him as 'buff drow backup' to glare at anyone who disagreed with her. It had been an unsurprisingly effective and bloodless takeover.

Solaufein wondered if the Lady Aribeth had known her well, or what the nature of their acquaintance was. Imoen had always spoken highly of her, even if she called the paladin 'stuffy' and 'buffleheaded;' he knew from Imoen that those were terms reserved exclusively for people she liked. This was enough for him to want to free the Lady.

"We do have a desperate need of allies," Valen reminded him.

"We shall free her," Solaufein agreed.

"Er . . . How would we go about doing that?" Binne wondered, staring at the woman frozen into the ice-wall of the cave. "She's basically a giant icicle, and we're in an ice cave in the iciest of the two ice-Hells."

"Oh!" Deekin cried out. "Deekin has the fire-berries in pockets! Maybe we cans—"

At that precise moment, Boon decided to let out a loud burp of hellfire that erupted into the air in a thick reddish plume. "Well that solves that," Binne chirped and smiled shakily. "Boon, mind aiming that at the Lady? And try not to roast her too much, even though I'm not sure how well a ghost could feel that sort of thing. Seems rude, besides."

Before the hellhound could trot forward and do as she commanded, Nathyrra pointed out, "We should build a fire a small distance away from her feet, so there is less danger of burning her. It may take longer to melt, but it will be better. We may even camp here for the time being, out of the wind - it is safe enough, I think."

Nathyrra, Boon, and Deekin were able to use the hellhound's innate hellfiery burps and a velox berry or two to build a modest, but intensely hot fire that quickly began to melt away at Aribeth's statue. Rivulets of clear water flowed down the ice that encased the half-elven woman and pooled at her feet. They melted some nearby snow and used it to refill their waterskins and took a moment to take stock of their supplies and rations. Deekin had the foresight to store quite a bit of goods in the Reaper's realm for the sake of emergencies, but they only had a few days' worth of supplies - and Solaufein had no idea how long they would be in Hell. They would have to forage for goods, or trade with the locals. Solaufein somewhat tentatively offered the jerked rothe meat they'd acquired back in Lith My'athar to Binne, and she took it from him with only a momentary meeting of the eyes before abruptly looking away again and saying nothing to him. She was determined to sulk, it seemed.

It was tensely silent as they ate and waited for Aribeth's prison to melt. The only one of them who seemed unbothered by this was Nathyrra, who ate contentedly and watched the Aribeth-statue melt by inches with interest. Even Deekin, normally unflappable, was fidgeting restlessly and few of words. Binne ate the rations Deekin offered and patted Boon with her free hand absently, burying her hands in his fur as he lolled and panted. Valen's gaze shifted between Solaufein and Binne as if he couldn't decide who required his attention more.

As Lady Aribeth's icy prison slowly melted into a puddle at her feet, small fissures began to appear in the ice that was bearing her upright. First slowly, and then all at once, the weight of her upper body bent forward as her expression twitched into something more akin to disoriented confusion than rage. With a great shattering, Aribeth broke free of the ice and fell forward onto her hands and knees.

Valen's hand instinctively reached for his flail out of the corner of Solaufein's eye. Nathyrra remained unmoved, but he knew this was only a deception - she was ready at a moment's notice to cast whatever offensive spell was necessary. Deekin looked up at his Boss and seemed like he wanted Solaufein to do something and kept nodding pointedly to the heaving half-elf they had defrosted on the ground, but Solaufein wasn't sure what precisely he was indicating.

"Lady Aribeth? Aribeth de Tylmarande?" Binne queried tentatively. The name hung in the frigid air as the shuddering Aribeth grew still for a moment, and then glanced up. She met Solaufein's eyes first, and the look in those glassy blue orbs had him reaching for Enserric instinctively. He knew suddenly that they only had seconds to act before Aribeth would attack.

With a mighty aquiline cry, Aribeth suddenly became animated and rolled for her sword that had been imprisoned beside her, stuck point-first in the cave's icy floor. She pulled it out with a violent jerk and turned to wield it with both hands. Binne had been physically closest to Aribeth, having not moved far from her initial position, and was in the most immediate danger of being skewered by the maddened ex-paladin. Solaufein wasted no time and thanked the Reaper silently that he had been resurrected in his speedy boots - he deflected a blow that would have sailed right toward Binne's neck and stepped into a defensive stance.

"Stop this madness!" He said, hoping the Lady would listen. "We are not your enemy!"

"I don't think she even sees us properly right now after a nice coma like that," Binne cautioned, looking startled. "Doubt she'll listen—"

"You will never have me! NEVER!" Aribeth roared and charged at him, proving Binne's point. Valen raced forward with his flail at the ready, waiting for Aribeth to strike first.

Then Nathyrra hit her with a series of spells that rapidly spilled off her tongue with a contingency incantation, which bound them all to be cast in consecutive order rather than waste time chanting and performing each one. The first was a red beam that streamed from her fingertips and hit Aribeth squarely in the chest, but the ex-paladin shrugged it off and only seemed more enraged. Nathyrra did not waste time on hesitation and let loose spell after spell, yellow and green rays that bounced off of the paladin's armor and into the ground. Nathyrra finally exhausted her sequence and pointed a different spell at the ground beneath Aribeth's feet, which became thickened like a viscous swamp and suddenly precarious to stand in without slipping - a grease spell, really quite a simple one but effective when used to disadvantage your opponents.

However, it now made getting to the ex-paladin near impossible without risking falling themselves; Valen was inadvertently closest to the lady knight and possessed of the most likely chance among them of overcoming Aribeth quickly through sheer brute force. He knew from intimate personal experience that Valen was just as deadly blind with precarious footing as he was in his full faculties on even ground, so Solaufein did what all dark elves do quite naturally and dropped a globe of magic darkness on top of Aribeth and switched to infravision. The bonfire they had created was still alit, but sight of it had been smothered - in the spectrum of heat, it was a blaze and blur of fiery motion, intertwined with Valen's figure as he swung wildly at a space that seemed composed of air and void, the place Solaufein knew Aribeth to be. It seemed true that she was dead, but Solaufein was unsure of the permanence of death anymore, given how many times he had already died. It seemed to be a purely temporary state of being, except when it was profoundly and tragically permanent.

Much as he wanted to be a part of the tiefling's battle, he knew his presence could potentially complicate matters, what with the wildly flinging flail and Aribeth's surprisingly massive bastard sword.

'Now that is a proper bastard sword!' Enserric chimed. 'Not an enchanted, enhanced, and exciting sabre like myself. Oh, let me have a go at her! It's been bloody ages since we've had a proper sword-fight! I could break her damned sword on my cross-guard.'

"That sounded unnecessarily sexual," Solaufein criticized.

"What? I didn't say anything," Binne replied, confused.

"I was talking to Enserric. Give me your spider-walking ability," he requested, more than demanded.

She nodded once, pulled the aspect into her palm in a little glowing purplish light and placed it shakingly but unhesitatingly on his shoulder. He grasped her hand in his for a moment, squeezed it once, and sped away to Aribeth up the walls and around to get to her. She didn't seem to believe what she saw for a moment, looking properly enraged and borderline impressed, before deflecting a blow from Valen and swinging her sword at Solaufein's head.

He let Enserric be the judge of their fight, short as it was. He only had the ability to defend himself from her torrent of blows until finally, as the smug blade had predicted, a crack appeared near the center of the blade. Aribeth hadn't noticed, seething as she was, and brought it down on him again only for it to fall apart as it met Enserric's edge with a ringing clatter. She stumbled back into Valen, who had dropped his flail so that he might use both arms to grip her around the middle, pinning both of her arms to her side. Ghost or not, dead or living, or in some sort of shadowy state in-between, Aribeth was as fierce in death as she was rumored to be in life. Her head slammed into the back of Valen's jaw repeatedly in her struggle, but the tiefling didn't let the pain stop him, although it did cause him to start to growl and red-shift in the eyes a bit.

She did, eventually, stop struggling. Solaufein was then horrified to discover that once she gave up, she began to cry. There were no sobs, just a faint stream of traitorous teardrops from a tortured expression that froze on the ground where they struck. He put the pleased Enserric away, acknowledging that they had her at their mercy now.

"Why can't you people leave me alone?!" She rasped out of lungs that had once given air to a voice that was, according to Imoen, 'like a skylark looking for love in the morning,' whatever that meant. That voice had obviously seen some disuse in the recent past.

At Solaufein's gesture, Valen released his hold on the woman, who fell forward onto her hands and knees. Her fingers clenched against the ice, and she seemed torn between frustration and grief. He did not know what to say, or how to comfort her - he knew too little of her life.

That was when Binne stepped forward and helped Aribeth to her feet unexpectedly. Valen stepped back to give them space, and the Lady immediately pushed the cambion away from her when she looked up into her face. Something in her twisted with that grief, like dread. "I know you," Aribeth spoke slowly, "do I not? From somewhere."

"I'm surprised you recognize me!" Binne seemed pleased and clapped her hands together. "I'm Binne. Aye, we met twice. Er, last time was on your death-day, so to speak, not exactly the happiest memory, sorry about that. Then once, in Port Llast, we bumped into each other, and it was awkward because I knew your name but you didn't know mine. Must say, we've both come a long way since, haven't we?"

"Who are you?" Aribeth snapped, looking annoyed. "You speak as if you know me, but I only have the vaguest recollection of your face."

"Well, I just have one of those faces," Binne rambled. "I'm also red, have horns, and I tend to bump into doorways a lot."

"I am Solaufein," he introduced, then pointed to Valen, Nathyrra, and Deekin, who all introduced themselves. Deekin was practically star-struck which the Lady Aribeth had no clear idea of how to respond to and was just simply confused by Deekin. Deekin did effectively disarm her, in a way - when they spoke, Aribeth's angry tears finally stopped.

Satisfied, and without too many details regarding Binne's parentage, Solaufein explained the nature of their presence and need for allies. Aribeth immediately refused, quite vehemently in fact, and for a while seemed perfectly content at the idea of rotting in a cave in a stew of apathy forever until she was eventually Devoured like the rest of the lost souls. It took quite a bit of elocution on his and Nathyrra's parts, but they managed to convince Aribeth that it might behoove her to at least try praying to Tyr for forgiveness, if she so regretted her actions in life as she seemed to. She was cagey when Binne mentioned the past, even hostile, except to Deekin who only asked about the Hero, whom Aribeth claimed to not know well and looked down and away stiffly as she said so. Solaufein realized in that moment that he was aware of something Deekin was not - that Imoen had been entirely omitted from the story that had been made of the plague and subsequent war in Neverwinter, as well as it should have been - the head of a Thieves' Guild couldn't be a public figure.

He wondered if it might be the key to Aribeth's allegiance. "We never met, but I knew Imoen spoke often of you," Solaufein said, and Aribeth's attention became arrested on him. Her eyes widened and dilated. "Aphra would read her letters aloud in the Keep," he continued. "I remember she said of you that you alone held the city together."

Aribeth paused, looking troubled. "What else did she say?" She asked as a faint tremble entered her voice.

Solaufein could only recall a few details since he was only present for a scant amount of the readings, but elven memories were more pristine than others. "She called you a 'frosty snowdrop at dawn.' It was clear to me that she thought very highly of you. I do not know what you endured in death, Aribeth, but I know that Imoen would have done everything she could to stop it from happening. If it was within her power, she would have saved you."

"I asked to meet them," Aribeth revealed suddenly. "The mob, that demanded my blood, the crowd. They had already tied a noose for me when I was escorted there. My prison guards backed away and left me to their mercy. It was not Imoen who ever failed me. I was the one who failed her. I no longer believe in justice, but I will think on this, Solaufein. I promise that much. I . . ." She trailed off and cleared her throat. "I apologize for attacking, earlier," she added somewhat shyly. "I thought you were sent to torture or kill me."

"In your defense, we are two fiendlings, two drow, and a kobold," Binne chimed in with a watery smile. "We're not exactly the most trustworthy sort at a glance."

Aribeth paced back to the bonfire that was still burning and seemed startled to find a friendly hellhound sleeping next to it. Boon perked up his head, sniffed her, and went back to sleep, apparently content now that the battle was over and was ready to take a warm nap. Solaufein fiercely envied him for a moment, even more so when Binne began to give the dog affection and introduce him to Aribeth.

The ex-paladin sat down next to Boon after appearing to get used to him and stared into the fire contemplatively. Solaufein could only hope that she would give them her answer soon, preferably before the fire died and robbed them of their last chance to be warm for the foreseeable future. He moved to sit opposite of Aribeth across the fire and Deekin followed him, pulling out his journal in the process, just as Binne simultaneously stood up and moved a distance away. He wondered if he was truly the cause of her discomfort, but then his sensitive ears picked up a whispered conversation between the cambion and Valen as the General moved to sit next to her.

"You feel it too?" Binne quietly asked.

"Strange, it only just now began to bother me," Valen noted.

"Aye, it was fine when she was frozen, but now it's like cold little pinpricks all over me," Binne shuddered.

"Are you . . ." Valen trailed off with his question, shook his head, and seemed to change his mind. "How are you?" He asked gently instead.

The General continued to consistently surprise Solaufein in pleasant ways. He would've expected a reversion to Valen's earlier suspicion, especially now that Binne had proven to be a quite literal pawn of the arch-devil as Valen had initially predicted, but all they had endured together had proven them to be worthy of the tiefling's cautious trust. He only hoped that Valen would be able to reach Binne, in the ways Solaufein presently could not.

For a while, she did not answer, perhaps composing her words in her mind or finding them too difficult to reach. Eventually, she whispered, "I don't know. My entire life has been . . . One really long, elaborate game between powers bigger than my understanding. And now the man who raped my mother wants me to take over his little Hell-kingdom so he can march on my world and destroy everything I love. And every time I close my eyes I still see . . . Yeah, Valen, I'm just peachy. What do you want me to say?"

Valen snorted. "Right. Bad question."

She shifted in her position and drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Leaning her head on her knees, Binne turned her gaze to Valen. "How are you doing? I can't imagine this is your first trip to this shitty corner of Hell."

"It's not," Valen answered in a clipped tone. "I was stationed here briefly in the Blood Wars. And my demonic blood seems to be reacting much as I expected it to, itching at me to destroy every devil I see. I've been swimming in memories since I got here and none of them pleasant."

"You seem calm to me," Binne commented.

"On the surface, perhaps," Valen admitted ruefully. "I can be a good actor, when I want to be."

She smirked. "Maybe you should have been a bard."

He smirked back at her. "Perhaps it's my second calling in life."

"I thought that was baking."

Valen chuckled. It was a rumbling, pleasant noise, and it struck Solaufein that he hadn't heard Valen laugh in quite some time. He saw Binne smile out of the corner of his eye, and it warmed his heart a little.

Their whispered conversation carried back and forth and became a pleasant background to Solaufein's thoughts. He overheard Binne ask Valen about his previous time in Cania, and Valen went on to describe a sweeping series of gory battles with perhaps not as much dramatic tension as the events deserved, but he wasn't Sharwyn and didn't have her flair for the dramatic. Solaufein did not doubt that Valen was understating matters, as the General tended to do, which made Solaufein cringe at the thought of what those battles must have really been like. It was an easy enough matter to accept the violence he had committed in the past - Solaufein could talk about such matters casually. Overhearing Valen just as casually speak of his past intensely reminded Solaufein of himself. Both of them had endured countless years as battle-slaves, commanding armies. However, Binne attentively listened and seemed happy enough for the distraction from her own thoughts, and Solaufein privately thanked Eilistraee and the Seer for sending Valen along their path - it was enough that he was able to get her to smile again.

Aribeth de Tylmarande did inevitably conclude her meditation, or prayers, and stood from her position to stride over to Solaufein and give him her answer. "You have made a decision?" He surmised as he stood up and met her gaze.

Her eyes were a troubled gray that reminded him of heavy rainstorms over Amn's skies. "If you will accept a fallen knight, such as I, then I will go with you," she answered confidently, a dramatic change from her previous attitude.

"And what of Tyr?" he wondered, knowing that he would never be able to abandon Eilistraee, no matter that she had led him to Mephistopheles.

Aribeth scowled darkly. "Where was Tyr's justice, when the Nine geased—no," she shook her head fiercely. "No, I am no paladin. No longer. Never again. But I am, and always will be a warrior. I will no longer fight for the gods, or for myself. Instead, I will fight for others who cannot."

Solaufein could empathize. Battle was their trade, their art, their lives. He nodded and offered his hand. Aribeth shook it, and he could feel the chill of her touch through his glove. Still, he was curious. "Why?" He wondered.

Her gaze became downcast, and it took her several seconds to compose an answer. Her voice had grown quiet, and the admission seemed to shame her: "I do not know what you know of my life, but I was not always a paladin in service of Tyr. I thought that if I devoted myself to His justice, that it would temper my heart, which had been driven by vengeance at a young age when I saw my village destroyed by orcs. For a time, it worked. Then, I met Fenthick. I fell in love, or so I thought. When he was slain upon the order of Lord Nasher, I was . . . Torn." She folded her arms in a more guarded posture, clearly uncomfortable with this admission, but she yet went on as if the words were compelled from her. "I questioned my allegiance to my cause for the first time, and I began to believe that Tyr had abandoned me. It was not made public knowledge, but the so-called Hero of Neverwinter was not a willing addition to our cause. Originally, he had been simply contracted. Imoen was his handler . . . Nasher had both them geased into compliance when they refused to obey him."

"A geas?" Solaufein interrupted angrily. Imoen was dalninil, like adopted family to him. He and everyone else in their group had become protective of her after what she had endured at Irenicus' and Bodhi's hands, but something had changed when they had left for Neverwinter. Imoen had been separated from them for some time and came back different. Less humorous. More blunt. It was not a welcome change, nor was it a sign of maturity - rather the hallmark of something that Solaufein did not entirely understand, but instinctively knew to be wrong.

"I was angry too," Aribeth admitted. "In the end, it was manipulation upon manipulation . . . War upon war . . . There was no justice in any of it. When I died, and was sent here upon my judgment, I questioned for the first time my love for Fenthick, the very event that had spurred my transition to Morag's side. I knew he would not have approved of my actions, and I did not care. I wanted revenge, not for him, but for myself. For my sake. When Nasher had the geas placed, I let my anger fester like an open wound in my heart. It grew out of control. When I came to Cania, something in my heart changed. I led the lost for a time and attempted to take control of this city from the devils, but after I was imprisoned, my desire for vengeance - that burning hatred against perceived wrongs - disappeared. Until you people came here, I felt nothing, cared for nothing. I was nothing."

"What changed?" Solaufein wondered, after a tense few seconds where he contemplated the logistics of hunting down and killing every last person who had ever hurt Imoen. He hadn't been aware of the geas, but perhaps this explained why she had simply stopped sending word to them, even if word did sometimes get back from their other contacts of her whereabouts. After Aphra's disappearance, Imoen had surfaced and stepped in, a changed and harder woman who led the Greycloaks to Saradush, where it had all finally ended. Solaufein realized that Aribeth must have died after Imoen left Neverwinter and went to war - as had he with her, and their allies, where the last of the Bhaalspawn gathered.

Aribeth looked up, down, and then back at him. "I am unsure," she said honestly. "I thought of Imoen, and I . . . I only wished . . ." She shook her head and looked away, as if denying herself the very thought. "But I feel more than I did before," she went on, "I don't feel as hollow. And I thought about the other souls out there - the lost. I know that as long as the lost stay in this wretched little hive, we are little more than cattle to the devils. Worse, even, for they may do what they want with us as they please, and we have no choice but to accept that. Each time we die, we are reconstituted here in Cania, until we suffer a fate worse than death: boredom. And as it turns out . . . I'm terribly bored of this place," she finished with a little helpless laugh. "Aside from killing myself again, I can't imagine staying here for another minute more. So, I will follow you, for a while."

Having another person who was familiar with the area on their side would greatly improve things, especially since she seemed to be immune to the cold, judging from her attire. "And you will fight with us?" he asked, eying her broken sword.

"Perhaps," she answered with a faint, ghostly smile, and toed the hilt on the ground with her boot. "At the very least, it would give me great satisfaction to see the look on Mephistopheles' face when he realizes his plans are thwarted. I have no faith in the gods anymore, but I have always had faith in myself and my own capabilities. You have reminded me of this, and for that, I thank you Solaufein. I think this time, I will be glad to not be alone."

Deekin hummed the Doom song as they made their way out of the cave, and for the first time since he heard it, it inspired a feeling of profound relief in Solaufein. Though their task yet daunted him, it did not seem as impossible as it did a few hours ago - and with Valen getting Binne to smile again, another staunch ally to join their cause, and Deekin still singing, everything did not seem as hopeless as it had.

---

Drow-to-Common Dictionary:

Nempori lotha bol . . . Ugly lil' creepy critter
Dalninil . . . Sister from another mister
Udossta quar . . . An Eilistraeen farewell
Errdegahr . . . fiend, demon, devil
Lorrol . . . Amber
Tagnik'zur . . . Dragon
Qualla . . . Please
Ol zhah alur . . . Just a drow way of saying it's good to team up to kill people you hate together, think of it like a drow bonding exercise