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.

16. Scars

Thanks be unto Trisa_Slyne for giving this story a shine!

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SOLAUFEIN

Solaufein shook off his portal-induced nausea from the Reaper's gateway and sudden disorientation at being relocated to an area with rank city air. It was not so different from when he first came to the surface, but far less traumatizing, and he swiftly marched their party straight toward the doors of the dark Yawning Portal in front of them. He could hear subtle shifting sounds that might be indicative of life within, but no lights were on, and it made Solaufein wonder after Durnan and his family's fate. Solaufein spared a glance behind him toward the others - Binne was gathering Nathyrra, who was staring up at the partially clouded moon with awe in her eyes, Aribeth followed sedately and purposefully, and Valen and Deekin both looked profoundly relieved to find themselves out of the Hells and back on Prime - but it did not take them long to regain their footing.

Solaufein opened the doorway to the Yawning Portal, found it unlocked, and suspiciously peered inside in the spectrum of heat. After a split second, he slammed the door shut behind him and ran away from the Portal at top speed, and didn't have time to yell at his startled companions to get out of the way so he ended up tripping over Valen and landing on the surprised tiefling just as a startled beholder burst through the doors and hit Solaufein in the back with one of its rays.

Thankfully he was wearing the mirrored cloak, which had been retro-modified with fur courtesy of Rizolvir and now actually kept him warm. The eye-beam from the beholder poured off his back like water and rolled onto the ground near their feet, just as everyone else began to scatter into a battle formation.

Aribeth, perhaps forgetting that she was alive, at least for now - charged forward with her sword and slashed at the beholder as it emerged from the Yawning Portal's main entrance with a mighty cry. It swung its toothy maw in the air and tried to eat her, but she stabbed upward through its opened mouth toward its nose and brain. She broke its teeth against her armored gauntlet and cut through its flesh like butter with her starmetal sword, ripping a massive gash when she yanked it out. The beholder's eyes sagged and it howled in agony as it floated backward into the Inn.

Binne and Nathyrra leapt over the fallen Solaufein and Valen to join the battle in the destroyed common room of the Inn, and soon the beholder was sliced-and-diced into pieces. Though there were scuttling sounds in the shadows of the defunct Yawning Portal, they were the sounds of skittering mice, not enemies.

Solaufein stared down at the amused Valen, who hadn't even tried to push Solaufein off of him and had just accepted his fate with aplomb. Solaufein smirked down at him unapologetically and felt the urge to kiss him again when Valen shyly smiled back, but it wasn't the time or place for such things and so Solaufein stood to offer his hand to the downed tiefling. Valen took it and stood, letting go to brush his armor off.

"We're getting quite good at this, despite our tendency of tripping over each other into battle occasionally," Binne said blithely.

"Yeah! That beholder not even stands a chance!" Deekin agreed. "Deekin not even gets off a shot! Wow!"

'And I was spared the taste of beholder goop once more,' Enserric commented privately. 'Though I do find it strangely invigorating . . .' The sword trailed off. Solaufein had no room to comment on his vampiric sabre's tastes; Enserric seemed to prefer dark elven blood, after all.

"Mephistopheles must have torn through here up from the Underdark with his forces on his way to the Tower," Binne inferred suddenly with a bitter expression, as if the name of her dread birth-father left a bad taste in her mouth.

Solaufein cocked his head. "Tower?" He sought clarification.

"I forget you're new to Waterdeep," Binne chuckled darkly. "Blackstaff's haunt is the tallest structure in the city, besides the Eyrie on the Mountain. That's where we are. Anyone trying to conquer this dump is going to have to kill everyone there first, starting with Arunsun and the Silverhand. I hope Durnan and his wife and daughter made it out of here," she suddenly mused, looking around the dark Yawning Portal's common room with sorrow. Everything in it was destroyed, and bloodstains of assorted colors peppered the floorboards. There were, however, no bodies present beyond the dead beholder.

He wished that he had some kind of reassurance to offer her, but the morbid thought had crossed his mind as well. He knew that the Yawning Portal had been full of many adventurers of varying skill and deadliness, so he did not worry as much after them, and considered it possible that many had retreated to live another day. "Perhaps we will yet discover their fate," was all he could say to Binne. "Can you lead us to this Tower?" He requested of her, changing the subject.

Binne thought about it, and then nodded. "We might need to get to the Crawling Spider so I can get my bearings, but I can find it for us from there - it's on the Street of Swords, if I remember properly, and from there it's just a hop and skip to the Tower. Hopefully, it fared better than this place! Hate to think of that red bastard ruining my favorite taverns," she lamented.

"He left the Hellsbreath Tavern alone, at least," Valen spoke up.

"And never settled his tab," Binne pointed out. "But the Spider is mostly populated by misanthropic adventurers, so he would've had a hell of a time trying to start a fight or walk out on his bar tab there. Though if he took the Portal, who knows?" She shrugged, and her expression darkened further.

A scream pierced the night air outside that set them all on alert. Solaufein was first, the fastest out the door, and he led the way tearing down a nearby alley toward where he'd heard the high-pitched scream.

'Two pathetic life forms ahead, and something demonic,' Enserric alerted him, just as Nathyrra caught up with him.

Together, he and his dalninil by choice, if not blood, charged down the alley toward a black-and-gray death slaadi that was puttering to a stop ahead of them, looming over the small forms of a fleeing woman and child. A spell of burning hands erupted from the woman's hands toward the black slaadi before she fell back protectively around a bleeding and screaming child.

Solaufein and Enserric the Gray wasted no time. Though he lacked the spider-walking spell, he had fought in cities before and used the narrow walls to leap from and drew his sword in z'ress athalak grip, cutting a bloody arc through the death slaadi's arm and across his front side. He would have bisected his enemy completely if the slaadi hadn't tried to back away from the blow. Solaufein's leap came to a stop in front of the woman and child while the slaadi turned to flee into Nathyrra with only one operating arm.

Nathyrra stated a simple arcane phrase and executed a spell of flesh-to-stone, and Solaufein could not repress a shudder born of his memories of his time as a statue in Undrentide as the death slaadi's black flesh turned stony and hard, spreading across its torso and throat so rapidly that it could not even scream.

The others caught up to them by the time the spell had gone into full effect, and lowered their weapons awkwardly. "Were we too late?" Binne wondered.

"DR-DROW!" Came a differently toned, almost as high-pitched scream from right behind Solaufein that echoed painfully in his ears. He lowered his sword and turned on the panicked woman, and gave her a grimace.

"Must we do this dance, rivvil?" Solaufein's eyes rolled up to the smoky sky wearily. He had grown tired of the screams of the rivvin at his appearance, tired of concealing it, and already missed being in Lith My'athar - there at least, he felt like he was truly amongst kin. He had been stared at, sure, but met with no screams of blind terror. He prayed to Eilistraee that the Seer and her people continued to evade Mephistopheles' forces. "I am dhaerow," he said without enthusiasm, "and I am not here to kill or maim you. I will even heal you," he offered, lowering himself to the earth and extending a palm-upward hand.

The woman seemed not to understand his words at all and panicked, slapping his hand away and scrabbling away on the ground with her crying child.

"Some gratitude!" Binne chided, and stepped forward to handle matters, as both of the dark elves were at a loss. Solaufein looked to Nathyrra, who seemed equally puzzled by the scene before them, and it then occurred to him that Nathyrra had never been to the surface before, for unlike him, she had not engaged in raids against Tethyr, or ever wandered there. For a moment, she seemed truly lost.

"Listen," Binne rambled on, "Do you want to keep wandering around a city under siege with a frightened, wounded child hanging off your tit, or would you like some damned help, woman? Use your bloody brain-box and shut the other one, as Valen would say."

"What?" Valen seemed confused, but also amused.

The woman stared up at the cambion, seemingly terrified, but Binne's words seemed to sink in and she cautiously stopped trying to run away. She clung to the sobbing, scared child and looked at Solaufein again, more wary than frightened this time. "I will heal you, if you let me," Solaufein offered again, this time feeling more than generous.

She seemed caught in a dilemma, this dirty human woman. "I-I-I am not wounded," she stuttered out in accented, practiced Common that was not unlike Imoen's, "but Maggie here is—"

Solaufein nodded, understanding, and aimed his prayer of healing at the child. Eilistraee closed the little girl's wounds across her face and arms before his eyes, and he once more marveled at the power of his goddess. He stood, and offered a hand to the human woman still on the ground.

The little girl stopped crying and pulled away. She looked around, confused, and caught Solaufein's eye. She whimpered. "No, it's alright Mags," the woman assured her in a cooing voice, "it's alright, they're here to help. They're here to help. He fixed you up, free and everything!"

The girl, Maggie, sniffled. "They're not going to rape and kill and eat us like you said drow do?"

Solaufein frowned and Binne started to choke back laughter. Solaufein considered the age of his audience, and tried his best, having never really interacted with many young rivvin before. Most, like Maggie, were too terrified to ever approach him and ran away in terror. "It is good to be wary of my people, as there are some who would treat you this way," he tried to explain, "but I am not them."

"I'm Roxie," the woman on the ground suddenly offered. She took Solaufein's extended hand and stood with Maggie in her arms, and came up to just below Solaufein's height. She seemed to be an ordinary woman from her garb, but her spell-casting suggested at least moderate tutelage. "I'm an apprentice, this is my little sister. We're trying to get to our parents in the Tower, that's where they locked up all the nobles and tradesmen from the Market when it evacuated, I hear," she rushed through an explanation, and adjusted Maggie in her grips, who was now staring at Solaufein and Nathyrra in open curiosity.

"What a coincidence, we're headed that way," Binne chimed in. "I'm Binne, and the red-head's Valen," she explained. "That kobold back there being weirdly quiet is Deekin, and, er, Beth," she added somewhat dismissively, gesturing to Aribeth who awkwardly turned her head and pulled up her hood. "She's shy," Binne offered with an awkward smile.

"Are you adventurers?" Roxie wondered, looking hopeful. "Like the Hero of the North?"

"In a manner of speaking," Nathyrra spoke up, stepping forward cautiously and tucking some short white hair behind one of her ears. Roxie, to her credit, had calmed down significantly and although she regarded the small dark elven woman with caution, there was no fear in her gaze or stance and she did not retreat. "I am Nathyrra, and he is Solaufein. We are Eilistraeens, here to help the city," she summarized delicately.

"Oh! You're good drow, then!" Maggie at least seemed excited. "They say Eilistraee's the good drow moon goddess in the Morninglord's chapel!" It saved Solaufein a headache that at least Eilistraee had granted some of his people protection against the judgment of others. He sighed in genuine relief.

"You should know that the Castle, or rather Tower is where the action is, though," Binne said in Roxie's direction. "That's the reason we're headed that way, to put a stop to all of this."

"I don't even know what's happening, I just want to see our parents and make sure my mom's alright," Roxie put Maggie down on the ground, and the little girl stood on wobbling legs next to her sister. "Maybe they made it out when the guard was evacuating everyone, but Mags here was still at school across town and I had to get her. My father can rot really for all I care, but I have to get there for my mother's sake. Can I follow you lot? You seem to know what you're about, judging from the, uh, weaponry." Roxie's expression seemed torn over an internal dilemma, but eager.

Binne stared at her reflection in her scythe momentarily, hypnotized. "Oh, hmm?" She made a noise when she finally registered what Roxie had asked. "Well, as long as you're out of the way and the girl's not underfoot in a scrape, I don't have a problem with it, but it's really Solaufein's decision, I think," she said.

Roxie turned to look at Solaufein desperately. He eyed his abbin contemplatively, and noted that Deekin was silently sketching something in his notebook, when he made his decision. "Stay behind . . . Beth," he gestured toward the rear of their party, where Aribeth and Deekin were. Aribeth's expression indicated she had heard him and was alarmed by it. Aribeth pulled up her hood a little tighter around her face and ears. "We will protect you as best as we can, but you must stay away from any battles we engage in," Solaufein instructed carefully.

"That's for the best," Roxie agreed happily enough. "I only have a few emergency cantrips left, and Mags here is no good to anyone for anything."

"Hey!" Maggie objected.

"It's true," Roxie lectured.

"I draw good pictures!" Maggie defended.

"Oh? Deekin might be able to use your help then," Deekin piped up, stepping up to the conversation finally. To Roxie and Maggie's credits, they were not alarmed by the presence of the kobold bard, but they did seem highly confused by him. Maggie, for her part, got over this confusion as soon as Deekin started speaking patiently with her and not treating her like a child. "We gots lots of papers and charcoal. Deekin Scalesinger be the name, writings stories the game. Writings down all of our adventures be tiring work, and Deekin could use some help rememberings all the details!"

"Uh," was all Roxie could say for a moment, and then, "what?"

"Oh! You tell stories?" Was what Maggie understood from that. She seemed excited. "Will you tell me a story, mister? Roxie's stories are awful," she commented.

Roxie seemed offended, judging by the way her eyebrows shot up her forehead. "Wha—I have to make up new ones all the time for you because you get tired of the old ones!"

"Don't worry, Deekin knows lots of stories," the little bard offered with a toothy grin. "We can talk ons the way, and you can keeps an eye out for any griffons for me. Deekin is only hoping we see one up close!"

"I've seen one up close!" Maggie chimed and waddled over to the little bard excitedly. Her sister trailed after her, fretfully. "Father trains them!"

Deekin's eyes lit up, like he'd just seen his first royalty check. "Deekin lucky we runs into yous, then!"

"Father helps train them," Roxie corrected. "He's not the primary griffon trainer, mostly he's a farrier, but he works at the Peaktop Eyrie on the landward side of the mountain."

Binne's expression implied that Roxie indeed was very lucky to have found them. "Well, stick by Deekin, because now he'll talk your ear off," she suggested, and then she walked toward Solaufein. "Am I leading the way then?" She wondered, nervously, running her hands over the length of her scythe.

He smiled at her, and gestured before them, to the mouth of the alley. "Asanque," he said, and followed her lead for a change.

Though he could navigate a cave in the dark, Waterdeep was a little beyond Solaufein with its circuitous snake-like streets and hidden, stinking alleys. Binne led them on a strange path, as she stopped up their line to stare up into the smoky air and sniff at it periodically. Occasionally she would frown, and sometimes pleasantly hum, while Deekin, Maggie and Roxie rambled on about griffons while keeping up the rear with Lady Aribeth - whom was doing her best to avoid getting noticed, with her cloak's hood high up and her hair braided back.

Their first battle was with two Eryines, a hellhound, and three shuffling undead that threw themselves at their party with deafening screeches, alerting them to their nature - ghasts. It would have been a formidable battle had Valen not been with them, who made short work of the undead without even letting them get close, smashing them to gory pieces with his flail. Roxie, a little belatedly, covered Maggie's eyes, to the little girl's frustration. The Eryines were quickly banished by Binne with a pop of air, and the hellhound ran away yelping down the streets at such a pace that they could not be bothered to give chase.

"I didn't even need to be drawn!" Enserric commented, muffled from his sheath, but sounding strangely put-out. "Damn it all, what am I here for?"

"To be an exceptionally shiny beacon of justice?" Binne offered.

"And loquacious, you forgot that part," Enserric added.

Binne's amber eyes rolled skyward. "How could I? Oh, Enserric, you master amongst swords, you are the shiniest, most loquacious, most vivacious beacon of deadly justice that there ever was!"

"That's a little better," Enserric huffed in a pleased tone.

With his sword's acerbic personality appeased, Binne continued leading the way down what was apparently called the Street of Swords, according to her and their Waterdhavian companions, who supplied narration whenever they recognized their locale. Once upon this street, Binne picked up the pace, and it did not take long for her to guide them to her 'second favorite' Inn in the city, although this was a generous term as Binne corrected herself immediately that she did not have an exact 'favorite' but rather a series of taverns that she knew weren't 'total dog shit.' The Crawling Spider was apparently her latest haunt, since before she went down into Undermountain, where apparently she had found the adventurers that had originally accompanied her.

"Il'mubar orbb," Nathyrra translated from the sign, and chuckled. Solaufein felt some amusement with Nathyrra, expressed in murmured Ilythiiri between them, that they were finding themselves in a rivvil-run establishment that used a spider as its mascot.

"Oh, mother was never keen on this place," Roxie commented, a nervous tone to her voice. "Too many rough-types, she said."

"Obviously, that's why it's the best!" Binne grinned. There were two small but fogged-glass windows that indicated there were lights on inside, and the sounds of life stirring outside the squat black building. The black, nondescript door did not seem to be the entrance to a functioning inn and tavern as the stairs led downward, seemingly into a dungeon somewhere below. Binne wasted no time, rapping on the door three times, and then once. An eye-slot opened and a pair of beady black eyes from a rivvil male face peered out, assessed her as she grinned wildly with her tail thrashing nervously and asked to enter and promised she wasn't there to cause mayhem. The man grunted in some kind of affirmation. A few seconds passed when the eye-slot closed as a series of locks seemed to be undone, and then the door swung inward, welcoming them in with warm firelight.

The burly rivvil that had admitted them eyed them askance, but among them only Valen stopped to eye him back. Valen's tail emoted for him, thrashing initially in place before settling down after he seemed to internally decide after a few seconds that the other man wasn't a threat, and let his hand stray away from his flail at his side. After that Valen didn't seem to mind the suspicious glares the human man sent their way - none of them, however, were directed at Binne. Nathyrra and Solaufein stepped inside together and each took in the low, dimly lit ceilings, the plastered walls to make it seem more like rocks in a dungeon, the false spiders hanging on gossamer threads from the ceiling, the fake purple-tentacled hat-rack next to the door, the group of surviving adventurers and employees that were all staring at them, dumbfounded, even as they were surrounded by imitation dark elven decor . . . And neither of them could hold in their laughter. It started out as rasping chuckles that developed into full-on, bent-over laughter that the others did not engage in, but that Binne encouraged with a bright grin.

When they calmed down, Binne said, "See, I knew you'd appreciate this place properly. Not all people on the surface hate drow!"

"You let drow in here?!" Someone from the crowd of adventurers around the Crawling Spider's bar announced indignantly. Solaufein's eyes sought them out and identified them as a bulky male half-orc. "Fuck's the matter with you, Charley?"

"It's Bee," the bouncer behind them grumbled, having apparently recognized Binne well enough to let her in without questions.

"They're Eilistraeens! It's just me! Calm down, we're here to help, Blackstaff sent us," Binne assured everyone with a dismissive hand-wave. "Now where's Welly at?" She demanded to know, marching right over to the bar like she owned it.

Solaufein followed his a'temra leisurely, poking with amusement at the stuffed spiders that hung from the ceiling attached to silken threads.

"Coming, coming!" A feminine voice sing-songed from the back rooms. When the voice's owner emerged, she was revealed to be a short and voluptuous human female, whose laugh-lines about her face and lack of gray in her hair made her age completely indeterminate. She was dressed like any other peasant girl such as Roxie, albeit with more bosom on display, and greeted Binne with a wide grin and outstretched arms. "Oh, Bee! You're back! How long's it been?"

Binne stepped into the arms of the woman she had named 'Welly' and bent slightly so they could properly hug. "I was hoping you might tell me," Binne said. "I lost track of time in the Underdark."

"You went to the Underdark? Wait, wait, stop, let me get you a drink so you can tell me all about it," The strange new woman pulled back and whistled in awe, and then motioned Binne over to the bar where the patrons moved about to give her a seat. Solaufein watched with amusement as Binne sat down, looked at him, and then back at the bartender with a wide smile.

"This here's Solaufein," Binne introduced, "Solaufein, this is Welreeve Thalmit, the proprietor of this fine establishment."

Solaufein bowed obsequiously and took off his helmet. When he rose, he formally greeted, "Alulove."

Welreeve was infinitely pleased and grinned widely. "Oh, you've made my day, Bee," she gushed and poured a dark, thick ale into a clean mug for Binne without even asking, and passed it over free of charge with nary a word.

"Yep, only the real genuine article drow, right here," Binne went on, gesturing as if she were selling Solaufein to the woman, "wicked with that sword of his, and funny as hell too, once you get enough morimatra in him. Just don't ask him to dance for you."

"We're actually out!" Welreeve mourned. "But you're welcome to some once they reopen the gates and supplies start flowing," she promised, looking at Solaufein with a wink.

Solaufein didn't trust morimatra if it had been brewed upon the surface - the fermentation process was very specific and natural visible light polluted it - but he kindly said nothing and let Binne do the talking as she seemed to enjoy it. Binne sipped at her ale and addressed Welreeve, "We're not here to chat long, mind you, just trying to get a feel of what's happening up in the Castle Ward," she stated.

Welreeve nodded and poured another drink for a different customer down the bar, the half-orc that had been staring despondently at the bottom of his mug. She stared at the ceiling and brushed dark hair out of her green eyes contemplatively. "We haven't heard much since that small army of undead tore through there. Then, all the city's clerics were out in force handling that, chasing them down alleys and such. I lost half my patrons! Not because they died, but because they were clerics. But we've been busy here, haven't we, fellas? Keeping the peace in the neighborhood when we're not sloshed?" She looked down the line of her bar, full of armed and armored half-orc, dwarven, or human adventurers of all shapes, genders, and sizes, and almost everyone nodded and mumbled in affirmation or raised their glasses to the ceiling in solidarity. "The guard has been bringing by supplies here and there, so we haven't wanted for much. Luckily the undead and demons avoided my fine establishment!"

"Unlike the Portal," Binne sulked. "Any word on what happened to Durnan and his kin?"

Welreeve shrugged and started pouring another drink on tap. "Hard to imagine anyone making it out of that death trap alive, I mean they all came just pouring out of there in the first place," the bartender mused, oblivious of Binne's darkening expression, "but Durnan's survived worse!" She added, trying to cheer Binne up when she finally noticed the cambion's deteriorating mood. "Drink that, you'll feel better when you've hit the bottom," was Welreeve's elegant solution.

Binne obeyed instinctively and downed the ale in three massive gulps, and then burped loudly. "S'cuse me," she said in afterthought, which made Solaufein smile, and then looked back to Welreeve. "No sign of the big arch-devil leading the undead?"

Welreeve's eyes widened and there was a silence across the room as everyone processed this remark. People even paused in their drinking, although some resumed it within moments with increased enthusiasm upon hearing this news. Solaufein could not blame them. Had he not just escaped Cania with his abbin, he would feel the same. "There . . . There's an arch-devil leading them?" Welreeve was shocked, and her hands flew up to her collarbone of their own accord in fright.

Binne glanced around sheepishly at the attention her remark had received. "Eh, well, there won't be for long! We're here to sort that out," she summarized eloquently.

"Where've you been?" Welreeve demanded to know, looking stern.

"Enslaved in Undermountain, got saved, fucked off to the Underdark, died, and then went to Hell, in that order," Binne ticked off her fingers and stood to stretch. "Oh, and then we got back here," she added.

"You owe me a story," Welreeve insisted greedily.

"You can ask our bard about it later," Binne gestured to Deekin, who gave a friendly wave. Welreeve seemed startled but waved back enthusiastically, while the others milled about aimlessly and seemed alternately too drunk to think or care. "Just came for a quick chat, we'd best be off, aye?" Binne looked to Solaufein for confirmation.

He nodded and gestured to the door. "Vedaust," he said to Welreeve, who grinned at him appreciatively. He was flattered by the attention, even if it wasn't exactly desired. From his and Viconia's collective experiences, they had determined that rivvin either reviled his people with a fixating hatred for their reputation, or they loved them nearly obsessively for it. It seemed Welreeve was one of the latter.

"You better watch yourself, Welreeve might steal you right from under my nose," Binne warned half-heartedly on the way out, with a teasing smile.

Solaufein snorted derisively at the notion that he could be 'stolen.' "She is welcome to make attempt. It will take much more than lusting bar-maids to take me from your side." Binne's grin made no disguise of her pleasure at this remark.

They made their way out of the Crawling Spider, and Roxie and Maggie followed them. Binne frowned at the two girls following them out the door and noted aloud, "You'd be safer with Welly, you know."

"But then I would miss all the action!" Maggie complained, while Roxie shushed her.

"We still need to find our parents," Roxie said desperately.

"I really don't think Castle Ward in general is the place you want to be, but I'm not going to stop you from following us, so long as it's at a safe distance," Binne lectured. "Mayhap we'll find them along the way, with Tymora's grace."

"Stay behind me in the event of enemies," Aribeth supplied, still hooded, and shadowed though Solaufein doubted these girls would recognize her. He could understand her caution in regards to her infamy, but he simultaneously saw the infamy of dark elves as far greater than that of Aribeth de Tylmarande.

They ran into a motley assortment of enemies, nothing that their group could not swiftly handle. Most were undead that were easily cut down (or in Valen's case smashed into countless gory pieces), with a few demons commanding them that Binne easily banished. Most of the rivvin they encountered were deceased, and it did not occur to Solaufein that the young one need be sheltered from such things until he heard her cry. He lacked the patience to deal with it himself, so he allowed them to pause in their march so that Roxie could quiet her sister. Eventually the girl stopped crying, and it made Solaufein reflect on his own youth. He had never cried after that had been beaten out of him at an age too small for memory, not even while he was in pain, nor had he ever been surprised or even affected by the sight of carnage. It was daily living in the Underdark, and largely the lot of adventuring. That one might live without such sights, and freely shed tears, had simply never occurred to Solaufein - even amongst his previous companions, none of them had reacted as such to the sight of the slain. So different were the worlds that he and the rivvil girl walked in. It made him wonder what a dhaerow child might be like, when not raised in the Underdark by his Lloth-loving kin.

After this, Deekin kept pace with them and kept the little girl largely occupied with stories of their misadventures so far beginning first with Undrentide, though his oral version was more correct than the literary one. They trailed after Aribeth, keeping up the rear while Binne led the way scythe-first. With Nathyrra at his side and Valen close behind, they made a solid unit that Solaufein would have felt privileged to have at his side any war. He was certain that only the intervention of the divine could stop their march now, though wished not to 'tempt fate' as Binne called it, so Solaufein refrained for once from making this observation out loud. He recalled the last time he had said something similar, shortly before they had run into the mad demilich, and shuddered. He didn't want a repeat of their previous absurd luck.

"What's wrong?" Binne suddenly asked, arresting his attention.

He realized that he had not shared his thoughts out loud, and translated them carefully, "I am weary of encountering mad wizard after mad wizard. When will the next one appear?"

Binne's answering eye-roll and guffaw was epic. Then, her expression fell in quiet consideration. After a moment she said, "Well, Ol' Khelby is surely an arch-wizard of power, and I'm certain he'll be a might mad with me when we see each other next on account of my disappearing into the Underdark after you without so much as a scarce report back. But, I'm sure it'll be fine. He wouldn't have sent Sharwyn and Tomi and left that note if he didn't trust us to get the job done. So, he'll probably just lecture me. I've been lectured before."

"You know him well?" Solaufein wondered, curious as to their relationship.

Binne winced. "Not as such. He's met me maybe thrice, including the time he summoned me against me my will, also if you're not counting the class of his on transmogrififuckall that I entirely slept through."

"Transmogrification?" Nathyrra perked up and corrected the garble of language that emerged from Binne's mouth. "Taught by the Blackstaff . . . How could you sleep through such a fascinating subject?"

"Quite easily, as it turned out," Binne answered her. "I won't lie, the man's got a soothing voice built for lullabies."

They heard the cry of a griffon and looked up as three of them with riders crested through the clouds. Maggie pointed up at them in glee, despite her earlier tears, and Deekin cried up ahead worryingly, "Boss! We be missing the actions! We has to hurry!"

"I'm getting us there as fast as I safely can!" Binne objected and started to march off again, leaving the rest of them (except the quiet, tall Valen) to catch up with her with large steps as her taller legs made shorter work of the trip.

They did eventually make it, and with thankfully little incident, but the gates to Tower complex were sealed. They were of massive black iron, enchanted to seal magical energy both in and keep it out, and were towering over them between two shadowed, gray stone pillars that pointed up toward the turbulent sky. It reminded Solaufein of the gates and towers of Crossroads Keep, Aphra and Ammon Jerro's base during the war, but these towers did not merely loom over them for aesthetic effect. A veritable small army of guards stood outside it with spears and full plate armor, each of them covered in black undead gore and worse. Solaufein looked to Binne and wondered internally if the news about their party would come better from a dark elven mouth, or devilish. Roxie and Maggie solved his internal dilemma by marching up to one of the guards immediately and demanding, not even asking, that the door be opened so they can make it through.

Aribeth, their unofficial assigned guardian, shadowed the girls and drew her cloak tighter about herself. Solaufein and Binne followed, curiously trailed by the others.

"B-but our family is in there!" Roxie cried out despondently and gestured at the gateway while Maggie milled around her feet, sounding and looking upset by all the noise.

"No one in or out, that's the Lords' & Ladies' orders!" The guard barked back. He sounded as though he had recited this line too many times, with the ease and boredom it rolled off of his tongue.

Binne stepped in, and the guard stepped back because she towered over him. For the first time Solaufein noted that she towered over most rivvin - Solaufein just happened to be the height of a slightly-above-average rivvil. "The Lords sent us to fight off the invasion," Binne summarized. "Look, you can go in there, ask Blackstaff his bloody self, tell him we made it out of the Underdark and we're here to party. Oh, and tell them Binne sentcha, the warlock gal with the horns."

"Warlock?" The helmed guard's expression was disguised by his helmet, but the tone of his voice was not, and he was distinctly displeased by the sound of the word 'warlock' as it made its way out of his mouth.

Binne seemed to sense this, and internally debate hitting the guard with the butt end of her scythe, judging by the way she was sizing him up.

Before Valen could step in to her rescue as he had been prone to do, Solaufein decided to step in and brought out his Eilistraeen sigil from beneath his armor. "We are Eilistraeens, here to heal, and help," he summarized for the guard's benefit and held up his sword-crescent amulet to the flickering light.

"Oi!" One of the other guards called over and joined them with clanking footsteps. "Let 'em through if they're suicidal, it's not our problem," he said. "Our forces could use the help. No more civilians, though," he added, eying Roxie and Maggie. Roxie's eyes teared up and the guard stuttered out an explanation: "Look, everyone that made it inside is safe inside the Tower, but then the demons showed up! There's no way to make it to the Tower alive. We have to leave it in the hands of our arch-wizard."

Roxie and Maggie looked thoroughly affronted. Binne turned to them with a sad, but final look. "Well, don't get up to any trouble while we're gone. You'll be alright on your own if you head back to the Spider. I feel like if you hung out with this crowd, you'd end up demon fodder for sure," she added, looking askance at the guards assembled around them. She was decidedly unimpressed by their display, as was Solaufein. Armored and armed with only spears, there was very little these guards could do except repel people from entering or leaving. The few guards who had heard them seemed offended and narrowed their eyes at Solaufein's group through the slots of their helms; Solaufein knew he could throw a dagger between the gaps in their armor far faster than they could assemble any kind of defense and wouldn't have trusted then with their rivvin's life.

'Ah, there goes Solaufein, adopting vermin again,' Enserric cut into his thoughts with wry amusement. He couldn't be upset with the sword for the observation, it was valid. He wasn't sure when or even why he'd thought of the girls as belonging to them, but since rescuing them, he cared about their wellbeing.

"But, our dad—" Roxie began, but Binne cut her off.

"None of that, we'll make sure he's alright for you and send him your way when we find him. Your ma, too," she added. "What's her name?"

"Rose Burton," Roxie reported. "And don't worry about my father, he can suck an egg."

"Roxie!" Maggie objected. Roxie snorted and did not design to answer this objection from her sister.

Deekin and Binne waved goodbye to the enthusiastically waving girls as they departed through the opening gates to Blackstaff's Tower complex. The shimmering enchantment around them seemed to falter for a moment, and then reconnect with itself as the massive black gate's pulleys rolled inside the tall towers, pulled by the guards, and the door bifurcated open welcoming them into a war-zone.

The gates led to a wooded courtyard with massive, once-blooming, recently on-fire trees. Bodies were strewn everywhere, combatively arrayed - demon, mage, civilian, and guard alike were amongst the recently deceased. Ahead of them were the sounds of battle and flashes of magefire. A series of recently on-fire trees sheltered a paved path that led to the looming spiral Tower, and as they stepped in past the doors and heard them close behind them, Binne said, "Well, we're in it now. He knows we're here."

"Mephistopheles?" Valen queried. "I don't think he expected us to escape."

"No, Arunsun, the arsehole," Binne bitterly replied. "He knows everything that happens past the gates. He knows we're here. I expect we'll see him soon enough."

Griffons swooped down overhead in pairs through the Tower's magical field, shimmering in the air as they dove toward enemies unseen and sheltered by the trees. Their riders lifted shining spears into the air and their leonine roars and battle cries blended into the clamor of voices, clangs, and snarls. Above them, the form of a tall green celestial - Jo, the Sleeping Man, as Binne had named him - appeared and swooped down toward the battle to wage war as he had promised, finding the heart of the action. Solaufein shared one last look of solidarity between him and his abbin, before unsheathing the chuckling Enserric and running full-speed toward the battle.

The first enemy to meet its end was a slaadi. He cut it down swiftly in its surprise, its blue flesh falling apart in pieces as he already spun on his heel to move onto the next, dodging one blow from an undead armored skeleton and ripping it apart with Enserric in moments. He felt battle become a dance then, as Eilistraee's grace moved him - or perhaps as Nathyrra and the Seer believed, it had always been inside of him. His will and Eilistraee's became divinely one as he engaged in the most vital of her rituals - the Sword Dance. Though he had sworn to Binne multiple times, and to the Seer that he did not dance, he could not deny the similarities between combat and dancing in terms of footwork.

Instinct moved him more than anything as he cleaved through everything in his path, moving in synchronicity with the others. Valen caught up first and cut a gory swath of his own with Devil's Bane, and Nathyrra was not far behind him, moving in and out of Solaufein's shadow as they cut through their unprepared enemies. Aribeth destroyed the enemies before her with mighty, expert swings of her shining sword and let out a fearless cry that seemed to intimidate the enemies around her into stumbling, making them quick work for her. Eldritch spell-fire and screeching bardic song rained down all around them, and soon enough, they had made a clear path in front of them toward the ranks of Mephistopheles himself.

He towered the same way, much as he did in Solaufein's reverie and memory. Cloven-hoofed and mighty with a great trident in his hands, he was at least two or three times Solaufein's size. Solaufein had survived and even killed worse; he was unimpressed. Mephistopheles did not notice their party cutting their way through his ranks to him at first, surrounded by his balor and pit fiend lieutenants. When they began to take notice of them, however, Mephistopheles' gaze turned upon them. Initially, Solaufein had noticed the commonalities between the arch-devil and Binne - both the same hue of skin and eyes, true, but there were even subtle differences therein. In Mephistopheles' gaze was nothing but cold disdain and futile anger; Binne could melt Solaufein with a glance, such was her warmth. Truthfully, they had nothing at all in common.

Their enemies stood at bay from them, now wary to charge ahead with the fear of violent death and dismemberment moving them to inaction. Slowly, as the ranks pressed back, Solaufein stepped forward, lowering his sword. He kept his gaze on the arch-fiend, never wavering. Mephistopheles, sensing his intention to treat, began to advance through his own ranks as they closed behind him. Solaufein wondered how many of the undead had been the lost souls of Cania, and felt a chilling anger still him.

Several things became clear in the moment that Mephistopheles came to stand before Solaufein. One, was that Solaufein had certainly freed the Reaper, and that Mephistopheles knew for certain how he had done so. Two, was the knowledge that they both had True Names in their minds, and that both of them knew the True Name of the Knower herself. The only advantage that Solaufein had was that Mephistopheles could not know for certain that Solaufein knew his Name as well.

"We meet again," Mephistopheles greeted in his rumbling baritone. "Your mortals are more resourceful than I could have imagined."

"I am pleased to surprise you," said Solaufein. He did not wish to waste time listening to this villain's reasoning, or give him time to put in motion further machinations, so he uttered the name that the Knower had given him - "Thra'axfyl the Ambitious," and it slithered off of his tongue and constricted the air for a moment, before letting go.

Mephistopheles was stewing in rage, but had no other choice but to obey whatever Solaufein commanded of him. "What . . . Would you have of me?" He growled out in rage.

Binne started laughing uproariously, perhaps taking pleasure in the defeat of her birth-father, as anti-climactic as it was. The others kept their weapons drawn and were poised to strike anything at a moment's notice. Solaufein was proud of them, but he was even more proud of the fact that they had - with this simple admission from Mephistopheles - won their battle.

Solaufein turned back to Mephistopheles and commanded of the arch-devil, "You take your army, you will return with them to Cania forever, and forget every True Name you have ever known. You will never set foot upon Prime again—"

"Solaufein, look out!" Binne suddenly cried out, and he was being jerked backward and away from the scene, back toward the gates. Behind him was a great crash that he nearly missed, but he was glad he did not.

Out of the air, wielding a shining zalantar lance inscribed with glowing Mystran runes was none other than Khelben Blackstaff himself - for it could only be him, with the flowing battle-robes and bearded visage and glowing green eyes - riding a griffon out of the clouds. He came to a dive-bomb that nearly crushed Mephistopheles, who attempted to dodge but was unsuccessful and instead got clawed by the griffon's talons. The arch-mage took a great swing with his lance and pierced Mephistopheles through, and a silence fell through the ranks of his small army.

"Is that the bloody Blackstaff riding a griffon? With a zalantar spear in his bloody hands?" Binne blurted out, questioning the air more than anyone specific.

Valen decided to answer her, "That's definitely an arch-wizard on a griffon with a spear. Did he—?"

"Use us as a distraction so he could spear the big M right in the gut — that's gotta sting for daddy dearest!" She scoffed and erupted into nearly hysterical laughter. "ROT IN HELL MEPHISTOPHELES! HAHAHA!" She shouted and threw a rude gesture to the stumbling arch-devil.

"Should we . . . ?" Valen trailed off, not finishing his thought.

Binne finished it for him once her laughter died down, "Tell him that we already banished him and he was on his way out? Nah, let Blackstaff take credit for the kill. He'll get all the fame, he's used to it."

"We did all the work, though," Valen pointed out.

"He probably knows, the nosy, scrying bastard," Binne scoffed. "I expect we'll have a long chat once this is all over. Was that a sight to see, though! Glad we got you out of the way in time," she added, looking down to Solaufein who was still seated on the ground and watching the griffon tear into Mephistopheles.

"Deekin just be so happy that he be alives to sees this day!" The little kobold bard sniffled, wiping happy tears from his eyes.

Binne smiled down at him. "I'm happy we made it in time for you to see the griffons in action," she said.

"Deekin is going to make this the best scenes in the whole book! This be GREAT material for big finale. Though Deekin thinking it be better of Boss be the one ridings the griffons in the story-version," Deekin rambled.

"Mzilst ssin'urne xunor," Solaufein discovered himself blurting, as Mephistopheles disappeared with a pained and frustrated cry, and his army with him, quite suddenly in a flash of light that - for once - didn't blind Solaufein completely after. The griffon, no longer with an enemy to claw, settled down with Khelben Blackstaff at its reins and stilled in its rage. Overhead the circling celestial that had been picking off forces landed a close distance to them and shook the black blood off of his sword onto the ground.

Solaufein accepted Binne's hand to stand upright after a few moments of staring, and once he did he took a deep breath and looked up at the sky, scanning the thick clouds in search of the moon. It poked through the smoky clouds for a moment, and he smiled. Once the light of the moon was once more sheltered from his sight, Solaufein's eyes came to rest on the apex of the Tower before them. Several stories high, it rose into the air in spiraled black stone glory, winging out with great glass structures that at one point must not have been broken, and would have been magnificent. His eyes scanned the structure and noted gouges, and parts where stone had been broken off, but it was merely cosmetic damage - not structural. There was no visible door nor windows, but the walls of the Tower were scorched and blackened as Mephistopheles had no doubt attempted to break entry with hellfire. Mephistopheles had been entirely unsuccessful in his assault of the Blackstaff's Tower. This thought pleased Solaufein and made him want to thank the arch-wizard for his support.

He left his abbin behind, nodded to Jo as if to say, 'we'll talk later,' and approached the Blackstaff himself, as he was sliding off of his mounted griffon. Khelben Arunsun's glowing green eyes nearly stopped Solaufein in his place with their striking brightness, but the glow faded abruptly as the Blackstaff's stance became much more relaxed. He seemed to recognize Solaufein and motioned him forward.

"Alulove, arch-mage Arunsun," Solaufein officiously greeted, for he had no desire to offend this man - who had been a benefactor on his mission, despite this being their first real meeting. He knew Aphra had met him at one point, and that the meeting had turned sour, but did think of Khelben as the sort of man to hold that against him.

"Solaufein, we meet at last," Khelben greeted. His accent was polished, much as Aphra's was, and it made him wonder if they had common schooling. "Imoen wrote fondly of you. Call me Khelben."

"You have heard from her?" Solaufein could not suppress his curiosity.

"Here and there, short anecdotes only. Nothing of her larger adventures, and she has become immune to scrying, unfortunately," Blackstafff answered. "I am certain she would tell me if she were in severe danger or required aid. As for her sister and brother, I have heard nothing, been able to scry nothing. It is worrisome, but other matters have kept me occupied."

Those answered Solaufein's follow-up questions, and he sighed. The others had approached at this time, and Deekin was the first to get there as he ran on his stubby legs to catch up with his Boss. He made a pleased noise and approached the amused Blackstaff, crying, "You, sirs, made little Deekin's whole day! Whole life, even! That was better ending than little Deekin could ever hopes for! Thank you, sirs!"

"You are welcome, little one," Khelben said, "though I am certain he was already in the process of being banished when I struck him, was he not?"

"So you WERE watching us! Nosy!" Binne marched up and complained. Solaufein's palm instinctively hit his face as Binne blundered, "You're a nosy, scrying wizard, you are!"

"All I could do was watch from afar, and inform your family that you were alive," the Blackstaff supplied haughtily. "Now, if you will all excuse me, I have a Tower to repair. You may find some of your allies inside. The Tower will open for you."

"Oh," Binne deflated, and blinked. "Well, you and I, we're having words later!" She shouted after him, shaking a fist in his general direction as the Blackstaff walked away.

Khelben gave her a vaguely dismissive wave as he turned away to approach a woman who had made her way to him from the other side of the battle, which made Binne grunt in displeasure. Khelben and the woman, who was human but elf-like with long silver hair bound back dressed in blue battle-robes, raised their hands together as they met. The fallen stones began to float back up to their place, and the shattered glass repaired itself seamlessly. The wall even un-blackened, and a door appeared inside as Solaufein approached it and made his way into the Tower's foyer.

"Who be shiny lady?" Deekin wondered as he trailed after Solaufein.

"That'll be Laeral Silverhand - they say she's the daughter of Mystra herself," Binne answered him.

"And yet they still needed our help to banish Mephistopheles? I'm not impressed by these god-touched Primes," Valen scoffed.

"We were uniquely predisposed to stop Mephistopheles, by discovering and freeing the imprisoned Knower," Nathyrra said. She had been silent during their encounter, but present, and watchful. "It is possible they could have done the same in our circumstances, but there was only so much they could do to help us while also defending themselves and others from Mephistopheles' forces. An arch-devil would be a fearsome fight for anyone, god-touched or not."

"And yet, you succeeded where all the others could not," Jo intoned as he approached them, almost silent on his massive feet.

"Thanks for coming, Jo!" Binne greeted on their behalves. "That went a lot better than I could've hoped for."

"You succeeded, and there was damage, but it can be repaired," said Jo.

"What's next for the Sleeping Man?" Binne wondered.

The green celestial stared up at the sky ponderously. When he looked down, it was to Binne that he addressed, "You gave me the name of my true love. And thanks to you, I am no longer certain that I will find her in Cania, nor she me."

"So it's back to Mount Celestia for you?" she wondered, sounding a little sad.

"No," Jo decided firmly. "I will not find my fortune there. You mortals have given me something Celestia did not - faith in my own fate. I wish to find a way, to walk as a mortal amongst your kind. I will seek out my true love, and no longer wait for her to appear in the Betrayer's Hell. For why would a betraying stranger think to love me?"

It was a surprisingly complex realization for the man who had taken a nap for centuries, presumably because he was bored waiting for his 'true love' to arrive. Solaufein was not certain still that he believed in such concepts but could not deny what had happened thus far. Nathyrra spoke up then, getting the Formerly-Sleeping-Man's attention, "We wish you luck on your quest," she announced, "and are in your debt for your aid."

"No, nothing is owed. I am free," Jo smiled, and began to plane-shift. Deekin waved at him as he disappeared, and he waved back as if he were surprised by the action.

They all went silent when they stepped inside the fabled Tower. Of them all, Valen was the most immediately put-off by their surroundings, as the Tower opened into a much larger structure than it appeared to be on the outside, and it closed them in as soon as they stepped inside. His expression twisted into immediately distrust with his surroundings and he was visibly on edge, with his hand around his flail's grip. Aribeth, perhaps seeing Valen's guarded posture, mimicked it, though she remained silent as a shadow. A massive central stairwell connected the stories that he'd seen on the outside, but floating doors and arches that led to presumably magically accessible rooms meandered through the upper tower seemingly of their own accord. The interior was made of the same black stone, but false doorways that led to illusory backgrounds gave the area more comfortable light and strange scenery than Solaufein had expected from its austere interior.

"Helloooo?" Binne called out to anyone in earshot. It seemed there was no one immediately visible inside.

There was a shuffling from the floors upstairs, and then a familiar head poked over the railing. "Grovel?" A painfully familiar voice called out.

"Bloody Hells, this guy," Binne sighed.

Valen squinted. "Is that . . . A goblin?"

"Grovel hears people!" The little goblin repeated this several times, louder and louder, and then disappeared from view briefly and emerged with a more human face that Solaufein recognized.

"Durnan!" He called out, in relief. "How fares you and your family?"

Durnan's eyebrows raised as he leaned further over the railing. "By my beard, is that you, Solaufein? And Binne! We thought you dead for sure!"

"Deekin be here too," Deekin grumbled.

"We thought the same of you and your kin," Binne shot up.

"We escaped, a few scrapes but the Inn suffered worse," Durnan answered her. "How fares the battle?"

"Over," she said. "We won! Arch-devil's back in Hell where he belongs, spread the word!"

Durnan and Grovel disappeared, and in a matter of minutes, a crowd of people appeared before them led by Durnan and his wife and daughter, with the little goblin trailing after them and clinging to Durnan's boot in anxiety. Durnan seemed to have accepted his fate about this and chose not to mind the goblin, although he drew a few stares.

Solaufein recognized a few adventurers from the Inn that had gathered, but several faces were missing. The two he had resurrected - the half-orc Daelan and the elven Linu - were amongst those who survived, and he knew Sharwyn and Tomi would be grateful to hear the news, should they have made it out of the Underdark successfully. Solaufein, with his abbin, began directing people out the entrance he had emerged from - the door that had seamlessly opened and closed had opened again to let the survivors that had evacuated most of the Castle Ward's streets and market out.

"ROSE BURTON?" Binne's bright, booming voice rose over the crowd as she tried to find the mother of the girls they had left at the gates. She had to call out the name several times before Rose apparently heard and started moving through the crowd to get to Binne.

"Ah, yes? I-I am Rose," a half-elven woman stuttered out. Her facial structure was similar to Roxie's, but her flaming red hair and pointed ears were decidedly different. "Can I help you?"

"Oh, yes, your daughters are out by the apprentice's gate," Binne informed her. "We found Roxie and Maggie in an, well, I'm sure they can tell you. They're safe, uh, last we checked."

"You have? Oh, stars of the Sphere!" Rose teared up and threw her arms around Binne unexpectedly. Rose seemed to second-guess herself the moment that she did, and let go, looking embarrassed. "Sorry! Sorry, I just—"

"You should go to them," Binne patted her arm and told her with a smile, and Rose ran off.

When the Tower was completely vacated, Solaufein and his abbin looked out on the battle-scarred courtyard. The trees were visibly coming back to life, un-blackening almost as if time itself were running in reverse, and they bloomed again with bright white and fragrant flowers. Bodies and blood remained, still needing to be sorted and identified, the only evidence now that anything terrible had happened. They stepped out into the night air, and saw Khelben and Laeral putting the Tower back together still, touching the plants, repairing walls, levitating stones and glass to put everything back in order. Binne was the first to head toward the apprentice's gates that they had entered from, and she paid no mind to the corpses beyond stepping around them as she made her way. She slung her scythe back over her shoulder and took up a brisk pace, eager to get out of the battle zone and put everything behind her. Solaufein followed, ready for whatever came next now that he was free of the Reaper's piece and back to something resembling normality.

The girls at the apprentice's gate were relieved enough to be in tears, and both of them hugged Binne desperately despite how visibly awkward it made her feel. Their father, apparently still at the Peaktop Eyrie throughout the battle, made his way down eventually and was treated to a series of relieved hugs from his wife and Maggie and a yelling match with his daughter. Solaufein decided you couldn't have paid him enough to care about rivvil drama, though it did amuse him faintly. They decided to follow Durnan back to the Inn, and left the reunited family there.

With the Yawning Portal mostly destroyed and Halaster still apparently nowhere to be seen or heard from, Durnan approached the Blackstaff outside and essentially harangued the arch-mage into repairing his Inn with magic. Durnan's logic was that they needed someone to man the entrance and keep it sealed, to avoid more beholders popping up in the streets, and Khelben really couldn't argue with that logic. The arch-wizard repaired the entrance to Undermountain first, and then the Inn itself - boards, stones, and furniture flipped through the air and up into their fixed places, as nails and screws that had been pried loose went back into their slots. The Blackstaff, once the job was done, disappeared through a portal presumably to repair the rest Waterdeep with his lover, Lady Silverhand, and left Durnan, his kin, the surviving adventurers, and Solaufein's group in front of the no-longer-defunct Portal.

"I claim the wedding suite!" Binne was the first to announce, and shot forward into the repaired Inn to take a look inside for herself.

Durnan chuckled. "She's welcome to it, as are the rest of you - welcome to any rooms you desire to claim, obviously no charge," he addressed Solaufein. Solaufein nodded in gratitude. "It seems like you've been through quite the adventure, since you last descended into Undermountain."

"You don't know the half of it," Valen grumbled from behind Solaufein, and he decided to go inside at a more ponderous pace. Aribeth scurried after him not long after, perhaps wary of the attention she might receive from the Neverwinter adventurers who were more likely to recognize her.

"What word do you bring of Sharwyn, and Tomi?" Linu stepped forward, her high voice as clear as a spring. They paid no mind to Aribeth. "I admit when they left through Blackstaff's portal, we weren't sure if we'd see them again."

"The last we know," Nathyrra answered when Solaufein hesitated to do so. "They were in the company of Malla Seer. Eilistraeens," she clarified upon seeing the confusion and concern on Linu's face. "We were battling a common enemy in the Underdark. It is . . . It is a long story," she eventually summarized as she internally puzzled over just how to say what she wanted to say. "They should be near the surface soon, there is an entrance outside of Waterdeep some leagues away."

Linu, to her credit, did not balk in the face of another dark elf and seemed to notice their demeanor and Eilistraeen sigils more than the hue of their skin. The half-orc Daelan beside her, despite his fierce appearance, seemed calm as well and accepted them readily. It was very different from the suspicious stares the half-orc had initially given Solaufein, upon their first encounter in the Yawning Portal. "You owe us a tale," Daelan said with a slow, toothy grin.

"A tale best told over much wine and food," Solaufein said.

Durnan clapped Solaufein on the back in an unexpectedly friendly gesture. "We'll see if the Blackstaff repaired my supplies, as well as my Inn, and get you situated. You've earned a rest, after today's victory," he said.

"I'll get the fire going!" His daughter Tamsin shot out with a hand in the air, and she ran inside the Inn gleefully. Her mother, Mhaere, followed her with a smile and gave Durnan a fond touch on the way in. Mhaere, a paladin of Tyr armed for battle, started to remove her pauldrons as soon as she stepped into the door. Solaufein vaguely wondered how Aribeth would feel meeting a current paladin of the god she abandoned but had no room in his heart at the moment for sympathy toward faith-crises.

Though the Yawning Portal was a bit depleted, the Blackstaff had thought to repair what goods were still inside, which included many smashed bottles of wine and spoiled or ripped open bags of rice and food. The city's energy rejuvenated with the banishment of Mephistopheles and his army, and the celebration of their victory kicked off immediately with the spreading of the word, cleanup, and opening of the gates. People began to pour into the Inn to see if Durnan was still alive and operational, and be plied with alcohol and food. Durnan grumbled and out loud considered closing his doors, but one stern look from his wife was enough to quiet him.

Solaufein eyed the stairs that led to the rooms and absently wondered what state of undress Binne was in at that moment. Before he could wander up to catch her in the act, Valen suggested oddly tentatively, "Should we find the Seer? Nathyrra, you said the Underdark entrance to the surface opened up leagues away from here."

Nathyrra nodded, and her brows pinched in concentration as she struggled to recall specific details from memory. "Seven leagues, though depending on the speed of the march, they may have already made it out of the surface and could be near. It is difficult to say, when I do not know how much time has passed upon this plane of existence as compared to our time in Cania."

"Cania?" Durnan happened to overhear, and his brows knitted together in concern. Not realizing he was mimicking Welreeve, Durnan barked out, "Solaufein, just where in the Hells have you been?"

"Hell," Solaufein said cheekily. "Hell is where we have been."

"The eighth one, specifically," Nathyrra corrected gently.

"Ooooh, does Deekin have a tale for you, sirs!" Deekin chirped up and stepped forward to Durnan. "It all starts when we goes down into Undermountain to frees Halaster and meet nice drow lady along the way . . ." Solaufein tuned out the rest of what Deekin said, it being a general summary of the events that had gotten them there with a few dramatized fights along the way, and minus a few particularly traumatic details that Deekin cared not to recall. Instead, Solaufein turned his attention to the stairs and was about to ascend them, when Daelan the half-orc returned from the wine cellar with several bottles of vintage wine from his hands - including morimatra - and Solaufein decided (a little reluctantly) that Binne could wait for a bit.

Daelan grinned toothily at Solaufein as he approached appraisingly, and held still while Solaufein carefully picked a black-as-night glass bottle of morimatra from his arms. "There's about ten more of those downstairs near the well," Daelan confided.

Solaufein mentally instructed Enserric to shrink to a pointed dagger, and used the edge to pry open the bottle and sniff at its contents. It was heady, and heavenly, and the right coloration on his finger which indicated it had not been terribly polluted by light. He was surprised the Valsharess' forces had not stolen and devoured it all. Daelan walked away to Linu's direction and Solaufein turned back to his abbin, pleased. "There is enough to stay intoxicated for days," he mused aloud.

"Is that morimatra?" Aribeth suddenly queried. Solaufein was a little startled by the question, since she had said nothing for so long, but he nonetheless nodded. "I've never had any," she admitted, "but I have heard many horror stories of its effects."

"It's more mild than you'd expect," Valen told her. Then he smiled ever so gently, warming Solaufein's insides, and added, "You can see for yourself, now that you're alive and no longer sworn to a god's service."

Aribeth smiled back within the confines of her hood, which shadowed her features and revealed only her mouth. "I should like to, I think. I only hope Daelan and Linu do not recognize me . . ."

"As long as Deekin is tactful, they shouldn't," Valen said with a shrug. "But, you never know with the little one. You're with us, either way."

Aribeth seemed consoled by Valen's admission and gave a small smile. Solaufein took a swig out of the open bottle and passed it over to Valen, who sniffed at it for a moment before taking a draught himself. He tried to pass it to Nathyrra, but she politely declined and made her way over to Deekin, and he offered it to Aribeth instead.

"Bottom's up, I suppose," mused Aribeth and she knocked back a significant swig. She coughed a few times after swallowing, but seemed to tolerate it well, and handed it back to Solaufein.

A stream of adventurers and locals swung by the Yawning Portal, mostly to see if Durnan was still alive and if their taps were operational. Deekin was at the center of a crowd of positive, indulgent attention, although most did not seem to believe the wild tale that was spinning from his mouth of the summarized version of their adventures. He got to showcase his drawings and ask Nathyrra for corrections when he could not recall things, and overall seemed to be bathing in the limelight. Aribeth, Valen, and Solaufein parked themselves by the fire and shared the bottle of morimatra amongst them in differently sized glasses, largely unnoticed and avoided by the crowd.

Solaufein basked in the familiar and airy feeling that morimatra gave him and minded not the time that had passed, or the pulsing, weaving crowd. He did note that Valen seemed particularly on edge, and wondered aloud, "What troubles you, abbil?"

Valen's lip twisted. "Binne should be here."

Solaufein had wondered at her absence but suspected that it was perhaps that she had fallen asleep upstairs after getting cleaned up, the way she had wanted to. It did feel wrong to be partaking in celebrations and libations without her, however, and he nodded. "She is in the last room at the end of the second story hall. See if you can summon her with promises of mead and dancing," he said.

Valen nodded, put down his drink on the table next to them and marched on over to the stairs. Everyone in front of the tiefling simply parted ways to avoid him entirely, which Solaufein couldn't help but chuckle at. Valen had an entirely well-earned menacing aura that he wasn't afraid to take advantage of.

Valen did not return for several moments, so Solaufein stood up to go and find him. He passed the bottle to Beth and said, "Alulove," in parting. She gave him a firm nod and held it between her legs with both hands as Solaufein wandered in the direction that Valen had disappeared in.

Solaufein found Nathyrra instead, or the other way around, when she snaked an arm around his and redirected him to a quiet corner. He opened his mouth to question her but instead found himself being handed an object. It was a small blue-glass bottle that he recognized, instinctively, from his youth. It was of dark elven make, and unmistakable judging from its color and tone - a type of specialty, unscented oil brewed for pleasure chamber attendants, to ease sexual matters. Solaufein was at first confused - as Nathyrra had never displayed a sexual interest in anyone, and he yet thought her too young for such affairs. Then he recalled the tea that she had purchased from the d'jinn for Binne, and looked down at the bottle in his hands with understanding. "Thank you," he said to her in Ilythiiri.

She nodded and smiled, replying in their mother tongue. "Another d'jinn purchase. You would be surprised what he has in stock. I have more tea, for Binne, in the morning."

"I appreciate you," Solaufein assured Nathyrra and she smiled a bit wider.

"Go to them, dalninuk," she indicated toward the stairs. "I will watch for Aribeth and Deekin. Celebrate, Solaufein."

He nodded and took his belt off after a moment's thought, handing off Enserric to Nathyrra who took the sword with unexpectedly wide eyes. The sword objected for a moment, 'You better not be abandoning me,' perhaps recalling his time in the skeleton's lap for so long, but Solaufein rolled his eyes and promised his opinionated sword that he would return for him.

"You trust me with him," Nathyrra marveled in their mother tongue.

"Of course," Solaufein said dismissively. "I will retrieve him from you later. I desire not his thoughts and mine to be intertwined, for now," he added with a dark look to the sword.

"I'll take this as a vacation," Enserric said, muffled only a little from the sheath. "Go, wielder - celebrate like a proper libertine! Tame those demons!" Enserric crowed.

Nathyrra strapped the sword to her body. "I will look after him," she promised.

Solaufein nodded and took off toward the stairs, pocketing the small round bottle in one of his potion-pouches. He ascended the stairs slowly as the world spun, ever so slightly, upon its axes. A haze of red and green blurred in his vision until he realized it was just Valen lit brightly by torchlight, looking stunning as usual. Valen's expression was one of intense concern, which put Solaufein's brain into a state of alert. He sobered up slightly as he realized that something could, in fact, be wrong.

"I was just about to find you," said Valen worriedly. "She won't come out of the room. I think she's crying, or at least it sounded like she was." His expression bitterly twisted. "I should have—"

Solaufein put a hand on Valen's shoulder, to ease his thoughts. "We will go to her, and pull her out of misery," he vowed. Valen nodded after considering this for a moment, and followed Solaufein back up the stairs to the bedroom at the far end of the hall.

Solaufein once more was reminded of his and Binne's first meeting - or rather the first night after she had knocked on his door. He felt imbalanced without her to even him out, even with the strength of Valen's presence at his side. He needed Binne, in ways she didn't understand - and in ways he had only barely begun to comprehend. Life was somehow emptier without her filling up the space at his side.

The dark elf knocked on the door twice, feeling a bit like his and Binne's positions had reversed since that first night they had made love in that very room. He heard a shambling on the other side, and something falling to the ground followed by cursing. "Binne," he called out.

"Wait! Just wait, I'm coming!" Binne called out and cursed up a small storm as she put something in order. After a few moments she opened the door with one hand and wiped at her face with the other. "S-Solaufein? Oh. Uh, h-how long have you two been standing there? What did you hear? I mean, come in," she offered after opening the door a bit wider. She looked more composed in their presence; Solaufein knew it was a mask, and respected it for now.

"We didn't wait long," Valen assured her. Binne crossed back over to the bed to wipe at her eyes, and Valen seemed to instinctively follow her, hovering with concern. Solaufein fought back a smile; the tiefling was unexpectedly mothering in ways.

"Sorry, I'm not feeling well," Binne said miserably, and her head fell as her gaze became trained on the ground. She wiped again at her eyes, almost angrily.

Solaufein sat down at her other side, putting her in-between him and Valen. A solitary tear fell from the corner of her eyes and before she could even notice it, Solaufein touched it with the tip of his finger. "Why?" He honestly wondered.

Binne swallowed back more tears and covered her face, composing herself for a moment before dropping her hands back to her lap. Valen's arm and hand went around her shoulder of their own accord and drew her near him as she spoke, "I just—it's over and—it's all over now but I keep seeing it. Seeing you, and I'm holding Enserric, I—I killed you, Solaufein. I can't take it back."

"That was not your fault," Valen reassured her in a gentle, yet stern voice.

"I know that," she told him, and leaned on his shoulder with a sigh. "But I keep seeing it. It's still me, those were my hands that did it, my voice that screamed, my body. It's the second time I've killed someone I loved. I wish I could purge it from my eyes, but when I close them it's all I see." She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and sighed. Valen pulled away one of her hands and held it in his own, interlacing their fingers. His expression twisted with concern and compassion.

Solaufein didn't know what to say. He too had been haunted in his past - by mistakes mostly, or Phaere, or particularly violent memories such as the deaths of his family. They no longer bothered him the way they once had, but there had been a time - at least a century or two - where his reveries had been plagued by those memories on repeat. It was a visceral thing, recalling the way the garrote felt against his patron's throat, the ease with which his brother had died, or the sound of Phaere's dying breaths. So instead, he drew his fingers through her clean damp hair and she fell sideways into his lap and cried for a while as he combed through her hair with his hands, and massaged her head. Valen let it happen, keeping his position and his hand gently interlaced with hers. He only broke their grip to take off his breastplate and armor, a profound gesture as Solaufein thought about it. Valen, free of his characteristic green mithral, seemed more comfortable when the tiefling sat back down next to them and picked up Binne's hand in his like he'd never put it down at all.

"They are celebrating amid the cleanup in Waterdeep's streets," Solaufein spoke after Binne had calmed down from crying. "Will you not join them?"

"Will you?" Binne wondered. Solaufein hummed but did not confirm. "I can't. I want to, but I can't. They want to forget and I can't," she said firmly.

"Binne," Solaufein spoke, and put a hand on her cheek. Her head twisted in his lap until he was looking down at her face, and they locked eyes. "Mephistopheles has no hold over you any longer. If I can bring you no solace, take your peace in that certain knowledge," he told her. It was the only reassurance he had - that what she had suffered through, could never happen to them again.

"I'll be alright if I just . . . Will you two stay here with me? Just a bit longer," she added tentatively.

"Of course," Valen immediately reassured her and gave her hand a squeeze.

"I will not leave you," Solaufein promised.

The bed was large enough for the three of them - perhaps a little cramped, but not uncomfortable in any way. The frame creaked slightly under their weight as they adjusted around each other - Binne claimed the middle while Solaufein and Valen wrapped themselves around her from the side, and suddenly Solaufein was more comfortable than he could ever remember being in his entire life.

Binne sniffled and cried a little more but seemed to feel better. Solaufein kept brushing her hair with his fingers since it seemed to help considerably, as Valen traced patterns into her back through her clothes. Solaufein noted that she was wearing his shirt - a simple black linen number that he had himself taken from Imloth when they entered Lith My'athar, tighter on her than him due to their size differences. It seemed to fit her better, and he thought the color suited her well.

"Abbil," Solaufein spoke up, but for some reason this made Binne flinch.

And then apologize. "I'm sorry Solaufein," she blurted, "I didn't mean to—I—" as she struggled to say what she wanted to say, she groaned, covered her eyes with her hands and rolled over to bury her face and arms into Valen's chest on her other side.

The tiefling wrapped his arms around her kindly and hushed her. Solaufein had had enough of her apologies and hugged her from behind, drewing her back to him. "Nau, no more apologizing," he insisted. He urged her to turn back to him as he unlaced the ties at the front of his shirt with his other hand, and drew down the neckline until it exposed his unscarred chest. He touched the bone in the center with his fingers, indicating.

Her fingers followed his, and didn't retreat or pull away, so when she was finished exploring his exposed skin, he dragged her hand into his where it belonged. "No scar?" she blinked and sounded confused.

"I died when Undrentide fell to the earth," he confessed to her. "Did I tell you this?"

"Oh, Deekin taking creative license? How shocking," Valen murmured into Binne's ear, giving her a delighted shiver.

Solaufein smiled. "I asked Deekin to leave that part out. I woke in the Reaper's room when the city crushed us to death. My body was made new, and without scar. I could not recognize myself. I still do not," he admitted.

Binne's fingers from her other hand left Valen's and trailed, almost absently, up the reaches of Solaufein's chest and neck. Her fingertips hovered near the rough, jagged lines of midnight-hued skin that had scarred under Akordia's whip. "I remember this one," she said. "Why did it stay and the one I gave you didn't?"

"It was not a death wound. The Reaper heals those," he stated. Solaufein, feeling inspired, flipped around in the bed so that his back was exposed to Binne, and nearly ripped off his shirt over his head. He could hear her sniffling still but felt considerably better when her gentle hands began to explore the scarred ridges on his back. "Only some of these are from you," he assured her.

She choked back a laugh, perhaps remembering the time she had unexpectedly drawn blood when she raked her claws across his back. It was a fond memory for him. After a time, she ceased her exploration and leaned her face against his back. "After I—to you, when M—when he . . . he used my name and told me to kill myself," she summarized. It was not new information, but for her to state it out loud so openly and factually indicated progress. "It's not there," she went on, staring up at the ceiling as Solaufein turned back around to face her. "I took Enserric and ran myself right through. I can still feel it, even if there's no mark. It tingles sometimes, in the spot it happened, in my chest. Like there's an invisible scar."

"Show us," Valen suddenly told her. She locked eyes with him, that amber firelight meeting cloudless skies, and nodded.

Binne scooted down the bed for a moment to sit up and take her shirt off, and then after several seconds of consideration decided to take off her pants as well, although it took longer and this frustrated her. With a victorious noise she finally unlaced the last tie on her leggings and tossed them off to the side of the room, and laid back on the bed with a sigh. She rolled over onto her stomach and leaned up on her elbows between the two of them as Solaufein and Valen's fingers began to trace the marks on her body, starting with her back.

Solaufein and Valen's hands met a few times with tentative, sudden touches as they traced the ridges and lines that marred Binne's back. The ones from Akordia matched the ones on Solaufein's, though there were many that were mysterious and unknown. He asked her about them as he found them, but she only remembered a few. Valen touched a particularly large raised ridge on the top of her right buttock of curious, haphazard shape, and her brows knitted together in hatred as she recalled, "Bishop. Bloody 'Hero of the North' managed to hit me twice, in the same spot, in the same cheek even! Though who knows, I might be dead if he hadn't. Valen, may I ask you something?" she queried, as she turned her head toward the side to stare at the tiefling behind half-lidded eyes.

"Yes?" Valen answered automatically.

"Did Mephistopheles kill you?" Her question was pointed, blunt even.

"I think he did," Valen answered uncertainly. "I don't remember clearly. I'm sorry."

"No. No, I'm sorry for you—for you having to see that. I—I was the one who—I mean." She cleared her throat, and to her credit, did not burst into tears again. "I'm sorry, Valen."

Valen kept his hand on the small of her back as his eyes became fixed on something distant. "It was a hopeless feeling," he admitted carefully, "when I found you two. I don't ever want to feel that way again."

Solaufein knew that Valen had likely led the charge into the Valsharess' fortress, and been the first to find him and Binne dead on the floor with the others. "Was it quick? Before you woke in Cania?" Solaufein found himself wondering, looking down to Binne.

"Honestly don't remember too well," she recalled. "It was the first time I'd ever killed myself." She chuckled at her own joke, although Solaufein didn't think it was funny. "Enserric probably remembers better. He sang to me. I owe him such an apology for that."

"Hmm. Flip over," he commanded, and she obeyed, facing the ceiling. She took in the sight of them both next to her with wide eyes, and then closed them as Solaufein's fingers found a particularly ugly raised scar on her shoulder. "Tell me of this one," he said.

She stilled but did not open her eyes. "Zhents. First bout of captivity. Tried to flay me, to break me."

"They did not succeed," Solaufein observed.

"They nearly did," she admitted carefully, "but no, I tricked them. It's how I met Hugo, actually. Story for another time."

"You're unbreakable," Valen told her with one of those smiles of his that made everything worthwhile.

Binne seemed to agree and beamed back at him. "I'm pretty tough. And pretty!"

Solaufein laid back down next to her and let his fingers trail over her other numerous scars. "How do you feel?" He wondered.

She thought about this, staring up at the ceiling intently. "A little better," she said. "I still see it, it's on my mind, and I'm . . . I'm not sure what to do." Her expression twisted into one of dread and worry. "My body's so full of scars, and so's my head. One day I'll just be a giant walking scar with a tail and legs, just like Valen."

"Oh, thanks for that," Valen said with more than a little sarcasm.

"I mean it with love," Binne looked at him with a fond smile, and turned into his body, embracing the tiefling. His limbs seemed to naturally entwine with hers, as did Solaufein's - entirely of their own accord. They fit together well in a comfortable puddle of warmth. Solaufein couldn't tell if it was just the morimatra making everything glow, or the contentment of the moment suffusing the air.

"May I offer my advice?" Solaufein asked into Binne's neck, as he carefully placed his head below and between her horns.

"Of course," she said.

"Convalescence requires time," he told her. She made a noise of confusion and curiosity, so he went on with the observation he had once made to Imoen as well (albeit worded differently as he was now more used to speaking in Common), "Time naturally . . . It creates a distance between your past and your future. Your time is filled with new memories that become brighter, and better than the old ones, the ones that still hurt you. It only comes with time. It hurts you now, because it is still so near. It will not always hurt this way," he promised her.

She sniffled again, but did not hide her face in shame, nor did tears fall. She seemed to swallow them this time, but her tone was broken, and frustrated, and he felt her heartbeat against his own as she said, "I know. I don't really know where to go from here though. It's done and I should be happy and drunk, but I don't know what to do. It's like I can't get back to myself. It doesn't feel like we won anything, it just . . . Hurts."

For a brief moment, Solaufein struggled to know what to say. Then, he remembered Nathyrra's wise gift. Dark elves, as he had once observed with Viconia, only did two things very well - fucking, and fighting. It didn't seem that Binne was reassured by his words of love and comfort, but that was not unexpected - those were not Solaufein's specialty. He let his arms and hands circle around her form - gently, lovingly, and then reached across her to the somewhat startled Valen and let his fingers trail along the scars on Valen's chest that he'd been wanting to explore, ever since he saw them. He could feel both of their bodies clench and shift with sudden desire, and he said in Binne's ear, "Let me help you in the only way I know how, ussta'che. To bring us all joy. Let us give you a new memory."

The only sound that left Binne's mouth then was a breathless affirmative gasp as one of Solaufein's hands found its way around her body to one of her breasts and teased it. Solaufein's leg nudged at Valen's, which was positioned between Binne's, and together they wormed closer toward one another, wrapping Binne in-between them and squeezing just a bit tighter. Solaufein let go of her breast as Valen's hand came up to meet it, and he gripped Valen instead, admiring the strength and shape of his arm. Valen was gentle, but not too much, and raked his fingers through Binne's hair to pull it back and expose the side of her neck. "Tell us to stop, and we will," he promised, a whisper into the skin of her neck, before lavishing kisses on it.

She moaned in pleasure and adjusted against Solaufein behind her, grinding into him and twisting her tail around his leg to bring him even closer. He felt himself harden as he rubbed against Binne, and slid his hands down the length of her body. Valen pushed her onto her back as Solaufein pulled away, and he met the dark elf's gaze, seeming to be following the same thought process. Valen swiftly removed what was left of his clothing and Solaufein did the same. Binne laid back with a satisfied sigh gazed between the two of them admiringly.

"I might be the single luckiest girl in the realms," she happily declared. Solaufein smiled - her mood had shifted with their attention, and she no longer seemed to desire any distance between them. She beckoned him closer and he crawled up the length of her body to seal her mouth with his own. His fingers found her sex and started to toy with her, but Valen pushed away his hand gently and dipped his head toward her folds. As the tiefling's tongue ran the length of her opening, she gasped against Solaufein's mouth and reached out to clench at the bedsheets. Solaufein kissed her again, enjoying her moans against his mouth as Valen worked her, and the dark elf pulled away only to give her breasts some of his oral attention. He sucked, licked, and lightly bit both nipples, and thoroughly enjoyed every sound and motion his lovers were making.

Binne was a beautiful, quivering mess by the time Valen and Solaufein switched. Solaufein relished in the taste of her and her wetness, and probed her entrance with two gentle fingers. She reached an orgasm around his mouth and hand, clutching Valen against her as he whispered into and kissed her neck. Solaufein withdrew his fingers and admired the cambion and tiefling fiercely for a moment. Valen caught his eye as his head rose from the crook of Binne's neck, and there was a gleam in Valen's gaze that Solaufein hadn't seen outside of battle. Valen's tail curled around Binne's legs suddenly and jerked it around - she went limp and let out a mildly surprised noise as she suddenly found herself on her hands and knees, with Valen behind her and Solaufein next to her.

Her tail made lazy circles for a moment as Valen ran his hands over her skin, caressing her back and rear and generally every inch of her he could get his hands on. Valen's eyes never left Solaufein's as the dark elf moved closer, and Solaufein ran his fingers through Binne's hair and over her horns. She nearly purred at the attention, and said, "Oh, please," in an irresistible tone of voice when Valen's tail started to move against her sex like it had a mind of its own.

Valen's tail thrust into her - slowly at first - and she gasped and moaned, moving against Valen instinctively even as the tiefling held her hips still with his hands. Solaufein watched for a moment, enraptured, and more turned on than he could ever remember being. He reached over Binne from his position at her side and let his hands travel up the length of Valen's chest, admiring the feeling of all the ridged scars. Valen's eyes fluttered shut in bliss for a moment as Solaufein's skilled hands reached his hair, gently tugging to remove the ponytail and mussing it as he found a good grip and brought the tiefling's face down to his, crashing their lips together. It was nothing like the kiss Solaufein had stolen in the sparring ring, and so much better because he could still taste Binne on Valen's lips. Valen was surprisingly gentle and tentative for all of a moment, before he seemed to remember who he was dealing with and let all of his passion pour out. It was searing with its heat, and Solaufein decided then that he could never have enough of this - that Valen was made for being kissed. When he let go, the curtain of Valen's crimson hair fell over his shoulders and tickled Solaufein's face.

The tiefling's tail wormed into Binne even more and then pulled out, only to thrust back in over and over again as he and Binne reached a pace - perhaps the tail did indeed have a mind of its own, as Binne's began to travel around Solaufein's waist, not binding him but drawing him closer to her body. Solaufein made a mental promise to himself to ravish Valen senseless later, and recalled Nathyrra's thoughtful gift in a moment of distraction. He pulled away, tugging gently at Binne's tail as she released them, and returned a moment later after picking up the bottle from his trousers pocket.

"What are you two bloody doing to me?" Binne wondered breathlessly. It wasn't a complaint at all, and Solaufein didn't treat it as such. She turned her head to stare questioningly at the bottle in his hands. Solaufein pulled open the stopper and poured some of the clear, oil-like liquid into his hands, and realization dawned in her eyes.

"Nathyrra is indeed thoughtful," Solaufein noted aloud. Binne moved gently against his hand as he slathered the lubrication onto both of her entrances - Valen's tail pulled out only momentarily before thrusting back in, and she moaned. One of Solaufein's fingers tentatively put pressure on her tightest orifice as Valen's tail thrust into the other in a steady, slow rhythm.

"May I?" Solaufein demurred, putting slightly more pressure on her anus.

"Yes," Binne hissed in agreement, and moaned throatily as Solaufein' slipped one dark index finger in. He let her relax around it as Valen continued his dedicated work, reaching a faster rhythm as Binne's breathing became more and more rapid. "More!" Binne demanded, partially muffled as her face had become buried in the sheets and pillows.

He pulled out slightly and angled his second finger in, and pushed in with Valen's thrust. Binne gasped and bucked against them, and seconds later reached a screaming orgasm that left her dripping. She collapsed into the bed as they pulled out, and rolled onto her side with a sigh.

Solaufein was certainly not finished and considered this only the warmup. He crawled on top of her and drew her into a kiss, and a delicious fantasy entered his mind at that moment - as he wanted nothing more than to be inside of her again, and for Valen to be inside of him. He pressed his length against her thighs and spread her legs to angle himself in, pushing in with tortuous slowness. He locked eyes with Valen and grabbed the tiefling's hand and arm, drawing him closer and said in Ilythiiri by accident, "Vith ussa," as he lacked the mental wherewithal to translate his thoughts into Common. Valen was proficient enough in the language though to understand his intention, even if his body language didn't scream it out loud for him to hear. The tiefling grabbed the bottle that Solaufein had put aside in afterthought, lathered himself with it, and then angled himself behind Solaufein, pressing his body against the dark elf's.

Solaufein gasped involuntarily, and thrust deeper into Binne, reaching full hilt. Valen's arms reached around Solaufein, grasping his hips as the tiefling's shaft pressed against him. "Qualla, usstan ssrig'luin dos," Solaufein sighed into Binne's chest, directing this mainly at Valen but also her. His tongue swirled around one of her nipples and he bit down on it lightly, suckling for a delicious moment as Valen began to push inside of him. He gasped, his head thrusting involuntarily backward as Valen thrust - gently, patiently, kindly - stopping after he managed to get past the tip to make sure Solaufein wasn't hurt.

"Mzild, more, qualla," Solaufein blurted desperately, as Valen thrust in a little more with Solaufein's breathing out, and he shuddered with pleasure as Valen's length reached his most sensitive spot. Valen was still patient and slow, and when he reached full-thrust, he stayed there for a while to let Solaufein adjust for a moment, to the dark elf's gratitude. Valen was incredibly attractive and well-endowed - this did not bother Solaufein, but he was larger than Solaufein was used to, and it had been some time since he had been with another male. Solaufein found, as he reflected on it for a moment, that he had missed this.

"Oh fuck," Binne blurted, and clenched around him from the front. Her eyes were wide with interest, and her tail began to move out from underneath her and around Valen, drawing him closer as it wrapped around his leg and traveled up. "This - this might be the best thing that's ever happened to anyone, ever," she commented happily.

"Are you ready?" Valen asked, his voice barely above a husky whisper. It sent shivers down Solaufein's spine, aided by the hand that Valen reached out to caress his back with his calloused fingers. Solaufein made a noise of assent, and Valen pulled out ever so slightly - gripping his hips, and gently thrust back in.

Solaufein moaned, unable to help himself. Binne grasped him against her, angling her legs out and around so they weren't in anyone's way, and her tail wound its way around them and toward Valen's hips. Though he couldn't see from the angle he was at facing her, he knew from the way the tail tensed and the way Valen suddenly moaned and clenched that she had found her way to his most sensitive area, too. Valen's tail mimicked hers from the other side and wormed its way into her anus, slipping in with the rhythm of his thrusts, and she bucked against Solaufein.

The dark elf let Valen set the pace for them, and Valen was conscious of Solaufein's comfort the whole time, asking each time before he increased the pace or if it was too much. It was considerate and Solaufein appreciated it, even if the only thing he really wanted at the moment was to be wildly fucked. Binne reached a shuddering, nearly violent completion beneath him - her voice reached pitches he hadn't known she was capable of as she screamed to the ceiling her release, clenching all around him. He followed not long after, unable to resist or hold back any more, and relished the feeling of finishing inside of her with Valen inside of him. The tiefling finished last, on the tail end of Solaufein's own release, and gasped and moaned as he frenetically thrust for a few final seconds in and out of Solaufein.

They pulled out of each other tentatively, slowly, conscious of their movements and the mess they'd made, but none of them minding it at all. Valen pulled out first and Solaufein second, as the dark elf rolled onto his side next to Binne and sighed contentedly into the sheets. She turned to them and said quite suddenly, "I love you. Both of you, I mean. I—I mean, thank you."

Valen smiled and his cheeks reddened at her stuttering confession. He leaned over Solaufein and pressed a tender kiss to Binne's lips, murmuring back, "I love you too." When he pulled away, he hovered over Solaufein, and Solaufein reached up without thinking and drew Valen's face down to his own. Valen's lips were soft and tantalizing and despite finding release moments before, Solaufein felt himself stirring with the tiefling's kiss. "And you," Valen added with a small smile after he pulled away.

He stood, and Solaufein looked after him questioningly. "Bath," Valen said, announcing his intention.

"Second door down the hall on the left," Binne murmured into a pillow as she buried her face in it. She hummed contentedly and closed her eyes.

Valen nodded and after looking down at his own nakedness, seemed to reach a decision about it. He walked out the door naked after glancing around outside for witnesses, and departed. Solaufein felt the urge to follow him, but the urge to curl up into Binne's warmth was also present. The dark elf brushed her hair away from her horns and face, de-tangling some of it with his lithe fingers. She smiled in her sleepiness and nuzzled closer to him. He drew up the discarded sheet and blanket that had fallen onto the floor in their movements, and pulled it over her. Her breathing shifted within moments, and she fell asleep with a smile.

Solaufein alighted a gentle kiss at her temple, and stood to follow Valen to the baths. He wasted no time in worrying about his nudity and stepped out into the hall. The sounds of revelry from downstairs made their way up to him, as did the smells of spiced wine and food. He promised himself he'd indulge more later, suddenly feeling a little hungry, and hovered before the door that led to the washroom.

He raised his hand to knock, but upon consideration, Solaufein decided to open it as there was no reason for them now to be polite after they'd just loudly and happily fornicated. Solaufein stepped into the Yawning Portals' baths, and was treated to the sight of a soaked and sudsy Valen pouring water over his head from a jug. The tiled bath was unoccupied save for the tiefling, though it was large enough to fit several people, and the heated water came up to his waistline. Solaufein's eyes traced the lines of his chest and hips as the water rippled over them. Valen had closed his eyes, and after putting the jug down next to the bath he reached up to wipe the water from his face. When his aqua blue eyes fluttered open, he blinked several times at the sight of Solaufein in the doorway before flushing adorably.

Solaufein closed the door behind him and crossed over to the bath, enjoying Valen's fluster. "Vendui, ussta'chev," he greeted as he stepped into the water. It was not hot, but it was warm and pleasant, especially after the sort of day(s) that he had had recently. He sat on the edge of the bath, where a ridge for seating had been built, and sighed contentedly.

"Is Binne . . . ?" Valen's question trailed off as he seemed uncertain of what he wanted to ask.

"V'drin," Solaufein answered. He found it more comfortable to speak in his mother tongue at the moment, since he knew Valen understood most of Ilythiiri, having been tutored by Nathyrra and the Seer when he arrived.

Valen answered in Solaufein's language fluidly, and with surprisingly little accent, "She needs it. We have all earned a long rest."

Solaufein cocked his head at Valen and wondered, "How many languages do you speak?"

"Several," the tiefling shyly answered, likely underestimating. Solaufein spoke three, Ilythiiri, Undercommon, and Common. He knew that Valen had spent many years in the planes, and probably picked up many languages along the way.

"You have a talented mouth," Solaufein assessed, intending the innuendo but also meaning it sincerely.

Valen seemed pleased judging from the quick smile on his face, but it rapidly faded perhaps due to something internal. Intending to remedy it and put a brighter expression on the tiefling's face, Solaufein crossed the bath and motioned for Valen to sit down next to him. He had to manually rearrange Valen with the tiefling's back facing him when Valen seemed confused about what Solaufein was doing. For a moment he tensed when Solaufein's hand reached up to touch Valen's back, but relaxed into Solaufein's touch when the drow reached for the nearby soap.

Solaufein said nothing because words were unnecessary between them at that moment. He gently pushed forward Valen's crimson hair over one shoulder and lathered up his back. Solaufein smiled when he noted Valen's tail had absently curled its way around his waist, and Valen sighed in pleasure as Solaufein let his fingers trail over the ripples of muscle. He cupped his hands and let the water pour over Valen's shoulders, admiring the way it sluiced in patterns over his pale skin. As Solaufein's fingers became light and teasing, he heard Valen's breath hitch and felt the man's tail tense. He took his time, but Valen's patience reached an end quite suddenly when he turned around and gripped Solaufein's shoulders.

Solaufein stared up into the tiefling's blue eyes and noted there was a hint of fire inside of them. The dark elf's hands reached up to touch Valen's cheek, as he admired the man's features underneath his fingers. Valen's eyes closed momentarily as he turned into Solaufein's touch, then opened before he brought his face down to Solaufein's and closed the gap between them with a blazing kiss. Valen's tail had wrapped around Solaufein's waist and pulled the dark elf against him instinctively, deepening the embrace. Solaufein's hands explored Valen's shoulders, chest, and back and he felt the tiefling shudder against him as he stirred, hardening. Solaufein's own anatomy compulsively responded, and he reached back only for a moment to gently push Valen into the bench so he could straddle him, negating the height difference between them.

The tail between them wound around Solaufein and pressed against his entrance gently, causing Solaufein's head to reflexively snap back away from Valen's mouth as he gasped in pleasure. One of Valen's hands kept a firm grip on his backside as the other wound its way around the head of Solaufein's penis, drawing a long groan from Solaufein's mouth.

"Usstan ssinssrin ulu tlu wun dos," the dark elf confessed into Valen's ear as he leaned forward, momentarily burying his face into Valen's red mass of hair, inhaling his heady scent - armor oil and musk. Valen chuckled, and the motion of his laughter rumbled pleasantly against Solaufein's chest.

"Soon," Valen promised with a smile that Solaufein felt against the skin of his neck, as Valen began to press kisses into it.

"Xa," Solaufein groaned in pleasure, exposing the side of his neck for Valen's mouth to peruse.

Valen didn't disappoint, gently grazing his teeth over Solaufein's skin and soon switched their positions, raising Solaufein's hips and flipping them both around so that the dark elf was seated on the edge of the bath, and Valen kneeling before him. Solaufein threw his head back and moaned in pleasure as Valen wrapped his mouth and tongue around his shaft, plunging Solaufein's full length into his mouth. He pulled Valen's hair away and gripped the crimson locks instinctively, taking care not to make the grip too tight to be uncomfortable.

Solaufein felt privileged to be at Valen's mercy for a time, but his patience did not last very long. Skilled as he was at lloun d'vithanaik, Solaufein soon had the tiefling on his back with his legs spread and the dark elf between them, coaxing him open with skilled fingers as Solaufein's mouth teased the head of his penis. A thrill went up Solaufein's spine as wanton noises escaped Valen's lips, which soon erupted into a breathless orgasm that left the tiefling gasping for air as Solaufein's fingers teased at his sensitive core.

Though he had to rush back to the room for a moment because he'd forgotten the bottle Nathyrra had gifted to him, he quickly went back to work once he returned and slathered them both in the lubricant. He kept Valen on his back because he wanted to see the tiefling's expression when he entered him - and Valen didn't disappoint. As Solaufein gently pushed against him, replacing his fingers with his length, he felt Valen's tail creep around his waist and tense against him. They entered each other simultaneously, and Valen's clever tail tightened as his mouth opened in a delightful moan.

"Slow," Valen urged, managing to get the word out in-between noises.

"Xa, ussta'chev," Solaufein agreed, not wishing to hurt him. He went as slow as Valen wanted, inch by tortuous inch until he was finally fully in, and shivered in anticipation.

He let Valen set the pace, who kept rhythm with his hands and tail as Solaufein rode into him. It took a little experimentation with angles to find the right one, but once Solaufein did, Valen was unabashed in his pleasure and practically screamed it to the ceiling, his eyes even flashing red for a moment. Solaufein gripped Valen's length and teased the head with his thumb and fingers, drawing out shuddering gasps and groans that stimulated him in turn. He pushed Valen to ever-climbing heights before allowing himself to find release, and even then only upon Valen's urging. Solaufein finished explosively, surprised to close his eyes, and see dancing lights behind them when he did so.

Solaufein climbed off of Valen and coaxed his errdegahr lover back into the bath. He felt the urge to care for Valen and Binne, though he knew not precisely why - he simply accepted that they were vitally important to him, and acted accordingly. They cleaned each other again patiently, sweetly exchanging kisses that lasted longer each time, until Valen finally laughed and said, "You're insatiable."

"So are you," Solaufein accused.

Valen rewarded him with a bright, but tired smile. "I think it's past time we all got some rest. It's been a long journey."

Solaufein nodded and stepped out of the bath, reaching for one of the towels that had been left out. He picked up another and tossed it Valen's way when the tiefling stepped out, and he took a moment to admire Valen as he dried off. Solaufein felt incredibly fortunate that Valen and Binne had found him and did not know which god or goddess to thank for it - so he sent a general prayer of gratitude in Eilistraee's direction, as well as Tymora's for Binne's sake.

He followed Valen back to the room and watched as the tiefling crawled into bed next to Binne, wrapping an arm around her sleeping form and closing his eyes. Solaufein crept to the other side, found his pants, and donned them. He was not yet exhausted enough to sleep, and briefly fantasized about having a whole bottle of morimatra to himself as he made his way back downstairs, half-clothed.

The celebration had died down significantly, and many people were asleep on various tables or even the ground. Durnan didn't seem to mind and was behind the bar, smoking a pipe and listening to Nathyrra who was speaking to him in a low voice. Solaufein pushed some of his damp hair out of his eyes, made a note to cut his hair in the morning, and stepped over piles of people as he made his way to the bar.

Durnan pulled a bottle of morimatra out from under the bar and passed it to Solaufein with a grunt as Solaufein sat down next to Nathyrra, touching her on the shoulder to alert him to her presence.

"Dalninuk," Nathyrra greeted warmly. He noted that she had a fragrant cup of morimatra in front of her, and opened the bottle offered to him with a grin.

"Dalninil," he greeted back, and then eyed his sword. "Enserric, have you behaved in my absence?"

"I have been the very soul of courtesy," the sword emphatically defended. "Why, I've barely mouthed off to anyone!"

"If it weren't for him corroborating Deekin's story, I'd hardly believe half the things that kobold said," Durnan offered, pulling the pipe out of his mouth for a moment.

"Where is Deekin?" Solaufein wondered, but answered his own question when he glanced over to the fireplace and saw Deekin snoring up a storm next to Aribeth's still-cloaked form and Daelan's heaping one, watched over by a sleepy Linu who strummed at a harp absently in her hands.

Solaufein took a guzzle from his bottle and turned back to Nathyrra. "Your gift was much appreciated," he told her in Ilythiiri.

"I knew you would use it wisely," she said with a sly smile. She held up her cup to him, and he stared at it confusedly. "A rivvil custom I learned today - the toast," she explained in Common, mostly for Durnan's benefit. "Hold up your drink, like so." He held up his bottle by the neck in understanding, and she clinked her cup against it. "Let this toast be for the Seer," she said and took a sip from her cup.

Solaufein drank from his bottle in agreement and added, once he came back up for breath, "We will see them soon."

"The lass here was explaining that the Underdark entrance is but a stone's throw away into the wilderness," Durnan offered. He took a few puffs from his pipe, and then offered it to Solaufein, who stared at it for a moment before deciding to try it. "I'm sure your people would have made it out safe. The real question is whether or not Waterdeep's guards will let them in."

"The Blackstaff will know them," Solaufein assumed after taking a few puffs from Durnan's pipe. It made him feel thoughtful and strangely refined, having the smokable, which had the curious effect of sharpening his senses. "He sent Sharwyn and Tomi to our city," he assured Nathyrra. "They will face no trouble at the gates."

"I would like to find them tomorrow," Nathyrra said firmly.

Solaufein nodded and promised to go with her once the others had woken. He doubted that Valen would wish to sit by and relax while the Seer might be out there. He passed Durnan's offered pipe back to the man gratefully, and focused on his bottle. He and Nathyrra passed the time with Durnan sharing some of the finer details of their adventure that Deekin had left out of his impromptu telling, thoroughly shocking the old adventurer with their escapades in the Underdark and beyond.

When he was done, the bottle was empty and he was in a state of bliss. Nathyrra promised to watch over the others as he retreated back to his shared room. Solaufein ascended the stairs, clinging to the railing as the world swayed, and he made his way down the hall into the bridal suite. He admired Valen and Binne's forms for a moment, glowing as they did under morimatra's effects, before clambering into bed next to Binne and curling up near her warmth.

"Sollahfin?" she mumbled and pulled him closer absently. Valen grunted on the other side, but said nothing, dead asleep.

Solaufein smiled against the dusky skin of her shoulder as he closed his eyes and fell into a well-earned rest.

---

Drow-to-Common Dictionary:

Asanque . . . After you, or as you wish
Vedaust . . . Tschüss!
Vith ussa . . . Not the sort of thing you can say in a polite society
Qualla, usstan ssrig . . . Solaufein's basically announcing how excited he is in this moment and honestly, who wouldn't be?
Mzild ssin'urne xunor . . . "Can I have some more, please?" —Oliver Twist asking for more food (also Solaufein asking for more dick)
V'drin . . . Drow word for nap-time
Usstan ssinssrin . . . Solaufein here is expression his desire to *ahem*
lloun d'vithanaik . . . The other thing besides fighting that drow happen to be particularly talented at