Prisoners of the Xanathar Guild
Considering he was no longer manacled to a chair and a mind flayer no longer held a bone saw against his skull, Kuhl judged his situation had improved immensely. But he was still locked in a subterranean prison, his third including the slave pen of Velkynvelve and being a guest of the Stone Guard in the Overlake Hold in Gracklstugh, so there was, by his perspective, considerable room for further improvement. A series of cells, each enclosed by thick vertical iron bars, kept the prisoners segregated into pairs.
"I'm guessing you aren't still carrying a magical sword of light," the half-elf's gray haired and salt and pepper bearded cellmate said, "That we could use to cut these chains and bars to escape?"
Kuhl had been watching the group who escorted him to the prison leave, but now looked over in surprise at the man who sat on the sleeping pallet in one corner of his cell. He was huddled in a wrapped blanket to ward off the chill and dankness of the chamber
"Don't recognize me?" the man asked, giving a wan smile. "Not surprising. I might not remember you without you wielding the sword of light. Very memorable. Your cat girl companion of course is memorable all on her own."
"Tabaxi," Sky called out from a few cells down where she'd been imprisoned with Lady Rosznar. He could just make out the curious expression on her face and her lashing tail through the intervening bars. "Not cat girl. Who is it, Kuhl?"
Like all the rooms and corridors of the Xanathar lair, the chamber was well lit by magical light cast by sconces on the walls. But even with this good and up close view of his cellmate, the half-elf didn't recognize him, but he looked familiar.
"We met at the rescue of Lord Neverember," the man reminded. "In that warehouse on Candle Lane. I believe I told you two it was 'best not to meddle in criminal matters' and to 'leave the dirty business to the City Watch'."
"The captain from the warehouse," Kuhl said.
"Captain Staget," the seated man sighed. "It looks like you didn't take my advice, unfortunately for you. I don't see the drow and aasimar?"
"They didn't come down into Undermountain," the half-elf said, answering the question in the captain's tone.
He was thankful for that, but he worried Aleina and Jhelnae would. Especially since he and Sky had been seen by Bonnie going down the well at the Yawning Portal. His friends could very well be tricked by the false Meloon Wardragon with a variation of the same rescue mission ruse.
"How did you end up down here?" Kuhl asked.
"By doing the sort of 'dirty business' I told you to stay out of," Staget said. "It's a risk that comes with the badge, but I didn't think even the Xanathar Guild would risk taking a Captain of the Watch prisoner. I was wrong about that, obviously."
"Half-elf," the genasi, Sophiya, yelled out from her cell by the door out of the prison chamber. "Are you as strong as you look? Cat girl and new girl, are you two as quick as you look?"
"Tabaxi, not cat girl," Sky said, repeating her earlier admonition. "And I'm actually quicker and Esvele is pretty fast herself."
"Esvele? As in Lady Rosznar? " Captain Staget whispered to Kuhl. He continued in a hushed tone at the half-elf's nod. "I thought she looked like her, but decided it would be impossible for another noble to be down here."
Another noble? But before Kuhl could ask, the drow in the cell with the genasi spoke.
"Not quick enough to not get caught by the Xanathar," she scoffed, dropping down to sit on her sleeping pallet.
"Raelyn…" Sophiya growled. "Blood and Fortune is tomorrow and this is our team. So we need to build some camaraderie. Fast."
"You mock us about being caught by the Xanathar," Esvelle said, voice irritated. "While being locked up as well?"
"I wouldn't be locked up in this cell," Raelyn said. "If this rothe for brains whore of a genasi hadn't stabbed me and left me to bleed out on a cavern floor."
She stood up and lashed out a booted foot at the bars of her prison. A metallic thrum sounded from her kick and then came a yelp of pain and surprise as a blue beam flashed down from the ceiling to strike the drow. Water condensed into little ice crystals along the wake of its passage and a chill current of air swept through the chamber.
"I wasn't trying to escape you stupid little monster!" Raelyn cursed, reverting to Elvish as she shook a fist upward and hugged herself with her other arm for warmth. "I was expressing myself."
A small spherical beholderkin with four eyestalks, a mouth full of sharp teeth, and a squinting central eye descended from where it had floated unnoticed by the half-elf near the ceiling. Kuhl had seen its kind before. One in the sewers and then another terrorizing Nutmeg the cat in Uva Solizeph's bookshop. The creature directed a chittering chuckle at the drow as it bobbed and weaved in an aerial dance.
"I am go-ing to st-ab out th-at cen-ter eye of yo-urs," Raelyn threatened through chattering teeth as the full effects of the freezing ray set in. "And cut off ea-ch of tho-se sta-lks and sh-ove th-em in th-at lit-tle maw of yo-urs."
"We're always being watched by one of those and also by the spectral eyes in the corners," the Watch Captain said. "Haven't been able to test the bars or locks for weaknesses because of them."
Staget pointed and half-elf looked. A translucent eye, visible by a faint ghostly glow, was at each of the ceiling corners. Meanwhile, Sophiya leapt up from her sleeping pallet, whipped the ratty blanket from off her shoulders, and wrapped it around her cellmate.
"First of all," she said. "You stabbed me and also left me bleeding out on that cavern floor. So don't you dare blame being in here on me. Second of all, you should have known that would happen and Blood and Fortune is tomorrow. You need to not be stupid and reckless!"
"That drow can rant for hours when she works herself in a frenzy," the Watch Captain muttered so only Kuhl could hear. "Never seen anything like it."
The half-elf didn't answer. He was so focused on Sophiya he barely registered the captain's words. The removal of her blanket had revealed what she wore underneath - a light hauberk of dragon scales that fit her like a second skin - but the middle part of it was missing, exposing her toned abdomen. Her arms and legs were mostly bare and a twisting knot work of tattoos twined up and down her limbs. Sky apparently had a good angle of sight on the genasi from her cell as well.
"Crystalline scales," she said. "The same as your brother. Wait, are those scales from him? Did he give them to you when he shed them?"
Now that Sky mentioned it, the scales did look like the ones on Embrie, her half dragon brother.
"Eww, no," Sophiya said, making a face. "Wear my brothers cast off scales? That would be gross. These are from his father, one of my step fathers."
Kuhl didn't understand why wearing her step father's cast off scales would be any less gross than her brother's, but thought better of asking. He could now see, however, the scales making up her armor were too large to be from her brother. The half-elf realized he'd seen her once before at a distance in the Yawning Portal. This was the genasi with the great sword who had descended down the well into Undermountain with an adventuring party on one of Kuhl's first nights in Waterdeep. He remembered Fargas had wormed his way through the crowd of onlookers to catch a glimpse of her when Aleina had described the genasi as 'wearing practically nothing at all'.
"When your brothers hired us to find you," the half-elf said. "They said you'd probably be wearing robes like theirs, but white in color."
Even with the intervening distance and bars, Kuhl could still see the genasi flush red in the cheeks.
"I wanted to wear this out seeking artifacts for Lorehold," she said, guiding her drow cellmate to her sleeping pallet. "Just once. But my brothers don't need to know that. Please don't tell them. I'd never hear the end of it."
She retrieved the other blanket of their cell and wrapped it over her shoulders.
"The armor is very… showy," Esvele said, seeming to pick her words carefully. "It is eye-catching, but maybe that drow friend of yours would not have stabbed you if… well if it protected a bit more."
"We are not fri-ends," Raelyn chattered from where she sat huddled on the sleeping pallet.
"I'm not an idiot," Sophiya said. "I know this armor is impractical. But it was more practical when I had my ring of warmth and ring of warding. I had thought it through. But the Xanathar Guild took those."
She showed her ringless fingers to emphasize the point.
"Look, you two met my brothers," the blanketed genasi continued. "One is a half dragon with beautiful crystalline scales, another half cloud giant, one more has a sun elf vampire for a father, with all brooding intensity that entails, and the last is a golden construct with glowing runes. But that is fine, because as the descendent of a human archmage my djinn mother fancied for a night you'd think I would at least have an aptitude for magic, right? Right?"
"Well your brothers all seem to be spell casters," Kuhl ventured. "So… yes?"
"No!" Sophiya said, throwing up the hand not holding the blanket in place. "But it's fine, it's fine, I still have my role in the group, protect them while they cast. Then what does Koger do? Build Ancilla to take that away from me as well!"
"Ancilla even looks a lot like you," Sky said. "Did you notice that? Except she is all sleek silver metal and lacquered wood and has glowing runes. Really incredible looking. You should be flattered. He used you as the model and then improved upon it."
"Yeah," the genasi dead panned. "Real flattered. Felt so good to be easily replaced. Anyway, I suppose a host of these feelings of inadequacy led me to want to try out this look for my next seeking mission. I got the idea from a picture chapbook my mother borrowed from my father the night I was conceived."
Laughter came from the seated drow in the blanket.
"You stupid genasi," Raelyn said, apparently recovered enough to speak normally. "Do you know why, when I saw you among that hobgoblin patrol, I told those under my command 'she is mine'?"
Sophiya answered with a questioning look and gesture to show she did not know.
"I wanted to claim your armor," the drow said. "It is impractical, yes, but quite becoming. And, as you have said, magic can be used to overcome its flaws. But if you wear such a thing, you must never feel the need to explain and never feel shame for enjoying the attention it brings. The judgment of others is beneath your notice, let them think what they will. So the precepts of the Dark Mother, Lolth, teaches us."
"I'll try and remember that," the genasi said, exasperation in her tone. "If I don't die in Blood and Fortune tomorrow."
"We will not die," Raelyn said. "We each score a point, ensure our survival for another month, and then figure out a way to escape."
"Or," Sophiya said. "We work with the others and beat the other team. Then we all go free."
"Impossible," the drow said, shaking her head. "And the promise of freedom for the prisoner team is probably a lie."
"What is Blood and Fortune?" Kuhl asked.
It had been brought up several times, and it was well past time to get some answers.
"A game of madness," Staget mumbled. "The way the drow describes it."
Raelyn's keen elven ears apparently heard the Watch captain's quiet statement.
"A game of madness, yes," she said. "And death. Imagine a sand strewn field of play, very treacherous footing, and hoop goals to throw a ball through at either end. In the middle is a pit with a roper with tentacles that can reach just beyond the confines of its pit. And if that wasn't dangerous enough, four other spike filled pits are also present."
She paused, allowing a mental image to form in the mind of her audience before continuing.
"To score a goal, which ensures you won't be slayed at the end of the game, you must navigate past all these hazards while the opposing team tries to push or throw the ball carrier and their defenders into one of these pits. As the genasi says, half-elf, you appear strong. Are you as strong as a minotaur? How about a half-ogre? How about two half-ogres? Because all three of those are among those we will face."
The drow paused again, apparently giving a chance for Kuhl to answer if he wanted. Since the answer to her question was fairly obvious, he chose to remain silent.
"Cat girl," Raelyn said. "You may be fast, but can you outpace a warg riding goblin?"
"Tabaxi," Sky said, tail lashing. "And probably."
"Well then," the drow said. "Maybe we can win. "Since the aged captain of the Watch will clearly be more than a match for an athletically built giant of woman and our halfling will similarly probably get the better of the priestess of Loviatar and her whip."
Her tone made it clear she believed none of what she said was likely. Staget took a deep breath and let it out slowly. In another cell, a female halfling stirred and shrugged. Her cellmate was a very young woman with the eye shape and olive complexion of the far east. She listened with hands on bars and with her smudged and tear streaked face up against the metal. Two men of similar youthfulness and signs of emotional distress were imprisoned next to them, one with clothes that, despite their bedraggled state, were of high quality and hinted at the wealth and nobility of their wearer. The final cell held a lone occupant - the dog bite victim of the trail Kuhl had seen judged at the Guts and Garters tavern earlier. This prisoner stared blankly ahead, as if trying to ignore or disbelieve his predicament out of existence.
"Try to win this game you describe," the halfling said in a flat voice, not moving from where she sat on her sleeping pallet and barely glancing over. "Or score points to save your own skin as you see fit. I care not. Know that I will be going my own way and looking out for myself."
The drow stood and moved to try, apparently in vain, to get an angle in her cell where she could see the halfling.
"Interesting," she said. "You don't say much halfling, but when you do, you intrigue. Perhaps I spoke in haste. Maybe we can make common cause."
"No," the halfling said, in the same flat and dismissive tone.
"Very well then," Raelyn said.
She continued to stare with curiosity, however, in the direction of the halfling.
"So, if we win this game we all go free?" Kuhl asked.
"That is what was announced at the beginning before we played the last game," the genasi said.
Her drow cellmate gave a derisive snort at that and shook her head dismissively.
"So how do we win?" the half-elf asked.
"Score eleven points before the other team," Sophiya answered.
"That is it?" Sky said. "That is easy!"
"Easier said than done," Raelyn scoffed as she made her way back to her sleeping pallet and plopped herself down. "In the last bout of Blood and Fortune some of my troop and some of the hobgoblin warriors we ambushed remained. Eleven of us, no real weak link among us, and yet the genasi and I are the only survivors. Winning is all but impossible, but if you are all fool enough to try, I welcome it. Just let me and my cellmate here score a point each as well, in case things don't work out as you plan. Now I suggest we all get some rest, we'll need all our strength tomorrow."
Following her own advice, she stretched out on her pallet.
"She isn't wrong," Sophiya said, heading to her own pallet.
Kuhl also sat down, then tried his best to face away from all four spectral eyes and whispered to Staget.
"If the little beholderkin comes down into range again, I might be able to bypass the bars and grab it," he said. "But that will do no good unless I can free some of you before other guards get here. Do you have an idea of how long I would have?"
"This bypassing of the bars," the Watch Captain whispered. "Does it involve magic?"
The half-elf nodded, thinking of stepping into the mists. His captors had finally left him unmanacled. He hoped to take advantage of that mistake.
"It won't work," Staget sighed. "The prison is warded against magic. The drow told us she can't even use her darkness and the air genasi can't even use the elemental magic of her kind. They've tried."
He paused and gave a sympathetic shrug to Kuhl's disappointed frown.
"It was a good thought," the captain said. "But barring a miracle, we are unfortunately going to be playing this Blood and Fortune game.
Warning - this note is very long and has no real bearing on the story. I've never had my idea of a character shift so much as I did research and I find myself wanting to muse about it. There be rambling ahead. A hazardous amount of it. It is basically a blog post about Red Sonja, who isn't in this story. You've been warned!
So, the plan was to reveal sister Sophiya as a tongue in cheek character to poke fun at chainmail bikinis…which is the iconic outfit of Red Sonja. If you don't know what I am talking about here is is the art of the modern incarnation of Sonja by Walter Geovani:
Links not allowed on this site. If curious google Red Sonja and Walter Geovani for excamples...
Now I HATE the chainmail bikini, but I am a big Red Sonja fan. I used to collect her short lived comic run in the early 80s when I was like 12 to 13 years old. But the Sonja that captured my young imagination was the one drawn by Mary Wilshire:
Links not allowed on this site. If curious google Red Sonja and Mary Wilshire for excamples...
Recently there was a YouTube video saying they might make a new Sonja movie. Of course the comments were aflame with "Chainmail bikini or it is woke…' Like an idiot I waded right in, arguing she actually *has* had other outfits in the past (yes, the chainmail bikini is her original outfit from the 70s). I of course was told things like, "You've probably never read a Sonja comic in your life, you poser…"
This amused me since I took the bus all the way across town to the only comic shop to spend my paper route money on Sonja comics (among others). I even read the 'feminist take' by Gail Simone where she was rebooted because I was intrigued, which was the first time I ever really read a lot where the chainmail bikini was featured (more on this later).
Anyway the idea of a joke character started forming in my mind. Why would she even wear such a thing? She has these gorgeous and exotic brothers and always felt like she was in their shadow…
I started building it up, having fun with it. Then, when I finally started writing the chapter, I started doing some Sonja research to refresh my memory. I read, for example, an article interviewing women who dressed up like Sonja at conventions. What the heck? There was more than one? Way more than one. I think they interviewed like ten women. I couldn't believe it. And I was amazed to discover their reasons for doing it. They all acknowledged it as a ridiculous thing and completely impractical as armor. But they found it fun to dress up, it made them feel confident, women walked up to them at the conventions and gave them high fives. This was a bit surprising.
I also read the Red Sonja wiki. So the original backstory was that she was a farm girl and her whole family was murdered and she was a victim of rape and left for dead. She had tried to help her family, but could barely wield her brother's dropped sword. Left for dead the warrior goddess Scáthach comes to her in a dream and gifts her with incredible fighting skills, on the condition that she never lie with a man unless he defeats her in fair combat.
Gail Simone in her 'feminist' reboot got rid of the rape, the mystical goddess link, and the chastity requirement. Her argument was basically why does Conan get to sleep with anything and everyone he wants to while his female counterpart has to sacrifice desire, love, and passion for her power? It is a fair point. So Simone's reboot of the character (the current incarnation) she has no such limits and is also bisexual.
Now, in probably a failing of my own understanding of storytelling, I quickly grew bored of new Sonja (despite the presence of the chainmail bikini). She had basically transformed into a Conan clone (to me). So I stopped reading years ago.
But doing my research for this chapter I learned some things. Who, for example, was Scáthach? The wiki had a convenient link. Scáthach, in Irish folklore she is the legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trains the hero Cú Chulainn. Well that was interesting! Sonja's original creators linked her to Irish myth. Wait, Scáthach had a sister-rival named Aife? Who is Aife? Aife attacked her sister's home while Cú Chulainn was in training and engaged the hero in single combat. She broke his sword in the fighting, but he distracts her by telling her that her horse and chariot is about to go off a cliff. By this deception he takes her prisoner, and makes her swear an oath to sleep with him and bear him a son. Now the whole reason Cú Chulainn is training with Scáthach is so he can be worthy of his future wife, Emer. So, finishing his training, Cú Chulainn heads back to Ireland leaving a pregnant Aife behind. He tells her to send their son to Ireland when he is of age and also that his son is to tell no one who he is. Cú Chulainn ends up killing his son, only realizing who he was after his death.
So, if you're keeping track, Aife is this mighty warrior goddess who, only through treachery, is forced (by oath) to sleep with and be impregnated by the hero. She is then left by him and then the same jerk kills their son because of the stupid rules he himself imposed.
Reading this I sat back and thought, "Why did the creators use Scáthach as the source of Sonja's power? Aife CLEARLY would have an ax to grind against the world (or sword as the case may be). I suddenly imagined a Sonja who was a simple farm girl at heart, who had the good memories of her upbringing to balance against her trauma and now has to channel the raging power of a vengeful and wronged goddess inside her who wants to see the world burn to become the champion the Hyborian Age desperately needs. And I really wanted to read those tales! (with Mary Wilshire style art) This is where you say, anyone who has read this far, "You've got like 20 to 40 people reading your story, max between the two sites, and *you* think you know the direction someone should take an IP that has been around since the 70s? Give me a break, ha ha. :)
The point is I planned this Sonja reference as a joke, but through research it morphed, and I got an appreciation of who she was to me as a kid, who she is to her female fans, and how she is not as simple as I thought. It was all very interesting (to me anyway).
