Out of the Shadows, Part 25


You walk toward where Verika is slumped against the wall. She looks up as you approach, her eyes widening slightly. She knows full well how vulnerable she is right now, knows how little chance she has of resisting your allure in her current fragmented emotional state. She shrinks back... but there's nowhere to go.

Then you close you eyes and exhale. And when you open them again... your teasing, tempting smirk is gone. Instead, you show her a look of simple concern. "Don't torture yourself like that," you say quietly. "What she's doing right now isn't your fault."

Verika draws in a ragged breath. "I helped make her into the kind of person who would do that."

"Maybe. And other drow helped make you into the kind of person who would do what you did to her." You place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "You could spend an eternity trying to track down who's really to blame. But what good would that do? Learn from the past, if you want. But don't live in its shadow. It's such a fucking waste of everything the present has to offer."

You pause, then continue. "I know one thing, at least. The woman I'm looking at right now is trying to make things better for everyone she can. Is that enough for you?"

Verika looks up at your demonic features, stunned into silence for several moments. Then she gives a hesitant nod. Satisfied, you raise your hand in a gentle caress to the side of her face. She flinches... but just this once, you don't try any tricks with your aphrodisiac touch. It's just a simple, brief gesture of affection.

Then, with a smile, you turn and walk away. "Come on," you say. "Khaytala will be waiting for us. And we need to get out of here before the next patrol comes around."

You're halfway down the hallway when Verika speaks up, hesitantly. "If... if you had pushed me just now..." She swallows, then quietly admits what you both know to be true. "You... you could have... had me."

You glance back over your shoulder, to see that she hasn't moved from her spot. She's looking at you, trying to understand your actions. You grin. "I am going to have you either way, Verika," you say, imbuing your words with such absolute truth that the drow shivers under the weight of it. "But still. That doesn't mean I enjoy seeing you miserable."

That only leaves Verika even more confused, thrown off balance by the different faces you've shown her. She doesn't say anything more... but you can feel her eyes on you as you escape the palace. Studying you ceaselessly.

Perhaps—just perhaps—even wondering if the inevitable defeat she can see coming for her will be quite as bad as she fears after all.

You make your way to the location of the secret laboratory on the outskirts of the city. The small building was originally unassuming, but now door has been smashed ajar, and as you step inside you can follow the trail of carnage that Khaytala has left in her wake. Broken and slashed bodies of elite drow guards, strewn across the rooms like discarded toys. Eventually you reach the innermost chamber, where you see that Relis and Belan have already arrived.

There are three gnomes in the room as well, along with the covered bodies of several more, clearly victims of the drow experiments. The three survivors have a distinct family resemblance; you'd guess a mother, an older brother, and a younger sister in late adolescence. Belan is studying the male gnome, his expression stricken, and you deduce that he's the bomb Lady Pheshera has created.

Belan looks up as you enter. "Talavar!" he says, happy to see you've returned in one piece. But then his face quickly falls again, glancing back at his patient, and you surmise that his guess was right. He doesn't have the skill to treat what's been done to the young man.

You nod, then glance over to Khaytala, who is completely unscathed. "I see you didn't have any trouble here," you congratulate her. Then you turn to Relis. "How did your hunt go?"

"We killed the agent who was trying to incite the riot, and hid his body," Relis says. "It was a close fight at the end. But Belan managed to distract him with one of his illusions and give me an opening." She reaches down and ruffles the boy's hair affectionately as she praises him. "It's a good thing he was there. If it had just been me... I might have been badly injured, at least."

"Good work, both of you," you say. "This means we won't need to worry about being stampeded or blown up when we hit the festival."

"More just that," interjects the male gnome. He rises to his feet, looking between Khaytala, you and Verika. Then the small man drops to one knee. "The name's Emdyr. I... understand you can't do anything to fix... what they did to me. But you saved my family from those vile bitches. And that means everything to me. They said I had to blow up the Matriarch, or they'd torture my mother and sister before they killed them. But now..."

Emdyr takes a deep breath. "Now... just point me at whoever you want me to use this on. It's the least I can do, considering what I owe you. And if I'm going to die anyway... well I might as well get some revenge while I'm at it." He cracks a mirthless grin. "Certainly wouldn't mind if it's Lady Pheshera you send me after."

The gnome's mother flinches at his words, like she was being stabbed through the heart, and the sister buries her head against the mother's chest, fighting back tears. Verika speaks up. "We can discuss the details of the plan later," she says. "Right now we need to get out of here, before Lady Pheshera realizes this place has been hit."

As before, you transform into the guise of a drow slaveowner, slipping your group out of the city and back to the cave. You eat a somber dinner, and with all the extra people to feed, your provisions are starting to run a little low.

Fortunately, however, this is the final stretch.

After the meal, Verika speaks up. "Tomorrow is the Festival of Melca's Thorn," she says. "One way or another, we have to rescue our friends before they can be sacrificed. And we have to make sure that the Matriarch doesn't keep coming after us."

"The sacrifice will take place in one of the outer courtyards of the Imperial Palace," she continues. "Each of the High Nobles will bring the elf they were entrusted, as will the Matriarch herself. Which will give us one last chance to rescue them all at once. We'll probably have to fight our way through a lot of guards... but this time we'll be able to concentrate all of our strength as well."

"We know that the Matriarch isn't counting on the guards, though. She's just trying to lure me in so she can use a weapon, one she hopes will be enough to take me out. And from what Talavar described... something she can hide in her sleeve, and her confidence with aiming it at any distance... I think it's probably a Knife of Bane."

You frown. "Never heard of one of those before."

"They're an ancient drow assassination tool," Verika explains. "Very rarely used. They're horribly expensive to create. And after all that cost they can only be used once. But throw it at anything or anyone in your view, and it will pursue that target at incredible speed. To the ends of the earth, if need be. Until it strikes true."

Khaytala speaks up. "So we need to take her out before she throws it?"

"That may not be so easy," you say. "I suspect that she has some kind of special defense as well... though we didn't learn much about what it was."

"Then after we fight our way through the guards, we'll just need to keep hitting her with everything we can," Verika says. She turns to Emdyr, her wordless question hanging in the air. The gnome nods once. His face set in determination... as he tries to hide the simple fear you can see eating away at him underneath it.

Verika gives Emdyr a look of gratitude. Then she turns to the rest of the group. "The Matriarch won't use her Knife of Bane until she sees me. But Talavar convinced her that he's going to lure me into a trap. You can send word to her that I'll be sniping from one of the surrounding towers, to keep her attention there. Then Emdyr can... attack her... while she isn't expecting. And Khay will be ready to follow that up. Whatever defenses she has, hopefully that will be enough to at least create an opening. And I'll be watching from the shadows. Waiting for a chance to end it."

"What about us?" asks Relis, while Belan nods.

"Belan can provide general support with his illusions, like usual," Verika says. "Relis, I want you to focus on rescuing the hostages. Use the chaos of the battle to get them to safety."

Then she turns to you. "And with Lady Eshosi's power base destroyed by her infighting... once the Matriarch dies, that will mean Lady Pheshera will be the only feasible claimant to the seat of Matriarch," she says, prompting the gnomes to flinch. "Which will likely have consequences for the surface world, given how aggressive she is. Talavar, if you could threaten her during the confusion with our blackmail, that might help keep her in line. At least for a little while."

"And Lady Mykra?" Khaytala asks.

"We should probably leave her alive," says Verika. "Even if she's not eligible to become the Matriarch herself, she's be a thorn in the side of whoever is. It might be useful for her to be causing trouble once Lady Pheshera inevitably tries to slip her leash."

You consider Verika's plan. It could work, so far as it goes... though there are also other options she hasn't considered. Now that you know the Matriarch's psychological weakness, you could exploit her fear of Verika to attack her mentally, in ways that could bypass her physical defenses entirely. If you can get her to flee for that safe room you saw, you expect you could use the privacy to psychologically cow her into submission, and fuck her until she's obedient to you.

However, you doubt she'll just give in like that... not as long as she has the weapon that she's pinning her hopes on. To break her hope of winning, you'll have to deal with that first. She won't throw it unless she sees Verika... so one obvious way would be to shapeshift into a "Verika" for her to throw it at. Your demonic regeneration means that you're the only member of your group who could likely survive that kind of attack.

Though even for you, a sorcerous weapon like that would be no joke. There's no telling exactly how potent it is, or what other effects it might have. You're confident you could handle it, all told... but maybe there's a better way to take the weapon out of commission. It is tricky not knowing the exact nature of the Matriarch's defenses, however.

Either way, if you want to explore that option, you'll need to come up with a plan of your own, including who to assign to the other tasks. Fortunately, you have the whole night to ponder it.

In the meantime, your small group begins to break apart, preparing to settle down for the night. Relis, however, approaches you directly, looking a strange combination of embarrassed and uncertain. "Talavar..." she says. "I was wondering if... I mean, considering what Emdyr is going to do for us, I thought maybe... I could ask, tonight, if he... maybe wanted to... um..."

You can see the desire in her face, both the compassionate desire to do something for the doomed gnome in his last night, as well as the carnal desires inflamed by the corruption of the Boon you gave her, carnal desires that she's had no opportunity to exercise over the past few days. It's not difficult to guess what she wants to do for Emdyr.

Nor is that the only question for tonight. Do you want to try fucking anyone? You watch as Verika moves to lie down, right next to Khaytala. She catches your eye, then quickly looks away. After the events of today, you can tell that the drow is teetering on the very edge.

You could probably force the matter right now, if you wanted to. She would probably resist at least a little, but with Khaytala's help restraining her, you expect you can break through that in short order, and get her to happily submit to the pleasure... and to you.

On the other hand, you could fuck Khaytala right next to her, and see what that does to what little remains of her self-control. Or there's always the female gnomes; you could bring them under your influence directly if you wanted.

Finally, you'll need to determine how obvious about all of this you're going to be. You could do it all under the cover of darkness, after any you don't want to involve have fallen asleep. Or you could make it obvious, having the sex on full display in front of everyone. That could make for some unexpected—or even volatile—effects depending on who is or isn't involved in the orgy.

Either way, you'll have to make your choice, as you spend your final night before the showdown.