Poems in a Cave
Kuhl felt lost as if in a dream as he sat at a large zurkhwood table, with his companions and the Zhentarim he traveled with in a spacious cave lit by phosphorus fungal lanterns. This place, which once served as the main hall of a drow outpost, stirred memories of Velkynvelve, where he and his companions had once been imprisoned. Now, this cavernous refuge served as the lair of a moon-elf-spider hybrid. The setting and host were strange enough to feel dreamlike, but stranger still was the surreal experience of listening to their spider-bard host recite one of his father's poems.
Her voice was melodious, melancholy tone hauntingly hypnotic, a stark contrast to her disheveled appearance. Cobwebs were tangled in her indigo hair, smudges of grime marred her otherwise flawless pale blue-tinged skin, and strands of web clung from the dark drow piwafwi cloak which draped her lithe elven upper half. Yet it was the glimpses of sharp fangs as she spoke, the blood flecks on her lips from the orog corpse she drank from earlier, and the grotesque, bulbous spider body looming beneath the elf part of her form, that pulled this dreamlike scene fully into the territory of nightmare.
"I yearn to cross the Trackless Sea,
Sailing beneath the liminal sky.
Whence I came, shall I return,
Where the sacred-spirit tree stands high?
White sails, I pray, will windsong press,
With Aerdrie Faenya's divine breath.
To guide my course through Spellplagued rifts,
And Moonlit Mystery's shimmering mists.
To find once more those emerald shores,
Where Timeless Amlaruil reigns evermore."
The bard went silent, head bowed and stilling the strings of the lute she'd used to add a few artful notes to her recitation with her palm and doing the same with one of her spider legs to the vazhan-do, a drow instrument, on the table. After observing a moment of silence she lifted her head and gave Kuhl the shadow of a smile that kept her fangs hidden.
"I heard Verith Knightstar perform that in the reclaimed City of Song," she said. "And you are his son?"
She already knew the answer. Rather than a true question, her tone suggested continued bewildered amazement over that revelation from when the companions introduced themselves earlier. The half-elf nodded anyway. His father wrote that poem long ago, after the Spellplague wrenched Evermeet into the Feywild. Only just now did Kuhl have the thought he might owe his existence to that magical cataclysm. If his father would have returned to his elven island homeland sooner, he would have never met Janestra, Kuhl's mother, who would have still been a child at the time of the Spellplague.
"I wonder," their host said, pulling the half-elf from his thoughts. "Did Verith ever find a way through the Feywild back to 'those emerald shores'?"
"Yes and no," the half-elf answered. "Evermeet itself found its way back to this plane."
Ships from the elven isle suddenly started again sailing into harbors along the Sword Coast a little over a decade ago. Kuhl's father had boarded one and not returned to Faerun since - as far as his son knew anyway.
"I decade is a short time for an elf," Dawnbringer reminded the half-elf telepathically. "Especially for an elf barred from his homeland for over a century."
Kuhl glanced around the table and realized they'd been unintentionally rude. Their host had recited his father's poem in Elvish, which they still spoke. Jhelnae, as a dark-elf, naturally understood, as did the darklings - Rhianne and Diarnghan. Eldeth, being a trained envoy, spoke multiple languages and Aleina grew up with an elf tutor. But the humans - Aligor, Lenora, Saliyra, Kelvane, Iandro, Lhytris, and Gorath - all looked a bit confused and lost. Sky's golden eyes, in contrast, glittered with understanding and curiosity thanks to the Stone of Golorr, which translated languages for her.
"You knew Kuhl's father?" the tabaxi asked in surface Common, tail lashing behind her. "We met his grandmother, but missed meeting his mother because of a hot springs trip. Which also meant we missed meeting a giant book reading spider and a riddling sphinx librarian. But I did get to meet a water naiad named Cyrena, so that was one small consolation."
"Meeting Cyrena was one small consolation?" Jhelnae said with an irritated sniff. "What about, I don't know, spending time relaxing with your friends in enchanted hot springs? That wasn't any consolation?"
"Let's see," Sky answered with an eye-roll. "Bored to death by friends saying over and over again, 'By all that dances, this feels so good' and, 'Selune's Tears, it really does' or, meeting a giant book reading spider and a riddling sphinx librarian. Tell me which you would choose?"
"The hot springs," Aleina answered immediately. "Especially since the other included murderous, heart out of chest ripping, cursed dryads. And we do not sound like that."
"Actually I thought her impressions of them were good," Dawnbringer said in Kuhl's thoughts. "Sky actually has a gift for mimicry."
"Not to mention missing meeting those," the tabaxi huffed, throwing up her hands in frustration.
"Well, that exchange contained several intriguing things I'm dying to learn about," the elf-spider said, also now speaking surface Common and lips twitching in amusement. "I'm sorry you missed meeting a book reading spider, but perhaps meeting a singing one is some small recompense?"
"It is," Sky answered with a sharp-toothed smile.
Their host returned that with a genuine smile of her own, one made unnerving by the reveal of her fangs and the orog blood flecking her lips.
"And I've also ripped a few hearts out of chests in my time," the elf-spider dead-panned. "Both the figurative and literal variety."
Uncomfortable silence descended. Then Aleina gave a forced laugh.
"Ah, literal and figurative," the aasimar breathed. "It's a joke. I get it."
"It was a joke," the elf-spider agreed, the fanged smile returning to her lips. "But also, true."
Aleina went wide-eyed and her laughter died abruptly.
"But to answer the question asked of me," their host said, seemingly oblivious to the reaction of the aasimar and the nervous glances exchanged by others around the table to her statement. "I knew his father quite well. Verith and I fought in the crusade against Sarya Dlardrageth and her fey'ri. We were young elves, first battling for the grand purpose of defeating an ancient enemy, and then just trying to survive, day by day, minute by minute."
Her cerulean eyes went distant for a moment and her smile fell away.
"But that was long ago," she said. "And ended in the victory that won the City of Song back for the People."
Kuhl wondered to himself if he should tell their host Myth Drannor, the City of Song, was made a ruin again by the crashing of the flying city of Shade Enclave. He decided, eyeing the spider-half of her body, there was no reason to upset her.
"A wise choice," Dawnbringer mused.
"None of you have even tasted your food or wine," their host observed, gaze traveling the table, then spoke a single word in Elvish as she raised her goblet filled with the green wine she'd served.
"Uluvathae."
Everyone at the table hesitated following suit. They'd been invited up here to this former drow outpost to share stories which might inspire this cursed elf-spider-bard, but was that really her only intention? Could they really trust her and the food and drink she served? In his mind's eye Kuhl again saw her lifting one of the orog corpses off the cavern floor with her spider legs and sinking her fangs into its neck.
"I should be able to neutralize any poison she serves you," Dawnbringer reminded the half-elf in his thoughts. "As I did when the false Meloon Wardragon poisoned you in Undermountain."
With that reassurance, Kuhl raised his own goblet.
"Uluvathae," he said, then translated as well. "May your fortune bring you joy."
Eyes locked, Kuhl and the elf-spider drank.
"Well son of Verith Nightstar," their host said as they lowered their goblets, a coy little fang concealing smile on her blood flecked and now also wine stained lips. "What say you? Is the spiced green of House Ulaver to your liking?"
It was. He had it once before in the cabin of Zardoz Zord - a disguise of Jarlaxle - on his flagship the Eyecatcher of the Sea Maidens Faire. The wine tasted the way he remembered, spiced and a bit salty and fizzed a bit as it touched the tongue.
"It is very good," he said with a nod of acknowledgment.
"Did the drow leave this wine behind when they abandoned this place?" Eldeth asked, examining the contents of her own goblet while swirling it.
The dwarf did not, however, move to taste it yet.
"Abandon Ulaver Green?" their host said, chuckling softly. "Drow would never abandon a supply of Ulaver Green. Furnishings, yes, spider servants, yes, this entire outpost, yes, but Ulaver Green? No. This was a holding of House Xorlarrin. After losing the city of Gauntlgrym to you and your dwarf kin they no longer needed to supply their forces there and hence did not need this outpost. So, we of the Society of Brilliance took it over. Members use it as a refuge for our travels through the Underdark. Naturally, it must be stocked. My colleague Limleech makes regular deliveries of the wine as well as the spore bread, the mushrooms, the deep rothe sausages, and the cheese on your plates."
"Society of Brilliance?" Diarnghan said from the depths of his cowl. "We met one of your members. A mind flayer. Grazilaxx."
"He had a little spindle spinning around his head," Sky added.
"He prefers the term illithid," the elf-spider said. "Please tell me he didn't bore you with the benefits of an iounitarian diet."
"He might have mentioned it," Kuhl said.
"Mentioned it?" Dawnbringer asked telepathically. "He went on and on about it."
"By the Seldarine, he is such a braggart," their host sighed. "Telling everyone they should try it. But does he ever have another ioun stone so we actually can? What I wouldn't do to give up the blood sucking part of my diet."
This outburst seemed to assure Diarnghan of the safety of the food and drink. He gave the elf-spider a toast with his goblet, then took a sip.
"Very good," he said appreciatively. "You're right. No one would abandon that."
The others took this as permission to also drink and took tentative first sips, followed by deeper drinks, and then the tasting of the food on their plates.
"Not too much," Aligor admonished as Gorath reached for a clay jug to refill his now empty goblet. "Once we have given Lady Morning Glory Blade the stories she has asked for, we need to continue our journey."
"Morning Glory Blade was my stage affectation when performing among non-elves," their host said. "I couldn't resist using it when I introduced myself before. Old habits die hard, a human saying, but not untrue even among elves. My Elvish name is Amaraea Kerymira. And, as I offered, you are welcome to rest here."
The former knight started to shake his head, but Kelvane quickly spoke up.
"If she wanted us dead she could have just watched the orogs kill us," the former squire reasoned through a mouthful of food.
"I did consider leaving you to the orogs," Amaraea admitted with an apologetic wince and a graceful shrug of elven shoulders. "But after hearing your bard sing her running song I could not just lurk above and let such a gifted voice be lost."
"That impressed you?" Rhianne asked from the depths of her hood. "I was completely out of breath."
"Which made it all the more impressive," their host said. "Before you leave, I would like a chance to sing with you."
"I would like that as well," the darkling bard said.
Despite knowing that Aligor's fears were justified - they were in the proverbial spider's lair after all - Kuhl found himself wishing to hear the two bards sing together as well.
"You will find no safer place to rest for miles," their host pressed. "Know you'll be staying in the hollowed out stalactite hanging tower that was once the barracks of the elite drow soldiers whose doors can be secured from inside."
"If those doors are anything like the ones in Velkynvelve," Jhelnae said. "They will be solid and strong."
"Even the drow couldn't get at us once we were inside," Eldeth said in agreement.
Aligor tilted his head in consideration and Gorath added his own voice to the argument.
"Martyred Crying God, Aligor," the big man grumbled. "Lenora needs to recover from her injury and I'm not too proud to admit I'm exhausted. First the run and then all the cranking Kuhl and I did to winch all of you up here. We just survived near death only because of her and if she means us harm, so be it. Leaving without rest would be like surviving a bout in one Manshakan Blood Arena and being dragged from the middle of your victory feast to fight in the other."
"Which of you also feel as Kelvane and Gorath do?" the Zhentarim leader asked, gaze polling his group.
Iandro hesitated, then gave an impassive nod as he took another sip from his goblet. The pallid skinned Lhytris didn't really respond but that meant he also didn't object. He'd barely touched his food and drink and seemed lost in his own thoughts. Not uncommon behavior for him.
"Lenora could use rest to recover," Saliyra said when Aligor looked at her.
Lenora herself, who did still look pale and drawn, sought more information before rendering her opinion.
"Noble-daughter," she asked Aleina. "You were imprisoned in one of these outposts before? Are these towers as secure as the others say?"
"I wish you would stop calling me that," the aasimar complained before answering. "But if they are like the ones in Velkynvelve, they are very secure. They were even able to withstand an assault of flying demons."
"Then I say we take more of Amaraea's hospitality," the Chessentan crossbow woman said. "Not only did she save our lives but I daresay she can travel through the Underdark faster and quieter than we can. If she means us harm, she could always just follow behind us and ambush us at whatever inferior camp we set up. So, why then not take her up on an offer to use a secure hanging stalactite tower?"
"Very well," Aligor sighed. "Lady Amaraea, we accept your offer of further hospitality."
"Well reasoned," their host said, looking at Lenora after a nod of acknowledgement to the Zhentarim leader. "And well assessed. This form can travel very fast and very stealthily through the Underdark."
"And if you do not mind me asking," Rhianne said. "What is the story of you ending up in this form?"
The spider-elf gave the darkling a knowing look.
"Ever the bard, sister-in-song?" she asked. "Ever seeking stories?"
Rhianne shrugged cloaked shoulders and gave an open palmed gesture with gloved hands.
"I understand," their host said, with a salute of her wine goblet. "Like you, I was once part of an adventuring party. Many adventuring parties actually. The last was The Holy. We interrupted a Lolthite ritual in the ruins of Eryndlyn. I was captured in that endeavor and this was the punishment levied by my captors for my efforts against them."
She gestured at herself with her foremost spider legs.
"You were cursed and transformed by Lolthites?" the darkling bard asked, voice confused. "But I thought…"
She sang part of the last verse of the song Amaraea used to introduce herself in the cavern below.
"But the bard knew a part of her in fey she'd left behind,
And forever more with darkness her fate would now be entwined."
"You thought the Queen of Air and Darkness cursed me," their host said, nodding. "And in a way, she did. After performing at her fey court - perhaps only in dream - I longed to return. So I chased ever more perilous paths, seeking songs and deeds worthy of her, until I became as you see me now."
"Have you tried to reverse the curse?" Kuhl asked. "Surely the high mages in Evereska…"
The spider-elf interrupted him with a shake of her head.
"I went mad after my transformation," Amaraea said. "Those years down here in the Underdark are a blur in my memories. But when sanity returned it came with the clarity that this cursed form, my doom, was fated since my performance before the Queen of Air and Darkness. Before I was unfit for her court, but now?"
She spread her elven arms wide, her foremost spider legs mirroring the gesture below - a pose that mimicked the end of a performance, ready to bask in the praise and applause of an imaginary audience.
"Now, I am the Singing Spider," she stated with a small bow and a playful wink. "I dream of offering my voice, my lute, my sword, my bow, and my fangs in service to the Unseelie Queen if she will have me - once I find, or one of my colleagues from the Society of Brilliance finds, a crossing from the Underdark to the Feydark, and from there, the Feywild."
No one spoke immediately after her declaration. Their host mainly spoke to Rhianne and she, it seemed, needed a moment and a sip of wine to fully consider Amaraea's words.
"I understand," the darkling bard said after lowering her goblet. "I have a dream kindred in spirit - to compose and perform a song which will so move the Summer Queen, she will lift her curse from my people."
The elf-spider's cerulean eyes glittered with excitement.
"You've been composing it of course," she said. "Is any part of it fit for recitation?"
Rhianne slowly shook her cowled head from side to side.
"After over a hundred years of composing," she said with an exasperated huff. "Not. One. Line."
Amaraea's expression of anticipatory excitement fell and she sighed in commiseration.
"The words that mean the most to us," she said. "Love to elude and forever hide just beyond the borders of our waking mind in the land of dreams."
"There is a lament I have been composing," Rhianne said, lifting her harp onto the table. "I am still refining, but I can share what I have so far."
Like when Amaraea performed Kuhl's father's poem, the darkling bard only used her harp to strum a few mood setting mournful notes as she recited in Elvish.
"Where is the Weaver?
Where lies her loom?
Where are those skilled ebony hands,
That shuttled fate far from doom?
Who now will take the starlit silken strands,
To weave night sky tapestries with divine hands?
Her overreaching ambitions bore dire cost,
Where now is our goddess, disgraced and lost?
Far from our prayers, she has passed,
For into abyssal lands has she been cast."
Their host canted her head as Rhianne fell silent. Her brow furrowed in thought and one fang over bit her pursed lips. She pondered the poetic words for a long moment.
"It's beautifully evocative," she finally said, remembering to speak surface Common for the benefit of the humans this time. "But many would not think Lolth a proper subject for lament. While she can be seen as tragic, she was the architect of her own fall."
Her tone suggested the elf-spider herself viewed the spider-demon goddess as unworthy of lamentation. Which was not surprising, given who had cursed her. A slight nod from Jhelnae showed she shared this sentiment.
"It's not really a lamentation for Lolth," the darkling bard replied. "It's a lament from the perspective of Araushnee's last priestesses - ultimately, a lament for themselves. Think of it. One day, they are the esteemed clergy of the favored consort, and the next, they're powerless worshippers of an outcast, through no fault of their own."
Amaraea's cerulean eyes lit with understanding. She nodded thoughtfully.
"Ah, I understand it more fully now," she breathed. "That would have been tragic. You see, I was right in not letting you be lost to orog blades. Will you recite it again, so I might learn it? Slowly, so I may repeat the lines and mimic your harp notes?"
The pair of bards did so together, more than a few times, practicing softly while the others at the table ate and drank, and murmured to those near them in low voices. By the time Rhianne and Amaraea finished, Kuhl felt full from the meal and just a bit light-headed from the wine, a gentle haze settling at the edges of his awareness. Apparently the wine was potent enough to even affect an elf-spider if she drank enough of it, because her voice slightly slurred when she spoke and her gaze was a bit glazed.
"You are the son of Verith Nightstar," she said again, her eyes fixed on the half-elf as she shook her head in disbelief. "You do resemble him greatly, though more sturdily built from the blood of your human forebears. I never knew your mother. By the time she arrived in Evereska, I already dwelt in Myth Drannor. But a poem an Evereskan bard composed about her did reach us in the City of Song."
"Kuhl's mother has a poem about her?" Aleina asked. She glanced at the half-elf accusingly. "Your mother has a poem about her? How have we never heard it?"
Kuhl gave a quiet sigh. If it was the poem he thought it was, he'd heard it more than a few times during his childhood in Evereska. According to his aunt, his mother intensely disliked it. Though supposedly dedicated to her she believed its true subject was her own mother. Worse, it alluded to the shorter lifespan of half-elves - hardly a reminder one wanted at the beginning of an intense love affair with a moon-elf from Evermeet. To her dismay, the poem had proved popular, and she'd endured it with a polite forced smile countless times.
"You haven't heard it? I can perform it for you, if you'd like," Amaraea offered. She cast an apologetic glance at the humans around the table. "I'm afraid it's another one in Elvish."
"We don't speak the language," Aligor said with a slight shrug and a prompting wave, "But we can still appreciate its cadence and lyrical melody. Pray, continue."
"Very well," the elf-spider replied, fine tuning her lute in preparation. "Being from Evereska, and having lived there during the phaerimm siege, it holds personal meaning for me. I may have even recited it before the throne of the Unseelie Queen - or perhaps I only dreamt I did."
Then she shifted to her performance voice and began.
"Begotten in time most dire,
From warrior-mother's fierce need and dark blade's desire,
When Elven Fortress Home was overwhelmed,
Yet unborn, she served as guardian of Hidden Realm,
Strength of human and elf-kind's grace,
Yet cursed with doom of mortal race,
Battle Maiden of Vaasan cold Granite Tower,
But by birthright, native Evereskan fair flower."
It was the poem Kuhl's mother had disliked, but an errant thought distracted him from truly listening midway through the elf-spider-bard's recitation. Amaraea just said she performed this poem before the Queen of Air and Darkness. Later, Kuhl's mother had become the champion of the Maiden of the Moon of the Fey Gloaming Court. The half-elf himself had even been conceived in the Feywild, after his mother was lured there in search of a cure for lycanthropy.
And who was the mother of the Maiden of the Moon? Sehanine Moonbow, the goddess he served as paladin. Was that all mere happenstance - or were divine hands at play? In that moment, he felt like nothing more than a pawn in a vast, unfathomable game beyond his understanding.
"If it is beyond your understanding," Dawnbringer thought in his mind. "Then does it matter whether it is happenstance or design? In the end we all can only face the trials that come to us and strive to triumph."
Amaraea pulled the half-elf from his thoughts before he could decide if his sentient sword was right or not.
"It may be only those of us who endured that siege can truly appreciate that poem," their host said, voice quiet, as though speaking more to herself than those around the table. "Many believed we witnessed the final days of the last elven city on Faerûn. Some even considered taking their own lives rather than becoming incubators for the phaerimm. But your grandmother Takari fought on - by all means available to her."
At that moment the elf-spider seemed far away, then apparently recalled her surroundings and purpose.
"Well then," she said, straightening. "We've shared introductions, food, and drink. The rules of hospitality have thus been honored. Now, it's time to fulfill your promises. Which story shall I hear first? The tale of the giant book-reading spider? The one with the water naiad, Cyrena? The escape from the drow outpost you mentioned? Or something else entirely?"
To Kuhl's surprise, it was Lenora who answered.
"We can start with a story I want to hear," she said, voice low but so intense and focused it carried throughout the cave. "One owed to me, to Saliyra, to Kelvane… and Primwin."
A flicker of grief passed over her face as she spoke the name of her fallen companion. She turned to Aligor, expression hardening with resolve.
"What happened after Urspreth? And what did that demon mean about saving your soul?"
"Lenora…" Aligor began, voice both holding an edge of irritation and a note of conciliation.
"No," she interrupted, her tone unwavering as she shook her head. "No more excuses. No more delays. Tell us."
Aligor's gaze shifted around the room, first with uncomfortable looks at those sitting around the table then settling at the cave's exit, as if contemplating escape that way. But finally he let out a resigned sigh and shrugged armored shoulders.
"Very well," he said. "I will tell you."
I am quite glad to be done with this. I don't know if anyone will be interested in it. When I stumbled across Morning Glory Blade created by DnD staffer Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel I thought she'd be a bit of a fun encounter in the Underdark. And she was a bard and so she and Rhianne could get a 'bardy' together. Her being a bard also served another convenient purpose... more on that later.
So, I thought, they'll swap some poems/songs. But first I had to write her introductory poem (which was in the last chapter). The proved far more challenging than I thought it would be. Then I was like, "Okay. That sucked! So lets look for some already canon Forgotten Realms poems they can swap. I couldn't really find any! Damn it! But now, I was committed. Note I don't write poetry. As a glorified rhyming thesaurus, Chatgpt is amazing, but the rhyming lines it spits out are so generic they are basically useless. So, how to generate some poems? I resorted to editing already existing poem. The first poem I used was Sea-Fever by John Masefield:
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.
I literally copied those lines into my document and started editing it for my own needs.
The next one, for Rhianne's lament, I took a page out of Tolkien and used lines from an old Anglo-Saxon poem (The Wanderer) stealing these lines and editing them:
Where has the horse gone?
Where are my kindred?
Where is the giver of treasure?
Where are the benches to bear us?
Joys of the hall to bring us together?
No more, the bright goblet!
All gone, the mailed warrior!
Lost for good, the pride of princes!
Then there was the one I planned that was going to be about Kuhl's mother. The only line I had thought up was "Begotten by dark blade's desire" and I liked that. So I just had to find a poem that fit and I could insert it. I went through Shakespearean sonnets (way to complicated and advanced for me!), poems by Sappho I could find nothing I could use! That one, I just muscled through. I think by the time I was done *five* fricken hours had passed! Time I could ill afford to spend on a damned poem!
BTW, for Forgotten Realms lore purists I know that Queen Amlaruil did not come back from the Feywild when the elven isle returned (for some reason the designers made a point of saying she was no longer canon in 5e), but Kuhl's father would not have known that at the time of his composition.
Finally Gwendolyn never gave Morning Glory Blade an Elvish name, but everyone calling her 'Morning' or 'Glory' or even 'Blade' didn't really work. So I modified the word for 'morning' from Tolkien's Elvish and I think I translated 'Glory Blade' in Forgotten Realms Elvish (then modified it to make it more of a name) and used that.
Next Chapter - A Knight's Tale - only the title will be inspired by Chaucer, :)
And if you are wondering the answer is 'yes'. I am using Morning Glory Blade as a set up for Aligor to give his back story...