Journal Reveries of Regrets

Vel’duith reclined alone on the blissfully hot, smooth-carved obsidian shelf, the balmy volcanic spring water tickling her ears and chin, hands tucked over the scant, barely perceptible pad of fat that passed for her belly, her silken, snow-white hair swirling with the roil-churned pool’s current in the nearly complete darkness of the isolation cavern. Today was to be the final reckoning of her training cadre - the Blooding. She worried foremost for Kre’thil, fearing he might be picked off by one of the surface-warriors while foolhardily trying to impress her and Orebith with his flashy spellcraft and derring-do. He had grown quite emboldened, even overconfident of late, ever since the three abbilen had taken to regularly teaming up. Orebith had also seemed nervous before she left for her own isolation, although likely for very different reasons. She was shebali, after all, while Vel’duith and Kre’thil, albeit as marginally as could be imagined, were c’rintri. The trio’s ready camaraderie was drawing to a close this day, along with all final vestiges of their childhood. Expectations surely awaited her abbil’s triumphant return to the Lower-Undercity, as much as House Voiryn’s expectations awaited Vel’duith’s.

Vallabha-Ilhar had in fact already communicated one such expectation to Vel’duith in advance, and it had nearly derailed all other thought of preparation for the ritual. She had been instructed to throw herself with complete, reckless abandon at the second-son of the second-house, K’mindu Myrlochar. He had apparently been fully apprised of this expectation and would be awaiting her dutiful sacrifice. Oh, K’mindu was certainly more than handsome enough, and there was a marvelously taut definition to his arms and back that had immediately caught Vel’duith’s fancy the very first time she saw him. He seemed destined to become the frequent subject of statuary; or if naught else, its medium! For in the very first moon of cadre, Vel’duith had swiftly discovered (to her profound disappointment) that the delectably shapely lobes of K’mindu’s ears were separated by a lump of the densest, least permeable obsidian imaginable. That dull, dark, forge-hardened clump of a brain hid just enough of a vacant cavity at its very center to harbor both a violently fickle temper and the shallowest, most superficial tastes, leaving no space whatsoever for any degree of intellect, curiosity, or creative spark to take root. Even though he had been fully carried to the finish line by the competence of his surviving cadre mates, the magnificent mal’ai constantly whined for hours or even days at length about every outcome not wholly in his favor, heaping blame on whoever or whatever was most conveniently at hand, the more spurious and outrageous, the better.

Vel’duith doubted very much whether the jadedly spoiled palate of a boy in K’mindu’s lofty position would linger long on a meager scrap like her, when a broad sampling of much more abundant fare would undoubtedly hover nearby, jostling for best convenience to his impending whim. Why, fully half the remaining girls in the cadre would be scrabbling tooth, nail, and dagger over one another, angling for the shining social promotion that bearing a healthy girl-child to the studly scion of the second-house promised them. No, K’mindu doubtlessly only agreed to Vallabha-Ilhar’s overture in order to exact his personal petty revenge for years of falling victim to my tricks. Vel’duith imagined that she would at best be discarded with the sordid act started but incomplete, assuredly despoiled, very likely shared around afterward among his jeering circle of shebali sycophants, doomed to be humiliated by the recreant pack of ja’luk’in in every way possible - and even that unpleasant fate assumed that her ribcage didn’t wind up sheathing the soiree’s first dagger. Vel’duith couldn’t help but wonder whether that latter possibility was her mother’s true desire. As blinded by ambition as the matron of House Voiryn could seem at times, she was hardly foolish enough to actually anticipate a successful coupling of Vel’duith and K’mindu, who had literally nothing to gain from this imagined union that he couldn’t get from a much more comely and desperate partner.

Vel’duith caught herself grinning, momentarily conjuring forth the illusory image of a ferocious hook horror snatching K’mindu away for an afternoon snack during the impending blooding run, sighing contently at the boy’s imagined shrieks of panic and agony as his lifeblood rhythmically painted the side tunnel walls in gushing, scarlet-spurting crotchets, but then she frowned and waved the delightful fantasy away. It was obviously the goddess’s ardent will that this complete disaster of a we’ha-whol’acknen jal’uk would survive even the end times. Only Orebith could save her now from complete physical and social humiliation.

Out of both the last shreds of resistance to her mother’s will and the soaring ebbs of long-suppressed adolescent desire, Vel’duith had tried her very utmost over the past week to drop what she fervently hoped were unmistakable hints of her interest in Orebith: openly admiring her abbil’s physique, complimenting the grace of her fighting form to any within earshot, allowing her eyes to linger locked with Orebith’s whenever they spoke, indulging the temptation to trail her fingertips along the swordswoman’s exquisite muscles at any and every excuse for the pair to touch. Vel’duith often fantasized about Orebith finding her in the wake of their moment of shared triumph, her steel-fingered grip closing securely on her slender shoulders, speaking her name in that urgent, husky whisper she was so prone to speaking in, pulling her insistently, hungrily, irresistibly away from the throng of dark bodies, away from K’mindu, away from certain humiliation, spiriting her to some secret nook where the two of them could lie alone together, lost to the world and time. Would she come, I wonder, if I dared lead her away?

One racy thought dashed pell nell into another, and a succulently splendid plot swiftly crystalized in Vel’duith’s ever-quick mind. What if Kre’thil also lay with Orebith, and a child came of it? Why, then Orebith could be elevated into House Voiryn! Vallabha-Ilhar would have another potent house-daughter to command - quite possibly two if a girl-child were born! - and just as puissant and graceful as her first-daughter, and undoubtedly far more loyal. Vel’duith, beaming at this new prospect, had very little trouble imagining that Kre’thil would be eager for the task. He had been shamelessly flirting with her ever since the pair first reached puberty - not without some degree of reciprocity, she acknowledged with a smirk - and he had recently begun devoting similar efforts to Orebith, who seemed quite amused by the attention. Until this recent diversion of some of Kre’thil’s overtures, Vel’duith had half-feared that he might come try to claim her for himself tonight, in spite of the very real threat of dire punishment for them both. Such a union among cousins, even once removed, of the same low-ranking noble house would be tantamount to treason to the house and its matron, as it could bring the house no upward step or useful alliance.

Vel’duith shuddered to contemplate the horrific lengths her mother’s sadistic imagination might travel to devise a fitting punishment for such an affront. The house-matron had repeatedly lectured and beaten into her second-daughter from a very young age the expectation for a girl of her station to only pursue males from higher-ranked houses, or at worst with only the most competent of rival houses, so as to gain allies in House Voiryn’s treacherous climb up from the precarious precipice of the Upper-Undercity that it had ever teetered upon. Boys, however, could be permitted to sleep downward, even with shebali, so long as they chose mates with desirable traits. As with all such endeavors, a fait accompli would be the key to getting away with it. So, truly, all would depend on Kre’thil and Orebith. The obvious benefits of the arrangement would hardly be missed by the ever-aware, keenly perceptive Orebith, who had so often seen straight through Vel’duith’s very best traps.

So, Vel’duith resolved then and there that she would defy her mother. She would not allow herself to be debased or murdered in the vain pursuit of the doomed-to-fail seduction of the cretinous K’mindu. She would trick the dimwitted ja’luk with an alluring illusion, the embarrassment of falling for it yet again sealing his lips, his momentarily-injured pride doubtlessly soon to be assuaged by all the ample breasts and eager thighs he could possibly handle. And then she would seduce Orebith for herself and Kre’thil. She, Kre’thil, and Orebith would consummate the blooding rituals together, with Kre’thil saving his all-important seed for Orebith. Vel’duith could then pass whatever test her mother might imagine, if she made good on her threat to examine her after the ritual. With any luck, she and Kre’thil might soon have Orebith to share permanently, with the once-commoner receiving the benefits of nobility in addition to the regular attentions of both her abbilen. And it would buy Vel’duith time to try to seek out a more bearable match than K’mindu Myrlochar, at any rate.

Screams and shouting filled the black, moonless night as fire leapt from house to house. But there was no sign at all of the dwarven soldiers the cadre had been tasked to kill. That rather important detail hardly seemed to matter to most of the rest of the cadre, who fell to chasing down and spearing or hacking apart unarmed, bedclothed dwarves and humans just as they emerged from their flaming homes. Many were small children or mothers with bawling babes in arms. All looked shocked, terrified, and confused, being cut down without even seeing who was attacking them. Kre’thil had immediately run off with K’mindu and his rabid pack of shebali spearmen, setting sparks to roofs, readying spells for the sure-to-come combat that never came. Vel’duith and Orebith were in the center square, wheeling about back to back, scanning every which way for enemies, but seeing no one else with weapons besides other hooded, masked drow from the cadre. Blood splattered out onto them from alleyways and open windows as they walked the full perimeter of the square. A sickening charnel stench assaulted their keenly sensitive nostrils, wafted on the eddies of a chilly night breeze.

Orebith was visibly growing agitated. “Where in the 666 layers of the Abyss are all the dwen’del warriors?” she cursed, her husky voice nearly choked from trying to restrain herself from shouting it aloud. “Whom are we meant to battle? These fleeing children? Look at all the cowards and fools chasing the very easiest of slaughter, instead of searching for our actual targets before they ambush and slay us all!” Spying a stout stonework tower through the smoke, the tall, swarthy swordswoman grabbed Vel’duith’s shoulder and pointed at it. “What about there? Do you suppose the dwen’deles wait within, preparing an ambush?” Vel’duith stopped and focused her appraising eyes, noting the windows were all lightless despite the clamor below… save for faintly glowing, spidery dwarf-runes around each window. “Impossible to say… although it looks more akin to a wizard’s tower. Look! Ward-runes around the windows! If not your worthy opponent, perhaps their invasion plans or some worthy treasure might lie within, guarded by those wards!”

The pair nearly collided with Kre’thil as he ran sidelong into them at the next intersection. “Not a single warrior! Where have they all gone?” he blustered, panting. “My spells are wasted on roof-thatch!” Vel’duith grabbed him and turned him toward the tower. “How about those ward-runes? We mean to try the tower!” Thus reunited, the trio of masked drow started to make their way alley by alley, street by street to the outskirts of town, where the tower rose at least two dozen fathoms into the dark night. Vel’duith stretched her arms out to stop her overly eager abbilen a couple fathoms short of the entrance. “Do you two wish to die this night?!” she hissed annoyedly. She had seen a few dwarven traps before in abandoned Underrealm ruins, and their merciless ingenuity was only surpassed by their baffling complexity and peerless craftsmanship. The image of that ill-fated, doomed young jal’uk flashed through her mind - not yet twelve - staring wide-eyed at his lifeblood oozing and weakly spurting down the fullered adamantine spike impaled through his chest, his blood-gurgling lips mouthing soundlessly the words "help me..." Grimacing and re-clearing her throughts, Vel'duith reached out a ghostly, silvery spirit hand into the weave, feeling, sensing the ward-runes, tracing their connection to sprung rods, the nearly seamlessly edged trapdoor, the pit below, the eagerly-etched fire runes surrounding a pattern of a dozen arm-length sharpened adamantine stakes... all this various doom silently awaited the clumsy or hasty. She clucked her tongue, and pointed at a third-story window. “No good. We must levitate up to that window there, and hope its runes are not nearly so well reinforced.”

Orebith draped her tautly muscled arms around the shoulders of the slender cousins, her powerful hands taking as firm purchase as she could. On a silent hand-count of three, the trio floated up into the air, stopping just outside the window. Vel’duith and Kre’thil softly chanted counterspells in unison, their embeddings glowing silver and crimson respectively within their sleeves as the ward-runes faded dark. Vel’duith spoke a hushed word and softly rapped her lizard-skin-gloved knuckles against the window. Her silvery spirit-hand re-appeared within the window, unlocking and opening it for them. They quickly pulled themselves inside, still floating, though Orebith wobbled dangerously as she shifted to be fully astride Kre’thil. Vel’duith clucked her tongue again, shaking a dart into her hand and, in the same motion, she wedged it beneath the corner of a pressure plate on the floor below the window, just before she settled gently down onto it. She heaved a sigh of relief as she safely rolled off the plate, which blessedly hadn’t budged, and kipped up to her slippered feet without so much as a rustle. They were safely inside! Vel’duith grinned broadly at Orebith underneath her mask, even though her shoulder smarted from where her abbil had just grabbed ahold of it for their ascent. She massaged the welcome soreness, marveling silently: A goddess in her might! Kre’thil's ruby-hued eyes were half-glazed over himself, looking fully in bliss even though momentarily pinned to the floor by the weight of the young swordswoman draped all over him. Finally turning toward Vel’duith with a chuckle, spying the dart-pinned pressure plate, Orebith shook her head in disbelief, muttering, “Saved by a fool’s luck again, I see?”

The trio suddenly heard two sharp intakes of breath, and their heads turned in unison toward a bed in the corner. Sure enough: underneath the bed, two pairs of wide brown eyes peered from small, round, dun faces, nearly blanched ashen with terror. Vel’duith put her arms out to block her abillen. “These dwen’deles are but harmless children! What glory for the goddess could possibly lie in their demise?” she hissed disgustedly. She turned back toward the bed, kneeling slowly down, bringing a single gloved finger to her mask-shrouded lips and slowly nodding. One pair of brown eyes closed and a softly whimpering voice yammered, then stifled, as though the other child had clapped a hand over the crying boy’s mouth. Vel’duith quickly stepped away from the bed toward the stairs leading up, pulling Orebith urgently by the hand. Kre’thil gestured back toward the bed quizzically, but then trailed after them.

No other voices met them as they cautiously crept up the staircase ringing the tower’s interior, Vel’duith in the lead, silvery ghost hand aiding her vigilance as she scanned for any further nasty surprises, particularly near any windows; Orebith just behind, darksteel longsword drawn, poised to strike if needed; Kre’thil in the rear, alternately keeping close and checking behind them. Finally, they reached a landing without any further stairs, and a stout oaken door with carved runic letters and images of dwarven artisans seemingly carving their own likenesses into the panels. Vel’duith spent nearly as much time admiring the artistry as she did probing the door for magical wards or traps. A firm slap on her backside reminded her of the task at hand, even as it put a goofy grin onto her thin lips. Only a few more hours… She bit her lower lip hard, forcing her mind back to presence. “I know, I know.” she hissed, trying to sound serious and failing miserably, earning a husky half-chuckle.

The dwarf-runes carved on the door held no magic, but spelled out a stern warning: “Never Without Father!” So, yet another dwen'del trap. Vel’duith clucked her tongue, then reached out with the silvery phantom-hand again. It slowly slid the latch, turned the lock tumblers one by one, and finally pinned closed the trip mechanism, securing the trap springs. The door creaked safely open. Bookcases lined the rounded walls, and a pair of stout, decoratively carved tables bore neat racks of potions and spotless, dustless racks of alchemy-ware. Vel’duith sensed a cleaning-dweomer on the alchemy table, but no magical defenses once inside the room. A bookstand held open a thick tome with neat lines of illustrated dwarf-runes… a spell! “Why, it is the tower-master’s spellbook itself!” she gleefully whispered. She closed the book, fingers nearly trembling with joy as she stowed it in her pack, tightening it snugly to prevent it wiggling around. She looked on all the tables, the chalk-board, between the tomes, tapping book covers for hollows, but found nothing about the invasion. Why, there are no war plans at all! The tower-master had had the spellbook opened to some manner of fire-and-noise-illusion, and there was an opened, drink-stain-obscured letter speaking mainly of preparations for a nephew’s birthday celebration. She sensed no enchantment whatsoever on the letter. She clucked her tongue disappointedly, her mind racing through increasingly worrying explanations for the sheer absence of any dwarven warriors. How could the yathrin have been so mistaken? Will we have a home left to return to? Is the dwen’del army perhaps already at the Undercity gates, having taken other tunnels? Perhaps the dwen'deles just waited for us to stupidly run past in the night before going right back down the way we came?

“We must return, and warn the yathrin!” Vel’duith hissed. “The army has obviously already left before we arrived. We are too late! Pack whatever potions you can carry without risking breaking them! Oh! Orebith! Grab that fine battle-ax there! We may not return bearing strings of warrior beard-scalps, but neither shall we return empty-handed like those blood-addled fools blundering around swinging weapons outside.”

The trio descended until they were surely within a rope-length from the ground. Orebith cautioned not to risk the bedroom in case any help had been summoned by the two children. After suppressing the ward-runes on a landing-window, they tied off a spidersilk rope, then took turns sliding down. Regrouped on the ground, they slunk off into the woods, back to the tunnels home. They dared not return through the town. The streets of the town were dark aside from glowing embers floating down from ruined roofs, and silent save for scattered weeping and an occasional crying wail. The cadre had already left. The three drow made haste back to the mountain-side, until they reached the secret door they had emerged from some two hours before. Vel’duith hissed the opening-word, the door dutifully admitted them, and they began the long, loping jog down to the Undercity.

Vel'duith was excited beyond words; she had finally been selected for her very first mission at cadre. She and Linthil Ret'linthel, a boy from a mid-ranked noble house known for producing powerful wizards, had been chosen to break into a ruined Dwarven outpost left abandoned from the last out-and-out war between their peoples some 250 years ago, and bring back some relic from within as proof of their success. Linthil's curiosity nearly matched Vel'duith's own, their paths often crossing in the cadre library, and she was surprised to find that she rather enjoyed the sharp-witted fellow's company. He was eleven years old, same as her and Kre'thil, and in many ways he reminded her of her favorite cousin, who was also a first year pupil in the same cadre.

The pair set out silently into the northeastern tunnels, shrouded in piwafwi and orbdrin, the infamous mask-hooded cloaks drow used to pass unnoticed through the treacherous passages of the Underrealm. They hand-signed observations to one another as they proceeded, noting the various growths of ripplebark, lichen, and various crystals they passed. After several hours, they reached the tunnel branch leading to the outpost. Mangled obstacles wrought from darksteel lay in pieces, the spikes and shards still dangerously sharp. The pair of young drow carefully stepped through and over the hazards. Dozens of half-cenotaph skeletal fragments, short and tall alike, lay completely stripped of armor and weaponry. This tunnel had long ago been looted. Only the outpost itself had yet to be defiled. The Dwen'deles never brought great treasures into war, and it could safely be assumed that their weapons and armor fell with their corpses at the crossroad-battle, so no real expedition had ever been mounted to breach the ruined outpost. Dwarven trapcraft was notoriously devious, with redundancy measures well hidden from all but the most careful. Vel'duith had just spent the past month reading every tome and leaf of notes on the subject that she could find in the library. Linthil had studied various magics dealing with locking and unlocking spells, for his part. The yathrin had obviously taken note of their diligent study when choosing them.

After another hour of stepping lightly over rent barriers, broken axes and sword shards, and brittle fragments of skeletons, the outpost loomed ahead. It had been carved into the living rock itself while the humbled remnants of Zen'Harel's onetime might licked their wounds and regrouped after a terrible defeat. The massive stone doors, 30 feet high and 10 feet wide, were perfectly smooth and barely left a visible crease where they met, such was the precision of their craft. The even more massive columns binding them on either side were graven with rows of thankfully darkened ward-runes, their magic long reclaimed by the second rule. A devilishly intricate lock at a dwendel's stomach-height was recessed seamlessly into the center of the right-hand door column.

Remembering the many warnings of the readings she had digested, Vel'duith knelt down before the lock, some five feet distant from it. She rather liked the idea of keeping all the limbs and digits she was born with, after all. She tugged off her lizard-skin gloves, and reached out with her shadow-hand, the dim lichen-light of the tunnel around her sucked into the silvery tendrils on her hands as she concentrated. The hand passed ghostly into the lock, the fingers feeling the edges of the precise, perfectly oiled gears within. A half-dozen rows were for the lock itself, but then a full dozen other rows led back toward the front of the doors themselves. Curious... a trap-door, perhaps? With her off-hand, she quickly signed at Linthil to back away from the door, but he wasn't looking at her at that moment, and she missed his complete inattention, her own concentration focused upon the ghostly hand exploring the intricate connections within the masonry. The turnrods continued outward into the tunnel-walls, where they met gears for a series of pistons attached to adamantine pikes as long as the door itself was wide. These were in turn connected to a series of cunning pressure plates, indistinguishable from the floor, their edges imperceptible from the top, that she and Linthil both now stood atop, which were held up by adamantine pins coming back to the door. She slowly crept backward away from the door and lock until she was sure she was off of the last pressure plate, signing at Linthil to do the same.

Sadly, the overconfident young wizard's hands were already moving in mid-cast. Having thought Vel'duith was giving up, he was casting a door-knocking spell. He turned and beamed triumphantly at Vel'duith as the giant doors swung open. But then the unpinned pressure plate he stood on creaked an inch downward, and an adamantine pike thrust straight through his chest from behind. He looked at its protruding point, stunned beyond all belief, his panicked eyes turning toward Vel'duith, his voice unable to make any sound aside from a faint whisper and a sickly gurgle. His lifeblood dripped out from the pike-fullers, falling into warm, slowly growing pools onto the depressed plate. He mouthed, "Help me!!" as the light of his too-short life left his ruby eyes and he slumped forward into oblivion. Vel'duith turned away, as stunned as he was, barely keeping concentration on the hand.

After a moment, the necessity of completing the mission forced its way back into the front of Vel’duith’s mind - for Linthil! - she mentally resolved. She backed up a couple dozen paces, mentally marking a reference line to leap over the trap plates. Then the young drow ran as swiftly as she could, diving foward into a somersault at the very last inch possible. A pike sprang vainly from the wall behind her. Vel’duith hit the floor on the other side of the jamb and rolled sideways to a stop a short ways onto the courtyard flagstones beyond. She was a bit bruised, but at least not impaled like poor Linthil.

Vel’duith looked around the empty courtyard within. A mithril, adamantite, and gold-threaded banner of a double-axe-head stood hanging deathly still upon its polished darkwood standard pole. The drow heaved it up with both hands, balancing it awkwardly, bringing it back towards the door jamb. She let its banner side out so the weight was tilted a bit towards that side, then she swung herself and the standard round a few times before using the momentum to heave it out into the hallway, where it clattered to a stop beyond the pressure plates. Vel’duith tumbled to the flagstones again, and slowly picked herself up again. Once her shoulders stopped screaming, she paced backward into the courtyard, then took another running leap back out, clearing the plates but landing hard on the other side.

Wincing and muttering a curse, the young drow staggered back to her feet, leaning against the tunnel side as she caught her breath and stretched her hurt shoulder as far as she dared to. Finally, she gingerly stooped down and picked up the banner, putting it over her good shoulder to half drag the standard pole behind her. She turned back to Linthil one last time and whispered a prayer to the goddess to keep him. Then she began limping back up the way the pair had come, careful not to let the pole scrape too noisily. The young drow’s eyes welled with tears as Linthil’s death replayed over and over in her mind, but she forced them back. The mission was complete.

Vel’duith and Orebith, a tall, agile, muscular girl who had been her bitterest rival at cadre for all eight years she had been there, glared red-eyed daggers at one another as they trudged down the pitch-dark Underrealm passageway. Sulking, each girl was internally working out just how completely the other girl was to blame for their running, screaming, fist, fingernail, and insult fight all through the cadre campus, which spilled over right into the middle of a group meditation of first-year pupils the cadre’s yathrin herself was leading. The yathrin, incensed far beyond the point of forgiveness, ordered the two girls to team up for a survival training mission into the outer tunnels. Each girl fully blamed the other for their predicament, sent out with only their weapons, armor, a skin of bluecap wine each, and the masked, hooded cloaks that drow habitually wore whenever outside the Undercity. It was up to them to find whatever nourishment would keep them alive for the week. They were one of three teams so tasked for various similar transgressions the yathrin had taken recent offense to. The last time three teams had been sent out in similar fashion, only one cadre member returned, nearly starved, dizzy from dehydration and fever, a festering wound on her arm, babbling nonsense. The young acolyte’s recovery had taken two whole months, and even now she stared at the wall a lot and barely spoke to anyone but the yathrin.

Barely an hour past the Undercity gates, the girls’ silent sign-language banter had already escalated and their tempers had already flared high enough that the stuffy masked hoods were already doffed, so as to better glare at one another. Orebith’s wiry, calloused hands furiously signed an angry retort:

<<My fault? I was minding my own business! Sparring! Practicing for the trials! But this scrawny little yap-jawed worm just couldn’t keep her filthy little maw shut, couldn’t stop her big, slimy tongue from wagging!>>

Vel’duith’s snowed eyebrow arched vexedly, her brows knitted, and her slender, dexterous hands flew in response.

<<’Tis no fault of mine that your formidable posterior looked ever so completely like a rothé cow in heat, begging for the nearest bull to come plough it! I wager you were hoping for that gold-plated half-wit K’mindu to sweep your shebali ass up from the sewer you were born in, and ride off with you on a mithril barded lizard to fuck your way to half a shred of importance!>>

She looked Orebith up and down exaggeratedly, before tossing in another waved addition:

<<A really big, really strong lizard. Better skip the mithril barding, in fact.>>

The short, skinny girl deftly ducked the angry right cross aimed where her flared, pointy nose had been just an instant earlier, her nimble hands mischievously continuing to sign.

<<Far too slow. You should have actually practiced more than just ass-wiggling…>>

Orebith’s sudden left jab caught Vel’duith’s shoulder and spun the smaller girl around with a yelp. Vel’duith was a split second away from retaliating with a flash of light into the big muscle-brain’s eyes when she saw a monstrous, eight-foot tall hook horror step out from a dark cranny of the tunnel wall, its yard long hooks drawing back, preparing to slice the completely unaware, now gloating Orebith in half from behind. Garnet eyes wide as platters, in one quick motion, Vel’duith tucked her head into her shoulder and launched herself full force into Orebith’s midsection, folding her over just as the razor-like claws swiped. Half a silvery ponytail fell to the ground as the beast roared. The girls rolled and kipped up to their feet, drawing their weapons, both simultaneously cursing aloud: “Iblith!!”

The half-winded Orebith flabbergastedly realized that Vel’duith’s seeming attack had actually just saved her life. In her shock, she barely had time to parry the monster’s next swipe, using her darksteel longsword two-handed to leverage the creature’s momentum sideways, throwing it slightly off balance. The savvy reaction exposed the horror’s flank to Vel’duith, whose adamantine shortsword duly darted in to stab into its viscera as her silver dagger plunged into its exposed knee joint. The hook horror howled and roared, swiping a razorlike hook at the diminutive pest as she narrowly somersaulted out of harm’s way. The flailing attack met Orebith’s next sweeping slash, severing the hook, which flew spinning down the hallway before clattering to the floor. The abomination howled and shrieked as its arm stump sprayed purplish ichor all over the drow girls and the walls and floor of the passage. In a darting pass towards the hook horror’s spike-studded rear, Vel’duith’s dagger punctured its ribcage with a sickly thunk. In a berserk rage, the monster wheeled and swung its remaining scythe-arm after her. Orebith’s answering longsword severed its neck, covering both girls in another hot spray of gore. The hook horror’s vulture-like head thudded off the wall and onto the floor, as its massive collapsing body pinned Vel’duith fast against the tunnel wall with an “oof”, the carapace spikes rending holes in her piwafwi but miraculously missing her limbs and torso.

The hallway fell silent for a few heartbeats, before first Orebith, then Vel’duith erupted into laughter. The tall, muscular swordswoman braced against the wall to heave the corpse far enough forward for the short, slender trickster to wriggle herself free. Vel’duith stopped giggling and blinked at Orebith as it abruptly dawned on her that her longtime rival very well could have finished her off instead, with the yathrin none the wiser. A quizzical snowy eyebrow arched.

“I suppose it’s a truce, then, abban?”

The larger girl grinned through the dripping purple ichor covering her coal-black face, and curtly nodded to acknowledge the word: ‘non-enemy’.

“Yeah, abban. A truce. Do you think that shriek was some kind of call?”

Vel’duith pondered that a second, grimaced, pulled her hood back on, and switched back to sign language.

<<Let’s… not stick around to find out.>>

<<Thank you.>>

<<Thank you. You know… you could have just left me there, just now. You could have even finished me off.>>

<<I know. You could have let it cut me in half.>>

<<I…couldn’t beat that monster without you.>>

<<Yeah, probably not, runt.>>

Vel’duith stifled a giggle before replying.

<<I… couldn’t help but notice how well we fought together. We would win the trials for sure if we teamed up, don’t you think?>>

<<I thought you said I was a shebali who would have to go fuck someone like K’mindu to ever be important enough?>>

<<You said a lot of dumb stuff, too!>>

<<Yeah. Let’s survive the week first. Then we’ll see.>>

<<I’m hungry.>>

Orebith stifled a chuckle in her mask and gestured ahead at a dark clump growing from the passage ceiling just ahead.

<<There’s some ameryth. I bet your fancy c’rinti ass never had to eat it before.>>

Vel’duith reflexively gagged inside her mask.

<<You’re seriously suggesting eating ripplebark?>>

<<It’s either that or roasting up that hook horror while we wait for its friends to show up. Look, you just break a piece off, and nibble it whenever you’re hungry. It keeps you going.>>

<<I guess. Okay, I guess I’ll try it then.>>

The girls each broke off a shelf of the disgusting looking mushroom and pulled off their mask-hoods. It looked like rotting cadaver-flesh and smelled like orc sweat. Vel’duith gagged again, but bit off a nibble and started chewing, causing Orebith to chortle, hand-signing a quick follow-up jab.

<<Who’s the shebali now?>>

<<Goddess, please shut up. You know, it’s not nearly as horrid as it looks. Or smells.>>

<<Yeah. It’s actually really good fried in bluecap oil.>>

Vel’duith crept down the passage leading to the Undercity gates, just a few short miles ahead. Orebith trailed just a few paces behind, checking the rear every few steps. Over the past week, they had bested a hook horror, escaped from an ambush of ropers, narrowly skirted a patrol of orcs, and avoided a beholder. Vel’duith had developed the beginnings of a taste for ripplebark, which she learned was plentiful in the nooks and crannies of the Underrealm. They had found springs to refill their skins. And they had also just found the half-devoured corpses of one of the other two cadre teams. A little ways farther, they found a Balhannoth corpse riddled with dagger and sword marks, as likely a suspect for the earlier scene as any. But who killed the Balhannoth?

As they entered a low chamber, the answer became apparent. Darkness suddenly engulfed them, and a boy’s voice rang out, “Take Orebith first!” Vel’duith slung a dart in the voice’s direction, hearing a sickly thunk and a howl of pain. She dispelled the darkness with a wave, and Orebith wheeled and grinned gleefully at the other boy who had thought to try to stab her from behind. She grabbed him and ploughed him headfirst into the tunnel wall. He crumpled like a sack of bluecaps dropped at market, his envenomed dagger skittering across the tunnel floor. The other boy was on the floor, one hand staunching the dart wound in his side, the other vainly trying to pull himself away. Vel’duith advanced, sword and dagger out. But when she saw his pleading eyes, she was suddenly drawn back to the vision of Linthil’s life leaving his eyes. She turned her blade away and struck the boy's head hard with the shortsword's pommel. His eyes rolled back, and he slumped the rest of the way to the ground.

Orebith’s eyes raged red at Vel’duith beneath the mask - what the hell is she doing?! She drew her longsword and stepped toward the other boy where he lay crumpled against the wall, obviously meaning to finish him. Vel’duith’s hands flurried as she stepped to intercept her, gesturing toward the boy she just knocked out, her garnet eyes conveying a strange emotion the taller girl had never seen before. Orebith raised a questioning silver eyebrow.

<<Leave them. Leave them both. Put this one with yours.>>

Orebith’s hands were nearly shaking with anger as she answered.

<<Have you gone mad? Why? They meant to kill us, you idiot!>>

<<And now, they owe us a favor. We know it. They know it. Besides… there are so few of us left from our cadre.>>

<<Goddess take me! If I knew you were this soft, I would have finished you off when you were pinned under that hook horror.>>

<<And if I wasn’t this soft, I’d have let the hook horror kill you. Then I would have died next. So I begin to wonder whether a very occasional hint of softness might actually strengthen us, and maybe that is the lesson the yathrin sought to teach us with this mission. Don’t we already have enough deadly enemies in these caverns and tunnels without hunting each other?>>

She waved her hand over the two boys as Orebith dropped the second in the lap of the first. Their images faded from view, replaced by a convincingly empty section of tunnel.

<<Hopefully they don’t smell any worse than they fight - they might just make it home, too. Let’s go, abban. I’m ready to eat anything but more ripplebark, and it can’t be more than an hour or two to the gates.>>

Orebith’s eyes lightened with mirth as she started to sign an insult, then widened as a lurker swooped down from the ceiling and engulfed Vel’duith whole. With a flash of her longsword, the monster’s head thudded to the ground, and a frantically thrashing Vel’duith emerged from the folds of its body, covered in sickly yellow mucus, nearly hyperventilating. Orebith sighed mockingly as she started signing.

<<Goddess take me, I’ve gone as soft as the spoiled little c’rinti runt…>>

Vel’duith fumbled with her waterskin cap, dumping her water all over her exposed skin, tearing her hood and mask off and flinging them to the ground before finally signing back.

<<Perhaps so! But you still look pretty damn tough to me, abban.>>

Vel’duith took out her dagger and carefully cut the mottled outer mantle away from the corpse of the lurker, folded the gory, leathery pelt, and tucked it into a sack, which she slung over her shoulder. It was the perfect size to enchant into a cloak.

<<Too bad it wasn’t a little bigger; I could have paid you back with a cloak. I guess it’ll do for me, though.>>

<<Yeah. It sure fit you like a glove a minute ago.>>

<<You’re never going to let me forget this, are you?>>

<<Nope.>>