Quest Those Who Walk Below

The street yielded before a crude stairway leading up above the crowded avenues of Zar'Ahal. This narrow path snaked around a stony rise; almost an underground hill, slowly but surely leading the party up above and at a distance from the bottom of the city. For every step taken, the stairway took more shape, gradually blooming from a rude path into an elegant rise of carved elevation, sprouting a steel railing and flickering lamps in the end.

The tower imposed itself upon their field of vision; looking more akin to a giant, asymmetrical alembic, breathing smoke through several chimneys ladened on its back. This central structure contained an excess of stained glass rather than steel or stone, glowing from within by some weird contraption of light, reflecting the greens and purples of the distant city stars, but adding some colours of its own to Zar'Ahal's prism: cryptic blue, jealous jade and titillating teal. Around the main structure -- looking like the strange dream of some alchemist hoping to live inside his own container -- outbuildings and protusions grew like fences hemming in this beast of glass; and indeed, shaped from swirling, oval windows, it could bear to mind some crystallised ooze, petrified mid-movement.

Thus the building sat atop the rocky outcrop, a lopsided crown of glass held in place by a myriad of supporting columns, spindly terraces and interconnected balconies. Alchemical smells of resinous notes and cedar reached their nostrils from the pouring chimneys, bespeaking of some grand work within.

As they as they first came within sight of the compound gate, Vel’duith smirked and subtly signed to Vyx’aria,

<<The guards are young. Let us approach the gate first. Slap me-you will know when. Say you are bringing me to enroll. It will amuse them and draw their attention fully, letting the others slip in the gate behind the illusion I will create to hide them.>>

She turned to face the others, her voice soft and crisp.

“Be ready! We will create a diversion. Enter quickly and quietly to the right of the shimmer as soon as it appears. Take cover around the building just to the right. A’ni Zathria will guide you to the tower. We will meet you there momentarily”

As they walked up to the Suulet’jabar gates, the young acolyte inquired loudly and impetuously of her mother, “Vallabha-ilhar, will it really be the Ilharess we meet today, or only her third-daughter?”

The gate opened, and both guards stepped out to better watch, hands on weapons, but chuckling. The lead guard ventured to Vyx’aria, “Another candidate ripe for the cadre, malla’ilhar?”

While the laughing guards were facing fuming mother and stammering daughter, a curling dweamor faded in, arcing from dangling Vel’duith to the first building inside the gate, showing the empty street and vacant gate and courtyard on the side facing them, and a barely perceptible silver shimmer beckoning inside on the opposite side, visible to the others.

Dante hated depending on others, but he’d been doing it this whole quest, by the hells he couldn’t even see in this god's forsaken place without help, so he was determined not to disrupt the plan. As the distraction started he wasted no time slipping inside. Once there he kept to the shadows, which… might have been pointless, but old habits and what not.

He passed by a mirror and pulled weapons… then remembered he’d taken a potion to make him look like a drow and put his weapons away… he did a quick scan of the space to make sure no one had seen his idiocy, and then waited for The Commander to bravely lead the way.

Zathria's small perch gave her the freedom to examine their target more closely, looking for the gaps in the tower that had to be there. They always were and it was just a matter of finding them. Zathria was more soldier than assassin, but every Drow soldier spent time in the scout companies proving their worth and Zathria had been no exception.

She spotted what she was looking for and dropped back down to the ground with impressive silence before motioning for the others to follow her.

With the guards distracted, Zathria led the splinter team down and to the right of the stairs, falling in to the side of the stairs where rocks led down under the balconies of the tower, but rather than skirt under and around, she doubled back and hoisted herself up the rocks that ran parallel to the stairs and then dropped down onto one of the balconies that it overhang.

Normally, this would have been a location visible to the guards, but the sharp crack of a slap rang out and showed the guards were more preoccupied with that than the infiltrators.

She paused in the cover of one of the balcony walls and made sure the others were coming, motioning them to come her way before they were spotted or fell into the chasm below. That would be a real shame. Yes, soooooo sad.

J'rell followed in close pursuit of the party, aware that whatever time Vel'duith and Vyx'aria had bought was short and incredibly precious.

Dante looked uncomfortable, but remained steadfast. J'rell took pride in the steel of his fellow human and aimed to mirror his example.

With that in mind, he spread his feet and straightened himself, cradling his hands to give the man a leg up to reach Zathria on the balcony above.

His dark bulk heaved with tension, eyes locked on movements of the guards below. After Dante had ascended, he would attempt to follow himself.

The balcony offered no resistance against Zathria's intrusion. But the air grew taught, as if *something* contracted, like a coiled beast. Faint woodchimes could be heard, dangling above each door available to her, not moved by wind -- but by something else.

One door led into a small, glass outbuilding, glowing green, pulsating. The other door led into the stone itself, presumably into some cellar, cave or stairway going up into the foyer or main structure.

Velduith loped knock kneed after her 'mother,' as though she was hiding having soiled herself, before they passed out of view and the queen beckoned her near. She smirked at the distant laughter as she resumed her normal, efficient gait, around a pace and a half for each of Vyx'aria's strides.

The diminutive rogue's normally noncommital garnet gaze betrayed a slight note of surprise at Vyx'aria's unexpected offer.

"Free passage? Where would the challenge lie in that? Why, I would truly become as soft as I am often accused of being. Besides, I am repossessing a certain trinket from the matron's consort along our way. You may well wish to preserve plausible deniability."

And sure enough, she skipped ahead to the next chamber entrance after checking all sightlines. She listened briefly at the door, then a ghostly silver shimmering hand emerged from her right hand, passing through the door, and unlocking it from within. Her real hands were already winding out several yards' length of spidersilk fabric as she passed within, straight to a bejeweled adamantine battleax on a stand. She murmured a detection spell, then took up the battleax, wrapping it in the spidersilk and stowing it invisibly within her illusionary disguise. The door closed and locked behind her, the shimmer disappearing. The whole process barely took a dozen seconds, the latch and her mumbled spell the only perceptible sounds.

Vyx'aria