Journal Reveries of Regrets

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

Sealing Fates in Solitude​

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.

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

To Town and Tower​

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 fifteen - 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.