Private Tales The Old Ways

[Xylthe]

Xylthe strained against her holders as she tried to twist around to see the Reaver who had spoken. A better way? How? Would he help her? Did she have an ally here? Questions tumbled over themselves but she didn't get a chance to answer. The Reaver melted away once more and she was dragged before Velkyn. Instead of shoving her to the ground to repent however, another reaver led over her mount and she was forcibly put back onto the creature this time with one of the Reavers sitting behind her.

Words didn't need saying; Velkyn would punish her eventually. But pain was coming regardless of if she deserved it or not and perhaps that was why the words did not need speaking.

On they travelled to the city itself.

 

[Velkyn]

The city of Levesari was an ancient thing. As old as the furthest reaches of the ancient Empire. It had been built millenia ago by his ancestors, and for the last five hundred years had been a citadel and mark of just how far the Drow had come.

It was a beautiful place, in many ways, the dark walls and the soft green light accenting the tunnels of the Underrealm with a quiet glow. As they entered the city, more and more Drow came into view. Some of them were dressed like commoners, while others wore garb similar to Velkyn.

They bowed as the procession passed, all tilting their heads low in sign of respect.

Everywhere Xylthe looked she would see more than Drow as well. Goblins, Duergar, and even a few ashen orcs. All of them did not only bow, but quickly prostrated themselves on the ground. Placing forehead to floor as the lord of the city returned.

Eventually they passed another set of doors, this one into a grand palace which seemed to spire into the earth.

Dozens of Reavers walked around the walls here, though it was not they who greeted them.

Instead, Drow woman came to meet them as they entered the gates. She wore long flowing robes, her face marked with intricate tattoos. A small smile touched her lips, and she bowed her head in greeting as Velkyn dismounted. "We had not thought your return would come for quite some time."

As the woman spoke there was something off about her voice, as though three or four people spoke all at once.

"Circumstances changed." Velkyn answered simply, stepping passed the woman whose head turned towards Xylthe.

"I see that, My Lord." The woman answered, then turned to follow.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe resisted the urge to cover her ears. The woman's voice felt like claws on the inside of her mind much like the Mind Flayers magic had. Yet this was just the woman's voice. Was she a Siren? Xylthe had heard of them before, creatures whose words could fuddle the mind and bring out secrets. If she was, was the pain a sense her mental barriers were holding even against that manipulation? She banished the sense of helplessness that began to weigh on her shoulders and steeled her spine with determination instead.

She wouldn't break. She would die first.

The Reaver behind her pushed her forward and she stumbled after the pair.

 

[Velkyn]

Xylthe was dragged forward into the citadel itself. It's inside a reflection of the man who ruled it. The very walls, ceilings, and floors of the place seemed to reflect that fact. Crafted with rounded and yet somehow harsh angles, not a single statue or piece of art hanging from the walls, but instead strange gargoyles built directly into the stone itself. An eerie glow clung to everything but it was impossible to tell where the light was coming from.

Never did the Avendrow see a Grand Hall, never did the Reavers drag her even close to the center of the great Dark Keep. Instead they grasped her arm and practically dragged her away, parting her from Velkyn and the strange woman's presence.

As she was pulled away she would hear Velkyn's voice. "She must be broken. The slave ho-"

His voice died out as she was shoved forward. Grasped by the nape of her neck and continually pushed down the dim halls. In the distance ahead screams echoed out, calling like a horrid siren as the floor began to slope and the small group began to descend. The light grew ever dimmer, the screams grew louder, and before long they found themselves wrapped within darkness.

So dull was the light, it would have been hard for a man to see a hand laying across his own face.

The Reavers hardly seemed to notice. Stepping with Xylthe and guiding her forward evermore. They're boots now ringing out as the floor changed to cold stone. A rattle of metal rang out, followed by the creak of steel. Then Xylthe would feel herself shoved forward. Thrown into a cell as the door was slammed shut behind her.

 

[Xylthe]

Panic seized her immediately and Xylthe threw herself against the door of the cell. Nothing she did would budge it - as she suspected - but her brain couldn't seem to speak sense to the rest of her as she hammered her fists against the solid wedge of iron and shouted herself hoarse. Only when her hands were slick with blood did she finally give up and turn her attentions instead to figuring out how big her cell was. It took barely a minute to walk the four walls and it only made her breathing more uneven.

There was enough room to lay down and stand but that was it.

She was in a box.

Trembling, she sat down in the furthest corner and put her hands over her face. She had to get herself under control and restore calm if she was to survive what was to come or at least die with her knowledge in one piece.

 

[Velkyn]

Hours passed within the darkness.

Or perhaps it was weeks or merely minutes. Within the abyss that surrounded Xylthe time itself seemed to wind in on itself. Returning and resounding even if she counted each and every second. Days were hard to tell apart in the best of circumstances in the Underrealm, and within that darkness it seemed to stand still all together.

There was no sign, no change.

Xylthe would notice she never grew hungry, never became thirsty.

All that she had was isolation.

That breadth of time seemed lapse, and then a light appeared. It was thin and pale, flowing through the slit at the bottom of a door. Casting just enough that perhaps one might be able to see the a shadow or two upon the floor.

The light seemed to stop, and then suddenly a voice echoed out. Quiet. Tentative. "Are you there?"

 

[Xylthe]

Had she slept? Or maybe all she had done was sleep? It was hard to tell in the darkness and her limited positions but the appearance of light and sound had her jolting from whatever quiet corner of her mind she had wandered into to escape the memories her cell unlocked. She stared at the thin light, not daring to answer the voice, and debated whether this was some trick. Velkyn knew her kind, knew the special properties she possessed and her reasons for keeping quiet. He no doubt knew a direct approach would be difficult, so was this some other method he had conjured?

Seconds rolled on without an answer that turned into minutes. With each breathe she expected both light and sound to vanish but it did not. So not an illusion. Real. But it could still be a trap.

"Go away," her voice cracked after days of not being used.

 

[Velkyn]

The darkness didn’t answer for a long time.

It stayed quiet, but the light beneath the door did not face. It continued to stay and hover, as though whomever was providing it was stuck in some sort of thought. After what seemed like too long of time a few more words came.

”I don’t think you want that.” The soft and quiet voice said. ”It’s terrible down here.”

The voice continued. ”Sometimes you thank the screams for company.”

Another long pause extended. This time the light seemed to shift, as though whatever holding it had moved to be a bit closer to the slit on the bottom of the doorway. For a second it seemed as though nothing more would come. Then the voice echoed out again.

”They’re going to come for you tomorrow morning.” The voice warned, closer now to the door than it had been before.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe still didn't dismiss the idea that the voice was somehow a manipulation. Sure, it might have been from a real person, but what if they had paid this person or offered them their freedom to fuck with her head? She couldn't take the chance. She squeezed her eyes shut and brought her hands up over her head, pulling herself in tight. If she could just ignore it...

Tomorrow?

Why would it tell her that? To make her more frightened? To make her want to escape? Bravery was a fools excuse.

"Good, then it'll be over soon," she said softly. Death was within reach. That was something she could counsel herself with.

 

[Velkyn]

There was another pause, though this time it did not seem as long. "You don't understand."

It was difficult to explain the tone of the voice. In large part it was the same as the Reavers, and yet different. That same odd rasp clung to the tune of every word, yet there was a softness to it, as if worn down and beaten.

"He has become obsessed." Said the voice. "I have never seen him this way."

The light seemed to shift again, as if the person holding it were moving, and then suddenly there was a scrambled noise. As if someone were quickly standing up when they had not intended to for a while. Panic now filled the voice.

"Stay live." The voice said, and then Xylthe would see the light begin to draw away from the door.

 

[Xylthe]

Stay alive? Stay alive?! Xylthe stared at the retreating light with a scowl. Clearly the voice had no idea who it was talking about, Velkyn would not let her live! He would keep going until he had his answers and if she had no intentions of giving them, then he would no doubt reach the same conclusion as she had; that if he couldn't have them nobody else should.

She wrung her hands together.

Death was not something she feared. She would great death like an old friend and kiss her on both cheeks before being taken to the Goddess. It was the pain she feared. She just had to get through that to the reward of the After. The Goddess would welcome her with open arms as a faithful servant. She could be at peace.

Tomorrow.

 

[Velkyn]

Time slipped away again within the dark, yet if Xylthe counted the minutes she would find that the voice had been right.

It was a day later, perhaps a little before, when finally the heavy metal door to the box began to open again. The creak of ancient iron resounded, splitting the ear and causing a small minutia of pain. Figures, unseen within the bleakness of the cell, grasped at Xylthe. Their hands snapped her up, giving the Avendrow no chance for escape.

Before she could cry out or object she was dragged once more through the pitch black halls until once again light began to touch her eyes. The same soft glow encapsulated Xylthe, revealing two Reavers as the guardians who had come to claim her.

They pulled her from the depths of the city and through the halls.

Here she would catch her first real glimpse of the palace, beautiful and dark as it was.

The design of it spoke to the ancestry of the Drow. The staunch and decorative angles of the walls and ceiling with little to really stick to them. Every now and again a carving of one of the ancient gods found itself on the wall, but other than that there was stark bareness within the halls.

Splendor was reserved for the main halls.

It was in one of these that Xylthe would find herself. Thin red lines seemed to trace through the black stone adorning Levesari's central chambers. Streaks that formed dozens upon dozens of incantations of some sort, all leading to a fountain of strange purple liquid in the center of the room. Odd plants hung from everywhere and grew from the ground.

Only a thin path allowing one to reach the center fountain at all.

Velkyn stood besides the fountain, hands clasped behind his back as he watched the water gentle ripple.

 

[Xylthe]

This hadn't been at all what Xylthe had been expecting. She had prepared herself mentally for a similar type of room to the one he had created back home, where he had made her break one of her only friends into little more than a mindless slave. She had prepared herself for pain and for words of loathing. A peaceful fountain and Velkyn looking almost... contemplative was not what she had thought would greet her.

An awkward silence settled between them before the Reavers let her go.

Xylthe dropped to her knees and put her forehead to the ground before him.

 

[Velkyn]

For a few more seconds Velkyn simply stared at the fountain, saying nothing as he considered the odd colored water. "It was my forefathers who created this place."

He began.

"When the Empire was still strong, and our people held almost the whole of the Underrealm." When the Drow had been the supreme power within the dark tunnels beneath the earth. When even the Duergar holds had bent the knee to their strength. "A city on the edges of the Empire. Standing as a bulwark against the creatures which would crawl out from under the abyss."

Though the underrealm stretched far beneath many oceans, it had long been decided that one could travel...too far into the darkness. Those tunnels were long sealed, and even the old Empire had not wished to travel there, for what lurked beyond was a horror even to the Old Gods. "When we fell, so did this city. My parents..."

The words were said with a scowl.

"Were weak, a reflection of their time." Slowly he turned back towards Xylthe. "I am not weak, and I refuse to bend or be broken."

He took a step forward. "You will tell me what I want."

Velkyn said simply, not a request, a statement of fact. "Or I will carve it from your mind."

 

[Xylthe]

So, this was just her last chance to give in and take the easy road out. Did he think the majesty and weight of this place would make her crumble? It should have, but her fear of Lord Selszhar was greater. Here in the underrealm she was closer to him and it was as if she could feel the metal collar sliding about her throat once more. She took a shuddering breath but kept her position on the floor even as the defied him.

"I-I'm sorry Master, but I cannot. Please do not ask this of me," she added in a whisper. "I've been loyal, I've tried my best to serve, but in this I - I cannot."

 

[Velkyn]

Perhaps she would expect more violence. A slap to the face, a curse, shouting. The stream of punishments that she had experienced all her life. Instead, when she looked up at Velkyn she would see only disappointment painted in the lines of his face.

"But you will." He said simply.

The words were spoken with such a finality that it would have made a sane man doubt himself. As if going against them would be going against the word of the Gods themselves.

"I know you fear him more." The Drow said simply. "I understand what he is."

His lips thinned. "But I will not let he and his keep what they have taken from us, from my people."

"Once we had the greatest Empire in the world, both above and below." Velkyn turned away from Xylthe. "It's because of those like him that we fell."

The words seemed to hold a finality to them. Simple, stern, and as he spoke. The two Reavers grasped Xylthe and began to drag her forward.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe didn't want an Empire like had once existed. Her people had suffered as much then as they did now, constantly pushed under the nobles who rose and fell. But what Xylthe had wanted, what had come agonisingly close, had burned before she had been brought here.

As the Reavers dragged her once more to her feet and then forwards, Xylthe didn't make a sound. She looked resigned from the way her head hung, as though she were on the way to the chopping block.

 

[Velkyn]

Velkyn didn't say a single ting as the Reaver's dragged her forward.

Instead he took a simple, deep breath. Watching for a brief moment before he closed his eyes in an almost meditative stance. Fingers clasped gently to his wrists around the small of his back, and his lips thinning as the Avendrow was taken towards the fountain.

For a moment it seemed as though they would stop before it, but then Xylthe would feel one of the creatures grab her hair.

With a violent jerk, he head was yanked forward and her face shoved into the deep crimson waters of the fountain.

Almost as soon as her skin touched the strange fluid, she would feel it. An eternal abyss wrapped itself around her, a darkness that lasted for eons and invited every nightmare to the forefront of her mind. Visions of absolute horror flickered not before her eyes, but through her very thoughts.

Every terror that she had ever felt, every little strike of fear or moment of panic.

It was all there, all presented within that single second. A momentary beat of the heart suddenly lasting an eternity of terror.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe managed to take a big drag of air into her lungs before her head was plunged under water but it shouldn't have been drowning that she worried about. Of course she should have known there would be more to this location than met the eyes. Velkyn was not a man who wasted time. He had not brought her somewhere peaceful in an attempt to bring her round peacefully. This had always been her intentions.

It felt as though her heart might stop.

Memories of pains both physical and mental flickered through her minds eye like a series of images. Every hurt felt alive on her skin as though they had been freshly made, every physic break re-opening along mended lines. She thrashed violently against the Reavers holding her down, her screams appearing as no more than bubbles upon the surface as she wordlessly released her agony.

As the Reaver finally let her stand gasping though, Xylthe did not divulge the location. She sobbed. She sobbed for the hurts reawakened and she sobbed for she knew it would come again.

 

[Velkyn]

Come again it did, and again, and again.

It seemed that a whole lifetime of horrors passed. Time flexed in upon itself. An hour growing short, and a year becoming eternal. Velkyn did not let up, and even when Xylthe was finally dragged from the fountain one last time did the horrors not cease.

As long as a single droplet remained on her skin they crept into her thoughts. Quick flashes, brief moments. Memories that should have stayed buried. Flickering images that no one should ever have seen. They came and disappeared. Haunting.

Eternal.

The shivering and shaking dark returned. No source of light, no shadows. Just the horrors of the mind. Did it last days or minutes? Seconds or hours? It seemed impossible to tell.

Then the light came again.

A voice. "Are you there?"

It whispered softly.

 

[Xylthe]

"Am I dead?"

Xylthe felt as though she had died a thousand times. How many hours had she been under those waters? How many times had she said nothing as Velkyn questioned her over and over? Had she finally given up the information? She didn't think so. Perhaps that meant she was alive, Velkyn wouldn't want to lose that information. Ironically Xylthe thought the only thing keeping her alive was the location of the Dark Sisters. After that?

"I wish I was dead."

 

[Velkyn]

For a few seconds the only thing that answered her was a the endless silence of the darkness. The lack of light seemed to make it all so much worse. Quiet, dead. As though she might have already stepped beyond the boundaries of light itself.

Then, finally, a voice answered her back. "That's understandable."

It was that same surprisingly soft tone, not one that could be imagined coming from any Drow. Least not in a place like this. It seemed to pause for another long while, as though not entirely sure what it should say.

What did one say at a moment like this?

After a torture like that.

It wasn't a question easily answered, and no word of comfort could truly be taken. Not when it might have been a lie, not when it might have been another trick. Some trap that Xylthe would stumble into and set by her master.

"I don't think he's going to stop." Said the voice softly.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe surprised herself by suddenly laughing. It was the type of laugh that sounded on the edge of hysteria and she ended up wiping tears from her eyes before she could speak properly again.

"Of course he isn't," and she laughed again. Even if it wasn't funny it felt good to laugh. It would be the last time before she died no doubt. It took longer this time for the laughter to subside and then she lay in the darkness on her back staring at nothing, thinking. He wasn't going to stop and he wouldn't let her die. Not until she'd told him what he needed and even then, maybe he would think she might have other secrets buried in her mind.

"Help me," she pleaded quietly to the voice she wasn't sure was real. "Help me die."

 

[Velkyn]

There was another pause, this time it went on long enough that it was easy enough to question whether there was anyone there at all. It was only after what seemed like an age that the voice finally managed to speak again.

"I can't." Something sounded almost nervous within the tone.

More seconds passed.

"He has put a ward on these dungeons." The voice explained. "You cannot get hungry here, you cannot get thirsty, you cannot sleep, and you cannot die."

There was no way to tell if that was true, but Xylthe hadn't been getting hungry, or sleepy, or thirsty. "I'm not sure even a Knife to the heart would kill you."

The voice said in quiet confession.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe hovered on the cusp of sleep but she was never granted the relief. Instead she stayed there balanced on the knife's edge, the tantalising promise of sleep always just out of reach. It all made sense as to why when the voice explained and the Avendrow gave a sob-like laugh. Of course the torture would not work if she was given time to recover her mind.

"Then it is hopeless," she whispered. The dawning realisation that she would break at some point was a harrowing one but her mind was not frayed enough to make her want to give in yet. "Maybe if I tell him he will let me die afterwards," a mercy killing. She could not be tortured by her old master if she was dead.