Private Tales The Old Ways

[Xylthe]

The Surface?

Xylthe mulled that idea over. She had never considered running there but... yes... he wouldn't follow her there. He despised it too much and would know she would not dare return. But, could Xylthe live up there? She knew nothing about it. Going up there could be as great a death sentence as living down here. But there is a chance up there... her foolish hope whispered.

"Can you help me get there?"

 

[Velkyn]

"Yes." There was almost relief in the voice, as though he had expected her to reject the offer out of hand.

The voice beyond, Senvid, knew just how much Xylthe had endured. The pain she had been subjected to and the tortures that Velkyn had put her through. It was an almost unimaginable thing, and if pressed he would easily admit that he could not even imagine enduring the same pain.

It was the guilt of that, the shame, that had brought him to this. "It's dangerous."

The Underrealm always was.

"But." The voice shifted, as if pausing to hear something. Then continued just a few seconds later. "No more than staying here."

 

[Xylthe]

Hope. Tentative, bruising hope blossomed in her chest. Could they do it? Alone she did not think so but with another Drow? Someone who knew the Surface? That was real, tangible hope. Her heart hammered in her chest at the shot of adrenaline.

"Will he let you come with us to the Sisters? Or will you wait for me nearby?"

They had to plan. Plan for everything.

 

[Velkyn]

"He will take me with." There was no doubt in his mind. The journey through the Underdark alone was dangerous, but when retrieving something as valuable as the Sisters?

Velkyn would not take the risk.

The Drow lord was ever cautious, and doubly so when it came to something that might mean his further ascension. There was no doubt in Sedrik's mind that the man would take every advantage he could possibly have.

Particularly when it came to protecting something so powerful. "It will be a double edged sword."

He admitted.

"There will be many." Which meant more eyes watching, more guards to slip passed, but it also meant more chaos. "No one must have even a hint of what is planned."

Lest they be given away. "I will gather what we need."

 

[Xylthe]

"Thank you," Xylthe said so quietly the voice on the other side might not have heard her at all. She leaned her head against the door and tears rolled down her cheeks. Tears of relief. She would get out of here, she would be free. She was sure that at some point the prospect of living on the Surface would scare her too, but life could not be so bad up there was it was down here. She wouldn't be a slave anymore.

"How will I know when to run?" She wanted to be sure she had every bit of information she needed; who knew if he would be able to come to her again before the left?

 

[Velkyn]

There was a long pause after Xylthe asked her question, almost as though the voice was not entirely sure how to answer her question.

Seconds ticked on by within the Abyss, and then eventually the answer came. "Do you know birds?"

On the surface above the question was a ludicrous one. Everyone on the surface knew the song of birds, the quiet cries and how they differentiated from one another. They were as common as the rising of the sun, as the wells within the earth.

Down here though there were no birds. No songs.

A small chirping noise passed through his lips. A mimicry of what might be found upon the lands that lay within the sun.

"That sound." He told Xylthe. "Listen for it, and when you hear it, run."

It was the only sign that he could give her, the only one that might stand out from the darkness of the underrealm. A memory of the home that he had abandoned. A remembrance of what might be waiting for them at the end of the constant darkness.

 

[Xylthe]

Birds? Xylthe frowned. She had read about them of course in the odd few volumes Master Llywen had let her peruse, but she had no idea what they sounded like. She listened with furrowed brows as he made the noise, surprise flittering across her features that such a small thing might, on the surface, make such a pretty noise just because and not get killed for it.

"I can do that," she nodded even though he couldn't see her. "I can do that," the repetition was to convince herself. This would work. It had to work. They exchanged a few more words but soon afterwards the mysterious voice made his excuses and left leaving Xylthe alone to... dream.

 

[Velkyn]

Velkyn stared down at Xylthe, clear distrust in his eyes. "You expect me to believe you?"

He asked plainly.

"Less than a day ago you claimed you could tell me." The Drow Lord said simply. "Cursed my very name when I did not acquiesce to your demand of death."

From his perch on the throne like chair Velkyn somehow seemed even more intimidating. Most of his features shrouded in shadows, the backing of the ancient black stone behind him seemed to make it almost as though the Avendrow were speaking with the Fortress itself. "So which is it?"

Velkyn demanded.

"Were you lying to me then?" His voice gave nothing away of what he might have thought was the actual truth. It was clear that he was used to this sort of conversation. That he had dealt with it for near the whole of his life. "Or now?"

Slowly he leaned forward, entering a slip of light which seemed to be hanging within the room. "Or must you see the fountain once more so I can find the truth?"

The threat was easily offered, and came with an echo of the tapping of his fingers.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe didn't bother hiding the hate from her eyes as she looked up at him from the position she had been forced to take when she entered the throne room. She wouldn't be cowed into taking back her curse; if any connection remained with the Dark Mother she would wish that her might be directed at this foul, twisted excuse of a man. She hated him to the very depths of her soul and the Dark Mother thrived on that hate.

"No," she gritted out and shoved down the niggling fear of returning to the fountain. She knew one more plunge would unravel her mind to the point she was a babbling mess. He'd be able to pluck whatever he wanted from her mind then. "It's merely a place I can't put into words. I could draw you a map but it seemed easier to suggest I take you there. Then you can't blame me when you cannot find it."

 

[Velkyn]

He considered the words.

Even if they were a lie, there could be enough truth to it that her guidance was simply a ploy to meet her end on terms she decided. Velkyn would not put it passed the rather willful Avendrow to simply be trying to engineer her own death.

That would have to be seen to. Perhaps assigning one of the Reavers to watch her for the duration. "Very well."

He said finally, the simply greed of it overcoming him.

Velkyn couldn't take the chance that Xylthe was being truthful. That he needed her to find the Sister and the power that would soon come. It would cut the timeline of his plans by decades, perhaps even centuries. He couldn't help the avarice that ran through his heart.

"You will take me there." He declared. "But understand me, if this is a lie..."

The Drow Lord stared down at her, his features will with utter contempt.

 

[Xylthe]

"You'll make me wish for death," Xylthe finished darkly and received a jab in the back for her troubles. She needed to look as though she were beyond caring though, that she was finally as beaten and hopeless as she could get and that the only thing she wanted now was death. It was a very easy thing to portray. Before the small sliver of hope her new friend had given her, it was how she had been feeling.

"It is about a days hike from here," she had figured that out from what she had seen on her way here. "If we leave now we should reach there before night," not that such things mattered terribly in the Underdark.

 

[Velkyn]

Velkyn scoffed.

His greed, his fixation now was getting the Sister. It was all he needed in this world, all that he desired. The power was so close, and it was only a day away? Hope flickered through his chest, a feeling that he had not known for...centuries.

Lips thinned, and he glanced over the Avendrows shoulder. "Get things ready, now."

The Command was issued, and two of the Reavers moved in an instant. Practically hurling themselves into the shadows and disappearing. Shouts began to echo down the hallways beyond, servants being ordered to go where they needed, people preparing to depart the fortress.

They could not leave instantly, not in the underrealm.

Even a relatively short journey required preparation, this one especially.

Velkyn would risk nothing when it came to taking the Sisters. Not when he was so close, not when everything was nearly in hand. He could not risk it, not even if the only threat was one single slave telling lies.

 

[Xylthe]

One Reaver didn't leave. He kept his hand firmly on her arm to the point it bruised her, but Xylthe didn't offer any complaint. She stood or let herself be dragged where she was wanted whilst in her mind she thought over where she had hidden the Sisters.

Everything she had said to Velkyn had been the truth. There was no clear marker on a map she could have directed them to, no route that would have been clear enough to lead him to it. He would have returned over and over increasingly frustrated his searches yielded nothing. What would have happened then? No, this was the better option for either way it led to her freedom.

Eventually they were ready and Xylthe was marched to a carriage atop which sat Velkyn.

 

[Velkyn]

The little procession was nearly forty strong. Three carts, more than three dozen Reavers, and a few strange looking men who seemed marred with dozens of scars. As Xylthe was brought towards Velkyn the Drow Lord said nothing, staring intently into the dark tunnels of the underrealm ahead of them.

A long breath passed from his lips. ”This best be the truth.”

The words were said quietly enough that no one else would hear them. Not a direct threat clung to the way he spoke, but the cutting nature of his words made the intent clear. There was no playing around, there was no light at the end of this tunnel.

If Xylthe had lied. She would pay the price.

Before the slave could offer a response, Velkyn stood in the cart.

”Today! Today I claim my birth-right. The power to do as our people should have a thousand years ago!” No one cheered, no one spoke a single word. The Reavers stared in complete silence, knowing that their master wanted to praise, not from them. A long moment seemed to pass, then Velkyn spoke once more. ”Lets go.”

He said, seating himself. ”Lets gain my prize.”

With that, the Caravan began to head off. Slowly beginning to amble out of the great dark city gates and heading into the abyssal tunnel beyond.

One of the Reavers walking nearby seeming to move out of pace with the others, glancing towards Xylthe more than he should have.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe used the trip to searched for her would-be rescuer. He had to be a noble of some kind, surely? Some lost Drow he had taken into his service and felt pity for to let him run about the fort with no guards. If she had perhaps thought for a moment she might have connected the glances from the Reaver being cast in her direction. Instead she mistook them for a hound watching what it had been ordered to guard.

Despite her growing nerves she kept to her word and issued precise directions. The haphazard way they meandered through the underdark made it clear she had been right; even if she had drawn it on a map they would have got lost. As it was the last bit the group attracted too much attention and were attacked three times. Finally, Xylthe announced the rest they would have to do on foot. She squeezed them down narrows gaps in the rocky walls barely wide enough to fit a grown man sideways down. It opened up eventually into narrow tunnels and eventually, there before them buried in stone, were two carved blades that seemed to draw shadows to it.

 

[Velkyn]

Velkyn nearly collapses as he saw the blades

It was the cumulative effort of a lifetime. He had not been hunting for the Sisters, not really. They had fallen into his hand by the sheer guiding hand of the Old Ones. The Drow Lord had not foreseen that a wretch like Xylthe would get him this great prize, and yet here it was. A confluence of events that had lead them here.

That had guided him to the beginning of his ascension. Still not moving Velkyn only looked down at the Blades and laughed, staring at the altar. The look of a mad man had taken his eyes, and gleefully he began to move forwards. Already he could feel his power swell, could feel the air around him change.

The sisters knew him.

They knew that he was worthy.

It was all that it could be. That strange buzzing in the air. It seemed to echo and call out. Velkyn lost the sound of his own laughter as he walked further into the cavern, everything becoming dim as he neared the blades. He was so close, so very close, nothing else would matter, and once he had them.

A bird call echoed within the cave.

It was so strange and foreign in this place, a sound that had never before been heard so deep in the underrealm. Off the walls it bounced and echoed, and then all of a sudden arcane explosions tore across the crowd of Reaver. Four of them were suddenly caught in bursts of blueish green light, the skin torn from their flesh and their armor melted in an instant.

"Run!" Xylthe would hear a voice say as fingers suddenly jutted from the shadows. Grasping her and practically throwing her towards a tunnel of the left side of the cave.

 

[Xylthe]

There was a single moment when Xylthe wondered if she had made a mistake in trusting that voice. There had been no signs he was here, no subtle way of making himself known. For all she knew he was back at the palace laughing and being rewarded for conning her into revealing these blades to a man who would surely break the underdark with them.

Then it came.

The sweetest call followed by the worst.

Screams filled the air and the explosions made her vision dance. She stumbled from the shock of it and found herself tripping over a fallen body. Half blind there was little she could do when the hands grabbed at her and she froze, ready to scream, when she recognised that voice. Run! The Avendrow needed no more encouragement. With tears streaming down her cheeks as her eyes sought to remove the smoke from them she blindly hurried down the narrow tunnel.

 

[Velkyn]

Chaos began to reign in the little cavern.

Smoke filled almost every nook and cranny, strange spark of magic rushing through it. A few of the Reavers began to move, darting about in search even as they remained sightless.

"DO YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST GO?!" Velkyn shouted, his words echoing in the cavern. "THAT I'LL LET YOU SLIP AWAY AND TELL HIM WHAT I HAVE!"

A mad cackle escaped from the Drow's lips, the rage almost as palpable as the smoke filling the room. The ancient dark elf seemed almost suffused with a sickness of arrogance, anger, and confidence. Yet the affront of an attack here, at his most sacred of moment, had snapped the carefully controlled veil that usually covered him. "I WILL HUNT YOU TO THE ENDS OF THIS EARTH. I HAVE THE SISTERS, AND I WI-"

The voice began to fade in the distance of the tunnels, the echo resounding and beating upon itself until it became little more than a garbled shout of words.

When Xylthe looked back, glancing through the darkness, she would see a figure running behind her. He was tall, more muscled and less lean than most Drow. He wore the odd armor of the Reavers, and on his back was sling a large pack. He rushed along behind her, clearly not chasing, but fleeing.

His hand motioned in a wave, urging her on deeper into the tunnels.

They couldn't stop, not until their lungs were burning, feet were aching, and bodies simply refused to move.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe did just that.

Velkyn's final words chased her all the way through the twisting tunnels. I have the sisters. What had she done? She should have found a way to die before leading him here. Even if she escaped she had doomed the Underdark to his wrath, a wrath she had only fuelled. Those who died would be in part on her shoulders. It felt as though she was running from that burden too as she twisted and turned. Every time she hesitated on a direction the man behind her shouted the way and she listened.

It was only when she had tripped the fourth time in a row and found herself running in a tired zigzag rather than a line that she relented and came to a stop gasping for air.

"I can't... I can't run anymore..."

 

[Senvid]

ven his chest burned by the time Xylthe called for a stop, his lungs aching and his muscles calling for a final stop.

He could have gone on, perhaps for another few hours, the surgeries had made him...he shook his head, vanquishing the thought for the moment. His head nodding at Xylthe as he agreed to come to a stop, hand finally coming up to grasp at the edges of his mask.

Senvid came to a stop, fingers dragging the metallic leather from his face. Fresh air pulled into his lungs, or as fresh as it could be down in the Underrealm.

"A few minutes." He breathed. "That's all we can take."

The others would be coming, and while he was with Xylthe he couldn't move through the shadows. There was little doubt they would be hunting, and the only advantage they had was the chaos of the tunnels around them. He had planned their route carefully, but planned chaos was never as good as the real thing.

He glanced over at her. "Do you need water?"

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe nodded wordlessly and took the canteen when it was offered, gulping the water down before seeming to remember they needed to conserve what they had. Reluctantly she handed it back to him though her thirst had barely been quenched then leaned against the wall; she worried if she sat down she would never get back up.

She took their brief respite to study for the first time the Drow who had become her saviour and only hope of survival. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting but he was not it.

"You're... a Reaver?"

 

[Senvid]

A blink crossed Sen's features, as though he didn't quite expect her question. Lips thinned for a brief moment, but then slowly he nodded. "I wasn't..."

He stopped himself, taking another breath.

"I am." There was no denying it. No Reaver was born, all of them, including him had been made. There was no denying that fact, and trying to take away from it now somehow seemed to cheapen the price he had to pay.

Sen wouldn't do it.

"A year ago." He said, and then slowly shook his head. "It doesn't matter right now."

Eyes flickered down the tunnel they had fled through. "We need to keep moving."

There was an almost desperation to his tone as he looked back to Xylthe. "I know you can't-I know it's hard."

He continued.

"But we have to keep going." The others would be coming, and while they had an area to search they could move a lot faster. Not to mention far more safely. "Even if we just walk."

 

[Xylthe]

She'd been tortured for days, had been kept in a cell where sleep was forbidden, and had just run god knows how many miles down these tunnels. Exhausted was putting it mildly. She swayed when she took a step away from the rocky wall but determination set her jaw. He was right; if they stayed here they lost all the ground they had managed to win.

"I think I can walk," she nodded and when he pointed the way she set off. Another mile in and she had to have her hand on the wall to steady herself, three miles in and she was barely standing. She walked slumped against the wall, both hands pressed against it so she could catch herself if she fell.

 

[Senvid]

It was getting too much.

Senvid could tell from how Xylthe moved. The slowed and staggered steps, the palm against the tunnel walls. Any moment now she would drop, and after that there would be no more running. Not for her at least. Briefly he glanced back over his shoulder, glaring through the dark Abyss.

Then finally he spoke. "Okay."

He said softly.

"We should stop for some rest." In truth, if he thought it possible they would have kept moving. The others would be hunting still, but Xylthe was getting ready to drop. It was half a miracle that she had made it this far. Perhaps taking a break now will let them move further tomorrow. "Stay here."

Sen said softly, slowly moving up to where she was leaning up against the wall. His pack came unslung from his back, and he quickly pulled several items out. A glass tube a plant curled upon itself inside, a pack of rations, water skin, and lastly a knife. "These are for you."

He said, placing the items gently in front of her.

"This is a glow tube, don't activate it unless you have to." Sen said, pointing to the vial with the odd plant inside. "I'm going to search for a place to camp, stay here."

The former Reaver repeated. Knowing he could search faster on his own.

 

[Xylthe]

Xylthe stopped when he called a halt and she dully took whatever he gave her with her hands flat out towards him. From the slight sheen to her eyes it was clear she was not all mentally there and only standing due to sheer willpower alone. She nodded mutely when he ordered her to stay. Orders she could obey even in her sleep. She knew if she sat down she would not get back up - a quiet voice in the back of her mind told her that - so she looked instead at what was in her hands. It was like looking from outside her body.

Water, you need water. Drink, the quiet voice in her mind insisted and she nodded, unstopping the skin and tilting it to her parched lips. She was thirsty.

Slowly. Small sips.

Why did the voice sound like the Priestess? She obeyed never the less and forced herself to take tiny sips until her thirst no longer ripped at her throat.

Now some food, just a little.