Quest Those Who Walk Below

[Dante Storta]

“You’re a woman?” Dante spat back.

Dante listened as he honed his weapons. All of this was over his head. He didn’t dabble in gods and dragons and songs and it was clear that would be a disadvantage on this journey. J’rell seemed to think this Dragonsong was something to fear, something that could drive a man mad… but they were already crawling through the innards of the world, how much madder could someone be?

“Ack!” Dante spluttered as the wineskin came flying at him, it smacked him in the face and then landed in his stunned open hands. The whet stone and sword were quickly forgotten as he took a swing and let out a refreshed sigh.

He caught Zathira’s eye, held the skin up, then tossed it in her direction. When it was appropriate he’d thank Vyx’aira for sharing. It wasn’t often he had the chance to drink a little wine while basking in the dank darkness of the underrealm.

The Queen’s words were powerful. The memory clearly something she held dear, something she didn’t spill frivolously. Dante made sure to remember these words.

Then their guide decided to cross a line they shouldn’t have. Mid drag, his whet stone stopped. In the blink of an eye Vyx had covered the space between her and Vernutar, or whatever she was called, and had her by the throat. He sat up a little straighter, a small sense of foreboding developing in the back of his mind. Not because violence was close… but because he couldn’t look away from her. Falling for your employer was bad for business.

Then the tension was over. Vyx’aria made her point, and Vernutar had accepted. Dante returned to his blade.

“If disguises keep up out of the sewers, then by all means work your magic, but I am not being tied up and hauled around.”

A smile worked its way onto Dante’s face and for once it wasn’t the mocking sneer, “Sounds like we're going to the city then?"

 

[J'rell]

J'rell carefully watched the vicious display of violence, cross-legged in his own seat. Among drow, it was hardly surprising — but it was enlightening. It told him that Vernutar was playing a cautious game, while Vyx'aria succumbed to pride. He felt a tinge of remorse for Vernutar's poor treatment; she didn't seem quite as callous as many other dark elves, but perhaps she merely hid it well. But Vyx'Aria didn't suffer the smallest slights. This he knew already. Today, Vernutar had learned that lesson as well.

“Sounds like we're going to the city then?"

"It would appear so. We've made it this far. It might be a wasted opportunity not to take our chance, when we can still seize it."

He bit his lip, considering Vyx'aria's tale. To think, something like this could have happened in his confined slumber. The Great Ones, awakened. Could it be a lie? No, she had spoken with conviction and earnest memory. It seemed that indeed, the drow had sought to ally with the mother of all dragons. A terrifying prospect, if it had succeeded.

And now, she sought to finish what they had started. Find the divine progeny, and use it to . . . to what? Fuel her own ambition? Conquer in the name of her people? Revenge against those who had usurped her? Perhaps all three.

"May I ask, Lady Vyx'aria. Once you have the dragon's egg and your mageling . . . what then?" His face had drawn into tight lines, looking at Vyx'aria, expecting the worst. Expecting some plan of furious conquest hatching with that egg. "What will you do with it?"

Vyx'aria Zathria At'Arel Dante Storta Szesh Vel'duith Voiryn

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria retrieved the wineskin from where it had landed, fingers curling around the worn leather. She took a slow swig, letting the Allirian red burn warmly down her throat before lowering it again, her expression unreadable.

When J’rell asked his question, she gave a small, almost careless shrug. “I was entrusted with the egg,” she said simply. “That duty has not changed.”

Her gaze drifted, unfocused for a moment, as if measuring something far larger than the cavern around them. “There was… something different about it. Even then.” A pause. “Which means I cannot simply bury it or lock it away and pretend the world will forget.”

Her eyes shifted to Vel’duith.

“You can work your magic,” Vyx’aria said calmly. “But it will cost you. Heavily.” No judgment, just fact. “Which leaves us with a single viable option. The Suulet’jabar compound. Less fortified than Zar’Ahal.”

Internally, she noted how easy it would be for Vel’duith to drop the veil and expose them all. But such a betrayal would lay the other drow bare as well, weakened and alone, and Vyx’aria judged the risk acceptable.

Trust, here, was not faith. It was leverage.

“Once we are near the tower, I will use my voice,” she said. “Nimruil will come out. One way or another.”

She looked back at J’rell once more. Clearly having avoided answering the deeper question till now.

“I….” For the first time, he would hear hesitation and uncertainty in her voice, “I do not know,” She admitted quietly, “I only know I do not wish for it to meet its mother's fate.”

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

Vel'duith nodded at Vyx'aria's assertment.

"Six disguises shall be taxing indeed, Valsharess. But I have lived all this past moon under the sun..."

Her hat still held in her hand, it was apparent that she wore her hair not in any house's style, but in a simple, precisely even plait, its curt, neatly brushed tail tied with a well tucked dark red spidersilk cord. She rolled back her left sleeve and removed her left glove, and the eldritch patterns of silver and moonstone etched into the ebon flesh of her hand and forearm gleamed boldly, almost painfully bright in the dark chamber. This act also revealed a pair of shake-holstered darts, adamantine tips glistening darkly with the telltale sickly green cast of freshly applied sleeping-poison. She rolled her sleeve back down, and tugged her glove back on. Lastly, she replaced her hat, ever so briefly meeting Vyx'aria's gaze so that she could see the dimming dweomer at work below the hat-brim, before once again inclining her head and flourishing her palms briefly.

"My luminancy has benefited as an unexpected boon of the experience. I should manage holding our disguises for at least an hour before my embeddings wane considerably. Longer, if the disguises need not be fast against a living touch."

 

[J'rell]

Spoiler: Music

J'rell's dark eyes kept lingering on Vyx'aria, unerring and hooded with thought. His silence brimmed with tension, filling the space of their little cavern with imperceptible weight.

He hadn't heard such a faint tremble in her voice before, nor the brief halt in thought. Sharp and decisive as a blade, she had been. But now, before this question . . . doubt?

Could he trust it? He hadn't thought her capable of sparing a thought for the fates of others. It almost disturbed him more than any proclamation of future glory could have.

For it raised two options.

Either she was a master pretender and veiled her true designs with the facade of concern. A cunning tactic to keep her subjects in the dark about her plans, while fostering trust in her intentions.

Or, she was more than simply the callous, murdering drow regent he had borne witness to in Hollowmere Crossing. This nearly seemed the more insidious proposition. For it might make her appear sympathetic in her cause; perhaps even cause him to lose his guard around her. As if her past killing, raiding and looting held a higher purpose, some nobler aim that could justify it.

His memory slingshotted back to her carving him out from the worm. Firmly keeping him in her grip, on the threshold of life, not willing to let death claim him. It stood clear among muddier memories, pristine; as yet uncorrupted by the decay of time.

People defied to have their moral integrity set in stone. They could be as ever-changing as the elements. An incredibly frustrating trait, when one attempted to make up their mind about them.

Finally, he shook his head, breaking eye-contact. A huff of air escaped him, baffled. It was eerie how much she reminded him of his former charge. Shifting like a chameleon from moments of great generosity to acts of even greater cruelty, and then back again, always defying a firm pindown. His former empress had assured him that all her vile acts went towards a greater good. He had been burned once before by such notions. Grander goals that could supposedly outweigh lesser evils.

He would not be tricked again.

With a great heave of air, finally, reluctantly, he took word again.

"True concern for another's fate is admirable. Especially when done with disregard to one's own safety. And you have risked much getting here."

Eyes raised again to observe cautiously. No accusations and no assumptions. Just a principle he held dear. He still didn't know if she truly cared for something beyond herself, but if she did, he let those words hang like an acknowledgement of such intent.

Vyx'aria Zathria At'Arel Dante Storta Szesh Vel'duith Voiryn

 

[Szesh]

Taciturn was almost too mild of a way to describe Szesh. The common language was physically difficult for him to speak, which worsened his pre-existing desire to avoid long conversations anyway. His people’s warrior caste were not poets or philosophers, and they owed their survival to sound, decisive actions on the field of battle. This group prattled on far too long, when truly the only voice that mattered was their employer (or leader, or queen, depending on their view).

Despite this assertion, that very voice was now saying some very concerning things. Szesh visibly reacted to Vyx’aria’s revelation. He took a half step back and his dark eyes flared wider in equal parts shock and incredulity.

”Her spawn?” he hissed, louder than he should have. He grit his teeth, trying to choose his next words carefully although several different thoughts were colliding in his head at once.

”I was there.” His voice was low, gravely, and severe. ”I was there when She broke the earth… poisoned the sky.”

That day still plagued his nightmares. He could remember the chaos, the smell of deep earth and fire, and the existential horror of seeing Neha. She had dwarfed the city, dwarfed everything. He remembered Zeri.

”She was of Dron. A destroyer.” Szesh had felt her evil then and he felt it now. Reverence does not mean blindness, for not all gods are benevolent. He absent-mindedly scratched at his arm, his body remembering Neha’s toxic ash. It had blanketed him as he flew. It felt like it was seeping under his scales, unlike any natural dust.

”You would bring Her child back?”

There was no mistaking the tint of anger in his voice. This was information that should have been given earlier. He did not know if he would have refused the job, or accepted anyway had he known… but he would have had time to think.

The other banter, the disguises, the chosen route, he didn’t care about those right now. Szesh would not abide destroying the egg, but neither was he keen on awakening it. ”Some things are best left asleep.”

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria did not retreat from Szesh’s anger.

She met it.

Her eyes flashed, pale light igniting in them as she turned to him, the air between them tightening as if the cavern itself had drawn breath. When she spoke, her voice carried heat and steel in equal measure.

“What crime,” she demanded, “did that dragon commit?”

She took a step toward him. Then another.

“In a world where she existed long before the surface cities, long before borders, long before the small-minded creatures who now claim dominion over everything they touch.” Her lip curled. “She breathed. She claimed space. She did not submit.”

Her voice sharpened, each word deliberate. “There are dragonkin who have never burned a village, yet they are hunted. Orcs who have never raised a blade, yet they are despised. Drow who have never butchered a soul, yet they are hunted on sight.”

She closed the remaining distance, standing close now, forcing him to meet her gaze.

“All for existing,” Vyx’aria said quietly. “All for breathing. All for refusing to bend to the whims of humans and surface-dwellers who believe the world was made for them.”

Her anger was not wild. It was honed.

“What gives you,” she asked, eyes burning, “or me, the authority to decide that this dragon's life should never come to be simply because it does not fit neatly into the order they imposed?”

She paused. She leaned in just enough that her words were meant for him alone.

“Would you destroy it?” she asked. “Would you end its life before it has drawn its first breath rather than risk guiding it?”

Szesh

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

Zathria made an obscene gesture at Dante but didn't respond further. The conversation progressed to discussion of the dragon and Zathria listened in silence, the tensions in the small cavern growing. Nerves frayed from combat and the stress of still being in danger did nothing to help with the moment either.

"But it won't remain asleep. Whether in our hands or someone else's it will awaken," she added.

"It's either destroy it or recover it and help it to hatch and grow," she said.

Everything in life was a risk and this was no exception, but she wasn't eager to snuff out the life of something that had not even had the chance to draw its first breath. Especially not something so powerful and potentially world-changing as the offspring of the dragon.

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

While the queen and the dragon-kin had their close conversation about the potentially apocalyptic egg of Neha the Destroyer, and the sell-sword and general played catch with stare-daggers, Vel’duith unstoppered a flask and took a quick sip of dwarf-ale, then fished out a broken piece of the ripplebark-shelf from her carryall. She grimaced slightly. She had of course been crushed up against her carryall during her own close conversation with the queen a few moments earlier, and she could only imagine how many little bits of fungal detritus were inevitably working their way into the waft of the spider silk. While she nibbled absently at the chunk of mushroom, she couldn't help but frown slightly at the prospect of cleaning out all those crumbs later.

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria exhaled slowly, the sound more weariness than surrender. Whatever fire still lingered in the air was smothered beneath resolve.

“Enough,” she said, quietly but decisively.

She rose, brushing dust from her palms as though the matter itself had been set aside. “We move. Debate does not carry us any closer to the compound.”

Her gaze slid to Zathria. “Get the potions. Prepare them properly.” No elaboration. Zathria would know what that meant. “You’ll break off and move ahead. Rendezvous with us closer to the Suulet’jabar compound. Do not draw attention.”

Then her eyes swept the rest of them. “The remainder stays with me. We continue on course.”

With that, she turned and began walking, shadow folding back around her as if it had been waiting. She did not look over her shoulder.

Whatever doubts Szesh carried, whatever judgments, fears, or convictions, he would have time enough to weigh them on the move. Or he could turn back. It made no difference.

Vyx’aria would finish this.

With or without him.

 

[Dante Storta]

Dante’s sneer widened at Zathria’s obscene gesture, “Thanks for the offer, maybe when we’re alone, love.”

In what small greylight he could find, Dante checked the edge of his weapon. The broadsword wasn’t a slicer. It was a brutal weapon made to bash and break as much as it was to cut and as he looked around he wondered if he’d be forced to break anyone here.

Dante’s eyes followed Szesh, it was clear The Draconian didn’t like the plan, and as far as The Sellsword was concerned reservations in the midst of a mission were useless. Everyone knew what they were getting into, the end prize shouldn’t change that.

The Sellsword was on his feet, bare steel exposed and ready. Vyx’aria spoke before The Draconian could make a comeback. Good for her, better to cut the loose ends off before they tangled everything up.

As Zathria got after her orders Dante mouthed, “I’ll miss you,” with a sneer and then fell in behind The Queen as she marched them toward their next objective.

As he passed Szesh, Dante clapped Ole Scales on the shoulder and said, “Good luck seeing in the dark, mate.”

The path was as identical to what had come before as anything could be. Darkness, damp, and stone all around. Dante couldn’t help but wonder if this was what a coffin felt like. He didn’t like that thought too much so he tried to chase it away with anything else to occupy his wandering mind. It didn’t work.

Between the worm, the cave fishers, and the spider, Storta assumed they were due for something terrible to come their way at any minute, but nothing ever did. Instead the tunnel they were in opened up before them revealing a ladder at the other end of the room. Professional Paranoia screamed: Trap.

Dante stepped into the room first, one hand up in a pseudo ready stance, the other on the pommel of his dagger. Storta eased into open space, his eyes flicking from corner to corner then sweeping the floor before each step… nothing.

Well, I look like a moron…

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

Vel’duith said nothing about the queen apparently discarding her idea, silently biding her time as the misfit circus snaked and glowered through mazes of decades-hardened fisher detritus. She also seemed to nearly melt into the shadows as they walked, her cloak’s mottling making it difficult to fix her exact silhouette in the gloom, though she was mere steps away from those ahead and behind her.

Once she saw the ladder ahead, she realized that her ‘detour’ had barely been even slight from the route the queen had likely planned all along. She nodded slowly, approvingly, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Ah! Slaves would once have descended yon ladder and passed through this very shaft to toil in the sewer, before the cavefishers took over the cavern. It would lead up to the lower city, near the slave pens, and quite near where the main road rises up into the main circle, the epicenter of the great houses. Easy to blend in disguised amongst the steady stream of drudges and drones passing back and forth.”

The trickster’s mind kept a defensive illusion visualized the whole while. She would not be so easily surprised by a second attack.

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

"I'll see it done," Zathria said with a nod to Vyx'aria, her face shifting to that determined look but with the hint of excitement that spoke to this being where she thrived. She loved what she did.

"I know you will. Haven't stopped staring since you first saw me. You just need a woman to order you into a good time," Zathria said as Dante shifted past her. He was an interesting one if a bit impertinent for a maleling. Still, entertaining enough.

Zathria moved out ahead of the group, traveling through the remainder of the course before ascending upward at the edge of the city. The people milling about paid little attention to a single Drow puttering around and Zathria pulled the hood up over her head to obscure her features further.

Few likely would be able to tell her face by sight these days, but there was no point in taking unnecessary risks.

Zathria's eyes darted beneath her hood as she approached the emporium, the gnomes inside who ran the place casting their gazes toward the door as Zathria entered.

"Potions of disguise," was all she said and the gnome behind the counter looked up at her.

"Potions of ice storm. See there little missy, I can do it, too," the gnome said, looking up at her with a mischievous look in his eye.

"Or was that just a question? You're looking for those potions and want to buy some. Otherwise I can list all kinds of magical items. Swords of soul severing, shields of counter spell, elixirs of healing. By the skies I think I could list items for the rest of the evening!" he said and Zathria screwed her eyes shut before letting out a little sigh.

Astather was known to be a bit on the eccentric side, an eternal grandpa to everyone that came into the shop. If your grandpa had a shop that was absolutely packed with magical traps, glyphs, and items that could defend him if a customer got a little out of line. He'd been in business long enough that everyone knew not to try to scam or rob him. Back when Zathria had been a commander she'd heard a story about how Astathar had scorched a whole group of five Drow who had tried to rob him at sword point and had only had to lift a finger.

"Yes, I am looking to buy potions of disguise. I'll pay handsomely for a rush. I need them now," she said. She wanted to bypass the heme and haw of "I don't have any on hand." She knew he would and he had no shortage.

He named a price that made her soul shriek a bit but she laid the coin down and he disappeared and reappeared several minutes later with the potions in hand. Now she just needed to make it back to the others without being caught.

"Always a pleasure of sorts, Astathar," she said with a half-smirk toward the gnome.

"You as well, Z," confirming that he did, in fact, realize who she was. She knew that he would, but it had been a long time since they had seen one another.

 

[Szesh]

“What gives you,” she asked, eyes burning, “or me, the authority to decide that this dragon's life should never come to be simply because it does not fit neatly into the order they imposed?”

Szesh contained himself by gritting his teeth very hard. His fists clenched and his tail made a single swish. He felt a great rage at the audacity of Vyx'aria to lecture him on dragons, but it passed as quickly as it swelled. He was no scholar, he knew only the tales he had been told throughout his life. The stories and oral histories of his people, with all of their truths and all of their lies.

Dragons shared the Spine. Though encounters had become exceedingly rare, there were more than a few counts of villages needing hasty relocations, or being fully razed. They were as deities to his people, but they were quite often angry. Respect often demanded one keep their distance. Worship often meant knowing where one's place was... and knowing where it was not.

"No authority," he breathed back. "No rights to decide either way." To think that they had any place in the affairs of Great Ones was folly. Dragons were to be feared and respected, and never underestimated. Szesh would never allow the egg's destruction, if he had any say in the matter, but neither did he think they had any right to rouse it.

Zathria's point was taken, and Szesh's body relaxed as he gave up any attempt at conversation with Vyx'aria. The queen's mind was made up, and even as Szesh curled his lip at Dante the rogue was quite correct. Szesh could not stray from this mission, not if he wanted to ever see the sun again.

So he continued on, keeping his head low and his thoughts to himself. He would not abandon this mission, but he would need to consider his role in it. What did Vyx'aria plan to do with the dragon, should it awaken? For one who spoke of unearned authority... did she think she had the right to control Neha's spawn? Did she think she had the strength?

Something churned in him, beneath his scales and at the back of his throat. His chest felt tighter when he thought of the titan and the egg.

 

[J'rell]

Craaaack. Splat.

J'rell ponderously looked down, where his sandal had crunched through a cave fisher egg. He recalled Vyx'aria's earlier scolding of the group for attacking these creatures; her near reverent respect for them.

Cautiously, he swept the remaining shells and organic mucus aside with his foot, plopping it into the canal beside them. Then he dried said sandal and ankle as well as he could against the stone.

He hoped he hadn't been noticed. It seemed a particularly misplaced step, given their earlier debate about this most divine egg of Nehu -- and here he was, trampling through eggs like a drowsy rhinocerus. Perhaps in an effort to deflect any attention away from his sacriligious footstep, J'rell cleared his throat and said, in response to Vel'duith's assertion:

"Drudges and drones? We should blend in perfectly."

His cautious smile stabbed at mild humour; a careful attempt at levity where it hardly belonged. A more serious question followed, aimed at Vel'duith, their sewer guide:

"You have taken this path often, then? Any other surprises we should expect in the lower city?"

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

Velduith shook her head to J'rell's question. She didn't give any special attention to the crunching of one egg. Her eyes flitted constantly from the path ahead to the ceiling above, minding the myriad eyes that minded them. Her voice remained soft and crisp.

"No, rivvil. I was unaware of this tunnel and ladder. I kept to the parts of the nest of use to me, and left the rest undisturbed out of respect to my provident hosts and their many victims whose bones we now tread. But since I know precisely what lies above the middens amidst the nest, I may confidently deduce what lies above this ladder, as well as infer its purpose."

She gestured vaguely upwards as she continued on to the second part of his question.

"As for the lower city… It is where all our crafts, low and fine alike, are made, and where the shebali and rothé whose hands toil in their creation live, sleep, and eat in such comfort or squalor as their station and success allows. There are many other goings on besides crafts… an excess of curiosity would not serve you well. You seem to be favored, rivvil. My counsel would be to stay close to your mistress, and keep to your disguise. Pique no undue notice, and I wager you might one day see again the sun.”

 

[Vyx'aria]

Vyx’aria did not hesitate. She climbed first, ascending the ladder with practiced ease, emerging into the shaft above and immediately moving aside to clear space. Her gaze swept the shadows and found Zathria exactly where she expected her to be. A single nod. A hand extended.

The potion was pressed into her palm.

Vyx’aria turned back and handed the vials out without ceremony, first to Szesh, then to Dante. “Drink,” she murmured. “Now.”

The change would come swiftly. Shadows would fold inward, features warping and tightening into unfamiliar lines. Dante’s form sharpened into something plausibly drow. Szesh’s transformation was… less kind….his bulk compressing awkwardly, proportions wrong, features twisted into a visage that might pass only as an especially malformed dark elf. Vyx’aria watched it happen without comment.

She took a vial herself.

The shift touched her lightly, just enough to blur the edges of recognition. Her bearing remained unmistakable, but her face became someone else’s problem.

They moved.

The lower city opened around them in narrow streets and pressed stone, bodies flowing past in steady currents of labor and commerce. Vyx’aria walked as though she belonged there, which, in many ways, she did.

She glanced at Vel’duith and raised her hands, fingers flickering in precise, silent motion.

Which way to the tower?

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

Vel’duith changed into the form of an eager, spiteful-eyed acolyte priestess, perhaps approaching suitable age to start academy. Her height did not change. Her hands flashed back.

<<The main road rises ahead, to the right. The compound is first on the left. There are surprisingly few guards minding the slave pens… do you suppose the usurper has already marched on the Duergar gates?>>

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

Zathria slipped from the shop and back toward the group, sliding in next to Vyx and handing her the potions and keeping one for herself, muttering a quiet incantation over one of them and projecting her will into it before downing it in a single go.

It was bitter and foul-tasting, but it got the job done well enough, her body starting to transition in its size and scope so that she shed several years off of her age, her features only changing slightly but enough to make her look like she wasn't herself.

They started moving in the direction of the tower, when Zathria saw a pair of guards moving through the streets.

Act natural, she whispered to the others. They shouldn't have a reason to stop the group, but stranger things had happened before. Guards could be suspicious or downright vindictive if the time was wrong.

 

[J'rell]

The streets of Zar'Ahal gaped open before him like nothing ever had before. Perhaps it was a combination of Vyx'aria's residual vision magic and the confusing, phosphorescent lights of the drow city that inflicted a phantasmagoria of impressions on him. Lights that seemed not to serve the purpose of lighting up the darkness of the streets, so much as to decorate, to mesmerise, to distract -- or to dominate. The eye plummeted near unwillingly into each such web of mischevious light. Here a ghost-teal and wisp-purple lantern scintillating on all sides, scattering its own prismatic glow into a million tiny shards against blackened stone; here an obelisk sizzling with strange, glowing glyphs, seeming to boil from within; here the diamond eyes of a spider statue, specking its titanic head like stars reflecting all the other lights around it, spindly legs and joints so detailed and interlinked it looked near fit to move. Inevitably, the eye wandered, until it landed in a red gaze.

The guards nearly drifted by them without concern. Nearly left them to their own devices, uncaring for their fate or path. But that brief flicker of eye-contact, human eye meeting dark elf gaze, caused the guards to look twice. J'rell glanced away, anchoring his sight on the stones before him, tucking himself deeper within his glamour.

But it was too late. They turned to observe the group. Noticed the strange gaits. The hulking and ill-proportioned mass of a drow that Szesh presented. The ill-clothed group, walking with strange purpose and direction for a gaggle of commoners. No House insiginia, standard or heraldry to accompany them, to vouch for their existence.

"Halt, strangers. Where do you think you are going?"

The challenge was spoken in Deep Drow, the tongue of commoners, soldiers and scouts. It had a tinny, sharp rasp to it, much akin to a thin blade dragged across stone; like the consonants hacked each vowel in half and rolled and burred longer than they had any right to.

 

[Vel'duith Voiryn]

The young acolyte politely tapped her “mother” on the arm.

“Vallabha-Ilhar! Will we get to watch these waela being scourged for delaying our appointment with Ilharess Suulet-Jabar?”

Her deep ruby eyes gleamed as she excitedly looked the guards over.

 

[Szesh]

Szesh took the potion and felt his stomach grow uneasy merely by looking at it. It felt small in his hand, not nearly voluminous enough to have any effect... but he was sure its effects would be all-too-apparent in just moments. With a sideways glance at Dante, Szesh opened his maw and threw the concoction back.

He dropped the vial immediately, shattering it on the ground. There was no delay, no period between swallowing and effect. It had scarcely touched his stomach before that very stomach began to writhe and reshape. He did his best to remain silent through the pain, gritting teeth that grew smaller and flatter while his snout compressed and his horns retracted forcefully into his skull.

For a few moments Szesh thought that this might kill him. He had survived this long, against great odds, and now he would die malformed and buried untold fathoms beneath the surface. But he did not die. As his deep gravely groans mutated into thinner, more mammalian sounds, he felt his body once again take solid form.

His skin was dark and smooth. Well, smoother than scales, though by comparison to the actual drow amongst them he was quite callused and rough-skinned. He could feel that his brow protruded above his now deep-set eyes, and his jaw did not feel entirely aligned. His legs were long, with too-large feet, and his hands hung like thick-bodied spiders.

He was truly hideous.

"Awful," he spoke, and to his surprise the word came quite easily from his mouth. He had never before possessed the proper anatomy for common speech. A shame he had even less desire to use it now.

He followed the group up the ladder, going last. He didn't feel much lighter, and didn't want the steps to break while there were still others behind. The ladder held, miraculously, and brought him to the street.

"Halt, strangers. Where do you think you are going?"

Szesh turned slightly asymmetrical eyes to the soldiers. He didn't need to understand the language to know what the question had been. He remained still, letting the stagnant air pass over him. He became suddenly and uncomfortably aware than he had hair.

 

[Vyx'aria]

When the guards questioned them, Vyx’aria’s stare lingered a moment too long.

Then her patience snapped.

Without a word, without magic or any weapons, she pivoted and drove her fist straight into the nearest guard’s face. Just a good old-fashioned slug. Bone cracked wetly. The sound carried. The drow staggered back, nose collapsing beneath her knuckles, and went down in a heap without so much as a dignified scream.

Vyx’aria didn’t even watch him fall.

She turned on the second guard, eyes cold, mouth set, and her hands moved fast and sharp.

Ill daughter. And my lover cursed and deformed. She jabbed a thumb toward Szesh, whose malformed glamour did wonders to sell the story.
Appointment for solution. Mage tower.

Her final gesture was slow and deliberate: a slicing motion, clean and anatomical. Step aside. Or I start removing limbs.

The remaining guard glanced at his companion, unconscious, bleeding, crumpled on the stone, then back at Vyx’aria. One look was enough. He shifted out of the way immediately, spine straight, eyes down, suddenly very invested in surviving the evening.

Vyx’aria sniffed, unimpressed, and strode past without breaking pace. She could already sight the mage-tower rising ahead. The streets flowed around her once more as if nothing had happened.

Behind them, the guards did not follow.

 

[Dante Storta]

Dante looked around, apparently his bad feeling had been off? Honestly he wasn’t sure why he was surprised… he’d eaten cave worm. Any moment now he’d probably be rocked with hallucinations and delirium… alright, that sounded like a good time. J’rell stepped on an egg and The Sellsword winced, “Easy, you oaf!” he hissed.

They crossed the cavern, Zathria returned, but Dante wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of acknowledgement, she could work for it just like everyone else. Vyx’aria pressed a bottle into his hand and told him to drink.

Dante threw back the potion and waited. Then he waited some more. There was a small tingling running across his skin, but that was it. He looked down at his hands, and they were a different hue but still the same. Good, apparently the potions had worked. He looked in Szesh’s direction and winced. The Draconian was having a harder time of it. The potion had a lot more to do with him than just a simple palette swap.

Storta caught the tail end of Vyx’s transformation and determined she was attractive in any iteration.

Bah, some people have all the luck in the realm.

Dante saw the signs Vyx was throwing, but had no idea what they meant, thankfully the trickster did. Their heading changed slightly, which told Storta they were talking directions. Man he was good.

Zathria’s advice to act natural caught Dante like a fart in the face and his face showed it. He was in a place he’d never been wearing skin that was his but wasn’t and her advice was to act natural? By the gods he really needed to learn to read so the fine prints of these jobs stopped bending him over and ram— oh shit, guards.

Dante missed his cloak, it made slipping a hand to a dagger so much harder… so he slid one leg out and took a ready stance. Nothing flashy, just standing, but ready to move if either of these— Vyx’aira was a blur of movement. The snap, crackle, and pop of her hits made Dante frown sympathetically for the guy as he hit the ground.

There was some drow speak and then they were moving again. The city around them shifted and morphed from the blocky pragmatic architecture of industry into the ostentatious spires of higher class. One in particular stood out among the rest, dead center in their line of sight stood the Mage’s tower.

Even from the distance they were now, there was a foreboding to the building that Storta knew had to be some effect from it’s inhabitants. He’d never admit it, but right about now he could see why someone would choose to move deeper into the darkness of the caves to avoid this place.

As they arrived, Dante stowed his apprehension, he was here to pull a job and if that meant infiltrating a Mage’s Tower in The Underrealm, then by the gods, he was going to… let someone else go in first.

 

[Zathria At'Arel]

Zathria moved past the guards when they began to question the others and when Vyx spun and swung, Zathria's hand fell to her knife, grasping the hilt and about to pull it when she saw Vyx's hands moving to tell her story.

The others started to move again and Zathria moved as well, only turning back to the front when she was sure the guards were not going to pursue but she kept her hand on her knife nonetheless.

The tower came into view shortly thereafter and Zathria's eyes flicked up to the tower. It was a foreboding sight and not easy to punch through if they had to break inside.

I'll take up watch until we're inside, she said quietly, moving wide of the group so she had a better view of the area and finding a small scaffolding that she smoothly climbed up and crouched low behind a small panel to obscure herself.