Dark Flower Ch. 1 & 2 (previously Snowfall and Landfall)

[Mikayla]

The intense glare of the Night Above blinded Sheyreiza Auvryndar. Sheyreiza had just stepped out of the dark interior of a cavern that led to the underdark and into the surface world for the first time. She could not believe how bright the surface was. All she could see was blazing white light. Her eyes began to water and Sheyreiza began to wonder if her sight would return. Gradually the other members of her team came into view. Everything was blurry and obscured by the intense glare. The ground was almost as bright as the sun itself and Sheyreiza found there was no where she could turn to rest her eyes from the merciless light.

The other members of the patrol were talking, mostly in Undercommon. Of the six people, four were drow and two were iblith. Five of the six were ‘criminals’ from the dungeons of the Valsharess. The Valsharess had promised them pardons if they successfully retrieved some religious relic belonging to the iblith on the surface. The sixth member of the team was a fresh young Ilythiiri male who was apparently vying to join the Valsharess’s army. The young warrior was untrained and untested and so the Valsharess had sent him along with the criminals. Sheyreiza supposed that if they were successful, the young warrior would be accepted into the Valsharess’s forces. Lucky him.

Sheyreiza quickly briefed the small team on their mission and admonished them to use only the drow hand-sign language except when communicating to the two iblith. To them, the drow would have to whisper in Undercommon. One of the males, the young warrior, quickly set up a number of traps around the cave entrance and suggested that if the party ran into trouble, they fall back through the traps. Smart, Sheyreiza thought. Maybe the young warrior would prove to be an asset after all.

The half-dozen underdarkers then headed down what appeared to be a road. Sheyreiza’s eyes were still tearing and the world was still mostly a giant white glare. As she walked, the ground crunched beneath her feet. This was not the ‘grass’ she had been told to expect on the surface. What was it?

“Is this…is this snow?” Sheyreiza asked hesitantly. Like most noble born females, she tried never to look unsure of herself, especially in front of males. Her wonderment at the world she now walked in grudgingly overcame that reluctance.

One of the males answered. “Aye.”

Snow. Sheyreiza had only heard of it and then only from slaves brought to Ched Nasad from the surface. Frozen water that fell from the sky. Sheyreiza had not believed them. Frozen water was ice, and if enough ice fell from the sky to cover the ground, it would kill everyone beneath it, or so she thought. This ‘snow’ however, was not like ice. The snow was light, almost fluffy. It crunched and compacted as she walked on it. It was brilliantly white, almost as hard to look at as the sun, but it left the Night Above looking clean and pure. It was frightening to Sheyreiza, but exhilarating as well. Still, she could not picture how all of this snow could fall from the sky and not crush everything beneath it.

The small group trudged carefully through the snowy fields and forests. They had no piwafi’s or drow boots so they took extra care in trying to move silently and unseen. Night fell and Sheyreiza found the darkness a soothing relief from the burning glare of the sun and snow. Finally, she could see long distances again.

Ahead of Sheyreiza two of the males, the young warrior and the one called Xerbus, scouted for any sign of danger or prey. Sheyreiza had no idea where to find this thing the Valsharess’s priestesses called a “glymtul.” All Sheyreiza knew was that it was a goblet made by or for the church of the iblith god Helm.

In the dark Sheyreiza saw one of her scouts running towards the rest of the party. Instinctively, Sheyreiza fitted an arrow to her bowstring. Several men, all Ilythiiri by their movements and clothing, followed the scout closely. The new comers had weapons drawn and were clearly on the attack. Sheyreiza aimed and loosed her arrow. The shaft flew true and the first hostile man fell clutching at the feathered end of the arrow that had passed through his throat. The other members of the party engaged the hostiles as well. A wild melee erupted as the scouts turned on their pursuers. Sheyreiza loosed another arrow, this one striking a hostile in the shoulder spinning the man around in a half turn. One of the males was on the wounded man in a heartbeat and put him down for good.

The fight was over almost as quickly as it began. Almost half a dozen Ilythiiri males lay dead. The insane, Shar-worshipping human, Whiro, began carving the eyeballs out of the skulls, spilling even more blood onto the snow.

Sheyreiza found the scene beautiful, but haunting. Black bodies lying in pools of red blood staining white snow. A pure white canvas now painted with death. Sheyreiza was fascinated.

Ever since turning to Kiaransalee, Sheyreiza had been a priestess of death. Even before that, Sheyreiza had been obsessed with death, or more specifically, undeath. Sheyreiza’s mother, Matron Shyntlara, was a vampire. Shyntlara had not yet managed to successfully pass her ‘gift’ on to any of her daughters. Those Shyntlara drained entirely of their blood simply died. Those Shyntlara did not fully drain, simply healed. The only people Shyntlara had successfully turned were two of her children that had failed the test of Lolth and had become driders. Both of these children Shyntlara had drained as punishment for failing her and Lolth, and both of these children later rose up from the dead as vampires. After helping destroy the new undead, Sheyreiza developed a theory that Shyntlara’s gift could only be passed along to those not loyal to Lolth. As Sheyreiza wanted the power and immortality her mother’s gift offered, Sheyreiza turned from Lolth and secretly began worshipping Kiaransalee, the drow goddess of Undeath.

Sheyreiza’s heresy was discovered, however, and Sheyreiza fled Ched Nasad rather than face the wrath of her mother. Some time later, Sheyreiza had been found by a patrol of warriors serving the Valsharess. At the time, Sheyreiza was hypothermic, dehydrated, starving and incoherently muttering prayers to Kiaransalee. The warriors unceremoniously dragged Sheyreiza back to the Valsharess’s stronghold where Sheyreiza was put into the dungeons as a heretic. There, she was sentenced to death. Then this mission came along and Sheyreiza was given the opportunity to live. Maybe. The mission was suicidal and trusting the Valsharess to live up to any promise was a foolish proposition at best, but Sheyreiza had no other options so she agreed.

Sheyreiza surveyed her followers. None were killed but two had been wounded. Sheyreiza used her divine spells to heal the men and the small party resumed its course.

A short time later two more Ilythiiri approached the party. Arrows flew and the first man was killed almost instantly. The second man, however, surrendered. Sheyreiza and her party questioned him. It seemed that another force of Ilythiiri assassins had already sought to gain the Valsharess’s favor by retrieving the glymtul. This group had attacked a group of surface iblith and had gotten scattered in the fighting. The man Sheyreiza captured had been a part of that group, and he told the priestess he thought his fellow assassins did, in fact, have the Helmite goblet. He did not, however, know where they were.

One of the scouts spotted more of the Ilythiiri assassins on a nearby bridge and reported back. The captured assassin triggered some hidden magic and disappeared from sight completely. Sheyreiza cursed under her breath. She should have had the man stripped before he was questioned.

At the bridge, Sheyreiza and her team rolled over the assassins who were on guard and pitched their dead bodies off into the frigid river below. The small group kept moving and was soon threading itself through a maze of narrow canyons. As the group exited the maze into a great open field, Sheyreiza realized something was silently falling all around her. Tiny bits of white floated down from the dark night sky. They quickly melted into water where they touched her skin. Snow? It had to be. So this was how snow fell: One tiny piece at a time. Not all at once, as she thought, but one tiny flake at a time. No wonder the falling snow did not crush everything beneath it. Was this like rain then? Sheyreiza paused in the great open field and just stared up at the sky as the snow fell. It was beautiful, simply beautiful. She had never imagined anything like it. She turned and looked around her. All she could see was white snow, dark sky and falling flakes. There was no sound but her feet crunching the snow. Her party had moved on a ways, and some now stopped and looked back at their entranced leader. Sheyreiza spared the sky one last look and vowed never to forget this moment. After a century of life in the underdark, Sheyreiza had thought she had seen all the world had to offer, both good and bad. There was nothing like snow in the Underdark, however, nothing at all.

With a deep sigh Sheyreiza returned her attention to the task at hand and rejoined her party. An hour later and the group found themselves staring at a stone keep sitting upon a snow covered hill. The group approached cautiously and found the keep unoccupied. They warmed themselves indoors and planned their next move. None of them had any idea where to search for the glymtul, so it was decided they would simply look for humans they could capture and interrogate.

It was still night and still snowing when the party left the keep. Sheyreiza counted her band and found the iblith, the one called Vulruk, hand wandered away from his guard post outside the keep. The group waited sometime for the beast to return, but after an hour, gave up hope. The scouts said they could probably find him if they moved quickly before the snow fall obscured the iblith’s tracks. Sheyreiza agreed and the party set out on the iblith’s trail.

In the hills just beyond the abandoned keep the scouts encountered a bloody Ilythiiri male, another assassin. Sheyreiza might have shot the man dead, but a human woman was close on his heals. Sheyreiza loosed an arrow at the iblith and the woman retreated.

“I have the goblet,” said the wounded assassin quickly. “But the rest of my men are dead. We ran into humans and I think I am the only one who got away.”

Sheyreiza looked around. “Back to the keep, as planned. We will fight from there.” The party moved quickly, all except the wounded assassin.

“Do you take me for a fool?”

Sheyreiza looked over her shoulder at the man. “Follow or die. Your choice.” She said simply. Sheyreiza ran for the bluffs without looking back and the assassin followed.

At the keep, the party set its defense. Traps were laid along the approach and the group took up defensive positions along the ridge. The waiting game began.

“How long do you think before they come?” Asked one of the males.

“They will attack at first light I think.” Sheyreiza responded. The group took turns keeping warm inside the keep while the others watched the approach.

Hours later, the black of the night sky gave way to dark blue of false dawn and then the glaring brilliance of day as the sun rose. As predicted, the iblith assault came with the dawn’s light. Arrows flew from above and below. Some of the iblith tried to gain the first landing but were repulsed by the traps and arrows. In a few moments, the assault was over and the iblith fell back. Sheyreiza surveyed her troops. One was missing. She looked about and there, below the last bluff, was the body of Eryk D’Phasma, a heretic wizard of Menzoberranzyn. Arrows riddled his body. Two of her six were lost now.

An hour later the humans came again, this time more cautiously. Arrows flew and one struck Sheyreiza in her side. She fell back to the keep’s door while the others continued to fight. In front of her, the remaining iblith, Whiro, took an arrow in the chest. The man spun and fell to his knees clutching at the shaft. For a moment, Sheyreiza looked straight into the dying man’s eyes. Then he fell forward into the snow. Sheyreiza stood and loosed another arrow. The iblith below fell back into the white oblivion of the snowy field.

As the sun approached its zenith in the winter sky, the attacking human’s came a third time, looking for ways to assault the bluff. Sheyreiza, though wounded, traded arrows with them as did her fellows. Down below, one of the humans staggered, wounded by one of the party’s shafts or traps. The young drow warrior broke from cover and charged the stricken iblith. Sheyreiza yelled at him to stop but it was too late. The young warrior found himself in a melee with the iblith and his allies. The assassin passed the glymtul to Sheyreiza and ran down the hill as if to join the young warrior, but his charge was just a ruse: the assassin used the warrior’s attack as a distraction and made good his own escape. Sheyreiza and Xerbus loosed their arrows as fast as they could but the young warrior was cut down. His opponent also fell, though by sword or shaft Sheyreiza could not tell. The humans fell back again and Sheyreiza could see that two of them were dead now. Still, it was not enough. One by one Sheyreiza’s group was falling.

All that was left was Sheyreiza and one of the scouts, Xerbus.

“They will come again. If we can hold out until dark, maybe we can slip away. Humans do not see well in the dark.” Sheyreiza said.

“Xas. We must escape and I do not think we can wait until dark. They know we are better in the dark. If it gets close to night fall, they will press the attack, and we will not survive.” Xerbus answered.

Sheyreiza nodded. The humans seemed clumsy and stupid, but they were large, strong and wore thick armor and carried heavy shields. “How do we escape then?” Sheyreiza asked. She was out of her element, literally and figuratively. Sheyreiza was a priestess of death from the Underdark, not a surface warrior.

“I don’t know yet.” Xerbus admitted. “We have a little while before they attack again. I am going to look for a way out of here.”

Sheyreiza just nodded her assent. Xerbus turned and began walking the bluff’s perimeter while Sheyreiza squinted against the glare looking for signs of another assault. The bright glare of the sun off the snow continued to hurt her eyes and Sheyreiza found herself closing her eyes more and more to relieve the pain. She had been awake, running and fighting for more than twenty-fours and the fatigue began to catch up with her. As she closed her eyes against the glare, she fell into reverie, and then into sleep. She dreamed.

She dreamed she appeared in the midst of the humans down below. The humans surrounded her and attacked mercilessly. Sheyreiza tried to run but the humans’ arrows found her. She fell face first into the snow, but her fall was soft, as if she too was a snow flake gently falling to earth. She could hear the voices of the humans standing above her. Their harsh, guttural tongues belting out curses. The voices softened, as Sheyreiza’s dream sight grew dim. There was only one voice now, a male voice, soft, soothing, and speaking Ilythiiri perfectly.

Sheyreiza awoke to find Xerbus speaking to her. He was saying something about the cliffs.

“I had a dream Xerbus, a dream in which I died.” She said.

Xerbus stopped speaking and looked at her. He had not realized she had fallen asleep. Sleep was rare for drow. He simply nodded. Her dream was a bad omen, but there was naught he could do but go on. If the bad omen meant they were going to die, then that was what the Weaver of Fate had woven for them. Until his soul left his mortal body, however, he had a mission to complete, and a fight to win.

“I think we can escape, priestess.” Xerbus said. “I think we can climb down the cliffs to the north.”


Sheyreiza nodded and stood. Any chance was better than no chance.

A few minutes later and Sheyreiza watched Xerbus successfully descend the treacherous cliff. She followed, and though not particularly well trained in climbing, her natural agility and years of living in the Underdark served her well. She too, completed the descent. Once down, the two stealthfully made their way past the great open field before the keep where the assaulting humans now made ready to attack yet again. The humans never saw Xerbus or Sheyreiza and the two drow slipped into the snowy hills.

An hour later, Xerbus came upon body of Vulruk, the iblith warrior who had been lost the night before. The falling snow had almost buried the half-orc and it seemed to Sheyreiza as if the beast would soon disappear into the landscape as if he were just a snowflake himself.

“Wael.” Sheyreiza muttered. “Where were you when we needed you?” She spit on Vulruk as she went by. Too bad the insane human Whiro was not here to take the fool’s eyes.

The two surviving drow kept moving as the snow kept falling. Hours later, they found themselves at the cave entrance where they had first entered the Night Above. Sheyreiza could not help but smile. Xerbus held up a hand, however, signaling caution. Sheyreiza peered around the rocks where Xerbus was looking. A human had fallen to one of their traps. The man lay in the snow bleeding out, but he was not yet dead. He muttered something in common, probably a plea for help. Sheyreiza put an arrow into his head, ending the man’s suffering.

She turned to Xerbus. “We made it. You did good Xerbus.”

“As did you priestess,” Xerbus returned. “Do you really think we should return this thing to the Valsharess?”

“If it would spare our lives, yes.” Sheyreiza regarded Xerbus for a moment. He was well built, agile, and competent. “Xerbus, when we have escaped, you and I should lay together.” She smiled.

Xerbus returned the smile and nodded. “Lets get this done then.” Xerbus turned to walk into the cave but was rebuffed by an invisible force. He tried again with the same result. “What in the abyss?”

Sheyreiza approached the cave entrance herself and put out a hand. She could feel a solid, but invisible barrier in the mouth of the cave.

“A wall of force.” She said, clearly astonished. “Someone has placed a wall of force here. We are cut off from our escape!”

“What?” Xerbus grimaced in rage and struck at the invisible barrier with his sword. The blade simply bounced. “What do we do now?”

Sheyreiza looked around at the bright snowy landscape of the surface world. She saw the human laying dead in the snow, her arrow protruding from his skull like a flag.

“We die.” She said flatly. She shook her head and then the rage suddenly took her. She hurled the goblet at the wall of force and screamed. “Its not fair! Its not fair you bitch! We did what you wanted, now let us go home!”

There was no reply but the fall of snowflakes.

Xerbus picked up the glymtul and handed it to Sheyreiza. “This is obviously valuable, maybe we can trade it for our lives.” He paused. “There are other entrances to the underdark, we just do not know where. Maybe we can buy that information.”

Sheyreiza nodded. “But from who?” She asked.

As if in answer to her question, Sheyreiza heard the crunching sound of footfalls in snow. Xerbus and Shey exchanged looks and readies themselves. A goblin, a poor, pitiful goblin, came into sight. The goblin’s eyes went wide at the sight of the drow and it held its hands up high and began whimpering.

The two drow spoke with the goblin in undercommon and the goblin agreed to lead them to another underdark entrance in return for sparing its life. It’s a sign from the gods, Sheyreiza thought. One force was working against them, and another for them.

Sheyreiza directed the goblin to walk far ahead in case the little iblith decided to try and lead the two drow into an ambush. As they started out, Shey and Xerbus heard the crunch of heavy, running footfalls. They froze in place. An armored human ran by. The goblin screamed and ran but the human was already charging. The fight was over before it began, and the goblin was left dead in the snow. The human turned, fresh from his victory only to see Sheyreiza and Xerbus. The drow loosed their arrows and the armored man fled. He ran between two rocks and Sheyreiza followed. Just as the man was about to reach cover, Sheyreiza put an arrow right between his shoulder blades. The man staggered forward and fell. Xerbus was on him, blade in hand and Sheyreiza followed. Xerbus pried up one of the human’s armor plates and Sheyreiza sunk her own sword into the man, ending his life. Another one dead. For a day now, Sheyreiza had watched her people and the humans fall into the snow, one by one. Was this to be her fate as well?

“What do we do now?” Xerbus asked.

Sheyreiza shook her head. “The goblin started walking west, so, I guess we start walking west.” Xerbus nodded. He had no better idea himself.

For an hour they headed west, their eyes searching the snow for any sign of where the goblin might have come from or been going to. There was nothing.

Xerbus climbed a bluff and scanned the landscape. Sheyreiza followed. Neither of them saw anything.

“I don’t know where we are.” Sheyreiza admitted. “And worse yet, I don’t know where we are supposed to go.”

Xerbus nodded. “Me neither.” He paused and looked at Sheyreiza and she returned his gaze. Sheyreiza knew she was beautiful, and she knew the effect that beauty had on men. She also knew the danger they had experienced in the last cycle would pique their appetites. She wanted Xerbus, and she knew he wanted her. Live or die, they needed to find someplace to satisfy that urge if nothing else.

Snow crunched.

Sheyreiza turned. The iblith from the keep had found them and were charging up the hill. Xerbus loosed a shaft and the humans came on. Sheyreiza ran as the humans attacked. Behind her, Xerbus was cut down as he tried to notch another arrow. Sheyreiza kept running but found herself at the edge of a cliff. Behind her, the humans were still coming.

Sheyeiza remembered what Xerbus had said about using the cup to save their lives. She pulled out the glymtul and called out in broken common. “The cup for my life! I surrender!” Two humans charged and attacked. Sheyreiza slipped the attack of the male but the female’s sword found Sheyreiza. It was a right handed blow down the diagonal, and it caught Sheyreiza just above one delicate eyebrow. The sword cut down through the left side of Shey’s face, across her eye, cheek and down to her jaw. The priestess fell back into the snow, bleeding profusely. She felt no pain from the blow, but she could no longer see out of her left eye. She could not seem to get up either. She was so weak, so cold. The only warmth was the blood running down her face. The blood was hot, and she could feel it running down her cheeks, pooling in her long, delicate ears.

With her good eye, Sheyreiza could see the human woman standing above her. The iblith woman turned her sword around into an over hand grip and placed the point between Sheyreiza’s breasts. With one hand on the pommel, the iblith woman pushed the sword down with all her might. Sheyreiza tried to scream as the sword slid through her ribs and into her lung. No scream came out, however, just a sanguine cough sending trickles of steaming blood pouring from the corners of Sheyreiza’s pouty lips.

Sheyreiza looked up at the sky. A snowflake landed in her eye and she blinked. Another fell on her nose and then another in her eye and she blinked again. She realized she had fallen. They all had, and just like the snowflakes, they had fallen one by one, slowly, and almost gently. Her vision began to grow dim and more blood poured from her once beautiful mouth. She could feel the humans starting to strip her off her armor and clothing.

For most of her life, Sheyreiza had been obsessed with death, going so far as to become a priestess of Kiaransalee. Now that she actually faced death, Sheyreiza found she wanted nothing more than to live. Its not fair, she thought, its just not fair. We made it. We made it back to the cave. We should have lived.

Another snowflake landed in Sheyreiza Auvryndar’s eye, but this time she did not blink it away. She was dead.

***

Sheyreiza heard a voice, a female voice, speaking Ilythiiri.

“Wake up child.” Said the voice.

Sheyreiza blinked. She could see. She was in a stone chamber dimly lit by the faintest of faerie fires right over her head. More importantly, she could see with both eyes. She sat up and realized she had been laying on a stone table, or possibly an altar. She was completely naked and very cold.

“Where am I?” Sheyreiza asked. Was she dead? Was this Kianransalee’s realm? It did not seem so, but then, Sheyreiza had never died before. Or had she died?

“You are in the dungeons.” Said the voice. Sheyreiza peered into the darkness but could not see the woman speaking.

“I died. Or I dreamt that I died.” Sheyreiza said simply. There seemed little point to subterfuge.

“You did die. Now you are alive again.” The woman said.

This had to be the Valsharess, Sheyreiza concluded. “Why? Why did you bring me back?” Sheyreiza asked.

“Because you are not done serving me. You were asked to retrieve something from the iblith. That something has not yet been retrieved. Do you really think you can escape my service by simply dying?” The woman laughed lightly, and though the laugh was beautiful, it was also dark and full of malice. “Death is no excuse for failure.” The woman said, her voice dropping into a menacingly low pitch. “You will serve me until I release you, not until death releases you.”

Sheyreiza understood such a concept only too well, but she was not yet convinced. “If you really wanted the goblet, why did you block the cavern?”

“I did not block the cavern.” The woman replied. “I am not the only one who seeks the goblet you know. I thought you would have learned that by now.”

“The iblith we fought could not have raised such a barrier.” Sheyreiza said, still peering into the gloom trying to see the mysterious woman.

“It was not the iblith, child, it was the gods. The gods are a fickly bunch, no matter if theirs or ours. One of them decided that you would not escape so easily. And so you did not. Who is to say why the gods do what they do?”

Sheyreiza frowned. “We are. Are we not priestesses of the gods?”

“We are but priestesses of our own goddesses child.” Said the unseen woman. “There are many other gods besides those and some take an interest in the doings of their followers just as ours do.”

“Why me?” Asked Sheyreiza. “Why raise me? Why do you want me to serve you? After all, I failed. I died.”

The woman laughed softly. “Indeed, and you died begging for your life. I do not think Lolth would take so kindly to such a display, but then…how many others did you kill before you died young priestess? The patrol you led fought its way through many other Ilythiiri assassins and iblith barbarians. You accounted for at least two ilythiiri and two, three or maybe even four iblith. You survived much longer than any of the others. So, why not you?”

Sheyreiza saw a mirror on stand near the alter where she had been laying. She walked to it. A scar ran down the left side of her face from her delicately arched brow, skipping across her eye, to her pretty jaw. Her left eye was strange; the entire eye was a translucent blue, devoid of any pupil or iris though there was cloudy white star pattern deep inside the blue.

“My eye…” Sheyreiza started.

“You lost your eye. I replaced it. That is an abyssal star sapphire.” Answered the woman’s voice.

“But I can see through it.” Said Sheyreiza.

The woman laughed. “So can I”

Sheyreiza understood her meaning. Another scar was neatly placed between Sheyreiza’s breasts. The killing wound. Sheyreiza gently traced the scar line with a finger.

“So, I am to return to the surface then?” Sheyreiza asked. “Am I to go back and look for this stupid cup of yours?” Sheyreiza turned from the mirror to face the darkness scowling. “If you want the stupid goblet so bad, go get it yourself.” Sheyreiza hissed insolently.

From out of the darkness a shape emerged. It was female, fully six feet tall, adorned with the regalia of a high priestess of Lolth, with the flawless black skin and silken white tresses of a drow, but it was clearly not drow. Huge, silken wings spread out from the woman’s back, and tiny black horns pushed their way up through her snowy locks. Her eyes were black, soulless, and as she smiled, she revealed fangs longer than those of Sheyreiza’s vampiric mother. The drow-fiend stepped forward and grabbed Sheyreiza by the throat with a long, slender, clawed hand.

Sheyreiza felt the abyssal power in the fiend’s touch and fear unlike anything she had ever felt coursed through her. The fiend picked Sheyreiza up with one hand and held her there, choking her.

The woman smiled and whispered. “There are worse evils than death, child.” Sheyreiza could feel the burning touch of the drow-fiend go cold, ice cold, and then beyond. It was the cold of death, but more than that, it was the cold of soul death.

Sheyreiza tried to nod. “Xas, xas.” She whispered hoarsely. “I’ll do it.” The drow-fiend dropped Sheyreiza to the stone floor and faded into the darkness.

“I thought you might. The next move in the great Savva game has not yet been played, however, so maybe you will go back, maybe not. Only the Weaver knows.” The woman laughed in the dark and Sheyreiza heard a door open, then close again. The distinctive sound of a bar dropping across metal followed.

Sheyreiza gripped herself tight and realized that she had died, been resurrected, come face to face with the Valsharess and she was, once again, in the dungeons awaiting her fate. She also realized she had wet herself.

Perhaps death would have been better.

[Mikayla]

Landfall….

[a continuation of ‘Snowfall’ and all the other IC posts surrounding the now infamous Summon’s quest.]

***

The metallic sound of her cell door being opened stirred Sheyreiza from her reverie. She did not move, however. There was little point. The cell was small.

The cell door swung open and a male entered. “Come with us.”

Sheyreiza narrowed her eyes. The male was not one of her regular jailors. “I do not take orders from males.” She said simply.

“Not even for your freedom?” The male asked.

Sheyreiza cocked her head. “Who are you?” Sheyreiza replied.

“Just another prisoner, like you, only free now.” The male looked behind him and pointed. “The Valsharess is gone. Apparently the whore was on her way to some ceremony to her bitch-queen when she was literally consumed in a flash of light. Maybe she was not so favored after all, eh?”

Sheyreiza found it hard to believe the fiendish priestess she had recently encountered could be destroyed so easily. “How do you know she is dead?”

The male frowned, then shrugged. “We don’t, but what I do know is this: the whore’s servants are now fighting to see who will take control of the armies and fortresses. One of them, in her brilliance, has decided to empty the jails for more troops. They are arming us! Can you believe it? I’ve no desire to fight for one of the whore’s whores, but any chance is better than no chance.”

Any chance is better than no chance. Absolutely right. Sheyreiza thought.

“Fine. Arm me.” The priestess said, rising.

“Gladly.” The male replied with a grin. “But there is a price to pay first.”

There always is, Sheyreiza thought.

***

Sheyreiza paid the ‘price’ and the male was, surprisingly, true to his word. She was armed and armored, though not in the style to which a princess of House Auvryndar would ordinarily be armed, but anything was better than nothing. The conscripted prisoners found themselves in battle quickly. The Valsharess’s fortress lay on an isle in the Darklake. Opposing forces approached by boat and by ship and all across the island drow fought drow. Spells, arrows and siege weapons passed between the fortress and the ships, while beneath the arcing barrage other drow clashed sword to sword. The fragile alliances the Valsharess had spent years building were sundered almost as fast as the Valsharess had disappeared. Sheyreiza watched the Valsharess’s dream of unifying the Ilythiiri cities sink like one of the burning vessels in the island harbor.

Sheyreiza wanted no part of it. She had served the Valsharess once, and she had been killed for her trouble. True, the Valsharess brought her back, but, that ‘kindness’ would not have been necessary but for the Valsharess in the first place. Sheyreiza felt she owed the would-be queen nothing but a knife in the back. Shey certainly did not owe the priestess in charge of the dungeons anything more than that either. As the battle raged, Sheyreiza slipped through the lines towards the shore. There she found the attackers flat bottomed boats. She was not alone. Several other former prisoners had the same idea. Nothing needed to be said. They all knew why they had come to this point and they all knew what they needed to do. As one, fighting with more coherency than the trained units around them, they rushed the guards who had been left behind to secure the boats.

The fight was quick but bloody. The guards were slain, but so were most of the prisoners. Sheyreiza and several survivors pushed off in one of the flat-bottomed craft and silently paddled away from the embattled island and into the gloom of the Darklake.

***

Sheyreiza was awakened by a sudden jolt. She had not been in reverie, or sleeping, not exactly. Passed out was more like it. Passed out in the bottom of her boat. She was hungry, very hungry, and cold. She had been in this boat for many, many cycles now. Indeed, she had no real idea of how much time had passed. The former prisoners had traveled by boat for a great distance. When they came to a landfall, they would carry the boat with them. The Darklake was not a single body of water, but many, many interconnected bodies, some large, some small. Navigable streams connected some of the lakes while other connections required a portage. Some times a change of elevation was required. It had been an arduous journey, but one devoid of any other contact. The former prisoners found they had plenty of water, but no food and no fuel for fire to keep warm.

Sheyreiza did not know how long they had traveled like that: Many cycles, to be sure, maybe even a month or longer. Time enough for the prisoners to kill each other off one by one for food. Sheyreiza had been lucky. She was the only female in the group and she was able to seduce the strongest of the males. In the end, it came down to him and her. He had allied with her for two reasons; first there was the sex, but second, and more importantly, though Sheyreiza was female, she was young, inexperienced and not a warrior. She would be easy to kill, or so the male had thought. The male did not know about Sheyreiza’s shadowy friend however, and that was his undoing.

The male’s body yielded enough meat to keep Sheyreiza alive for another extended period of torturous travel. By the time the last male had died, they had found themselves on a strange body of water. With the male dead, Sheyreiza found herself incapable of controlling the boat and so she simply drifted for many cycles. Eventually, the meat was gone. Sheyreiza did her best to treat the dead male with respect. Once, she had viewed the dead bodies of others and something to simply be used, but this dead body, and those of the other prisoners before him, had kept her alive. They deserved as much respect as she could muster.

Something else nagged at her. When she had died, killed by the humans, there was one, a male, who had kneeled over and watched her pass. Sheyreiza remembered his steely gaze and thought him simply gloating over her dying form, and perhaps he was, but something changed in that man in Sheyreiza’s last moments. Though dying, Sheyreiza felt perhaps some connection to the iblith. She knew the thought was ridiculous, but she had not been able to shake it since being resurrected by the Valsharess. Indeed, when the prisoners had first debated on where to take their stolen boat and themselves, Shey had briefly thought about returning to the surface to exact revenge upon the iblith. Then she remembered the male and she no longer wanted revenge, not on him anyway. No, Sheyreiza’s vengeance lay elsewhere. The person or persons who placed the wall of force in her path would pay the price for that treachery if ever Shey was able to serve up her revenge. The male she would let pass. She smiled. She knew how the first fight had ended; why give the iblith a second chance to kill her?

Now, her boat had collided with something and that collision awakened her. Collisions happened often in the rocky waterways of the underdark, but this did not sound like zurkwood striking rock, it sounded like zurkwood striking….zurkwood.

Sheyreiza sat up and looked around. Her small boat had bumped into the hull of another, much larger boat. That boat appeared to be moored at a stone pier. Sheyreiza climbed up to the pier and walked its length. At the end of the pier was an iblith. She knew she should run, or at least draw her sword, but where would she run to? And what good was her sword when she was almost to weak from hunger to walk?

She approached the human who had not yet paid her the slightest attention.

“Where am I?” She gasped.

The man frowned. “Gah, you don’t know where you are? You are in the Port of Shadows, girl.”

Sheyreiza looked at him quizzically.

The man shook his head in frustration. “Skullport, girl,” he said, “you have come to Skullport. Now be off with you.”

Skullport? Sheyreiza had heard stories, and all of them were bad. Slavers, heretics, iblith, darthiir, undead, and demons, all were said to walk the streets of this most foul place. Sheyreiza put her fear aside and walked towards the settlement. After all, any chance was better than no chance.

[Magonushi]

hehe like the story but my character's name was Xephus as opposed to Xerbus

[Burt]

Very nice! I would post Medeia's point of view, but I can't really write for crap!

[Mikayla]

Mags wrote:

hehe like the story but my character's name was Xephus as opposed to Xerbus

My apologies Mags, I did not write the name down. I will go back and edit the story appropriately.

Very nice! I would post Medeia's point of view, but I can't really write for crap!

Thank you for the compliment Burt. As for your writing, well, I doubt its really crap. Maybe a little too focused on sheep, but probably not crap.

[Vendrin]

Thank you for the compliment Burt. As for your writing, well, I doubt its really crap. Maybe a little too focused on sheep, but probably not crap.

Burt's writing makes me think of Hagus. MMm, good stuff.