Note: I write this as it pertains to the MUD we play, and make no attempt to remain accurate to the Forgotten Realms universe. We all know that a drow would have nothing to do with a troll, and that an ogre wouldnt be caught alive in BG. By hindering myself as such i could not conceivably find a way to write a good story, so i untied my hands. this is work in progress and any input would be greatly appreciated.
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Teyaha stood over the corpse of her sister Anaria stoically, careful not to let any outward hint at her emotional turmoil slip through her stony visage.
This was not the first time the young drow had observed the dead body of a family member, but it would be the last. Anaria was her last sibling, the last member of a house who’s name Teyaha had forgotten many centuries previous. She was very young when the surviving members of her disgraced and destroyed house had left Menzoberranzzen and fled for Dobluth Kyor, she had no recollection of the battle or who had perpetrated the massacre. All the drow had was Anaria over the centuries, schooling her in the ways of magic until she was accepted into the small school in Dobluth Kyor. The sisters had formed a bond of friendship, or as close to such a thing as any drow of Anaria’s age and experience in the ruthless underdark was able to express to anyone, and it sincerely pained young Teyaha to look upon the disfigured and - smoking? - corpse of her sister.
The drow enchanter knelt close to her sisters’ body. Anaria was curled up with knees pressed against her chest and arms wrapped tightly around them. Her face worse a visage of agony Teyaha had never seen on any intelligent being. Small tendrils of smoke wafted from Anaria’s ears and nostrils yet Teyaha could find not a mark on the deceased drow’s ebon skin. With macabre curiosity the young drow reached a hand out to stroke her sisters cheek.
The flesh on Anaria’s face crumbled and fell away at Teyaha’s slight touch. She jumped back with a short yelp and watched with increasing terror as the body of her sister collapsed into dust and ash.
Teyaha did not cry, though she sorely wanted to. With a quick chant she created a dimensional portal and stepped through.
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'Me no likes dark', the troll grumbled under his breath as he made his way through the streets of Dobluth Kyor.
Few were the visitors to this drow town. Although it was in close proximity to the human city of Calimport as well as the ogre and troll hometowns rare it was for anyone to be brave enough to enter the cave city. The drow have a reputation among the surface and underdark races, one that is well earned and deserved, and even the most vicious of creatures would not dare to set foot within.
But this was no ordinary troll. Turg , a tall and lithe beast and veteran of untold battles, was more than welcomed into the drow's home. He and his small band of mercenaries had helped to open up trade routes to Hyssk, Ghore and Faang and, recently and most remarkably, with the human cities of Calimport and Baldur's Gate. He and his lieutenant, a giant of an ogre named Krolb, had not only fattened the coffers of the four ruling houses of Dobluth Kyor, but had also kept the trading routes free of Paladins and Rangers.
Krolb snorted lewdly. "Krolb getting hungry," he grunted.
Turg quickened the pace. Not out of concern for his companion, but because it was getting harder and harder to find suitable candidates for their little band as the ogre, hungry more often than not, would eat the smaller members.
They traveled the great road that would eventually take them on a complete circuit of the circular cavern and came to a stop before a stalagmite tower. Turg pulled a small shrunken human head hanging on a chain from under his finely crafted chain mail and held it before the door. With a quiet humming the numerous glyphs and wards were temporarily disarmed and the troll and his four companions passed through the arch.
The tower was a creation of magic. Although it did not appear large from the outside, it was three times as big within. Warding glyphs and magic traps lined every door, passageway and the main stairwell, which anyone who was not told the exact sequence would lead to nowhere up or down - and endless series of steps. Turg and his companions knew the sequence well, had traveled it many times over the years, and were soon standing before a door they knew equally well.
Krolb rapped hard upon the wooden door, which flew open to his pounding. He stopped, casting a curious look upon Turg who seemed equally concerned.
"I sense no traps or glyphs of any kind," came a voice behind the troll. A small, lithe drow stepped forward and examined the door frame carefully.
"Perhaps you should go first, Nilan," the fourth companion, a rather muscular duergar cleric named Vjaerrak rasped quietly in his gravelly voice. "You are the most resistant to these magics."
The drow rogue nodded his assent and walked through the door. He made his way down a long hallway and stopped before an ivory portcullis, the other three a few steps behind. Nilan retrieved a small golden dagger from his pouch and placed it into a small invisible niche in the wall next to the door. There was a slight humming and the portcullis vanished.
The room looked as if an ogre drinking party had just been held. All the furniture was demolished, books and tapestries torn and strewn about the room. There were great scorch marks upon the stone walls and ceilings. Huddled in the farthest corner was a female drow, shoulders heaving heavily between sobs.
"Sister?" Nilan asked in the drow tongue quietly as he approached the figure.
The woman snapped her head around and looked upon the rogue, her piercing green eyes freezing him in his tracks. His hands went to his daggers, legs tensed to spring into action. Nilan forced himself to relax as the woman stood and smiled weakly at him, then to the others still waiting in the doorway.
"Please, come in all of you," she bade.
"If you were not happy with your furniture, you could have asked Krolb," the ogre grunted whimsically. "Krolb good at carving things from trees."
"Where is your sister?" Turg asked.
"My sister, Anaria...." moisture rimed Teyaha's eyes, "..is dead."
Krolb roared in anger, the force of it knocking Vjaerrak to his knees.
Turg's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"I know not," the enchanter answered. "I found her in the small copse of trees outside the city, where she goes to meditate every morning. Something burned her to death.”
"Show us," the troll ordered. Teyaha nodded and with a brief chant and a wave of her arm opened a dimensional portal. The five companions stepped through and were instantly swept a few miles to the place where Anaria’s corpse lie.
Turg was the first one through. His keen sense of smell told him immediately that they were not alone. With a quick signal with his shield-bearing hand he ordered the other 4 to follow closely and quietly. He approached the small pile of robes that was once Anaria. As Nilan and Vjaerrak examined the remains, Krolb and Turg kept watch over their friends.
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“Odd”, he whispered, “since when do the evil races mingle in such a way.”
Jarland Tinduri slipped away from the trees quietly, retracing his steps to the small clearing nearby where his forces lay. It had been several weeks since his band of paladins and rangers had left Waterdeep, heading south in search of evil to vanquish in the name of their respective deities. Some had died on the way, killed by the swamp trolls in the Fields of the Dead as well as a few lone drow and ogre scouts, yet he still retained a score of mounted paladins and elven rangers under his command.
He pondered the situation at hand. It certainly wasn’t unheard of to see the different evil races together in the same place, yet what perplexed him was the obvious camaraderie in that small band. Something evil was afoot here, of that he was certain, and like any goodly paladin it was his job to stop it, immediately!
“Mount up!” he ordered his paladin and ranger fighters. Like a well oiled machine the fighting force made their way toward the drow’s group.
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“Krolb hear something,” the ogre announced. Nilan and Vjaerrak had finished their examination, the drow tucking the robes into his satchel and the duergar filling a small vial with what remained of the ash. Quickly and with practiced ease the ogre and troll drew their magnificent weapons, large black swords that hummed with incredible power. Nilan, not one for up front fighting, hid himself amongst the deep shadows of the trees while Vjaerrak began quietly praying to his god. Teyaha stood quietly between Krolb and Turg, making no move to prepare herself for whatever approached.
Turg nudged the drow with his elbow but she paid him no mind. He was about to say something when a large human, clad in white mithril armor and mounted atop an equally white warhorse broke through the brush just a few yards away. Behind him rode several more humans in the white armor and amongst the trees were several elves, easily spotted with the trolls heat sensing vision.
“Only you four?” the large human in front scoffed. “I was hoping for more of a challenge.”
Krolb smiled broadly, showing a bevy of sharpened fangs.
“Very well then. We shall smite thee in the name of Tyr and the noble Lords of Waterdeep!”
Teyaha reached up and grabbed the ogre and the troll by their arms. She quickly chanted a few arcane words in her native tongue and as the Paladins watched Krolb and Turg’s skin turned to stone and a brief red globe encased them both, disappearing immediately.
“Kill them!”
Before any of the mounted warriors could make their move, indeed before even a single arrow left the trees, Krolb charged. He ran full speed, faster than anything his size - faster than anything the paladins had ever seen! - ramming the full of his one thousand pounds into Jarland’s horse, knocking him to the ground several yards back and killing the horse instantly. Several of the nearby rangers threw a bevy of magic missiles and other spells at the rampaging ogre which dissipated quickly around his magical globe.
At the same instant there came a scream from the trees as several elves dropped to the ground, dead. Teyaha could see Nilans white teeth as he smiled gleefully, disappearing once again into the shadows as several arrows drove into the wood near where he had just been standing.
Turg was a blur of deadly motion. Each swing of his mighty sword left a paladin dead or mortally wounded, each bash of his shield knocking any would be attackers senseless. Any paladins in the area swung their weapons at Turg. Some connected, only to bounce harmlessly off his stoney skin. In less than a minute the troll and ogre had killed more than half of the attacking force.
The remaining knights and what was left of the rangers who had wisely left the shadowed trees attempted to regroup outside the small copse. They organized quickly and swiftly, beginning their assault when their world was turned upside down.
Vjaerrak, who had completed his prayers to his god, uttered a single word. It was an ancient word, a word that transcended all time and space. The single word, spoken with all the conviction and power of a cleric such as Vjaerrak, sent all the remaining attackers reeling in pain. Some were stricken blind instantly, others left paralyzed while the weaker minded fell dead. The other companions did not, could not hear the word as it was not meant to be heard by any of their kind, but they knew it’s power as they had seen it used before.
Jarland regained consciousness then. He has been saved by the utter devastation because he could not hear the word - what remained of his trusty steed nearly smothering him to death. Not knowing that his entire force was dead, wounded or otherwise incapacitated he stood up quickly and roared in anger, his holy sword at the ready.
He felt a pricking sensation at the small of his back and an ebon-skinned, sinewy arm wrapped itself around his neck. A leg wrapped itself around his ankle and he knew he had no way to escape the grip of the rogue.
“Should I kill him slowly or quickly?” Asked Nilan, his voice as cold as ice.
“Hold brother!”
All eyes turned to Teyaha as she walked swiftly towards the human and rogue. She uttered a short chant and Nilan could feel the human stiffen. He let go, but Jarland didn’t move. He couldn’t move.
“Who are you, and why are you here?” Teyaha demanded. Jarland’s eyes widened in surprise at the drow’s ability to communicate in the common tongue.
She reached up a hand and made a gripping motion. The human felt as if a vice had closed around his throat, slowly cutting off his air while crushing the bones in his neck. As the drow closed her hand together more and more the pressure on his neck increased.
“I shall not ask a second time.”
“To the nine hells with the lot ‘o ye!” Jarland rasped and mustering all his strength, spit in the lovely drow’s face.
“We’ve been there and back, human.“ Teyaha closed her fist fully.
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“You think it the humans who killed your sister?” The troll asked pensively.
It was more a statement than a question. Teyaha turned to regard Turg as he sat on the floor of the room the drow had shared with her sister. Her friends had returned to the room with her to help her straighten it up and look for clues to her sister’s death but they found none. Turg was busy carving kill notches into the hilt of his gigantic sword.
“Whatever killed your sister,” said Vjaerrak from across the room, also seated on the floor as all the furniture had been destroyed during Teyaha’s fit of anger, “was of a magic I have never before seen.”
“Nor I,” remarked Teyaha, barely above a whisper.
“The humans we encountered today would never use magic to kill one of us. They know we are immune to most of their measly enchantments and they prefer to dispatch one of our kind with their hands.” Nilan grinned broadly, “although they rarely ever win against a drow.”
“Krolb agree with Neelan. No one understand paladeen and ranger like Neelan.” The ogre shifted uncomfortably against the wall, not used to being in such close quarters.
Turg scooted across the floor and retrieved Anaria’s blue robes from Nilan’s satchel. He stood and walked before Teyaha, handing them to the drow.
“We shall find whoever did this to our friend, my sister, and repay them in kind.”
“That we will big brother,” the drow said slowly and deliberately. The icy tone of her voice and the fire in her piercing green eyes set the battle-hardened troll back on his heels, “and no amount of praying to any deities in the pantheon will save them.”
[This message has been edited by Dinggle (edited 09-10-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Dinggle (edited 09-10-2001).]
[This message has been edited by Dinggle (edited 09-10-2001).]
Untitled, Chapter 1
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