Almost 20 years ago to the day.
Kavrash sprinted through the darkness, her black cloak and silver braids fluttering behind her as if trying to keep pace with her as she ran. And, though the fierce drow warrior was sacrificing stealth for speed, her cloth boots upon the graveled ground hardly made a sound as she wended her way through the dark caverns far beneath the surface of the earth.
She turned a corner and slowed as she reached the narrow bridge known as the “Spindle”, an arched stone platform barely a foot wide and almost fifty feet long and flanked on either side by a sheer drop into dark nothingness below. The Spindle marked the entrance to the heart of their underground city and any misstep here would spell her doom. She took a deep breath and bounded across the narrow bridge, counting her steps and avoiding the trapped sections as she ran. This bridge was the final line of defense before someone could enter their Inner Sanctum and Kavrash meant to make certain that no threat ever made it this far.
When she reached the other side of the Spindle she took off again at a full sprint, wondering to herself as she ran Kell’vas! How in Tiamat’s name had someone made it so far into the Sanctum? Mazes and guards and spiders and traps all gu… Movement up ahead snapped her to attention and she pulled up to a stop and flattened herself against the wall. Eyes accustomed to the darkness around her focused in on a figure in black leathers and silver hair worn in a single braid walking nonchalantly towards her down the narrow cave. She was one of the Night Sisters, drow soldiers tasked with protecting this part of the caverns Kavrash could tell from her intricate armor and the longbow slung across her back. Her unnaturally calm demeanor set off warning bells for Kavrash. How could she seem so unconcerned given that the proximity alarms had been tripped?
As the figure drew near Kavrash slipped from her hiding spot and hissed at the woman, “Why are you headed this way sister, unless the threat is gone?” But the Sister not react at all to Kavrash jumping out and startling her and instead seemed solely focused on continuing on towards the Inner Sanctum, attempting to brush past Kavrash without proffering a response. Kavrash grabbed the woman by the chin and spun her around so that she could stare directly into her eyes; violet pupils stared blankly into her own and Kavrash could practically see the tug of arcane magic that compelled and addled the warrior. Kavrash released her chin and spat a curse, “Kell’vas, worm. You weak minded fool!” and she darted past the figure, allowing her to travel as the arcane compulsion dictated and hoping that her arcane orders were to leave and not cause some havoc. Kavrash slid a thin stiletto into each hand as she continued sprinting deeper into the darkness, for while she did not know exactly what awaited her ahead she now knew that whoever had intruded this far into the Sanctum was indeed a spellwielder of some power.
After a couple more turns along the winding dark corridors Kavrash spotted another figure standing with her back to her, her dark cloak and silver braids indicating another fellow Sanctumite. “Vendui, sister. Do you know what has happened?” Kavrash whispered as she drew near.
The woman turned and regarded Kavrash with silvery eyes that shone in the darkness. “Vendui, sister. We have seen nothing yet, but we are grateful for a fellow blade to guard this path.”
Kavrash’s blood turned cold, but she did not allow the reaction to show on her face. The woman’s syntax and elocution were perfect, but the tense was all wrong. She was using an archaic version of the Old Tongue, a byproduct of her people’s dominion under the Spider Queen of old where there were no I’s, only We’s - a dialectic artifact that had not been used in hundreds of years, not since the dark head of Tiamat had driven Spider Queen into subjugation and irrelevance generations ago.
Kavrash flashed the woman a smile as she walked up to her, willing her heart to slow its tempestuous beating in her chest as she subtly reversed the grip on her stilettos, flattening the steel edges along her forearm in an effort to hide the blades from sight. Then, trying to match the woman’s antiquated speaking pattern, Kavrash responded in a calm, reassuring manner, “Bwael, bwael sister. We are honored to join together in our watch.”
If the woman noticed her ruse she gave no indication and she allowed Kavrash to move up right beside her. As soon as she was in striking distance, Kavrash lashed out with one of her stiletto daggers, driving the point directly into the woman’s chest where, instead of finding purchase in soft flesh, it instead felt like the blade had stuck pure stone and the impact of the blow sent shockwaves of numbing pain down her arm. Undeterred, Kavrash slashed upward with her second knife hoping to drive the cruel point up under the woman’s chin, but the other dark elf dove back out of the way at the last moment and the strike found nothing but empty air. She is skilled Kavrash thought to herself, more with admiration than worry.
Kavrash shifted on her feet and made to advance again but the woman disappeared from view in a flash. Kell’vas! Invisibility! But Kavrash had fought enough of the Dueregar dwarves to come across this tactic and knew how to render it ineffective. She dropped the blade in her right hand to the ground and with one fluid motion used this free hand to unhitch a small satchel of chalk from the belt on her waist and hurled its covering contents into the space in front of her. Without waiting to see if her quarry was exposed by the enveloping alabaster dust, she pulled a short steel sword from its sheath and advanced into the cloud swinging blindly into the flittering chalky cloud. Nothing.
Kavrash watched the ground where the dust had settled to see if there were footprints in the chalky loam but found none. Gods, this was some other magic at play! Well, two can play at this magic game. She darted backward several steps in an effort to move herself to safety, dropping the stiletto in her left hand to the ground with a clatter as she spun and gestured with the newly freed hand and intoned a word of power in an ancient and forgotten tongue. The cavern in front of her was suddenly blanketed in a soft violet glowing light which promised to reveal things hidden to the senses. But again, there was nothing. Kell’vas!
She quickly studied the glowing earth in front of her for any sign of her opponent, but the magical light only illuminated dozens of small spiders and fleas and mites and centipedes, all scurrying away from the unexpected brightness that had suddenly and blindingly exposed them. Had she teleported away? If so, which way…Then, one of the insects on the ground caught her attention: a small pale, stringy thing, barely the size of the tip of her pinky. A crag spider? Up here? These venomous critters dwelt in the lowest levels of the Underdark and were never seen up at this level to her knowledge…
The small crossbow was in her hand in a flash and a razor-tipped bolt streaked towards the small arachnid, striking it and the ground around it with a loud clang and a shower of sparks. In an instant the spider was gone and in its place was a tall, lean elven man with skin the color of the soft morning sun and hair as golden as a platinum coin. He wore scaled armor of a golden hue underneath a dramatic red and yellow cloak fringed with amber lace; the garment was in pristine condition save for the stain of blood oozing from a black-tipped bolt sticking out of his shoulder. He regarded her coquettishly with his laughing, cerulean eyes, and an impish smile on his face as he proceeded to withdraw the black crossbow bolt from where it currently resided in his body. The smile on his face did not falter as he dropped the bloodstained projectile to the ground in a clatter, but the fingers on his other hand drummed lightly upon the elegant hilt of the longsword on his hip.
Kavrash did not wait and charged at him, dropping her small crossbow to the ground and drawing her second shortsword as she advanced, weaving the twin blades in front of her in an intricate, practiced pattern as she attacked. His blade was out of its sheath in a flash as he effortlessly parried the incoming attacks, though he was pushed back slightly on his feet at the sheer ferocity of this initial volley.
The sound of steel on steel echoed through the canyons, the deadly display dramatically illuminated by the magical violet light as these two forms performed the dance of death with brilliant grace and lethality. While they fought, the gold-skinned elf laughed with delight at each of her attacks. “Bravo, my rose. Your skill with steel is nearly as stunning as you are.” He spoke in the Elvish of the surface world this time; his voice was bright and deep, like sunset on the ocean. After several more deadly exchanges of sharpened steel he continued, “So what was it? I’ll admit, I haven’t used the old tongue in quite some time. What was it that gave me away?”
Kavrash answered him only with several more slices of her blades, one of which narrowly missed the bridge of the man’s nose. “Oh, you are good!” he responded with a note of what seemed like genuine admiration. “It has been some time since I have crossed steel, but you do have real skill.” Kavrash grunted in annoyance and pressed forward with her assault.
After several minutes of this, her arms felt heavy as stone and sweat streamed down her face. She had been on the retreat and defensive for much of the fight, and her war braid had come undone during the melee and now her long silver hair was flowing free and obstructing her vision, much to her frustration and concern. The man she was fighting showed no such unkemptness, his hair was perfectly in place and not a bead of sweat marred his skin and, to her extreme annoyance, the impish smile on his face had only grown broader during their skirmish.
Kavrash took a couple steps back and wiped the hair from her face with the back of one hand and let her blades drop a little. She kept walking slowly backwards, keeping a safe distance between her opponent and herself. “Why have you invaded our home?” she asked in Elvish, speaking to the man for the first time. “What a...”
The man stopped walking towards her and lowered his blade to his side and looked almost genuinely hurt for a moment. “My rose, I must insist that I did not mean to trespass in your home, for you see, this is my home.” He gestured with his free hand to the space around him. “It seems that while I slept, you all went about and made your home in right in my bedroom.” Kavrash stared at him in confusion, trying to glean some hidden meaning behind his words. The sly smile returned to his face as he continued, “Now, mind you me, I certainly do not mind visitors of such beauty and skill in my bed chambers, quite the contrary.” His smile broadened and threatened to light the darkness with its radiance. “I simply wished to introduce myself to my chamber guests and it seems that I made quite the fool of myself in the process with my inelegance.”
Kavrash maintained her slow retreat until she at last felt the cold stone of the Spindle beneath her heel. She kept the smile from her face as she stepped backwards onto the narrow bridge flanked on either side by a hundred-foot fall to sharpened death below. The man took a moment to survey the scene, noting the chasm below with some concern. “My rose, I beg you to watch your step. I mean you no harm. It has simply been too long since I have enjoyed such delightful company that perhaps I came on a bit too strong.” He then stepped onto the Spindle and slowly followed after her.
As she wended her way carefully backwards across the narrow bridge, Kavrash switched tactics and flashed the enigmatic man what she hoped was a warm and disarming smile as she sheathed her twin blades. “You find my company delightful?” she asked coyly, taking a slightly wider step back this time in an effort to avoid a subtle glyph carved into the stone beneath her feet.
“Most assuredly,” he responded warmly as he slowly made his way forward, “For you see, I am drawn to things of beauty in all forms, the brush stroke of the master painter, a poignant turn of phrase by the poet…” He took a long step over the glyph at his feet when he reached it without so much as a glance down, much to Kavrash’s annoyance. He continued “…the elegant symmetry of the model’s features, and the lithe grace of the dancer.” He then nodded towards the twin swords sheathed upon Kavrash’s hip before adding, “Even in the beautiful precision of the swordmaster’s blade.”
Kavrash took another careful step back. “So, you say that we invaded your…what did you call it? Your bedroom? But our people have been here for over a thousand cycles of Nuitari. How could it be that we never came across you before now?”
The expression on the man’s face changed slightly, but Kavrash could not tell if it was worry or if the man’s thoughts were directed elsewhere by her question. He answered at last, “Well, as I said, I…slumbered while you made your wonderful home here.”
“You slept? For over a hundred years?” Kavrash responded incredulously, taking another slightly longer stride to avoid the second magical carving on the narrow bridge. “Who…or rather…what are you?”
The man’s facial expressions went through several iterations, alternating between thoughtful pensiveness to slight worry, before settling back on cloying charm. “A hundred years?” he answered at last, stepping over the magical trap beneath his feet again. “I fear it has been far longer than that I am afraid. My rose, these are conversations best taken during a repast of sweet Elvish wine and delicate kender puffcakes and not at sword point in such a foreboding environ.” At that, he slid his sword back in its sheath and raised his hands in a nonthreatening manner.
Kavrash took a final step back and finally found herself off the bridge and back on the solid footing of the cave floor and her smile broadened. “That sounds wonderful,” she responded warmly, “there is just one problem.” She whispered slightly under her breath and a small ghostly hand appeared in front of her and began floating slowly towards the man, who still stood a dozen feet back upon the narrow stone bridge. “It would have to be a meal for one.”
He regarded the small floating hand created by the weakest of magic with obvious amusement, “Certainly you do not think to push me off with t…”
The hand darted to the ground at his feet and the man’s eyes followed as it latched on to a small dark lynchpin hidden at the side of the bridge. His bright eyes widened slightly as the magical hand pulled the pin free and the entire platform shuddered and then collapsed, sending dark stones and cobbles and golden-haired strangers tumbling into the darkness below.
Kavrash listened to the distant clatter of stone that resonated loudly from the chasm below and finally breathed a sigh of relief, taking a moment to tie her loose, sweat-matted hair into a quick and messy topknot in an effort to get it back under control. She knew that she needed to get artisans here to rebuild the Spindle and she needed to relay wh...
A deep, rumbling laugh echoed up from the darkness below; the sound somehow seeming to contain an element of genuine mirth despite its volume and malevolent tenor. Kavrash watched in horror as a giant clawed hand, the color of pure polished copper drew up from the blackness and gripped the edge of the ground at the lip of the crater. A second hand, a mirror of the first came next, long bone yellow talons effortlessly tearing into the hard stone as the claw gripped the cavern’s edge. Kavrash fumbled for the swords at her belt as a giant serpentine head emerged from the chasm and regarded her with laughing, cerulean eyes. It continued its mirthful chuckle for a moment and then at last spoke, his voice impossibly deep and rich. “Well played, my rose. Well played. Now, about those puffcakes and sweet wine?”