2:43 Teatime.

The small girl ran, strong and sure, her light brown ringlets tossing and dancing behind her as she dodged and dived between the buyers and vendors leaving the center of town.  She never crashed into any of them, but they made faces at her haste all the same, narrowing their eyes and pinching up their faces even farther when their gazes inevitably fell upon the dark nubs at her temples.  Her skirts, which were as clean as they were patched, swirled around her scratched ankles, but she didn't notice the fabric gently touching the small open cuts that she'd sustained while walking slowly through someone else's rose garden much earlier that morning.  She was too busy avoiding the ever-watchful eagle eyes, trying to get to her friend before her father realized where precisely she had to go to find him.  Yards of fabric washed over her head, bushels of produce turned aside from her path- all while the hard working young man at the other side of the market shaded his eyes against the setting sun, his daughter's name preparing to escape his lips.

The Master Inquisitor, still sporting most of the bruises and cuts he'd inflicted upon himself during his recent possession, lay flat in the Great Pool.  His protege, unabashedly terrified about this new break in his mentor's sanity, stared down at the bandaged body, counting the huge bubbles that occasionally rose up from the Halfling.  While he completely understood that this was an excellent way to test the water breathing spell, he couldn't see how failing to cast it before being submerged in water would prove its worth.  Yet, that had been precisely Semnemac's process, laying down in the water for what seemed- to his alarmed Tiefling student- to be whole minutes at a time, and only occasionally sticking his nose up partially from the water.  Seyashen was certain that in very little time at all, there would be more water than air in his teacher's lungs- and then how would he cast the spell at all?  Just as he'd finally gotten the courage to voice this concern, however, the Halfling sat all the way up.

"Did you wipe down all the rough places in your soul?"

Seyashen stood back from the edge of the pool and allowed his head to flop wearily to one side.  "You stop drowning your body to worry about my soul?"

And at that point, the girl's hooves stopped; they were still distant enough from the Great Pool and the Bone College that Seyashen had not been able to pick the soft footfalls out from the distant din of the closing of the market.

"Ser Yasha!"

Seyashen closed his eyes, wondering why none of the spirits had given him any kind of warning that the little creature would be seeking him out.  He would have come beyond the Great Pool, would have put on his lighter colored robes, would have made some effort not to look like someone who tested plague spells on the writhing prison inmates in the dimly lit labs below ground.

Semnemac turned his wild, dark gaze upon the little girl before Seyashen could notice and protest.  "Have you, little quick one, ever stepped into the shadow of the College?"

Seyashen straightened himself, his eyes bolting open, but his breath was taken by the sight of Te'valshath sitting on the edge of the Great Pool, intently watching the little Tiefling girl.  Dale, for her part, looked as though she were going to answer, at first.  But something stopped her, and she instead simply picked up her patched skirt to gingerly walk from where she was into the growing shadow of the Bone College.   The building loomed large over her, and the sight of its darkness reaching itself across her struck an indescribable terror into Seyashen's heart.  Te'valshath now sat directly off the living girl's left shoulder, and kicked her legs like any impatient child might.

Dale spent an entire minute staring down at the shadow, then another few seconds looking up at the college itself before she turned herself back toward the soaking wet Halfling in the water.  "Why's it so cold, Father Demon?"

She knew. 

Seyashen hadn't had to introduce the two.  No one explained the Master Inquisitor's mannerisms to her.  Yet, Dale had spoken the question with all the serious certainty of a child who had just learned that two plus two would always be four, never six or one.  She pierced through the mental twists and turns that had so confounded Seyashen within seconds of meeting the Halfling whose reputation for madness preceded him.

"An answer, little hind," Semnemac replied with a warm, paternal tone- as though the nearly savage head mage of the Bone College could ever have been a father to anyone!  "One day, one day very soon, you will know."

"No," Seyashen found himself saying before he could stop himself.  Both Semnemac and Dale looked at him at once- Dale in confusion, but Semnemac with a wistfulness that struck Seyashen's heart even more deeply than the actual understanding of the situation itself.  "Please, you can't-"

And Te'valshath turned her own attentions to him, tearing her ethereal gaze from Dale to fix Seyashen with her own look of confusion.  Seyashen felt his eyes sting and his heart race.  In his mind, he could see the hill that overlooked the camp that had ultimately been spared.  He remembered the death knight that had given a dire message to a child- a mere child, an innocent child, a child who could not conceive of his place in this strange world between the living and the dead.

Dale broke the moment of agony, stepping even further into the shadow to take Seyashen's hand- they realized together that he was trembling.  She responded by squeezing it tighter, obviously intending to quench his fear with her determined positive attitude.  "I would like for Ser Yasha come by for tea please, Father Demon."

The title finally rang a distant bell of memory for Seyashen.  Dale, who clearly was partially raised in Turathi style, had just referred to the obvious spiritual leader as though she'd been a priest of one of the various demons responsible for creating the Tiefling race in the first place.  Seyashen recoiled further into the mental coma that had frozen his protests into his mouth.

Semnemac smirked.  "Take him, if he will go," came the simple reply.

"Dale!"

The little girl crunched up a bit, knowing that the shout hadn't been a happy one.  Beyond her, Te'valshath hopped up to stand next to the child, as though she would take her hand and run somewhere with her.

"Dale, you know you're not to come by here," Cephas puffed, having done some running of his own.  "It's-"

"Not safe here," Semnemac finished, crossing his bandaged arms over his chest.  With his mohawk of dyed red hair slicked back because of his completely backward water breathing spell experimentation, the various wounds all over him, and the funeral bandages that wrapped from the top of his chest to the middle of his forearms, he certainly looked too unstable to be in Dale's company.  Seyashen was beyond grateful that his mentor wasn't standing.  "You'll want to stand out of the shadow of this place, good sir."

"She can't be here," Cephas stated flatly, too unnerved to attempt courtesy.  He stepped up to Dale and put a protective hand on her shoulder.  Seyashen attempted to let her hand go, but found that she only turned to put her other hand around his hand.

"She can," Semnemac replied.  "The ground holds firm, where she stands.  But fragile fog vapors fascinate me.  I can hardly help but shatter them."

Cephas shifted from foot to foot, awkwardly unable to respond to the statement that the Master Inquisitor was handing him like a tablet full of the truest law.  It seemed that the two males were agreeing, but the Human man wasn't sure whether to thank the Halfling or decry an insult.

"I... live here," Seyashen finally dared at last.  "I'm a bone rattler, I suppose- I'm truly sorry.  Had I known that Dale would-"

"Never you mind," Cephas laughed breathlessly, still looking at Semnemac.  "A real bone rattler would've killed any living thing in its grasp instantly."

"If that is the mark of a 'real bone rattler,' then I tolerate few here," Semnemac admitted gravely.  "Who can study death without first respecting and understanding the various forms and stages of life?"

For a moment, it looked as though Dale would give the Master Inquisitor back a question, but the Halfling simply closed his eyes momentarily, giving a very slight shake of his head.  For a moment, even Seyashen had though the movement to be a final part of his statement.

"Ah," Cephas puffed, trying desperately to play off his embarrassment.  "And here the talk of the town is that you're a nutter."

"When you think you have the answer, good sir, ask more questions," Semnemac smiled.  "May the screams that herald your footsteps be most pleasing to the Lord Torturer."  With this, the Halfling laid back down in the pool, prompting Cephas to take a single step forward.

"He's- eh- testing a water breathing spell," Seyashen explained quickly.

"But he didn't-"

"He has to see how it feels like without it, first," Dale nodded simply.  Cephas looked down at her, astonished, then looked up at Seyashen, whose face reflected some sort of distant unhappiness.  Suddenly as concerned about the hornless Tiefling's feelings as he was about the Halfling's ability to breathe water without the appropriate spell, he mustered the strength to open himself to someone his daughter had trusted without fear.

"You will come to tea, won't you?"

Seyashen chuckled quietly.  "I'd better make good on her trouble."  Though she said nothing, the little girl gave a little shimmy of excitement.  Just next to her, Te'valshath turned and walked down some other street, toward the docks or the southern part of town.

The three living beings turned away from the Bone College, silently crossing up to the Palace District and cut down through the Central Quarter to walk toward the Elven Quarter.

In all reality, Elves only occupied the northeastern fragment of the quarter that had somehow managed to bear their common race name.  It had been idle tale brokering that truly transformed the simply-named Western Quarter, a section of the city that claimed a few Elven merchants, into the aristocratic Elven Quarter, a place absolutely drenched in pure-blooded Elven culture and money.  And the more far fetched the tales became, the more the inhabitants of the area seemed to strive to meet the reputations. 

Cephas's home was three streets west of Le Lune Silvestre, halfway between the tavern and the western Urmlaspyr-Sembia border.  It was hard for Seyashen to remember, at times, that the city was completely surrounded by Sembia, standing uneasily on its scrap of shoreline like a sailor at the edge of a plank.  Daerlun, the other territory that had been wrested away from Sembia, seemed like a distant island that people talked about without ever having seen, and Cormyr- though there was still a meager presence through the smattering of Purple Dragons that yet remained- was like a fantasy land reached only in dreams.  The realities, the nightmarish realities, were the Sembian slave raiders that pulled small children away in the night, the tenuous hold on trade with Cormyr and Daerlun that could only be continued with expensive security measures, and the Dark Quarter's permanent midnight.  Reality was the Thultanthar-powered Sembian embrace that would always threaten to mercilessly choke the land.

Seyashen, who had been reading the Cormyran records stolen from the Hawke manse with an eye more tuned to historic study, was disturbed from his reverie by the arrival at Cephas's house.  It was a humble, one-floor, stone-built house that seemed to support more living creatures than it should.  Straight ahead, behind a stone wall with an opening on the right, lay the kitchen and stove area.  To the right of the entrance was one area separated from the rest by curtains, and to the left were three more areas separated by curtains.  In the center was a well-battered, rectangular wooden excuse for furniture that had probably seen a previous life as a display table in a stall.  The chairs around the table were mismatched, but strongly built.  Seyashen wondered if they had been made or picked up somewhere from some other marketplace.

When Cephas stepped a few feet into the door, an exuberant shepherd dog of some sort rushed to leap directly into his arms just as Dale hurried toward the back of the home.  It was only when the young Human turned around to tell Seyashen what beast had bounded at him- Yellowsun, though his hide was a toffee brown- that Seyashen realized that the dog had only three legs.  Briar, the larger, older dog that came from behind the curtains on the right side of the home, ambled over and put her nose directly between the mage's legs.  Seyashen crumpled slightly with a wince.

"She does that to everyone," Cephas explained with a pitying smile.  "I don't know if she thinks we can mate with her or what, but she's always searching around men's good bits."

Then, there was James, who seemed Cephas's carbon copy, once one ignored the crushed foot and the fingers missing on his right hand.  James, older than Cephas by just one year, had been abducted by Semmite with a few other children and tortured for days before the Cormite soldiers were able to find and rescue him.  Cephas's only salvation had been that he had not gone out to the docks to fish that day- a fact that James still relayed with strange, barely-hidden streaks of bitterness that Seyashen heard immediately.  Cephas hadn't heard anything of the kind, however.  He had put the dog back on its own three feet, and was listening intently to something else entirely- standing stark still just to the right of the table.  Seyashen was going to ask what the matter was, in spite of James's continued narrative about some other childhood quarrel, when he heard it himself.

"Where are you going, I said!" cried a shrill female voice.  "Come back here with those right now!"

"But Buela-"

"But me no buts, demonspit!"

"Mama!" Cephas called at once.  "Don't-"

"Oh, like the creature doesn't know what she is, what with hellion eyes, hooves, and horns coming in thick like the tusks of a damned boar!"

"Mama-"  Cephas insisted, a storm clearly brewing in his tone.

His mother was having none of it, and launched into a tirade that was so perfectly articulated that it seemed practiced.  "Tis your own fault, you and your running up and down with Dis's daughters.  You left- just left us all, and caught yourself a damned diseased-"

"Mama, sul naen pe'vlar minya essi!" Cephas argued, moving back toward the kitchen area in the effort to keep the argument between himself and his mother.  Unfortunately, his break from Common into some hideous form of Infernal that Seyashen had never heard before sparked the Tiefling's interest.

"Lu puoblae cuomo daname-gana!" the older woman shrieked in tones worthy of a banshee.  Her reply had been farther from Infernal, closer to some language that Seyashen was certain he'd never yet heard.  Cephas continued the argument in tense, yet much quieter tones as he marched back toward the kitchen area.  Alone with James, Seyashen turned his attention to the elder brother who had sat dejectedly at the table.

"That's not Common," he said stickily, stranded between sitting at a table he hadn't been invited to and finding some reason to leave.

"Oh, so you're perceptive," James replied in a humorless voice, slapping his thigh to encourage the dogs to come to him.

Not even Briar wanted to pay him any mind.

Suddenly, Dale dashed out of the back of the house and straight around the curtains on the right side.  Seyashen, concerned for the child, almost moved himself to see what he could do for her.  James, however, put paid to that thought.

"Every time you correct her, in she goes to mama," he snorted.  "Headstrong, sniveling brat- would Cephas had lost 'em both."

Seyashen's eyes squinted with the effort it took him not to allow the offense he'd taken to bite too deeply.  The argument in the kitchen, which raged in low, fierce tones, underscored James's next words.

"She's like Cephas with horns.  Never thinks of family.  Never worries about James or Mama, no, not even before Papa died.  It's always Cephas.  Whatever he wants.  Whatever he thinks is best.  And the rest of us are dust underfoot.  She'll be just like-"

A slight stirring of air sighed near Seyashen.  He allowed his eyes to close completely.  Beyond him, in the kitchen, the argument spiked into a glorious proclamation of some sort- Cephas's end to the problem, apparently- and then died.

"Dale!"

The tone was much more strained, carried much more weight, than it had even when Dale had been caught standing in the shadow of the Bone College.  Seyashen forced himself to open his eyes again, to pull back from the lure of the dark fountain in his soul.  He could not repay the fearful hate of a family that did not belong to him.  He hadn't even decided what he would do with the lifetime of rage he bore for his own father.  The hornless Tiefling took a deep breath.

"Entre paden e ecci lo cuo te'vla Buela, eh?"

There were a few seconds of daring silence, then a sudden rush from behind the curtain back toward the kitchen.  Seyashen wondered if Dale ran everywhere she went, especially since no one even bothered to ask her not to move so rapidly inside the house.  A few moments after she disappeared behind the stone wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the house, Cephas reappeared.  He moved toward Seyashen with such a weary gait that Dale had time to set two plates down by the time her father reached a comfortable speaking distance from the Tiefling.

"You- don't have children, do you?" he smiled as he rubbed the back of his neck.  The loud exchange with his mother registered in his face, in his movements, and in Seyashen's hesitance.  Both males, conscious of James's scowling disapproval, shifted and postured in the vain effort to pretend that they were both comfortable.

"No," Seyashen replied.  There was an awkward pause that he didn't know how to fill.  "Sorry."

"No, no," Cephas chuckled.  "No need for that, I- I don't know how families- in your line of..."

"The Master Inquisitor has a mate," Seyashen offered, listening to the title fall heavily out of his mouth.  "Semnemac.  Master Semnemac- his mate is- Lady Kaionne is... they work together.  They have no children, but they're- loving."

"He has a mate?" Cephas asked unabashedly.  "Well- every moldy bit of bread and all that, I suppose, but-"

"I was surprised too," Seyashen smirked.  "Of all the practitioners to actually- I was quite surprised myself."

"And is she- is she sane, at least?" Cephas probed carefully, tightening the space between himself and Seyashen slightly.

"Oh- they're both sane, though she's much more so than he is," Seyashen nodded.  "Master Semnemac- has seen a great deal."  Seyashen frowned slightly, not completely satisfied with his description of the situation, but not certain of how to explain without giving himself away.  After all, Semnemac saw every spirit that Seyashen saw- and even a few more.  It thus stood to reason that with time, Seyashen could find himself being explained to some peasant in some distant stone house in just this manner.  The possibility made the Tiefling wince in spite of himself, although he could at least admit that becoming a lich in a forgotten cave might not be the better of the two options.

"Tell me," Cephas said, drawing closer still.  "I know you must be in the College because the spirit worlds speak to you- when did it first happen?  About how old-"

"Six," Seyashen answered at once, having every idea of where the conversation was about to go.  "The very first actual message came at six years.  I was shocked, I- I was afraid."

"Well, she's not," Cephas sighed, the obvious reality deflating him.  "It's like some new game to her, I- she upset my mother, talking about my- she thought it would be good.  To tell her.  To tell us all.  But it's done nothing but-"

Another argument rose in the kitchen, and Seyashen watched a pulse of frustration rise from the core of Cephas's stomach to the crown of his head, turning his face crimson.

"Tame your brat, Cephas," James muttered angrily.  "This rate, we won't have tea 'till dinner."

"Puo-"

"Don't start that!" James scoffed instantly.  "You're the one brought strangers over, as though we were in any condition to have them, so let the man hear.  Let him hear!"

Cephas tucked his head down and moved back toward the kitchen with a speed worthy of a rushing bull.  A five minute shouting match and one broken dish later, Dale charged back out of the kitchen.  Seyashen expected to see her run back around the curtain, but instead, the little girl threw herself at him.  She moved so quickly that Seyashen didn't have a chance to realize that she was crying- until she spoke.

"Please, don't hurt her!"

The golden eyes closed as the Tiefling focused solely on the desperate request.  A chill settled in the room, and Dale shivered- Seyashen looked up to see the two Tiefling spirits that had accompanied her father before.

"I will not hurt anyone," he said simply.  "We will not hurt anyone in this house."

The two spirits looked at each other for a few moments, then rested themselves on either side of James, whose face was a mask of confusion.  Seyashen was aware that he'd spoken to air- to what appeared to James to be air, anyway- but made no explanation for it.  Dale knew.  That was enough.  Seyashen squatted down, unwinding the child from his legs.

"Why don't they listen to me?" Dale asked, her face soaked.  "I asked and I asked."

"Well, for now, you are expected only to listen," Seyashen replied quietly, wiping at her cheeks.  "It will take some time before they will hear what you say.  It- took me years.  Many years.  But maybe less, for you, just- you have to wait."

"Dale?" a fragile female voice asked quietly, as though she were lost.  "Dale?"

"Dai!"  With every other problem in the world forgotten, Cephas ran from the kitchen to the curtain on Seyashen's left.  And there, standing on her own two feet, was a delicate, rosewood brown Tiefling with gorgeous horns that swept up from her temples like backward ram's horns to sit like an ebony crown on her perfectly oval head.  Her eyes, deep cobalt-blue orbs that shone like two well-cut precious stones, were weighted by the dark circles in the skin under them, and her rich, red-brown hair had been chopped off at the nape of her neck.  But with an impish smile that enchanted the room at once, Daiirdra turned her head slowly to focus on her husband.

"Cephas!"

Like lovers long separated, the two reached for each other.  Daiirdra could only manage a single step before crumbling into wincing pain, but the strengthened arms of her beloved were instantly beneath her.  Seyashen watched, as did the two Tiefling spirits, who began whispering between themselves.  Apparently, Dale had better hearing than any adult in the room could give her credit for.

"They're happy," she whispered.  "They're glad not to have her, but they keep sticking around."

"I suppose they are concerned," Seyashen replied very quietly, hoping no one would notice and ask who they were talking about.  "Are they-"

"Buelo Keraaven and Tatatatarabuela Aime'eri," Dale explained.  "They're the only two Papa and I know, so they're the only ones that come around.  Ta'buela's so old, she talked to real demons, and they let her come back to sit with Mama, because she wasn't mean like her friends."

Seyashen squinted his eyes shut.  The conflicts between the child's explanations and what Seyashen knew about most of the Tieflings that had been responsible for signing the pacts of Asmodeus and his minions hurt his head.  What creature who signed the lives of their descendants away for the glory of a empire that should have fallen hundreds of years before it did could be classified as "not mean?"  Further, what demon would say, "Ah, you aren't what we thought you'd be.  You're so nice, we'd better let you back at the mortal world, despite our pact"?  Seyashen was about to dismiss the notion when one of the two Tiefling spirits smiled widely at him.

When you think you have the answer-

"Ask more questions," Seyashen finished with a sigh.  "Alright.  I will."

Cephas and James's mother, a wide, squat Human whose billowy white hair defied the bit of string that was trying to hold it back behind her head, stumped out of the kitchen with eight plates, slamming them down at the table.

"You want 'em?  You got 'em, but I ain't puttin' 'em out," she crabbed.  "Goddamned demonspit."

"Lovely to see you, Buela Mara," Daiirdra called after the departing woman.

"Crawl in a hole and die!" the older woman replied bitterly.  "Make yourself useful, Cephas, and put the dishes out.  Unless you intend to starve your guest, too."

But Seyashen shook his head, letting Dale go and getting up to set out the dishes.  Dale rushed out first, darting into the kitchen, and by the time Cephas had gotten Daiirdra to the far end of the table, eight places were completely set, dishes, utensils and all.  James had looked on with a grim smirk, as though something about the situation were amusing, but neither Cephas nor Daiirdra paid him any attention.  Once Dale was finished, she sat herself down on her mother's right, so that she was next to her uncle and looking her father full in the face.  Mara stumped out with the cooked grain and bean stew, which she slapped down onto the plates like a prison matron, and as she grumpily smacked food into the plates where no one was sitting, Seyashen watched the two elder Tiefling spirits sit down at those places.  It was only when he caught Cephas watching Dale as she watched them sit down that he realized what the argument may have been about.

"There's- Aric, the leader of the- I suppose the temple of the Raven Queen," he suggested very quietly as he sat down himself.  "Perhaps you may feel more confident if she studies with him?"

"I'll see them both," Daiirdra pronounced slowly and carefully, as though she were just learning to speak.  "Aric and- eh- Sene- um..."

"Semnemac," Seyashen supplied.  "Master Semnemac."

"Yes," Daiirdra smiled wearily.  "When I am able to stand with her, then we will go, and we will see.  And- and I will- we must do something, about those horns."  She picked up her hand to touch her temple, and Cephas misunderstood, at first, concern lining his face.

"What do you-"

"They- were cut off," Seyashen explain, attempting to smile.  "It's really-"

"Well, that doesn't mean they can't be replaced," Daiirdra replied.  "Flowers aren't all I can work with- we'll see about those horns.  Won't we?"

Cephas seemed pained, but nodded his agreement, and Seyashen wondered how long Daiirdra had been sick after her last pregnancy.  Daiirdra, perhaps seeing her husband's reluctance, laid a hand on his hand.

"It's alright," she whispered.  "I'll be alright."

And the two spirits looked first at her, then at each other, then at Seyashen with a look of satisfaction.  Dale absolutely beamed, and Daiirdra put her other hand on her daughter's hands.

"Buela Mara, won't you come?" Dale asked, throwing her head over her shoulder toward the kitchen.

The squat Human returned and plopped herself at the other side of the table, as far away from her son's family as she could manage.  "Eat, damn you," she crabbed, "before it gets cold and I have to put it back in the pot."

"As good a blessing as we'll get," Cephas groaned.

2:42 Broken knight.

The ash grey Drow rocked back and forth with nearly imperceptible gurgles, arms tucked tightly against his chest as his hands pressed against the sides of his head.  His loose hair, hanging to hunched shoulders, was being pulled through, bit by bit- eventually untangled and retied into a careful ponytail that brushed the back of his neck.

"I know it hurt bad," came the low, soothing female voice.  "I know, sugar, I know.  Don't be so hard on yourself, now."

The Drow made pathetic, short whimpering noises, shivering suddenly as though a strong wind had come through the shrine in which he sat.

"Sugar, you just wait 'til your whole self is ready," the voice cooed, even more quietly than before.  "Them killers gonna get turnt right on their heels 'til you catch hold of yourself good.  I know you can do it."

The Drow rolled over onto his side, still hunched up into a near fetal position.  After a few moments of absolutely silent twitching, bare willpower forced the naked male to roll onto his knees in an attempt to get to the ball of thrown robes.  A slight moving of air brushed his face, and the robes suddenly arose from the floor, unfurled, and moved toward him.  The Drow began gurgling again, just as quietly as he'd done before.

"No rush, sugar.  Ain't nobody gonna catch you.  It ain't been figured out by now, it ain't gonna get figured out."

The scarred body lay still for a moment, all the muscles relaxing themselves.  A few breaths passed without incident, but a twitching fit descended that pushed frustrated hisses and gurgles from the creature.

"C'mon now, Stitchie-baby," the voice purred.  "Auntie got you.  Don't let yourself get all grizzled up over it."

Stitches turned his head on the stone, angry enough to slam himself into it.  Instead, he closed his eyes against the pain and rolled his head back and forth on the floor.

"You want that woman bad, huh?"

An unnatural sound, like a rabid animal drowned in a shallow pool of water, arose from the floor.

"Well, you gonna have her.  You gonna put that thing to the best pain you can think of, and I'll just tie these old hogs 'til you get done.  You take all the time you want, y'hear?  Make 'er cry long as you can stand it.  I'll set up right here with my arms crossed up, waitin' for that sweet music, just pattin' my foot."

A quiet hiss relaxed itself into a sigh as twitching muscles began to calm down, and the robes, which had seemingly stood in thin air for the past few minutes, were laid on top of the scarred skin.

"There you go, that's better.  Sometimes, you just gotta let it do what it's gonna do.  Dark gonna be real proud, the way you holdin' up," the voice noted.  "First deep mission you done in years, and you holdin' together real good.  Real, real good."

Stitches felt cool lips being pressed to his forehead, which was still as bewildering as it was calming.  Other than Dark herself, Spark was the most gracious and patient female the Drow had ever known.  He had always wondered why this had been so, and still had not reached a sufficiently satisfactory answer. 


Elsewhere in the House Darkness cavern, crimson eyes followed the movements of an assassin who had just slit an unfortunate Drow female's throat.

Weak.  Good that she won't breed.

The killer was obviously Drow, though nearly armored and covered head to foot.  His heritage was in the way he moved, in the artful ease with which he'd took the life.  But a momentary pause, caused by a severe tremor that rippled through the otherwise flawless form, caused the sole audience member to raise an eyebrow.

Twitching.

Never mind that if this assassin were somehow connected to the impostor Velryne, it made the jumpy mind-bender a liar.  If it had been best to lie about how his physical infirmity had been caused, then the creature had done well; with time and luck, there would be a proper reckoning for it.  But the wordless, glorious rage that burned against Nedstra could not have been false, could it?  The murderous gleam in the brown eyes had been so sharp, the venom of the soul so bitter that for a few strange and tense moments, Bahlzair felt as though he were staring at a warped reflection of himself.  Yet, there had been the strong mental suggestions, which no mage had ever before been able to impose on the arcane trickster.  However sincere the trembling creature had seemed, there was no doubt that he was a wondrous manipulator.  Bahlzair felt acceptably misled about its true loyalties and intentions.

If he fails, I'll kill both.  If he succeeds, I'll kill him faster.

The ebony hided Drow dropped out of the support beams that held up Imylshalee's living space and began to follow the assassin as he tracked Peth.  The killer did well, hiding his own steps within those of his quarry and taking advantage of cover to get closer to her, but suffered the sudden strike of a tremor.  Bahlzair stopped short and hid himself, watching intently as the powerfully built male Drow half-crumpled into a silent mass of pain, and was absolutely shocked when he began screaming at what appeared to be thin air.  Peth whipped around, seamlessly split his voice box in half with a glorious dagger throw, then rushed over to see precisely what she'd struck.  When- after digging her blade into his eyes as prevention- her artless Human fingers completely revealed the face and the assassin's tools, her voice immediately assaulted the air.

"There's spies!  Spies!  Assassins!"

Bahlzair calmly waited until Peth turned away from her kill at last, then moved carefully toward the fallen male.  He turned over his shoulder to look at the empty space that had so terrified what obviously was a hardened warrior of the true House Dhuurniv.

What did you see?

But nothing was there.  There were no tell-tale signs of vermin, and even if there had been, a warrior scared of a roach or a rat deserved an unspeakably dishonorable death.  Bahlzair pursed his lips in thought.

Nedstra doesn't deserve such an easy kill.

Disgusted, Bahlzair turned away to get his blade.  There was only one way to ensure that Nedstra would not have the last laugh.  The dark Elf had made it nearly back to the apothecary's area when a woman with deep shadows under her eyes turned into his path with her weapon drawn.

"Dos el ghil, shu."

Bahlzair turned his head slightly to one side as though he'd not understood, noting the faint glisten at the top of the female Drow's high brow.  He spread his right hand in front of his left shoulder, then slowly moved the hand toward his right shoulder, pulling his fingers closed artfully as he moved.  There were no spell casting words spoken, but the web appeared just the same, trapping the attacker.  She began struggling, somewhat successfully, but all progress was stopped by a bolt through the back of her right eye.  Bahlzair, who moved slightly to his right to avoid the resulting bloodspray, snapped his fingers to dissolve the web and saw Imylshalee standing with her recently fired crossbow.  She made no mention of either of their actions, or of the struggle of House Darkness against the intruders, and she didn't ask what he was doing outside of the apothecary area.  She merely reloaded her crossbow and pointed it at Bahlzair, who stood unimpressed by what she probably believed was a good threat.

"Find Nedstra.  Now."

And avoiding the clearly disease-ridden corpse, Bahlzair moved around the armed female Drow, out toward the dark fires.


Nedstra listened closely to the cries around her, counting them and gauging their distance as she moved silently along a half-collapsed tunnel on the other side of her office.  The tunnel, which had a rich history of its own, eventually split in two so that one half ran under the Bone College- whose entrance had long been sealed shut with warding magic- and the other half ran toward the Stingers' territory.  While she planned to survive this attack on House Darkness, she didn't intend to return to it.  She'd been separated from her home for a few years- or what she considered to be only a few years- yet, no Drow could forget that a voice that could prove treachery was a voice that brought the schemer down to judgement and shame.

Nedstra, head free of whatever mist had obscured her reason, had no doubt that the matron of House Dhuurniv plotted this attack.  And armed with that knowledge, the former house assassin intended to pull enough strings and cut enough throats to become matron herself- a real matron, not one whose movements were constantly questioned, and who was clearly all but excommunicated from the true Underdark.

She'd nearly gotten to the split when she sensed that she was being followed.  Without questioning whether it were friend or foe, she pushed her fingers into her hip sack, whirled around, and filled the space between herself and her pursuer with spike shuriken.

Down the way, the soft whisper of piwafi cloth breathed against the flying fangs.  Nedstra, her eyes able to see every detail in the total darkness of the tunnel, watched the cloak twist and turn, then collapse to the floor.  She waited for a few moments, then saw a few twitches.  Not willing to allow Velryne to rise, Nedstra drew her dirk and walked carefully back toward the fidgeting figure.

Stitches leaped up like a rabid dog, pulling the edge of the piwafi over Nedstra's head and forcing her to the ground with the weight of his body.  A few of the shuriken, unwrapped from the fabric, clattered to the ground, but he already had two in his hands.  His body momentarily strengthened by his simple lust for revenge, he struck down into what he innately knew were Nedstra's eye sockets, unsatisfied until he had pushed through the eye to the brain.  Nedstra screamed, which jarred against his damaged nerves as though he'd stepped down into boiling hot, electrified water, but he continued, wresting the dirk from her flailing hands and hacking through major tendons- first in her shoulders, then at her hips.  With this done, he pulled the piwafi back and staggered backward, still enduring her sharp keen.  His head spun and rang, but he did not allow himself to pause for very long.  Rushing at her, he dropped his elbow down into her chest, cracking two ribs.  She began choking, then, blood welling up in her throat rapidly.  Deciding to end the party early, he drove the dirk deep after the broken ribs, pulling back muscle and skin until he found Nedstra's trembling heart.

"S-s-ssuorr."

Though the halting word was no more than a breathless whisper, the echo of it in his head still provoked an agonizing tremor that momentarily paralyzed him.  Knowing his time was running out, the ash grey Drow dug his fingers in, cut the heart free, buried the dirk in the body and slid the scroll he'd been protecting onto its hilt.  He smiled at the blood on it, then wrapped his hand in Nedstra's hair and began dragging her back toward the mouth of the tunnel that she'd thought would be her fresh start.


Spark had been calmly filing her nails while House Dhuurniv and House Darkness assassins alike ran around, possessed of a manic bloodlust that found blades pushed gleefully through every back and chest in which they could find purchase.  No one had time to notice that the small metal instrument seemed to be moving on its own, and the one House Darkness sap who'd accidentally gotten too close to it was richly rewarded with the pointed end of it, jammed through the back of her throat a messy total of twenty-six times. 

That had been the only time that the mage, patiently sitting on the ramp that led up to Nedstra's office, had even bothered to move herself.  She sighed as she watched the bloody death match before her- most of her picked favorites had fallen, and one pair had even killed each other.

If I was a bettin' woman, I'd not have a cent to my name, she thought with a sad smile.  And at that point, Stitches re-emerged from the tunnel that she'd pointed out to him more than an hour before.

"You done, sweetheart?" the mage asked, unconcerned that the frenzied mass below might hear her apparently disembodied voice.

Stitches couldn't even nod.  He all but crashed into her, nearly falling off the platform to the cave floor some distance below.

"Well, you held up real good," Spark soothed smilingly.  "Everybody else already gone.  We can walk right on outta here; I ain't gonna let go these fools 'til we out."


Bahlzair couldn't help but feel as though he'd barely survived some wicked game.  He narrowed his eyes, displeased, but didn't bother to complain.  There could be no reasoning with a demon.

He and Imylshalee seemed to have been wandering around, utterly lost in a cave barely large enough to rival the Bone College, fending for their lives against people he absolutely knew were part of House Darkness.  The betrayal itself didn't worry him, as it was to be expected that enterprising souls would take advantage of any flicker of chaos, but he didn't expect Humans and surface Elves to be possessed of such enterprising souls.  It seemed to him as though the other races of House Darkness were out-Drowing the Drow.

When he and Imylshalee finally made it up the ramp to Nedstra's study, Bahlzair fought hard not to smirk at the pulpy mess that was her exposed chest.  The blood trail, which ran straight into the partially collapsed tunnel, left no room for doubt about what Nedstra was attempting to do with her last few moments of life.  While he took in the glinting bone that showed in the skull and the obvious, jagged hole between her lungs, Imylshalee paid much more attention to the dirk and it's message.  She yanked at Bahlzair's hair, taking his whole head back with unusual force.  When the ebony skinned Drow turned careful eyes her way, she merely tossed her head toward the weapon and the small scroll.

"Read it," she pronounced.

Bahlzair raised his hands to sign that he could not read, only to have them slapped at.

"Enough," the younger Drow female snorted.  "You've woven quite a web, feigning at ignorance the way you did.  But I'm not as easily fooled as those Dhuurniv creatures."  Imylshalee squatted, picked up the bloody blade and the note, then smacked Bahlzair- open handed- with a palm-full of Nedstra's blood.  "Now take this, and read it to me."

You're welcome.  Every other consort she takes will be sorely insufficient, and will be beaten accordingly.  And do feel free to rob her blind, of course.  That sort of thing is expected of escaped slaves.

Bahlzair, who had allowed his entire head to be pushed to his left by Imylshalee's slap, sighed at the powerful urge to show her which of the two of them was truly physically stronger.  Repressing it temporarily, he turned his head back and reached forward to take the scroll.  Cracking the wax seal, he opened it and raised a hand to sign the message to Imylshalee.  He didn't bother looking for the demon prince, didn't bother attempting reason.

Predictability is merely another weakness, after all, he thought with a bitter chuckle.


Stitches and Spark had gotten approximately two yards from the entrance to House Darkness's tunnels before the ash grey Drow at last gave in.  He crumbled to his knees, thrashing so furiously that the already damaged piwafi didn't have a chance against his jerking body.  Spark at once set up a circular ward, politely convincing most onlookers in the fairly open field between Sembia and Urmlaspyr to simply look elsewhere.  But there was one female, clothed in bright priestess's robes and a veil, who walked unhampered toward Spark and Stitches.

"Hey there, baby," Spark smiled.  "Lookin' mighty good."

"So, didja meet anybody I know?" the priestess asked, stepping into the warded circle and laying a warm hand on Stitches's spasm-riddled back.  At first, Stitches couldn't comprehend who was touching him, and rolled his jerking head to one side in the vain effort to at least nip at whoever it was.  But when he met the familiar blood red eyes behind the veil, he knew instantly who it was.  Strange, empty clicks sounded at the back of his throat- it was the best he could do, at the time.  The red eyed priestess raised her eyebrows, wondering what the sounds could mean, but stayed right next to the blood spattered mess anyway.  Deep in the damaged caverns of the Drow's mind, her jovial fearlessness was filed away.

"Oh, take your time," the priestess of Lliira smirked.  "Spark's got her brain melting magic stuff going, and I got two good daggers that'll keep any stubborn pests away."

"They ain't dull neither," Spark added.  "I 'preciate you, darlin'; you gone well above what you was gettin' paid for at first."

And the priestess, who was busy pulling the knots and dried blood out of the ash grey Drow's hair, merely shrugged.  "I got curious.  Figured I'd stick around."