Rush Of Blood To The Head, part 5.2.
The small duergar settlement consists of only a few simple and pathetic looking hovels - the only thing worthy of notice is the huge, improvised outdoor smithy that verifies the assumption of duergar as master smiths. Currently the forge is not being put to the use as I see three of the duergar lazily sitting around it and chatting in their weird, incomprehensible language.
“Cor der noror rrin doth samman?” one of the duergar spots us and turns to address Viconia.
“Speak common, wael! Viconia wants her slaves to hear what is being said here,” she speaks commandingly.
“Your… what?” I ask in disbelief.
“Of... of course, Malla Viconia.” The duergar responds, bowing his head, “I am at your service in all matters.”
“Wait, Carlig!” the other duergar rises his voice, “She bears no house insignia that I know… and look at her companions – they are no slaves! She is likely an outcast!
“How…how dare you, iblith?” Viconia is incensed.
“Serves you right, Viconia,” Jaheira adds, “seems that you do not carry as much weight as you thought… he rightfully questions your worth.”
“Ha! A moment to treasure, for sure – our proud Drow, humiliated by something as insignificant as a keen-eyed duergar,” Edwin can’t resist either.
“Shut up, all of you… or I will make sure that you end up as chained slaves in the first drow encampment we come across,” Viconia yells, “now, as I was saying… duergar, you shall answer my questions or else…”
“Gladly, however you must understand, that it is quite important for us to know with whom we deal, before we talk…” Carlig explains, “So you are surfacers, a rare sight here, indeed. Well, my name is Carlig as you know by now and I am a trader of sorts.”
“Theodur is my name,” I take the reins of conversation in my hands, “and we are on lookout for a couple of other surfacers that arrived here very recently.”
“Carlig, those two creepy ones were back, I saw them just a short while ago,” now the third duergar who looked like he was sleeping, joins in the conversation, “remember, the neck-biter and that mage.”
“You saw them? Bad news, I’d wager. The last time they were here, I saw them near the Drow city, they must have had some dealings with them.”
“Of course, who else would be the friends in the dark…” I mutter to myself, “So you say there is a Drow settlement nearby?”
“Sure is, Ust Natha. Not far from here too,” Carlig says, “Here, I’ll draw you a crude map. See, this here would be our camp. Here is a small swirfneblin village, if you want to get some respite, you should go there. And Ust Natha is in this direction, you see? But I don’t know how you will get in there… and even if you manage to get in there, you will never make it out alive.”
“Thank you, Carlig,” I say taking the piece of parchment from his hands, “Ust Natha… Viconia, can you tell us something?”
“Ust Natha… then we are near the place where the Drow first descended. Ust Natha was the first settlement of Drow in the Underdark – it has a lot of traditions and its inhabitants are proud of the cities place in the history books of our race,” Viconia explains, “it is not a large settlement - more like an outpost that guards against any intrusions from the surface. Perhaps it has expanded and grown in size and my knowledge is outdated – nevertheless, we will not be able to simply charge inside and tear them all apart.”
“As I see it, we have two choices,” Jaheira speaks, “one would be to go after Irenicus, which would mean entering the city. Though, how we can do that and still live to tell the tale… perhaps the gnomes can suggest something. The other choice would be to search for the exit to surface and to intercept Irenicus at Suldanessellar.”
“Saemon could have easily been bluffing to us,” I argue, “perhaps he just wanted to throw us of course, there is no telling whether the madman’s plans actually have something to do with Suldanessellar.”
“Yep, Theo is right, Jaheira… we’ve got to go right after ‘em,” Imoen agrees with me, “there’s no telling if and when he shows up at that Suldane… whatever.”
Jaheira only shrugs her shoulders in response and we leave the duergar camp to continue on our way to the village of the deep gnomes. Viconia is leading the way - time and time again she checks the duergar’s map to see if we are heading in the right direction. The landscape stays mainly the same, save for some not very steep elevations… rocks of extremely huge proportions and dark mouths of alluring caverns, leading the curious adventurer into a certain deathtrap are a customary sight as we slowly carve our way forward.
“It would seem like there is a Drow patrol directly in front of us,” Viconia speaks, “might as well take them out, we do need a little practice how to kill my brothers and sisters in race.”
“Is there no way to avoid the fight?” I ask, reluctant to risk my life once again this day.
“I’m afraid no, abbil,” Viconia says, “see, there is only this one pass from Ust Natha to the swirfneblin village – they likely patrol to keep a watch on it, so that nobody passes it without their notice.”
“Aww, shucks,” Imoen complains sulkily, “I hate it when our enemies are not stuuupid.”
“Drow are anything but stupid, which I cannot say about the rest of you, rivvil,” Viconia snarls, “now, perhaps, you will allow me to give you a piece of advice on how to…”
“I know perfectly well how to kill Drow, you need not waste your advice on me. You think me stupid, Viconia?” Edwin raises his chest proudly, but seeing that Viconia is about to reply, he adds hastily, “Don’t answer that!”
“We really do not have time for arguing now,” Jaheira exclaims angrily.
“Ah, I was just making sure that our silly jaluk knows that Drow are highly resistant to magic,” Viconia smiles in reply.
“Ah, resistant to magic?” Edwin mutters quietly, “Yes, yes, that would explain it… quite unusual resistance to charm and domination spells, no wonder… (not that I, Edwin Odesseiron, would ever need to resort to such trickery, but it is valuable information all the same).”
We ready ourselves for the battle to come - that also includes the selection of the battleground and we retreat a little backwards to find a somewhat more level ground that would not obstruct us in the fight. The drow appear soon enough, altogether six of them, most of them wearing heavy armor, wielding elegantly carved scimitars, but there are also some priestesses among their numbers.
The battle starts as Jaheira’s summoned fire elemental, Viconia’s animated skeletons and Edwin’s conjured monsters all crush into the drow frontline and for a while we wait before joining in the havoc and observe which of the sides is taking the upper hand in the combat. Edwin is casting furiously - he seems to grow a few feet taller when the sounds of battle encircle him… he has this slightly maniacal expression in his eyes, as if nothing else around him, not even his safety is important, only the methodical application of one spell after another, to reach and maintain the systematic perfection…
The drow priestess is feeling the effects of his spells that lower her resistance to magic and soon series of magic missiles, acid and flame arrows that the drow would usually simply shrug off unaffected, are making one of the priestesses gurgle and sink to the ground in pain…
Meanwhile, Imoen’s arrows that she releases in a rapid succession, are keeping the other priestess from any chance of spell casting, if not doing her any more serious damage. The drow warriors are slowly, but surely thinning the line of the summoned critters and as we see that only the elemental and one of the summoned gnolls is standing, at my command the three of us – Jaheira, Viconia and myself, crash into the tired drow and very quickly the battle is over, the last of the drow priestesses falling from a heavy hit of Viconia’s mace.
“Well, that was… encouraging,” I speak, looking at the corpses of the dark elves on the ground, “not to slight you Viconia, but… they were quite weak.”
“Well, abbil, we had the time to ready ourselves and as arrogant as Drow are, they surely did not expect such a powerful opposition,” Viconia smirks, “you would not want to run into them unprepared. They are ferocious fighters…”
“Well, I sincerely hope that we do not run into more opposition, we need to get to that village and have some rest,” Jaheira wipes her forehead, “it would be dangerous to pick on any more fights as I believe we all need to regain our lost spells.”
“What a glorious display of my peerless skill and unmatched intelligence,” Edwin boasts, “and to think that some of you had the nerve to suggest that magic is useless against Drow! That is clearly not the case of Edwin Odesseiron’s Magic!”
“Indeed, I am glad that you showed at least some rare spots of wisdom, Thaywian,” Viconia replies, laughing quietly, “now, let us continue onwards. There are gnomes ahead, and I will enjoy reminding them why they should respect the Drow.”
We leave the bodies of the fallen Drow behind us and continue on our way. Jaheira’s hand finds mine as walk and the comforting feeling as our fingers interlock is doing wonders in keeping the depression at bay…
