A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 45: The Vaults

Author's Note:

A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future. All characters that engage in sexual or suggestive situations are mentally and sexually mature: the human equivalent of 18 for their race.

*****

Episode 45: The Vaults

"Not that it matterss, ssinsce we found the man again, but I jusst activated the path to the vaultss." Slasjowskew commented, appearing from behind an arch after the giant distiller had been defeated and the rest of the party had (somewhat) recovered.

"Good." Caleldir said shortly. "Saves me some work." Caleldir's manner continued to be slightly odd. For one thing, his voice sounded slightly off, and he moved in a slightly more swaying way than normal. Of course, the first could be explained by his ghostliness, and the second by the fact that his legs had recently been turned into jelly, but still there was something slightly off about his behavior. Not that the rest of the party took notice, as absorbed as they were with their own problems.

Althaia sniffed the air. "If you want potions, there are hundreds of them in this very room. In addition to thousands of gallons of the best vintage and brews in the entire world. Either way, I can smell them." She was busily occupied in clearing out bottles and tankards from the shelves.

Indeed, Ashyr spotted a key laying amid the ruins of the brewmaster's robes: one that opened a cabinet just past the millstone. Ashyr quietly signaled Selene before she opened the cabinet, not letting the rest of the party (Slas) know about the loot she'd found until she and Selene got their pick. There, on the shelves, were hundreds of potions and poisons. Both Ashyr and Selene took a moment to use their passive drow talent in detecting magic to choose out as many healing potions from the cabinet as they could easily carry. On each vial Selene took the extra precaution to detect poison in a classic display of drow suspicion. A few were obviously poison, a few more obviously healing draughts, but the vast majority were labeled in Caleldir's language, and therefore unidentifiable. They ignored the latter. Ashyr might have taken them just to put in R.I.S.A.'s dimension, but she didn't want to risk subjecting the weaker A.I. to the bitch who had control over this place. When all the potions they wanted to take were in their own protective belt slots, the two drow turned to the rest of the party. "Anyone else going to take some? Caleldir? You said you were out of healing spells."

Caleldir gave the cabinet a suspicious look. "I am not really sure about trusting anything that the Distiller of Essence has been cooking up." He said slowly. He gave the potions a look over, then shrugged. "Eh, I am sure that someone will find them useful." He grabbed a few black vials. "Perfect." He nodded. Slasjowskew followed suite, but seemed mostly to grab obvious poisons. Caleldir presumably could have translated the exact names of them, but the Yuan-Ti did not ask and the Half-Ghost did not offer.

The Nymph was quite a bit less cautious. "I can have you translate these later." She said cheerfully. "Or I could use the 'Tongues' spell to do so myself, but I am blind at the moment, so I will just take all of them. Good thing I gave R.I.S.A. most of my normal inventory, so I can shove these all into this convenient ring. Along with a lifetime's supply of the best booze that this plane was to offer. Seriously, you guys should try some of this stuff." True to her words, she was quite busy in taking potions and other liquids.

Selene shot Althaia a dirty look. A goblet or two of strong, fine drink sounded really good at that moment. The younger drow's hand strayed to her lower abdomen. That wasn't exactly an option for Selene right then. "Just save some for me." She grumbled at the nymph.

"A convenient ring indeed." Slasjowskew said dryly, ignoring both Selene and drink. "Whoever dessigned it wass clearly a geniuss."

Althaia blew him a kiss. "I am sure he was." She said cheerfully.

Ashyr ignored that particular exchange. Selene seemed to be getting more or less back to herself now that Caleldir was with them. Some of her rage had dissipated with the last fight. It was Caleldir now that Ashyr was worried about. It was clear to her that this experience had been quite a bit more traumatic that the last time she'd rescued him from being tortured. She opened her mouth to ask if her was okay, but then realized that the answer was obvious. Instead, she lifted her hand to gently squeeze his upper arm and looked up at him with searching eyes. "If you need anything from me, let me know." She told him softly in her native tongue.

Caleldir did not respond verbally. He merely gave her a weak smile, and put a cold hand over hers. He must have been more incorporeal that she thought; she noticed that both his upper arm and his hand were unusually soft. She couldn't inspect further, though, since he then slipped away from her.

"Since we have plundered this place of everything of any value." Caleldir said shortly, rubbing his legs. The way he seemed to be nursing them it was pretty clear that he had not really gotten over having them pulped. "We should head to the vaults now. I believe that that is where you were headed?" With that, he led the way out of the brewmaster's chamber and down the stairway.

"Well, that's where you said we should start..." Selene said with some impatience. Both drow then gathered and followed Caleldir down the stairs. Said stairway seemed to dip implausibly deep until the two drow could probably feel quite at home. An indeterminate number of steps later, going past a dizzying array of side-doors and side-passages - most of which looked rather dangerous and all of which Caleldir ignored - the group stepped out into an underground tunnel of truly incomprehensible size. Pitch black, and far larger than anyone's darkvision could see, the sound of running water could be heard all around them. Caleldir stopped, rubbing his forehead. "Almost there." He said gloomily.

Ashyr looked up at him with more concern in her gaze. Something must have been bothering him pretty severely. Why would almost being at the vault be cause for gloominess? "Do you think there are more dangers here?" She'd thought the alchemist had been the only guard. Perhaps she was wrong.

"There are always dangers around here." Caleldir said perfunctorily. "This place has been the death of more adventurers than you can count. On the way down here, we went by passages that led to death in a hundred ugly forms. Ironically, the deepest parts of this cursed place are, in some ways, the safest, as they are farthest away from the Animating Intellect's focus or the major players."

Althaia spoke up. "Does anyone think it odd that we have not been attacked yet?" She said uneasily. "I mean, with this place's reputation, I am surprised that nothing has jumped out at us since we rescued Caleldir. If nothing else, we should be swamped with undead or automatons at least once or twice during that long descent."

"How odd." Caleldir said flatly. He gave the group a smile. "No worries, things will be revealed soon enough." His voice squeaked imperceptibly as he spoke.

Those words and tone triggered alarm in Selene, though the rest of the party seemed happy enough to ignore it. They would see 'soon enough.' That was cause for alarm for any typical suspicious drow, and Selene wasn't so changed as to forget that suspicion. None of that she let show on her face. She grabbed at Ashyr's hand and squeezed tight enough for her cousin to turn her gaze toward her. To anyone behind, it would look as if the drow were paying attention to the ground as they walked. If someone in front was quick enough, they would see their hands flash in their silent drow language.

The stairs had spilled out onto a platform, and Caleldir led the group down a smaller flight of stairs to the right, to a place closer to the bottom of the tunnel. The place stunk of mold and moisture, not all unpleasant, but fairly slimy all the same. "All of Deusterra had a single, interconnected sewer system." Caleldir mentioned. "This is but one branch of it." Indeed, here at the bottom of that last flight of stairs, they were walking alongside an underground river flowing through the tunnel, flowing off in the direction of the sea. Probably. There was a very real chance that they were below sea-level, though, so where exactly all this water was draining to was an open question. "Not too much farther."

He was silent for about ten minutes, and then came to another stairway up to a platform, and then a second, eerily illuminated passage up into the monastery. Taking it up, they quickly came to probably the most overly fortified door that any one in this party had seen in a long time. Waving his hands, the locks sprung open as if expecting him. "We are there." He said. Then, he smiled. "You fools." He said in a rather mocking, feminine tone.

"Lolth damn you, Ashyr, I told you!" The younger drow exclaimed. She began to try to backpedal, to think of a spell that might be used on... whatever the thing that looked like Caleldir was.

Ashyr didn't look quite as shocked as she could have been. Selene had told her something was wrong, and her younger cousin was right. Hell, Ashyr knew it, too, but was too busy focusing on her own emotional injuries to really think about how Caleldir was acting. "Are you the A.I?" She demanded. Her hands went for her weapons, but she was pretty positive they would do whatever that was no harm. Oh, Lolth, this meant Caleldir was still captured somewhere and they weren't working to save him.

"The Animating Intellect?" Not!Caleldir said scornfully. He stared at the two drow with hatred, looking exactly like he had from the vision. "You did not think that finding the Master Librarian would be so easy, did you? It was all a trick, an illusion." He told them. "A trap that you fell for!" With mocking laughter, his armor fell away. Underneath, he was not a he at all, but a she. Now in a diaphanous flowing gown, the creature went ghostly. Besides her hips and her breasts, both of which had apparently been partly constricted partly illusioned away, she resembled Caleldir - now a ghostly Caleldir - exactly. "I am Caleldra Hissael." She hissed. "And you, Ashyr, you took my name!" She sent a bolt of cold energy lancing through the air, paralyzing Ashyr.

Caleldra turned towards Selene, bristling with fury. Around them, ghosts of dead adventurers lurched from every corner, howling in pain and rage. "They call me another name as well." She said. "'The Vengeful Forgotten Adventuress'. And they call me vengeful for a reason. You, foul woman, have taken what I have desired for a thousand years! How dare you! How dare you take my love's seed! It was mine!" She shrieked with terrible anger. Slasjowskew skittered off to the side, trying not to be killed by ghosts, while Althaia rushed and slashed at the ghost woman. There was no effect. Caleldra continued her rant. "You Duskhaven whore, you stole him from me! He is mine, mine, mine I tell you! Such a fragile, living creature as you do not deserve him!" Rushing forwards, she grasped Selene in her cold arms, paralyzing the drow with a touch, draining skill and life. Then she raised her up in the air and fled into the depths of her domain, leaving the rest of the group to face down an army of dead adventurers.

Cries of rage echoed down the corridors and chased the escaping Caleldra, though Selene could not hear her cousin's voice. The younger drow had passed out almost immediately.

The red haze of desperate anger settled over Ashyr's consciousness. Tears once again fell from her eyes. Yet she did not fall to the floor and weep when she broke through the paralysis spell cast upon her. Blades came to her hands and she began to slash at the undead with furious action. Her attacks were reckless, uncaring of both herself and her own companions. She had to get past them, had to go and save Selene. Surely her cousin did not have the mental strength to withstand capture by that tortured soul!

Slasjowskew, to his credit, tried to stop the ghost woman from flying away, running through the air in something almost like flight in order to catch up with her. It was useless, of course, the ghost phased right through a wall, still carrying Selene. Slasjowskew cursed as he drifted to the floor, and turned to destroying the lesser spectres as they attacked.

Althaia shouted as well, but had no better luck. "She and the brewer were in league!" She said in frustration. Her blade ripped through the image of a warrior, causing the phantom to fizzle out. "He blinded me on purpose so that I could not see that there had been a switch! I would have been able to see that this 'Caleldra' was Evil rather than Good!" She angrily hacked through another ghost. These creatures were annoying, and may even have been a threat under different circumstances, but as things were the party was making good use of its anger to rip through them. The nymph held out her holy symbol, a set of silver lips, and sent a burst of energy out from it. Most of the nearby lesser ghosts fled back into the walls. "She played us all like a fiddle." She cursed. "I should have known! I am the one who learned her story, that of The Vengeful Forgotten Adventuress! But I had not heard that she was a fucking body double!" That was, in many ways, the worst part. Bad enough to get the nymph to use actual profanity.

Ashyr managed to rip through the ghosts, but as it turned out, the vault that the ghost had lured them into was a labyrinth, and the ghost herself had bypassed the whole thing rather easily. But before Ashyr could go charging off and get herself lost, as she was clearly about to do in her blind rage, Althaia sprinted up to the drow and hit her with a potent calming spell. It was as if that spell had drained all her energy, for when it absorbed into her body she collapsed with the lack of rage to carry her forward. She gave Ashyr a wry smile. "We will save your cousin." Althaia promised. "But we cannot go rushing headfirst into that maze without clearing our heads first."

Ashyr knelt there on her hands and knees, trembling. The hope that Althaia tried to give her felt hollow on Ashyr's ears. Both of her lovers were gone, and she couldn't help but feel that she was to blame. How much agony could she have spared them if she just had stayed in the forest those two months ago? It was perhaps an excessively dramatic thought for a woman of her age to be having, but it stuck in her mind. It laughed at her, taunted her, played images of their torture and Celeste's death over and over until it was the only thing she could see or think about.

The drow curled under the weight of those thoughts. They were too powerful to just be soothed away.

"How can my head be clear?!" Ashyr demanded. "This is my fault. I should have listened. Selene knew something was off about him. She knew. Now they're both gone!" She took a deep, shuddering breath. Althaia and Slas should not see her weep - and indeed she hadn't shamed herself like that quite yet beyond the tears of anger that still glistened at her cheeks. No, them seeing such complete weakness could only make things worse. Ashyr was Drow. She was Noble. Female. Strong.

Goddess, even with that calming spell she still wanted to hurt something, or fuck something - do anything to make her feel powerful again.

The Yuan-ti shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. He cleared his throat, giving Althaia a questioning look. The nymph nodded and he relaxed a little. "Well then." He stated. "I will go ahead and try to sscout thiss plasce out a bit. Find out where the ghosst took our mage. We need one of thosse." His words were not quite as callous as they sounded, but he knew that this was not a place that he could help. He vanished into the labyrinth.

Althaia knelt down by Ashyr's side, giving the drow a comforting hug, which she returned only half-heartedly. "I know that there is nothing I can say that will make you feel better." She said in a divinely soothing tone. "But all the same, be of good cheer! Caleldir, well, we once again know where he is. The library. Where he spent over a thousand years. I am sure that old Goelon Duvainor is doing quite well. After all, this is his turf! So no need to worry about him. We will simply have to find the fellow and knock his identity back into his head. As for Selene..." Althaia drooped a bit, sighing. Ashyr groaned her own hopeless noise "I admit, when it comes to Selene, things look bad. The Vengeful Forgotten Adventuress is not likely to treat her that well. But we do not have to worry about her killing Selene, for even if she did, the ritual would activate and put your cousin beyond her power. So it may even be for the best if the Adventuress tries. Something tells me she will not, though."

The nymph sighed again, burying her blind eyes into her armor. This was clearly not helping "What we need now is a miracle." She whispered. Suddenly, she stood up tall. "A miracle! I can call in a divine favor!" She turned towards Ashyr, giving her a light kiss. "You have earned the gift of the Nymph's Kiss. Therefore, you can look on what would blind ordinary mortals." With that, she fell to her knees, eyes looking up to the heavens. Her clothes melted away, and she let out the full, terrible force of her literally blinding beauty, a sight that most mortals could look on only once.

Ashyr watched in stunned amazement. The nymph was so beautiful that Ashyr didn't even want to immediately start to try fucking her. No, that seemed too... mundane a response. Instead, she stared in wonder in not outright worship as Althaia prayed to her deities.

"Aelsuna, my patron! I beg of you to give me sight and refresh the powers of my soul!" A soft glow covered the radiant fey, and her eyes, glowing blue, snapped open. She stood up, turning towards the dumbstruck Ashyr, and hit her with an even more potent cocktail of enhancement spells than she had given to Selene back in the brewery.

The pain was still there in the aftermath of that cocktail, but the determination to do something about it finally superseded the heartache. Ashyr got to her feet slowly. "That's... better, actually." She commented. Her features were not back to her customary mischief, but at least there was no agony there anymore. It was a temporary fix, but hopefully temporary was all they needed. Once her people were back, they all could help each other through the emotional pain they'd suffered.

Goddess, that sounded sappy.

Althaia covered herself in some flattering, but understated, robes. "Good to hear. Well, then, let us chase down a ghost." She stated with conviction. "Slas should have an idea as to what is in this maze, by now."

"Right. Let's get going." Ashyr agreed. But a thought occurred to her, just a simple question. "Althaia? Why did you call your goddess 'patron'? Would not 'matron' be more appropriate?" It was one of those surface world habits that Ashyr was not yet able to understand. It was so very different from her female dominant society. And for now, talking about differences in culture and language was better than worrying about her lovers, who they were already doing all they could to rescue.

"Hmm? Patrons?" Althaia asked. She thought a moment. "Ah! That is because of translation difficulties." As she spoke, she began heading into the maze. "'Patron' can mean father, and 'Matron' mother, up here, but 'Patron 'has a gender-neutral secondary meaning of 'Benefactor' as well as the masculine meaning. In fact, in the Common tongue, the term Patron meaning benefactor has so surpassed the original term meaning fatherly, that if you use it to refer to an actual father few people will even know what you are talking about. Oh! Look out for the wizard!" Sure enough, they had rounded a corner and came face to face with a ghostly magus. After disposing of the spectre, Althaia continued her speech. "So, anyway, while Matron is still feminine, Patron is no longer its counterpart due to linguistic drift. Calling my goddesses 'matrons' would, in current usage, be calling them 'old ladies'. Now, if I were to pray in Sylvan or Celestial, the word would be different, obviously, and probably translate more directly." She shrugged. "One could make all sorts of arguments about the gendering of language, but I think that that exercise is best left to gnarly old gnomes and particularly bitter drow. No offence. Oh! There is a skeletal rogue behind you! Huh. I thought she just used ghosts..." All things considered, the nymph seemed to be rather well-informed about matters of grammar and etymology, but as a creature from a race that was not so much female-dominant as female-only she was probably not the best authority on gender relations. She observed as much to Ashyr as she struck down a ghostly bard before the creature could begin singing a song that they probably would not like to have heard.