A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 48: Librarian

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.

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Episode 48: Librarian

"I think there's something stuck in my shoulder." Ashyr flatly informed the party once they all caught their breath after defeating the Animator. Selene had since made her way over to the rest of them. She had no spells of healing to offer; that was one area where the mage did not excel. Selene caused pain more than she took it away. Ashyr knew this well, and therefore did not expect her cousin's help in the matter. That left Althaia, who was in no position to do much of anything; Caleldra, someone Ashyr was uncomfortable even being near; and Slasjowskew. The ranger's crimson eyes fell upon the yuan-ti. He was certainly dexterous enough, but did he even possess knives that weren't dripping with poison? Her attention returned to the wound in question. "Anyone have the skills to help me out?" She asked the general room.

"I could do so." Caleldra stated confidently. "Telekinesis can do anything!"

She looked over at Slasjowskew. He merely shrugged. "I could dig out the bullet with a dagger, but that would be rather messsy. Frankly, I think that the pssychotic not-a-ghosst is your besst bet."

Caleldra looked quite pleased. "I hear that you do not want me to be near you, but it is not necessary for me to be next to you to extract that bullet." A look of intense concentration appeared on her face, and the bullet in Ashyr's arm began to shudder rather painfully. The ranger's face went ashen. Then, it pulled itself out. Was more painful than it did going in, but only on an intellectual level, as if Caleldra was keeping the pain from hurting through some subtle mental block. The bullet shot over to Caleldra's hand. "There. That should do the trick. Now, drink a potion or two. You have dozens of them."

That was... vastly disturbing. What if Caleldra could do that to other parts of her body as well? Ashyr almost wished that Slas had just taken one of his knives to her. It wouldn't be the first time she'd dug around her flesh to extract shrapnel from her body. She could handle that sort of physical pain. But this experience had her imagining Caleldra casually ripping out her heart with her mind. Oh, Lolth, Caleldra could probably hear Ashyr's thoughts.

...don't give her ideas don't give her ideas don't give her ideas...

Trying not to think any more about the matter, Ashyr downed a couple potions as if she was chugging alcohol. She would have done so sooner, but wanted the bullet out of her shoulder first. An explosive sigh of relief passed through her lips as she felt her wounds healing and the pain from them diminishing.

"Yes, I can hear your thoughts. At least, some of them." Caleldra said. "And do not worry about me ripping out your heart. Did not Caleldir explain to you that telekinesis is many orders of magnitude harder when exerted on a living thing? The bullet is not alive, and not part of you. Your heart is. I can remove the bullet, but I cannot rip out any of your internal organs. Well, I could, but I would have to use knives." She giggled.

It was about then that Althaia woke up. The nymph pulled herself together, almost literally, and sat up. "Well, that was awful." She said cheerfully. "Good thing my shield kept me alive." She uneasily pulled herself to her feet. "We won then. Good. Hopefully, this monastery does not offer too many more things like that."

"Oh, it does." Caleldra said cheerfully.

Slasjowskew seemed to have recovered as well, and was poking around the wreckage of the factory. "Huh. There iss a complicated puzzsle lock on this large cabinet. I wonder what iss insside it..."

Selene approached the yuan-ti. "Caleldir used one of those to open up a warehouse..." The mage said more to herself than anything else. Not that she could rightly remember what the combination had been; Selene was smart, but not that smart. She would let the snake mess with it, but she wanted to observe what was beyond the lock before Slasjowskew took everything interesting. There was no way she trusted him to share the loot.

"Just hurry it up." Ashyr said as she got back to her feet. She felt as ready to get going and get Caleldir back as she thought she ever would be. The ranger wasn't even tempted to try to replenish herself in R.I.S.A.'s dimension. They had already spent enough time not actively trying to save her mate. Hell, she wasn't even that interested in what her cousin and Slas would find beyond the cabinet door.

As for Slasjowskew, he was fiddling with the lock. "Ssnake titss." He swore. "Thiss thing iss beyond fiendissh." He smiled broadly, a mad light in his eyes. "Thiss iss the mosst difficult lock I have sseen in my life! Truly a worthy adverssary." He looked towards Selene. "I jusst wanted you to know that, sso you could appresciate how devilsshly hard thiss iss when I get it."

Despite his words, Selene did not act all that impressed. If she worked long and hard at solving puzzles and detecting traps she imagined that she, too, could figure out a way to open the thing. Unlike Ashyr, Selene had no interest in stroking the snake's ego.

Caleldra looked sideways at the Yuan-ti. "That is the Animator's greatest treasure, something that he used to create his most fiendish creations. He would want it to be kept safe, of course." She folded her arms. "Apologies to the impatient Ashyr, but I will lead you on after the snake is finished. We all need a breather. Well, you all need a breather. I do not need to breathe."

With nothing better to do, Ashyr approached the cabinet. She watched Slas work with much more impressed interest than her cousin held. It was amusing how excited he got himself whenever he did something particularly difficult. To some degree, she understood the thrill of being really, really good at something. Like when she killed a particularly difficult enemy or convinced a hesitant or up-tight male to share her bed.

Slasjowskew's smile grew larger. "Exscellent." He hissed. He began fiddling with the machine, working on the holographic puzzle lock while dissecting the physical portion. After about fifteen minutes, he stepped back. "Finisshed!" He exulted. The door swung open. Behind it was a coffin with a little over a dozen tubes running away from it, constantly pumping some sort of energy. Slas frowned. "What... what is this?"

"Is that... is that...?" But she didn't know what she was going to say. She was just as much at a loss as Slasjowskew. Her gaze flickered over to the not-ghost to see if she had an answer.

"It is." Caleldra said nonchalantly. "A nearly four yard tall coffin, having energy pumped from it. Go ahead, open it!"

"I do not know if that iss a good idea..." Slasjowskew hesitated. "Thiss iss sslightly creepier than I wass expecting."

Althaia had sidled up to the coffin. Her eyes blazed a celestial blue. She started back. "Whatever is in there had one of the most potent Lawful and Good auras that I have seen in the physical realm. I am going to open it!"

Whatever it was, it was clear that the drow were not going to touch it with a ten foot pole. They knew well enough that something that was magical looking and confusing probably meant something very dangerous. Both seemed unconvinced when Althaia say the lawful good aura that emanated from the coffin. 'Good' generally did not mean something that was good news for the drow -- until recently, every one of that alignment they met were out to get them for the mere fact that they were a member of a generally evil race. To be fair, they were absolutely right in assuming that Selene was bad news.

"Don't do that!" Slas tried to stop her, but the yuan-ti was too late. Althaia ripped the lid off and threw it to the side.

Inside was a bluish silver-grey giant of a man, standing nigh on ten foot tall, completely hairless, and muscled like a god's statue (with the looks to match). It was easy to tell, because the only garment he wore was baggy knee-length trousers. Well, trousers and a number of tubes, wires, dials, and other nightmarish bits of machinery draining his life force from him, electricity playing up and down his body. "This celestial fellow has been in there for nearly eight centuries." Caleldra said cheerfully. "I had forgotten about him."

"Well, I am going to get him out of there!" Althaia declared. She severed the connections between the man and the coffin.

The giant's pupil-less eyes opened, and he ripped the machinery from his body. "I am glad to be out of there!" The man boomed out. "Thank, you, adventurers!"

"Are you the true Animator?" Ashyr asked the huge man warily. It was just a hunch she had -- did she see actual signs of the armored man's physical form? The ranger didn't remember. She took Selene's hand and took a couple more steps back to give the guy as much room as possible in case he turned hostile. He probably wouldn't... Caleldir had said that there were drow among his society. "If not... who are you?" She continued. Just because she was wary didn't mean she wasn't curious.

The man stretched and flexed a bit, shaking the kinks out of his joints. Those attracted to giant muscular male celestials would probably find the display quite hypnotizing, unless they were too busy being suspicious. He fixed his eyes on Ashyr when she asked her question. At least, he probably did. It was hard to tell, what with his eyes being unrelieved white orbs. He grinned at her. "Me? The Mechanical Clockwork Animator? Well, I suppose that you could say that. I was responsible for animating a lot of the Mechanist's more bizarre creations, since he used my life essence to do that. But I am not from this place." His smile turned to a frown when he laid eyes on Selene, and a scowl when he looked at Caleldra. "Hmmph. You are here." He muttered. He looked over at Althaia, and smiled awkwardly, shrugging. "Nymphen paladin, why is it that you hang with these two allies of wickedness? The drow may be leaning towards redemption, but still..."

"I am not-!" Selene protested.. The younger drow was tired of being told that her way of life so far was something that needed to be redeemed. There was a distinct... smugness coming from the artifact on her head. "Redemption is-"

Ashyr, however, wisely clapped her hand over her cousin's mouth to prevent the tirade that was very likely to occur. "Shh, dearest. Now is not the time." The older drow told the younger. Ashyr seemed more amused by the situation than anything else. Evil, good, lawful, chaotic -- all seemed unimportant to the ranger. She could see charm in facets of all four, but identified with none of it. If her cousin was in the throes of alignment change then, well, that was her journey whether she liked it or not.

Althaia was far more relaxed about the Celestial than anyone else, which was not all that surprising. "Eh, I follow the court of Aelsuna. She is a rather silly deity, who tends to think that 'beauty' and 'goodness' are the same thing, which means that I suffer no penalty from being with these women, provided that I restrain their more sadistic impulses." She explained over the drows' brief exchange.

"I had wondered about that." Slasjowskew muttered.

The Celestial shook his head. "A strange group you are. But I am grateful to you for releasing me." He looked over at the drow. "Do not fear me, Children of the Underdark. I mean no harm to those who do not seek to harm the innocent. Fear me only if your works are evil." He bowed humbly. "While I may have a Celestial nature, I am not, properly speaking, an Outsider. I am the child of Storm-Giants, Jinn, and Devas. My true name is not for the ears of the unrighteous, but I am called Tempestus Pugno, or Storm-Fist in the Common tongue. It is my mission to defend the innocent, bring justice to the wicked, and illuminate the darkness of the world with Heaven's Divine Lightning!"

A girlish squee erupted from Althaia. Her eyes looking on him showed no lust, but something akin to hero worship.

Neither drow understood hero worship. In drow culture, if one met a powerful figurehead of their culture, then it was in their best interest to run the hell away. Ashyr found him visually appealing, but that was where her interest in him stopped; he was much too big. So the drow waited in awkward silence.

Slasjowskew, of course, wasn't impressed. "That iss very fine." He hissed. "Now, can we get out of here!?"

"Of course." Caleldra said, unconcerned with whatever dislike Storm-Fist felt for her. "The entrance to the library is over there. Hopefully, mister-shirtless-and-ripped over there will be of help in the next fight. It will be nice to watch the arrogant Goelon get punched around a bit."

The older drow became visibly uncomfortable. Ashyr anticipated extreme emotional distress for herself within the halls of the library. Though she felt sure that this was the case, it did not dissuade her from eagerly following after the rest of the party. She wanted- needed Caleldir back. Goddess, this was why love was so damn dangerous in the Underdark. It made one hesitate, underestimate, become too eager, and to run screaming into certain death.

Love crippled when one saw the life ripped from light blue eyes 'midst a cascade of soft blonde hair... over... and over... It bled like a wound torn anew.

Caleldra floated off towards the hidden entrance she had indicated. Storm-Fist gave the other four a searching look. "It seems that we must fight our way out, but I sense that you have already spent yourselves in this last battle. And so, I give you this Wish of my grandfather's lineage that I have kept safe for centuries: that all the loss from your last fight may be removed!" Reality shifted and distorted around the strange man as the Wish returned the spell power that the group had expended back to them. With that, he turned and followed the fetch.

Both drow heaved sighs of relief when they felt that subtle shift of their power that felt almost as good as a full night's rest -- almost as good, because there was no prelude of the sexual variety that they had grown used to and quite fond of.

Caleldra lead the group to an out-of-the-way corner of the vast industrial room. Reaching through the wall, she caused a section of the stone wall to slide to the side, leading to a darkened passage heavily paneled with wood leading upwards. It was only just big enough for Storm-Fist to squeeze in after everyone had gone before him.

The stairs led up and up, twisting around in a tight spiral. With every step up the noise of the collapsed factory below lessened, until that time when there was no noise in the world but the subtleties of silent feet and quiet breathing.

Althaia, Caledra, Slasjowskew, and Storm-Fist alike were completely silent, those of them beside the fetch finding the atmosphere too oppressive to break the silence. Even Caleldra seemed ill at ease. The drow, too, felt the silence keenly. Ashyr may not have spoken anyway, as she was lost in thought about what she would do in the thousands of scenarios that passed through her mind about what could happen in the library. The cousins stuck close to each other, but did not quite touch just in case they needed to quickly shoot off a spell or draw blades. Of the whole party, Selene seemed to feel the least uncomfortable. It may have been folly to think so, but she felt confident that she at least was safe from Goelon's cruelty. Caleldir's ghostly form had scared her previously, but now... well, strangely, she felt eager to meet this alter ego.

They came to the passage's abrupt end. Without pausing, Caleldra pushed on the wood, and it popped out and rolled to the side. Beyond, were ornate bookshelves, lamps that burned a cold blue, and carpeted floors. They were now in the library.

Selene was sorely, sorely tempted to strut across the room and call out to this Goelon Duvainor, to congratulate him on the nigh obscene mess he'd made of his pet fetch and then to greet him with confidence, though she did not see him as of yet. The oppressive silence of the place barely kept her from that idea. That, and the sight of the library itself stilled her to silence. The mage was a sucker for bookshelves filled with knowledge begging to be tapped.

The younger drow moved forward past the rest of the party, attempting to be the first one thought the door. Ashyr tried to catch at her cousin's hand, but hesitated before she could actually pull her back. She may have been quieted, but her confidence could not be oppressed. Confidence did not mean an entire departure from caution, for she was entirely prepared to zap anything that looked like it was about to purposefully hurt her.

Nobody bothered to restrain Selene's urge to run ahead, and so the younger drow soon became the de-facto vanguard of the group, continuing on into the vast library at the front of the group. Selene walked quietly down the halls of the library. Her eyes drifted to marvel at the most beautiful sight she'd seen in her recent memory: the library. She found herself fantasizing about spending years here absorbing all the knowledge within. The younger drow barely noticed the older walking up to stalk in her shadow as a wary protector. Whichever way she went, the place was not quite as maze-like as normal around her, and so she soon found herself in the central chamber of the library, which opened up enough that the party could tell that they were on the first of four floors. And there, in the far middle of the roughly oval central area, floated Goelon Duvianor himself in all of his faerie ghost glory. Selene's eyes finally fell on the terrifyingly beautiful form of the librarian, but she did not falter in her steps. If anything, she grew in determination and confidence.

Seeming to be just slightly larger than Caleldir, he reclined in midair reading a book. His somber clothing, a cross between scholar's robes and grave-sheets, fluttered around him, as did his unbound white hair. He fixed the group with his glowing light-blue eyes. "So, you have found a way into my domain, Forgotten." He addressed Caleldra first. His voice was deeper, more melodious and sinister than Caleldir's. Which was not surprising. "I see that you guessed that I would ward every entrance against you but the one that from the Animator's realm, because as long as the old man blew steam you could never get through there. But, it seems that you have found allies in your quest to subjugate me."

Ashyr reached out and successfully held her cousin back from approaching too close. Selene let herself be halted, but her eyes did not waver from this alter ego of Caleldir's. The pregnant drow tilted her head in attention as the male began to talk. Her hand strayed unintentionally to her still-flat lower abdomen. He was so confident, so powerful... so gorgeous.

"Selene?" Ashyr whispered in her cousin's ear. There was clear worry in her voice. The worry was not directed at Goelon, but at Selene.

He looked over the group almost unconcernedly. "You would be Caleldir's friends then." He mused. "Well, I suppose that I do not bear you any ill-will. Have you come to try to force me back into the weak, sad little body of that pathetic bleeding-heart?" He gave Ashyr and Selene looks that were not unfriendly. "Eh, you can try. I left this place because I had learned all it offered, after all." Landing softly on his feet, he gestured out at the countless tens of thousands of tomes around them. "I have absorbed all the knowledge of this Library, not a single one of these works have I not taken to heart. So, what, may I ask, more is there for me to do? Tormenting the Forgotten was amusing, I will admit, but breaking and remaking the same toy over and over again countless times too grows dull. Though Caleldir is weak, he is not cursed to this monastery, nor even to this country."