A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 49: Geneforge

The group met no major problems on the first floor. Although, Caleldir seemed rather frustrated by the trek. "I instinctively know the layout of this place, but still, it is annoying how much the curse has twisted everything. Back in my day, reaching the third floor Gene Forge was a simple matter of ascending the spiral staircase another two levels. Now, for some reason, the stairway for each level is as far as possible from the others, as if somebody had designed this place to be as inconvenient as possible to navigate." He deactivated another trap. "Also, what's with all of these friggin traps? I mean, they make walking unnecessarily difficult. The security devices and guardian golems are one thing, all these unnecessary traps are another altogether. Bad house design. People used to live here, you know."

Caleldir noticed that Selene was running low on patience with all the hiding, especially on this level where the traps, wards, and wandering guardians had been more than doubled, but he assured her that going down would be much easier than going up. Once they got what they came for, they could simply cut their way out. Or, Caleldir hoped, jump out a window and just fly away from the whole thing. He deactivated the security on the door. "And, up we go." He sniffed, and smiled. "Still smells like wine though. Ah, the memories. The other students in my year pranked the Archmage so much. I was framed for it every single time, but I think that Birchborn knew it was not me. She just liked having an excuse to have me around, in hindsight."

"Yeah?" Ashyr asked with soft amusement. "Was she the one everyone thought you were going to marry?"

"Don't tell me that we'll have to deal with another woman wholly obsessed with Caleldir if this Birchborn wakes up." Selene whispered quietly, irritably.

Ashyr let out a very quiet snicker in response. "Says the woman pregnant with his child because she couldn't keep her hands off him."

More grumbling came from Selene in response.

"She was the one that my father wanted me to marry." Caleldir admitted. "But other than that, she was never obsessed with me. She just liked having me around as an apprentice of sorts. She flirted with me pretty heavily, which distressed me back then, but with the benefit of hindsight again we were really just friends once I became an adult and stopped being her student, nothing more, with the flirtation just being her having some amusement at my expense. She thought of me as far too young for her; after all, she was two hundred thirty-three years of age when she first took me as a student when I was a mere eight winters. Of course, that was her as a living person. As an undead ghost-thing, my instinct says that she hates me and everybody else." Although, now that Selene mentioned it, he did have too many women in his life. Way too many. He missed Gurzan, at least the stoic half-orc was not inclined to flirtation with him, or anyone but his spouse, for that matter. Granted, Gurzan had once raised the possibility of Caleldir marrying one of his daughters, but that was awhile ago and nothing had come of it. Likely, his father's preference for Birchborn would be the same way: dropped once he was with someone.

Frankly, the more he thought about it the more the topic annoyed Caleldir almost as much as it did Selene, and so he hastened to change it. "The second floor, if my instincts are correct, is mostly experimental laboratories. Some of the objects here will look impossibly tempting: but it is very important that you do not touch anything if you can help it, and definitely do not take them. Everything here is cursed to bring ill-fortune to its owner. Or trapped. Or both. Probably both."

Ashyr let the subject drop - for now, anyway. Excessive chatter was always something to avoid in this sort of situation. The ranger wished she had begun to teach Caleldir drow sign language. Then they would be able to talk silently as much as they wanted. Then again, it was a good source of amusement for her when she and Selene could communicate right in front of him without Caleldir having any idea what they were communicating. It was something she'd have to think about.

The group entered the second floor: a maze-like collection of laboratories. Selene was able to guess at the nature of some of them: aetheric condensers, elemental manipulators, various experiments on creating new types of plants or animals, and the like. The drow took in their surroundings with silent curiosity. They seemed to be able to resist the urge to touch all the strange contraptions well enough. As with the library, Selene sort of wished she could stay and explore... well, actually, she wished that she could go back in time and explore. It was an idle wish, and not something she dwelled on. The wish did not positively affect her feelings toward this place. If anything, it made her feel even more negative about the whole situation. All those resources were wasted here. It was a damn shame. Ashyr just found the place confusing. One room in particular that they crept through seemed to be a piece of the sky stolen from the heavens, with an amazing view of the stars and planets swirling around them. It was pretty, but dizzying.

"Here we are at the third stairway." Caleldir finally said when they finally reached the third stairway.

"So how is this going to work?" Selene asked. She wanted to know what to expect and what to do before she got up there. They might not have a lot of time to discuss things then. "Is it a mostly physical or magical contraption? What am I going to need to do?"

Continuing on up the staircase, Caleldir considered Selene's question. "Well... for the most part, all you need to do is to lay on a slab, expose your midriff, and then I will attach a few smooth pieces of suctioning metal to your stomach. Then I operate the controls to gain information on the genetic information of the baby, including their basic phenotype once an adult, and can manipulate that phenotype to a small extent, with your assistance, of course." He opened the door at the top. "Right this way." Caleldir said cheerfully.

The mage nodded at Caleldir's short explanation. Seemed reasonable enough. She didn't look forward to being so exposed and attached to an unfamiliar contraption, but if it was necessary to help her daughter, then she would endure it. Selene trusted Caleldir not to intentionally harm his progeny. Well, at least as far as Selene could trust anyone.

The third floor, which otherwise was similar to the second, seemed rather empty and bare in comparison to the two below, which unnerved Caleldir. "This is... not how I remember this being." He said slightly nervously. "Be on the lookout for something to go wrong." He looked around. "The Gene Forge is that way. Now, let me see if..."

He was interrupted by a number of runes on the walls suddenly shining very brightly. With a crack, a huge, bizarre creature of living and unliving flesh and living and unliving metal appeared before them: something between a monkey, a dragon, an octopus, and a scorpion, with various of its way too many limbs haphazardly replaced with clockwork or golem bits. It stood about fifteen feet tall when on its two hindmost legs. The thing made a hideous noise that was at once a scream and a roar, and lunged at the group.

"Augh..." Selene grunted in disgust. As soon as she saw the runes shine she began back-pedaling and preparing to cast a spell. Then, as she had that disgusted reaction, she flung her hands forward to shoot fire at the abomination. Her artifact eagerly put his power behind her spell, adding a blast of energy that seemed psionic in nature to try to push the beast back. For there was nothing more noble than destroying this freakish beast that seemed to pervert all laws of nature.

As the younger drow backed away, the older rolled to the side to try to flank the aggressive creature. Althaia would no doubt try to tackle it head-on as she always did, and the ranger was counting on this trend now. Ashyr drew her twin blades and urged flame to spread across the artifacts. 'Kill it with fire' seemed an appropriate response in this situation. The fire was interesting - the sister glowed red, and the brother, blue.

Caleldir took a step back from the monster. "I... do not remember her working on anything like that!" He breathed. He rose into the air and zipped around behind the creature, beginning to pound on it with telekinetic energy, much like Caleldra was so fond of doing. "Fire is your best bet in this fight!" He shouted at them, hurling a wave of ghost-flames at the creature.

The drows' guess as to Althaia's actions were pretty spot on. The nymph had been uncharacteristically quiet through the tower, until it was easy to forget that she was there at all. But once the monster appeared, her eyes went red and she leaped towards it, sword and shield at the foe. The paladin did not seem to be trying to take advantage of a distraction, nor even distracting the thing herself, only trying to hack it into pieces. As it turned out, the beast looked awful, but was clearly some sort of flawed prototype. After spewing out acid and poisonous gasses, trying to entangle one of the assailants with its tentacles, and other too-slow attacks, it went down rather quickly. And very messily. The real danger was not the creature itself, but its unstable form's disintegration into hazardous waste. From the effect it had on the stone, merely touching it would be deadly. Or at least painful beyond belief. Fortunately, no one was affected. It seemed that luck was with them again.

When the abomination collapsed and stopped twitching, Caleldir motioned the group around it. "A failed experiment, that was." He mused. "I would not like to meet the success. Fortunately, it seems that the more successful ones are still in containment tubes. Mind the glass." Indeed, the room had quite a few cylinders full of liquid and unconscious monsters that were too awful to look at for more than a few seconds. It was more than their appearance: there was something magically oppressive about them.

After they exited the Containment Chamber, the group found themselves in the Gene Forge. Apparently, the Containment Chamber was only a sort of anteroom to this one, as the huge room took up the entire tower minus the room they had just exited. The vaulted ceiling was more than twice the twenty-foot height of the previous room. The party could now see that the Archmage's tower was about one hundred feet in diameter. Large windows gave an impressive view of the surrounding mountains and plains, and revealed that they had climbed far higher than their steps had taken them. But though the view was impressive - with forests, brilliant lakes, awe-inspiring peaks, lovely waterfalls, and the magnificent orange and red of the sunset - the most amazing thing was the Gene Forge itself. A thing of elegant artistry, it sort of resembled a metalworker's forge, but made of shimmering glass and living stone spun like cloth through rich metal. It was colored like life itself: the green of trees, the blues and oranges of the sky, the red of blood, the pale to dark tones of flesh, spiraled and fluted, engraved with repeating patterns that were neither runes nor letters, but in a language more basic and yet more complex than any artificial written tongue. The more one looked, the more colors and patterns they could discern, from unblinking eyes to flowing waters. The Gene Forge seemed almost a living thing: illumination like light through clear waters, shadows like the swaying leaves of trees, all breathing in patterns independent of any external source. But more than anything else, there was a strange feeling about this place, a sense of the sacred, something too powerful to be touched by the curse ravaging everything around. It was calming, assuring, peaceful, and humming with power akin to a god's.

"I... forgot how overwhelming this thing is." Caleldir said in a subdued tone. He closed his eyes, and breathed deeply in and out. When he opened them again, he had collected his wits about him once more. "That green table is where you will need to lie down, Selene. Do not worry; it is far more comfortable than you would think that glass-metal could be."

Ashyr was about to ask Althaia why she was being so quiet, but was distracted by the next room they had entered. As a ranger whose domain was nature and life, she felt... comfortable with this place. The oppressive, rotting aura of the Monastery wasn't so bad here. Ashyr either hadn't realized just how much it had been affecting her, or the contraption itself was calming her nerves. She wished she could share this with Bard. She also wished she could just sit and observe the thing forever. But it was her job to keep watch while her lovers were potentially vulnerable. So she stationed herself at the entrance and kept herself in a relaxed, but fight-ready position.

The younger drow approached the wondrous Gene Forge with a look of awe on her beautiful features. Her hand again strayed to her stomach. If she had had any reservations about having to do this before, those were all gone now. Even her drow sensibilities doubted that anything so wonderful could possibly harm her - which was saying a lot, seeing as the too-good-to-be-true were never, ever what they seemed. Selene approached the thing and laid herself out on the indicated surface. Her clothing shifted until her skin was exposed from just under her breasts to just above her womanhood.

She still managed to make her garments look fashionable in the process. It would take a lot for her to forget her vanity - even in the presence of her party.

Standing at the controls, Caleldir could not stifle a smile at the way that Selene made sure that she looked fashionable even while on an operating table. Well, he could not complain. "You look as beautiful as always, Selene." He said in a way that was almost more to himself than her. He had never known the drow to accept compliments as anything other than tribute, which somewhat annoyed him, but still, he had to take note of how pleasing her lovely form was. Perhaps it was because of Althaia's odd habits, but he had found that artfully revealing garments were sexier in their way than pure nudity. At least, sometimes they were. He still appreciated the female form unadorned by cloth.

Pride shone in Selene's eyes. "Yes. I am." She agreed. Her perfectly curved body stretched and arched subtly as if she basked in the adoration.

Putting that line of thought aside, Caleldir began to operate the Gene-Forge. It had been a long time (obviously) since he had last seen Birchborn use this thing, but he had been there for its re-creation and at least remembered how to use it. The archivist had to write down the details of its reconstruction and operation, after all. So, the pale elf began to manipulate the controls. After a few seconds, seven green disks the size of small coins floated down from somewhere in the upper reaches of the forge and attached themselves to Selene's lower stomach. Suctioning on, they felt warm and oddly comforting, slowly applying healing magic to soothe her and the unborn baby. "See, this is not so bad." Caleldir said cheerfully. He frowned a bit at the information on the display in front of him. "This... this can't be right..." he said with disbelief. Looking up, he darted around the machine for about a minute. "No... everything is in perfect condition." He broke out in a broad grin. "Heh. It seems that Althaia's goddess's prediction about the impressiveness of our progeny was not amiss." He clapped his hands together. "Absolutely perfect timing! This was the last day that we could still use the Gene-Forge to its absolute fullest extent." He hands began frantically dancing across the controls. "Her physical and mental stats are already impossibly good, what with her being a Paragon and all, but why not make them just a little bit better, to the absolute fullest extent of what is possible. Why accept an average roll of ten when we can have a perfect set of eighteens? And why accept a perfect set of eighteens, when we can boost those past the probable to straight twenties?" He fell silent as he worked the controls.

After about ten minutes of furiously busy silence during which he ignored all questions, he finished. "There! I have given our daughter the body of a demigod and a mind to match. She will utterly outclass us in every possible way, I am afraid. Now, the rest I assume that you will want a say in, so let me bring this up..." He looked over at Selene. "Feel free to sit up to get a better view. Just do not leave the operating table." An image appeared in the air just in front of the pregnant drow. It was of a woman who bore an extremely strong resemblance to both Selene and Caleldir. Her skin was a soft grey, like a mouse's fur, and her hair was the palest shade of blue imaginable, with her eyes being a deep violet. She was every bit as blindingly beautiful as Althaia unmasqued, although it did not have any effect on her parents or aunt, of course. Ashyr recognized the aesthetics of the projection from R.I.S.A.'s preferred form: unclothed, and extremely detailed (down to the level of individual pores) except for the 'naughty' bits. As Selene took in the form, Caleldir adjusted the image's appearance, darkening her skin to a shiny obsidian, and lightening her hair to a snowy marble. "This look better?" He asked. "I can also influence the genetic portion of her personality, to a small extent. I am going with an inclination towards being loyal, hard-working, and cheerful. Of course, that is only a vague inclination, nature vs. nurture, after all. Any thoughts?"

"She's... beautiful." Selene said in awe. She found moisture in her eyes that she hadn't quite expected. Even without the obsidian skin, the younger drow couldn't find fault with her unborn daughter. It was strange; Selene had harassed half-breed drow as mercilessly as the rest of her kind normally did. But now... there was no disgust, no feelings of ultimate superiority that being a drow usually gave her. Maybe it was the blinding beauty affecting her. "Um." She said, trying to collect herself. Selene was beginning to feel stupidly emotional. "The skin does look better, but her hair and eyes as they were won't give her any trouble. My father is marveled as a great beauty for his blue eyes. He theorized it's a fallback from thousands of years ago when drow mingled with pale elves or some other blue-eyed creature. Most drow don't even realize that." She smirked at the fickleness of her race, a fickleness that even she was guilty of indulging in by simply being here. The irony was not lost on her.

"I did not do anything to her eyes." Caleldir said. "Right now, she is likely going to have purple ones. But, if you like blue more, I can give her those." He looked over the information in front of him. "Actually, I can give her pretty much any eye color you could dream of. But violet-blue seems nice. I will go with that..." after returning the slight icy color to her snowy hair, he adjusted her eyes a little.

"Just a little bit of another race is interesting and unique. Lolth forbid there be anything more than that." Ashyr answered with her own flash of white teeth against charcoal skin. "On that note... if there any way to take the darkening skin part with us - for my future children? And if Selene catches from you again. The grey is beautiful, but... would not be well-received at home."

The mage did not outright deny the part of Ashyr's words that she might breed with Caleldir again. She didn't even look annoyed. How could she, when she could see the overwhelmingly positive results right in front of her? She did have something to add about Caleldir's last question, though. "Do not mess with her personality." The younger drow told him firmly. "Let her at least be how she is in that regard."