A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 67: Aftermath

"Althaia, you really shouldn't-" Carlotta began to say as the nymph continued to drink despite her advice. The human frowned. Sure, she liked drinking. Probably a bit too much for her own good, in fact. But seeing Althaia down what was probably a year's worth of spirits was kind of making Carlotta sick. It didn't help that she seemed to be spouting utter nonsense that made Lotta's brain hurt in really strange ways. It wasn't just that she didn't understand, but that her brain flat-out refused to comprehend all that nonsense.

Then the nymph passed out.

"Oh, godsdamn it." The little human said. "I'm too drunk for this shit." She stoppered her drink, put it on her belt, pulled out another vial of liquid, and downed it. Her body... rippled as what Althaia would call her 'STR' bonus doubled and she grew in size nearer that of Faust. Carlotta then gathered the passed-out nymph in her arms and made her way back out into the courtyard.

Ashyr, Selene, and Caleldir made it back into the castle walls just as Carlotta emerged from a side-entrance of the castle itself. "I think I broke her." The comparatively giant Carlotta confessed as if her current form was the most natural thing in the world.

"You seem to have put on some weight there, Carlotta," Caleldir observed.

Upon hearing Caleldir and the other's voices, Althaia stirred. "Oh! An Enlarge Person effect! Nice." She giggled.

'It's a mutag... moota... it's the thingys alchemists use. Makes us big and strong. But not so smart." Carlotta explained as she gently let Althaia to her feet. Not that the nymph was able to stay there for too long. "'N I getta be like this for'n hour." The not-so-small woman slurred as she brought back out her bottle of wine. Althaia may have been done with the booze, but Carlotta certainly wasn't. She flopped down onto the grass and sort of zoned out as the nymph kept talking about things that made no goddamned sense.

"So, we have the drow ranger, which is pretty standard, then a... Titan Factotum? But Titans are epic level encounters... Oh! I see! You are using the partial template advancement variant rule! Or something." She then glanced over at Selene, and frowned. "What class even are you? I mean, mage is not a class. Sorcerer? No, you can learn spells. Wizard? No, you cast spontaneously... Or is this simply a difference between 3.5 and Pathfinder?"

The younger drow blinked in bafflement. There was one thing that she did understand, though: the part about wizards and sorcerers. "I am actually an arcanist, if you want to be precise." Selene responded primly. "I have to learn like a wizard, but once I do I can use any spell at will. Though I do have a daily limit, as any caster does." They had such classifications within the magical colleges in the underdark, and arcanist would technically be hers, had she gone through an official school instead of being privately taught. "And I have a spellbook." She pulled aforementioned object out of a bag of holding for a moment to show the rest of the party.

Althaia shook her head. "That all checks out, I suppose, but I still sense a lot of non-core house rules in this setting."

"What," Caleldir said flatly.

"I mean, the whole thing that Caleldir does when he gets really low on HP? Turn into a ghost? But not really? That is something no responsible DM would ever allow. Completely unbalanced." She struck herself in the head. "Wait! There is no DM. No players either. Just me. Which means... Nobody knows what spells I have prepared! I can make them up as I go along!" Giggling, she tried to spin but instead, gracefully, collapsed forward onto her face.

"I... what..." Caleldir shook his head. "Okay, I thought that getting the nymph drunk would just mean that she would start sleeping with random attractive people, not... whatever that was." He shook his head. "Althaia, get ahold of yourself. We need to discuss what we are doing with Faust."

The nymph giggled very drunkenly. "Oh! I am far too inebriated for that. You have no idea the sorts of stat penalties I am taking right now. The wisdom penalty alone..." She slapped her head. Again. "Wait! Divine spells are not subject to spell failure from drunkenness, only arcane ones are! I cast 'Remove Poison!'" She let out a long sigh, and seemed to deflate.

A moment later, she stood up normally. "I am not sure what all that was." She said in a sober tone. "But perhaps it is for the best that I refrain from mind-altering substances in the future."

"Probably a good idea." Caleldir agreed. He was rubbing his head. The worst part of it was, he had understood at least half of what she had said. And that hurt his brain. He decided to not think about that. His SAN could not take it.

"It's you lot who's not following source material. We play by official rules. Just... different ones. Not that it matters." Demitus declared as he floated across the grass.

Caleldir let out a long sigh. "Okay, I think that I know what the ghost and the paladin are referring to." He glanced up at Demitus.

"The ghost? Oh. Demitus. Hi Demitus!" Carlotta waved in vaguely the opposite direction of where the incorporeal form of the skald floated. Then she took another swig of her beverage.

"Hey Carlotta." Demitus sighed. "Isn't being a ghost the best? Your friends can't see you and you start seeing and understanding some really weird shit about reality that I REALLY did not want to know. Yeah. Having the best time," the skald muttered with extreme sarcasm. "If only we could, you know, find my brother so we can get people to resurrect me. That would be great." He gave Caleldir a pointed look.

... which was completely ignored. "Not sure how either of you are familiar with the systems, but quite a while ago - before my time, in fact - there was an effort by certain among the Titans to try to understand the rules of the world not just as a matter of physics and whatnot, but to categorize everything in simple terms with the goal of efficiently describing how various races, vocations, creatures, and whatnot all compared with each other. To do this, they proposed a thought experiment: what if the world was a game? Then then drafted a rules system to describe how things would work were this, in fact, a game.

"The main way we interact with the system they drafted is the various alignment-based spells and items. The trouble was, they invented at least six or so systems, most of which were fairly similar, but which had crucial differences. This led to a rather lot of infighting as to which system better described reality, and some of them even trying to change reality to better fit with their theories."

Apparently, Caleldir's mother had been related to this group somehow, though she was the ghost of a Nymph rather than a Titan. She had always had a fascination for dice, he remembered. The few times he had met her she was inevitably rolling something out to Divine events in the mortal realm, and trying to manipulate the rolls to change reality. "There is actually a very concrete way to describe each of us using only the rules they developed," he continued. "The problem is, as I already said, that reality is a fickle thing that does not conform perfectly to one set of rules, so between everyone here we would have to use about three or possibly four systems."

He glanced at Althaia again. "No idea what this talk about DM or players is. I do not recall them as being in the part of the theories. As for 3.5 and Pathfinder... those were numbers given to some of the theories, so maybe she is referring to that?" He shrugged.

Ashyr, who had no idea what was going on (and even less idea that there was a ghost floating around breaking the fourth wall alongside the formerly drunk nymph) turned toward the main gate of the castle. The leaders seemed to be returning to the castle, finally. Dria, Zarag, and Urag came into view, directly followed by Tsabdrin, Ungrai, a dwarf, Hadia, and a fiendish-looking bat-eared man. Then others trickled in. Tsabdin immediately spotted the rest of the party and veered towards them, while the rest of the newly arrived walked into the main hall of the castle. Moments later, the two allosaurs slipped through the gate and walked beside him.

"There you are," the male ranger said. "Everyone doing oka- fuck, you got big." At first, he looked specifically at Althaia and Ashyr to make sure they appeared healthy. But then his eyes fell on Carlotta, who was now easily the tallest and bulkiest of the group, and his eyes couldn't quite tear themselves away from her strangeness. "Um. Dria told me to tell you that the leaders are meeting in the main hall to confront Faust."

Caleldir sighed. "I suppose that means that we will have to drag him out. Hope they can deal with him, because we had a lot of trouble doing so. To adopt the language that drunk Althaia was talking in, our ECL should be high enough, but our builds are heavily unoptimized." He shook his head. "Great, now I sound like a madman." Muttering about 'silly ancient systems' he wandered into the hall. Althaia, looking rather distant, followed him.

"No. We really should not let him out." Selene insisted in undercommon as she followed after Caleldir and Althaia. "R.I.S.A. can let the necessary people in, and we'll talk to him there. There is no sense in unnecessarily endangering us." More accurately, Selene didn't want to risk the health of herself and a certain couple of people very important to her. "At least let us go in there and assess the situation before bringing him out."

"Selene's right." Ashyr agreed, though she spoke in common so that Althaia and Carlotta would understand. "We'll bring us, Dria, and Zarag into the dimension. Then we'll go from there." The oldest drow decided.

"Ah, you're here." Said Dria when she saw the party enter the hall. "Go on, then. Bring Faust out that he may answer to his deeds."

Ashyr shook her head. "Dria, Zarag, let us speak to you alone a moment." She tilted her head to a side passage and they followed with great curiosity. The female ranged signed something quickly to the male, who nodded before ordering his animal companions to ward off any spies. "Don't worry, we have him. But he's better contained where he is, so we're going to him. I'll open the portal. Come through as quickly as possible."

Demetus grumbled yet again about his brother not being found.

"Your brother will show up sooner or later." Caleldir sighed. "And I spent 1200 years as a ghost. You can afford to spend a few more hours. We have a Faust to take care of."

Caleldir changed his language to Deusterran. "R.I.S.A., prepare for Dria and Zarag. We are bringing them in on your secret."

[Understood.] R.I.S.A. replied mentally. [I will adjust Faust's prison accordingly. Right now, I have him in a dead-magic zone of silence. I can keep the dead magic, unless you would rather I put a Zone of Truth around him. Sadly, I cannot do both. Obviously, I will have to remove the silence if you are to talk to him.]

"You can drop the anti-magic, R.I.S.A. If he tries anything, I still have a little bit of counter-spelling I can do. The Zone of Truth will serve us better." Selene told the A.I.

"Just... just keep him from attacking us." Caleldir said.

[That I can do. It is my demiplane, after all.] R.I.S.A. sounded almost smug.

Althaia yawned. "I suddenly feel really tired." She rubbed her eyes. "Let us get this over with."

"Yes, let us." Caleldir said. "Right this way, Dria and Zarag."

Just like before, when the portal was opened, the drow winced and grit their teeth with extreme discomfort. At least it didn't seem quite as bad as it was before. Even so, Ashyr hurried everyone through and shut the portal behind her as quickly as possible. "Why does that keep happening?" Ashyr grumbled to her cousins in their native tongue.

"I felt that, too." Tsabdrin responded, looking confused. "But that was the first time." The rangers looked to the mage, but all she could do was shrug and look annoyed about the whole thing.

Although Caleldir had not felt the same awful discomfort as the drow, he noted both their reaction and Faust's from the portal. He glanced at Althaia. The nymph just looked tired. He glanced at R.I.S.A.

[Something is trying to break through my demiplane.] She said neutrally to him.

A sudden wave of understanding washed over Caleldir. Or, at least, a theory did. Faust seemed relieved to have the portal shut. Which meant that he was not the source of whatever power that was trying to break through. Coupling that with his obvious heritage, extreme paranoia, and non-evil aura, and Caleldir had a reasonable theory to explain why things were the way they were. He said nothing though.

The group was in a small stone room. An obvious transparent Wall of Force made up the far wall, with Faust on the other side. R.I.S.A., in her habitual undetailed avatar, floated in the corner. [Greetings. I am R.I.S.A.: Roving Intellectual Security Animation. I rule this demiplane.] She gestured towards Faust. [And am currently functioning as this one's jailor.]

"It is a pleasure to meet you." Dria said when the A.I. introduced herself. "And I thank you for helping in this." She looked to Zarag, who nodded in agreement and gave R.I.S.A. a short bow. Then both leaders looked toward the captive.

By that time, Faust had been awake and moving for about ten minutes. He shed his armor and began to pace the small space he was given despite his monumentally tired appearance. He paused mid-step when the room began to change around him. Then he braced himself for when the portal was activated. The tiefling pressed his maned forehead against a wall, the muscles in his jaw rippled, and his eyes went wide and wild for a moment. A strange force tried again to break through the pocket dimension, yet it was weaker than before, and just as unsuccessful as it was the first time. Both Faust's distressed expression and the force disappeared when Ashyr shut the portal behind her. Then the red fiendspawn rose to his full height, crossed his arms, and faced his captors with exhausted resolve.

The tiefling ignored the leaders. Instead, he looked behind them and towards the redheaded alchemist. "I see you made it out alright after all, Carlotta." Faust observed neutrally. The presence of drow and someone with an aura like Goelon's had made him wonder about that. "And you found your things."

The not-so-small human glared, and took another swig from her bottle.

"And my wine cellar as well." For the briefest of moments, Faust looked like he was almost going to show amusement of some kind. But his expression turned back into a solid scowl. "I suppose it's time to torture and question me?" The prisoner asked bluntly.

A glint of excitement flashed in Selene's eyes. Even Ashyr looked attracted to the prospect of tormenting the tiefling. The youngest drow looked to the oldest questioningly. As much as Ashyr wanted to give Selene permission, she turned her gaze toward the rest of the people in attendance to see what they thought of the idea.

Althaia frowned. "Torture? No. Although Selene would be all over that. I put a hard veto on it though. Question? Yes. Execute? Perhaps. Yell at a lot? Definitely."

"As you may have guessed at this point, I was bluffing you before when I claimed to be the cause of all your problems. I was also bluffing you in my aura. I am not that powerful (mostly)." Caleldir said. It seemed like something of a non-sequitur, but he was working towards something. "I simply needed you mad enough that you would attack, instead of running to get your guards. I would apologize for the deception, but you did have me tortured for information I did not know, and killed one of my friends. Well, several of my friends. Friends that proved to be impossible to revive, so thank you for that." His tone was every bit as dry as the words implied. "And that is to say nothing of what you have done to the druids, who were peacefully minding their own business when you attacked them. Your crimes are many and manifold. At very least, you have proven that you are no longer fit to rule Port Afron. I think we can all agree with that at very minimum." He took a deep breath. "But, as to more extreme punishments than merely being replaced, well, those are more negotiable. Depending on what you tell us. I am not certain about the others, but as for me, I only want to know one thing."

He fixed Faust with his gaze. "Why. Why did a man known far and wide for being a reasonable, pragmatic ruler who had long ago cast off his fiendish heritage, why did such a man suddenly go mad with paranoia and begin to rule as a self-destructing tyrant? Is this something at all related to the distress you apparently feel whenever a portal opens, or to the oppressive feeling, and one that is only felt by races (not individuals) of evil alignment, of something trying to dimensionally break into this demiplane? Are you, perhaps, hunted by some diabolic family member?"

Faust frowned hard at Caleldir as he spoke to him, but there was a slight... uncertainty in his golden eyes. His gaze flickered over towards the drow, then grew more resolved. "I do not know what-" He began to say, but he seemed unable to finish his sentence. The tiefling blinked, then opened his mouth again, and again he couldn't finish what he was trying to say. "I am in some sort of truth-speaking zone, aren't I?" He growled accusingly. Even if R.I.S.A. had mentioned such a thing in his hearing, he had been too focused on his discomfort.

[That is correct.] R.I.S.A. confirmed. [You are in my plane, and here, I write the rules. First rule: no lies.] It was certainly helpful in that regard that R.I.S.A.'s magic was at divine levels in here, so resisting it was all but futile.

"Answer the questions." Zarag growled. "Or we will not be so nice as we are right now." So what if the paladin was against it? She couldn't watch the man forever.

"I have been hearing a... voice." Faust admitted with a sour, resentful look on his face. "Since last fall. It warned me of an attack by orcs, and of dangerous people wanting inside my fair city. It... knew other things, too. Smaller things. So I set up required registration. Not that it helped. You came through, you distracted my people, and because of you, a fair amount of my soldiers and innocent civilians are dead. Just like the voice warned."

"So you began to trust the voice." Selene supplied. "It told you that it would happen again if you didn't react the way you did."

"And it told me that you damned drow are behind it all." He snapped. "I see the look on her face. The voice was right."

Ashyr frowned, and rubbed at the back of her neck. Dria and Zarag turned to give her a confused look, which turned into scowls of their own. Tsabdrin stepped beside her and glared at the both of them, but it was Ashyr who spoke to defend herself. "So I was here was to spread some chaos. Only thing I really did was send a crow that said there was a troupe in town. I didn't know the attack was going to happen. And I certainly didn't know my house was being led by kinslayers at the time. Or I would have never done it." Not that the women of Duskhaven were planning on being any more humane. They would have subjected the people of the surface to their own brand of horrors.

"This voice was telling you half-truths." Caleldir told him. "Heck, it may itself have been allied with the drow, or even one of them. Everything you ended up doing only played into their hands. Ashyr," he gestured at her, "was manipulated by the drow behind the actual attack to send information, not knowing what the information was for. My caravan was framed for the assault. The orcish mercenaries were paid to launch an attack, with the understanding that they would be backed up, and then they were left to hang. And after all that, you followed the voice. A voice that insured that you constantly struck not at your actual enemies, but on those either neutral or possibly even allies."