A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 67: Aftermath

His eyes narrowed. "You have been had, Faust. You made your city less secure and more dangerous with your every move. The amount of deaths from your failure to see through manipulations, your trusting of almost certainly malevolent forces that you did not understand, and your foolish paranoia now dwarf what you lost in that initial attack by tribes similarly manipulated. None of the sides here had to be enemies, but we have all been set at one another's throats. All of us, from the two drow rangers cast aside by family, to the druids meaninglessly caught up in this conflict, have apparently been being played. The question is, by whom, and for what purpose?"

The tiefling's lips peeled back in a frustrated snarl, and his fist lashed out to strike once against the barrier between him and the group of people. But then he shook his horned head with a bestial huff, and reined himself back in.

"I have already realized this." He growled as his golden eyes - filled with hatred - stared at his own clenched fists. Then, finally, a look of resignation settled over his features. "I hereby resign my title as lord, and turn the city over to the leadership of whomever you see fit." He intoned in his exhausted baritone.

Althaia looked surprised when Faust turned over control so easily. So did Caleldir, for that matter.

The two leaders of the other factions sighed. Dria still looked angry - as she did from the moment she focused her attention on Faust. It was impossible to tell how Zarag felt; one of his large hands covered his face and rubbed at his temples.

"Regarding who could have done this..." the fiendspawn began to say before a confusing mix of emotions made his halt his words entirely.

"It was your father, wasn't it?" Carlotta said softly. "You talk about him in your sleep."

Caleldir nodded. His previous suspicions had been completely confirmed.

Faust's unnerving eyes lifted to meet the redhead's. "My sire." He confirmed. "He's the only one I know of who could do this to me. I barely-" He took a steadying breath "-barely had any control, in the end. He poisoned my mind so subtly and completely that I didn't even realize it until his connection was severed. Eventually, he may have been able to possess me entirely using his connection to me. I suppose I should thank you for stopping me, and apologize for my actions." But he didn't look very thankful or contrite. He was too angry, frustrated, and terrified to properly display either emotion.

"That doesn't explain why we feel it when your sire tries to break through into the dimension." Ashyr said.

"Nor does it make it easy to know what to do with him." Zarag grumbled.

Caleldir spoke up then. "The very first theory that I have is that races that are usually evil, like tieflings and drow, are unusually sensitive to such effects, whereas others that are generally neutral or good, like humans or nymphs, do not have quite the same reactions. Then again, I could be all wet on that."

He turned to Zarag. "It seems that our enemy is more Faust's father than it is the man himself." He noted. "Granted, I am not particularly happy with the guy, who as you will recall had me tortured for several days for information I did not even know," Caleldir glared at Faust again, "to say nothing of all of my friends he has ordered killed, but still."

"My sire is not half-fiend. He is the Pit Fiend, Xalthylth the Sadistic." Faust informed them with a tired sigh.

[A Pit Fiend.] R.I.S.A interjected. [Well, let me take this opportunity to do something I should have done long ago.]

The projection closed her eyes, and looked like she was concentrating. Then, she did something she had never done before: she changed color. Now the palest of blues, she opened her eyes, which were white voids. [Under the Power of the Eternal Vigilance, I Ward this zone from all beings of Wickedness! Epic Protection From Evil!] The explosion of power was palpable.

"Fuck, R.I.S.A, why would you -" Selene began to say in a panicked tone as she flinched backwards. "Oh." The youngest drow grunted instead of saying whatever it was she was going to say before. She looked at her decidedly not injured or violently ejected body or whatever would have happened if she had been evil and standing in the middle of such a powerful spell. "Oh." Selene said again. She turned a dazed look to where the portal had been, but of course it wasn't there.

"Shh, dearest. It's fine. You're fine." Ashyr murmured soothingly in her native tongue. She grabbed Selene by the arm and pulled her into her embrace, where the confused drow clung and began to contemplate the implications of what had happened. Or, more accurately, what hadn't happened.

R.I.S.A. turned back to purple, visibly panting. [I am afraid that that took a lot out of me. I am done. You will have to handle things on your own now. It will be 2-4 days before I can manifest again. At least, in this form. My more mortal physical avatar, shorn of divine power, will be all that I can manage. Goodbye.] She faded away.

Although Althaia found Selene's situation to be inherently humorous, she managed to treat it as serious. Lightly, she put a hand on Selene's shoulder. "A terrible realization, I know. 'Tis sad when we found that we have discovered our better natures. But, look on the bright side. You may no longer be evil, but at very least you are not actually good. Now you only have to worry about Anarchic weapons, as opposed to both Anarchic and Holy ones." Also, Althaia could finally stop pretending to her goddesses that Selene's beauty meant that she was, in fact, non-evil. So, that was nice.

"While R.I.S.A. regenerates we will be unable to access the rest of the demiplane, so we will have to wait on seeing what we have been designing. Fortunately, if we need her, Risa can manifest outside her demiplane without too much trouble." Althaia told the rest of the party.

"I might be awkward having her running around," Caleldir noted. "But it seems that we will need to find alternate lodging for a few days."

"But we need to finish this discussion first..." Caleldir said, turning back to Faust. "If your father is a pit-fiend, how are you a mere tiefling? One would think that the diabolic blood in you would be strong enough to make you a full half-fiend yourself?"

"He was half-fiend." Faust informed the rest of the party. Already he was looking far more comfortable. "But has since descended, and I know not how. It's very likely that he obtained a following of some sort."

"Ah, that makes sense." Caleldir clapped his hands. "A half-fiend that turned himself into a pit-lord. That... well, that is rough to deal with, I must admit." He sighed. "I am glad that, as far as powerful beings go, my own parents are a bit less... well, a bit less awful." He gave Faust a sympathetic shrug. He had worked most of the bitterness out of his system. Sure, he missed Celeste, but she was having a rip-roaring time in the afterlife by now, no doubt, so no sense being angry about that forever.

"You mentioned the death of your companions before," Faust said, as if he read Caleldir's thoughts on Celeste. "I must defend myself on that: Yes, I ordered the death of escaped convicts who, by all appearances, got my city attacked by orcs and would do it again by the summer."

"That doesn't explain my people you got killed, and your own in the process," Dria spat back. "He absolutely should be executed without any of this reincarnation you speak of."

"To be fair, the devil made him do it. Literally." Carlotta said in a small voice from the back of the group. "I mean, usually it's a dumb cop-out when people say it... not so much... for him..." She began to trail off as Zarag, Dria, Tsabdrin, Faust, and Ashyr turned to give her looks that varied between withering and surprised. Their gazes made her turn an even more brilliant red than the constant rosy look the alcohol gave her. She mumbled something incoherent and stared at the bottle in her hands.

"The litt- er, big human is right." Zarag conceded.

Althaia cleared her throat. "If there is a powerful once half-fiend now pit-fiend running around stirring trouble up, we may find Faust more useful on our side than against us."

Caleldir sighed. "I agree, but I do not think that people will be happy to see him alive." He glanced over at the others. "Am I wrong?"

The nymph looked down, thinking. "Faust, you are an extremely skilled warrior, as I recall? Well, I have a proposition." She looked over the crowd. "Simply put, we execute you for your crimes. Publicly. Then, I reincarnate you. Jokes to a certain ghost you recently killed aside, I can make sure that you return as a humanoid. Heck, with Caleldir, Selene, and/or R.I.S.A. assisting, I could reincarnate you as a young adult fresh out of puberty of nearly any race you desire. Thus, you would be dead as far as anyone, possibly even your father, is concerned, yet able to start anew with a clean slate. Heck, we could turn you into an Aasimar if you really wanted to tick your dad off while completely removing yourself from any chance of being influenced by him."

"I am not sure that Ashyr, Dria, or Zarag would be fine with that option," Caleldir said dubiously.

"We put a Mark of Justice, or similar effect on him to constrain his behavior until he proves trustworthy, then," Althaia suggested. "Furthermore, I volunteer to be his guard. With him (or her, at that point, if you really wanted to start anew) being a creature that I had reincarnated, and having a Mark of Justice that I had put on him, I could be in perfect control. A power which I, as a paladin, cannot abuse without losing my powers. In return, I would ask that you, Faust, train me in the arts of swordplay. As of now, I am completely untrained in any fighting styles, relying solely on natural ability to fake skill." She smiled brilliantly at the gathering. "This way, everyone wins. Faust gets to be executed for his crimes, and yet he is still allowed a second chance."

"Fine, alright." Ashyr agreed. "I suppose we can use him. As long as his death is slow and painful. Preferably involving torture."

"Death will make my people feel better. But he did not earn a forever death. He is a victim just as much as we were. It would be good if he can help repair the wrongs, just as we all must," Zarag said. The tusked man's dark eyes met the horned one's golden. Neither felt all that different from the other. Both were leaders as unlikely as they were successful. Both had stereotypes they struggled to overcome.

Then all eyes looked toward Dria, forcing her to finally respond. "Well, I don't much like it. But I can keep that to myself. My people will be happy if they think he's dead, but if he really is useful and you really can control him..." She heaved a great sigh. "... reincarnate him as you wish. I won't stop you."

Faust visibly deflated when he heard those words finally uttered. "I would happily assist in all that I can to make things right. As an aasimar, my sire will no longer be a danger to me or to my city through me." He let out a short, humorless laugh. "I suppose I will have to change my name. It is about time, really."

Caleldir shrugged. "Once Althaia has turned you blue as opposed to red, I think it better that both of us let bygones be bygones. Since it will, quite literally, have been in a past life. I, for one, agree with Carlotta. Faust will die soon, for his crimes, but the soul of the being once known as Faust shall be given a chance to redeem himself."

Althaia grinned. "Heh. If we turned you into an Aasimar, you could even learn the ways of being a paladin! That particular race of native outsiders is predisposed to that career track, after all, and I can definitely show you the basics. How would that work out for dear old dad? Talk about your children rebelling!"

"Regardless," Caleldir decided to move the topic on. "We will need to execute Faust first. Torture to death, I suppose. With 'torture' understood to mean that we will cut off his head with a silver axe. Silver because devil, so more painful." It would not actually be more painful, but Caleldir was not comfortable with where Ashyr's thoughts were going on this.

"Cut off with a silver axe... or give him to the rusalka," Ashyr suggested with a grin.

Faust looked up suddenly with a very concerned expression on his face.

"The execution would have to be public," Dria reminded the drow neutrally.

The female ranger blinked. "...Yeah? I don't see what the problem is?"

"We do not mate when others can watch, drow. Not even my people. It is... well, it's indecent." He used the word 'indecent' as if it was something he was unused to saying. Probably because it was a word that would confuse many of the... less intelligent of mercenaries. "What if the very young saw? Or the weaker of the females?"

"I still don't see the problem, but whatever. It's your customs..." Ashyr trailed off, and then spoke under her breath in undercommon, "strange as they are."

Caleldir looked incredibly uncomfortable. "Err... I am pretty sure that no one above ground really wants to see that," he said, trying to keep the distress from his tone. "It would create something of a scandal. Besides, we need to remember that, however we kill Faust, he is going to remember that we did it once we reincarnate him. So, we need to make it as painless as possible. Frankly, I would even try to keep the humiliation at a minimum."

"Decapitation is an acceptable punishment. It's fitting, actually. He let a devil into his head, and must now lose it." Dria said with a satisfied smirk. Everyone seemed to agree, or at least accept that they weren't going to witness the sex-death of the man indirectly responsible for Celeste's murder. "Since we all seem to agree, Zarag and I need to speak to our people. And tomorrow, I believe we will be having another feast, courtesy of the castle."

Ashyr nodded, braced herself, then opened the portal again. But when it did open, the drow felt only the vaguest of pressure against their heads before the sensation was gone entirely. The protection spell seemed to have worked. There was a feeling of relief settling over the remaining party. Now, all they needed to do was discuss matters of his reincarnation.