A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 94: Meeting

He glanced over at Selene. "Lady Duskhaven, is it even worth it negotiating with this lackey of your kinsmen? He claims to know 'information about you' that we would consider relevant, and seems to be teasing that as a means of getting something valuable from us, like perhaps some of those children he lost. Is this information you are interested in hearing? Because I am apathetic about it." He turned back to Ethefein. "We made our offer. If you want proof of the lumber, we can supply that. Easily. More than easily." He pulled the first foot of a raw plank of Darkwood out of his bag of holding, then pushed it back in. "As just a taste. Now, what proof do you have of your side of the bargain? Your word? Even under the effects of a spell that makes lying impossible, deception is still easy. Especially guarding your language as you do."

"Your description of how they treat me is not inaccurate," Ethefein admitted without changing his expression. "Why do you think I have come here, while they have not? I admit that I was curious to see how the other side functions." A surprising admission, considering how both Selene and Tsabdrin shifted slightly where they were. No big change of expression still.

"The other side functions far better," Caleldir said smoothly. "Consider this, Ethefein: I am an outsider and a male, and I am treated better and trusted more by the remaining females of Duskhaven than you are by your own brothers. Tsabdrin can say the same, and he was a rebel along with you. Perhaps his kinswomen view him with some hostility, but he is not as ground down as you, and his lot promises to increase with time, not decrease. You bet on the wrong side, son of Duskhaven. All this negotiation aside, I care not what secrets you have for victory: if you had a literal demon god backing you your side will still not be able to match what we will be increasingly be able to bring to bear on you. The rebellion cannot succeed. Surely you have seen this. You would have been better off with the loyalists from the beginning. We are not the cruelty of the last generation, to grind down loyal members because of sex or age. Sadly, now, perhaps, it may be too late to change sides." He dropped his voice. "But it is never too late to abandon the insanity."

Ethefein sighed then, and looked extremely tired for a moment. "Nice words, and a nice fantasy. But I have cast my lot and abandonment would be deadly. As for what I know, I admit that I personally know nothing of whomever has been kidnapped. Duagmyr, however, probably does. Let that truth be a sign of good faith." Then there were small exhaled breaths of surprise. No one expected such an open truth, as it seemed to be. The truth was also, unfortunately, disappointing.

"Your information is that you know not, but Duagmyr knows," Caleldir replied. "Well then, that is worth the price of admission. Perhaps not the full amount, but something." He dropped his tone again. "Then again, perhaps a wealth of wood like that would be best spent on your own, without your kinsmen's help. Maybe even a little extra. Even if you cannot join us, no need to go down with a collapsing cavern when you could be running off into the Underdark with a grand fortune..." he let the promise of his words trail off.

"A tempting offer. I will think on it." Ethefein leaned back in his chair slightly. His expression slowly became more open, which just meant that he showed his tiredness more and more. "I did not just come here to tell you this; I was supposed to gouge you for all you had. Perhaps get you to give us the girl back." His voice lowered to a murmur, but it was still easily heard by those in the room "By the abyss, I don't want to deal with that brat anymore..."

"What knowledge do you have about me?" Selene demanded. Suffice to say, she was interested in the information. She knew she should have been cautious, that she should have had more forbearance. Unfortunately, as would be obvious to Caleldir through their partial mental link that was established, Selene was not handling meeting one of her rapists very well. Her emotions were beginning to slip, though her face was even still mostly serene.

"That I will not give for free, and, as I said, will not take lumber for it." The smile was back, more tired than before, but still decently confident. "Instead of making you scramble to give me things to tempt me to give up the information like a good drow, I will tell you what I want: A conversation with you, Lord Blackdawn. Elsewhere in this building, under the same protection spells we are subject to now. Except you can not share the contents of that conversation with any other person until this whole rebellion is resolved. You will be free to leave at the end of the conversation; it will not keep you for more than five hours. Very likely, it will take less time than that."

Caleldir glanced over at Selene. Well, Caleldir was a man of his word. He would of course not breathe a word to a soul. Risa, however, who was hitching a ride on top of his alter-ego's ethereal presence, could tell whoever she wanted. So, he had nothing to lose by making this bargain. -Selene, I am going to take it, unless you have some strenuous objection. Risa can tell you what was said. Most likely. There is a possibility she may not be able to observe. Is that a risk you are willing to take?-

Upon hearing Selene's mental reply in the affirmative, Caleldir, who had not given any indication that he was consulting Selene - instead just looking like he was considering the options - nodded. "I swear to you that no one but the gods watching us all will learn a thing of what passes between us from me," he said with decisiveness. These days Risa qualified as a god watching them all. "May the vow bind me so that I cannot break it until the war between us is at an end, else I be struck dead. Is that a sufficient guarantee for your confidence, son of Duskhaven?"

Tsabdrin had to work a little harder than usual to keep his face passive. To Ashyr's poor little brother, those vows of Caleldir's likely sounded complete indeed. Except that the opposite was true. Oh, the joys of only having to tell the literal truth. Selene, however, was in no mood to be amused by such things. She was barely keeping herself together as it was.

"You will even be interested in the information I will share with you, Blackdawn," Ethefein said. "It will shed some light on what is going on, and why we are going through this in the first place. But that is all I will say with everyone present." The young rebel stood and indicated that Caleldir should do so as well, gesturing toward the door out of the room. He still looked tired, but a little relieved now. Caleldir's words about being mistreated and leaving the area had only made Ethefein appear a little sad. He didn't seem to be seriously contemplating the other male's warning or suggestion.

"Wait! Tell us first the information about me!" Selene demanded.

Her cousin paused. "Fine," He said after a moment of contemplation. "I was going to tell at the end, but..." he shrugged. "I know why you're showing so soon; if you wish to stop progressing so rapidly, you need to stop eating your personal rations. We discovered an enchantment that not only improves fertility, but the rate that the child develops. If we did the calculations correctly, you should be full term in only a few more months whether you stop eating them or not. You were an experiment, Selene. You and your child. We were probably going to destroy you after breeding you a couple times. Until Irahc'vic fucked it up." This was said matter-of-factly, with no malice in his voice or attitude.

The mage's face twitched. Shit. -I stopped eating those rations weeks ago. I didn't know that they were enchanted, there were just better things to eat. The baby- I just figured that she was- Selene began to communicate with Caleldir. Then she took a deep breath. -I just figured that she was coming along so quickly because she was yours. Or something.- She placed a hand on her stomach. -I didn't think it was possible that- Well. I am glad that I know for sure now. Let's hope that information was worth it.-

Caleldir twitched a bit in anger as well, but kept his composure. -I thought that as well. He replied. Your pregnancy is still much slower than a nymph's, if slightly faster than a human's. But no matter. The baby will still be fine at human or even nymph speeds of development. I made sure of it. Anyway, Risa will tell you what you need to know later.-

"Interesting information," Selene said aloud after the brief moment it took for her to communicate with her mate. She didn't want to sound too shocked by the news, if only to not give her cousin the satisfaction. "What are these experiments for?"

"That is all I will say in this company. I promise that more will be revealed to Lord Blackdawn. Not that he'll be able to share. Now, are you ready?"

"I am," Caleldir said in a low tone. "Let us see what you have to say." He strode off after him, smiling inwardly at the unusually literal usage of the word 'us' in this context.

"I will wait here," Selene told Caleldir before he left. Already she had a book in her hand, pulled from her bag of holding that was dedicated to such things. It was either lounge around the library reading or lounge around in the Duskhaven room within the Negotiations house. There, she got to be nearer Caleldir - not to mention the fact that Risa wouldn't be able to bring them back to the Lltkahril Estate until Caleldir was able to go as well. Tsabdrin wordlessly lifted his hand in farewell. It looked as if he intended to stay with his sister.

Ethefein led the way out of the room. His orcish bodyguard followed him as far as the door, then turned in the opposite direction and walked down to the main floor. "This way, to the end of the hall," Ethefein informed Caleldir. To the end of the hall he went, to a door that was firmly shut. With a wave of his hand and a temporary glow of otherwise invisible runes, the door swung open into a room mostly empty, save for a small couch with an end table. It was mostly void of decoration as well. Only an area rug covered the floor to break up the monotony of the carved stone. That, and another closed door along the far wall.

Although he projected confidence and did not betray his lack of ease, Caleldir was very much expecting an ambush. Or something of the kind. Now, of course such a suspicion was ill-founded and highly impractical given the current situation - and not in Ethefein's interests anyway - but still the Underdark had a definite tendency to bring out the paranoia that lurked in the back of Caleldir's mind. But, as the rational part of Caleldir knew from the beginning there was no real reason to worry. Except about Ethefein's motives for telling him this. He suspected that Ethefein was trying to sow discord in the group, which would not work, but other than that the male drow's motives were inscrutable to him.

"In here," The rebel said as he walked into the first room. Just as he promised, the room was still warded by truth and anti-violence magic. No hidden assassins. "Shut the door behind you," He said as he turned to face Caleldir, his back towards the second door that remained shut. He did not move to take a seat on the couch, apparently intending to stand during his conversation with 'Lord Blackdawn.'

The room was quiet enough. Ethefein did not sit, so Caleldir did not sit. Instead, he stood solemnly in the room, not too close and not too very far from the son of Duskhaven. Caleldir wordlessly shut the door by means of telekinesis without looking behind him. "So, we are here."

"We are here," Ethefein agreed slowly. He seemed every bit as wary of Caleldir as he should have, considering the circumstances. "I... heard about what happened at the Dinoryn Academy," Ethefein began cautiously. "I understand that you suffered quite the indignity at the hands of that foolish matron." That observation was worth a very small, yet appreciative grin. His expressions were reminiscent of a subdued, short-haired Ashyr. "As would be expected, Dinoryn is still reeling from the destruction the seemingly mild-mannered servant of Jhul'une caused when he was pushed to his breaking point."

"Word got out, then." Caleldir sighed. "I suppose that something that big would not take long to spread. I did tear up the place pretty badly once I was released from all those seals your mercenary put on me. Quite a canny operator, that one. Where is he now? Not that you would know. I suppose a fellow like that likes his mystery." A slight but of amusement quirked at the corner of Caleldir's face when he thought of how the women of that school would react to him now. Part of him wanted to return to their just to get there reactions. That would have to wait, though. "I do boast some substantial raw power. And have allies much more powerful than I am. Another reason to rethink your current position. Like I said, I cannot forgive you your past, but if you were to disappear soon-ish and leave your self-destructive brethren to their own foolishness, I would not look for you too hard, understand my meaning?" He let that thought hang for a moment. "But I will not bring that topic up again. You know our positions quite well."

Ethefein ignored Caleldir's suggestion. "My sister found herself a powerful companion. But I wonder how well you really know the women of Duskhaven, and the problems that they have and are facing? Have they told you all? Do they even know all?" he asked seriously.

Caleldir rolled his eyes. "They have not told me all, I am reasonably certain, and I am sure that they do not know all. And I do not know them as well as I would like. The Underdark where I come from is a very different place than this one. The Blackdawns and our subjects are a less fiendish lot than you in the wider Underdark. At least in part because we had to learn to get along to survive in an exceptionally hostile part of it. I am used to enemies being without, scratching horrors from terrific curses constantly ready to leap in and devour us all, not back-stabbers from within. We did not have the luxury of treachery. But I am not blind to it. Your sisters are drow from the wider Underdark and I fully expect them to come with all the baggage that that entails. I doubt that you could shock me with new knowledge. But I am willing to be proven wrong."

"I would not be surprised if Ashyr does not know of this, being as absent as she was the past thirty years. It is a family secret that none but the most important of us learned. That is, until Duagmyr discovered the truth. Suffice it to say: the women of Duskhaven are no longer fit to carry on the line. I will show you proof in a moment. But first, a bit of an explanation - remember that, if you are fool enough to keep with my sister's cause, you cannot tell anyone what you have seen here. Also know that is impossible for anyone besides me and Duagmyr to enter here."

"Sounds serious," Caleldir said dryly. "And sure, Ashyr probably does not know if the 'family secret' is of recent origin." He internally rolled his eyes at the level of secrecy that Ethefein was engaging in. And only he and Duagmyr? Please. The door or dimension did not exist that could not be accessed once is existence was known. Once he saw this room, Risa would know what and were it was however they tried to hide it. They could then enter at their leisure.

Ethefein took a deep breath. Then he turned around and touched the side of the door behind him. A mystical mirror blinked into existence that covered the whole of the wall beside the door. "This is what is on the other side of this door," Ethefein explained.

The room beyond was almost as sparsely decorated as the room the two males stood in. The only additions were a low, small bed and a bookshelf full of dozens of books. What was in the bookshelf wasn't as interesting as what was on it though. Cross-legged and reading a book atop it was a youthful woman who looked as if she very recently passed into adulthood. She was almost exactly like a younger Selene. If Selene had long, slightly curled blond hair, pink eyes, and a complexion like the palest of cream. She didn't seem to notice that she was suddenly being observed. She continued reading, an absent smile on her strangely pale face. The hand that was not holding the book open played idly with her gossamer lavender dress that seemed to flow around her and spill off over the side of the bookshelf.

Upon looking at her, Ethefein held an expression of intense disapproval and perhaps even a bit of disgust. He remained silent, waiting for Lord Blackdawn to inevitably react in kind.

Caleldir blinked, not certain what he was seeing. It was Selene as a surface elf. Wait, not a surface elf. An albino drow, and merely a relative of Selene. Wait... he remembered this. When he had worked in the geneforge on Selene and his daughter he had seen unusual markers for a sort of albinism, but he had chalked that up to his own DNA. It was possible that Duskhaven had a strong latent strain of it as well. He glanced over at Ethefein and the disgust on his face. He burst out laughing. "Oh, please. This is your big secret? What you have here is either a genetic throwback from our pale ancestors before Lady Aralolth broke up with her twin brother Laretholon, the father of her first daughter Ellistraea, leaving him for the Black Titan - father of her other three children - and the lines of Dark Elves and Light Elves diverged, or, much more likely, an albino.

"Do they not teach genetics in this part of the Underdark?" he continued. "Sheesh, you are all so obsessed with genetic purity, and you do not even know what genetics are. You have a sister with a pigmentation mutation. What a great shame. If it had happened in my family, we would have sprung for a wizard to cast a permanent polymorph to undo the mutation and move on. The problem here is not that a sister of yours was born with pale skin, it is that Duskhaven has had an utter failure of imagination in dealing with it." He shook his head. "If any impurities exist in the Duskhaven genome, I will simply remove them. If this is the troublesome from some surface-elf crossbreeding into the Duskhaven line closer than the point of variance back when light and dark split, then that is unfortunate, but it can be fixed. Thank you for letting me know about this. I will have to do some genetic engineering on the children the Duskhaven women have in order to prevent a recurrence of the misfortune." Unless it was curse-based, then the solution would be a bit more dicey.

Caleldir studied the elf on the other side of the glass. "Maybe see what magic can do to this one this late in her life. She seems healthy and pretty enough. Besides the lack of color in skin and eyes, that is. Solvable, though, solvable."

Caleldir's reaction caused Ethefein's face to grow dark with anger. He managed to keep himself from shouting or doing anything drastic at least, but it was clear that he was deeply offended. "Lord Blackdawn. Do you take us for fools? Do you think was have conveniently forgotten spells that our former Consort is capable of casting? We have tried everything. It is like the gods have deemed that she should look like this. And not just her - every. Single. Child. After her, there were none that were normal. She is the healthiest of all of them, and she has problems with both hearing and vision at a certain distance. The women of Duskhaven have somehow been cursed. By who or what, I cannot tell. You must see how great a shame it is for our family! Not only do they look different, but they have quantifiable physical disabilities that no one seems able to cure!" He tapped on the side of the wall again, and the magical image of the young woman disappeared.