Drow's Dilemma Ep. 120: Return

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 120: Return

Another two months passed in the City-Camp of Temporary New Duskhaven. More and more of the Ellistraean clergy and faithful arrived, greatly swelling the drow population. Near the end of the two months, the number of surface drow fully equaled those of the Duskhaven refugees themselves. Just about every good-aligned dark elf on the surface of the world had made their way to the growing camp.

That had led to increasingly difficult administrative tasks, which in turn meant that the overworked Hadlyn called for Caleldir to visit her for lunch and relaxation quite a lot over that period of time. Caleldir was initially rather resentful of being 'on-call' in that way but quickly came to enjoy his time with the High Priestess.

At the end of those two months, the rest of the Sunites finally arrived in a massive host. Aelsuna was a very popular deity in the Light Elven Empire of Byzromine to the south and east. Though the empire itself did not send any resources formally, a number of their most powerful and devout nobles were willing to leave their lands to their heirs and go crusading in addition to a large number of younger sons of nobles that did not expect inheritances. The entire high Clergy of the powerful church brought with them a host of nearly seventy thousand souls, most of whom were fully capable of fighting. Like the smaller host of faerie and Light Elven pilgrim Sunites before them, the Byzromine Sunites camped near rather than with the Ellistraeans and did not concern themselves with events in the Dark Elf camp, except to send an influx of supplies and constant messengers to the military arm of the camp to coordinate troop actions for the forthcoming invasions.

Even though the host of humans, halflings, gnomes, fae, and, most importantly, Light Elves, kept away from the drow, there was nonetheless a lot of issues between them, mostly from the less reformed ex-Lolthian drow. There was always some stupid thing to resolve.

Another set of notable arrivals was a small band of entertainers, along with a couple of other people from the south who either joined the troupe or were in the area to do business with the Duskhavens. The troupe settled in neutral ground between the various camps where most of the adventurers had cleared the hostile undead and automatons. The idea was that they would make an entertaining place for all the factions to go to, and begin to see that everyone can, in fact, get along. In practice, the Sunites and surface drow enjoyed the grounds. The Ex-Lolthian drow barely attended; they were not sure what to think of this foreign entertainment that did not involve orgies or much in the way of any sort of gratuitous decadence.

Some from their group took it upon themselves to brave the Ex-Lolthian encampment and visit Duskhaven Manor. Carlotta, who came with the troupe as a resident brewer (and fulfilled any other task that an alchemist could), joined the small group. Zarag was also a member of the party; he had been working as a guard while they traveled and entertained through Clachleom. The leader of the troupe, Artur, was the third and final member of the group.

Ashyr greeted them all and filled them in with the grand tale of what happened to her and the rest of her city. By the end of the story, Artur had a few epic recitals filed in the back of his mind for entertaining his customers later.

Zarag was there to get advice on instilling a bit of... order to his unruly band of mercenaries, but Ashyr wasn't a good person to ask. Fortunately Gurzan and his wife - the Eagle-Shifter Harmony Sunfeather who was a devout worshipper of Aelsuna herself - had made their appearance a few days previous. As Ashyr was not a good person to go around instilling order - and Selene and Caleldir, who were, were in turn very busy - it just so happened that there was an unusually powerful and vigorous ancient half-orc around who took deep delight in putting chaos into order.

Zarag was glad to meet with a like-minded half-orc and was fascinated by Gurzan's situation. He, at least, was proof that Lawfulness was something that more than just one orc could achieve. There weren't many men currently with Zarag; he had come with a couple of trusted would-be generals of the more organized society the orc-elf strove for. His giant brother and necromancer sister were still at home. They were tasked with keeping the tribes from doing stupid things to their neighbors. Still, Zarag and his men learned quite a bit from the man that shared their heritage.

In addition to his wife, Gurzan brought along some six daughters - the six unmarried ones. He had another twelve or so, but they were with their husbands and not adventuring. The cheerful girls spent most of their time fluttering around in the form of multicolored, very pretty Brilliant Harpies and seemed to all be incorrigible flirts whenever their father was not around. They seemed especially fond of the Duskhavens, with Aria and Viola particularly taking a liking to Ashyr and following her around.

Ashyr had been very interested to meet Gurzan's daughters and wife. They had been a source of mild curiosity in those early days and proved to be even more interesting than Ashyr had imagined. She welcomed Aria and Viola to go wherever she did, though she humored Selene when she demanded that they could not follow her into bed with Caleldir. That didn't stop Ashyr from playfully seducing them into whatever they were comfortable doing with her. Viola and Aria were not hard to seduce into lesbian interactions, but they both said that the first man they slept with would be their husband - whoever he may be - so were unwilling to do anything with any males. Between those two and Carlotta, the Matron of Duskhaven had more than adequate stress relief from her growing duties as leader of her faction.

Carlotta was just there for a social visit and stayed well past the time when Artur and Zarag took their leave. Caleldir was very pleased to see Carlotta, but he did warn her to be careful not to be alone in the camp since he was afraid she might be targeted. He did not know if whoever continued to steal away women who had had some sort of connection to him would target her or not, but he did worry. Ashyr invited her to stay in Risa's domain for a few nights just to be safe, which the redhead accepted happily.

But it wasn't all happy meetings and the logistics of the supply movement. With all the pregnant women who Caleldir wanted to use the gene forge on, the Duskhavens were looking towards the cursed lands with more serious ideas of beginning the cleansing process. The first step was to go to a place where they had already managed a bit of clean-up: Naliira's tree and the dryad town surrounding her.

A Grand Council was called, with the Clergy of Aelsuna and Ellistraee, the nobles of the surface and Duskhaven drow, and the High Nobles of Byzromine all coming together in an affair that almost went bad a half-dozen times, but ended up a complete success. A stressful success.

Thus it was that nearly sixty-thousand soldiers, mages, and clerics began the march to Grand Oak. Ashyr and Caleldir led a small band moving ahead of them. It was time to pay another visit to Naliira. They fully expected a repeat of the events that occurred the first time they entered the edges of her forest. Their expectations were mostly realized; the forest itself came alive, heavy sleep mist filled the immediate area, and branches and vines attempted to snatch up Caleldir and whisk him away to the Tree.

Caleldir grabbed hold of Althaia to pull her along with him. After all, the sooner he got to 'Naliira', the sooner he could purify her for good. To do that, he needed a powerful Divine Spellcaster, a powerful Nature Spellcaster, and someone with deep links to the fae.

Of course, that was Althaia. She could port herself between trees to get to him, but just being pulled along would be faster and easier. So it was that Althaia, lightly dressed in her slight white dress as usual, wrapped her arms and legs around Caleldir, holding on to him so closely that the vines would have no choice but to pull her along as well. They had not been instructed to disclude anyone, after all, only to take Naliira's 'husband' back to their home in the tree. When they arrived at the aforementioned place, they were met with a rather surprised-looking dryad dressed in clothes very similar to Althaia's. Everything was more or less as it was when Caleldir last left the treehouse, though some of the corruption had crept back into the edges.

"My- my love?" Naliira said in a confused tone. But her moment of hesitating surprise passed quickly. She lunged forth to embrace her 'husband' with all the clinging affection of a wife that had been left behind for months. "You were gone so long! And you have brought a guest." When she mentioned the guest, she tore herself away from Caleldir to face the nymph.

"I was gone far too long," Caleldir said sincerely. Yes, he was. But it would not have done them much good to purify Naliira's tree if they could not muster the forces to protect her from counterattacks.

Althaia curtsied gracefully. "It is good to see you, my lady." Unleashing her true form, she trusted that the natural sisterhood between Nymphs and Dryads would keep Naliira from being angry or jealous.

A flicker of recognition crossed the mad dryad's face when Althaia dropped her veil. Worry had been growing at the corners of her eyes, but somehow... Her mind processed the information, filtered it, and then her expression turned happy again. "Then I welcome you as a sister, Althaia," Naliira said in a pleasant tone.

An almost ghostly faerie-like thing flitted around the dryad's head until it coalesced as a young toddler standing next to the three of them. Well, sort of like a young toddler. While being completely opaque, she still seemed insubstantial somehow. What was seen of her legs under her knee-length dress was covered in the same corruption that plagued the tree they resided in. But her eyes... they glowed a mad Goelon blue and held much more understanding than any girl her apparent age had any right to.

"She is one of his wives, mother," the child said with a wicked, knowing grin.

"Aurae!" Naliira chided as one does with a child that has unknowingly said something incredibly rude. But then her expression became uncertain as she looked between Althaia and Caleldir. "Um. Caleldir. This is your daughter, Aurae. I like the idea of our Caleldir being guarded by those who love him." She hooked her arm in Caleldir's and looked up at him with adoring eyes. "Not that you require protection, my love. I'm sure you're the strongest, most capable man I know." which wasn't saying much, as she lived alone with her daughter in the middle of nowhere with only corruption to keep them company.

Caleldir's eyes went wide. Oh. Oh, dear. He had given old Birchborn a half-sister. One who was likely to be even more powerful than she, with time. "Aurae?" he confirmed, blinking. "I... I did not know..." He mastered himself, then he knelt next to his ghostly daughter. He knew that her real body was in a pod somewhere in the tree and this was just her soul connected to the tree and able to manifest anywhere in or near it, but even with his knowledge of dryadic gestation, it was still strange to see her like this.

Especially with those mad eyes, giving him a penetrating look.

Althaia gave the little girl a broad smile. "You are very smart, young one. I am Caleldir's wife. Or he is the Consort to my House, right now. I hope to be properly wed to him later." She turned back to Caleldir, eyes asking him about the corruption.

"Very smart," Aurae said in a mocking voice. "Of course I'm 'very smart.' My parents have abnormally high intelligence scores even for their species. What you mean to say is that I'm very perceptive."

Althaia chuckled. "Very perceptive, then."

"Darling, please be more polite to Althaia!" Naliira said in clear embarrassment. "Didn't you hear? She is going to be a part of our family!"

The unborn dryad's fingers rose to massage the bridge of her nose. "She's really not, mother." She said in a tone of a person who had explained something hundreds of times without success. "They are a different family. You do not belong with them."

Tears began to fill Naliira's eyes. She didn't seem to know what to say to this, though, and chose instead to flee to the bedroom.

The child simply seemed frustrated that her mother ran away from her again. She could have followed her, of course, but Aurae was clearly unwilling to do so. Her wintery blue eyes turned back to Caleldir.

Caleldir seemed upset. "You are very unkind to your mother, Aurae. Althaia, please go after her." Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and went slightly translucent. When he opened his eyes again, they were identical in color and intensity to Aurae's own - which caused Aurae to blink as if trying to see more clearly. He was not transformed into Goelon, but tapped into his power. Rapidly, he swept the toddler up into his lap as he sat down on the couch. For an ordinary person, grabbing the spirit of an unborn dryad would be impossible, but Caleldir was partly ghost from birth.

The confused curiosity in her expression shifted to alarmed annoyance. Parts of her went nearly invisible, which appeared to do absolutely nothing to alter her situation. So it was that she found herself on her father's lap, being chided by him for the first time.

"It is good to meet you, Aurae," he began in a tone surprisingly gentle despite its echoing hollow strength, "and I am sad that I could not be there for you earlier, but you speak of much that you do not understand. How can you? You are not even a year from conception, and have not been born yet." He brushed down her ghostly hair, so like his own at that moment. "Your mother is under a powerful curse, my little one, a curse that I suffer from only in part. It makes her weak, flighty, and emotional. You are not affected by the curse, because you are born with it. It does not cloud your mind, at least not to the extent that it does your mother.

"I know all tha-" an annoyed Aurae began to say. But Caleldir was not done talking.

"Now, we are going to purify that curse. Since it is so much part of you, it will likely hurt you quite a lot and will complicate the process. But you will survive, and feel better afterward. But your mother will go from a scared elven wannabe to an ancient, incredibly powerful demigoddess. And then you can both be part of a family with me, Althaia, and the others you have not met yet."

An arm came up to hastily wipe a ghostly tear from her eye. "I can't stand Mother the way she is, Father," she sniffled. "She is stupid and weak and lies all the time. But... I don't want it to hurt."

Caleldir gave his daughter a quiet, ghostly smile. "Your mother is scared, yes, but she had good reason to be. But she is not weak, and she does not lie. What you see is not her, but a bandage over a wound. She has been terribly injured and is very ill. You have only seen the small part of her that is trying to protect the rest of her from dying from her illness." He sighed. "As for it hurting... well, I could have lied to you and said that it would not. I do not know if it will, but it will almost certainly not be fun. All you can do is to try to be strong." Which was a lot to ask for an unborn child, but Aurae was not ordinary.

He set her down then morphed back to his normal form. He gave her a sad, tired smile. "I go now to try to cure your mother. You should try to sleep through the ritual. It will help you avoid it."

Aurae seemed to take his advice and her spirit fled to her pod. Before disappearing, her expression was equal parts contemplative and worried.

Meanwhile, Althaia followed Naliira to the next room to comfort her. The 'elf' was curled in a ball around a pillow, in which she had her face buried. She hastily brushed away tears and looked up when she felt Althaia enter her room.

"Do not take your daughter's words to heart," Althaia said gently. "We would be honored to have you in our family. All we need is to be able to cure your illness. That is what I am here for in part: to help heal you."

"I don't know what I did to make her so mean to me," She complained to the nymph. "I must be a terrible mother. I- I think she hates me. Can you and our Caleldir fix that?" It was a bitter remark, not an honest question.

Althaia gave Naliira a comforting embrace. "Aurae is... well, I do not know how to explain it. It is not really your fault. And Caleldir and I can help you." She tightened her hug. "All you have to do is let us."

Naliira returned the nymph's embrace with a tight, clinging hug. It was nice to feel the touch of another person again. Her daughter was never affectionate with her anymore. "Okay..." She responded in a trembling, unsure voice. She knew she needed the help, somehow, she just wasn't sure what that help was supposed to be.

Caleldir walked in. "Well, shall we begin?" he said quietly.

Althaia pulled away. "Yes." She said in an equally quiet voice. She pulled out the little Risa figurine and the Sunite holy symbol: a sun with a lovely woman's face on it. "It is time to get some divine assistance from two different goddesses."

The Dryad turned to Caleldir and untangled herself from Althaia's embrace. So. They were going to start. Naliira watched the trinkets with interest. Then, the goddesses behind them powered up. The tree shifted and groaned from deep within its roots where most of the corruption lie. But the unaffected leaves shuddered and seemed to sigh with relief. Naliira's nostrils flared. Her eyes, wide with surprise, flashed a more brilliant oak-leaf green.

"You- you actually-" she whispered in horrified wonder. The tree itself seemed to echo her words. Then branches whipped out from all around her to gently wrap around their mistress' limbs and lift her into the air. In this manner, she 'flew' out of the room through a window newly created for that purpose. "Oh, my poor city," the leaves and trees moaned. The awakened dryad reached towards her tree, and a partially corrupted pod the size of her head was delivered to her. She took the pod in her protective grasp, and it detached from the tree and melded into her stomach. "Sleep, little one. Feel no pain".

Her daughter protected, she outstretched both of her arms. On the ground, roots boiled up and shot across the immediate area where the main dryad grove resided. A pattern quickly emerged: a circle to channel the purifying natural and divine power. "The center is the trunk." She yelled, and her tree whispered. "Go there. Cleanse this area, and I can assist more."

Both Caleldir and Althaia at least somewhat expected that some sane part of the ancient tree-goddess would have been sleeping deeply underneath the brokenness and madness, but when the tree came to life and pulled Naliira's weak body into herself, it was still a surprise. More so for Caleldir, though, since he lacked Althaia's deep connection to nature.