Safe Passage is a series of chapters staring Sszeyl of Orgolloyss, Zairith, and LiNeer about their adventures between Ezzebek and Castleton.
Safe Passage
Chapter One
Safe Passage:
Down the Highway, a rough draft
By Meany …The southern gate of Ezzebek closed with a dull thud which would echo down the tunnel for hours, and already Sszeyl felt the longing for the great sights of the capitol. But the longing was pushed aside, as training demanded. Duty before self. He turned from the city gates and stepped quickly to catch up with the horse-drawn cart already well into the Highway.
It was well past the twenty-third hour, and so the Southern Highway was all but abandoned, save for Sszeyl, Zairith, and a group of Duergar repairing some damage in the road. Sszeyl had never been outside Ezzebek, or the monastery for that matter. Sszeyl found the outside to be…entertaining if nothing else. For five miles Sszeyl was occupied examining the Highway, reading the maps inscribed into the cavern walls, and the signs of closed stores. After that, however, he started stealing glances at Zairith and his cart. Sszeyl's companion was a half-Drow, having much of the same traits as Sszeyl himself: black skin, white hair, long and pointed ears, green eyes which would reflect as red in little light. However, the half of Zairith that was human made him rather obviously different; his skin was a paler black, like ink that had been mixed well in water, and Zairith was taller and broader in the shoulders than Sszeyl would be when he was an adult, at the cost of several hundred years of life-expectancy.
Half-Drow were rare at the best of times, because the borders of the Drow nation were kept secure, and there weren't many human slaves left in circulation to interbreed with. That, and the Orgolloyss would force the free parents to treat the children resulting from it as if they were legitimate. No one liked having their illusions of power crushed, and so most abstained from the practice.
“Is there something you need, young Terror?” Zairith spake, annoyed eyes glinting behind pince-nez spectacles. Sszeyl hadn't realized he'd been staring so obviously.
“Why are we heading south? Isn't the closest gate to the surface north of Ezzebek?” Sszeyl wasn't sure of that, he just knew that the Girn mountains under which the Drow nation was built ended north of the capitol, while to the south they grew out to house the Dwarves as well.
“Correct,” Zairith confirmed. “But we are not going to the surface immediately in the first place. And in the second place, there's nothing worth seeing north, aside from wandering tribes of Catfolk and Halfling caravans.”
“So…we go to the Dwarf lands first?”
“Heavens no! They would kill us on sight. No, we're just going south a few week's travel, then starting east and out to the surface. We should be in Human controlled territory before the onset of Autumn.”
“Autumn?”
“It's one of the four seasons; Autumn is where it starts to grow colder, causing tree leaves to die, change color and fall.”
“Tree leaves?”
“They grow from the limbs of trees, helping the tree to catch sunlight.”
“…The Sun, I think I read about that, it's supposed to be a disk of fire which make us blind, yes?” Zairith rubbed his forehead and sighed, giving Sszeyl the impression that his companion was losing patience with him, so he stopped talking and moved to walk behind the cart. Zairith looked up from his expression of irritation, and looked around for the young Drow who was no longer standing next to the cart.
“Sszeyl? Where did you head off to?”
“Back here.” Zairith turned to look over his shoulder for a moment, but couldn't stay in that position, the cart was still in motion, and so he had to watch the Highway.
“Why are you back there? Don't you have more questions for the upper world?”
“I do, but you seemed to be straining to answer my present questions, so I thought I would give you some time to articulate an explanation without letting anger make you snap something incorrect.”
“…For someone so young, you seem very mature. I can't tell if that's a good mark or bad on the part of the Order.”
“Some would argue both points.” Another five miles, and another bought of silence. By now, it was approaching the sixth hour, and people were beginning to appear on the road. Brightly colored merchants, with laborers already working up a sweat. Commoner children running hither and thither happily. Sszeyl wanted to walk some more, build up his ability to walk distances, but…an elderly woman spotting him, dropping her glass of water, and fleeing made him reconsider. Being dressed as an agent of the tyrannical government did not go well with the locals, even if one had no authority to act.
The younger male jumped up into the cart, quickly laying down out of direct sight of the steadily growing crowd, and removed his backpack. In a moment, he had his thick, snuggibly warm winter blanket out, and cocooned himself in it, leaving just a small area around his mouth free to breathe with. “Good call, Sszeyl. Drawing attention to ourselves would probably not be best. We'll have to get you a disguise; unless you plan to stay under that blanket for the next month.”
Sszeyl laughed a bit, the first time in months. It hurt, like stretching muscles that had long been asleep. Reality soon cut it off however, as it always did. “I don't have a lot of money on me; nine gold…and I'd like to keep them as long as I can.”
“I'll lend you some coins, then. And once you have a wardrobe to work with, you'll pay me back by working along the Highway as we go.” That seemed fair. “The horse is getting tired, so while you wait back there with LiNeer and guard my wares, I'll go find a stable, and a tailor.” Sszeyl gave his agreement, and listened to the sounds of Zairith changing the cart's course, felt the various turns, and slowly slipped into Trance.
Drow Trance was not the same as Elven Trance. While Elves dealt with profound issues in their daily lives, growing as people each time they came out of it, Drow negotiated with their id. A savage, selfish beast; incorrigible and demanding. The natural harshness of the Girn mountains, and the Drow lifestyle fed the fires of the id, making it a predominant mental force in the psyche. So much that many of the older Drow, from before the time of Orgolloyss had simply given up fighting it, finding what the force wanted, and seeking it themselves.
Sszeyl's Trance went as expected. His id demanding that he get up and move, stop trying to subdue it so he could return home all the quicker. This of course he outright refused, stonewalling the id until it just gave up; for the time being. Trance ended after four hours, rejuvenating Sszeyl as it always did. And like he always did, Sszeyl stretched out any muscles which felt tingly from inactivity, in this case, legs.
The sound and smell of horses hit him, prompting the Drow to sit up and see that he was outside a stable, still in the cart and parked among other carts. Zairith's magical wares were gone, and so was the evil little cat he carried with him. But there was a pile of neatly folded clothes close to the driver's seat, which were far too small to fit Zairith, Sszeyl discovered on inspection. The most noticeable item was a long simple black tunic…possibly a robe, in a style Sszeyl had not seen before; exactly thirty-three shining black buttons along the front, with two at the sleeve cuffs. Another two were beneath it, along with a few changes of pants, and a pair of black boots.
“How chromatic,” he commented, looking around for anyone coming by and quickly removing the long woolen wrap he had been previously wearing, and his sandals. Trading them for the robe and the boots. The robe fit surprisingly snug around his upper body, though it didn't hamper his movement beyond some stiffness. Unfortunately, it left no room for his zai, his weapons of choice. They would have to be placed inside his backpack, along with his wrap, sandals, and other odds and ends he'd been carrying with him in the folds. While he was loading the backpack, he came across a torus of curious stiff white material, and lacking any knowledge of its use, simply threw it in too.
Now that he had a disguise, Sszeyl left the cart, and wandered around, looking for some place Zairith might elect to spend the night. A local tavern and inn proved to be the spot, with the half-Drow chatting and drinking with a group of other men in brightly colored robes indicating a profession in the mystical arts. Likely the half-Drow was discussing some magical mechanics Sszeyl wouldn't understand. And he did not want to pester him, but…he remembered Zairith telling him about working the money for the tailor off, and decided he couldn't well do that without a solid figure to work with. He strode up behind the Wizard, and tapped him on the shoulder.
Zairith whipped around, though his compatriots continued to chat without him. “Ah, you found the good tailor's gift. Best he could do without your measurements. How do they fit?”
“Snug,” Sszeyl answered. “Before your friends finish discovering the cure for ice measles, could you tell me what exactly these cost, so I could get to work?” The half-Drow scrunched up his face, trying to remember through the alcohol, and finally snapped his fingers.
“Ten gold from my reckoning. You said you had nine right-”
“Ten? Ten you say? Well, then I best be off to find myself some work. See you in a few hours Zairith.” Sszeyl hastily cut the elder male off, surprising his compatriots out of their chat, and left the tavern at a brisk walk, leaving Zairith looking quite befuddled.
Sszeyl had no problems finding work. All he needed to do when asked for his skills was to lift something immensely heavy. Like a cart, or a small horse, or on one occasion a very fat man. Being the strongest Drow in his generation back at the monastery had its perks. He was put to work hauling, lifting, and pulling for a merchantman, putting such a zeal into it, that he had earned half of his owed gold after ten hours. But by then, he was tired. Very tired, and nearly stumbled into several walls and people on his way back to the tavern. Just as he was about to round the last corner to the tavern, however, a foot lashed out, trying to trip him. Even fatigued as he was, pure reflex stopped him a step shy of being felled, and glaring at the owner of the leg.
It was a Drow girl, about as old as Sszeyl, his late eighties, dressed in the rich garb of a merchant's daughter. She glared right back, with a malicious grin, and Sszeyl grinned right back. His was twice her size, heightened by incisor teeth and canines sharpened to fine points, and his almost bald head giving probably setting off alarm bells in her head. She was taken aback for a moment, which gave Sszeyl just the room he needed to duck out of the way of another, much larger girl who tried to tackle him from behind. Hit the ground and roll back to his feet. Several merchants and commoners stopped to watch, as more girls, and several meek looking boys emerged from the shadows. The merchant's daughter stepped forward.
“You're a new face around here, so let me be a nice girl here. You boys have to pay a tax on all the money you make to us. Now I saw a few coins in your hand there earlier, so hand them over and I'll let you go without setting my friend here on you.” The large girl smiled, and cracked her knuckles.
Sszeyl was being robbed. He, a monk of Orgolloyss, a Terror, being robbed in the streets like he was nothing. It infuriated him, and he took a step forward, intending to show the girl with whom she was dealing.
I ask just one thing, Terror, that you leave your rashness behind. He paused. Sszeyl had promised to behave himself while traveling with Zairith, and getting into a street brawl…no matter how justified he would be in escalating it, was quite clearly against that deal. Shaking in rage, the Drow boy threw down his hard-earned coins into the street before the girl, and left without looking back.
Even so, he could practically smell the future merchant's smirk. -*-*-0-*-*-“You were surprisingly mature yet again, young Terror.” Zairith lay on the inn-provided bed, while Sszeyl practiced the Weaving the Web kata. The half-Drow was currently dealing with a hangover, having drunk a wee bit too much. “If you can keep this trend going, I can see us working swimmingly together.”
“Swimmingly?”
“Ah yes, the phrase doesn't translate to Undercommon-speakers well. It means very, very well.”
“Oh, very well. Thanks.”
“Now, do you want to get your coins back? And if so, how do you intend to retrieve them?”
“I don't. As a Terror, I have no authority to arrest, or interrogate her or her family, let alone scour a rich merchant's house for five coins out of many. I've alerted the Highway patrols to her activity, and now she'll be directly under the gaze of Orgolloyss until she proves herself innocent.”
“Now you're starting to make me wonder if you're a coward, boy.” Sszeyl stalled in his kata, and glared at the older half-Drow, the practiced 'You are dangerously close to being stabbed' glare all monks of Orgolloyss were taught. It at least gave the Wizard pause, seeing it from someone so young. “…Okay, fine. Not a coward. You still owe me ten gold, plus another five for the inn rental.”
“…If we can move further down the Highway, I could probably find work without bothering with that girl again.” Zairith agreed to this, and Sszeyl continued to practice his forms while the Wizard slept off his alcohol, his one eyed cat guarding him fiercely from the full-blooded Drow.
The concept of needing eight hours for sleep, a less active form of Trance, and then needing to spend another eight in front of a book to memorize magics was alien to Sszeyl. With two thirds of the day gone away, how did Zairith find time to do anything else?
Somehow, the time was found to pay for the inn room, the stabling of the horse, and start off down the Highway. Days turned into weeks, and Sszeyl worked them each to find a means to pay back the steadily mounting debt he owed to Zairith. He tried many different odd jobs, eventually finding he could sing, paint, and cook well in addition to his natural strength. Hard labor was still his main money-maker though.
By the time a month had passed, and the two were approaching the end of the Southern Highway, and moving East, through long abandoned tunnels mined out by the Duergar. It led the way to a naturally formed opening to the surface, which neither the Order, nor the nearby Dwarves had lain claim to. However, given that dangerous animals typically roamed the border between the two nations, like half-spider half-Drow Driders, Cave Bears, and other horrors; this wasn't entirely a surprise.
The caves here were heavily damaged. Cracks in the road, tunnels caved in, corpses of dead monsters, and explorers alike appearing every know and again as bones. Zairith insisted on Sszeyl sticking with him inside the cart, and keeping his zai ready for use.
Since there were no travelers, it fell down to hesitant conversations between the two, to pass the time. “Say, you still have those nine gold coins you started out with?” Zairith asked, engaging one of those discussions.
“Yes, why?” Sszeyl had been teasing LiNeer by poking her with the blunt handle of a sai every time she got nice and ready to sleep, annoying the cat into swatting at the weapon.
“Well, you've worked so hard to earn money, and you refuse to part with those few coins. It seems…well, confusing.” Sszeyl didn't immediately reply with a smart remark, which of course would set off warning bells in the Wizard's head. “Something the matter, young Terror?” Sszeyl kept his face completely blank, refusing to let any emotion show, to let so much as a single cell of his face betray his will. Zairith was about to ask again, when the horse suddenly stopped moving.
The Wizard, looking mightily confused, tried to stir it into motion again, but the mare simply snorted and refused. Sszeyl opened his mouth to comment, when something caught the attention of his long ears. A subtle clicking noise, and a faint hiss. Not having time to speak, he dropped his zai, snatched up the cat and wizard by their scruffs, and hauled them out of the cart in a flash with his strength, and shoved the protesting creatures under the cart.
“What are you doing-” Zairith started, but stopped when Sszeyl told him, in the furious hand motions of Drow Sign Language, that: Something is hunting us, stay here and prepare a spell, while I draw it as close as I can.
Sszeyl looked around the cave, noticing how cramped it was, compared to the spacious Highway, barely large enough for him to walk on either side of the cart. He stood still, trying to determine where the creature was by hearing. The echos made this difficult, if not impossible.
One of the most prevalent, and exploitable weaknesses you will find, is that people very rarely look directly up. This random line of information, learned in a lesson long forgotten, snapped Sszeyl's head up, seeing the eight-legged monstrosity of a giant cave spider a juvenile in a web, chirring peacefully to itself. Asleep. Sszeyl crouched down, and held his finger up, and gestured to move silently further down the cave. Quickly, while Zairith scrambled out from under the cart, Sszeyl tried to pull the horse down the cave, by sheer force of strength if nothing else. He'd started dragging the horse, carriage and all, when Zairith gestured wildly to stop, coming up to the horse himself. However, when Sszeyl let go of the reigns, the horse reared up, neighing in anger, causing the spider above to twitch in alertness.
The young Drow's vision went black when one of the horse's flailing forelegs struck him in the temple, and he went dead to the world.
Chapter Two
Safe Passage: Chapter Two.
Cat's Gambit
by Meany
A very rough draft
Sszeyl was obviously disinterested in the surface…LiNeer waited patiently for the inevitable to happen. The young one was just that; young. Youth could not be completely inactive for so long. He had been content to lounge in the back of the cart under a tarp while Master did business with his magic hat. She kept a vigilant watch…in between naps.
The boy was a kitten who had grown too large too quickly. Tackling problems with brute strength rather than his mind…like that spider thing. He had tried to force the horse to move against its will, and was nearly killed for it. Zairith should have been so angry at him after he had LiNeer deliver a Hold spell to the spider but…he was afraid instead. The boy had actually managed to pull a warhorse, and the cart attached to it with no difficulty.
Such raw power, Zairith answered LiNeer's queries into his emotional state, should have awarded Sszeyl respect among the power-hungry drow of Orgolloyss. At least put up a greater fight against his peers. No answers came from queries into that. Master was stressed enough, as the humans in the villages they passed through were particularly rude and boisterous. Demanding to see the 'sick elfling' hiding beneath the blankets. Zairith protested many times and even cast Hold on some of the more demanding youths. Their parents got onto them, and agreed to Zairith's suddenly hiked prices for his wares.
He worked gladly to help you down below, the cyclopian familiar purred to her master one sunset, as the drow boy took the reigns of the horses, while Zairith made ready to sleep for the night, why do you not find some way of letting him do so here?
Because, her master responded, removing his shapeshifting cap and making LiNeer her nest, he is young, and does not fully understand why he needs to hide in the first place. I am not willing to risk it just yet. LiNeer didn't understand her master on this issue. However, like many such things, she chalked it up to half-drow being backward, and not so wise as cats, then put it out of her mind while she settled down for her nap.
She woke, likely hours later, hungry for field mice. Making sure her master was sleeping soundly, she went to the highest point of the cart to look for the youngster. She needed to know where he was, or she could not leave Zairith alone. Well, the warhorse was there. But she was sleeping, and so unavailable to defend the master. Ugh, taking care of him was getting to be such a chore. More than caring for her own kittens had been. At least they did as LiNeer told them…mostly.
The view was nice, just twenty feet from the path Zairith chose them to take. In the crescent moonlight, the apparent sea of grass and hills glowed a faint green. The boy was nowhere to be seen, and his smell was faint; he'd been gone a while. Why hadn't she heard him, she wondered. He was not so stealthy that he could avoid her ears.
The wind shifted, and LiNeer caught a whiff of the boy along with..soap? It was scented after those strange trees the Drow kept as pets, but definitely soap. From the…north east. No other scents came from that direction, so either Sszeyl was not being stalked by anything, or the soap was overpowering the smell. Either way, the boy wasn't here, and so she couldn't go hunting yet. Willful ragamuffin, she thought to herself disdainfully.
The boy came back an hour later, smelling of the soap himself, and toting two large baskets of the same odor. In the moonlight, his normally green eyes shown red, and LiNeer's fur stood on end. She had seen eyeshine before…but something in the way that boy's red eyes combined with the so-slight-no-one-but-she-noticed glint of disdain in his bearing…made her think he was suddenly much more dangerous than she had originally accounted for. She hissed at him as he approached the cart, making her anger known.
“Instead of wasting time telling me you've been waiting, you should be off doing what you were waiting to accomplish,” Sszeyl drawled in the strange oily accent those more accustomed to Undercommon had. She fluffed out more at the tone, and left with an angry flicking in her tail. As she wandered into the tall grass, LiNeer plotted her revenge on the boy.
It was days before the warhorse was awake during the time Sszeyl wandered off so LiNeer could follow. Zairith had questioned the boy, and Sszeyl admitted to using the time to first search for local water sources, and if he found one, to bathe and do laundry. Zairith had tried to impress upon the boy the dangers of wandering, until Sszeyl fired back that he never went more than a five minute walk from the cart in any direction, and took the time to check on Zairith every hour or so. The boy had not raised his voice, but his tone had turned sharp, and that disdainful glint grew just a smidgeon. Out of fear, LiNeer had hissed and spat at the boy, causing the conversation to turn toward calming her down.
Not that LiNeer didn't mind the attention being put where it ought to have been the entire time, but she was starting to wonder about Zairith's eyesight. Couldn't he at least see something wrong with that boy? Was he going blind? When she made these opinions known to him, he gave her an odd look, like he was confused, and returned the sentiment about degrading eyesight.
Really, he did. The gall of him, implying she was loosing the use of her one remaining eye. She would have clawed him for his impudence, but he was the Master.
When she followed Sszeyl on one of his excursions, she found that his testimony was correct…except he failed to include simple wandering around the plains and hills, occasionally starring at the sky…as if he was looking for something by checking the stars. But that was impossible. The boy could not navigate by the stars alone, he had seen them for all of two weeks!
But despite all the warning bells, she let him be. He never did find any water on that particular night, and soon after returned to the camp.
One night, after Sszeyl had gone off, LiNeer smelled new scents on the wind as it shifted. Horses, sweat, blood, she stopped analyzing the smells after that, biting Zairith's ear to wake him. After cursing loudly, he dressed himself in his shapeshifting hat, and reached for his staff. The smells were coming from the south-west, while Sszeyl had gone south-east, so he was likely to be seen first. Zairith downed a potion to speak with the horse, and quickly rode off on her, giving LiNeer an Invisibility spell to use as she wished. She was left to guard the cart.
Just as well, in hindsight. She wouldn't have been able to do much anyway. Zairith and Sszeyl were brought back to the camp, Sszeyl in chains, while Zairith merely pushed forward unbound, by a group of human males, with a half-orc male riding a horse. LiNeer quickly made use of her Invisibility, and hid beneath the cart. All precautions being taken, stuff like that.
The half-orc started talking in strange half-formed sentences, and hiccuped a lot during his tirade. LiNeer had seen this condition when Zairith had been practicing his casting of Identify. The man was obviously drunk. His horseless soldiers, however, were not so inebriated, and casting fearful glances at Sszeyl.
The boy was not doing anything to make them less afraid, being eerily still, while Zairith whispered in his ear. Her master's emotions were chaotic, fear, anger, exasperation, but his face didn't show any of it. Zairith was more controlled than that. LiNeer stalked carefully closer to the rabble, looking to spook the horse with a sharp bite to the rump.
“Cheth the caht. Thee iffin youse can find erders fer the drew…un whateffa he usin' to cintrel the half-elf's mend,” decreed the horsed half-orc.
“Please sir, the drow is not controlling my mind!” Zairith in his guise as the half light-elf Mr. Ebonwood said. “He's just a boy I'm helping to escape the oppression of the drow culture! He's just a boy!”
“Thuddup,” the half-orc snarled. “Yerth under the protection of Thir Cumescuth, of the Royal Knights! Buth, iffin yerth a drow-thlupporter, then I can haff youse killed too!” LiNeer used the scattering of the humans as they searched the cart to sneakily wind herself over to the horse. A wiggle of her lower body to get the circulation pumping and….
No. Zairith spoke to her. Stay hidden, near me. The tortoise-shell fluffed unseen, but complied, parking her tushy near Zairth's feet. Sszeyl seemed calm, though it was obvious by his position that the chains were too loose to actually bind him. He was probably staying still because Zairith was trying to negotiate.
“Lord Comescu! ” A human stood from the cart, and held a heavily locked black book aloft. “I found this! The words on the spine use the Elven alphabet, but don't form elvish words!”
“Drew speak!” Sir Comescu thumped his armored thigh in delight. “Bringz it here, Privvit!” The private brought to book to the knight, while the other humans continued to search the cart. Zairith froze at seeing the book. What's wrong? What is that? LiNeer put the question to him while she tried to make him loosen up before anyone noticed.
Tebryn gave me a book of coded phrases before I met with Sszeyl. Apparently, all Orgolloyss members go through minor brainwashing to respond to certain commands. That book has the commands Sszeyl has been programed to respond to.
Now it was LiNeer's time to freeze. Sir Comescu had taken the book, broken off the lock, and was opening the book, browsing it. “Thiz must be his erders. Cannae read it…” The man was trying to read a book of Drow command phrases that would probably result in their dying…LiNeer didn't give Zairith the time to tell her to stop, she leaped into action. Hopping onto the horse's neck, she wiggled, and pounced the knight's face. He screamed as her claws tore into his forehead, trying to blind him with his own blood.
LiNeer hissed and spat, and growled as she mauled the man's face through his visor. However, the attack had rendered her visible, and in one solid yank, the knight tore her from his face, and threw her into the brush. “Thoopid cit!” Sir Comescu removed his helm, and rubbed some of the blood from his eyes. LiNeer landed on her feet, and ran deeper into the grass so the humans couldn't catch her. As she ran, she noted the sky was starting to lighten.
Doubling back, she crouched int the grass, waiting, tail lashing. The knight had passed the book off to a human, and was still trying to get his bleeding face under control. The human had thrust the book, open to a random page, and evidently commanded the drow boy to read.
LiNeer could feel her master chanting Oh crap over and over mentally in his head, at seeing the command's description: “Revert to previous existence.” She didn't know why Orgolloyss would bother with it, but Zairith had an idea it seemed, and was terrified by it.
Sszeyl, ignorant of the danger, began to read. “За, присутствующе; translation, past and present. Блеск навсегда с большим покорным. Вниз с прогулки шагов, и см. Большой зверь светлого блеска и горит все из творения. Придено вперед, придено вперед, придите вперед…” Sszeyl's voice weakened as he read, and finally, he hit the ground after the last word. Evidently, the human thought Sszeyl faking, and so kicked him. When that failed to rouse the boy, the stupid human reached down with a free hand to drag him up.
Sszeyl blurred into motion, and clamped his mouth over the man's neck. What at first looked bizarre turned horrifying when, with an audible 'squish' blood started pouring out of the poor human's skin. Somehow, Sszeyl managed to bring a leg up, and kicked the man away, showing a huge gap in his throat, bleeding greatly. The sunned moment faded, and the other humans sprung to action.
The drow boy didn't seem perturbed in the least, shouting a disdainful phrase in a language LiNeer didn't know, which, surprisingly, caused them all to stop for a moment while he removed the chains. “Sszeyl?” Zairith queried of the boy…who then whirled to look at him with such hate that LiNeer fluffed a bit in worry.
“You speak to the shell…as if it was alive enough to speak back. Simpleton.” Sszeyl's voice was harsh, growling, and much deeper, with a tone of such loathing that Zairith took a step back. One human, by this time had recovered, and charged the boy with a mace raised. Sszeyl grabbed the lashing weapon deftly, then somehow lightning arched along the human's form. The man screamed, and fell to the ground as a charred husk.
Sir Comescu was not idle, drawing his sword, and urging his horse forward. The drow boy snapped his fingers, and black tentacles sprouted from the ground and seized both horse and rider. Zairith took this time to retreat to LiNeer's location, and watch.
The…new Sszeyl continued to massacre the humans, using half-heated sweeping motions which sent them flying, and magical strikes that left corpses with each strike. A few tried to flee. They were struck by a spell Zairith identified as a Fireball…leaving a vast scar of scorched earth on the ground. All other foes exhausted, Sszeyl turned his focus to the bound half-orc and his horse.
“You, ignorant pigthing. What spell did you use to bind me to this carcass?” The knight spat on the drow. The drow, then administered lightning to Sir Comescu, obviously intending for pain, not death. “Tell me.”
“My lord!” Zairith spake, stepping forward hesitantly. Sszeyl's eyes had gone wholly red by this point, matching the ever lightening sky. “No spell was used… this is your body. Your reincarnation's body.” For a heartbeat, nothing happened, then suddenly Sszeyl was across the ten foot span between he and Zairith, having delivered a punch to the younger half-drow's jaw.
“You lie.” Sszeyl said, growling. “I, a great Red wyrm born again as a lowly elf?! Speak again, half-thing and…no, I think I'll just kill you now.” LiNeer, who had not moved from her spot, felt satisfaction from her master, and saw why. Sszeyl's punch had knocked him to the ground, partially under the force, and Zairith's allowing it, and so managed to unobtrusively get himself right to where the book with the command phrases had been. While Sszeyl gathered heat and light into his hand for a new attack, Zairith spake again, the release command for the brainwashing.
“Kadeesh-mal, kadeesh-mal! Parod oos, parod oos!” The orb of fire faded away, and the boy hit the ground again. Unfortunately, it also released the knight and his horse.
“What the hell was that?” Sir Comescu asked Zairith, not quite so drunk or so confident without his squad of humans.
“That, you oaf, is precisely why you don't read books which are locked closed.” LiNeer hopped out of the grass, and trotted over to Zairith, keeping her eye on the dead-to-the-world drow. “You activated brainwashing present in all drow. One of the reasons why I was trying to get this young one away from them as soon as possible!”
“Okay, okay. …I…I'll just go.” Sir Comescu looked from the young drow to the various corpses of the men he had lost. “Looks like a case of demonic possession. There will be people in under a day to collect the bodies…you'll want to not be here when they do.”
Hours later, Sszeyl was once again hunkered under the blankets in the back, being lectured about the dangers of blithely reading books protected with a Sepia Snake Sigil. The boy wasn't trained to know the SSS spell did not have that effect, and couldn't press too much due to a killer headache and pain in his eyes.
While Zairith passed along the knowledge of why Sepia Snake Sigils were dangerous, he sated his agitated cat's curiosity. The Order believes in reincarnation. That all souls of Orgolloyss go back into the drow population through their efforts long ago. They train their monks to find their past existences and learn from them, and then brainwash the ones who cannot do so to force the process. This is mainly to make sure the next reincarnation of Orgolloyss himself is located, and trained accordingly. However, if they can be lucky and have a powerful magic-user come out of a small child when they are so understaffed, then that's good too.
They abuse their children so much…and that boy is still loyal to them. LiNeer didn't understand it, an apparently her Master didn't either.
He doesn't mind what they did to him personally, it seems. However, their doing it to others is a reason he's planning out his itinerary hundreds of years in advance. Perfect martyr material,that.
What was his previous life? A spell-caster, obviously, but do you have any information in that book?
It seems Sszeyl is the reincarnation of some Red Dragon. The Order believes there is little time between death and reincarnation. Two weeks at most. So when they learned this, they thought of the only Red Dragon to have died anywhere near that time.
That one who burned the wood elves' forest? Yeesh.
Yes. That dragon was very old and powerful, too powerful for them to control right now, with so little manpower, if it is even that dragon at all. This explains a lot of his odd traits, like abnormal strength, insight, and slight avaricious tendencies. But to tell him he possibly committed genocide in a past life, but also definitely killed several humans would do nothing but stress him out even more, so keep quiet on it.
Yes, master.
I mean it, LiNeer. You don't tell anyone. Not even Rhylinar's ranger friends, Rhylinar himself, or Lethiriss, understood?
I understand. You're gambling on that knight keeping quiet, and not causing a domino effect, though.
He's a knight. His own broken pride won't allow it
You're rationalizing. Zairith stopped their conversation there, both with LiNeer and Sszeyl, and focused on the road. LiNeer curled up for a nap. Giving the body under the blankets a weak glare.