Chapter 13: Hauntings

It was astonishing how much work there must be in the small section of the library Aestith was tucked in, or so he quietly remarked to one of the library aids, who chuckled uncertainly, and continued dusting the shelves, slightly further from Aestith. Books were a rare commodity in the Underdark--books of history and lineage in particular, but that wasn’t what interested Aestith. He had certainly strolled through that section, surprised to learn how much stock others put into dead things.

What Aestith had actually wanted to learn about was anatomy. His own, but of course he dare not suggest such a thing. Instead, he tried to find books on elven and human anatomy, as much as it pained him to think of himself as elven. Many drow didn’t, saying that a wood elf and a high elf may, in the end, think of themselves as “elf” before the previous syllable, but a drow elf defined themselves by the former rather than the latter word. But with a knife to his throat, Aestith might admit, quietly, that his ears were pointed and his body was lithe. There, of course, the similarity ended. Might as well point to his liver and heart, for all the similarities he had with orcs.

Good luck finding a book on drow anatomy, however, so here he was. Besides--that was exactly his point; if a drow could reproduce with a human and make a half-drow, they had to be similar enough to give Aestith some indication of what had happened to him during puberty.

It may have been a worthy goal, to be sure, but so far it had yet to spore. Humans were prudish, and even the medical books were too vague. What if it couldn’t be found in medicine or anatomy? What if he were an anomaly? Impossible--medical anomalies happened all the time. Even if something were rare and it only occurred to one in a thousand, how many thousands were there? What if he were the only one? He shivered.

Aestith had spent much of what freetime he had on the surface buried in one book or another--he had a penchant for horror stories and awful romance novels as a fascinating outlook on human affection--but something he had noticed was that the main characters often wanted to be unique and the only one like themselves. Why would you want to be all alone?

The sketch dominating the page was of an anatomically correct naked man. The pages were thin enough that if he propped the book up and took the next page, holding them both to a light, he could see something that almost looked like himself.

His hand, loosely clasped over the opposite arm, tightened. He had never felt so damned alone. Why had he come here? He hated it here. It was damned shameful to even be on the surface and he was miserable--so why?

Whiny, petulant child, he scolded himself. His grip loosened and he shook his head. He was here to study and learn somewhere relatively safe. No one could teach him, so he had to figure it out himself. Being here was just another test, another part of the struggle of his life. A trace of a smile graced his lips.

Something thunked loudly against the carpeted floor. Aestith jumped at the sound, then stilled at the librarian’s sheepish grin. His brow furrowed, and he looked back at the book. He closed it.

Aestith smiled pleasantly, amused to see the human shake in his shoes anyway, and turned to leave. The walk back to the guild was a long and miserable one--it was a sunny day. Surfacers called it “nice”, but it hurt his eyes, confused his vision, and had given him a handful of abominable freckles that other people insisted were “cute”.

He wasn’t certain if the sun or the rain were worse. He was idly halfway through a pro and con list of each when someone said, “Hey, lady.”

It took Aestith a moment to remember that that was him. He lifted his head, squinting in the harsh light. He recognized that boy from the other day. He stilled. “Did you enjoy the candy?”

The boy nodded earnestly. “Yeah. Uh, do you have any more?”

“I’ll give you another, but say, would you do something for me?”

The kid reached a hand out. “Yeah, sure.”

Aestith smiled gently. “Keep an eye on the guards in the docks, would you? Tell me what their daily routes look like, and I’ll have a whole bag of the candies for you about three days from now.”

He grinned. “Where can I find you?”

“Oh, around. The docks. I imagine there aren’t that many drow, are there? This street is good though.” It wasn’t far from the guild, and not on the route to his home.

The boy nodded again. “Sure, I can do that.”

“What’s your name?”

“Adam.”

“Adam. I’m Aestith.” Aestith gave him another peppermint candy. The boy stuffed it into his mouth, wrapper and all. His eyes were bloodshot but bright. “Don’t get into trouble now.”

“‘Course,” the boy said, before he scampered away.

Aestith smiled to himself as he continued his path to the guild hall. He was slightly disappointed that there didn’t seem to be anything available--that he was willing to do anyway. He waited for a while, while the sun crept over the sky, carefully staying indoors until it had passed its vile zenith. He used this time to reflect on what he was doing, to consider his own actions carefully.

Eilora and the half-elf were in the corner having a quiet discussion. When Monkey walked in, they waved him over, and Monkey, upon hearing what they were talking about, loudly called for Aestith. Aestith tilted his head and lifted himself from his seat. He strolled over to them, hands clasped neatly together. “Yes?” he said.

The paladin’s mouth drew into a tight line. “Sylvia came by this morning. I think she’s been up all night. She had been to nearly every alchemist in town, and finally found a recipe for what they claim will cure lycanthropy.” Wiltorin presented a stained slip of parchment.

Aestith set her with a bleak stare. “That hardly sounds profitable for us.”

Monkey seemed relieved. “Right?”

The drow reached for the parchment. He briefly skimmed the ingredients. “Some of these are poisons, which will cure lycanthropy, in a manner of speaking. They’re illegal in Waterdeep, if I recall. The rest are fairly common.”

“Maybe in Neverwinter?” Monkey said.

His eyes narrowed in thought. “Or find a smuggler, perhaps.” He sighed, handing her back the list. He never dreamed that he would memorize it. “But overall, this is a waste of time. We rescued the child.”

“But the kid could kill people!” Wiltorin hissed. “And this is partially our fault.”

Aestith’s lips curled, offended. “Our fault? Did we lure the child into the sewers and cage them? Did we inflict him with lycanthropy? I think not.”

Eilora pinched the bridge of her nose. “I mean, no, it’s not our fault that Zack has lycanthropy. And we did do our part of the job. But I mean, it’s just a little kid, and if we don’t do this, the kid is going to infect other people. It could kill Sylvia.”

Aestith’s brow creased in puzzlement. “Should we slay the child, then?”

“No!” the elf and the half-elf cried together. Douglas, at his desk, frowned at the group. Eilora smiled and waved. He nodded dimly, and promptly busied himself in his paperwork.

Wiltorin said, in a low voice, “No. I think we should try to cure the kid.”

“With illegal substances?” Aestith said, a smirk playing about his lips.

She hesitated. Monkey quickly interjected, “Look. There’s no money in it for us. Fact of the matter, some of this stuff is really expensive, and we all know we’re not getting that coin back.”

The half-elf floundered for a moment. She glanced hopefully at Eilora, who had suddenly found her shoes to be very interesting. Her shoulders sagged. “Well… Could we at least try to gather some of the other ingredients?” She offered the list.

Aestith sighed. “I have a bit of this. You can have it.” He raised an eyebrow. “If you stop bothering me about this.”

Wiltorin glowered. “Fine.” The paladin stomped away. Eilora hesitated, and followed her out. Monkey went into the basement, probably after more of that awful grog.

Aestith meandered to his stolen apartment. The warehouse was abandoned at all hours. Sometimes, Aestith had to run off a street urchin or two, but it was eternally empty otherwise.

He picked over his sparse alchemy table and selected the few ingredients he had on hand, collecting it in small bags. As he was stowing the bags, a thought occurred to him. He tore a sheaf of paper, just large enough to write a small note. The ink was cheap and tended to blotch no matter how carefully he wrote.

His sisters had taught him writing, and his penmanship was neat and precise no matter the language. If he had ever written illegibly, he was punished for it. They had assumed that if he wrote poorly, it was because he wasn’t trying, and they had always been in a foul mood because of the light necessary to see the writing. You can’t see a book in infrared.

When it dried, he slipped the small note into a pocket. He considered, and penned the recipe in the back of what he could call his prayer book--a patched together collection of what he had found worked and what routinely failed as he struggled his way through learning his own power on his own.

On the route back to the guild, he looked for Adam, not truly expecting to find him, but needing to nonetheless. The kid was probably high out of his mind in a gutter somewhere. Aestith cursed.

He was about to give up and go to the guild hall, when he saw another drow. He knew the man for a drow immediately, despite everything the other had done to disguise it. Ordinarily, such attempts would be laughable, but this drow was albino. The effect was that he appeared remarkably like a moon elf. However, he was a finger taller than Aestith and was slight of build; not at all like a moon elf. When the elf turned his head, Aestith’s fingers curled in irritation. The drow had, for some indiscernible reason, allowed someone to tattoo him like a damned moon elf too. A tattoo of dark purple, scarlet, poison green, and blue, speckled with white stars Aestith quickly realized were unmarked parts of his bone-white skin, swept from the corner of his right eye, along the cheekbone, and teased about the jawline. It stretched down his neck and disappeared into the collar of his leathers. It was some stylized version of the night sky that may have been accurate by inferior vision, but which infrared picked up quite differently.

Aestith wanted to slap him, scream and berate him for allowing such a thing to happen, for forsaking the drow so completely that he would abandon his own people to practically become a moon elf.

Aestith strode toward the drow. It was a busy market day, and the path was not clear. Aestith was small, and had to walk carefully, quickly, trying not to lose the pale drow, but everyone around him were so much taller. The sun glared and stung. Watching something white should not have been so difficult. Humans were drab, all browns, wheat, and peach. The other shades and bodies pressed close together, too tall for someone measuring less than five feet to see over. Aestith reached the place he had seen the drow.

His fingers clenched. The other was gone.

He cast about desperately, but he was short, and his quarry was not much taller. Where could he have gone?

Aestith sighed. Maybe he would see him again, and have another chance. He had to know why he would do such a thing. Aestith sincerely hoped it was a disguise. Or, if the tattoos were real, a better element of a disguise. If it wasn’t, Aestith had to know what could make someone do that. What would make someone disregard their entire culture and people? It made him sick to even consider it.

If the other had truly forsaken even being a drow, and refused to be converted, Aestith had to kill him.

#

Aestith gave the note to Adam to deliver, in exchange for more candy. To Wiltorin, he gave the ingredients he was willing to give. As the full moon drew nearer, she pushed for them to find somewhere to hire on as guards going to Neverwinter. Aestith was steadfast in refusing to go. Brass Monkey was equally reluctant, and Eilora seemed to regard it as an expensive and foolish errand.

The paladin left the next morning, and later that afternoon, just when Brass Monkey was coming down the stairs, Sylvia burst into the room. Tears marked her face and her eyes were red. “They took him!” she wailed.

Aestith cringed.

Monkey went to her. “Took who?”

She clung to him. “Zack! They took my baby!”

“Who took your baby?” he cooed.

Eilora hurried toward them. Aestith rolled his eyes. Sylvia moaned, “They took him away!”

Monkey glanced back at Douglas. “Let’s get you some fresh air. Come on. Have a drink too.” He offered her a flask. She grasped it and allowed him to lead her back out the door, away from Douglas. Aestith watched out the window, listening to the tone of voices, the body language between the three.

Of course, Aestith already knew what Sylvia was crying about; the guards had taken her child. It was what happened when someone was stricken with lycanthropy. The child had been a danger, and ordinarily, Aestith would have no huge compunctions about such things, but he lived too near where the infected child was. That it caused emotional distress to Sylvia and Zack were merely amusing side effects. The woman could always have another child--Monkey seemed willing enough to assist--and Zack would be put down before he could be a menace. There weren’t really any downsides.

Monkey seemed to have calmed her down somewhat with Eilora’s help, and they shooed her away. Monkey dropped down into the chair opposite Aestith. “What was that on about?” the drow inquired.

The human rotated his neck until it cracked. In a low voice, he answered, “Guard took Zack.”

“Hm,” Aestith grunted.

“Should… we help her?” Eilora said.

“And do what, pray tell?” Aestith said blandly. He chuckled. “Fight our way through all the guards in the prison to get to him, and fight our way out again?”

She scowled, but could offer little to retort. The door creaked open. Monkey shot a glance at it. By his expression, he had half-expected Sylvia to have come back. He relaxed upon seeing the bronze dragonborn. Aestith braced himself; Deekin was annoying.

Deekin boomed, “Hello! What’s everybody doing? Why so glum?”

Eilora began to answer, but Aestith said, “Did you notice any new jobs posted?”

A tiefling had clambered down the stairs and peered at the bulletin board. “Anyone going to do this one at the farm?” he called over his shoulder.

“What one?” Monkey said.

The tiefling plucked it from the board and plopped it down on the table. “This one.”

They looked over it briefly. Kairon was only a handspan taller than Aestith, the others looking down at him. Deekin towered above everyone as they crowded around the posting to read it.

“An unknown reward,” Aestith said darkly.

“A chest full of magic items,” Deekin reinterpreted.

Eilora frowned. “But it says it’s haunted.”

Monkey pointed at Aestith. “Yeah, but we have a cleric.” He pointed at the tiefling. “And you’re a… paladin?”

The tiefling nodded assent. “Yep.”

“They allow tiefling paladins?”

Sage-green eyes narrowed. “What are you trying to say?”

They took the job with minimal fuss--it was something to do after all, and no one wanted to be around when Sylvia came crawling back beseeching further assistance. The tiefling had joined the guild only the night before, and introduced himself as Kairon. His presence was preferable to the half-elf, but only just so.

The walk out to the farm was long and unpleasant--for Aestith anyway. Eilora enjoyed being outside the city, occasionally commenting that she missed the countryside. Aestith bit back a remark that perhaps she should simply stay out here. Monkey seemed preoccupied and lost in thought, but Deekin was chatty as ever and Kairon had not yet learned enough not to provoke him, because Deekin broke out into song with the barest hint of an audience.

Aestith tried to ignore the cacophony that was Deekin’s lute. It wasn’t that Deekin’s voice grated to Aestith’s ears, more accustomed to the dark melody of a drow voice. It wasn’t that Deekin composed insane, impromptu ballads revolving around jokes, nor was it even his playing. Noise on the surface traveled, but it didn’t bounce and echo. So many things produced sound that a single voice could easily become lost. He missed the simple acoustics of a cave. Sound was a commodity in the Underdark. You wanted to keep quiet because noise traveled and echoed. A sonorous person was a bold one. Amalette dared to sing.

Music made the deep void where he missed Amalette ache all the harder. He missed Amalette singing, the sound of her voice, the way she stepped and walked. He missed her fingers plucking on the strings of a harp. He even missed her rapping his knuckles when he missed a key on the positive organ in the music room; Aestith was almost entirely tone deaf, and could not read music traditionally to save his life and had had to learn the tunes by memory before she eventually gave up trying to make a bard out of him.

There were stories that Lolth sometimes gave her Chosen the gift of song, letting them wield a fierce power they commanded with their voice or an instrument; this would never be one of Aestith’s talents.

Darkly, he stewed on an unpleasant truth; the only thing he was truly gifted with was his unrelenting faith. It was what drove him, who he was. Was it all he amounted to?

They turned down a fork and a series of wagon-rutted roads led them to a field of wheat covered in a cottony red fungus.

Monkey peered at it. “Anyone ever seen this?”

Aestith walked down the center of the lane, and did not poke at the substance. Curiosity was all well and good and you can learn a great many things by being naturally curious--though one of those things one might learn is death. Aestith could observe from where he was.

The others spent some time poking at it, then they collectively moved on. The wheat bent in a gentle breeze. Tufts of red fungus floated in the air. It stuck to one’s clothing, and it hadn’t mattered what precautions Aestith had taken previously, as he and everyone else were soon covered in it.

They got away from the field and were able to brush themselves off to some degree. A farmhouse squatted in the center of the fields. A man sat on the porch, his skin dark with sunburn and a bit of a squint to his eyes. Monkey and Deekin did much of the talking. The man was the owner of the farm, who had contacted the guild originally. The substance had shown up a few days ago, and their harvest would be ruined if they couldn’t figure out what it was. Apparently, the farmer was afraid of the liability if he were to sell it, even if it did seem to dissipate overnight only to be back again by morning.

“So why are we here and not a botanist?” Aestith interjected.

The farmer looked at Aestith. “Well, y’see. Around the same time as the blight showed up, we’ve had a bit of a haunting. Candles snuffin’ out, doors openin’ and closin’, strange sounds, all sorts.”

Aestith frowned, then whispered a few clipped words. With a cantrip, he was able to reproduce each of the things the man had named. “You see, it could just as easily be a rather simple spell. Not necessarily a haunting.”

The man shrugged. “That’s why I contacted the guild.”

The door flew open. A frazzled woman in a pink linen dress pointed at Aestith and Kairon. “Demon!”

The two glanced at one another, and back at her. “Ah…” Aestith stammered.

“Demon!” she bellowed again. “Back! Back into hell with ye!” Aestith took a step from Kairon, but she pointed at him as he moved. “Ye are banished! Demon!”

Kairon sighed and turned to the farmer. “Has she always been like this?”

The man shrugged. “Well…”

“Demon!”

Aestith scowled. “Can you shut her up?”

“Yessum,” the farmer replied before he ushered his wife inside. When the farmer had convinced his wife to stay upstairs, he came down again. Monkey asked a few pointed questions about any previous owners.

There hadn’t been a huge turnover of landowners, and each of the old ones listed in the deed seemed to imply that they had had it a good long time. No reason to suspect much.

The others looked over the surrounding area. After the usual bickering, they wandered back out into the fields again. Monkey collected some of the fungus and when Eilora had a chance to study it more thoroughly, she identified it as bloodmoss.

“Odd to find it here though,” she said. “Did you find out anything else about it?”

Aestith said, “The farmer said that the bloodmoss seems to dissipate at night.”

“So why can’t they just do the harvest at night, then?” Kairon said with a roll of his eyes.

“Because they’re human and can’t see,” Deekin suggested.

Monkey said, “Why’s it odd to find it here, Eilora?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Usually, you see it in deep forests. I’m pretty sure it is bloodmoss, but something is different about it.”

Aestith frowned. “It’s possible to breed different types of a plant from a plant.” The others did not seem to understand what he had implied, or else did not find it as interesting--he thought that someone had bred this new type of bloodmoss. Perhaps to a specific purpose.

Kairon stalked around the group. “Well. They’re concerned about the bloodmoss. The farmer said it was spreading, right?” An assenting nod from the others. “So why don’t we just do controlled burnings?”

Eilora crossed her arms. “Why is your solution to everything to set it on fire?”

Monkey held up a hand. “Let’s hold that thought.”

Another round of bickering ensued. Aestith rubbed his temples. “Can we at least move this argument into the shade? The sun is giving me a headache.”

Slowly, they moved back toward the farmhouse, while continuing to bicker. “--Sure, there doesn’t seem to be anything here now, but maybe come nightfall…”

“--And we’ll have wasted a whole day…”

It only went around and around. “Oi, what’s that?” Kairon said, pointing.

A series of wagons had trundled down the path. The people in the wagons wore black uniforms.

Cakecake growled and Eilora bent to give him a reassuring pat. “Who are they?”

Two of the black-clad men were talking with the farmer. The two men stood with their backs straight and broad shoulders squared. The sunlight glinted off the pommel of a polished black-handled sword. Cloaks with stitching mimicking feathers scarcely concealed crossbows on their backs. The farmer, no small man himself, was dwarfed by them. His shoulders hunched and his neck bowed. Whatever they had said, the man was cowed.

Aestith’s fingers twitched toward his crossbow, but he dropped his hand away as the men turned. Their polished breastplates showed the enameled, styled body of a raven.

The five of them stilled with distaste. “The Ravens,” Aestith said sourly.

“What are they doing here?” Kairon sniffed.

Monkey strode right up to them. Aestith watched the interaction from afar with bereft amusement. Monkey left quickly, somehow more irritated. Aestith strode past him and spoke briefly with the farmer. The man admitted that the Ravens had shown up of their own accord. When Aestith looked up again, he found that the Ravens were harvesting the farmer’s wheat, but not as an act of charity.

Aestith said, “Are they at least paying you for this?”

The farmer shrugged weakly. “I can’t do nothing with it anyway.”

The drow rolled his eyes, trying to let the disgust brush off of him. The Ravens bundled the wheat and loaded it into the wagons. Cutting out the infected parts was a way to fix it too, Aestith supposed. And kept it from spreading. But then, of course, that was no help to the farmer and thus no help to the problem of Aestith not getting paid.

The Guild 534 members moved away from the distraught farmer. They bickered and debated a bit, expressed opinions. They looked around the farmstead, and Kairon seemed to think there was something off about the barn, but couldn’t quite place what except that the tool rack had a missing tool. There was nothing they could do except to wait for nightfall. They set up camp in the barn.

Aestith said, “Eilora, what is bloodmoss used for?”

“Bandages.”

“Does it dissipate at night like this one does?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “No.” She thought for a moment. “It’s very sensitive though. People have tried to grow it and can’t. Come to think of it, it dies in warm temperatures.”

Aestith did not need to ask if it were too warm here, by Eilora’s wrinkled brow and her frown. He glanced out the barn door. What could cultivate a plant that could not be domesticated? What made the tiefling instinctively jumpy?

Monkey walked back. “Does anyone else think it’s odd that someone paid a high class adventuring guild to harvest wheat?”

“Should we try to follow them?”

Monkey said, “I sent Mickey to hide in their wagons.” Mickey was his newfound familiar of sorts, summoned by the magical pipes he had acquired.

Kairon patrolled outside. Deekin and Eilora took a nap in the hayloft. Aestith sat on the ladder, watching Monkey perform failed experiments with a bucket of water.

Monkey tried mixing the bloodmoss with water in a bucket or diluting it with some fluid he had. Nothing seemed to be causing any effect. The barn air was stifling, so Aestith opened the door and slid out into the moonlight. He tried to ignore the sky, and looked at the wheat.

He hadn’t really believed the farmer when the man had claimed that the bloodmoss only settled during the day and had seemed to dissipate at night, but the wheat seemed free of it now. When Aestith looked up, however, he saw a reddish cloud of the stuff in the air.

It couldn’t just be the night; the bloodmoss in the barn had done no such thing.

Aestith wandered back to the barn, considered, then threw the door open wide. The moonlight spilled across the barn floor. The wet bloodmoss in the bucket grew fine and floated, all but disappearing in the air.

“What—” Monkey said, then he stilled. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

He frowned, pacing in a circle. “Something… Hey, Eilora. Get Cakecake down here.”

After some grumbling, the nap was ended and they climbed down the ladder. Cakecake sniffed around, seemed interested in some hay bales, but moved on from them.

Kairon wandered in behind Aestith. “So all that bloodmoss is--what are you guys doing?”

“Shh--do you hear anything?” Monkey said.

The tiefling’s tail flicked. “No.” He tilted his head and his eyes glazed for a moment, then he looked down. “But there is definitely something demonic below the barn.”

Aestith’s lips curled in animus. “Perhaps we should get the farmers to dig a hole then.”

“I’m sure we can find some way down…” Eilora said.

The drow crossed his arms, but he sensed nothing out of the ordinary, and didn’t see much point in investigating piles of hay, and no one else seemed to be having much luck either.

Kairon grabbed a shovel. Aestith tilted his head. “Can’t Cakecake track?”

“If he knows what to look for.”

“Something like Kairon?”

“Hey!”

Eilora made an attempt, but Cakecake just kept looking back at Kairon. She shrugged helplessly. Aestith said, “What about the bloodmoss?”

She put up a bit of a fuss about that, but after another thorough search of the farm, ending back at the barn, she gave in and they let Cakecake sniff some of the bloodmoss previously stuffed into a bag. Cakecake’s pupils dilated. The badger went deathly still for a long moment before it bounded to the hay bales. It made grunting, snuffling noises, then disappeared behind them. Eilora and Monkey shoved a hay bale aside, revealing a small pit. Cakecake seemed proud of himself.

They found a rope and tied it to a post before they dropped it down. Aestith was the first down the hole, then the others. Cakecake had to be lowered down. The tunnel ferreted them in only one direction. The tunnel opened to a modest, earthy chamber. An imp stood on the floor of the room. It gave a hopeful smile full of misshapen sharp teeth.

“This our place,” it said.

Aestith stared blankly at it, reaching for his crossbow. Monkey said, “No. This human place.” Monkey nocked an arrow to his shortbow.

“Ours. Big one say ours.”

“Who is ‘big one’?” Aestith said.

“I no think you want to meet him.”

Aestith pointed the crossbow at him. “Maybe I do.”

It shook its head. “No. I no think so.” A pair of gauntlets appeared in its tiny hands. “I give shiny gauntlets? You go away?”

“Eat it,” Monkey said, and loosed. The imp vanished. Aestith darted forward and swiped the gauntlets. He looked around the room, but there didn’t seem to be any traps. Aestith holstered the crossbow to inspect the gauntlets. Two large rubies adorned the back of the armor. The rubies seemed to glow with some internal fire.

“What do you suppose—” Aestith looked up. The others were moving past the chamber, down the other tunnel. He stuffed the gauntlets into his pack and fell in line.

Monkey drove a piton into the earth with a hammer, then another rope around it. He threw the rope down a short drop to another chamber. Kairon snorted at the meager 10 foot drop and jumped down. Aestith rolled his eyes. Eilora passed Cakecake to him.

The badger squealed suddenly. Kairon jumped. A scythe swung toward him, slicing along Kairon’s arm. He dropped Cakecake and the badger careened after a nearby imp.

Eilora jumped in alarm and rushed after Cakecake. Deekin bellowed encouragement. Monkey poised to shoot. Aestith held his shield up, the crossbow in the other hand.

The scythe wasn’t wielded by anything Aestith could see or properly understand; it seemed to swing of its own accord. Kairon deflected blows with his shield, but he couldn’t hold it off forever. Cakecake’s jaws clamped around an imp that it shook like a clogged salt shaker. Eilora’s arrow glanced off the scythe’s blade.

Kairon yelled, “Don’t do that! You’ll hit me!”

Monkey pincushioned another imp. Aestith aimed at the same one when it didn’t go down. The scythe cut suddenly low, deft for something so large, and swept Kairon’s legs. The tiefling flailed, reached out a hand, and grabbed the scythe as if automatically. The paladin went very still and his sword fell from his hand. His fingers wrapped tightly around it.

“Damn it, Kairon!” Aestith yelled.

The tiefling blinked and seemed to shake. He gritted his teeth, a firm grip on the blade. The blade, suddenly caught, fought against him. “Hit it!” he yelled.

Eilora notched an arrow. “You just said—”

“I know what I said!”

Monkey leapt defly down, swapping the shortbow for a sword. He swung at the scythe, chipping off bits of its leather-wrapped handle. The scythe bucked and jerked in Kairon’s grip.

Imps flung fire, pelting Cakecake. Eilora turned to defend her pet. Deekin shimmied down the rope. Aestith cursed and followed suit, chanting a spell as he went. He flung out a hand, pointing at the scythe. Nothing happened. His stomach twisted. Why? What had he done?

The others fought around him, a cacophony of snarls, yelling, clanging metal. Their voices came mangled by the noise.

He tried another spell, a simpler cantrip, equally fruitless. The blood drained from his face. Had he been wrong? Had he displeased Lolth somehow? Had he failed her? Displeased her? He was on the surface, sure, and that was disgraceful perhaps, but it had never impeded him before. Why now?

He almost didn’t care when the imps were upon him, snickering and assaulting him with flames. If Lolth was displeased with him, nothing else mattered. Nothing at all. He shouldered his shield to defend against an attack. An imp cackled. He spun at another, but they seemed to anticipate his every movement. What had he done?

He thought of all the things he had done since the sacrifice. Or was it the sacrifice? Had it been wrong somehow? Of course it was wrong--I don’t know the proper way! Show me!

He thought of the farmer, of his wife in the house.

The scythe cleaved into his side and he fell. He rolled and his vision faded. He must have only been out for a few seconds, because he blinked awake to a glass bottle at his lips, being force-fed something that tasted like a healing potion, and smelled like Monkey, which was a combination of bad liquor and infrequent bathing. Aestith grabbed the bottle from the other’s hand and finished it, then dropped it to the side.

“Nice of you to join us,” Monkey mused.

Aestith touched his side, weaving a spell of healing into the touch. At least that was still working. “Fuck you.” Aestith found his fallen rapier, and swung toward an imp. It pierced the imp’s flesh and the creature fell, sliding off the thin blade. Kairon raised the scythe upwards and slammed it viciously down into the ground. Sweat beaded over his crimson skin.

The scythe snapped. The imps gave a little shriek and what remained of them vanished. Kairon, panting, let go of the scythe. It fell over.

“The farmer was missing a tool, right?” Deekin said. Broken fragments of the blade littered the hastily dug tunnel.

Aestith watched the light from Monkey’s lantern reflect off the blade, the way it seemed to shimmer as the human moved about the area. Kairon glanced at Aestith. “Hey. Drow.”

The cleric’s head lifted. “Hm?”

Kairon tilted his head. “Next time, when a spell doesn’t work, how about just jumping into the melee, huh?”

Aestith blinked. “What?” He hesitated. “Yes, of course.”

The tiefling grunted and stalked past him. How could a paladin be so blase about a cleric’s spells fizzling out? Aestith’s stomach churned. What did it mean when a cleric’s spells were ineffective? Was Lolth displeased with him?

His brow creased in thought as he turned with the rest of the party. Deekin climbed up first and they hoisted Cakecake to him. Aestith was no use there, and hung back, watching. Am I of use anywhere?

The old scars on his arm ached and his fingers twitched with a familiar itch. He wanted to cut. Why did he want to do that?

The despair. It was the only way he knew to handle despair. His eyebrows knitted together in concentration. Despair.

He had gotten over it last time because of Lolth. What was the lesson to be learned here?

He relaxed, eyes closed slightly longer than a blink and he almost laughed. The lesson was obvious, and he had almost despaired and thrown a tantrum like a child. I am a child, he reminded himself. Barely 42. He had nearly sixty years before he was even a proper adult. How quickly he had decided that Lolth was displeased with him! How distressingly easy it had been to fall into despair. That had been the true test, not these failed spells. No matter how good you were at something, how talented, you failed once in a while and a god had nothing at all to do with it.

The young drow shivered. And he had nearly given in to his own despair and insecurities, believing so quickly that he had displeased Lolth. As if that were the only reason a spell might fail! Absurd. He had done nothing to fall out of the Spider Queen’s favor, had he? No.

He touched his chest before he climbed up the rope, whispering a simple cantrip to grant assistance. It worked perfectly, and he felt at ease. Everything was exactly as it should be. He had to remember that he wasn’t only a cleric. He had to remember that he was himself too, and that while he would never excel at melee or distance combat the way others could, it was always an option. His spells weren’t all there was to him.

#

The farmers needed to confirm that the bloodmoss was truly gone, and said that they would send the items to the guild, so they walked back to town in the morning. Deekin sang a bawdy song of their conquests. Aestith wondered what it would be like to be deaf.

“So fuck the Ravens,” Monkey chirruped.

This was met with a chorus of agreement from everyone else. Aestith said, “Does anyone else want to do something to that bloodmoss they took?”

“Set it on fire?” Kairon said.

“Always an option. I was going to suggest we steal it.”

They discussed briefly what to do, then decided that they would have to ask around. To accomplish this, they split up and said they would meet at the guildhall.

Monkey was able to talk to the people in the area with relative ease. Deekin hit up the local taverns. Aestith wouldn’t expect anyone to tell him anything even if they knew, so he went to the urchins and vagabonds.

A halfling hissed, “Drow.”

Aestith stilled and looked down the alley. The halfling gestured and Aestith followed him into the alley. The halfling said, “You’re looking for the bloodmoss, right?”

“Yes.”

The halfling nodded. “Talk to the Piece.” He gave Aestith directions to a bar.

Aestith nodded once, thanked the halfling, and stepped away. He made his way to the bar, down at the docks. It was a musty, grimy place, full of dark corners and grease. Aestith sat at the bar, ordered an ale, and watched the patrons. It was fascinating how there were so many poorly lit areas of the pub, and how so many of them gravitated toward the darkest recesses, then attempted to play cards in the dark. Many of them sported a tattoo of a puzzle piece on their arm.

The bartender, his sleeves rolled to his elbows as he scrubbed glasses, also had a faded tattoo of a puzzle piece. Aestith sipped the ale and said, “Your tattoo. Where did you get it?”

He shrugged. “End of a needle.”

Aestith’s lips pulled into a smile. “Where might one acquire such a tattoo?”

The barkeep looked up. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Aestith left his ale mostly untouched and followed the barkeep around the bar. The man knocked on a door, which opened, then knocked on a trap door. Someone below opened that as well and the barkeep gestured. Aestith strolled down the steps, past the doorman, and down a hall. The basement was dimly lit. A table dominated the room. There were stacks of maps, crates and boxes pushed to corners. A human male looked Aestith up and down, and waved him over. They discussed the bloodmoss briefly, and the man said that the Piece had been after it themselves, and more than willing to take outside help.

Aestith readily agreed when the man said that they knew where the bloodmoss had ended up. Aestith and he made a quick plan of action, a date, and Aestith left for the guildhall.

The others had not been so successful, and were already discussing taking a different job when he arrived. Aestith grinned at them. “I found the bloodmoss. Someone purchased it and moved it to the third story of an inn in the nicer part of town.” He paused. “I have some… associates who are looking to steal it. For their help, they want half the bloodmoss.”

“Deal,” Monkey said. The others agreed; this was mostly to spite the Ravens, after all, even if the rival guild had already sold it. During the day, Aestith took the gauntlets to a blacksmith to have them fitted to him. He probably paid more than this job was worth--drow incurred hazard fees for some reason--but they fit by evening.

They waited for the Piece across from the inn, and so as to be slightly less conspicuous, they sat on the outdoor patio of a tavern. Deekin played the lute at all passersby, whether they liked it or not. Monkey left the inn from the front door, waved to the doorman, and wandered across the street.

“How are we getting to the third floor?” Kairon said, eyeing the inn.

Monkey dropped down into the chair. “I can make it.”

“There’s no reason all of us need to go, right?” Aestith inquired serenely. “If a couple of us hang back, it would act as backup in case something goes wrong.”

Eilora ruffled Cakecake’s ears. “Cakecake can’t make it up there climbing.” She frowned at the windows.

Monkey said, “So the guy rented out the entire floor. We’re probably going to have to search every room.”

The table let out a collective groan. “Right. How are we getting all of us up there?” Eilora wondered.

Aestith rolled his eyes. “The real problem is myself and Kairon. Monkey and Eilora could just rent rooms on the fourth floor and walk up, or disguise yourselves as the help, right?” He shrugged. “Then you just lower a rope down the alley for Kairon and myself.” His eyes flicked toward Deekin and Cakecake. “And them of course.”

“That seems convoluted. Let’s just climb up there,” Monkey said.

They had a whispered, hasty debate, and Aestith raised his glass in a particular direction. “There they are.”

A member of the Piece walked up to their table. “Are you ready?”

Monkey rose. “Yep. We climbing in?”

“That was the plan.”

Aestith pinched the bridge of his nose. Why were all surfacers so intent on doing things the stupidest, most visible way? He dropped his hand to his lap. “I’m afraid stealth and climbing are not my strong suit. I will watch for guards.”

“Same,” Kairon said with a shrug.

The Piece nodded. Monkey eagerly went after them, Eilora with less enthusiasm. From the end of the alley, Aestith watched Monkey scamper up the walls and ledges like, well, a monkey. The human shimmied a window open then slid inside. A moment later, a rope dropped down. Eilora tested it once, then scaled up the rope. The Piece followed suit.

All was silent for several minutes. He held his breath as a couple walked by the alley, but they were too enamored with one another to notice much else. Aestith hoped to never be so oblivious.

A sack was dropped from the window. A Piece member caught it. The other two Pieces snaked down the rope, nodded to Aestith, and hurried down the alley the other side. Monkey and Eilora came down with a similar sack. Eilora seemed disturbed.

“Find anything interesting?” Aestith inquired.

“A dead cat,” Monkey blurted.

Eilora shivered. “A mostly dead cat. Tortured and nailed to the floor… There were all these candles and blood.”

“Anyway, we thought…” Monkey’s voice trailed off at Aestith’s expression.

“I know nothing of the occult, and little enough of sorcery,” Aestith said blandly. “I’m a cleric.”

“Yes, but—” He made a face. “Well.”

Aestith sneered and turned on his heel. Monkey sighed, and shimmied back up the rope to shut the window. He scaled down the wall again by clinging to the masonry, the rope looped around a shoulder. They gave the bloodmoss to Aestith for safekeeping, and despite what Aestith had said, he knew enough about the sorts of things the pair had described to commission a lead-lined box he used to store the bloodmoss in. He mixed a bit of the bloodmoss with the peppermint candies he made, unique to only one batch as he had little desire to squander a rare resource.

The farmers had a trunk of items delivered to the guild by the time they returned. Aestith watched everyone else divide it, but had no interest in much of it. Even so, he had the gauntlets, which he considered to be superior anyway. Many of the items they communally agreed were for everyone who had gone on that mission, so made a community chest of sorts in the basement with it.

Aestith never mentioned the Piece to the rest of the guild, seeing little reason to do so, but he kept the contact in mind in case they might be useful. The guild, he learned when he spent an evening at their tavern, were mostly keen on smuggling. He wondered how difficult it would be to smuggle things in and out of the Underdark. There was a quick way to profit. Or death.

Aestith checked in with Guild 534 every other day or so as he waited for a new job to be posted. When he came in in the afternoon, Deekin was standing in the hall, a small human protege beside him.

“Aestith!” he boomed. Aestith cringed. The boy’s eyes widened in a mixture of awe and terror at Aestith. Deekin grinned. A dragonborn’s grin was mostly teeth. “Meet Gullian. He’s my new squire.”

Aestith looked over the child. The boy was scrawny, but his leathers fit properly, as if they were made for him, and he held a light sword, made for a boy rather than a man, with a small buckler. The boy pulled at the leather armor as if he would prefer to be in silks. “How did you manage to squire a noble?”

As if to answer Aestith’s question, the boy tugged on Deekin’s sleeve. “It’s too hot,” the boy whined. Even if he hadn’t been whining, his voice would be high and nasally. “I wanna go home. Why is a drow here? Is she going to kill us? I wanna go home. This place smells bad.”

“I see,” Aestith said with a slight twitch to one eye.

Monkey waved a stained paper notice above his head. “Who wants to take the brewery job?”

Aestith snatched it from his hand and looked over the details. The others discussed their options, and settled on the haunted brewery. Aestith was tired of hauntings. Probably another demon.

On the way to the brewery, Monkey commented that he couldn’t find Sylvia. Eilora frowned in concern. “Maybe she was at work?” she offered.

Monkey shook his head. “Nah. Checked at the tavern too and no one has seen her.”

“That’s… troubling,” Deekin drawled.

“Who’s Sylvia? Why do we have to walk? Can’t we take a carriage? My feet hurt. Everything here smells like fish.” The boy continued to complain for several minutes before Aestith saw a tack shop, and told the others he would catch them up. He purchased a six foot whip and made his way to the brewery; Aestith really only knew one way to deal with problematic children. He had been raised with such aids, and saw little wrong with it. Granted, he knew that drow were quite different from others, and maybe other people may not require the threat of pain to keep a child from misbehaving. Even human children would tear the wings off of flies, and drow children often learned the basics of hunting and fighting from a young age, so really, it was wise to make them learn quickly what would happen if they acted out.

When he arrived, they were making some inquiries of the dwarven owner, Doudgrek Burlybrew, and inspecting the grounds. Monkey randomly attacked Gullian, to make sure that he was “always ready”. Aestith almost approved of this approach, except it was actually quite comical to witness.

Monkey had found a spot under a keg that was far warmer than it should be. They moved the keg and checked the stone floor, but it seemed intact. Doudgrek admitted that the constant fluctuations in temperature were a likely cause of his brews spoiling.

The tiefling’s shoulders sagged. “We’re going to have to dig it up.”

“I’m tired,” Gullian whined.

Deekin looked around. “Does anyone have a shovel or a pickaxe?”

Aestith gestured back toward the common room. “I’m sure that the dwarf does.”

Eilora’s freckled nose wrinkled. “Is that racist?”

“It’s Aestith, so probably,” Kairon muttered without the slightest bit of self-reflection; he would articulate passionately on how “short races cannot be trusted”.

Aestith rolled his eyes. Most of the digging was done by Kairon and Monkey in shifts. While Kairon was getting a drink, Gullian continued to whine and complain.

“We should let the child go to bed,” Eilora said quietly. “He’s grouchy.”

“I’m not grouchy and I’m not going to bed! I wanna stay up!” Gullian yelled, then continued to complain about the hot itchiness of his leather, and how the sword was too heavy.

Aestith’s fingers twitched toward the whip. Kairon slammed his cup down on the table and marched over to Gullian. The tiefling grabbed the noble brat by the lapels and hoisted him off of his feet. Gullian’s brown eyes flared with terror. “Be quiet or I will give you a reason to cry.”

Gullian nodded vigorously. Kairon set him down and patted his head. Gullian whimpered. Deekin and Eilora hurried the child off to a makeshift bed in the gallery of the common room.

“Hey, guys. There are stairs here,” Monkey called. He swiped sweat from his brow and pointed. There were indeed stairs, and rising from the stairs was a wave of heat as if a furnace had just been opened.

“So we’re going to go see Kairon’s mother, apparently,” Aestith said.

Kairon shot Aestith a scowl, then frowned. “I think I missed her birthday… Shit.”

Aestith feigned surprise. “I thought tieflings hatched.”

He gave Aestith a condescending smirk. “I thought drow reproduced by budding. Like flatworms and other parasites.”

One white eyebrow rose. “Why would we do that when other means of reproduction are infinitely more entertaining?”

“The two of you make great role-models for Gullian,” Monkey commented, his voice flat as a melted flan.

“Who makes great role-models?” Deekin said as he and Eilora walked into the backroom.

“You, obviously,” Aestith said. “For Gullian.”

Deekin beamed. “Thank you, Aestith. It really means a lot, coming from you.”

Aestith frowned, uncertain if he were being mocked or if Deekin hadn’t understood him.

Monkey gestured. “Found a stairway to hell.”

Eilora groaned. “Why can’t it ever be a stairway to something nice?”

“It’ll be demons,” Aestith said glumly.

It was demons, and some kind of human wizard with a female wraith-like companion who managed to escape in a room filled with runes over a doorway that, when they opened it, led to an earth wall. One human looked much the same as another to Aestith, but Monkey commented, after the fight had ended, that the wraith had been Sylvia.

Eilora looked over the runes and the markings, and she grew even paler. “Guys, I think this might be the guy who killed that cat.”

Kairon tilted his head. “Killed what cat?”

She sighed. “Fine. The guy who tortured the cat that I put out of its misery.”

Aestith thought of the bloodmoss stashed in a lead-lined box beside his desk. “Right. We should leave.”

While they were talking to the brewer, Brass Monkey climbed up the gutter to get to Gullian’s window. A voice from upstairs yelled, “Be ready!” There was a crash and Gullian screamed.

Doudgrek paused mid-sentence. “Ah, Is young Master Gullian--”

“He’s fine,” Kairon said with a dismissive flick of his tail. “So about our pay.”

“Is it taken care of? Can I start brewing again? It’s only that the beer would always sour, you see.”

Kairon nodded along dimly. “Yes, yes. Think of it as a new basement.”

Eilora said, “Or just pave over it.”

The man seemed doubtful. Deekin shepherded Gullian back to the guild. The child had to fend off one more attack from Monkey on the way there. They turned in the signed and completed contract, though Douglas of course wasn’t there so late at night.

Deekin walked Gullian to the bunkroom. The others slowly wandered to their beds. Aestith turned to leave. Kairon frowned. “Aestith, don’t you have a room here?”

“No,” Aestith replied.

He rubbed his chin. “Aestith. Where do you live, anyway?”

He glanced back at him. “Elsewhere.” He opened the door.

“Nearby? Because the only things nearby are a bunch of gutters and alleys. Aestith, do you have a house?”

“An apartment.”

A pause. “Is it a wooden box in an alley?”

Aestith frowned, decided not to answer, and shut the door behind him. It opened again a short time later. The tiefling probably thought he was being stealthy when he attempted to follow Aestith, but he wasn’t. All that metal he wore made such things rather difficult. Aestith took a series of wrong turns, then slipped between the broken boards of a fence where the tiefling in his clanky armor could never hope to fit. He took another wrong turn, just in case, then walked the long way to his stolen apartment. Two kids outside the warehouse coughing on smoke ran when they saw an armed drow walking toward them.

He stopped short, staring. His hands balled into fists. He was tired and exhausted after the fight and the long walk. He had wanted to just go home, then Trance for a short time and pray. Maybe eat something come morning. Someone had boarded up the alley he usually walked through to get inside. Breaking it wouldn’t be that difficult; people broke things all the time through here. But the easiest way to do it would make a great deal of noise. He paced around to the other side, but the buildings were just as close together as he remembered. A cat might fit through it. He paced back around to the other side. Now what?

Drow nobility could just float over it. Defy gravity for a short period of time and go right over with no trouble at all.

Aestith’Rix wasn’t a noble. His family had never been nobility. Not of any line, not going back as far as memory or story. It was obvious even just looking at him. Drow nobility were taller. They were bred for it; trained to be better than their lessers. Their skin was a true black, like Ondalia’s, so dark black it held traces of blue and purple. Aestith’s skin was a dark charcoal at best. Not onyx or obsidian, nor even a royal purple reminiscent of the colors of Lolth. Just a gray, like a dark ash. His skin had even freckled, a shameful mark of the sunlight. If he had been a noble, it would be too dark for such things to even show. Too dark for the small mole at the corner of his left eye--what some people called a beauty mark but what most drow would call a blemish--to even show up. His hair was curly, which meant that he had come from slave stock.

He was suddenly, miserably, aware of his station in life.

He could buy himself these expensive clothes, put on heels to make himself look taller. Experiment with paints like Haeltania and spend an hour a day on his hair, but it made no difference.

Commoner.

Merchant.

Surface runaway.

Male.

His eyes squeezed shut. His chest ached and he couldn’t understand why his eyes were watering. He blinked and the water threatened to spill. He wanted so much more. He needed to be so much more than what he was, and it felt like he couldn’t rise above it. It felt like who he was, what he was, impeded everything he wanted out of his life.

He swallowed the pain and the loneliness and lifted his chin. I’m being childish. Don’t cry about your damned problems, Aes. Fix it yourself.

He shivered, looking up again at the fence. He could probably climb it. It would take a while. He might have to drag a box over to it and step on it, but he could probably do it. He would do it, he decided.

He walked up to the fence, tested it for any rot or weak points, but the wood was new enough, and the pine was solid and even still fragrant. He looked up, frustrated at its height being twice his own. Damned humans. His teeth clenched, and he balked when his feet left the ground. He stopped, braced against the wood. His eyes were wide when he looked down. His heat signature lay resting on the ground, fading quickly where he had been. He was a solid foot above the damp street. He swallowed, and rose another foot, slowly, then gained confidence. He sailed over it, pulled himself beyond the fence, concentrating hard on maintaining the spell.

He floated gently back down, heels clacking against the alleyway. A grin split his lips.

He was no drow noble, yet he had learned one of their tricks anyway. He bit back the laughter, the sheer glee. It felt like he had bested one of his betters.