Listraeespace
Elnamerrna
Greenmonth 17th, 2461
Tyfelian and Kiran feverishly wrote Sildara's every word on papyrus sheets, sitting at the chartroom table. She updated them on Listraeespace history after the departure of over a hundred gypsy moth armadas from Elendraspace.
"We left Elendraspace and moved away from it as fast as we could," Sildara was saying, "but the Elendrans wouldn't give up. No matter what we did, no matter how Grand Admiral Trez'linnit tried to lose them, they dogged our path. We couldn't turn and fight, because there were barely a hundred of our ships against eight hundred of theirs."
Kiran raised an eyebrow at this; Tyfelian glanced up from his writing with a look of alarm.
"Eight hundred..." Kiran whispered. "I didn't know their navy was that strong... Tash used reconnaissance magic in Elendraspace and estimated four hundred and fifty."
"It was that strong, at the time," Sildara went on. "Then, we encountered a flow maelstrom." She paused to watch their reactions; Kiran asked the question.
"Flow maelstrom?"
"A rare and dangerous natural storm in the flow... akin to whirlpools in oceans," Tyfelian filled him in. Sildara smiled, nodding at the human that Tyfelian's words were correct.
"It nearly claimed all of our lives. We tried to turn away, but we kept heading straight toward it anyway." Sildara's face showed puzzlement at that last, but she continued.
"We crashed into its spinning arms and got trapped. Trez'linnit ordered all of the ships to change course and move away from it, but all we really managed to do was turn into orbit around it.
"Then, Trez'linnit came up with a brilliant plan—he ordered all of the ships to accelerate in their orbits as fast as they could, to use the maelstrom's pull like a slingshot.
"We got away, but every time one of our ships got out, it stirred the maelstrom with backwash. It got harder and harder for our ships to leave, as that maelstrom turned into a terrible hurricane.
"Worst of all, getting out of there cost us time and the Elendran ships caught up with us. Fortunately for us, they got trapped in the maelstrom just as we had.
"Trez'linnit saw that this was our chance—they were almost helpless! He ordered all of our ships into loose orbit around the storm... and to attack. We brought down most of the enemy and then went on our way.
"Not too far from that storm, we found Listraeespace," Sildara finished with a happy smile. "Here, we found solitude and comfort."
Tyfelian smiled, too, as he and Kiran finished writing. The half-drow pointed at the whirlpool emblazoned upon the chest of Sildara's uniform.
"Hence, the flow maelstrom symbol?"
"Just so," Sildara smirked slightly.
"I'm looking forward to seeing your people's works," Tyfelian said quietly. "The works in Elendraspace were really a marvel to see, so your civilization must have built places and homes even more grand."
Sildara nodded modestly.
Kiran finished his writing, then looked up at Sildara.
"One final thing," he said. "How is it that you and your people are not evil, vicious and cruel? A drow who isn't evil is nearly a contradiction in terms—we know of only one, besides those on this ship."
"How do you know that I am not?" Sildara asked, not flippantly, but with caution.
"We have ways," Tyfelian replied mildly, not looking at Kiran.
Sildara raised her eyebrows with a faint shrug.
"Hm, that's very ancient history. You're not really interested, are you?"
"Oh, yes," Tyfelian said, his quill ready and quivering.
Sildara's eyebrows arched with mild surprise, but she seemed to dismiss it.
"We're not exactly drow elves... our remote ancestors were called Svart Alfar elves, from the planet Midgard," Sildara explained. "The ancestors of today's Elendrans took us away from our primal home world by force, to swell their population a bit. Some escaped, though. The drow who became the Elendrans were the first generation to exist after the Spider Queen left the Seldarine. They came from all over the Inner Prime, and beyond, but my Svart Alfar ancestors were the first real dark elves, anywhere."
"What?" Kiran frowned, not really understanding.
Sildara snickered slightly. "It's common belief that the drow of many worlds look like they do because they've lived underground for so long. Not so. The Spider Queen made them look like the Svart Alfar of the first home world."
Both Tyfelian and Kiran looked at her with raised eyebrows at this revelation.
Sildara chuckled.
"No one develops black skin naturally, not without sunlight!" she laughed, but then her voice went serious. "The Spider Queen modeled her chosen after us—the dark elves of Midgard! Her idea of a joke on the elven gods."
Tyfelian's head spun a bit at the irony.
"It seems like both a... a little joke, and a ghastly tease, all at once," Kiran said slowly.
"... just like her to do something like that," Tyfelian muttered with a faint snarl in his voice. "And a private joke at that. I doubt that many people anywhere know that."
Sildara said nothing more, apparently not knowing how to feel about it, either.
"Midgard... where is that?" Kiran asked after a moment, resuming his writing.
"I believe that the Inner Prime community calls its crystal shell Terraspace," Sildara replied, "but I'm not completely certain of that.
"Now it is my turn," she said earnestly. "May I ask for a sheet of papyrus and a quill?"
Kiran handed over his quill and ink blotter right away, and Tyfelian handed Sildara two sheets of papyrus.
Taking them gratefully, Sildara prepared to write.
"If you know, what happened to Trizfastell, Ibinon, Eckrelde, Evin'shay, and Yilonzdel? Grand Admiral Trez'linnit, Eelistraee keep him, died decades ago."
Tyfelian and Kiran looked at each other grimly. Tyfelian bit his lip, and then nodded at the paladin.
The human looked at his clasped hands for a moment to collect his thoughts, then began.
"We cannot be absolutely sure, because we arrived at their stronghold centuries after the fact," he warned gently, "but judging by some notes we found there, those worthy five sealed their asteroid, and worked hard for... some considerable time... to set up a series of tests for any who would seek them and acquire their wealth and magical treasures. Trizfastell left behind a programmed illusion of himself to speak to anyone who tried for the Dridercomp," he said with a nod at Tyfelian.
"We arrived," Kiran went on, "and though the entryway was large enough for all of us to get in there, a bizarre wall of force held back all of our crew except Tyfelian, Alzja, Jaclyn, Trula, Tash, and myself. Tash nullified it, so we proceeded to explore the interior of the asteroid. There, we met Trizfastell's illusion of himself and he put us to various tests and illusions... for the details of those, I'll let you read our journals..." he waved that subject off.
"It seems that we were worthy enough to his critical eye, so we walked out of there with the six artifacts that seem to be legends to you. We also found notes mentioning a seventh, by Trizfastell's words an octahedron, but it wasn't there," the paladin said in closing. "We haven't yet discovered all that they do, but we're working on it. Also, I found my holy sword, armor, and shield—" the paladin touched the scabbard on his left hip, "- on that asteroid. Strange thing is, this equipment once belonged to one of my homeland's most famous paladins, so how it got there is beyond me."
Kiran glanced at a painting adorning the opposite door, but Tyfelian missed the look and spoke up once more, addressing Sildara. Sildara had noticed, but she held her question, as she was also interested in what Tyfelian had left to say.
"We spent little more time in Elendraspace," Tyfelian added. "It's as about as dangerous to a ship not from there as an underground drow city is to a surface dweller." The half-drow smiled. "But as I said, their homes were really something to see."
Sildara managed a small smile, recalling her former home in childhood memories.
"We patterned ours after theirs, since we know no other ways to build homes in the void... but we don't put spiders in the faerie fire."
Tyfelian and Kiran knew it was a figure of speech—sort of - but they got it and laughed softly. They remembered the large number of spider forms depicted in Elendran faerie fire artwork - typical drow artistic expressions.
Tyfelian stood, ending the meeting. "We will turn over the remains of your heroes to your authorities, then visit for a time.
"That brings me to a small request," he added, watching Sildara closely. She merely raised a brow, listening.
"As my lookout mentioned, we're lost. Can you tell us where Hearthspace is from here?"
"No," Sildara replied with regret. "I've heard the name of the place, but we don't know exactly where it is... your navigator is welcome to peruse our charts, though. Surely, you can find your bearings that way."
"Tash will figure it out," Tyfelian said confidently. "By your leave, I'll have Kiran find her and she will go to the Reztyngra in the company of your First."
Sildara nodded to Menlina, and the two executive officers left the chartroom.
"Just briefly," Sildara said to Tyfelian when they were alone, "can you tell me about them?" she asked, her head inclining toward the large painting on the opposite door. "They look like interesting people."
Tyfelian glanced at the door and the painting upon it. It showed six people—two half-elves, two humans, an elf, and a halfling. They stood on a docking pier against a stunningly beautiful bay. The vista in the painting showed two huge cliff faces in the far background, separated by water but connected on top with a rock bridge. In the nearer background, a galleon-class ocean vessel rested at dock.
"Mmm," Tyfelian murmured with mild amusement mixed with pride. "That is Vesgar and his party. They were an adventuring party about two hundred years ago. First, they got famous from ending a long war, then they started exploring our home continent."
"What happened to them?"
Tyfelian's eyes clouded with mystery.
"No one knows. They came home from the Eastern Reaches with books... some history of the first settlements on our continent, no less. Then they went back to find out what happened to those settlements and were never heard from again."
"How sad," Sildara offered.
"It was a long time ago," Tyfelian smiled slightly, "but still, these people are very well remembered and loved by Embimurans who study history." He pointed at each person in turn and named him or her.
"Vesgar, who is the 'famous paladin' Kiran mentioned," he said, pointing out the human holy knight, "perhaps Embimura's greatest paladin ever," he commented, "and Ernicus and Salcha," he went on, indicating a half-elf man and a half-elf woman.
"Rangers?"
"Yes," Tyfelian said, delighted that she had spotted that, "but Ernicus was a cleric of Taronin, too, and Salcha a paladin," he added, pointing out the necklace holy symbols on both of the half-elves. "Leftin, their halfling," he continued, "Thadius, their wizard," he said, pointing out a robed human man, "and Tack, their barbarian elf from Engethar Forest. The ship there is the Valorous, the flagship of the Embimuran navy back in those days." He translated the name because it was shown in Embimuran letters; Sildara could not read them.
Sildara stared at the painting wonderingly. It was a flash of history of a world she had never seen.
"Where are they?" she asked, almost dreamily.
"Dunnaplestis Harbor," Tyfelian replied. "Dunnaplestis is the largest city on Lallakel Island, which forms the southernmost portion of the nation. That's the Majestic Rampart in the far background," he pointed out the rock cliffs. "The Kreyra Sea lies beyond."
Tyfelian's spine unconsciously straightened with national pride as he looked at the painting and explained the place it displayed.
"Might be the greatest Embimuran explorers who ever lived. Evidently they went into space at some point, for Trizfastell gave Kiran Vesgar's sword, armor, and bulwark shield. History doesn't say where those came from, but legend has it that they were made in the lands of our planet's gods."
Sildara nodded, but laughed softly, pointing out the barbarian elf in the painting.
"'Tack'?"
"Yeah," Tyfelian said, his voice uneven with suppressed laughter. "In battle, he was famous for throwing handfuls of razor-point tacks at people," he explained. "Note the leather gloves."
Sildara guffawed for a moment, then turned to leave.
"I must return to my command, but I will visit again after we reach port," Sildara said to Tyfelian. "I like your ship... might I ask, what is its designation and type of vessel?" she asked as they crossed the room.
Tyfelian opened the door for her and stood aside.
"The Elnamerrna has no designation. My senior crew and I own it jointly, strictly speaking, though I like to think of the Elna as another adventuring partner, not just a ship." He stood at the doorframe to formally see Sildara through it. As she passed, Tyfelian saw, not amusement, but agreement and understanding on her face, with regard to his sentiment about the Elnamerrna.
"She's a variant of the Triop class ships made by the Mercane... which are a variation of the original design by the Rada. A bit larger than the usual make, and with heavy weapons instead of light ones."
They made their way through the Elnamerrna toward the upper deck and the topside weapon bays. Tyfelian continued, "The Rada make their triop hulls from glassteel. The Mercane copied the design, but they changed the hull to chitin, backed up by wood. It's a strong hull, but it's not so heavy that the helm bogs down when we try to turn."
Sildara listened, but she also looked around with intense interest, noting the Silver Triop's fine, varnished-wood interior construction and rich carpeting. Her eyes tried to take in all of the firmly mounted paintings and wooden bas-relief images, but there were too many of them. She looked upon renderings of many different places—cities, lakes, mountains, whole planets with their suns in the background, and plenty more, all covered with glassteel, if she guessed right.
She wanted to ask about one painting in particular—one which depicted a crystal shell that was not the usual near-black shade of blue, instead appearing mirror-like—but she could not, for even the smells of the ship overwhelmed her with a sense of wonder. Her fine nose readily picked up on the pleasant scent of varnished, well-cared for wood and clean carpet.
"How could anyone be so wealthy as to afford such splendor for a ship? I've never seen such a... finished interior. It looks like the palace of a wealthy family, except that it's made of wood. And the carpet... a very nice choice and well-cut." She looked admiringly at the plush, deep black carpeting.
Tyfelian chuckled. "We aren't really that wealthy... although adventuring is a profitable way of life, off and on. No, the Empire of the Elves assisted with the cost of building her, as our reward for our mercenary work during the War. With a wooden interior hull, a good carpenter can fashion it almost any way you'd want. We paid for the luxuries you're noticing... but some of the artwork is by my hand," he added, trying to sound modest.
"War?" Sildara glanced at him with some alarm. "Elves?"
Tyfelian raised a hand to stay her, with a smile. "In time, I'll bring you up to date on all the history my crew and I know. It's an interest of mine and of my command crew."
They reached the topside weapon bays. One of the guards there flashed a message to the Reztyngra, and they waited the few moments it took for the request to be relayed.
Both ships slowed down from spelljammer speed to move close enough to each other that the gangplank could be set.
Tyfelian clasped Sildara's wrist again briefly. "I'll ask Jalaysa to gather some of the best history books we have, in the correct order."
"Thank you," Sildara replied sincerely. "I expect a personal story or two from you, however, after I've brought myself up to date."
"That's a promise."
Sildara nodded at him and hopped up on the gangplank to return to the Reztyngra.
"Until then!" she said lightly.
Listraeespace, at the Listraeean capital city
Elnamerrna and Reztyngra
Greenmonth 22nd, 2461
Tyfelian rose from slumber and redressed for watch. He figured that the two ships would soon be arriving at the core of Listraeean civilization, or perhaps had already, so he dressed quickly and hustled out into the hallway, then went straight to the bridge.
He looked at the outeye hopefully and was not by any means disappointed.
The vast city of the Listraeeans spread out before the Elnamerrna. Its overall design reflected that of the Elendran drow, but the specifics seemed softer, more pleasing; Tyfelian's eye first scanned the floating slabs of stone that these renegade drow had built upon. All natural, the huge, broken boulders had been stopped from spinning and had been connected to each other with fabulous, arched bridges.
The dark stone buildings, to the first glance, were fashioned in the tall, sharp design typical of drow, but the architecture seemed to reach for the stars and invite the viewer, rather than watch all about with maniac suspicion. Palace after palace, smaller buildings, and open courtyards filled every acre.
The cluster of vast boulders was over fifty miles across, with the individual rocks arrayed in a roughly spherical arrangement. The entire complex glowed with multi-colored faerie fire in breathtaking patterns—some depicting the Rainbow Ocean, others swirling in the whirlpool shape of a flow maelstrom, still others surreal and free flowing.
Tyfelian noted the absence of the strong adamantite fences which most drow used to protect their house grounds... though he recalled that those had not been present in abundance in Elendraspace, either. Against attack from anything that flew, fences offered no protection.
He spotted a large number of gypsy moth ships docked and a few flying; most looked just like the Reztyngra, but some showed minor variation. Tyfelian gave them only the merest of glances; the drow city drew his gaze back hard.
"A dark fairyland," he gasped.
Kiran grinned at him. "As beautiful in its own way as Appler," he replied, appreciating the view.
"Appler?" asked a firm, but quiet and melodic, voice. It was Menlina, accompanied by an Elnamerrna crewman, just stepping through the door.
"The capital city of Embimura," Tyfelian murmured to her. "The most beautiful place I've ever seen, until now."
"Hm? Your ship is enclosed. How can you—oh!"
Menlina had noticed the outeye, and her expression changed to one of delight. "That shows you the outside?"
"Yes," Tyfelian smiled. He nodded at Tash, who was at the helm. "Tash's creation. I know that the helm gives the helmsman a wraparound view, but I like to see things with my own eyes... and I'm not often at the helm, anyway. Tash named it 'the outeye'."
Menlina bit her lip with admiration—not of the view, that was of her own home—but of the outeye itself. She also noticed what looked like a glass sculpture of the Elnamerrna floating beside the helm, but she paid little heed to it; the outeye held her attention.
Marveling at the magical device, she asked, "It must have been a massive task to enchant it and make it so... correct in what it shows. It looks like the front of the ship doesn't exist from in here!"
"So it does. Tash worked hard to create it as I requested."
"Pardon me for asking," Tash spoke up, "but what is the name of your home?"
"Nauthe'hressishtel," Menlina replied, without taking her gaze off the outeye. She moved forward to the outeye and reached out to it.
"May I?"
Tyfelian waved a hand, granting Menlina permission. Menlina felt the outeye and blinked. The outeye's image of the external view was so accurate that it looked as though one could walk right through it and into space, but her hand touched the forward wall and stopped. She ran her hand along it to portside, feeling the gentle curve that she could not see.
The Svart Alfar lady looked up and to either side to see the outeye's apparent dimensions. It filled the entire forward quarter of the bridge, walls, floor, and ceiling. It made the rest of the bridge look almost like a tunnel leading off the ship and into space, ahead of the vessel, blending with the aft three-quarters of the rectangular bridge. Indeed, as Menlina entered it, it appeared to the others as though she stood on absolutely nothing.
"It's an illusion," she breathed. "Perfect or near-perfect one, though."
Menlina stepped away, and noted Tash about to ask her something again.
Tash inclined her head toward the outeye and asked, "Where do visitors go?"
"That circular area," Menlina pointed out a small ring of stone that jutted out from the floating boulder farthest from the sun. "It's so small because we've never received many visitors," she explained, turning toward the command area.
"I see," Tyfelian murmured. "Take us there, Tash."
Tyfelian had marveled at the Listraeean architecture as the Elnamerrna and Reztyngra made their way to the visitor's dock, but as he walked out of the Silver Triop's cargo bay, his appreciative gaze took in the splendor from within, and it was astonishing.
Kiran raised his eyebrows, looking around with interest. Nauthe'hressishtel spread out before them like a great world unto itself. Buildings of colossal height soared into the endless night of Listraeespace, but their flickering beauty held the darkness back from the asteroid city. The faerie fire looked mesmerizing, and endless.
Behind them, the Elnamerrna sat upon a slightly lowered platform. Its exact height relative to the visitors dock could be changed, and now it lined up the floor of the Silver Triop's cargo bay to the dock. A person could leave the ship, or return, with just a short hop.
Sildara walked over to them from the Reztyngra's pier.
"This way," Sildara said with a slight smile.
Nauthe'hressishtel The Elnamerrna crew Greenmonth 26th, 2461
Tyfelian and the others always remembered their four days in Nauthe'hressishtel as perhaps the most enjoyable and entertaining ever. The command crew and Sildara swapped many tales and much history, with Kiran eagerly recording it all in his journals.
Around them, the Silver Triop sat in dock. Sildara had told Tyfelian that she had cleared the Elnamerrna for repairs, but the half-drow had caused a delay.
"Go out into the city and look around, in small groups," he had offered to the bulk of the crew when he had assembled them in the cargo bay. "Unless you want to put yourself in great danger, you'll never see anything like Nauthe'hressishtel again!"
"It isn't that bad, is it?" Abt asked him curiously. "Surely it isn't that hard to visit a drow city deep underground on some world or other."
Tyfelian, Kiran, Alzja, Tash, Trula, and Jaclyn glanced around at each other. They suppressed looks of amusement with varying degrees of success.
Kiran looked a little apologetic, however.
"I know you're from Krynn, where supposedly there aren't any drow, but... no, it's not easy," the paladin said gently.
"Unless you take someone along who already knows, even finding an underground drow city would be a dangerous adventure in itself," Tyfelian said, trying and failing to keep a laugh out of his voice. "And, after you found it, even trying to walk into it might be suicide. This is very likely the only chance you'll ever get in your lives to see drow architecture safely—and believe me, it's worth taking a walk to see it."
Most of the crewmen did go out, on a rotating basis, to look at the Svart Alfar asteroid city over the next four days. Most came back shaken, delighted, and awed all at once. Others seemed not too impressed, and came back to the ship fairly quickly.
"Kerliak and some of the others didn't spend much time outside," Kiran observed.
"There's no accounting for taste," the half-drow said to Kiran, shrugging it off. He looked around, pleased, as he noted the fact that the ship's repairs had progressed at a slow rate despite the crew's lax work habits at this particular safe harbor.
During the afternoon of the fourth day, Tyfelian left Sildara in the Elnamerrna's library, then went to the cargo bay to check on the repair progress. He found Kiran there, still overseeing the delivery of materials.
As he waited out the brief moment for the magical shrinking that everything and everyone experienced when entering the Elnamerrna's cargo bay, Tyfelian watched with some amusement, and a lot of admiration, as Barolcot walked up to Kiran and talked with the human at length about which materials should be used to repair what and where. The stacked boxes of parts accumulated around the two men at a rapid pace.
"Nauthe'hressishtel ain't got much for repairin' a chitin hull," Tyfelian heard Barolcot say as he walked over to them, "Those moth ships are alive, and they ain't no chitin in those wings. But they've sent us out some bolts 'n braces that's general for any ship, and some wood for the inside bulkheads.-"
"I'll get them there braces to the tail," Barolcot finished saying to Kiran as Tyfelian came to them. The dwarf turned to Tyfelian, but the half-drow shook his head and pointed to Kiran, indicating that he did not wish to interrupt.
"The Harbinger punched a hole back 'ere, right afore where the spanker's attached to the portside," Barolcot went on as if nothing had happened. "That god-cursed ballista bolt hit one o' the latchin' braces for the whole damn aft jettison bay. I roped it all up real good so it won't go nowhere, but it won't take a beatin'—hell, the whole ship won't take a lot o' beatin' 'til we get some chitin—and anyway, my contraption's gettin' in the way o' the spanker. That's why she's a lil' sluggish about the turnabout, by the by," Barolcot finished, turning to Tyfelian once more and giving a lift of his ample eyebrows.
Tyfelian inclined his head. "I noticed that during the Battle of Dukagsh, early on, but after that, we didn't have to do it again," he said, remembering the lackluster performance on the one-hundred-eighty degree turn he'd made the Elnamerrna do during that battle.
"Yeah, I know. If I ever meet Pelias Wrackblood, I'm gonna punch him right where it counts for that shot. Dirty rotten rat almost took our spanker right off," Barol growled, his black beard twitching.
"It wasn't Captain Wrackblood," Kiran murmured with a chuckle. "Nor the Harbinger. They weren't there. I told Hajri to look for him... he wasn't there."
Tyfelian burst out laughing.
"What?" Barolcot asked curiously, while Kiran just watched the half-drow patiently, knowing he would tell.
"Maybe Wrackblood swallowed the bait I tossed out, hook and all," Tyfelian chuckled. "Remember that hummerfly message I sent to him in Tolivin's voice?"
Kiran got a good belly laugh from the comment, and even a dwarf could see the humor in it.
Barolcot guffawed. "I weren't with ya back then—hell, this baby weren't even built just yet—but I've heard the tales, and I've read Kershaya's damage reports, o' course."
"Those reports named Captain Wrackblood's ship as the one that fired that shot?" Tyfelian asked.
"I guess Kershaya saw one she thought was him," Barolcot smirked. "But ya sent 'im on a wild rat chase to Krynnspace, lookin' for the witchlight key, as I recall," Barolcot tittered. "Yer thinkin' he went back to look again? Hehehehe!"
"Just desserts if he did," Tyfelian smirked, taking humor at Wrackblood's expense.
When they stopped laughing—a minute for the human and the half-drow, half a minute for the dwarf—Kiran went on.
"Gentlemen, these materials will get the mirror-frame and interior spaces back in order, but we need chitin to repair the hull. We used up all of the supply we had after the battle, and it wasn't enough."
"Quatha Vellar is the only place I know to get that, unless we want to go out and find it ourselves," Tyfelian responded. As an afterthought, he added, "Unless we went to the Crestloom Shipyards..."
"Six weeks away, give or take," Kiran advised him, trying to veto that idea. "Chitin is hard to find and harder to finish out to be right for a hull," Kiran noted, and Barolcot shrugged his agreement. "We need to go home, and soon."
"Tash already has the navigation charts from the Listraeeans," Tyfelian smiled. "She knows how to get to Hearthspace from here."
"Might we come back someday?" Kiran asked, glancing outside the bay at the Listraeean city.
"Perhaps," Tyfelian replied, "but I wouldn't count on it. These drow might not be evil, but I doubt they'd be happy to see us again. That's why I told the crew to go out there, just to see the place. We might very well never come back, ever."
"What about trade agreements... maybe an alliance?" Kiran offered.
"That's pretty farfetched, I'm afraid," Tyfelian said with a grimace. "These people want to be left alone, and they have good reasons why."
Kiran sighed unhappily. "I see."
"Are things under control here?" Tyfelian asked hopefully. "I want to go out into Nauthe'hressishtel myself and take in the sights before we leave for home."
Barolcot shrugged. "Yeah, we can do without ya for a couple hours."
Tyfelian smiled his thanks to the engineer, and Kiran gave him a nod, giving his blessing to Tyfelian's little excursion.
The half-drow skipped over to the lip of the cargo bay, hopped over the gap to the dock, and vanished into the surreal glow of Nauthe'hressishtel's faerie fire.
Tyfelian wandered the streets, admiring the buildings and magical decorations. He did so mostly out of the corners of his eyes, since he didn't want to do too much rubbernecking. He had been out in the city before, but he had seen only a little. Much of that time had been spent talking to Sildara's leaders, and overseeing the delivery of the five Listraeean heroes' bodies to proper burial. The actual memorial service and funeral had not yet been scheduled.
The fabulous architecture of the Listraeeans looked much the same as that of any other dark elves, but up close, the buildings seemed more comforting. These drow made things of beauty but also of practical use—the faerie fire often provided comfortably dim light for the streets, and it discreetly showed off the fine work of the homes and merchant houses. The designs in the faerie fire showed great variation—animals like birds and dragons, free-flow art, and even displays used by merchants to advertise.
He noted that the sun looked a lot dimmer from the surface of the asteroid, though he could not tell why that was so. No dimming effect had been visible from space, he remembered. He figured that it was a magical effect set up to that end.
The buildings towered a bit taller than Tyfelian would have expected—by his knowledge, humans were the ones who liked to build up—and he wondered why. He realized that he knew nothing about the nature of Svart Alfar elves, though, and perhaps, on Midgard in distant Terraspace, they built their underground palaces in vertical caverns. Tyfelian had heard of, but not visited, another drow city under Engethi like that. Alnzoor'kranzoa was in a vertical cavern five miles tall, and the drow who lived there built their homes accordingly. Nauthe'hressishtel reminded him of the descriptions of Alnzoor'kranzoa he had heard as a child, when he had been a daring, high-risk thief and thug, for a time the scourge of Tatissadane's criminal world.
Tyfelian loved the appearance of the Svart Alfar city around him, no matter where they had found their architectural ideas.
He wandered the dark space fairyland for several hours, and then turned back toward the visitor's docks. He felt refreshed and reassured by the fact that he and the two other drow aboard the Elnamerrna were not unique, not the only dark elves to turn away from the Spider Queen's webs.
He had already known of one - just one—non-evil drow, but had never met him. Tyfelian frowned for a moment as he found he couldn't remember that one's name. He did remember that Arlen, a crewman from Toril, had been the one who had mentioned the matter to him.
Tyfelian examined the Silver Triop when he got there. Despite a lack of chitin, simply having some drydock time had helped the ship, he could tell—a little. All of the hull ruptures had been carefully boarded up, and the rigging showed clear signs of reworking. The great ship sprawled on the lower dock, looking vaguely like a landed albino catfish, or perhaps the actual triop, a bizarre tropical fish found on some worlds.
Not nearly as forlorn, however.
Tyfelian's eyes sparkled at the sight, even though he knew that the Elnamerrna was, in fact, barely spaceworthy. The ship had taken a massive pounding during the last few weeks of the War, and now needed an overhaul in a bad way.
He stood there for a moment, wishing that he could hold onto the present situation for far longer than it would actually last. He liked the crew that he and Kiran had in the making, but unfortunately, as it turned out, most of them were human. They would grow old and die long before Tyfelian did, barring discovery of youth-aiding magic...
Tyfelian's thoughts trailed off in mid-concept as he felt someone looking at him. He knew the sensation—or feeling, depending on who one asked—of being scried, magically watched, and this felt much the same. In his heart, though, Tyfelian knew exactly where it was coming from, and his mind knew that his heart knew.
It was coming from... right in front of him.
Tyfelian's large eyes went wider still as he realized that the Elnamerrna was looking at him. He remembered his nightmare about exactly this, and how he couldn't tell whether the ship was happy with him or not.
Tyfelian got his answer to that uncertainty. He felt friendship and love from the vessel—and he knew now that it was alive, somehow a living and thinking entity—but right at the moment, the Elnamerrna was not communing with him for company or desperation to be recognized as a living being. It was more important than that, he knew—something much more important.
A strong sense of dread filled Tyfelian's being—he envisioned it as the mortal terror of the frog in the instant that the snake's fangs clamp down for the kill, but the Elnamerrna changed the vision into something else for him.
A spider scrambling over a web to attack...
... an unsuspecting purple moth.
In many cases, metaphoric prophecies were extremely vague and subject to interpretation, but this one seemed only too clear to Tyfelian. He got the message.
Nauthe'hressishtel
Visitor's dock
Greenmonth 26th, 2461
Tyfelian hustled to the edge of the upper dock, leaped over the gap and into the cargo bay. He did not pause to let the shrinking magic take effect. Instead, he flew past a startled Kiran and Barolcot at a dead run, appearing to their perspectives to be over fifty feet tall, and grabbed the voice horn as he shrank to their size.
His shaking fingers turned the nut all six clicks over and he spoke into the magical device.
"This is Tyfelian! All hands prepare for emergency departure! Battle stations! This is not a drill!"
The crewmen working in the cargo bay stopped moving, confused and surprised.
"Are ya daft?!" Barolcot called to him as he shut the horn off once more. "We don't even have the full crew aboard!"
"You heard what he said! Battle stations!" Kiran cried at the crewmen, and they left the bay running.
"We're about to be attacked. Call everyone back, now!" Tyfelian told Barolcot.
The dwarf stared at him for a moment, mildly stunned, but then he hurried to the dock and yelled to the Svart Alfar dockworkers outside.
Kiran frowned. "You mean, Nauthe'hressishtel is about to be under attack?"
Tyfelian nodded once.
"How do you know th-," Kiran began, but then he cut himself off as he realized that the answer was the Dridercomp.
Tyfelian understood, as Kiran glanced down a little, indicating the Elendran armor. It was not true, but he figured that the details could wait, and Kiran might not have believed him anyway. A living starship?
Tyfelian made a mental note to have Alzja, Tash and Jalaysa thoroughly examine the Elnamerrna at a more opportune time and find out exactly what the ship really was.
Kiran changed his question.
"Who?"
"Elendran drow, I figure," Tyfelian replied.
They left the cargo bay at a run, with Kiran's face going white as a ghost.
Tyfelian and Kiran crossed paths with Sildara on their way to the bridge.
Seeing the half-drow's horrified expression and Kiran's paleness, she called, "Tyfelian! Kiran! What's wrong?"
"I believe that the Elendran drow are about to arrive and attack," Tyfelian told her straight-out. Anticipating her response, he added, "I give you my solemn word that they didn't find you with any help from me."
The lady drow's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Surely a coincidence that they come during your visit."
Tyfelian had no answer to that.
"What have you done?" Sildara snarled at him, her expression furious, her eyes daggers on Tyfelian's heart.
"Nothing, I swear by the gods themselves! But there might be something at work here that we don't know about."
The helpless, puzzled look on Tyfelian's face convinced Sildara.
"Damned Elendrans and their scheming," she murmured. "But how do you fit in?"
"As the ones who'll defend your home," Tyfelian stated firmly. "Go to your people and warn them to prepare for battle. Good luck," he finished with sincerity.
He turned to Kiran, and led the human away from Sildara.
"Let's get to the bridge."
Tyfelian opened the portside door to the bridge and hurried into it. Tash stepped down to him from the command area.
"What is it, Ty?"
"The Elendrans are coming here to destroy everything," Tyfelian told her. "Never mind how I know," he went on before she could say anything. "It's going to happen. Prepare to launch."
"Those of the crew who're here are at battle stations," the blond drow advised Tyfelian, "but about a dozen of them haven't come back from leave yet."
"Use your magic, Tash. Recall them now."
Tyfelian softened his tone of voice to say that as kindly as he could, but Tash still recognized a direct order when she heard one. He actually meant it.
Tash went into the deep concentration of spellcasting, murmuring the words of the spell that would let her locate the absent crewmen. She would then use other magic spells to speak to them and tell them to return.
A shameful breach of privacy, and against the general policy of Tyfelian and Kiran, but Tash set to work. Tyfelian had told her, in so many words, that it was an emergency, and she trusted him.
"Kiran, call Melanerra to the bridge for helm duty."
Tyfelian waited tensely through the long minutes that it took Tash to locate the vacationing crewmen and order them back to the ship. His heart thudded heavily with every pulse, fearing, not for himself, but for Nauthe'hressishtel. He already liked the people here and wanted to protect them.
For himself, he held no concern. If the worst happened, the Elnamerrna—with help from Tash's powerful magic and the more specific abilities of Alzja's Regalia of the Gonn artifacts - could outrun anything in the Prime Material Plane except maybe the legendary Spelljammer, but Tyfelian would stay and fight unless he knew that his efforts would be fruitless.
"Done," Tash finally said.
"How many?"
"Fourteen," Tash replied gravely. "They're coming back, all of them," she added, tight-lipped.
"None of those are gunners," Kiran put in. "The weapon bays reported ready just a couple minutes after you called the alert."
Tyfelian looked over at Kiran, startled.
"That was a mighty quick response time, in dock."
"A credit to Kiran's cursed battle stations drills," Tash said, finding a smile somewhere.
Tyfelian managed only a confident nod. He turned to the paladin.
"Kiran, prepare to launch as soon as everyone is aboard again."
Sildara, running with all her heart, had alerted the watch at the visitor's dock and now was already speeding back to the Elnamerrna as fast as she could to retrieve her first officer and the five warrior-wizards who were, last she knew, happily reading books in the Silver Triop's library or studying Alzja's learned journals about alchemy in the laboratory.
She wanted to get them and return to the Reztyngra before the Elendrans arrived, so she was glad that she kept herself in top condition. She made excellent time across the dock to the adventurers' ship, but she noticed that the huge door to the cargo bay in the process of closing.
"Wait!" she shouted.
Barolcot, working the big windlass inside the cargo bay (though it looked puny to Sildara because of the shrink magic within) stopped turning the crank and motioned three other crewmen to do likewise.
"Captain?" the dwarf shouted.
"My First and five others are still on board!" Sildara yelled. "Let me get them."
Barolcot waited for her, though he had not intended to fully close the bay door anyway—none of the absent crewmen had returned yet. Sildara jumped the gap and stopped, giving the shrinking magic a moment to reduce her size. The cargo bay seemed to loom larger and larger to her, but to save time, she took several careful steps forward before she was fully reduced. She ducked through the open doorway and into the corridor beyond just as the first couple of Elnamerrna crewmen arrived.
Barolcot didn't look after her. He didn't even pay much attention to the returning crew members. Instead, the young dwarf turned back to the view beyond the cargo bay door. He imagined that he felt
a cold wind blow into the Elnamerrna, but it was only in his heart. Emotionally, though, Barol saw dead leaves swirling over the faerie fire on the visitor's dock outside, as one might see when winter is coming, but not yet arrived.
He shivered slightly. He had to wonder where those thoughts had come from, since he was a dwarf and not some human or elf who indulged in flights of fancy. He had always thought that the traits of other races had rubbed off on him to some degree, but he had never felt anything like that chill breeze blowing through his soul.
Trula kept watch from the crow's nest.
Kiran had called to her and told her that an Elendran attack force would soon appear and that they wanted all possible warning when she spotted them.
With her wide-angle vision, she noted the Elnamerrna crewmen running across the visitor's dock, just as she had spotted Sildara moments earlier, but she paid them no mind and kept sharp watch. She thought about reporting Sildara's presence to Tyfelian, but before she could...
A flicker of dim light was all the warning she got, but she turned to observe it instantly.
Eight strange blobs of swirling energy formed in open space near the Listraeean city—too close. Trula realized that they were some kind of magical manifestation, but she didn't let her knowledge of that fact deter her. She reached for the voice horn.
"Bridge, crow's nest."
"Bridge, Tyfelian," the half-drow replied immediately at the sound of Trula's voice.
"Something's happening to starboard, far outboard of the wing and up twenty-five," Trula's voice advised.
Tyfelian swiftly pointed his finger at the outeye and turned it to starboard along the Silver Triop's wing. He then pointed upward, veering the view upward twenty-five degrees.
The outeye obediently moved its view.
Tyfelian swore softly in Embimuran.
Sildara met her six comrades already moving forward toward the cargo bay.
"Captain?" Menlina queried.
"Come on!" Sildara scolded. "The Elendrans have found us! Don't ask me any questions—that's an order."
Menlina caught her breath, as did the five warrior-wizards. The lot of them ran down the hallway from whence Sildara had come.
Tyfelian watched in horror as eight swirls formed fully, hanging in space. They looked very much like the portals created by the spell which the Elnamerrna crew called dimension door, though that was not its proper name.
These portals opened larger, though—much, much larger. At least fifty feet across, these dimensional doors glared out at Nauthe'hressishtel like the eyes of a dead spider.
Each had a faint line of light attached to it; these eight lines ran parallel, pointed straight toward the crystal shell. Tyfelian, no wizard but also no novice to magic, had a vague feeling that they ran to the shell wall and beyond, into a flowriver, but there was no way he could be sure.
The doors began to widen; the dimensional doors themselves began to glow more brightly. They would be usable very soon, Tyfelian felt.
"Bridge, cargo bay," Barolcot's voice called from the horn.
"Bridge, Tyfelian."
"That's it. They's all back an' the door's down."
"Don't wait for the sail crews to take their positions, Melanerra. Launch!"
Listraeespace near Nauthe'hressishtel
Elnamerrna
Greenmonth 26th, 2461
"Hurry!" Sildara implored her companions, and they ran full out across the Elnamerrna's cargo bay. They saw that the door was down, but Sildara continued the run.
"Engineer! Open the door!" she called to Barolcot.
"Too late!" the dwarf roared. "We're up!"
Sildara halted less than five feet from the very front of the bay.
"Teleport?" she asked, turning to her warrior-wizards.
Three of them just shook their heads, and the other two murmured, "Tricky," almost in chorus.
"We're not stationary... it'd be risky, but it might work," one added.
"No; let's go talk to Tyfelian."
The Silver Triop rose from Nauthe'hressishtel and moved away, toward the strange dimensional doors. Her movements were clumsy at first, but then the sail crews got into the proper rhythm and the flight leveled out nicely.
"Weapon crews, load and prepare to fire," Kiran called to the weapon bays with the horn. "All wizards to weapon bays."
Tash, Alzja, and Jalaysa hurried out of the bridge, leaving only Tyfelian, Kiran, Melanerra, and Jaclyn, plus two crewmen, posted as guards. Kiran started to walk down the steps from the command platform, but Tyfelian stopped him with a raised finger.
"Either of you have any navigation experience, by any chance?" he asked the two guards.
Both shook their heads. Tyfelian turned to the third human present.
"Jaclyn?"
"No, sorry," Jaclyn answered, but the portside door opened even as Tyfelian asked her.
"Tyfelian," Sildara began without preamble—but then she paused for a moment to let Tyfelian recover from the surprise that she and her six companions were still on board.
"We arrived in the cargo bay just a moment too late to depart," she went on, and explained, all in one breath.
"Oops," Jaclyn murmured. "The Elendrans'll be arriving any minute, maybe through those oversized dimension doors. We can't go back."
Sildara bit her lip, but then sighed. She was stuck and she knew it.
"Might we help, then?"
Kiran blinked.
"Yes! By your leave...?" Kiran asked her for permission to give her and her comrades an order.
Sildara nodded, just once.
"All wizards to weapon bays," he repeated. "Menlina, do you have navigation experience?"
"Yes," she replied. "I came up as a navigator."
"Take the station," he said, waving a hand at it. "Sildara, to our side up here, please, as tactical advisor. You know the Elendrans a lot better than we do."
Sildara stepped up to the command platform with alacrity, Menlina sat down at Tash's station, and the five warrior-wizards left in a hurry.
Tyfelian turned to regard the Listraeean captain as she sat down at one of the chairs ringed around the table at the left end of the command area.
"An evaluation, Sildara. What will they send through those doors?"
"Ships. A lot of them. No telling how many."
Tyfelian thought for a moment, then smiled.
"I think we'll use their own method against them. Have you ever heard of a strategy called 'holding the breach'?"
Sildara got it. "Yes. I see what you have in mind."
"Melanerra?"
"Yes?" the cleric called over her shoulder from the helm.
"How many Listraeean ships have launched and arrived here?"
The human looked around, the movement analogous to her wraparound view provided by the helm.
"I count twelve, holding position all around us."
Tyfelian grabbed the voice horn.
"Crow's nest, bridge."
"Crow's nest, Trula," the human's voice came back right away.
"Flash a message to the lead Listraeean ship—tell them to hold the breach at each dimension door. They'll know what that means."
Trula hummed a laugh. "I see. That'll hold 'em off for a bit."
Tyfelian shut off the horn. "We won't let anything come through those doors... the Elendrans will give up eventually, or those doors will expire."
"The Elendrans will try again," Sildara predicted ominously.
"No," Tyfelian told her reassuringly. "You can advise your clerics to call upon Eelistraee to seal this crystal shell against dimensional doors and planar travel. Then, they'll have to actually travel here to try again. That's a mighty long sail."
Sildara thought, then made no response. She didn't know whether the Dark Maiden would do that, but it was certainly worth a try.
"Melanerra, take us right up to that leftmost dimension door," Tyfelian called.
Melanerra did.
Tyfelian picked up the voice horn again and called to Trula.
"What are the friendly ships doing?"
"The Listraeeans're spreadin' out, one ship to each door. The other five are holdin' position a little farther out, to catch stragglers, I'd assume," Trula replied. Her voice caught.
"What is it, Trula?" Tyfelian said into the horn.
"Something's coming through!"
The Elnamerrna flew toward the dimensional door at a slow pace as the massive gypsy moth emerged from it. Trula watched nervously as the Elendran ship slowly came into view out of the roiling energies of the magical doorway. A quick glance around with her spyglass showed her that more ships were coming through some of the other seven portals. The Listraeean gypsy moths attacked these immediately. Trula distractedly saw the exchanges of heavy weapon shots and high-powered attack magic, just as her own ship would do in a few moments.
Trula bit her lip, glad that Tyfelian had thought of the strategy of holding the breach (assuming that one or more of the other twelve captains had not thought of it already), because the Elendran and Listraeean ships would be hard to tell apart in open battle. The Listraeean designs had not changed much in three hundred and fifty years.
She eyed the enemy ship through her spyglass, then put it down and spoke into the voice horn.
"Coming up on range!"
Tyfelian also watched the Elendran ship coming through to Listraeespace, on the outeye. He mentally ticked off the seconds, changed the voice horn's setting to speak to the gunners, and clenched his fist.
"Gunners, take aim...and...fire!"
Tyfelian listened for the twang of ballista strings and the "whoosh" of catapults being released; he could always hear the loudest noises made by the weapons, and sometimes, the lesser sounds, if he had the voice horn set to talk to the weapon bays...
... but nothing happened.
Confused, Tyfelian glanced at Kiran. Kiran frowned, but Tyfelian didn't look at him long enough to notice—he grabbed the voice horn and yelled into it frantically.
"Fire! Weapon crews, wizards?! You hear me?! Let that ship have it!"
Then he did hear something over the horn, the first part cut off by his own voice.
"- the hell are you doing?! Get back to your posts!" It sounded like Alzja's voice, not near the other voice horn but screaming with fury.
Tyfelian reacted from pure survival responses and shouted to the helm.
"Melanerra! Reverse course! Back away! Back off now!"
"Tyfelian..." Sildara began, feeling betrayed. "What about ramming them?"
Frustrated and enraged, Tyfelian shook his head at her with dismay. He had gotten no response from his gunners, and the Elnamerrna was in no condition to perform a ramming attack, not now.
With a frightened and confused glance at the voice horn, he stood.
"We can't. We rammed once or twice too often at the Battle of Dukagsh."
Tyfelian quieted so he could hear the voice horn. He had no idea what in creation had caused it, but he clearly heard the sounds of battle in the weapon bays through it.
"Kiran, take command. Get us to safety until we get this taken care of. Sildara, with me."
Menlina started to rise from the navigation station, but Sildara shook her head and followed Tyfelian—toward the rear wall, oddly enough.
Trula, still riding the crow's nest, watched in baffled horror as the Elnamerrna, by all appearances, flat-out betrayed the Listraeeans. The Silver Triop backed away, abandoning an easy kill—almost a sitting duck—and twirled "upward" out of the way, leaving the way clear for Elendran ships to come through one of the dimensional doors—which they did, in quick succession.
Plenty of them.
The human felt completely heartsick. The Elendrans would utterly demolish Nauthe'hressishtel and murder everyone living there—she knew they would.
Trula swallowed a lump in her throat that tasted unbelievably foul, then reached for the voice horn. She never made it, though, because a sudden jolt pushed the Elnamerrna backward in space, knocking her right off her feet. She tried to grab hold of the mainmast with both arms to avoid falling, but the impact jarred her too much for that. Her grip slipped and she slammed against the side of the crow's nest with considerable force.
She gasped, not only with pain, but also with terror. Before she collapsed, she saw streamers of flame, like the breaths of three dragons, blaze forth out of the Elnamerrna's topside weapon deck. They blazed outward and stopped at the edges of the air envelope.
Then, blessed darkness took her.
Tyfelian threw open the secret door at the rear of the command platform—no time for secrets from Sildara or Menlina now—and darted around the short stairway behind the bridge itself. He then started climbing that stairway to the topside weapon bay.
Tyfelian's hand shot out and pressed the stairway's wall when the blazing explosion of a fireball roared within the stairwell's throat. His magically strengthened grip prevented him from falling off the stairs. He caught himself that way, then a look of alarm crossed his face.
"That wasn't an attack on us," he said to Sildara as they ran. "That came from inside the ship, right up there! I think we've been boarded!"
Sildara had already realized that and hustled to keep up with the half-drow as they ran up the stairs.
Tyfelian was by no means in the universe prepared for the sight that his eyes beheld.
Looking into the weapon bay, he saw his gunners and some of the crew...
...fighting each other.
Tyfelian stood in the shadows of the stairwell beside Sildara, completely stumped, baffled, unable to deal with what he was seeing. It made absolutely no sense to him at all. He closed his eyes and shook his head to clear it, but the unexplainable situation remained when he looked again. The hammering of weapon on weapon, muffled curses, and the low, ominous, monotonous hum of spellcasting filled the bay.
Tyfelian wanted to join in the fight to kill the traitors, but he quickly realized that he had no idea which side to join! They were all his crew, and if some were traitors then it made sense that they would get into a fight, but who was who? Tyfelian saw no way to tell.
The tactical situation offered no clues, partially due to the remarkable racial diversity of the Silver Triop's crew. By appearances, a hobgoblin and a female half-orc, ballista gunners both, and four catapult gunners—an ogre, the minotaur Abt and two humans—with Tash, Alzja, Jalaysa, and the five Listraeean warrior-wizards—all faced off against the rest of the weapon crews.
The rest of the weapon crews.
Twenty people. That was over a dozen humans with a half-elf, an elf, a grommam, and the scro, Kerliak.
Tyfelian knew their names, all of them, and he realized that there were some people present that belonged at other weapon stations, or even at the sails!
As the half-drow had feared, some of them looked to have suffered burns; someone had managed to cast a fireball spell within the weapon deck. A fool move, but someone had done it.
Tyfelian's fast mind worked for a few seconds, then he acted.
"STOP!" he roared as loudly as he could, striding into the weapon deck, a sword raised. "STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!!"
Tyfelian's free right hand whipped a dagger into a wall right beside the scro, who seemed to think that Tyfelian had meant everyone except him. He froze, then turned his head slowly to glare at Tyfelian, enraged.
"What do you people think you're doing?!" Tyfelian shouted.
"When you gave the order to fire, th -" Jalaysa began, but was cut off in mid-word.
"Leaving," said one catapult gunner to Tyfelian's left. This one was a human female. She spoke to him in an oddly cold and scathing tone.
"Doing what, Autumn?!"
"You heard me. Leaving."
"They slid their hands off the weapons and started for the stairs right after you told them to fire," Tash told Tyfelian. "When Alzja yelled at them, they turned and attacked us."
"Is this true?" Tyfelian demanded of Autumn.
"Yes," the human replied.
"I demand an explanation!" Tyfelian shouted, his voice dripping murderous fury.
Autumn laughed at him.
Tyfelian drew his other sword and stared at Autumn with a blank, deadly expression.
"You just now let Nauthe'hressishtel and its culture get destroyed. Explain yourself or I'll kill you."
Autumn's contemptuous smile vanished. Tyfelian did not make idle threats; all of them present there, except Sildara, had seen him fight, at least for practice.
A cloud of fury crossed Autumn's face, but she held it in and spoke.
"All right," she stated, her voice soft and lethal. "You really want to know? This is why."
Autumn's hands went to the weapon belt around her waist.
Tyfelian tightened his grip on his swords, ready to charge in case Autumn was going after a hidden magical item to use, but all she did was unbuckle her belt and let her hand fall to her side, holding it. The others, her allies, followed suit, with the same result.
An illusionary appearance flickered out of existence, revealing Autumn as she really was. Even her belt had not been as it seemed; it now had not only her sword, but also pouches for spellcasting materials, revealing her to be a warrior-wizard...
... but her belt commanded no attention at all compared to Autumn herself.
Tyfelian's widening eyes now looked upon an Elendran drow.
