A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 01: Flight

As she climbed easily up that rocky wall, a blur shot past her that she thought she recognized as one of the guards. Her head whipped back to follow his hurtling body. There was little chance that he would survive that fall, Ashyr found herself thinking. It was a shame, really. He had been extraordinarily pretty for a guard. As a rule, dark and light elves did not play nice together, but he never seemed very hostile towards her. That was practically friendship in the realm of Ashyr. She couldn't tell what his fate was, however, as she didn't see where his body landed. Nor could she hear any noise that came from him. Harpy shrieks were far too cacophonous to even hear her own damn thoughts.

With a mental shrug, Ashyr continued up the rock wall. It wasn't at all a difficult climb. The drow normally had much smoother barriers to keep people out. Those didn't do a very good job against Ashyr. She was, after all, a particularly determined and brave drow. No barrier could keep her out - or in, for that matter - for very long.

The sight she was treated to was unadulterated chaos. A mad grin spread across her white teeth. It was absolutely glorious. The ugliest damn beasts she'd ever seen terrorized the unfortunate troupe. One of the bird women lie in the courtyard below with a quiver of arrows stuck into her body. The rest of the immobile lumps were probably the broken forms of people of the flightless variety, a fact they had discovered the hard way. Cobblestone and rock hard. The birds had only killed about two or three that way; a guard and a couple actors. She recognized Artur still up and moving, and he looked to be getting his people in a more organized clump. The bird women could only pick up one at a time. If someone grabbed the legs of a person about to have flying lessons forced upon them, everyone got pulled back to the ground. In this way the troupe regrouped and defended themselves quite admirably. Clearly they could use another woman on their team, however. Maybe Ashyr would see if she was any better at the whole flight thing. Hell, it looked fun for about nine tenths of the time.

The horrible winged women didn't seem to see her, which was a relief. The dark drow blended in with the dark rock as long as her hood covered her bright white hair. One of the aggressors got just a little bit too close. Ashyr pounced.

Gloriously flowing locks of shocking white hair pulled free from her hood as she hurtled through the air. The short knives brandished in her dark fists shone in the waxing sunlight. Her teeth were bared in crazed, exultant grin. Some would call her a bloody fool, but it that moment she was enjoying herself immensely.

The drow landed heavily on the largest Harpy. A predictably angry shriek was forced out of the hideous creature's lips and both of the strange beings hit the ground several feet away from the rest of the group. Ashyr got up. The other woman did not. It was lucky that this maneuver was so distracting. Land and air creature alike stared in disbelief as the ferocious woman crouched in a fighting stance, ready to kill another of the birdlike abominations.

That went better than expected. Too bad she didn't end up flying that well. It looked like she would be given ample chance in the next couple of moments, however. The two remaining attackers had their entire focus on her now. A miracle happened then, at least by Ashyr's estimation. One of the feathered women sprouted an arrow in her back, causing it to immediately fall to the ground like an incredibly ugly doll. The drow flicked her gaze toward the source of her rescuer. It was the gorgeous young blonde woman whose name Ashyr swore she would remember next time she introduced herself.

That single arrow was the turning point of the battle. The last aggressor saw that her flock had been almost entirely taken down. With screeching words that could have been nothing but a slew of profanities, she flew off and out of the range of any more projectiles.

"That was fun." Ashyr commented as she sheathed her daggers.

The rest of the crew did not seem to agree with her.

--

The world was indistinct grey haze, bright red smears, and pounding pain, slowly coming into focus. Caleldir rubbed his forehead again, trying to restore some order to his mind. The red dimmed, and color returned to the grey. At once, he found his bearings, standing upright on solid ground. He was looking down at gaspingly dry and lifeless grass and twigs, and two hands, smooth, nearly skeletal, bone white except where hot blood ran across them. "Oh no..." He moaned. "It happened again." Wiping the blood on his ruined tunic, he looked around to survey the devastation. He remembered falling towards a vibrant green grove, from much higher up than he had though, apparently, but he found himself in a tangle of blasted, gnarled trees that looked as if they had been dead for centuries. A few mummified goblin corpses lay around him, their withered skin drawn tightly across their faces, giving them permanent wide-eyed grins, without the eyes. "This always happen when I die." He muttered to himself. He held up his hand to the sky. It was slightly transparent, the light filtering through like misty glass. "Well, I cannot go back in this condition. Hopefully the others fared better than I have." He continued staring through his hand, until a flush of color crept through the deathly white, and solidified to opaque. "Much better." He sighed with relief. "Well, let us see if the harpies killed everyone else too."

--

Caleldir stumbled into the camp a few minutes later. The battle was clearly over, and had been for about an hour. Most were busy tending to their wounds and trying to put the caravan back together. "Greetings friends!" He said weakly, but still cheerily. "Good to see that most everyone survived."

Gurzan rushed towards him. "Caleldir!" Gurzan only used his full name when he was particularly worried. "What happened to you? Ashyr told us that you took a fall from a few thousand feet up. We had despaired of ever seeing anything but your corpse. I was actually about to get Ashyr to show me where you fell so that I could give you a decent burial."

"It is somewhat of an unbelievable story..." Caleldir smiled wearily. "You see, my fall was halted by another harpy, who knocked me out and carried me three days off to Skullwing Mountain, where the Withered Harpy Queen, Haggrima the Bone Gnawer, makes her roost. I was offered as tribute to the queen, who decided to use my body to nourish her horrifying brood. Just as she was about to feed me still-living to her chicks, a forest sprite cast her eyes on me and instantly fell in love. She cast a sleeping spell on the harpies, and spirited me away to her bower in the forest, where she nursed me back to health. She asked me to stay with her forever and dance ever in the silver light of the Three Fey Moons of Aelithyra, but I sadly rejected her offer, for I had my responsibility to this caravan. And so, after a week's hard journey, I returned here."

Gurzan's worry faded into resignation. "Cal: you were gone for barely an hour."

Caleldir affected surprise. "Oh? Really? Well I suppose that none of that actually happened. A tree broke my fall. And other things, but I know some healing techniques from... the library. And now I am back."

"Good to see you're not dead at least." Gurzan said shortly. "You will be happy to know that your dark elf friend is today's heroine: she relieved us just in time, distracting the harpies long enough for Celeste to get off a critical shot . I misjudged her. Perhaps she is not like the other drow after all."

"In my experience," Caleldir observed, "most surface Drow are not like other Drow. It's the underground ones that you need to watch. Except you can't. Because they are underground."

"Whatever you say." Gurzan turned to the caravan. "You were the last of us left unaccounted for. Let's leave this unpleasant place."