A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 30: Unwinding

In the courtyard next to them, two people with unnaturally soft tread had entered. "I cannot thank you enough for helping me with this." Whispered Cierraela.

"Of courssse." Their coachman said smoothly. His voice was rich and velvety, but slightly... off. Almost alien.

One of Ashyr's eyebrows rose in question. She wished he knew the sign language of Selene and herself so they could silently discuss what they wanted to do about the situation. Wait and listen seemed to be her choice. Caleldir seemed to agree with Ashyr, so he sat quiet.

Across the wall, it sounded as if the coachman and Cieraela had begun sparring, with the coachman occasionally giving out quick orders, or suggestions, on how the girl could improve her technique. The suggestions were uniformly of the 'fight as obscenely dirty and sneakily as possible' variety. He spoke with a very noticeable hiss.

After a few minutes of this, the two began talking about interesting things again. "So... how did you know that I wanted to follow those four?" Cieraela asked.

"It wass not hard to notisse." The coachman said. "But I confesss to have been lisstening to everything around them ssinsse they arrived. The three women have thossse ringsss that I created, and I want them back. I have identified my Cloth, Leather, Paladin, and Sstorage Ringss. They probably have my Rasse Ring ass well."

"Sooo..." Cieraela said, puzzled. "If you really are the greatest arcane thief ever, why did you neither create new rings, nor simply steal the ones they have? Or, if that was not possible, offer to buy them back?"

The coachman hissed to himself. "I made those ringss by sstealing divine power from Sssseth himsself! That iss a feat I cannot recreate. But the male of the group interesstss me. I cannot ssmell him, nor the otherss when they are too closse to him. He iss curssed, and returning to the location of hiss cursse: a monasstery that not even I, who have sstolen from the godss, could ssteal from. Perhapss he can be my ticket into the Eternal Hallss, and their legendary treassuress sshall be mine. Until then, I do not want them to be aware of me."

"You will not hurt him, will you?" Cieraela asked, worried.

"Of coursse not. If they can provide me an in into that monasstery, I may even let them keep my ringss. I will not even need them anymore. So resst eassy, human child, I mean your friendss no harm. If I did, I would hardly have brought you along. I do not need you, after all, I jusst thought that you could usse ssome help. I will make you the greatesst human thief ever to ssslink unssseen through the night. One day, perhapss you can even ssteal the heart of your handsome hero." With that, they continued on their training.

Caleldir glanced over at Ashyr. He looked somewhat stricken. But he made no effort to move, until the training session next to them was over, and the two went on their way. Then, letting out a long sigh, he stood up. "Well... that was... surprising." He said carefully. He looked questioningly at Ashyr.

"Yes." Ashyr said. She switched to her native tongue before continuing. "Do you think we need to ditch these people? Or maybe steal their cart and run with it? I'd suggest killing them, but I suppose I already know your response to that. It's just- I'm not sure how I like traveling with people who aren't up-front with me. We'll get enough of that in my homeland."

"I think that our hissing friend is one of the Serpentfolk: just one that is disguised to look human." Caleldir pondered out loud. "But if what he says is true, then we really should keep him close by. Anyone that can successfully steal power from a god, especially one as famously secretive and paranoid as Sseth, is one we cannot afford to let out of our sight. Keep your friends close, and your enemies just close enough that you can keep an eye on them. So no, I do not think that we should kill or ditch them. We should simply pretend not to know what they are up to. Besides, although I detected Chaos when I glanced at him, Althaia detected neither Good nor Evil, so he should at least be averse to slitting our throats in our sleep."

"Well, at least he won't try until we've outlived our usefulness. You never know with neutral people." She winked up at him. If it were her, she might just slit peoples throats if she thought they would be a serious problem to her later on. Perhaps that was due more to her drow upbringing than her alignment. "I tend to be against handing someone like him more power than necessary. But if you think we'll be able to handle him, I'm also not against having a powerful person to unleash at our enemies. Or at least trigger all the traps." Ashyr responded with a laugh.

"Ah yes. Leaning neither to selfishness nor altruism. Neutrality. I believe I know someone like that." Caleldir was conscious that Ashyr was quite a bit less... constrained than he was. Then again, so was their Paladin, so what did that mean? He shrugged it off. Not important right now.

The drow tilted her head in the direction on the inn as they spoke, indicating that they should go back as well. There was no way she could focus on training now. Neither did she want to leave Selene alone in a strange place for too long.

Caleldir nodded in agreement that they should head back. Selene should know about this. Or part of it at least. As a drow, she should have at least enough circumspection to understand the need for secrecy. Althaia would have to be told eventually too. Probably.

"We seem to be a growing collection of rare sorts of people. For the surface, anyway." Ashyr mused aloud. Noble drow, nymphs, titans. Everything else, everything normal, they couldn't seem to keep with them. Maybe that was just the nature of an adventuring party.

"We certainly do meet some unusual individuals." Well, they had one relatively normal person with them at the moment. "On a different topic: apparently Cieraela is more obsessed with me than I thought. She is even willing to apprentice herself to a serpentfolk thief just for a chance to stalk me more efficiently. Awkward." He shrugged, and followed Ashyr upstairs to where Selene was.