Nolin and the Drow

Returning to Akin's Throat has something of a surreal quality to it, as passers-by of many races seem to recognize the small group. Some step aside, others deliberately ignore them, but no one is foolish enough to challenge the three adventurers who make their way to Dambril's Festhall. Entering, they immediately notice the female drow elf holding court at one end of the wide room. She is gorgeous in the way that a diamond sword might be gorgeous: beautiful to behold, but clearly made for killing. Her toadies scramble out of the way as Nolin, Stone Bear and Agar make their way up to her.

"Ma'chel?" asks Nolin. He yanks a chair out from under a goblin and sits. Stone Bear and Agar flank him.

"Well," says the drow elf, dragging one sharpened fingernail down across her lower lip, "what do we have here?" Her voice sounds like razor blades wrapped in velvet.

Nolin leans back, smiles, and flips a flaming lock of hair out of his eyes. "I'm Nolin Benholm. This is Agar Smoketallow, and Stone Bear. We understand that you're the woman to come to when someone needs information." Her whole body indicates intense disdain, but Nolin continues unconcernedly. "We need to know things that only someone with your assets might know. Where the ghouls are, what areas are safe, who they're allied with, that sort of thing." Ma'chel yawns while he's talking. "We'll make it worth your while."

She raises one arched and delicate eyebrow as her minions giggle mindlessly behind the trio. "Is that so? I know those sorts of things. But I don't tell them. Not for free."

"We're willing to pay," says Nolin, thinking of their woesome financial situation.

"I'm sure you are." She smiles cruelly, and her toadies titter and chortle like an idiot chorus. "You have fairy blood in you, and you consort with elves and half-elves. You're useless." She dismisses him with a sneer and begins to turn away.

"Except that I hate that part of me." Ma'chel stops and re-examines the bard, noting the bitterness in his voice. "I have no love for my elven father. He left my mother, and he left me. I could care less about elves."

"Is that so?" She still sounds disinterested, but her eyes flicker. "And I suppose you worship the Exiler?"

Nolin snorts in amusement. "Corellon Larenthian? That nancy-boy? Hardly." To himself, Nolin thinks, It's tough to respect someone with no gender. When they say he has no balls, they really mean it. His face twitches as he swallows his own amusement.

Slowly, the drow looks him up and down as one might examine a steer in the meat market, and then barely smiles with white, white teeth. "The price is you, for one night." Nolin's eyes widen.

Agar doesn't even hesitate. "He accepts."

"He accepts," agrees Stone Bear, just behind the halfling. "Absolutely."

"Hey, wait a second!" says Nolin, snapping his head to the left and right as he turns to glare at his so-called friends. "Don't volunteer me. Some cohort you are." Not seeing much support and already commited, Nolin swallows dryly and bows to the inevitable. "Oh, fine. I accept." The drow elf leans back like a tigress examining a particularly juicy scrap of prey.

"Of course you do." She pats a cushion on a low chair by her side. "Come sit, and sing." She smiles in cruel anticipation. "We have all night."

Agar fidgets. "Err.. hrmmm.." He wrings his hands uncomfortably. "We're going now. Call if you need help. Bye!" Accompanied by an amused Stone Bear, Nolin's cohort abandons the Festhall as fast as his legs can carry him, hurrying back to the safety of the Flickering Needle.

The group is packed and arrayed for travel when Nolin drags himself back to the tower early the next morning. He's greeted by disapproving glances from half the group, amused snickers from the other half, and a steely glare from Malachite.

"Nolin?" asks Velendo in concern.

"Be there in a moment," mumbles the bard hoarsely. "I need to wash." With a steel brush, he thinks to himself.

"It can wait for just a moment. Do you need healing?"

"Yeah, but I can do it myself."

"What did you learn? We're undecided as to whether we should go to straight towards the kuo toa, or whether we should investigate whatever is happening in the Deeping Rift."

"Ghouls have.. ow!" Nolin lowers himself into a chair. "Someone bring me food. A lot of food. Anyways, ghouls have small outposts along most underdark passages, but haven't made any hostile movements towards Aakin's Throat. In fact, they've specifically not threatened the 'Throat. I know that they have several spies here, but I don't know who they are."

Malachite grunts. "What else?"

"Lots. Descriptions of why she thinks the ghouls have sealed themselves away inside the Rift, nearby political alliances, reports of what civilizations have been toppled and devoured by the undead, all sorts of things. One thing is for sure; those omens we've been seeing really are affecting everyone."

Mara nods. "Yes, Malachite and I found that out for ourselves yesterday. We didn't sleep with anyone to get the information, though." Nolin looks at her sharply, but her face is bland and expressionless. "We should check you for enchantments, curses and disease, then we need to get going. We have a lot of travel, and there's going to be an angry pit fiend showing up later this evening."

"While we wait, I think it's time I tried to divine something more about these omens." Agar stands up, draws on his life force to power the spell, and casts his consciousness out into the multiverse. Instantly, he yells and falls over.

"What? What is it?"

Tears are running from Agar's eyes as he turns over onto his back. "That was horrible. I was flying, and fleeing, and someone was after me. There was the feeling of betrayal. Then there was a horrible pain in my chest, burning, and I..." he gulps. "I knew that I was dying." Tao reaches down to put her hand on his shoulder, looking unusually worried and attentive. Agar takes a sip of water and pauses to stroke Proty.

Nolin narrows his eyes. "No sense of whether you were male or female? No sense of overall hooteriness or not?" He gestures vaguely.

Agar shakes his head. "Nope. Then I was falling. It felt like I was hurtling downwards, and I was already dead, but I hadn't quite finished dying yet - if you know what I mean. Clouds shot by, and the whole world was beneath me. And I had all this power, this immense power, and there wasn't anything I could do. It was horrible." He shakes his head, shivering. "Then there was nothing but crushing emotion. Guilt and sorrow, a sorrow so deep that it's impossible to describe." He looks up, his eyes wide and his voice shaky. "As wide as the world."

Tao stares down at him, thinking of her own dreams. Her mind roils with unspeakable suspicions, each one making her sick. "We better get going."