Light comes in the Dark.

[Vanidor]

And so they came, ten score in all, bearing torches to illuminate the night. Some dressed in leather, some in metal. All armed with both bows and some sort of melee weapon. Sabre's were common, though here and there axes and maces were interspaced amoungst the soldiery. The only common thing between them all was the sigil embossed upon each and every one of them. Kerrak's symbol, that of his company of Mercenaries that had so long ago seemed to be consumed by the folk of Myrken. Intermingled and joined with them all. And now they rejoined (though in far greater numbers than perhaps anyone had believed) to ward their chosen home.

In groups of ten they would spread into the night, raising their torches high. Levelling their lanterns upon the ends of long poles. Their aim was drive back the night, and give the people some measure of safety.

If any asked, they would state it true. They were here at the bequest of the Council and Straka (for had Kerrak not said that his men would help ward the city?) and they would stay as long as their people were under siege such as this...

[Rattrap]

Kerrak's men were joined by individuals wearing the Order of Straka uniform, moving toward the same goal - to the light the city. What mages the Straka had in their employ had even been devising spells and wards that would magically light areas that torchlight was too obscure, or too dangerous - they lit and lit until sunrise, and would continue to do so the next night to until they were confident the Drow had little place to go.

* * *

There was one individual beneath the Broken Dagger who watched the events unfold silently, curiously and unexpectedly; he had not known of the Drow activity, just that of Coran and It. He might have intervened, but It was being fed generously from the battle above - there was no need to even show his hand.

Perhaps next time.

[Rance]

The humans had always been a bother.

Audmathus Cecinefien Xhevus had never expected any less. Granted, they were easy to kill and to best, but that did not mean that they were not bothersome. They were and always had been a thorn in his side, a consistent twig in the gears that Lolth herself had set into motion. Their second outing to the surface had proved just as stimulating as the first, and though the light-skins had become rather stubborn since the last time he had shown his presence, they were never so much more fun to slaughter. Hours after the excursion, he sat in the chambers of the lair that he and Faeryl had named their home. He had insisted of the priestess that she retire, to lick her wounds and launch herself into prayer, to prepare more spells for the next time. He would take care of this night's raid.

He lied to the humans just as effectively as ever. He knew the guards would be stationed and waiting, keeping an eye in the shadows for black-skinned intruders, blades at the ready. And yes, he was sure that their numbers could easily slaughter those mere human soldiers, but murdering the guards was not their aim.

The suffering came more when the innocent were killed.

A collection of twelve drow stood silently around a basin filled with a murky, muddy ichor, their faces set in quiet determination, ready to undertake the mission prescribed of them. Six females and six males stood ready and waiting for their orders, bodies naked, armor and robes tossed aside. The females, in particular, seemed rather displeased to be required to listen to the words of a male, even Audmathus, but he had Faeryl's blessing, and he also had Avel's. Thus, he had Lolth's, and there was little they could argue.

Audmathus held a skeletal hand to the torn flesh of his throat, and he strode among the unclothed followers, Shadowdancer throbbing in his fist. He walked among them and traced the flat of the blade along their slender spines, and when one of the females turned around to snap at him, he leaned the blade against her throat and leered into her eyes, reminding her who clearly held the praise of the Dark Lady herself.

"They will be expecting us," he hoarsely informed them, the unclean gash in his throat reminding him of Tyreal's desperate maneuver. "Clearly, the Priestess and Srinnin and I caused quite an uproar, and though they will certainly take our threat seriously, it is our task to make them realize the folly of their mistakes. We desire their wretched land, and if they will not give it to us, then I will not wait to form my own response. They will be prepared for shadowed riders and hidden assassins. We will not give them what they want." Audmathus grabbed the back of one of the male's heads and promptly thrust the unsuspecting warrior's face down into the basin. He gurgled and thrashed, and Audmathus stared over him as he calmly informed the others.

"Drink it," the rotten dark elf snarled. "Drink it and return to the surface. Descend upon Myrkenwood through its grasses and sneak into the homes of the innocents. Do not disturb the guard," he vaguely said. "and do not attack the authority. Faeryl and I will deal with the Councilors in our own time. You are all merely a message, and I do not expect you to fail in delivering it." He pulled the dark elf out of the basin and threw him backwards, and the male cringed, turning his head to vomit the brown ichor onto the floor below him. Audmathus leaned down and pressed a boot against the male's neck, scowling. "That taste is your future," he soothingly spoke. "Become the arm of your goddess and do my will."

Suddenly, the restrained male flinched. His fingers began to jitter and jerk, and he scraped at the stony floor of the chamber, a fingernail snapping free as he tried to drag himself to his feet, but the clutch of the enchanted fluid took him quickly. He let out a choked howl and twisted into a tiny ball as Audmathus stepped away, and a moment later, he was gone, vanished ....

... replaced instead by a tiny, flinching spider, its eight legs twisting about to scrape at the floor. It was no larger than a coin, and Audmathus leaned down to pluck the polymorphed drow into his fingers, holding him lightly in his fingers. He stared at the eleven remaining.

"Drink," he snapped. "Do as you are instructed, and let us not leave the humans waiting."

And so, the Lolth-fearing creatures that they were, they gave their lives without knowing to the cause presented forth before them. In the light of gently flickering faerie fire, they quaffed of the liquid, some willingly, others forced by a glare and a blade that promised of death. Srinnin had concocted the potion without much fault, a mere draught of shapeshifting with its own little twist. If the spidery fangs of Lolth's loyal servants were meant to bring death to their victims, then the potion would have to be filled with various types of poison to see that the inflictions were drastic enough to so suddenly stop an unsuspecting heart. The spidered drow would surely live long enough to fulfill their task, but little did they know that they themselves would be eaten alive by the potent poisons they imbibed as, one by one, they too were stricken by the shape of the spider.

"Go," Audmathus chuckled, as one by one, driven by the silent pact of their duties, they began to scuttle off to various portions of the chamber, eventually vanishing into its cracks and niches. "Deliver our word," he commanded of them, turning back to his chambers.

"Kill their children," he continued. "A single bite in the night as they sleep should do the trick, for even with their most dedicated torches, they could not hope to find you..."

Come morning, two nights after the initial battle in the Broken Dagger, Myrkentown would awaken once more to screams, this time of horrified mothers and fathers as twelve separate children were found dead in their beds, the smiles of sleep still across their lips, and with each, a mottled, deceased spider lay curled beneath the edge of an earlobe or tucked within the sheets where dreams were meant to be imagined. Kerrak and Suede and the rest of Myrken had their second warning. It came without pretense.

More would die if Faeryl and Audmathus were not appeased.

[Carnath-Emory]

With enough wine, you can ignore just about anything. Given an adequate supply of Thessilane's Best, you can forget just about everything.

If your business is soldiering, this is the sort of thing that you learn at an early age -- if you learn anything at all. If you've fled a home that doesn't want you, say. If you've left a husband or wife behind you, too; if they're dead, you just learn it faster. If you've butchered your hair short and played at being a lad; if you've grown it long because whoring better pays for swords and lessons and meals. If your teachers have taught you the difference between mercenary and murderer, you learn that just about anything can be drowned this way-- and oh, she'd had some good teachers. In that respect.

By the end of her first year in E'strielle's service, she could match Santiago drink for drink. But never Gallandry. That, they said, told you a lot about the man.

It had told her a lot about Myrkentown, too, that she'd found a few who could match her capacity for Derry Red. Nothing that she hadn't already known, mind, but it had made the nights more pleasant -- and sometimes the days, as well. They'd passed in a haze of sharp alcohol and blurry cards, of slurred stories and idiot nostalgia, because they knew that secret too: that enough good wine can even make you forget that your sister's just another stain on a tavern floor. She'd told them this, down at the Floating Dragon, and the Dancing Boar, and the Drunken Fool -- that not being its name, but what they'd gotten to calling it all the same. Just a stain on the filthy floor, she'd said, and they'd nodded their understanding and passed the bottle and --

And when all was done, she'd stumble outside into a dawn that scorched her eyes, and sometimes she'd walk down the inn stairs and sometimes she'd fall down them; in the end, it didn't matter if her new friends were laughing at her or with her. It was enough that the new sun blinded the hurt from her eyes, that the last of the wine decayed her thoughts. It was absolutely enough to be so concerned with the business of walking upright that there was no time to think on anything else.

It was certainly no surprise that, when word of spiders and lanterns and Kerrak's men reached her, she discounted the whole thing as a case of mistaken identity. As imitation, at best. As unimportant, Audmathus after all being quite dead. Seen that with her own eyes, she'd chided them, and that's quite some hand of cards you're holding, but nowhere near good enough. And what does it matter, Quincy also being dead, Phlynn likewise being dead, Lenore being mad, and the rest having removed themselves to better climes, why yes, let's drink to their wisdom. The wages of heroism, she'd finally pronounced, straight of spine and unsteady of footing, are death. And once the cheers died down, she'd found herself with more mugs than even she could drink down in a single night.


Still... this matter of lanterns, a notion quite typical of Kerrak. He'd always liked the grandiose gestures. This matter of bloody words, of dead children and spiders. Perhaps it might be worth having a word with him about it -- for the Governor's sake, of course. If the threat was genuine, best she know. If it was genuine, perhaps it would persuade Bromn to abandon the town, and she could finally be free of it as well. And perhaps she could keep the sword at her side and in its sheath, and perhaps she could keep murder from her mind, and vengeance too --

Perhaps it would just make for a pleasant walk.