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dnd_drow

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"You can’t just kill people, Lae’zel." Tav admonished.
"You would rather talk them to death?" The githyanki sneered.
"No. I would rather find out what they know." Tav stated flatly. "We are no closer to finding your creche, thanks to you ."
"Tsk'va." Lae’zel sighed. "You have... you are gish on this plane. I will not bow to you, but my sword will strike where you point. For now."
"I suppose that’s the best I can hope for." Tav grinned ruefully as they all made their way deeper into the ruins.
Astarion was amazed. She had quelled the githyanki’s bloodlust with only words. Tav’s position as leader was much stronger as a result. It would take a great deal of finesse to achieve his goals with her. Every move mattered.
The door, thankfully, was locked tight. Another way to make himself indispensable to the drow. He reached into his pack to find his lockpicking tools and saw the apple he had put in there earlier, shiny and red.
"Tav!" Astarion called out, snapping the apple into the air in the drow’s direction. He didn’t bother seeing if she caught it, turning to fiddle with the lock instead. His ears caught the sound of teeth crunching into an apple and an almost inaudible moan of pleasure.
"What is that?" Lae’zel asked, curious.
"It’s an apple." Tav said. "Amazing food they have up here. These things just grow on trees! You don’t need to fight it or anything."
"Chk!" Lae’zel made a dismissive sound. Food that didn’t require murder first wasn’t her ideal.
The tumblers clicked into place and the bolt threw back. The door was unlocked.
Astarion threw the door open, then turned to the companions, grinning to see Tavs faced stuffed with apple. "I invite you all in for the evening," He said with a sweeping bow.
"Thank you for your hospitality, good sir." Tav curtsied in return.
Shadowheart rolled her eyes and pushed past Astarion.
"Oh, wow." Her voice floated out, inspiring the rest of them to push in as well.
The room was large and decrepit. Broken furniture piled in corners. A staircase led to another solid oak door that would doubtless lead to whatever room was now filled with the corpses of treasure hunters. What had really caught Shadowheart’s attention were the supplies piled everywhere in the room. A massive stone hearth warmed the room with a bright fire, plenty of wood ready to keep the blaze going all night. A long table laden with food and drink. Tents and bedrolls piled against one wall, more than enough for all of them.
Tav immediately began poking at the bedrolls and tents, while Shadowheart and Gale ransacked the table, stuffing their faces. Lae’zel grabbed a roasted chicken and settled in to pick its carcass clean.
"Waterdhavian cheese!" Gale exclaimed with joy, holding up an entire cheese wheel, its dull yellow rind only slightly flecked with mold.
"What’s that?" Tav asked, her attention caught by the wizard's joy.
"Oh, come here, you must try it." Gale dug around the table for a knife and bread, preparing the cheese while explaining - lecturing - Tav on the cheese’s origins in Waterdeep. The wizard clearly knew his way around the kitchen, which was a blessing as Astarion did not want to take a turn preparing food he would never taste.
Gale handed Tav and Shadowheart a slice of bread, smeared with the soft cheese. Astarion busied himself selecting a tent and bedroll, pretending to be absorbed in the task to avoid taking the food himself.
Tav took a bite of the bread and let loose a positively sinful moan.
"Shadowheart, you’ve got to try this, it’s so good ." Tav encouraged the cleric to eat as well, which she did without near as much audible joy as the drow.
Astarion turned to regard Tav with amusement, which doubled when he saw Gale staring hard at the floor, face flushed red in embarrassment. Noting how distracted everyone was by Tav’s shockingly innocent joy at experiencing cheese, of all things, Astarion took advantage of the moment to grab the nicest looking tent and bedroll as his own.
Some time later, the party had claimed bedrolls and spread out to rest for the evening. They had locked and barred the doors for safety; conversations on the watch order were just beginning when the door to the outside swung open. A tall man entered the room, his nose wrinkled with slight distaste as he beheld the companions. He was dressed in nobleman’s finery; padded silks, brocade doublet and lace at this throat. His dark hair, temples graying, pushed back with a styling paste, his tanned skin almost red.
The man ignored the tense response his entrance had caused. Everyone in the room frozen, obviously calculating how far away they were from their weapons. Astarion, having laid out his bedroll beside Tav, noticed her hand held behind her back was moving. Quickly repeating motions between a clenched fist and strange finger movements. She was trying to communicate something to him but he was lost as to what it could be.
"My, my," The cultured tones of nobility flowed from the man. "What manner of place is this? A path to redemption, or a road to damnation? Hard to say, for your journey is just beginning."
The man had not a care in the world and that was terrifying.
"What would suit the occasion?" The man tapped a thoughtful finger to his lips, "The words to a lullaby, perhaps? The mouse smiled brightly: it outfoxed the cat! Then down came the claw, and that, love, was that."
Tav slowly rose to her feet, her hand still pulsing with signals Astarion could not read. She warily regarded the man as he seemingly spoke to himself.
"They do know how to write them in Cormyr, don’t they?" He asked.
"Who are you?" Tav asked through frozen lips.
"Well met. I am Raphael. Very much at your service." The man bowed with all the manners of a king's court.
"Am I talking to the mouse, or the cat?" Tav wondered.
"Neither." Raphael chuckled. "The fox, rather, hiding in a word: a silent observer - about to break the silence."
He looked around their meager camp again, disgust plainly upon his face. "Of course," He said in an aside to Tav, as though she were in on his joke, "what I have to say merits some privacy - as well as some more... Let's call it refinement. This quaint little scene is decidedly too middle-of-nowhere for my tastes. Come."
The word was a command. It held a power that washed over the room. The very air changed at his request, sulfurous smoke appearing in an instant, obscuring the room from sight.
When it had cleared, the group found themselves transported to an ostentatious dining hall. A circular table dominated the middle of the room, groaning under the weight of an incredible feast. Gold and marble, deep red velvet plush on heavily carved chairs. The room was one of power and royalty. Over the massive hearth, a life-sized oil painting hung in an ornate gilt frame. A portrait of a devil, red-skinned, wings spread, dressed in the finery of nobility.
"There." Raphael said with satisfaction thick in his voice. "Middle-of-somewhere."
"Can you be more specific than "somewhere’?" Tav inquired, body still in the way a deer stood still before the hunter. Fear-frozen, longing to run.
"The House of Hope." Raphael explained, arms wide in welcome. "Where the tired come to rest, and the famished come to feed - lavishly.
The man gestured to the table behind them, an encouraging smile looking out of place on his face. Astarion caught the smell of blood. He glanced at the table and saw it immediately, a carafe full of blood. What did this man know?
"Go on." Raphael encouraged them all "Partake. Enjoy your supper. After all... it might just be your last." No one moved to touch the food.
"What makes you say that?" Tav asked.
Raphael chuckled, knowingly. "Call it a ninth sense." Fire and sulfurous clouds swirled around the man and his body changed. Skin reddened, horns sprouted thick and tall from his forehead, massive bat wings stretched from his back. His nobleman’s refinement covered in patches of armor, iron thick upon his body. The devil in the portrait made flesh.
"Eilistraee sila zuneerrh." Tav whispered so quietly Astarion was certain he was the only one to hear it. He wanted to laugh at the half-wit of a drow. Reaching for a goddess, guaranteed to be silent, while they stood before the very present threat of a devil. She was a fool. A fool who was on the edge of a heart attack, if he estimated the sound of the stuttering organ in her chest correctly, yet she appeared calm and collected before the fiend. Fascinating that she could maintain such calm.
"What’s better than a devil you don’t know?" Raphael asked, before smirking and answering his own question. "A devil you do."
"Am I a friend? Potentially." Like Gale, Raphael was in love with his own voice. Tav had no need to ask questions or seek information, the devil more than happy to spout his overly dramatic lines to the small audience he had gathered. "An adversary? Conceivably. But a savior? That’s for certain."
"What makes you think we need saving?" Tav gave very little away in her own words, encouraging Raphael to give away as much as possible in his flair for drama.
"Come now." The devil’s glowing orange eyes narrowed. "Why play hard to get when you’re in deep over your tadpoles head? One skull, two tenants, and no solution in sight. I could fix it all like that." Raphael snapped clawed fingers.
Tav laughed with little humor. "You’re mad if you think I’ll make a deal with a devil."
Astarion almost wanted to thank a deity. Perhaps Eilistraee. A devil’s bargain was no true answer to their situation. No mortal offered aid or kindness for no reason, much less a devil.
Raphael didn’t seem surprised by Tav’s refusal. "And what is madness, but a denial of reality? Still, I’ve a feeling you’ll change your mind. Before it’s changed for you."
The devil laughed, secure in the knowledge that ceremorphosis was inevitable without his intervention. "Try to cure yourself." He invited, "Shop around - beg, borrow, and steal. Exhaust every possibility until none are left. And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair - that’s when you’ll come knocking on my door."
"Hope." Raphael laughed. "Such a tease."
"And how would we find you?" Tav asked in a tone that said she would slit her own throat before trying to seek him out.
"I’ll be around. Watching you squirm like a tadpole through a nice, juicy brain." Raphael looked down his aquiline nose at Tav, "All those pretty little symptoms - sundering skin, dissolving guts - they haven’t manifested yet, have they? One might say you’re a paragon of luck. I’ll be there when it runs out."
Sulfurous clouds swirled again and they found themselves back at their camp.
"Xsa rilbol." Tav cursed emphatically.
Gale strode with focused purpose towards the table of food, plucking bottles of wine from the table and swiftly uncorking them before passing them out. One bottle each. Even Lae’zel was grateful to take a bottle from the wizard, immediately putting the bottle to her lips and taking a long pull.
Astarion took a deep drink from his own bottle, trying not to make a face at the taste of vinegar. Wine always smelled as delicious as it used to be, but the taste was forever vinegar. Disgusting.
Shadowheart sat on Tav’s bedroll, close beside the drow, patting the sorcerer on the shoulder. "You did wonderfully, you know." she said, reassuringly.
"Yes," Gale agreed from his own bedroll closer to the fire. "That was no place to strike a bargain, it was wise of you to reject the fiend entirely."
Tav took a deep drink of her own bottle, clearly believing she’d only feel better at the bottom of it. Her heart had yet to truly slow down; she smelled deliciously of fear and it brought a deep ache to his fangs. The rabbit he had drank earlier should have sustained him for days, based on the feeding habits Cazador had permitted, but it was clear to him he would need to eat something before sunrise. If they all drank themselves stupid, it would be far easier to slip out and hunt before morning.
"Let’s take our minds off the devil and his silly rhymes." Astarion proposed. "Who knows a drinking game?"
An hour later, Lae’zel, whose only drinking game she would play was "drink, then drink more’, was well and truly passed out. The fabled wizard Gale of Waterdeep was interrogating Shadowheart on her name and Astarion was counting down the seconds that the very drunk Tav leaning on his shoulder became the very drunk Tav asleep in her bedroll. He was so hungry and she smelled delicious. It was distracting.
"Surely that’s not your real name!" Gale was saying.
"Did your parents not like you?" Astarion asked, earning a snort of laughter and an ineffective smack to his thigh from the drow.
"It’smy name!" Shadowheart slurred. "That’s all I’msaying. S’your turn now."
"Gale Dekarios, of Waterdeep."
"Astarion Ancunín. Of Baldur’s Gate, I suppose."
"Tav’ryneer Aranath." The name flowed out of Tav in her strange underdark accent. "Of... of this bottle, because I hate my name. Nobody call me that."
Did she, now? Astarion filed that little fact away.
Shadowheart dissolved into giggles.
"We are going to regret this in the morning." Gale sighed.
"Ssrig'luin ulu v'dri." Tav slurred out, then looked confused when everyone else looked at her with confusion. "Vel'bol?"
"Surface common, darling." Astarion reminded her with a nudge.
"Sleep." Tav repeated. "Need’t sleep."
She promptly pushed off Astarion and fell into her bedroll. He didn’t miss the warmth of her body. He didn’t.
"That’s th’right idea." Shadowheart observed from the other side of Tav’s bedroll. She lay down on her own.
Gale decided to stare thoughtfully into the fire and Astarion could stab him for it. Instead he lay down on his own bedroll beside Tav and faked rest. The wizard would pass out soon and then he could hunt.
Tadashi tended to ignore the local tavern near the guild as he much preferred his own company over that of rowdy drunks, but for some reason something that evening compelled him to visit it. He would simply have a drink or two and then head back to his room for the night, and he would definitely not fall asleep with an all too familiar lonely ache that had curled deep inside his chest. Or at least that’s what he told himself as he stepped into the tavern, the warmth of the large hearth in the middle seeping into his bones.
At this time in the evening, the tavern was only just starting to fill out, so the place was relatively peaceful. The few patrons who were around turned their heads to look at him, but when they noticed who it was that entered they simply turned back to their drinks. It made Tadashi somewhat grateful for the fact he’d made a name for himself in the guild, as he knew tieflings like himself were a rare occurrence outside of their Infernal Refuge. Members of the guild had at least gotten used to seeing his presence, though some of the new recruits always seemed fascinated when they saw his red skin, his sharp, black horns jutting out of his head, or his piercing yellow eyes and black sclera. He would simply ignore their looks, as a subtle way to teach them to get over their strange fascination and focus on the job at hand.
As Tadashi seated himself at the bar, the tavern owner gave him a warm smile. Whilst Tadashi tended not to visit regularly, the owner still recognised him (not that that was hard with how he looked), and always seemed to welcome his patronage.
"Good evening, Tadashi. The usual, I take it?" the owner said, procuring a bottle from underneath the bar alongside a glass.
"Of course," Tadashi answered, watching as the glass filled with a rather expensive looking brandy. The dark liquid reflected the soft candlelight as Tadashi cupped the glass in his hands, warming up the drink.
Tadashi’s favourite thing about this tavern was the fact he could drink in peace without being barraged with questions from the owner, and so that is exactly what he did. He sipped his brandy, feeling it slither down his body and warm his insides, shutting out the rest of the tavern and simply stewing in his thoughts.
Said thoughts, however, were interrupted by the door banging open and an all too familiar laugh catching his attention. He tried to be subtle as he looked over his shoulder, pretending that his heart didn’t skip a beat as a recognizable half-elf stepped into the tavern with some random human at his side.
The half-elf was a very skilled new recruit, a young monk who had piqued Tadashi’s interest when he’d watched him in a sparring match a month ago. Against his better judgement, Tadashi had introduced himself after the match, learning that the monk’s name was Akihiko. He’d also quickly learned that Akihiko was an absolute brat, but his prowess in hand to hand combat was too good for Tadashi to simply ignore and so he offered to train Akihiko whenever he had the free time. Despite their personalities clashing more often than not, Tadashi found himself drawn to the dumbass in ways he couldn’t quite explain, and eventually the two ended up sleeping together. Unfortunately after that moment, Tadashi had had to go away for a couple of weeks to deal with business in the Infernal Refuge and so he hadn’t seen Akihiko in a while. Seeing him now made a strange feeling well up inside the tiefling, one he chose to ignore by having a sip of brandy. He also tried to ignore the way Akihiko’s companion seemed overly familiar with him, an arm casually slung around Akihiko’s shoulders. He didn’t need to dwell on those feelings, thank you very much.
The two sat on the other end of the bar from Tadashi, both ordering some beer as they chatted to themselves. Tadashi was really trying not to pry, keeping his head tucked down and pretending the strange feeling welling up inside him was something completely different and that he wasn’t jealous because Tadashi was above petty feelings like that. He just couldn’t help but be slightly upset (only slightly!) that Akihiko had completely blanked him. Sure he wasn’t dressed in the usual armour that Akihiko got to see him in around the guild, but Tadashi was still one of the few tieflings of said guild, and he liked to consider that him and Akihiko were close. With a heavy sigh, Tadashi knocked back the rest of his brandy before ordering another glass.
As the evening wore on, Tadashi tried not to focus on how Akihiko’s current companion seemed to gradually be getting closer and closer. Akihiko at least seemed to be completely oblivious to the little tells that this guy really wanted to get in his pants, and it made Tadashi feel somewhat grateful he’d forgone most of the flirting because he realised it would have literally flown over Akihiko’s head. However, that didn’t mean the way the other guy was touching him or whispered in his ear didn’t make Tadashi grind his teeth together, fingers clutching the glass just a tad tighter. The way a particular comment from his companion had Akihiko snorting before laughing loud enough to fill the entire tavern had Tadashi’s heart aching, realising he liked the sound of Akihiko laughter and wishing he could get him to laugh with him.
Fuck, he was hopeless.
A simple solution to the jealousy that was churning up inside Tadashi was for him to stand up and leave the tavern, but something kept him rooted to his seat. Maybe it was that small bit of hope that Akihiko might notice him after a few weeks apart and rush over just to excitedly tell him of a new manoeuvre he’d figured out, or maybe it was curiosity about how Akihiko would handle the very obvious gestures of want coming from his companion. Speaking of said companion, they now had a hand on Akihiko’s thigh and Tadashi had to physically swallow the growl that threatened to bubble up in his throat. He didn’t know why he was getting so damn jealous when he and Akihiko weren’t even a thing in the first place. They’d had sex once, pretty damn good sex actually, but they weren’t dating and Tadashi hadn’t laid down any ground rules about them seeing others. Akihiko was a grown man who was free to do what he wanted. So then, why did the thought of Akihiko giving his body to other people make Tadashi feel sick to his stomach?
I really need to learn to stop getting attached to the people I fuck...
He brewed on that thought and briefly entertained the idea of whetting his own appetite with one of the pretty elven ladies at the nearby pleasure house but the moment he thought about it, he felt a curl of dissatisfaction in his gut. He knew that he’d be thinking about a certain monk instead, and he didn’t wish to ruin a sex worker’s night with his own self pity. Risking another glance down the other end of the bar, Tadashi almost spilled his drink when he saw that Akihiko was looking right at him. The monk seemed surprised for a second, more than likely only just registering that the tiefling drowning himself in expensive brandy was in fact Tadashi, before a wide grin broke out on his face. Tadashi’s heart definitely did not skip a beat as he saw that smile, throwing up his hand in a lazy wave and trying not to visibly blanch at the fact Akihiko might have caught him staring.
He couldn’t dwell on that, either luckily or unluckily, as Akihiko slipped off his stool and made his way to the one next to Tadashi. He fought back the smirk of sick satisfaction as he saw the look on Akihiko’s companion’s face, one of both shock and clear resentment. A petty idea played in Tadashi’s head, knowing he was clearly the more handsome one out of Akihiko’s current companions for the night. The flirting from before had clearly not worked on Akihiko, but maybe Tadashi had a better chance. He’d have to wait for his time to strike.
"Tadashi! I didn’t realise you were back already, I almost didn’t recognise you," Akihiko said, shuffling in his seat with that barely contained restless energy Tadashi had gotten familiar with over the time they’d spent together.
"I think you need glasses more than I do if you barely recognised me," Tadashi responded, rolling his eyes.
"Glasses are for shmups and I’m not a shmup. Besides, I don’t wanna get punched in the face with glasses on, that sounds like it’d hurt," Akihiko responded. Tadashi didn’t deign to ask what a shmup was, but snorted at Akihiko’s comment about being punched in the face.