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dnd_drow

Dataset card Data Studio Files
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"We won't be long. We'll see what's in store and bring back what we can."
Upon the Spire, they could smell its putrid stench far before they came upon the vile moat surrounding it. They blocked their noses briefly, at the least to get adjusted to the smell. The paladin saw bones and furry carcasses strewn throughout the waters. He slapped against his hand a mosquito that tried to bite him. He’d rather not be insect food, nor catch any death-borne diseases.
"Gods, the smell," Rolan choked, trying to hide behind his sleeve.
Ikaron and Tilses recovered much quicker than the poor wizard, marching through the swampish grass, leather boots sinking somewhat into the rotten earth.
"Are those... Goats?" Rolan pointed at a set of horns sticking up from a half-macerated skull.
Zevlor peered at them. Yes, they were goats. Dozens upon dozens. Floating in the water, bones sunk to the bottom, a few bloated and ready to burst.
His hand rested against his sheath. "On your guard."
Ikaron and Tilses let their hands fall to their sword and axe handles. Rolan whispered infernal quietly, calling the Weave to him, letting it settle in his wrists, not quite in his palms.
Zevlor marched onward. The wood bridge was wet, soft. He carefully pressed one boot into it, feeling it squelch under him. It was practically mold at this point. He sighed.
He drew his sword, sticking it down into the water, measuring its depth, and whether or not something lurked within. A bubble drew up and popped, making him reel at its stink.
His entire sword sank to the water. Any further and his hand would be in it. He wiped it clean with his belt-cloth.
"Rolan," he called. The wizard perked at the chance to be useful.
"I could freeze it," he offered eagerly. Zevlor nodded.
Rolan took lead, rolling his shoulders, preparing his spell as he closed his eyes. The tips of his fingers glowing an icy blue hue. His eyes opened, solid blue, breath chilly, and out he cast a cone of ice, freezing the surface of the water.
Zevlor pressed his foot against the frozen bridge. It was brittle in some spots.
"Follow my footing."
He was careful to cross, checking back to make sure Rolan was able to keep up as the lesser athletic.
Finally across, they were met with the tall, grandiose doors of the Somber Spire, a relief of a skull above the door in stone, adorned with wind-catchers of quills and bones.
"Weapons," Zevlor ordered.
Rolan didn’t like to hold weapons, he much preferred to use magic. But he drew a knife, just in case. Ikaron drew his axe, Tilses and Zevlor drew their swords.
Zevlor pushed open the doors. They vibrated the walls, dirt falling as they creaked like an old, falling oak.
Mephits proved little challenge, though annoying. Rolan patted out a flame on his sleeve, dabbing a salve on his skin in hopes it wouldn’t blister too badly.
The first few floors were magnificent in their décor. Ancient nearly-black stone dappled with glowing green glass, offering the sickly hue of necromancy as said to be the Spire’s history. Statues of Jergal on either side in the foyer, holding stone scrolls with names gilded into them.
As they ascended, killing Imps and disintegrating Mephits, they noticed the walls had a few sigils bloodied into the stone.
"It’s Infernal," Rolan mentioned. Zevlor could read and speak some, but neither Ikaron nor Tilses managed it well. Rolan, however, enjoyed studying it even if he despised the blood-curse he felt it was.
"They’re... Well, frankly they’re poorly translated. That’s not the right letter here, and this one’s not upright. Devil in the details as they say, and whatever devil they were trying to summon probably wouldn’t show with this sloppy work."
"They’re trying to summon a devil?" Tilses blanched. "Gods’ sakes, why?"
Rolan shrugged. "You say it’s a tiefling diabolist, right? And a Paladin? I don’t know what oath the Paladin has vowed himself, but the tiefling could just want power, or to further awaken her infernal heritage. As much as I hate to be reminded, we are devil-blooded. Ascending to devilhood could be entirely possible with the right spells, the right rituals, the right deals. That’s what this looks like to me. A desperate grab for power."
The further they went, the more and more blood painted the walls. So much so, the scent of rust filled their lungs, copper tang on their tongues. The walls, the floors, the ceilings... Zevlor held out his arm, stopping the small group.
"Wait," he whispered. Everyone lowered their gait, listening.
Scratching. Something was scratching. And mumbling beyond the door.
Imps were hardly a challenge. Mephits either. But the wizard? The paladin? They were worrisome.
Zevlor opened the doors.
A robed figure, presumably the wizard Zevlor thought, scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed the floor, a single spot, cursing to herself, bitch couldn’t even do it, I have to clean it all myself, feed the fucking goats. She startled at the group, eyes wide, shoulders shrunk, a brief look of terror. Then bared her fangs. Her skin was dark, the color of midnight with the faintest blue undertone. Her horns were corkscrewed and bent outwards. Her eyes were a violent violet.
"Get out of my house!" she shrieked, black hooves spread across the floor in wide stance, a whorl of icy Weave tugged around them all.
Rolan pushed past Zevlor, shooting forth a Witchbolt.
The wizardess seized as lightning gripped her body, the frost spell bursting into a gentle snow in the room.
Zevlor’s heated breath made white plumes.
He adjusted his grip on his sword, jogging forward. He prayed, quietly, to any god who would hear him, to bless his blade. His broken oath held no power, now.
His blade burst to flame. His eyes went wide, surprised his holy spell had worked, feeling power down his spine. No. It was simply his blood, his infernal heritage he told himself. He slashed against her wool-woven robes, setting them alight.
She screeched. Ikaron and Tilses took the opportunity to swing at her, but she ducked and dodged, then kicked the water bucket near them, muttering a quick spell. The thrown water sharpened into shrapnels of ice darting at the group. Rolan’s concentration broke as sleet blew in his eyes, shards ripped into his skin, severing the lightning spell as blood dripped to the floor.
As the blades of ice cut into him, a guiding swirl of Weave melted them, absorbing what he could, stealing the Dark Wizard’s spell for his own as he rechanneled it, making sharp, somatic gestures, and burst forth a wave of flames from his fingertips.
Her coat and hair burned, her scream high and shrill.
Zevlor, Ikaron, and Tilses cut their blades through the air, into her flesh.
The wizardess bellowed, a burst of air sweeping the flames cold, sleet swirling around her as the room frosted over more.
She made an articulate gesture, swift, calculated, and thrust forth a fireball, exploding in the room, including scorching part of her already sunburnt face, top layer of skin peeling.
The fire burned white-hot, the four red tieflings buckled and fell. Rolan seethed – they shouldn’t be as affected by these flames... Why did it hurt so much..? He concentrated on calling his infernal blood, to protect him from the heat. It dawned on him – the sigils, the blood, tiefling progenitor and ice-based spells. The Lord of Contradictions, the Fire Devil of icy Cania: Mephistopheles. His Hellfire burned hotter than any wizard’s normal flame.
They groaned, bodies weakened by such a strong spell, but so was she. Zevlor noted her gasping.
He drew his sword up in front of his face, concentrating quietly as he called a blessing.
The wizard’s eyes darted as the skulls of Jergal’s icons in the room lit, though briefly.
Zevlor instinctively cast a soothing balm over the other three, reinvigorating them what best he could.
Again, shock nearly rattled him. He has not been able to cast such spells since...
Ikaron and Tilses looked on to him with equal disbelief. He could feel the familiar sense of something divine behind his cast. He shook it off. No god could forgive his transgressions enough to bless him. This was an Asmodean trick. Nothing more.  
Ikaron and Tilses ran towards the Wizardess, careful not to slip on the frozen floor. They swung, and she dodged them each with desperate ease. But this time, they each backswung, catching her off guard, cutting in her leg and stomach, blood splattering, bright red onto dark rust.
She fell to her knees. But she was not done.
She jabbed her hands into her stomach wound, madness in her eyes as the quartet stared with horror, her bloodied fingers scrabbling "cross the stone, chanting infernal prayers.
Her body was engulfed in flame, her screaming rang. Wings burst from her back, strips of flesh flung against the walls. The sleet froze the doors shut, the windows shattered from the constant hot-and-cold. She thrust a bursting line of fire at Zevlor, who stood his ground, using his sword to cut it through, enduring the heat searing against his cheeks.
"Go!" he barked.
Rolan thrust a pair of fingers out, calling out with bolstered confidence an infernal cant. An electric thread exploded from his fingers and wrapped around her ankles, dragging her down as she tried to fly. The room was too small for her to get away. The flames ended, Zevlor’s armor red hot against his chest as he grit his teeth, feeling it sear his skin, but took the opportunity Rolan gave him – he ran her through.
Her wings twitched and spasmed, her body thrashing about.
Tilses ran her sword through the devil-tiefling’s ribs, Ikaron slashed his axe across her stomach, gutting her open, spilling organs on the floor and over Zevlor’s feet.
Finally, she stilled, her own weight beginning to cut her on their weapons until they let her drop. Limp.
Zevlor wiped his brow of sweat and soot. He shook his boot of her gore. Rolan shook his hands, feeling the combination of electricity in his veins and frostbite nip his fingertips.
Icy magic began to melt away. The four of them sat, catching their breaths.
The unspoken question remained in the air: where did Zevlor’s power come from?
No one wanted to say. No one could say. The former Hellrider glanced to the statues of Jergal. This was the Black Senechal’s domain. Ancient. Powerful. Would the nether-god bless him for the sake of his disciple? Zevlor hoped the cleric was so well loved. Perhaps it would spare him unkind Fate.
Zevolr looked on to the diabolist, black eyes turned white, mouth agape. She didn’t have a tail.
Wounds as mended as best they could, soreness tended. The group stood when Zevlor stood.
"Alright. Let’s go."
The next few floors were... Plain.
The grandeur of Jergal statues ended abruptly. No skeletons, no skulls, no opulent wardrobes and furnishings. It was simply... Barren.
Rolan in particular found it disappointing, to say the least, in matters of wizard’s pride.
The stench of rot had long dissipated in the lower floors, but a new foul odor wafted from the next.
They heard noise, again. Grating. Clicking. And... Bleating?
Rolan snorted sardonically, "I think I know where the goats in the moat came from."
Zevlor opened the wooden door. He covered his nose to the stench of animals, stronger than any he had dealt with before but not entirely unbearable.
Dozens. Packed in a tiny room. Many of them emaciated. A few, weak if not dead on the ground. Some certainly dead, now that the stench of death crept back up on them.
Hay piled up in a particular corner. A few goats were eating it. A single window barred from the inside. Troughs of stale, mildewed water. A couple goats jammed horns against each other.
The Paladin’s tension faded, if for the moment. He stared. The poor beasts would die soon, certainly, without proper care. Though they were all being sacrificed regardless, he supposed. But the state of the goats wasn’t all that tightened his chest. He tried to imagine him, Yuta, in the straw-filled corner, looking out the window to Selûne or dipping his thin hands into the trough for a drink beside the goats.
Tilses touched his arm. He jumped slightly, looking at her.
He said nothing as he slammed the butt of his sword against a lock several times until the wood around it broke. He kicked the next door open with a greater agitation. The goats startled, running down the stairs now that they were free. They likely won’t survive the night. Not with hungry gnolls about.
He could feel his blood boil the closer to the top he marched. Rolan glanced at the Paladin’s face, taken aback by the fury radiating from his dark scowl.
The final door to the top.
Odd, that the tower, as ancient as it supposedly was, had few traps. It was all too straight forward. With what Rolan knew of wizard towers this certainly counted as a tower in the basest sense. But hardly any windows at all, no overflowing bookcases, no floors dedicated to experimentation nor vergely-unethical alchemies to study. It was all so barren he scoffed at the thought of calling it a tower at all.
The final door: grand in size but not design, plain oak-wood stained dark with black wrought-iron handle. It groaned as it opened, revealing the top floor.
There stood a tall, foreboding figure, fully armor-clad in pitch obsidian, a longsword hung at his belt.
A plain bed in the corner, with dark gray sheets. A desk against the wall, overflowing with papers, books, scrolls, a wardrobe shoddily painted. The windows were drawn shut, curtains darkening the room save for spare candlelight.
But tieflings could see in the dark.
Zevlor drew his sword.
The figure turned from a fireplace, above the mantle hung a strange axe with a gaudy, scaly handle. On either side were skulls of what Zevlor recognized as simple boar.
The figure shook his head with a sardonic little laugh.
"You don’t know who I am, do you?"
Ikaron and Tilses readied their blades. Rolan drew the Weave into his fingers, eyes glowing as he prepared his spells to come.
"I know I intend to kill you," Zevlor threatened.
He charged at the man, who seemed genuinely startled, stepping back, fumbling for his sword. Zevlor swung, not quite slipping the blade between the gap he wanted. The Dark Paladin in turn finally drew his own sword.
The Dark Paladin swung wildly, undisciplined, catching Zevlor and Tilses off guard. They leaped back to avoid the frantic sword-swinging. Rolan threw a thin Ray of Frost at him, hitting his elbow. He cried out, cursing angrily as his elbow froze stiff. Tilses swung her sword down on the spot, cracking the armor and his bone, his wailing reverberated across the room. Ikaron swept his tail behind the Dark Paladin’s ankles, tripping him. Zevlor raised his sword above his head, pointing downward. He saw through the grates of the other’s helmet the brief, genuine fear in his eyes.
The tiefling bellowed his wrath as his blade came down into the Dark Paladin’s eye through the helmet’s grates. He jammed his knee against the black armor, holding him down as he thrashed and spluttered and wheezed, slicing the blade further until the man stopped moving.
With a grunt he pulled out his sword, wiping it against his red blood-kerchief hanging off his belt before sheathing it.
"I thought you said he was a paladin," Ikaron said, hardly broken a sweat. His red tailtip flittered curiously.
"Yes, that’s what I was told." Zevolr pondered it.