Datasets:
mickume
/
dnd_drow

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
Community
text
stringlengths
0
41.4k
"And what of thee, god-child, moon-graced, silver-blood?"  
It is the Scribe who addresses you one entirely unremarkable evening, looking up from his scroll to arrest your gaze with his deathless one. They introduced him, a camp guest most unexpected, by some nonsense name you cannot even call to mind. But you would know him anywhere. And so you stop in your path, as you are bid, and listen. 
"A tipping of the scales most severe: thine mother freshly spared mourning her daughter, her dark sister's triumph snatched away at the very last moment." 
"You have guided these adventurers well, Scribe," you incline your head in respect and a small measure of thanks.  
"I do not guide," the grave-wind voice is raised just enough to convey something resembling annoyance at a minor inaccuracy he simply must correct. "I offer what services I am bound to, nothing more."  
You arch an eyebrow at him. "And yet you wish to speak to me, who did not ask any service of you." 
"Yes," he responds, and leaves it at that for a few moments that feel like an eternity. A timescale he is used to, one would imagine. 
"Dame Aylin. Thou art a curious creature, I admit - immortal, yet appearing in my records many times over. Moreover, thine fate stands indelibly entwined with one whose name has been freshly struck from the archives in a manner most uncommon and highly questionable." 
A tension floods you as you realise he talks of Isobel, and your hands tighten into fists at your sides.  
"What of her, pray tell?" It comes out more curt than you intended, perhaps, but the words are spoken before you can properly settle on them. 
"She lives, and shall do so for the time that is given to her, as it is to most. And still," he nods, unnervingly calm, all taut paper-thin skin, a being of unlife if you've ever seen one, "thou wouldst cleave thine malefactors in twain and rejoice in their screams. Thou, who burnest so deeply to reflect back upon them every spear-strike, every lash, every cut, every shattered, twisted bone and sinew, every drop of blessed blood they dared spill."  
You breathe in a leaden breath, knit together as you are, the divine birthright of your Mother lacing your scars with shining gold, proclaiming that the testament of your newly ended immeasurable suffering is something to be proudly displayed. You know the marks on your face glisten in the firelight much like the woven gold that decorates his skull, his sunken cheeks, as he looks upon you half-expectantly.  
"I would, and I do," you can but confirm through grit teeth. 
"What of thine anger? What of the gnawing in thine holy gut, the rage clawing up thine throat? A great weight, inclined to tip the scales once more. Which way shalt thou cast it?" 
"I would destroy them. I would scorch the very traces of them from the world. Some, I already have - as you are doubtlessly aware, Scribe. Much like they tried, and failed, to destroy me." 
"Or did they?" There is the infuriating calmness again, and a question meant for no answer, or perhaps merely a word of caution aimed at you. 
His withered countenance is as utterly illegible as a weather-worn tombstone, but if this was meant to stir hated doubt in you, it does. For you have grown well aware it is not just the bright, righteous blaze of justified anger that fuels you now, but something relentless that stings and cuts you as it wants out, out, out. This is not the way of Protection, of Devotion, of measured Justice. This is not the duty you were once sworn to, the sacred oath that has resounded in the marrow of your very bones since the first breath you ever drew upon this land. No, it is something new, and yet Vengeance has served you just as well - better, perhaps - in this brief time you've been free. 
"For all their infernal efforts, I have pieced myself together over and over and over again. It is my nature to do so, not a choice to be made, nor a conscious effort. Their betrayal and their sins against me are but a chapter in my tale, nothing more. My task is not done, and for as long as it is so, Dame Aylin will not stop, will not falter. You know this as well as I." 
The calm of the tomb refuses to be disturbed in any way, least of all by your tirade. "And yet, along the way, a piece of thee was lost and replaced with another, ill-fitting. Many stand to win from this, as many stand to lose." 
You frown as you scrounge around for a reply, and find yourself lacking one. He looks not at you, but into and through you, and it is uniquely discomfiting.  
The Scribe raises his hand in dismissal, and offers solemn parting words. "A godling thou art, but no god. It is in thine nature, too, to wonder, and question, and change in response. As it is in mine to observe, and take note, and stand witness to the weaving of fate. Forget not: thou art not near as tide- and cycle-bound as thine divine moon-mother." 
You are given little time to contemplate the Scribe's weighty, ominous statements. Yet another comes seeking, coveting, poaching. Craven-clever mouth full of honeyed praise for your "gift" and only ever wanting to take, take, take, all for himself. 
How dare, how dare he, how dare they how DARE--  
A thousand echoes of deaths upon deaths swarm and you take the vainglorious fool, lift him bodily up and-- 
He breaks upon your knee like a dry kindling scrap and your breaths come loud and half-choked and heaving. What was once a vile wizard is now nothing and for a moment, the briefest, most fleeting of moments, neither are you. 
Until the world rushes back in, exhausting in its sheer weight. There is no glorious, triumphant rush of battle-roused blood singing through you. Vengeance didn't taste sweet. It didn't taste like much of anything.  
When you had nothing else, caged in darkness, you learned to cultivate your anger like the finest of crops. And yet there seems to be so little for you to reap. 
As the sounds of the city far, far below slowly fill the enchanted tower, competing with crackling magic and bubbling potions and a complete absence of words spoken by any of your present companions and allies, all you can pinpoint whirling within you is a rising despondency. 
One more, and then another, and another after that, extending before you all in a line, down the endless, endless years that await you, immortal and eternal. Magus or sorcerer or ruffian or necromancer or halfwit charlatan, it won't matter much, will it? Because they will try. 
Do you dare ever again let your guard down for even a few precious moments of respite, when another villain with designs on your person could be lurking, scheming just around the corner? 
Worse yet, far more chilling - what if they, conniving, decide to aim their ambitions at a different target, at your soft underbelly, and come for Isobel in turn? 
When you draw yourself out of the crowding thoughts and return to camp at long last, subdued, tired, painfully aware you are far removed from your usual mighty bearing, hours have flown by and the sun has already set. Isobel is there, and for a moment that is all you know. She is there, and whole, and alive, and it is all you can do not to drop to your knees once more and offer prayer upon prayer of gratitude. 
She looks at you, eyes brimming with a potent mix of concern and questions, then rushes towards you and wordlessly takes you by the gauntleted hand to the small sanctuary you've carved out for yourselves in the midst of your newfound allies: a simple tent, a soft, warm rug, a comfortable enough cot. A small washbasin Isobel keeps filled with conjured, moonlight-laced freshwater. 
"It was a glorious victory, my love, worry not," you rush to reassure, though even you can tell your heart is not in it. "Yet another villain slain, his devilish designs denied -  as has become the habit of our merry retinue. The battle has tired my mind somewhat, that is all."  
You can see the doubt writ plainly on her face, but it is no lie you tell her (never, never could you bring yourself to lie to her). It is more that... you do not know the reason yourself, or, rather, that it feels too manifold to ever encompass in simple words. 
"I wish you would give yourself time, Aylin, let yourself rest," Isobel says, soft, endlessly caring, achingly perceptive, and only slightly disapproving. She starts taking your armour off piece by piece as you sit on the small campaign stool you appropriated recently, then dampens a washcloth to wipe the traces of recent battle from your face. "Please. You endured more than a hundred years of horrors I can scarcely imagine."  
You grit your teeth at the mention and try, foolishly, to hide from her the tension that runs through you at the mere evocation of the thought. She palms your cheek and tilts your face to look up at her - her, standing above you and yet barely exceeding your height, though you remain seated - and oh, how you adore the sight! 
Isobel frowns as she notices a scrape on your temple, slightly singed in a near-miss from one of the mage's commanded elementals. It is nothing, you want to insist, no need to fuss over it, but you know how to recognise a battle lost before it has even begun. "In Her radiance, you are made whole," she murmurs, and you feel the familiar tingling and slight warmth of the gash knitting itself closed. 
Her incantations are perfect and as subtly melodious as ever. There is healing even before her spells take hold simply by the fact she is here. It is Isobel's touch that has ever been a balm when you returned from a skirmish, feathers ruffled, just as it is now when you feel burning echoes of abuse tear through you at some unintended motion or runaway thought. 
Satisfied for the moment, she dips the cloth in water again, and runs it gently over you, in a cycle as regular and comforting as that of the Moon itself: brow, nose, cheek, jaw, neck, then brow again, and again. For a little while the gentle, refreshing, cleansing caress is the only thing that exists in your world, and you let go of the death-grip you only half-consciously had on her other hand. 
"I confess... I hate to see you throwing yourself back into the fray like this. I understand why, and that it is necessary, but..." she trails away and pauses for a heavy moment, cloth in hand. She resumes, more determined, now scrubbing at a stubborn mark on your chin. "I wish it didn't have to be so soon. Duty or not, you shouldn't have to. You should be allowed to recover in your own time, to heal in peace, until you are ready." 
You cannot help but bristle at that. "You would deem me unfit for my purpose? My duty and my self are so entwined, it is not possible to have one without the other - would you call into question a sword's place in battle?" 
"Listen to yourself," Isobel snaps, harsher than you can ever remember hearing her, stopping her ministrations and standing tall to face you down, cheeks reddened. "Can't you hear what you sound like? Like a misguided Sharran, making yourself out to be nothing but a tool to be used and used and used until you are useful no more!" 
You gape at her, useless, wordless. "Isobel..." 
"Yes, you are the resplendent Sword of the Moonmaiden, performing great deeds in Her name... but you're so, so much more than that, and I treasure all that you are." The words are so impassioned and so openly honest you are struck silent in pure awe. Isobel, clutching a dripping, bloodied washcloth in the middle of a patched-up tent, might as well be a queen making proclamations before her devoted court assembled in a lofty palace. And oh, devoted you are, endlessly, endlessly. This can never change. 
"My Aylin, my angel. You always have been, and always will be, and if it takes me years to remind you of all of these things I know you once knew, I promise I will." Her palm is back on your face, a gentle caress that soothes many wounds long invisible, never healed. 
She speaks her promise as solemn as any vow you have ever made, and you bow your head to kiss her hand.  
"There is no need for recklessness, after all," Isobel smiles, the slightest wry twist to it, as she tips your chin back up, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead and murmur against your freshly washed skin. "The Moonmaiden's shield is mine to wield. You know its strength, the blows it can take. Let it be a sanctuary for you as well. Give me - give yourself a chance. Slowly, step by step - there is time." 
You have time, she is correct, even if you've never managed to have a very good grasp of it. All the time in the world, and then some. 
Isobel does not. 
You've already lost her once, had her ripped from your arms by whims of fate, or rather something far more sinister. There is no way to know, but you suspect, oh, you do. Your Mother's dark twin schemes ever on, and Moonrise, beacon that it was, surely seemed to her a provocation, Ketheric Thorm a crown jewel to be poached, and Isobel, your Isobel, a mere means to an end. 
Isobel, brought back, a miracle paid for so very dearly. It would be foolish to count on another. 
You stand up and reach over and almost crush her to your chest in an embrace - one she returns not a moment after completing her surprised exclamation. You hold her and hold her and allow yourself to lose track of time again. 
Moonlit, timeless, subdued in her glory, you listen to Isobel recite the Words as she pours fresh milk into the small silver ritual bowl before her.  
"Our Lady of Silver, whose light falls upon us all, hear me."  
Her reverent voice is barely above a whisper but carries impeccably, harmonising with the gentle bells and chimes surrounding the private little altar.  
"Sheltered by Your radiance, guided by Your hand, I come not to entreat, but to reaffirm." 
Motes of moonlight buoyant around her dance in the rhythm of the prayer you've heard and repeated so often it feels like breathing itself. It would feel stranger not to join in, so you do, if only in your mind. 
Ever-changing, ever-returning, as the silver Moon waxes and wanes, so too does life.  
You lurch back into awareness in a place you have never seen before, but that you recognise without a shred of doubt. The utter absence in the dark dome of the sky above you, the storms that swirl and rage all around, the assault on your ever-heightened divine senses - the reek of the Shadowfell feels like it has sunk its claws into your lungs already. You shudder, then startle, scrambling to stand when you realise your armour is gone, your sword nowhere to be found. 
Your feet are bare on the cold, cruel rock; your mind reeling, disoriented. Half-blinded by the glowing runes that encircle you, your tunic still stained with the fresh blood of your latest, very recent death, you come face to face with the two men you made the mistake of believing and turning your back on mere moments ago, in what must have been a different pocket of the dark realm.  
And so, the last time you see him for what is to be more than a hundred years, Ketheric Thorm locks gazes with you and wordlessly draws a dagger. Then he cuts his palm, deep and deliberate and unflinching, and your own muscle and sinew feel the slice. 
The hideous grin of savoured success on his pet necromancer's face upon witnessing your startled, pained reaction chills you to the bone. It is then, perhaps, that you begin to grasp the scope and shape of what they have in store for you. 
You try to rush at them, charge and claw them into submission with your bare, bloodied hands if needs be, but the boundaries of the sickly-bright rune-inscribed circle flare up, the cage tightens around you, phantom hands grasp and wrench and restrain and keep you in place, your foes and would-be tormentors only just out of reach. 
"What are you doing, you dog?" You roar at Ketheric, your insides twisting at the sight of the dark disc newly burnished on his armour, Sharran symbols adorning his brow, his chest. "Oathbreaker! How dare you conspire against Dame Aylin, against Selûne herself! How dare you so betray Isobel--" 
A heavy gauntlet smashes into your jaw as soon as the beloved, yearned-for name leaves your lips, and Ketheric's voice rises above the ringing in your ears. 
"You do not get to speak her name, thief. I am the one betrayed, abandoned. By your witch of a mother who hoarded my misguided service for far too long." 
Ketheric steps back and calms, somewhat - or merely restrains his rage into something crueller and colder, while you recover enough to speak.  
"Shar will not help you, Ketheric Thorm. Oblivion does not heal, does not mend - and oblivion is all she offers. But what she will ask of you in return will damn you forever." 
He waves a claw-armoured hand in mock-dismissal of your warnings. 
"Do what you will with her, Balthazar, as long as it doesn't impede my Lady's plans. Break her, if you can. Let her rage and pace and fume and rot, if not. But I want her to know," he steps closer again, so close, almost close enough to touch, if not for those accursed hands holding you back, "when our Dark Lady's acolytes come calling, when her wretched silver-stained blood fuels the creation of an army the likes of which the world has yet to see - I want her to know and never forget: it was on my orders." 
You calm your breathing enough to answer, the burning rage within you forging your words into steel - the only steel you can aim at him, for the moment. But the tides will turn, as they inevitably do. "The Moon shows many faces. Our Lady of Silver is ever-changing. You should be careful, traitor, lest the Hunter's Moon marks you as Her prey." 
Ketheric scoffs, unimpressed. "Let her try! Let her come, let her send all her legions after me, when she would not lift one holy finger to help me when I needed it most, for all my decades of faith and devotion. No, you will see," the quiet conviction in him is chilling to behold, in all its sheer wrongness. "This place, this bond, will sustain me, and it will take everything from you, piece by piece, until you whine and cry and beg your moonwitch mother for salvation. And when you are met with the same merciless silence as I was, perhaps I will consider it payment enough for the precious hours of my daughter's presence you dared steal from me, interloper." 
You cannot reach him to wrap your hands around his worthless, treacherous throat and wring. But the trap, the cage, is imperfect, and you spit silver-flecked blood at his face easily. 
He flicks his cheek clean, all dismissal, then motions to his foul, death-reeking companion to come forward. "Start with her wings. She has no need for those anymore." 
"I would be delighted, General," comes the sickening, rot-sweet voice of Balthazar from somewhere behind you, along with the deceptively gentle sound of him tinkering with his ghastly tools and implements. "How very appropriate, how symbolic, to start by clipping our little bird's wings." 
You roar your rage at Ketheric's back until he is out of sight and your throat is raw and bloody and capable of nothing but a hoarse whisper. You strain and pull and beat your wings in great gusts with all the desperate force you can muster; you burn, entire, with a scorching radiance unlike any you've manifested before. But the newforged bonds persist, and drag you down, down, down, merciless, until you see and breathe nothing but dust, the magic of one of the caging runes stinging against your cheek as the sounds of what can only be termed butchery fill the stale air. 
It is the perhaps unfortunate attribute of your particular strain of immortality that you are obliged to feel every wound, every hurt, every blow that seeks to lay you low. That you rise to fight again only after you have been truly felled. That your memory is one made to suit your long life - blade-sharp, exact, and infallible.  
You lie there afterwards for a long, long, quiet while; unmoving, though the spectral hands loosened their grip and vanished along with Balthazar, a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year ago. There is too much pain still, you think almost idly, feeling quite far removed from your own self. Too much for any of it to have been a killing blow.  
It is the first time in your storied existence you dare to think of death as a possible mercy and wonder if you might ever welcome it. 
Let all on whom Selûne's light falls be welcome if they desire.   
You do not see Ketheric after that, except in gory fantasies produced by your mind's eye. But you do get to know, intimately, each and every battle he deigns to fight personally, each scrape and cut and bruise and jab, arrow and spear and sword - all unseen, but far from unfelt. 
Then comes the steady stream of misguided Sharrans, would-be Dark Justiciars.  
You try to speak to them, at first. Reach out. Try to make them see their terrible error while retribution might still be within their grasp. 
You fail, each and every time. And each and every time you pay for that failure with a death. Some of them are more decisive about it, quick, almost merciful. Some stretch it out, savour it. Some can't bear to meet your eyes. 
But all of them, in the end, do it. And you choke back to life over and over and over again, knit together anew, as the murmurings mount. 
Descend to her. Look upon her. Listen to her.   
You remember the first time you died: out on a quest taking you through a steep mountain pass, falling into an ambush, peppered by poison-tipped crossbow bolts. You remember also the slight fear, the uncertainty of what exactly would happen to you - the fact of your Moon-blessed immortality until then only a suggestion, a curiosity somewhere in the back of your mind. 
You remember the gradual change into certainty over several misadventures and the ensuing determination - you were indestructible! Indomitable, as befits the Sword of the Moonmaiden, put upon this earth to enact Her will. Who would dare stand before you, resplendent, eternal, uncowable? 
And you remember the long, slow slide into being utterly used to it, down in these seemingly bottomless shadows, stuck on another Sharran spear, listening to your own blood drip drip drip as the darkness grew even heavier, laced with increasingly triumphant whispers. 
As we turn to the Moon, we trust She will be our true guide.  
Exhaustion overwhelms even the most righteous of furies, and you fall into a fitful sleep now and then. You dream of Isobel, soft, warm, brilliant, alive, and it makes the cruelty of awakening all the worse. 
Balthazar comes, sometimes, your most frequent and most despised visitor by far. He delights in letting you know how much time has passed - impossible to tell, in the umbral pocket of your prison. Regales you with tales of Sharran tyranny being visited upon the land and the people you were sent to watch over and protect and guide, your one mission and the purpose written into the very blood flowing through your veins. And yet you did nothing but fail. Precious Isobel, dead; Ketheric, lost, determined to tear down with him the world entire. 
Balthazar rejoices in the disgust you cannot help but bear openly upon your face as he expounds on his experiments, hands unbound by any trace or suggestion of morality and propriety and with Selûnite victims in abundance. He crows endlessly over his successes, his sick triumphs - but oh, none as impressive as you!  
He does much worse, later, and you learn you do not need a tongue to curse him. 
You know nothing can come of it but even more pain and sick retribution, yet you goad the corpse-rotted bastard every chance you get. The necrotic embodiment of every foul undead creature you would have wreathed your sword in radiance for, if only it were at hand. Whom you would have longed to smite until nothing but ash remained. 
There is nothing else here. Empty shadows, as befits the Lady of Loss. A void without and within, yours to fill with gnawing, searing, holy wrath. Nothing left to sustain you but the thought of a long-distant but inevitable escape and vengeance.  
"I keep a tally just for you, Balthazar." You pace the infuriatingly familiar bounds of your cage, precise in your steps in order not to trigger the wretched closing in, the grasping-- 
He looks up from the stitching he is doing, morbid handiwork on some poor Moon-devoted stonemason he wanted you to see. "Aylin! I did not know you cared so." 
"Why, yes," you bare your teeth at him in mockery of a smile. "When your little spell inevitably fails and this game of yours runs its course, I will come find you first. I will tear you apart, limb from mismatched limb, into your grave-robbed constituent parts. And then I will mince them further, until there is one rotting morsel of you for each and every hurt you have ever visited on me."