Tanith Shadowsong Takes a Test

[Watchmaster]

Keep in mind that this is a first draft. I'm a bit rusty, so bear with me.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tanith Shadowsong Takes a Test

Most Druchii have a predilection for flaunting their strength. To me, it reeks of insecurity; of a fear-born need to mask our frailties with savage bravado. We are the lesser for it. I’ve never been afraid to bare my own weaknesses to the world. The mighty pass by unthreatened, while the vermin gather to feast.

None ever see my net until it closes.

Despite my rank within the Dark Sisterhood, my few surviving detractors will tell you I have no natural aptitude for magic. I don’t deny it. The root of my strength has always been the art of persuasion. Bartering, promises, threats, seduction, blackmail… No spell-runes were ever so powerful as the words I can weave into an altogether different sort of magic.

With the unexpected demise of my eldest brother, and the delightfully shocking scandal that saw my remaining sister exiled, I stood ready to claim my rightful place at the head of our family’s time-honored slave brokerage. The financial stagnation my father had allowed for so long would have ended then and there, had he not feared my ambition more than the decline of our noble house.

His paranoia was perfectly justified, of course; he’d have been at the bottom of Slaver’s Bay within a month of me claiming my inheritance. Instead, I found myself dragged from bed in the middle of the night, hustled to a waiting carriage, and delivered under armed escort to the dockside, for my “pilgrimage” to the Convent of Ghrond.

As long as the journey was, I should have been able to persuade one or most of the household guard, if not to simply free me, then to join me in open revolt. But even then, my skill at manipulation was notorious, and the lengths father went to in keeping me subdued bordered on comical. On the rare occasions I wasn’t gagged, the guards were made to stop their ears with waxen plugs in my presence. The threat of molten lead in place of wax loomed large, if any warrior forgot. Only one did.

I could only take it all as the highest sort of compliment from dearest father.

By the time I was dumped unceremoniously at the gates of the great tower, I had realized the value of keeping my talents better veiled. The façade I affected for my new “peers” and “masters” was that of a terrified but defiant daughter of privilege, eager to win the accolades of my esteemed family with whatever parlor tricks I could learn. The ruse worked splendidly, by and large, and allowed me to begin my studies free of most unwanted attention.

Meanwhile, I plotted against my jailers, cellmates, and relatives, vowing that my escape from this hellhole would be a thing spoken of in fearful whispers.

Superb as my charade was, Headmistress Aldanna sensed something amiss, and immediately singled me out for torment and destruction. To compound the problem, it became apparent all too quickly that my capacity for manipulation did not extend to the winds of magic. To one surrounded by acolytes eager to flex their burgeoning sorcerous might upon the weakest of their number, this might have proved a death sentence. Fortunately, I had other resources to draw upon.

The meager allowance my father granted over the years I had hoarded jealously, and with my business acumen had become a small fortune. Gaining access to it was a simple affair; even the staunchest guardsman longs for occasional warmth in the endless night of Ghrond. Between my wiles and coin, I soon had my own tiny garrison guarding me as I slept, discovering contraband in rival acolyte’s cells, and arranging small accidents for those truly inconvenient to me.

My other skills were brought to bear on my classmates. Studious, bovine Keldra saw me as a kindred spirit after I confided a fabricated tale of familial woe that mirrored her own pathetic upbringing. She tutored me in the numerous facets of hex-mantras that had me perplexed, and we swore a “sisterly vow” to rain vengeance on all that had doubted and wronged us.

Ha! If she had but known what befell my true sisters over the years…

Hakanai kept me supplied with forbidden totems and spell scrolls, just as I kept her well stocked with the hallucinogenic pasha seed she was hopelessly addicted to. Headstrong Nyeriss incinerated no less than three of my own rivals in magical duels once I let her use one of the hidden alcoves my pet guards had shown me, to eavesdrop as others mocked her filthy, common blood. And prim, pretentious Olma, bound and determined to lay me low with her latest incantation, discovered that, while I might have been a failure as a sorceress, my success as an investor made securing the services of a temple assassin a very real possibility.

Not that she had the chance to tell anyone.

Of course, the other students pursued their own clumsy machinations, going so far as to recruit me for several increasingly vapid intrigues. I played along as best I could, while despairing at their lack of imagination.

It took a rather superb bit of playacting to convince Aldanna that the charmed lifestyle I lead was a fluke, and not the result of some sorcerous glamour of my own making. Her raw power put her beyond my reach for the time being, and so I took my thrashings and bided my time. While still humiliating, and very nearly crippling me on a regular basis, she spared the killing stroke, confident that the entertainment I provided outweighed any potential risk I might pose.

After a seeming eternity of lessons and trials, I scraped through the regimen far enough to earn my right to walk The Path with my remaining sisters. It’s like the peregrination our knights undertake; a perilous, solitary journey for the sake of training. Our final test would await the survivors.

Of course, with Headmistress Aldanna at the helm, my own Path amounted to nothing more than protracted suicide: A trek directly into the heart of the Chaos Wastes, to track down and slay a notorious rogue sorcerer.

Two things kept me from running in the opposite direction. The first was a curse-brand, seared into the flesh above my heart by Aldanna herself, which would reduce me to my component parts if I didn’t returned in triumph within a year. The second was my palpable need to thwart the biatch.

I envisioned, at least, an armed escort for myself; chariots, perhaps, or a well bribed detachment of temple fanatics, eager to get to grips with the feral northern foe. But the brand flared with unimaginable agony if I so much as approached another Druchii, and no elven steed, however thoroughly broken, would allow me astride them.

So it was that, after weeks of lonely trudging across the freezing, hell-blasted tundra, chased by creatures that seemed little more than random amalgams of flesh, I found myself surrounded and captured by one of the Norsican horse tribes. It was the best thing to happen to me in years.

For one, the primates and their frothing, carnivorous mounts didn’t seem to trigger the brand. They were also far more impressed by my rudimentary spellcraft than any self-respecting Druchii would have been, and some small appreciation did wonders for my pride. A minor cantrip was all it took for me to understand the basics of their guttural language, and a bolt of oscillating fire all the incentive they needed to pause in their headlong charge and see what I was about.

I quickly found that these were some of the most depraved, simple minded, and easily manipulated animals I had ever encountered. They were also filthy, but one works with the tools at hand, no?

I had dallied with the various pleasure cults hidden across Karond Kar during my adolescence, long enough that I can recognize worshippers of The Dark Prince when I see them. By the end of the first day, I had them impressed. By the end of the first week, they were waging open, bloody warfare across their own ranks for my favors, and begging me to lead them to further glories of excess. And, before the month was out, they had delivered me in regal fashion to the mud hut of the sorcerer Gremesh Hal, object of my quest.

As far ahead of schedule as I was, I decided to take advantage of Gremesh’s hospitality, and wrest what knowledge I could from his wrinkled skull before I separated it from the rest of him. Though reticent at first to share his skill with an elf, and a female at that, he soon came around to my many means of subtle coercion.

The Northmen don’t learn their sorcery from books or lecture. Where their limited intellect fails, they rely on instinct, and I was surprised to find that I responded far better to this reflexive style of casting than to the regimented mantras my own kind favors. For once in my magical career, I was an apt pupil, and I paid for my education in ways I hesitate to recollect.

I didn’t begrudge the man his base desires; what I found vulgar was his utter lack of creativity or technique. That, and his spectacular dearth of personal hygiene. It still haunts my dreams if I let it.

So I learned all that I could, paralyzed him with a toxin of his own devising, and then, over the course of several days, removed the parts of him that offended me with a keen-edged paring knife and burnt them while he watched.

There wasn’t much left for the dogs.

Far more interesting than Gremesh’s knowledge was the collection of arcane artifacts he stored in the several subterranean chambers below his cluttered hut. One object in particular fascinated me. Though it clearly held pride of place among his belongings, the late and unlamented wizard had never mentioned the thing, not even in his fevered ravings toward the end.

It resembled a glossy, black polyhedron. I say resembled, because try as I might, I could never determine if the various facets were flat, rounded, or even how many there were at a given moment. The smooth surface shone, somehow without reflecting any light.

The time remaining before my literal deadline drew short, and so I gathered the object and what I thought to be several related scrolls and tomes. Summoning my entourage of admirers, I prepared for the victorious ride back to Ghrond. They grinned approvingly as I slung the head of Gremesh Hal across my saddle horn.

As soon as they saw me brandishing my other prize, however, my erstwhile supplicants flew into a state of panic that bordered on complete hysteria. Several actually pitched from their mounts and were trampled in the stampede, trying to put as much distance between themselves and the obsidian thing as possible.

Without means of rapid transport, my exsanguination by the murderous brand would have been inevitable. But as the dust settled, I found that my own fanged horse stood placidly by, waiting for me to mount. Its eyes, bloody red but minutes before, now glittered like orbs of coal. It didn’t appear to be breathing.

Dark Mother, but that beast ran! It stopped only when I forced it to, fearing a fall from the saddle in my exhaustion. I doubt that any sorceress made better time astride a pegasus, so swift and so sure was its gait. The mutant obscenities of the waste gave us a wide berth; strangely, I was not comforted.

As I made my final camp before setting foot on the wholesome soil of Naggaroth once more, the horse ceased to exist. It didn’t disintegrate, it didn’t vanish, it just… Unfolded. Like it was made of sheets of paper, layered to create a three dimensional image, and then suddenly unfurled in every direction at once.

In my few resting moments on that frenetic journey, I had poured over the texts that seemed to pertain to the black thing. They were curiously vague, as though the authors were apprehensive about even stating the topic, let alone discussing it. Strange, I thought, considering the frank, impassive detail with which they chronicled other subjects that put even my jaded sensibilities to the test.

In hindsight, I’m impressed with their resolve to make mention of it at all.

But I had some understanding, so I believed, of what the thing was, and what it was supposed to do. By the fitful sputtering of my campfire that last night, with the object held before me, I began an odd, arrhythmic chant that one of the scrolls contained.

I have never been so terrified in all my life. That, I promise you, is saying something. And still I pushed on with the recitation, in the somehow certain knowledge that what I was doing was absolutely inevitable.

At some point, I realized that the chant was some kind of mathematical formula. It constituted a greeting.

Pennicaltos the Dark Prism answered, and my sanity shattered like glass.

I will say that a conversation, of sorts, was held, and that certain subjects were discussed. Coherent thought and speech were beyond me at that point, but a pact was struck none the less. I’d like to think that I gave a good account of myself in the exchange, circumstances permitting.

I agreed to carry it, in some capacity I didn’t yet understand, past the spiritual barricades of the Tower of Ghrond. Once inside, it would ensure the destruction of my enemies. There were other details, clauses, and conditions stated, but I’m quite incapable of elaborating any further.

It’s better for everyone, really.

When I came around, the object was gone, the sun had risen, my once raven hair was translucent white, and I was sitting cross-legged in the center of an indescribably complex geometric pattern almost a mile in diameter, etched indelibly into the earth itself. I also had less than two weeks to make it back to Ghrond, and I wasn’t even past the watchtowers.

As I bolted for home, I could feel an alien presence inside me begin to churn, eager for the culmination of our bargain.

I made it, of course, severed head in tow. Headmistress Aldanna was livid, though in the exhausted aftermath of recent events, I found my joy in this sadly stilted. She went so far as to step the scheduled Final Test ahead a week, just to spite any hope I might have of a restful recovery. I didn’t care. I had plans to make, a terrible obligation to fulfill, and barely enough time to set events in motion that just might preserve me from utter annihilation.

Our Final Test took place in the Labyrinth beneath the tower. We’d all heard of this death house of the sorceresses of old, built from stones of Lost Nagarythe by some forgotten madman. The hags would place whatever their enemy most desired in the center of the underground maze, and leave the rest to the lethally cunning traps and roving beasts that littered the place. Sometimes the sorceresses themselves would join in the hunt, if the prey was especially choice. It was said that the handful of challengers that emerged alive were changed profoundly, and never for the better.

These days, it was both a rite of passage, and a punitive measure for classes whose collective efforts were deemed substandard. Aldanna made it clear to everyone that it was solely my fault we were here.

Our medallions of office were, she said, hanging in the central chamber, waiting to be claimed. Donning our medal meant we passed and lived. We were allowed our staves, our wits, and whatever trinkets we could smuggle past the piercing gazes of the examination council- a feat by itself, given that we weren’t permitted clothing. The Headmistress would also be hunting us herself.

That meant she would be hunting me, and might take a passing stab at anyone that got between us.

As we seven initiates took our places at any one of the myriad entrances to the Labyrinth, did my judges mistake my pallid complexion and quaking limbs for fear, or exhaustion? They would have trembled themselves, if they had known what I carried inside of me.

The moment the door rose, I bolted inside and flung myself to the floor, beginning a complex incantation I had rehearsed in every spare moment since my return. There were three parts to the spell; a vortex to accumulate the raw essence of magic, a binding to contain it, and a subtle curse to incite short term memory loss. The rest was just a matter of waiting.

I was half aware of a series of battles taking place, as my sisters encountered the monsters loose in the winding passages, or each other. The creatures, at least, had the good sense to stay away from my prostate form. Maybe they could sense what was coming.

My dear friend Keldra came upon me, and with the savagery born of total panic, unleashed a mighty, ionized bolt that blew most of the floor apart around me. If she thought it odd how the destruction lapped around my body in kaleidoscopic fractals, she didn’t show it; she just screamed, and let loose another series of searing blasts. I couldn’t let it distract me. I was in labor.

Keldra’s furious little maelstrom drew Headmistress Aldanna to me like a moth to the flame. Despite my deep preoccupation with other matters, I still noted her arrival, heralded by Keldra’s messy implosion. She began gloating, of course.

At some point, she must have realized that the tremors wracking my sizzling body were not the result of the pathetic fusillade of minutes before, for she broke her tirade mid-sentence and summoned a respectable torrent of her own to try and immolate me.

It was far too little, and far too late.

It wasn’t my spells that shielded me from the series of assaults. It was an amniotic shell of obscene, mathematic impossibility. That shell burst as I gave birth to Armageddon.

Pennicaltos sloughed itself into indescribable existence through every pore and orifice of my body, and began geometrically unravelling the world.
I completed the amnesia spell a split second too late. I was the target; I could hardly endure a conversation with such an affront to the cosmos, let alone catch a glimpse of it. The sanctity of my mind was staked on complete expurgation of that moment, and I came up just short.

I’ve heard the phrase “nightmare made flesh” time and again, as simpletons try to describe the living shape of their fears. The Dark Prism defied such petty understanding. To be born of our mortal nightmares, something must be remotely comprehensible in the first place.

In the split second tableau of ultimate horror I had to endure before my mind shut down, I saw Aldanna in the bleating throes of her final moments. She was the first, and I dearly hope the last, being I have ever felt truly sorry for.

My own desperate plan to escape the thing I had unleashed didn’t offer much better odds. Still, oblivion was eminently preferable to whatever life amounted to in a world fundamentally unmade.

The first thing any student of the black arts learns is that losing control of the winds of magic is the worst possible outcome any sorceress can experience during a casting. This time, I had engineered my spells to ensure that’s exactly what happened. As I lost consciousness, the roiling maelstrom of dark energy I had conjured during The Prism’s advent lost its bindings, and detonated all around me with the force of a small sun.

I never claimed it was a good plan.

It was two full days before they found me, tottering naked, bleeding, and incoherent, in the elementally dissected remains of the Labyrinth. Pennicaltos had disappeared, perhaps banished by the magical backlash I had released, perhaps leaving of its own accord for reasons unfathomable. I hope to never find out, though I deeply suspect the latter.

Somehow, I had gotten one of the medallions around my neck. As little sense as that makes, I feel like I’ve earned it, and then some. The law is the law, and no one can dispute my right to wear it.

At least one of us got to graduate. Samarna and Hakanai still lived, in a sense, but never did regain the capacity for rational thought. I’ve heard the new batch of girls gets to practice on them.

It’s a testament to the skills of the senior members of the Sisterhood that the entire tower didn’t collapse, given the totality of the damage throughout the lower levels. I later heard that an unimaginably ancient grotto was discovered beneath the Labyrinth, and that the altar it contained predated our race’s arrival in Naggoroth by several millennia. A niche in the wall behind it seemed to be the focal point of worship, though this was strangely empty.

Morathi herself got involved in the proceedings, and questioned me at some length once I could form complete sentences again. It was really more of a formality though; they had already discovered the culprit.

It seems that the late Headmistress Aldanna had undertaken paid commissions to destroy me and several other students, as evidenced by contracts and coin discovered in her private quarters. She also had a collection of ancient and highly forbidden texts, which seemed to relate to the mysterious entity that had nearly leveled the tower when she summoned it. All in all, it painted a clear enough picture.

Most of the coin, they traced back to my father’s business in Karond Kar. The assassination of family members is a staple of Druchii society, of course, so heavy fines were deemed sufficient punishment for his poor choice in killers.

Still, I take my satisfaction where I can find it.

[Amboadine]

Thank you for sharing.

[Calisson]

Great story! Compliments.
Now you're ready to start a new Roleplaying Game!

[Khaleth Blackheart]

Really nice short story, best I've read in a while

[Watchmaster]

Thanks for the kind words, folks! If someone enjoyed reading it, it wasn't a waste of time. As with most things I write or say, it sounded better in my head...

When I have more time, I'll edit it down and make it flow more smoothly. Eventually I'll have a story for my war hydra, as well as my rxb unit champion.

[Searinox Nagharha]

If they are as good as this one i cant wait to read it