A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 15: Interruption

Author's Note:

A Drow's Dilemma began as a one-on-one roleplaying project and has been converted into a chapter-by-chapter format for weekly posting with the permission and assistance from my partner. It will contain a considerable amount of sexual themes such as femdom, lesbian, straight, 'reverse' rape, BDSM, group sex, romance, and other themes. The main goal of the story, however, is to tell an epic tale of adventures, gods and goddesses, fae, and nymphomaniacs. This episode and every episode to come will be available for free on Literotica for the foreseeable future.

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Episode Fifteen: Interruption

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Practically the whole town started from their peaceful early morning slumber. A low fog had fallen upon the town and the surrounding lower forested area. Ashyr groaned at the horrible, loud noise that tried to pull her out of her dreams. She was captured again by her dark brothers. They wouldn't even free her from her nightmares.

"Ashyr. Ashyr! Darling, wake up." Carlotta's soft voice said. She shook the other woman gently.

That was enough to get the drow's eyes open. The first thing she saw was the redheads furtive, afraid looks out the window of the room. Dream-instilled terror was slowly replaced by fear very much founded in the real world. There was another deep pounding at the gates of the town. In that moment, Ashyr was positive that it was her dreams about to come true. She scrambled out of the bed and threw on her clothes and armor in quick, practiced motions spoiled only by the slight shaking of her hands. Carlotta grabbed one of Ashyr's extra shirts, threw it on, and ran out the door toward where her own gear was kept.

"ASHYR FROM THE CLAN DUSKHAVEN. WE CALL YOU OUT. BRING HER TO US AND WE MAY SPARE THE REST." An impossibly loud and deep voice rumbled through the buildings.

She bared her teeth in a terrified, mad grin. That voice didn't sound much like her brothers, but they still wanted her. They weren't going to take her alive, people of the town be damned.

The halls of the inn were filled with the noises of people trying to get themselves out of bed after a full night of drinking. Bard tore past a few people crossing the hall in various state of undress, up the stairs, and to where his presumably his mistress was. Ashyr did not come back down. Not, at least, by way of the stairs. No, she slipped out the window. There was no telling what hero within the inn would do if they saw her. The drow would guess from experience that they would tie her up and haul her to whomever sounded so angry. It was a coward's choice, she knew damn well. She regretted the moment after it was too late that she didn't say goodbye to Caleldir. Lolth, but she was so afraid.

The last any townsperson saw of her - if they were perceptive enough to catch that last glimpse - was her shadowed silhouette on top of the wall. Then she was gone.

--

Since Carlotta was using his bedroom, Caleldir thought it poetically appropriate to appropriate hers. Mostly though, the redhead's bedroom was unoccupied at the moment, so after inquiring after its location he crashed there until morning.

His dreams had begun predictably, with his unconscious mind mulling over the possibilities of what may have happened had he not run away. Partway through, the dream shifted, and he suddenly found himself looking at the vast ruined complex of the old monastery. It was a cloudy, moonless night, and as dark as dark could be. His dream self bereft of darkvision, he stumbled around nearly blind, catching brief glimpses of unknown items. Then, he saw a familiar, cold glow. A very tall, terrifyingly beautiful spectral woman who resembled ghost Caleldir nearly as much as a mirror, floated in the ancient, massive library. She smiled. "Soon, I will find you, Goelon Duvainor. And you will be with me for another eternity. But this time, you will be my slave." She began laughing a beautiful, deadly, maniacal, decidedly unsettling laugh. Then, the sound of clanging steel and rattling chains. The walls of the monastery gaped open, and a wind cold as a sepulcher ripped out of the yawing mouth.

Then silence. All faded to darkness.

Caleldir woke in a cold sweat. Something from the back of his mind - echoes from his long, cursed slumber - was quietly gnawing at him, begging to be remembered. But he could not. Sighing, he sat up and rubbed his head. Even the echoes of memory soon subsided, leaving only a quiet feeling of dread. "Well, this is a fine start to a morning." He muttered. He looked around. The room was unfamiliar. He slapped his head. "Of course, I borrowed Carlotta's room without permission. Hope she does not take offence."

Standing up, he quickly made the bed and began to sidle out. Last night he had been too tired and stressed to make a reasonable decision, but at the moment he felt uncomfortably like a thief and a trespasser. The less impression his visit made on the room, the better.

"Oh! um. Hi Caleldir." Carlotta said with a distracted sort of embarrassment when she met Caleldir coming out of her room. "I should - I need to-" And then she slipped around him to continue into her room. In her mind it was not the time for awkward morning conversations with people who saw you drunk, naked, and fucking their lovers.

Letting out a long sigh, Caleldir briefly watched Carlotta as she headed to her room. Well, come to think of it, her indiscretions were a bit more conspicuous than his. Not that he held them against her. Mostly, he was relieved that she either did not notice or care where he was coming from. He had left the room exactly as he found it, after all.

But that was not the most important thing happening at the moment: he had an Ashyr to find. After all, he was pretty confident in his ability to protect her from some silly orcs. The worst that could happen would be him taking an arrow or a spell meant for her, then ghost him utterly annihilating the threat. Since the two of them were closer now, he no longer worried about accidentally murdering her while he was dead. And so, reasonably encouraged, he opened the door to his room. "Ashyr! I-" he stopped. Ashyr was not there. Hmm... Well, of course she was not. But where could she have gone. Caleldir ran through what he knew of her from the last week or so. It was then that he realized he did not actually know her all that well. It was very likely, though, that she ran away to hide. She probably thought that they would give her up to save their own skins. She was wrong, of course, Caleldir would never let them. He would rather die.

Sighing, he turned towards the town gate. Might as well deal with the loud orcs before they caused any more trouble. He arrived at the gate soon after Carlotta. Since he saw her last, she had changed into what looked to be padded armor. At her hips were a variety of vials that he assumed were potentially volatile. He quietly stood near but not next to the alchemist, and peered down at the gates.

They were met by the hulking form of a somewhat mutated-looking orc. He rose his fist again to pound upon the gates. The townspeople watched in horror as the whole wall seemed to shake with each solid hit. Just a little more force and she wouldn't have been surprised if he sent the whole gate flying towards her.

"ASHYR DUSKHAVEN! YOU MUST PAY FOR YOUR CRIMES!" The bestial male yelled out. His voice was loud, but his tone even. He stated a cold, hard truth.

One could almost miss the mostly skeletal animate corpses that loomed just beyond the frightening orc. They stood passively. For now. They were all long dead, at least, without many distressingly rotten bits. There were no familiar faces - that is, nothing had what would be recognized as a face. Carlotta had never seen undead before (not that she knew of, anyway) and she decided right there that she never wanted to see one again. But this was her town and she'd be damned if she didn't fight to protect it. Others seemed to be of the same opinion as they slowly trickled out of their houses in hobbled-together fighting gear. No one seemed to be willing to talk to the orc. They all looked too afraid.

"I will count to three. If I reach three I assume you choose battle!" He paused, then shouted, "One!"

Caleldir swallowed. Oh dear. The necromancer threw a rather large dent in his plans. Generally, 'become undead' was his trump card, but here it might be something of a liability. So much for that. Still, he had to do something. Taking a deep breath, he called down at the orcish necromancer. "Greetings, good sir." He said amiably. "I do apologize, but next time you come looking for a Drow, it might be better to do so quietly. They spook very easily, you know, and are quite content to leave the rest of us to your tender mercies. She left the moment that she heard you, before any of us could stop her. You do not have to believe me, but every second you spend yelling at the town is another few dozen feet she puts between her and you." He paused. "So, on second though, feel free to attack. I would rather give her plenty of time to escape, after all. So bring it on!" His eyes flashed brilliant undead blue, then faded to normal. A grim smile was on his face.

The orc bared his tusked teeth at Caleldir. "We have this place surrounded, strange elf." He declared, his voice a low rumble. "Ashyr Duskhaven has no safe place to hide." Then he punched the gate, giving the action full force this time. The metal bowed toward the townspeople. His next words were as loud and terrifying as they had been when he first hailed the town. "I SEE YOU CHOOSE BATTLE!" The undead around him began to press forward. A few of the townspeople, including Carlotta, took a few stumbling steps backwards from the monstrosities more clearly seen. Most halted before they ran away completely, though some actually fled before they could stop themselves. Others were completely frozen in terror.

Artur and Dria walked out of the inn then, the man walking slightly behind and to the left. The woman was dressed in strange, plant-like armor that seemed to still live and grow even as she wore it. She looked very, very angry. "We do not betray our people, orc." She called out to him. "We do not wish to fight you, but we will before we give you Ashyr."

There were a couple murmured agreements, but most people now stood in determined silence. They didn't care so much about the drow, but the town itself was theirs.

"So be it." The orc snarled. Then he punched the gate again. It met expectations and went flying.

Undead began to pour out into the town. The townspeople began to run forward to meet them. With a grimace, the small redhead's hands flew to her bandolier and took out a small bottle with cloth stuck inside it. A snap of her fingers set the cloth ablaze before she flung the whole thing at the cluster of aggressors entering the gate. All this was done in one smooth, quick motion. It had its intended effect - a good amount of undead became flaming undead.

Somehow, that didn't make them any less terrifying.

So, it was a fight then. Predictable. Well, at least Ashyr was getting plenty of time to escape. Time to engage in the conflict, while really, seriously trying not to die this time. Those were Caleldir's thoughts, anyway. In the spirit of self preservation, a weaponless Caleldir jumped down from the wall on top of a skeleton, yelling all the while. After all, some of those skeletons had lovely almost not rusted weapons that would do nicely to replace his own missing armaments. In the meantime, he had a rudimentary knowledge of healing magic and whatever it was that clerics did to make zombies run away. 'Turn Undead', he believed.

And so it was that Caleldir spent the next few minutes hitting skeletons with healing magic, which was effective, and Turning Undead, which was largely ineffective due to his merely tenuous connection with the divine. Still, he was making a dent in the undead horde with minimum damage to himself. Every now and again, he stopped the fight and ducked off into a corner to put on another piece of pilfered armor. By the time he caught up with Carlotta (who had retreated to the cover of a small building), he was in a rather eclectic but effective set of mismatched protective gear and wielded a minimally rusted sword and a hardly even rotted shield. "Cool trick with the fire!" He cheerfully told her.

She gave in a grimace in response, though it was more directed at the fighting than at Caleldir. "Yeah, well, it's about the only thing I can do." She looked back over to the battle. People were scattered around the open space next to the gates. If she threw another one of those, she would risk the townspeople. Lotta was actually feeling quite useless for the time being.

"There are certainly a lot of them." Caleldir observed rather inanely. He looked out at all of the undead. He was in much the same predicament as Carlotta: his best attack was one that would take out more villagers than undead. He was now reduced to hitting them with (somewhat) sharp steel sticks. Sighing, he waded back out into the fray, fighting rather defensively for the time, careful to keep Carlotta from being attacked.

It seemed for every single undead fighter that got defeated, two took its place, as undead were wont to do. The people of the town held on valiantly for a while - but then the big ugly orc stepped into the town. He was slowed momentarily by vines that whipped up and captured his legs. He still managed to send someone flying with his giant club. Town bravery only seemed to step up after that. Many began to fight with a ferocity that would rival any orc. It was still a losing battle.

Then something strange happened.

The undead faltered as one for a moment. Then they began to attack indiscriminately. They turned their fists, claws, and swords on each other, on the huge orc, and, well, still on the townspeople. The orc seemed to panic as he began to take hits from all sides. Carlotta could see the fear in his eyes. He began to fight he way back out of the gates. Then he turned and fled.

Of course, there was still the issue of the undead to deal with.

There was something fishy going on, that was for certain. Shrugging, Caleldir decided that it did not matter too much what had happened, as long as the necromancer was out of town. Now all the undead were easy pickings. Holding up the Sacred Circle of Eternity, he blasted the skeletons with a massive wave of positive energy. Without the necromancer to bolster the foul creatures, his Turn Undead was far, far more effective. It shattered some of the nearby skeletons and stunned those farther away, making them easy to pick off. It was not long before the gate area was clear, at least for the moment.

Several people who seemed to be the druidic type (apparently, over half the town fell into that category) stepped forward. With their combined effort, they managed to close off the entire splintered opening with sturdy vines. The undead, determined to kill the nearest person-like thing, began to turn solely on each other at the other side of the wall. They had beaten them back, and it had only taken less than a quarter of an hour.

Carlotta watched as people stood around the open field next to the gates. They did not cheer. They did not weep. All eyes were trained upon the makeshift gate with a strange sort of hunger. It was if a spell had overtaken them - something that put a fire in their eyes and a lust for... well, Carlotta wasn't quite sure. She didn't feel any of it. She did notice the absolutely awful smell that rose from the long dead and recently inanimate bodies strewn across the front of the town.

The redhead stumbled out more into the open. "Is anyone hurt?" The proverbial spell broke, and the people turned to look at her. Everyone seemed dazed.

A few people did turn out to be injured. Miraculously, no one was injured beyond saving. It turned out that many people from the town had either healing potions or enough healing magic to keep themselves alive. Carlotta and the people with any healing magic in reserve were able to save the rest. They set up a temporary infirmary at the common room of the inn to treat the wounded. The rest of the town hauled the inanimate dead into a huge, reeking bonfire.

Caleldir busied himself with the clean up. Mostly with the healing, although he functioned more like a conventional doctor than a cleric, seeing as he had foolishly spent himself hitting undead with all his healing magic.

Once the furor had died down, he approached Carlotta, who was resting to the side of the Inn after all the hard work she had been doing. Now that he was talking to her outside the stress of battle, he was suddenly self-conscious, and kept his eyes not quite looking at her. He could not manage to forget the position that he had left her in last night. Still, he needed to talk to her. "Ms. Carlotta," he began politely, "before Ashyr ran off, did she happen to tell you anything, like, perhaps, where she was headed to?"

"Um." Carlotta said, apparently somewhat surprised that Caleldir had approached her. She seemed to feel a similar sort of awkwardness around him. The human didn't have the ease and sexual confidence of the drow. Something like that, Carlotta theorized to herself, took over a hundred years to cultivate. "No. She didn't say anything." The small woman said. She stared at some of the people lying down on the floor at the other side of the inn. "She looked terrified... and not really quite awake. I think she might have been having nightmares." Lotta shifted uncomfortably at the memory. There was something wrong about seeing that confident woman afraid. It didn't seem natural. The redhead pulled a hand across her curly mess of hair to get some of it out of her face. "I was kind of hoping that she would just show up when she realized it's all over. If they had the town surrounded like that orc said, she can't have gone far."

Closing his eyes, Caleldir sighed. "I doubt that she is near. After all, she is terrified of her brothers..." He looked towards Carlotta. "Wait, did she tell you about that? I suppose not." He took a deep breath. "Her brothers killed the female members of her family and are hunting her down to either kill her or possibly to breed more Duskhavens. She is scared stiff, and likely believes that the Orc necromancer is working for them. She either put as much space between her and the town as possible, or she was captured." He was silent for a moment. "I suppose that we cannot know for sure, although her fate worries me." He looked towards Carlotta with concern. "Please let me know if you hear anything."

"Wow. Um. No, she didn't tell me that." Carlotta said, pale face growing even paler. It was... disturbing information. A person with that sort of fear in her head likely didn't make very good decisions. "I'll find you if I hear anything." She was about to speak up again to try to talk about the events of the night before. He seemed distracted, however, and wandered off before she could think of what to say.

A couple hours later, the sound of a wolf yipping through town caused quite a few heads to turn in confusion. Carlotta, who had retreated to her lab to... well, do anything other than pace around with worry, lifted her head at the sound. A smile crossed her pretty face. Maybe she was right. Maybe Ashyr had just hid somewhere within the town. She stood and ran out of the building. But it was just a very dirty Bard. His mistress was nowhere in sight. The wolf saw her, and recognized her. He wriggled up to her with a very distressed look about him.

"Bard? Where's Ashyr?" She asked him.

He whined piteously, ran in a circle, then whined again.

Carlotta's brow furrowed. She didn't often try to communicate with wolves or dogs. "Come on, darling. Let's go find Caleldir. Maybe he'll know what you're trying to say." Lotta had no idea what kind of connection Ashyr and Bard had. He could have simply been her hunting wolf. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself... but that could mean anything. Right?