A Drow's Dilemma Ep. 44: Shifted

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. All characters that engage in sexual or suggestive situations are mentally and sexually mature: the human equivalent of 18 for their race.

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Episode 44: Shifted

Selene especially looked uncomfortable now that the party was trapped within the walls of the cursed monastery. She gripped Ashyr's hand just a little bit tighter, and her other hand rose to lightly caress her own lower abdomen. The touch to her still-flat stomach put a thought at the forefront of her mind. "So we go to Birchborn's quarters first? Or is there something else we have to take care of first?" Even if she was okay with the sire of her child being Caleldir, she still did not want her to be whatever odd grey color the mix of their skin tones would make.

Slasjowskew interjected first. "That iss an exsselent quesstion. Where sshall we be going firsst?"

Caledir pursed his lip. "The third vault. I seem to recall that place being relatively poorly guarded, and we can pick up some really nifty weapons there to help us through to Birchborn's Tower. Her quarters are really far away, after all. So, how about we take that door over there and-"

His words were cut off by unhinged feminine laughter: a deep, vibrating thing that pulsed through the halls. [Welcome home, Goelon.] An eerie voice said. It could have equally belonged to a little girl or an ancient crone, an echoing sound that whispered and shouted all at once. It made the flesh crawl with fear. If not for Althaia, the effect would have been mind-breaking. [You have been gone far too long. Leave these invaders and return to your rightful place deep within my bosom.]

Although he had gone nigh transparent, Caleldir rallied himself behind the two drow who had already shifted into their battle stances. "I will do no such thing, Deam Ex Machina. Leave us be!"

The monastery giggled. [Oh, Goelon. It was not a request.] At once, a gaping hole opened in reality, a door into a realm of incomprehension; clockwork and devices biological and technological folded in on themselves after a manner that it hurt to look at. The silhouette of a humanoid stepped through, tentacle-like lashes of shadow flowing out from the door, wrapping around Caleldir. Without a sound, they dragged him in.

The door closed.

--

"With that," the man's low voice mocked, "my queen has taken your king. I believe this is checkmate."

"It would be." The woman said with a quiet lack of emotion. "If this were chess. But it is not, and our pieces move of their own volition. Are your pieces truly yours, I wonder?"

--

It all happened much too fast for the rest of the party to properly react. They could only call out Caleldir's name and then stand in shocked silence when he was gone.

It wasn't fair, why did the whole world seem to want that man so badly?!

The next emotion that crossed through both the dark elf's faces was anger. "Lolth damn it, what are we going to do now?" Selene said as she looked to the rest of the group with eyes that demanded they answer. If she could, she would rip back open that portal, but she wasn't strong enough to cast such a spell. The younger drow looked ready to sling spells out of pure frustration, but had just enough forbearance to keep herself from doing so.

"There's no way of knowing where he was taken - or if he's still even in our dimension. I say we find that third vault and get those weapons." Ashyr suggested. She only had some idea of how to proceed; when R.I.S.A was Storwa she had shown Ashyr to her core. Perhaps there was something similar here. That place had seemed impossible to get to and this place would no doubt be so much worse. "I'm afraid Cal might have to find his own way out. Unless you two have any better ideas?" Her expression and tone was grim. There was no light of amusement in her eyes, no playfulness. Her jaw clenched shut and the muscles around it rippled with how hard she grit her teeth.

The yuan-ti cursed in his own tongue. "Well, our job just got a whole lot harder." He muttered. "I can try to steal him from whatever prison he is now stuck, but not until I at least begin to understand what the S'ishith just happened!"

Althaia looked stricken for a moment, then merely grim. "I think that we will find him in the library." She stated. "The Monastery does not want him the way that you drow or the human or even the dryad want him. It, or rather, She, considers him to be a part of Her. She will seek to restore the balance inside by returning him to his rightful place. But he will not be Caleldir when we find him, I fear." She shook her head. "Except we do not know where the library even is! I am afraid there is naught but to press forward and hope that fortune favors us." With that, she strode towards the door that Caleldir had pointed out before.

"The library. Of course." Ashyr said with a sigh. Not that that destination was helpful when they hadn't the slightest idea where it was. "We really should have gotten a crude map or something..." She rubbed at the back of her neck, a sort of nervous habit that she had.

"But no, we left it to our guide who seems to have a knack for being kidnapped." Selene responded with angry sarcasm.

"Wait... a map..." Althaia mused. "Was not Caleldir jotting down something on a paper when I was talking to you earlier, Ashyr? Perhaps, if we are lucky..." She strode over to the place where the portal had opened. There was nothing there, as expected. She sighed. "I suppose that it was too much to expect that he would conveniently drop a map while being kidnapped. Eh, I am sure that a place called 'the Shifting Halls' will be really easy to navigate."

"For now, onward. I'm sure we'll figure it out was we go along." Ashyr said, her words more optimistic than her tone. Figuring things out as she went had always seemed to work for Ashyr. It was pretty much what she had been doing her whole life, and she was still alive despite all the danger she'd been in.

"Well... there are other powers that are in the area. Maybe we can torture some information out of them." Selene suggested as she followed the other two women. Not that she felt the four of them were powerful enough to risk trying to capture one of those things. "Or trick them into it." That was much more feasible. Torture sounded just so... satisfying at the moment. Selene was already terribly frustrated.

Ashyr approached the door with extreme caution. Caleldir had said that it wasn't going to be too heavily guarded. But apparently there was a crazy tentacle woman who could just pop up at any time if she really wanted. Selene stood to the side with a spell ready; she would gladly let Althaia go into the place first and trigger potential traps.

When Ashyr opened the door, immediately the image of a half-rotted man in monk robes leaped out at them. While the apparition shouted something in the ancient tongue, he vanished as soon as he had appeared. Althaia would have gored the image had he not, so perhaps that was for the better. "That was startling." Althaia said in annoyance. "But I expected more of this place than cheap jump-scares."

"I will go firsst down the path." Slasjowskew suddenly said. "Make ssure that there are no more trapss." With that, he slid to the front of the group and looked down the stairwell. "Nothing here ssusspissiouss." He stated. "Well, nothing more." The serpentine fellow began slithering down the stairs. The way was dimly lit by an unearthly blue that was everywhere and nowhere. Some sort of mist seemed to pool on the stone steps. The stairway continued down and down for about fifty steps, and then came to a sudden landing. There were three ways that one could go: to the right, which was a small, simple stone door, to the left, which was a massive, elaborately carved wooden one, and forward, which led to further steps.

When they reached the first landing, Ashyr peered at the doors that flanked the stairway. "What do you think, thief? Fancy door or plain door?"

"If this whole place is built to be a trap, I'd go to the right. The big door looks too... inviting." Selene told the party.

"Right it is, then. Maybe it's something like a control room similar to the one from the place we got the spider... Unless you can see traps that way, handsome." Ashyr turned toward Slas when she said the last part. She hadn't said it in a flirtatious voice, nor was she feeling that certain playfulness required to properly flirt with someone. It was simply the first thing that popped into her head when she directed her words at him - his name still did quite a good job of eluding her. Fitting, seeing as he liked to be elusive, but this was less due to his skill and more towards Ashyr's inattention.

"No trapss." Slasjowskew said shortly. "But there are a whole lot of machiness in there." He ignored the drow's 'nic-name.' In this, at least, he seemed to be a lot like Gurzan, albeit less prickly. He went to the door and began fiddling with the lock. After a few moments, the stone groaned inwards.

Ashyr's guess seemed to be correct: it was some sort of control and monitoring station. Much like in the waystation where they found the Spiders, a number of strange lights and levers hummed around them and various scrying mirrors showed what was happening in various locations around the area. But no sooner had they stepped into the room than all the mirrors went blank, and then had their images replaced by the tentacled shadow-woman. Her laughter filled the room. [Did you think that you could use my systems to control me?] She mocked. [Such vain pride deserves to be punished.]

The world went dark as each member of the party were yanked into their own nightmare.

--

Ashyr saw Caleldir bound to a millpress that began to turn, starting to stretch and break him. He screamed in pain as a massive figure in monkish robes ground out wheat, and the ghostly man with it. At first, Ashyr was sure that she was looking into one of the mirrors that previously showed various locations around the Monastery. She tried to scream at what she saw, to move, to try to find a way to help him. But she was powerless to even blink out the sight of him being ripped apart. All she could feel was the agony of the impotent. The wheels dissolved, and Caleldir stood in front of Ashyr, staring at her with hatred. "It was all a trick, an illusion." He told her. "A trap that you fell for!" With mocking laughter, he melted horribly away, and the vision ended. A vision. A vision that she had fell for, but only a vision. She could deal with him looking upon her with hatred in the light of the emotional pain she had just felt. If that was an illusion, then so, too, could this. It had to have been, for to see hatred directed at her from Caleldir was too ridiculous a notion be be believed.

The control room buzzed and whirred as if nothing had happened. The older drow realized that she was on her knees. "Nightmares. Only nightmares." She said aloud to the rest of the party. Her arms came up to hastily wipe the tears that had flowed freely from her eyes. Then she looked around the room to locate Selene. Ashyr was mentally stable, and could handle the abuse, but Selene? The room around her was empty, with no sign of her comrades. Also, there was no door. Or maybe the vision had ended, and she was just stuck in a room with no way out that was slowly closing down on her.

The various scrying mirrors each showed a different scene. One was of Ashyr herself being crushed to death in the room she was in now. Several more mocked Ashyr with scenes of pain and failure from her past. In one mirror, Celeste was being killed over and over, every time her spirit crying out for Ashyr to save her. Another mirror showed Althaia having her eyes ripped out, another showed Slasjowskew having his fingers broken, and still another showed the laughing, ghostly Caleldir from the last vision hurling continued invectives against Ashyr and Selene, mocking them for their foolishness. The last mirror showed Selene, stuck in her own nightmares, at the cruel power of the rebel males of Duskhaven who were punishing her for letting Ashyr escape.

It was then that Ashyr felt a cold, slimy hand on her shoulder. Behind her, the silhouetted A.I. had stepped forward from her portal to whisper in Ashyr's ear. [This is the end for you. You and all your friends. This is the past, the present, and the future. You will survive when the room crushes you, only to find your lover tortured, and then that lover will betray you. I am the Animus of Eternity, and I show you What Will Be! There is no breaking the truth of my visions, all will come to pass!] With hideous laughter, she vanished back into her portal. The first mirror came to fruition, and Ashyr felt herself being crushed to death as the room collapsed in on her. The sensation of being crushed to death was almost welcome. It would stop the agony in her heart that those horrible images caused.

-Stop!- Came a telepathic shout. -You can break past this!- Out of nowhere, Magolben Hissael, strange blank eyes and craggy face alight with emotion, yanked Ashyr from death and deposited her in the real control room. -It is too early for you to fail.- The message came as the old fellow's psychic projection faded. -I have given you the ability to shatter time manipulation, and your cousin the power to shatter magic itself. Use it!- With that, the man was gone. The party found themselves free of the visions.

The control room powered down.

"That was... unpleasant." Ashyr said to the rest of the party when finally she could see them again. The words had been interrupted by a shuddering sigh and a desperate rally of her nerves. There were still tears flowing down her cheeks at the terror she had witnessed. She wiped at them desperately; she didn't want the party to see her cry. It wasn't much use. She could at least take comfort in the fact that she wasn't openly sobbing or babbling. The words of Caleldir's father helped to distract her at least a little bit. The runes! She knew what they were for now!

She searched the room again for her cousin, and found her curled in on herself on the floor of the powered down control room. The younger drow was silent, but she trembled almost violently. "Dearest..." Ashyr whispered softly. Clearly she had to bury her own pain and tend to her young relative's. At least Ashyr was mobile. Selene clearly was not. So she knelt beside Selene and began to speak softly to her. "Selene, darling, you're safe now. I'm here. You need to pull yourself together." The fear must have been acute for it to push past Althaia's aura of courage.

Althaia was slightly dazed, rubbing at her eyes a little, but after a few seconds gave a wry smile. "I am ashamed." She admitted. "I should have been able to keep you from falling into that." She sighed, walking over to Selene and pulling the drow to her feet. The aura of courage ratcheted up to potencies that it had never before reached. Althaia laid her hand on Selene's head as they stood, channeling a litany of enhancing enchantments into her, of increased mind and body, of heroism. The number and power of spells showed that she clearly had access to more divine magic that the average paladin, and maybe slightly more than the average druid, for that matter. "That should do the trick." She said with satisfaction, allowing the magically recovered Selene to stand on her own.

Ashyr gave her cousin a small smile, then wiped the tears away from her cousin's face. Then the drow linked hands and held on to each other as if holding a rope that dangled in an abyss. "Thank you, Althaia." Ashyr said softly as she put a hand on the nymph's shoulder. There was pain in the older drow's eyes, but she seemed to be managing well enough on her own now that her cousin was up and moving.

Slasjowskey massaged his fingers. "Annoying." He cursed. Then, he smiled, his fangs peeking out from the corner of his mouth. "I sstole ssomething from the monasstery." He exulted. "I stole a map from the mind of the Animating Intellect even as sshe tried to torture me. Thiss plasse really doess sshift and move, but I have learned at leasst where the vault that Hisssael spoke of iss, and what layss beyond the door acrosss from us. That door leadss to the domain of The Ssilent Disstiller of Esssensse, a huge man who used to brew beer, grind wheat, and create cordialss, and now brewss poissonss, grindss people, and iss a most uncordial fellow." He smiled at his joke. "The path to the vault iss down the sstairss we ssaw, but without Hisssael here to open the door, we will have to go through the realm of the Disstiller in order to activate a lever." He looked on the group with satisfaction. "Teach anscient goddesssess to make light of Sslassjowsskew Sslithersscar!"

Such was her relief that Slas managed to steal the memory of a map that Ashyr responded to his joke with amusement. It was a muted thing: a slight crinkle of her eye, and a brief upturn at the corner of her mouth. "You get more appealing by the minute." Ashyr informed him. The words themselves could easily be interpreted as flirtatious, but Ashyr couldn't manage a tone that was anything other than flat. Not while images of Celeste's death echoed through her head. "Let's go bother this distiller, then. You know, when Selene said we should torture someone to get a map, I don't think she meant us." Ashyr told them with an extremely weak smile and an even weaker laugh.

"No. I did not." The younger drow agreed flatly.

Whether it was a slight acceptance of her compliment or merely an extension of his pleasure with himself, the Yuan-ti still returned Ashyr's smile. "I am pretty great." He admitted. It seemed that when it came to flattery, he was particularly vulnerable to any allusion to his abilities. Neither the Yuan-ti nor the Nymph missed her flat tone though.

Althaia put a comforting arm around Ashyr. "We will find Caleldir. I am sure of it." She gave Ashyr a reassuring squeeze, before letting go. "I agree. To this distiller."

And so, the group left the now useless control room and headed across the passage to the great wooden doors. Althaia opened them rather carelessly, causing several poisoned arrows to shoot out from it, but the group managed to easily dodge the attack. Except Althaia, who did not even bother. "Hmmph. If that is all the poison this Distiller of Essence offers, then we should be fine." Althaia said haughtily.

The room beyond - a huge affair with a ceiling easily forty feet up and walls that receded away out of sight in the dark vaulted distance - seemed to be something between a wine cellar and an alchemist's lab. Casks of rare and valuable alcohols of every known variety were stacked broad and high among all manner of distillation agents. In addition to the sounds of bubbling and dripping, cries of pain that sounded remarkably like Caleldir echoed from the unseen parts of the chamber.

When the group entered, several ghostly monks turned towards them, their empty robes faceless. Soundlessly, they rushed at the party, their seemingly empty gloves bunched into fists. The older drow drew her blades and flashed towards them. Hoping that she could kill one with her mundane swords, Ashyr swung at the closest one. The younger drow was quite a bit more confident that she could damage whatever those things were. For a moment, she concentrated, then she pointed at one to shoot a line of fire from her fingertips. It was a middling-powered spell that didn't have all that much range on it, but she was still careful not to let it get too near the alcohol. While blowing everything up was one way of defeating this challenge, Selene preferred to stay unsinged.