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 86: Frehelvi
The ever-smiling mercenary approached Sornamal's estate unnoticed. Conveniently enough, Varas's target was not inside the magically well-defended Manor house. Instead, he was carefully examining the various decorative glowing fungi in the garden just outside. Varas knew the man to be more observant than most of his acquaintances thought him to be, but not quite observant enough. Invisibly, soundlessly - with even the existence of that magic erased - Varas slipped up behind the surface elf in disguise and struck him with a syringe. Caleldir fell to the ground without a sound. Swift as a thought, the mercenary bound his hands and feet then dropped him into a bag of holding. He secured the bag, then focused his attention back towards the manor house. Well, he had his expensive slave, but somehow, that had been rather anticlimactic. And he was being paid to cause chaos. So, might as well cause some more chaos. Raise the alarm, wreck some stuff...
Taking a deep breath, Varas opened his eyes. Much too large, green as poisoned envy, flecked with shimmering gold. The pupils looked unnatural: almost catlike, or perhaps daemonic. The man blinked, took another deep breath, and closed his eyes. When he let out the breath, a cloud of green flames erupted from his mouth, hitting the stone of the manor and lighting it on fire, burning it away with acidic hisses. Twelve seconds later, he had moved far enough to light a second part of the manor aflame. Then a third, farther away. Finally, a fourth. Four was a good number, the number of death. Satisfied, Varas strode away.
"Do you smell that?" Selene's brow furrowed. Her nostrils flared once, twice.
Sornamal paused and looked up from the book both he and his daughter were studying. He, too, inhaled deeply through his nose. "No, I don't smell... huh." That was when he stood and strode over to the door into the hall. With a wave of his hand, it slid open and he looked out.
"Lolth's tits," he spat, then ran out of the room at full speed.
Such profanity coming out of her otherwise reserved sire was certainly cause for alarm. Selene joined him in scrambling out of her chair and out of the room. That was when she realized that the whole damned house was on fire. How in the abyss had that happened?! Gods, where was Caleldir? Her thoughts went immediately to him, and that more than anything made her heart clench with terror. He was probably fine. He was probably already trying to fix the situation. She just needed to find him, and then they could avert this disaster together. Those thoughts played on repeat in her mind as she ran outside and into the open where the noxious fumes could disburse. Caleldir wasn't there. What if he was inside, asleep? She was about to dash back inside before she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.
"Selene. The fumes. Help me put this out, and then we'll search for your consort," he ordered in a tight, stressed voice.
---
"Gods fucking damn it!" Ashyr said as, when she and Solerin were nearing the edge of the city, she looked up to see her 'safe' house on fire. She grabbed her 'slave' by the hand and sped forward as fast as she could go while dragging the pretty male behind her.
As they were running the final distance towards Sornamal's estate, they were joined by Tsabdrin. He looked just about as stressed as Ashyr was, right up until he saw that his cousin was safe. Then he simply ran beside her and... whoever it was running with her. He didn't really give a damn at that moment. Then his eyes widened, and he looked stressed all over again. He could run faster than Ashyr could with that male in tow, which became apparent as he pulled ahead of her.
Solerin could not run as fast as either of the drow cousins. He gave Tsabdrin an odd look, but otherwise was too busy being pulled along to say anything.
"R.I.S.A! Is there something you can do about the fires!" Ashyr yelled out as she mounted the steps that were cut into the side of the cave as a path up to the estate.
[I... I... No, not yet,] R.I.S.A. said with frustration. [I do not have the ability to leave my pocket dimension. Unless...]
By that time, Tsabdrin was already there. He went straight for the stables, where he had inexplicably stored his allosauruses. They were well, if a little singed. That was the last time he'd put them anywhere but inside R.I.S.A's dimension if he ever had to be separated from them. He would just have to deal with the odd emptiness he felt whenever they were in a different plane.
A few minutes later, a purple portal opened and out from it stepped Risa. At least, her body and face were those of R.I.S.A.'s favored avatar. The coloration was different: instead of purple skin, she had drow dark grey/black flesh, and her eyes were purple only in the irises rather than uniformly so. Her hair - tied back into a waist-length ponytail with a golden clip - was pretty much the same, though. Also, the woman was finally dressed, and in something that was not just a projection from her body. She wore a scanty purple halter top edged with gold, and a calf-length skirt with a slit just about to her waist in the same color. Also, sandals. It seemed that even though she had decided to put clothing on, Risa was determined to have as little on as possible without too egregiously violating social conventions. She carried a shepherd's crook. Or, given its slender, ornamental nature, purple wood and gold decorations, a cleric's staff more like.
"This will work," Risa said cheerfully. The voice was noticeably R.I.S.A.'s even more than Risa's, but sounded different, less glassy and more fleshy, produced by a throat, lungs, and a tongue, rather than by machinery. "I fused my central processing core with this body. This is now my permanent physical form. Now, let us move along a bit faster. Mass Haste!"
With the spell's casting, all four in the group found their speeds doubled. But Risa was still faster than either of them, for she could fly. The woman dashed off towards the conflagration, ready to use her clerical magic to douse the flames.
"Risa! You're out!" Selene said when she saw the A.I. She looked around to see Ashyr, but couldn't quite see her cousin from where she stood. She did, however, see her brother who had joined them in the lofty carved-out section where Sornamal's estate lie. The female mage nodded to him when he joined her side after rescuing his animal companions. With all of their efforts combined, the drow (and Risa) managed to douse the strange stone-burning flames. They still had some work ahead of them, however, to restore Sornamal's house to its proper understated grandeur.
That, however, was not what the Duskhaven drow could focus on. Caleldir was most certainly not with them anymore. It didn't even look like he died to the flames -- otherwise he'd be there still, wouldn't he?
"When did you last see him?" Ashyr asked both Selene and her sire in a voice tight with stress.
"Almost the same time you last saw him. We went into the study, told him not to go far, and-" Selene bit her lip and looked out over toward Duskhaven city. More specifically, she was looking at Duskhaven Estate. Had her brother and cousins-? Her hand was on her stomach again, and gripped the fabric there with a trembling, nervous hand. She couldn't get separated from him. Upon looking over to Ashyr, she realized that her cousin was going through a similar amount of stress. Ashyr, however, manifested that stress with anger.
Sornamal was much less invested in the safety of the future consort. What he did know was that there was a vaguely familiar noble male drow there for no apparent reason. Oh, and the other woman with the purple eyes who seemed a lot more useful than the shoddily dressed male.
Understandably, Risa was every bit as panicked as either Selene or Ashyr. After she finished dousing the flames, and realized with the others that Caleldir was gone, she became noticeably distressed and began flying around the estate in a panic, until she stopped, closed her eyes, cast some sort of divination spell, then returned to the others looking sad and depressed.
"He is gone, then," she said in a grieving tone. "But... where..." Opening a portal, she stepped into her pocket domain.
"Who was that, and who is this?" the ex-consort asked. "Who have you brought to my house?" It wasn't the most polite way he could have asked, but he was rather understandably annoyed that his house had burned a little by some unknown force.
Solerin seemed mostly to be just confused by everything. Confused and trying not to be in the way. Frankly, he felt out of his depth. He could wield a blade and a the usual noble drow spells, but that was it. Just enough to not die on the streets. Magic acid flames, women who popped in and out of portals at will, ridiculously skilled rangers and powerful mages were all well outside his ability to deal with. And one of those mages seemed angry at him for being there. Or angry at Ashyr for bringing him.
"I am Solerin Gallaer, my lord," he said simply. "I used to be a noble, but my House was destroyed and I am on the run. I used to know Mistress Ashyr back before."
Risa stepped out of her portal. "And I am Risa, the one who controls Caleldir's pocket domain. An artificial life form he created. Or at least helped in doing so." She turned to Ashyr and Selene. "Caleldir is gone from my eyes. I cannot see him anywhere. It is as if he has vanished from this plane."
The biological A.I. delivered this with a flatly stoic tone, although she seemed to be trembling. She moved closer to Selene, almost as if the prickly drow was her new security blanket now that Caleldir was gone. Or, more likely, her unborn daughter was.
"Come on, Risa," Ashyr said through clenched teeth. "Let's go retaliate. Get Caleldir back, if we can. Doubtless my brothers had something to do with this ... unless you'd rather stay back here and protect Selene?"
Risa seemed to hesitate, glancing back and forth between Selene('s womb) and the direction of Duskhaven Manor. She had programmed herself to be loyal to her creators and their progeny. The last of her creators left sane was Caleldir, and his only known progeny right now was in Selene's womb (perhaps some of the Rusalka were pregnant by him, and, if so, Risa could steal those girls and be loyal to them instead, but that was a long gamble that she did not want to rely on). The dilemma was clear: protect the One she knew where she was, or leave her unprotected while she ran off to try to find the One she did not know where he was.
