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 105: Decisions
Out in the city-camp, the people of the five remaining houses were gathering their public figures together and choosing which should go to council with their rescuers. This was almost completely Jhul's doing, with Solerin as her secretary. No better way to reestablish his character than to be seen with and favored by one of the most powerful women in Duskhaven.
Risa, despite seeming drained and stressed, did have enough energy to carve out a new council room. She called together all the representatives and the summit began.
There were five noble families that survived with enough members and power from the destruction of Duskhaven to participate in the summit. A small number of the Frehelvi were slinking around, but though there were one or two important members still surviving, they lacked any followers or standing.
For the other Houses, Dinoryn had Jhul'une as its representative, her mother having gone missing in the destruction. With as many mages as they had, the House had its membership decently intact, but most of their wealth had been in the school and had largely not been saved.
Illiam Kilarn represented what was once Duskhaven's lieutenant House, one of the two oldest families in the city. Illiam was new to her position. She was very young and inexperienced, as she had been third in line last week. But though Kilarn' membership was devastated, they had pulled a huge amount of wealth with them in the form of treasures and food supplies, by means of their own pocket-dimensional storage. Kilarn was currently supplying most of the food for the refugees, making them rather popular.
Aleett was the opposite. Being made up largely of tough warriors, their membership was mostly intact, but their wealth was nearly destroyed. They were represented by the old House Matron, Zebey'a, and her Consort, Hadnill.
Ryld'nar Teken'ath represented the local branch of that powerful family, but the man seemed more than a bit nervous to be there. After all, he normally answered to his superiors, so on his own, he was not sure what to do.
House Maelvalzynge's Matron Triss'dril did not have that problem, but a different one. Her House had loaded everything of value on their spiders and rode their wealth out, and so had both their money and membership intact, making them the wealthiest and most numerous House still standing. But their power made them the target of jealousy.
Finally rounding things out was the newly elected Speaker for the Commons, Silversmith Triel, and the head of the Temple, Anluriina. The Summit was in session.
All were seated in what they felt were the most strategic seats in the room with only a small amount of what the drow would call discussion, though Phanuel would have called it squabbling. In reality, it was mostly civilized but there were some annoyed expressions and feelings of being slighted. This was especially true in the case of the male who found himself the only fit representative and likely future Patron of his branch of Teken'ath. Patron. That was the problem. The more traditional among the houses did not appreciate that little detail, it seemed. Not that he had the only problems. Anluriina wasn't sure where she stood there, and no one else was certain either. A priestess of Lolth in a summit with her estranged daughter, Eilistraee? Awkward. So both of them ended up in the least advantageous seating. The rest fell in slightly more favorable places.
Not that seating was the main issue of the summit. Only the first, and the one that set the pace of the whole gathering. Which was to be expected, really.
The grand plan was set forth by Caleldir, Abanonda, Selene, and Althaia - with the mute Sidhriia standing serenely to the side. They already had a place that could easily fit their entire population multiplied by a hundred. The resources were there, the cavern system, even a lot of the infrastructure was still intact. It was just terribly cursed and would take some time to cleanse. They would have a temporary settlement just outside the realm which was perfectly safe by drow standards. It was the best option. It was the only option.
Which, of course, meant that there was a lot of hemming and hawing over any detail the gathered group could think to come up with. Some of it was useful discussion about the short-term.
Jhul'une immediately began the plans of reforming the university with herself appointed as headmistress. The preservation of knowledge was important. That plan was largely met with agreement. Those of the summit had heard about her exit from the academy and knew that she was on good terms with Duskhaven and with Caleldir especially.
Illiam's house was already supplying the food and was doing well in that effort, so their interests - which were historically in a little bit of everything - had focused on worries of feeding the population for both the near and distant future.
The Matron-Consort team of Aleet was more concerned about the dangers of both the lands and the neighboring countries. It was a fair concern, considering the unfamiliar dangers of the surface realm they had escaped to. There was one neighbor they would have to either live with or conquer: Clachleom. For the near future, the people present much preferred the 'live with' option. They had enough to worry about without starting a war with another country.
The trade guild, Teken'ath, was in a rather awkward position, and not just because there was an acting Patron in charge. They had been the messengers that served the whole of the drow Underdark and even some places beyond. Letters and packages still needed to be relayed but on a much smaller scale. Ryld'nar was secretly not even sure if he should keep the family name or forge a new one for himself. Either way, his house still had a purpose. They just needed to be paid. At Ryld'nar's behest, some time was spent on matters of trade and assets.
Maevalzynge, called the House of Spiders, did not have the long-term in mind quite yet. They mostly just did their best to make sure Caleldir was not going to move to break apart their House for the actions of one of their very immature members.
Anluriina, as was mentioned, was in a similarly awkward position. She dropped hints about changes of heart and willingness to alter opinions when new information was presented. She offered her opinions on the other matters that the house brought up but needed to have a private conversation with the Eilistraeen representatives.
Triel, the newly elected representative of the commons, was mostly there to remind the Houses that the commoners existed and needed to be kept in mind when talking about anything that affected the city.
All this was cause for hours of discussion. Some of it useful, some of it simply stubborn refusal to accept the inevitable. The inevitable had to be accepted eventually, however, and finally everyone agreed that this Deusterra was their best bet and that they should start the journey as soon as possible.
Risa breathed a sigh of relief when the council finally decided to be off. She pulled Caleldir aside after that in order to put the finishing touches on the Spider Tank repair and refit. About an hour later, Caleldir emerged from the basement driving the Tank to ride it out the large portal in front of the Mansion. Risa explained to everyone that the journey would take less than a week this way. Hopefully only four days or so, but sometimes these sorts of journeys were unpredictable. The goddess then went into a power-conserving hibernation. She was using resources so fast that actively participating in any 'energy restoration rituals' would not actually recover energy faster than she used it merely by being fully conscious. So, her various avatars disappeared, and her systems went into hibernation. She kept a vague watch on the succubi, making sure they did not cause too much trouble, but otherwise withdrew completely.
Caleldir drove the tank for a day before switching with Althaia and Abanonda. Exhausted, he checked up on Ashyr and how she was doing before retiring to sleep.
