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 117: Memories
Lord Torernumir Mindshaper had a problem: his people were down there and he was up here. The path to down there was somewhere around here, but it could be anywhere in the vast rocky plains. The locals had no idea what he was talking about when he asked around about a cave that delved deeper into the ground than any of them were willing to go. It quickly became apparent that the only people who knew how to find this entrance to the underdark were the drow, and he sure as the abyss wasn't going to ask them for help.
... not that he had any choice. He was the only denizen of the underdark in this wretched, dirty town that boldy called itself The City of Rocks. It was a clever name, all things considered. Its inhabitants were all somewhere between human and orc. One could not expect creativity from such people. It was fortunate that the city didn't end up being called "Fight and Fuck a Ton," since that was all the creatures here did. No order. No refinement. No innovation.
Sadly, he had to be here. The best inn here was marginally better than sleeping in the wild, so in that inn he slept. In that inn he currently sat, too, drinking the best excuse for a beer he could find. There was no way he could cope with the methodical flying sweep of the wilds he had to do every day without the promise of alcohol when that wretched sun got to be too much for him to take.
In a way, though, it was like a vacation. He couldn't spend all day leading the Mindshaper clan and dealing with all the headaches they and their environment caused. Lord Torernumir could only get brief contact with them each day. He had just come from that meticulously planned ritual (apparently, most of the underdark was still reeling, but there were interesting tidbits about what the drow were doing mixed in with the too-short message.) Now he could put all that from his mind; there was literally nothing he could do about it until he managed to find that damned entrance and get back to his people.
Torernumir leaned back in his booth and sighed. In the corner, some unusually non-hideous female half-orc was gesturing around her. "I swear! I saw a dragon. Scales as green as emeralds she had. Bigger than two huts on top of each other, too! Scary as bitter soap in the eyes. Of course I ran! My ax was not going to do anything to those scales!"
"Really?" another female who looked like a hulking, much uglier version of the first speaker interjected with a gruff, dismissive tone. "There ain't no dragons around here. And how do you know if it was a she anyway?"
"Just guessed," the first half-orc grumbled. "Cause her scales were pretty. Like my eyes."
"You're as pretty as a gutted warthog, 'sister'."
Lord Mindshaper grunted in annoyance. He was never going to get used to the barbaric way these people talked. He didn't know this region's version of common naturally, but he was able to learn using a combination of his knowledge of standard common, his psychic intuition, and his staggering level of intelligence. Most of what he learned was that these people were very stupid, predictable, and uninteresting.
But he was interested in what they were talking about. A green dragon the size of two huts on top of each other? A formidable beast by the standards of average creatures. He was no average creature. If this she-orc was correct, there was someone he could seek out who would actually know the lands around here. But was it worth getting up and actually talking to this cretin?
Another long sigh huffed from his impressive, dark beard. He was desperate enough to get out of here. No one back home had to know that he was about to speak to someone that he wouldn't even consider good enough to be a slave on his estate.
"Oi, orc gel- no not you, ya half-wit. That one, who be boastin' bout the dragon," he yelled across the bar as he pushed himself from his booth with his massive, muscular arms. High Lord Torernumir strode across the room. Though he had to look up at the half-orc, he had a presence that exuded Tallness. "What can you tell me 'bout her?"
The half-orc looked down at the dwarf with glittering green eyes. It was clear that she had more intellect than the average resident here, but that was like being the daintiest boar in the vegetable garden. "You talk big for a little..." she started to say, but something in Lord Torernumir's body language stifled her. She swallowed, and her tone and language became much more polite, perhaps even a bit proper. "I saw the dragon about five thousand strides from here in the direction of the rising sun," she said in a low voice. "But only for a moment. I... I think she was transforming from one shape to another. And I left quickly. Green dragons eat orcs."
Torernumir unimpressed, cocked eyebrow stare turned into one of slight disgust. "Only if they are very desperate, and even then they'd 'avta' wash ya first. But you be right to run. She'd fuck you up if you got in her way."
He crossed his arms thoughtfully. "Ten-thousand strides. That's going to be a very different number for me, gel. Any landmarks nearby?" He could delve her brain for a more precise location, but that would mean that his mind would touch hers. Disgustin.
"There were a lot of trees and rocks?" the half-orc volunteered. "Big trees: mostly aspen but some whitecone pine. The rocks were granite with mottled grey-brown birdnest moss. There was a spring of water that had seven red and three blue stones sticking out of the pool at the waterfall where the ridge gives way to the lower land. There were more squirrels than most places: moss-blood green squirrels. Less birds than normal. Mostly whiteeye jays but there were a few bluecoat robins." She looked at Torernumir's legs, then at her own much longer ones. "Fifteen thousand strides for you."
Torernumir grumbled to himself about descriptions that were both excessively specific and still somehow not that helpful. "Fifteen thousand strides east in a forested area with a spring."
"Right! Oh, yeah. 'East'." The half-orc thought to herself. "Lots of deer around there. Some boar move through, but there is a dire-bear den windward... I mean, to the North. I was where the Ridge meets the Ledge. It's... where the land goes down sharply."