A WITCHING WIND

[wuha]

PRELUDE

Ississix the Breeder stepped into the room with only the slightest hesitation. The feeling surprised him but he pushed it away. Doubt had not made him the drow he was.

For one-hundred and twenty-seven years he had created the finest gladiatorial stock for the games, bringing honor and standing to both the Qu'ellar Rynn and himself. His Ludus was the most respected in all of Menzoberranzan and his skills as a transmuter mage had brought some of the most horrific aberrations ever seen in the Pits, to the delight of the crowds who eagerly anticipated his every creation.

But this time, it was different.

Perhaps out of boredom, perhaps needing to challenge himself, perhaps out of loneliness, Ississix the Breeder had decided to make himself something, something different. Instead of a monstrous, brutish killer, he hoped to create something delicate, intelligent, and gentle. So he had set out to create himself a Lyrd'haven, a bred house slave, something as rare and exotic for his home as his beasts were for the Pits.

And today, he would have it.

Human wombs, he had discovered, where like swamps, anything could grow there. But due to the high magic involved in his lyrd's creation, Ississix the Breeder had decided on an Imaskari to carry the child. Human but with a strong connection to the weave, she gave his creation a better chance of taking hold inside of her. And what a creation. He had taken the essence of a captured slyph and impregnated her with it. A creature of the long-forgotten sky, born and bred in the deepest dark. The cruelty of it still brought a smile to Ississix's lips.

A smile quickly wiped away when he stepped into the moss-lit room and the Imaskari (her name he had long forgotten) let out a blood-curdling cry.

"Jabbuk, it comes. It comes!" The goblin annoyed Ississix greatly but it had proven to have a knack for husbandry. It pushed the Imaskari woman's legs further apart for him to see the protruding head. The woman screamed again.

"Xas, xas, Usstan can see that. Now get out of the way."

Ississix the Breeder had never himself been first to hold one of his creations. He felt a warming he did not recognize in himself, but he quickly pushed it away. Sentimentality had not made him the drow he was.

With the blue-skinned babe safely in his arms, Ississix gave the order, "Kill her," and gleefully the goblin grabbed a nearby rock and began to repeatedly smash in the skull of the exhausted Imiskari woman. The child began to wail and between its cries and the goblins incessant laughter, Ississix the Breeder had had enough.

"Hush!"

And child and goblin fell instantly silent.

Ississix the Breeder looked down at his already obedient creation, "Husha, my dear, there is no need to cry."