Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Prologue:


The caravan of Illythiri stretched down the tunnel for some 50 yards or so, the wagons' wheels quietly rolling along on their leather-padded rims. Normally the drow would pass like a whisper in the night, barely detectable to even the most keen observer however these particular ones moved with less care and more fatigue in their step. Their equipment was not the typical drow's finely crafted and powerfully enchanted ensemble, they were equipped for trade not war. As the last part of the group moved around a bend in the tunnel one figure broke rank seeming to grapple with his ill-fitting armor.
Cel'lith stepped out to the side of the trade caravan, using the pretext of adjusting his hauberk to let the rest of the column continue past him. The mail he wore was not the kind of fine drow-mail that front-line warriors were equipped with, it was heavy and fabricated from some kind of lesser metal. The Quellar's quartermaster had acquired it from the spoils of some surface raid no doubt, only kivvil would wear such poorly fabricated armor. Well, kivvil and the guard for a trade caravan apparently. It was loud and heavy, when he moved incautiously it clanked worse than rothe restraint chains. Accumulated filth and detritus from four days forced-march clung to it's recesses and itched terribly, he could take it no longer! He had come this far disguised as a warrior in the employ of a Szithian trading mission but he would make the rest of the journey on his own. Now was the time to act.
As the last of the line filed past him the sergeant at the end of the column approached, his mouth opening to inquire just what the sussun this jaluk thought he was doing. Cel'lith bowed low as if in deference to a jabress and as he came up his hand flashed upward, his stilleto finding the soft spot under the sergeant's chin where it met his neck. He was old, returned to the line from retirement, and went limp quickly gurgling softly as he held him upright. The noise reminded Cel'lith of the small hobbit he had taken on his first hunt on the surface with his father those long years ago. The memory brought a smile to his face even as the last froth of blood bubbled out of the sergeant's wound and across his face, nestling in the spaces between his teeth and coloring his grin a crimson red. He stood transfixed for a moment, holding the dying sergeant while his body spasmed randomly and his life escaped to some other plane. Finally, when he could detect no further movement, Cel'lith leaned forward and whispered in the dead drow's ear "give your bitch-godess my respects, assuming your soul survives the journey". With a slight shrug he dropped the body to the ground and stepped lightly in the opposite direction from the caravan. A couple of paces later his sub-standard mail joined the blood pooling from the corpse, and a few paces after that there was no more sign of Cel'lith Morcane of Szith.

He was four days out of Szith but still had a long way to go to reach Sshamath. His father had lost his noble status, and almost as importantly his life, when he had been uncovered as a heretic. Szith was a Lolthian city ruled by the priestesses of the spider queen and there was no room for religious debate. Especially from a male. Once his true beliefs had been discovered he was quickly sacrificed to appease the godess. Cel'lith had taken the name of his father's Quellar, Morcane, but in truth he had never been admitted to the house. His father had sired him with a jabress battle-captive taken by Morcane from an opposing house and Cel'lith had live the life of houseless rogue, a shebali. Now that his father was dead there was nothing left for him in Szith and so he had left rather than push his luck. His mother had once said that Lolth appreciated cunning and resourcefulness above all else, beyond strength and prowess even and he lived by that, even if he did not follow the godess herself.

He was about 80 years old, still young by Drow standards, but he was possessed of surety in his purpose that few males had. He knew the place he was headed for, a city that had already cast off Lolth's shackles and where a jaluk could prosper according to his ability. Sshamath, the city of Dark Weavings. There a jaluk did not have to live in the shadow of jabressen, subject to their will and whims. There would be opportunity there for someone who was clever and flexible and cunning. He had some innate talent in the art, taking after his father no doubt who had been an arch-mage of the tower in Szith. Sshamath was only twenty cycles away if he managed to catch a ride on one of the Duergar merchant caravans. They were heading out to Sshamath more and more recently these days as word of the gem-strike spread. Well now all he had to do was figure out how he could convince the Duergar that they shouldn't skin him on the spot.

That was easy, he already had a plan.

It had taken longer than he had anticipated to arrive in Sshamath, those damn Duergar just would not move fast enough for his tastes even after he stoked their fears with tales of Drider hordes pursuing them for their gold. Cel'lith spat on the ground and let out a curse; "Bah Duergar! Even deep dwarves have such stumpy little legs that just seemed mired in the earth!" And they stank. Or maybe he just had a particularly sensitive nose for a jaluk, it seemed to bother him more and more these days.

He had picked up an eye infection from one of those sussun Duergar (he had slept with one of the females in order to gain acceptance into the caravan) and so his right eye was hidden behind a patch. The resulting defect in his depth perception played havoc with his crossbow marksmanship but it would pass. Besides he had other skills at his disposal beyond pointy sticks flying through the air.

So here he was at last, the gates of Sshamath, a drow city ruled by a council of mages called the Conclave and not the bitch clergy of Lolth. Purrrfect.

The Duergar had pulled up to what was apparently the only way into the city, the entry cavern above the central spire called Z'orr'bauth. The city entry doors were impressive to say the least. Rising 20 feet to the entry tunnel's ceiling and constructed of solid obsidian, twin black dragons in bas-relief twisted across their surface in pursuit of a shining globe. Their eyes glittering with gems and their fanged mouths agape shooting multi-hued faerie-fire they vibrated with power making the hairs on his forearms stand on end. Cel'lith could not even begin to guess what powerful enchantments the faerns of Sshamath had embedded within them. Standing open the portal gave the impression of a giant maw simultaneously swallowing and disgorging streams of humanoids of all size and shape. Unused to such a varied flow of peoples, his prior home of Szith harboring only the usual fare of illythiri and their various slaves races, Cel'lith took a moment to examine the throng. At least four out of five were drow, with the rest being primarily Duergar and Svirneblin with a smattering of humans, half-drow of various lineages and even a couple Darthiir every now and then. Quite amazed by such a diversity of races in a drow city, he had heard of the oddities one might encounter in Sshamath but this was beyond even his quite capable imagination. Cel'lith of course didn't even notice the multitudes of slave races; bugbears, orcs, goblins, kobolds and the like for they were so beneath him as to not warrant a second thought. The most surprising to him was such a relatively large presence of Svirfneblin and the occasional Darthiir. The deep gnomes and surface elves were one of the most hated enemies of the drow, in his old life he would have been compelled by a priestess of Lolth to attack and kill them on the spot. Personally he could care less but it made him feel queer to be so close to them and not be in combat. There were purported to still be priestesses of the dark bitch-queen in Sshamath, he wondered how they tolerated the presence of Darthiir and Deep Gnomes. Time would tell he guessed.

Being an Illythiri Cel'lith passed unheeded by the gate guards leaving the Duergar traders haggling with them about how much of the toll they should pay to gain entry to the city. In a few yards he was out of the entry cavern and stood at the head of a ramp that wound down and away from his sight. He realized that he must be standing at the top of the great central pillar, Z'orr'bauth, that connected the entrance at the top of the the giant cavern that encompassed Sshamath to it's floor. He was stunned foremost by the brightness of the place. Accustomed to the darkened spaces of the underdark where no natural light penetrated he relied for most of his 80 years on his darkvision to find his way, darkvision that saw no color and only heat. Here, in this city, everything was color, some of which he hand no words for. Faerie-fire of intense hues limned every cornice and pediment, it pulsed and changed shape and tone, it was a chaotic riot of almost vomit-inducing proportions. He wanted to run, step back into the cooler darks of the tunnels and retain his sanity. He was awestruck. Forcing himself to stand amidst the tumult of light and the roar of noise coming up from the floor of the cavern he slowly, slowly caught his breath and began to take stock.

The size and scope of the main cavern was breathtaking, larger than anything he had ever seen or heard of, perhaps as big as Menzobaran itself! it was a huge, almost globular space, flattened at the floor and ceiling to maximize it's useable area. Everywhere he looked spires climbed toward the ceiling, gigantic columns spanned the height of the cavern and improbable stalactites of epic proportions dropped towards the floor. Some of these were encrusted with circular stairways that cascaded down their face and crossed one another in precarious-looking intersections while others seemed to have no visible means of access at all. As was the way of the drow every square foot of every available rock formation was hollowed out, burrowed into, carved and molded by the forces of magic and hand to provide living and working quarters for the city's denizens. Perilous looking bridges only a foot's width spanned many of these structures, they were designed to be used by their makers, only the supremely agile drow or possibly svirfneblin could cross them with any sense of safety. Across it all drow moved with their natural grace, the more affluent citizens using their powers of levitation with the shebali and other races relying upon their feet to make progress.

This was Sshamath! To a drow male, this was freedom. If Cel'lith had known the word humans used for such circumstances, the word "joy", he would surely have used it. Lacking such emotions his heart pounded at the thought of being able to accumulate power and privilege untied to any jabress. Power! Xas! Power! It flowed like quicksilver across the landscape and was there waiting to be seized by those drow who were capable and cunning irrespective of their sex or religion. As he began the long descent into Sshamath he realized that his ascent to power was just starting, and would most likely prove far longer.

The City Proper Part 1

Exiting from the ramp that wound down around Z'orr'bauth Cel'lith found himself at the entrance to the city's fabled merchant quarter, the Dark Weavings Bazaar. A place where it was purported that anything could be had, for a price. It was telling that whereas most drow cities would place their merchants in an area far from an entrance (no doubt so the comings and goings of it's occupants and goods could be better monitored) Sshamath had chosen to place theirs directly adjacent to the only way in and out. His hard-wired drow racial tendencies developed over the eons by natural selection coupled with his constant attention to rank and the best way to increase his own standing (and hence power) slotted this fact into place alongside his observance of the many varied races he had noticed passing through the entrance producing an insight into the city's power structure that gave him pause.

Sshamath, and hence it's rulers' the Conclave, valued trade as their most important asset. This was no city ruled by religious dogma.

Satisfied that he was getting his footing he began to wander aimlessly through the bazaar leaving it to fate draw him where it would. If the main gate had seemed to be a riot of many varied peoples the bazaar was ten times as disorienting. There so many different humanoid races represented in it's tight confines that he quickly lost count. Streets were formed not by any regular plan but the spaces left open between the semi-permanent stalls and tents of the merchants. He quickly became lost, giving himself over to the chaotic swells and currents in the throng of people. At one point he passed a rivvil conducting some tiresome sword-swallowing routine for hand-outs, it was apparent to Cel'lith that he was keeping the weapon carefully positioned in his gullet so as to avoid it entering into his lower bowels. As the bedraggled rivvil withdrew the sword from his mouth he carelessly bumped Cel'lith's arm, the outrage! His first reaction was to grab his rapier and force it into the human's lower bowels to teach him a lesson, something he would not be able to pass off as a trick. However just as quickly as his hand flashed for the pommel of the weapon he remembered his insight about the Conclave's values and he restrained himself.As a drow brought up in a strictly Lolthian settlement such a reaction would have been carried out with little protest from those around and most likely seen as an entertaining side-show, one more entertaining than the pathetic display the rivvil was putting on. However here, in Sshamath, he surmised it would not be appreciated. Casual violence in the street tended to be bad for business, he would have to watch himself. He'd have to leave his weapon in it's sheathe and keep the violence to a minimum, at least when others were liable to be looking.
Instead he spat in the rivvil's face shouting "you sussun rivvil keep your filthy hands to yourself or I'll jam that rapier so far down your throat you'll have to bend over and wave your ass at someone to use it!"
Standing mouth agape, spittle sticking to his face, the human staggered back a step and bowed deeply "apologies kind sir just a slip of the hand nothing was meant by it".
Satisfied that he had demonstrated his rank without killing the rivvil Cel'lith turned and pushed into the crowd with no further response.