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“Sorry Mistress, we mucked up.” Rozzak the goblin shifts nervously in front of the Nightwarden Minthara’s cold gaze. Her gaze goes from cold to chillingly cruel. With hands clutched behind her back, almost in a parade rest stance, she marches into the goblin’s personal space and leans down to scowl at his diminutive eye level.
Minthara’s voice comes out as a low hiss as her hand shoots out to grab the goblin by the ear. “Until their sanctuary is found, I will take something precious from you every hour that passes. A trinket… a tongue… a limb .”
“I ain’t no use without my limbs!” The goblin grimaces and shrinks away from her touch, flinching from the pinch on his ear. Minthara lets go roughly and shoves him away.
Rozzak stumbles away reeling, then regains a sense of composure out of fear of the Nightwarden’s wrath. “The lads’ll make the prisoner squeal soon enough, I swear!”
“Silence now, creature, or I will silence you forever.” The gravelly hiss in her voice scares the goblin enough to send him scurrying away muttering apologies for failing her. He ends up bumping into the leg of a quietly approaching newcomer who approaches the Nightwarden’s makeshift chambers. Another drow. Rana. Rozzak stumbles away apologizing and swearing to the Absolute he will make the prisoner squeal for the Nightwarden, hardly paying the newcomer any mind.
Rana was surprised how easy it was to infiltrate the goblin camp stationed in this desecrated temple to Selune. With their companions’ safety in mind, Rana decided to approach the camp alone, hoping to use their drow appearance as a front to get in. The others protested that it was a death wish, but Rana was determined. Rana told their tadpoled allies that if they didn’t return in three days, that they could then either leave them to die or try to save them. Their plan worked flawlessly, the brutish goblins bowed to them with deference and let them pass without a second thought. The worm in their hole-filled brain was good for something, it seems.
At the approaching presence, the Nightwarden turns towards Rana expecting another obnoxious goblin then raises a brow in intrigue when the figure of a strong-bodied tall drow greets her instead. Before she can open her mouth to greet or question Rana, the psionics of the tadpoles in their brains connect and mingle.
Like an ice-cold hand caressing their brain, Minthara reaches her tendrils of thought further to rake Rana’s mind for their intentions and feels the psionic presence of the other worm wriggling in Rana’s brain. Rana grimaces at the intrusion while Minthara straightens up at seeing what she assumes to be another officer of this cult.
“A True Soul? Praise be, sister. Are you here to join my hunt?” She doesn’t quite smile, but a ghost of a grin pulls at her lips.
Authority, someone she views as an equal. Sister? Well, Rana supposes that’s a reasonable assumption given the curve of their breasts and wide hips. Even so, they’re not a woman!
“I…no, not quite. Not quite a sister, but yes, I am a True Soul. I am looking for the druid called Halsin.”
Minthara tilts her head up to regard Rana. Most drow are fairly short, so Rana towers over the armored woman, and yet they feel like they’re shrinking under her calculating gaze.
“Perhaps you can help me in my hunt, True Soul. That druid comes from some nearby sanctuary devoted to loathsome false gods. We need to learn the location of this grove, so that we can burn its heresy to the ground. Are you adept at torture, True Soul?”
A faint flash of memory fills Rana’s mind, of the sound of screaming and their hand brandishing a red-hot poker and digging it into some faceless man’s flesh. Though they don’t remember the full picture, they innately know they have tortured many, many people before. It brings a knot of nausea into their throat.After swallowing down their building dread, Rana nods to Minthara. Her gaze darts over their face, their mismatched eyes due to their dark prosthetic, the scars etched into their chin and torso, the strange revealing outfit they wear. Her eyes linger on their large, veiny, scarred hands.
Rana's figure is imposing and beautiful in an almost morbid way. The de-saturated pallor of their blue-gray skin and the numerous blue-tinged scars criss-crossing their flesh conjures the image of a walking corpse. Five deep deliberate scars etch into their full lips and chin, evoking the image of a skull. Their eyes are sunken in, with black instead of white scleras. Strange eyes. The one still intact has a faint glow to its vivid orange. Most drow have a pale hair color, yet Rana's hair is mostly raven black with a salt-and-pepper spread of off-white breaking up the darkness. The streaks of gray and white in their mid-length hair speak of experience and age, as do the worried lines etched in their brow, yet the youthful firmness of their skin and muscles contradict the signs of aging. Either this drow before her is quite old and experienced, or they have been through enough hardship to age them as such.
The Nightwarden’s eyes shoot back up to lock her gaze with Rana’s. The worm wriggles under a new tendril of mind-probing as the smaller drow melds her mind with Rana. They reach back in the connection and catch flashes of her name, her station, and the snapshot of a pale woman with blank white eyes and a curved red knife. This woman and knife feels familiar, somehow. They remember snapshots of that same face in the depths of their fractured mind. This drow knows someone from Rana’s past!
In their lapse of judgment, Rana let Minthara probe too far into their own mind. Her face scrunches up in a grimace as red-tinted snapshots of extreme violence invade her mind.
A tiefling woman’s face in a gargling muted scream as a bare hand digs into gushing throat and squelching belly. Teeth meet panicked flesh and sink in deep, tongue laps blood with excitement, hungry throat swallows down mouthfuls of hot red blood and torn flesh and still-twitching entrails. Scarred lips press against the open mouth of their victim, kissing her with mock gentleness then reaching to pull at her tongue. Sharp teeth bite down on lolling tongue until the twitching muscle tears away into their waiting mouth, and the warm raw meat slides into their stomach with glee. It smiles cruelly as the woman’s face is frozen in a look of pure terror, the light leaving her eyes, now dead and glassy. Oh how beautiful, a hopeful life ended just as it began. This bard’s last note was that of exquisite agony. Shudders of ecstasy pulse through the red-eyed killer as they grind down on the fresh bleeding corpse’s still-warm thighs. The coldness of their own corpse-like skin saps the remaining warmth from the cadaver’s supple flesh. Another exhilarating kill for the Deathstalker.
The mental connection snaps as Minthara reels back from the vivid violence Rana’s mind inflicted on her. Reliving what horrible act they did so recently fills them with a new wave of nausea and disgust. Rana turns away clutching their belly, gritting their teeth to swallow down the bile and urge to retch. They look back at the reeling drow to glare at her for probing so deep in their mind. "How about we start with introductions before you go sifting through my mind? Call me Rana. Perhaps ask next time you want to meld minds?"
Minthara regains her bearings and briefly stares with her mouth agape at Rana, then presses her lips together in a thin line. While the violence was gratuitous and horrifying, the sadistic glee felt in the memories spreads a warmth through her spine. That kind of violence is on a similar level as one of the Chosen, the Bhaalspawn Orin! Is this True Soul sent by her perhaps?
She stalks toward the taller drow and grabs them by the jaw to pull them down to her eye level. Their flesh is as cold as a corpse in the Nightwarden's grasp. Now unable to avoid her gaze, Rana meets the piercing red eyes probing into their mind. More snapshot memories and flashes of emotion shared through the tadpole. In an effort to avoid revealing the grove, Rana turns their thoughts to the priest of Loviatar they encountered while infiltrating the goblin encampment. Their back still bares the welts and bruises dealt by his hand. They played their role well, so well they earned Loviatar’s blessing with their masochistic groans of ecstasy.
Minthara’s mind wraps around the vivid image of Rana bracing against a wall as welt after searing welt lash their aching back. Their heart pounds in their ears, each hit sending shudders of masochistic bliss. Rana blinks the flashes of memory to see a darkened glint in Minthara’s eyes. A grin spreads on her face at their apparent sadomasochistic urges. That grin gives off the essence of a predator baring its teeth at prey, rather than a genuine smile.
“My my, you are exquisite. I have no doubt you will make the druid divulge all his secrets, with that depth of knowledge. Come, I will lead you to the wretch.”
Rana stares after her dumbly as she marches past them, their wrist caught in her firm grip so that they’re dragged along. Despite being taller, they struggle to keep up with the Nightwarden. Her mind continues to reach out to theirs, the words she sends them largely foreign to Rana’s mind. They know she’s speaking to them in the undercommon language of drow, but they barely have a child’s understanding of the language; they can only make out bits and pieces. What they know is only lowbrow commoner tongue at that, if this woman dips into high drow they will be completely lost.
‘Surfacers’ , ‘punish’ , ‘blood’ , ‘Ally’ , and ‘Chosen’ are all they can understand when her register quickens to that of high drow. Tebaun is akin to Bladedancer -a name Rana dimly remembers possibly going by-, elg'caress is akin to bitch, and iblith is akin to carrion or filth. Darthiir is some disparaging term for traitors or surface elves if memory serves. Oh, and Straj, they know that one, a fun expletive like shit!
Minthara stops after sensing her words fall without understanding, and turns to squint at Rana suspiciously. “Do you not know the language of our people, True Soul Rana? What house do you hail from?”
Rana takes several seconds too long to answer. Just long enough to lose what little trust they had built with Minthara by appearing as a drow. Before they can open their mouth to answer, they’re yanked down by her as she puts a dagger to their neck.
“Answer truthfully, if you want to keep your life. Why are you here? Are you a True Soul, or are you an imposter?” Her voice is a sharp hiss in their ear. It sends a shiver up their spine. A shiver of fear, or anticipation?
With a thick swallow, their voice stays low and steady in their answer. “I am here for the druid Halsin, as I said before. I was raised on the surface away from under-elf culture, so I have no house and only know sparing parts of the language. How can I be a True Soul if I do not know the meaning of that title?”
A low growl rumbles in their throat as the blade presses onto their neck, a thin line of black already oozing from its cut. “Call me imposter, then. I am an interloper in your ranks. Kill me now if you want me dead, Nightwarden.”
They grit their teeth with determination as Minthara meets their gaze. Her glare is cold, impassive. Even in the face of possible death, Rana is not truly afraid. Not afraid of dying, at least. There are far worse fates than death. The red tickles the edge of their vision.
Minthara notices flecks of glowing red swirling in their prosthetic eye. A deep, dark anger boils under that gaze. Something feral, predatory, like a starved wolf trapped in a cage now scratching at the latch to escape. She glances down to see not the red of usual blood on the edge of her blade, but a black ichor that sucks in the light around it. The Nightwarden opens up her paladin divine sense to feel a near overwhelming aura of blood and death oozing from Rana. Rana is not mortal, not mere drow, there is something profane and vile tainting their blood. Not undead, but not quite alive the way a mortal should be. Their skin is cold like a corpse.
Rana reaches to grip the wrist pressing the knife to their neck, their rough muscled hand eclipsing the small wiry hand gripping the dagger hilt. Before they can pull the wrist and blade away from their throat, Minthara pulls her mace out with her other hand and bashes it against the side of their head to knock them away. Stars dance around their vision, they stumble back and fall backwards on the cold hard floor. The crack of the stone floor making contact with their temple knocks them into a world of black unconsciousness.
Rana wakes up chained in a makeshift dungeon cell, their neck and arms chained to the wall and ankles chained to an anchorpoint on the floor. Judging by the bones and other refuse lining the corners of the room, this cell also functioned as a worg cage at some point. They’re stripped of their outer clothing, now in nothing but their smallclothes, which consisted of a dark pair of bloomers and no top to shield their naked breasts. The chill of the musty dungeon air brings a shiver to their already cold flesh. As their vision clears, they look around to see the Nightwarden standing outside the cell pondering a hot poker set in a bowl of red-hot coals. The clink of the chains on their neck alerts their captor that they’re awake, and the drow woman turns to face them. She tuts at them, clearly mocking them.
“I’ll admit, interloper, you nearly had me fooled. I don’t know how you gained the powers of a True Soul, but I have no doubt you stole that power and are undeserving of my mistress’s favor. Your very blood is cursed. You know where that grove is, don’t you, darthiir wretch?”
She unlocks the far door to the cell, and steps in carrying a bag full of what can only be torture implements. She sets the bag down, then walks back out of the cell to grab the poker and bring it in with her. She closes and locks the cell door behind her, an icy grin of a predator on her face.
Rana stays silent, only giving a glare in response. Minthara approaches them while brandishing the poker.
“I saw in your mind that you have experienced the art of torture from both sides of the whip. I saw the excitement you felt at the pain inflicted to and by you. Tell me, darthiir, will your screams be of agony or ecstasy tonight?”
Rana’s ears pin back on their head, their teeth bared in a silent snarl. The second Minthara gets within arms reach, they lunge at her with teeth bared. They get the searing heat of a poker in their shoulder for their effort. With just the pressure of the poker pushing them back, Minthara pushes them to their knees then pulls the poker out of the sizzling indent left in their shoulder. Rana hisses at the pain, then growls at Minthara.
“I know you know how to speak. Or do you prefer to be treated like a dog?” The mocking tone in her voice draws another growl from Rana, which earns them another searing stab with the poker in their other shoulder. Swirls of smoke effuse from the spot the poker singes away their skin.
A low chuckle of amusement rumbles in the Nightwarden’s throat as she puts the poker back in the coals. A sadistic smirk spreads on her face. “Dog it is, then. You want to act like a dog, then I will treat you like one, mutt.”
She reaches into her bag of tools and pulls out a ring gag, then deftly steps into range of Rana while brandishing it. Rana growls with all the threat they can muster, their attempts at biting their captor met with harsh slaps to the face and a deceptively strong hand gripping their jaw to hold them still as the gag is forced into their mouth. They can’t hide the blush spreading on their ears and face from the inherent excitement the gag and pain elicits in them. It’s a bodily response, they can’t help their wires are crossed!
Minthara openly chuckles at their pathetic attempt at a threat, then brings their face up to meet her gaze with a surprisingly gentle tug.
“If you behave like a good dog by the time I’m done with you, I will let you live to slink back to whatever hovel you crawled out of. Your suffering will be spectacular, pet.”
Another rush of warm excitement - no, arousal - surges down their spine at the pet names. For some reason the humiliation makes the situation more exciting. Minthara watches intently as their pupil grows to nearly eclipse their orange iris with the desire she so easily draws out of them. An idea clearly crosses the Nightwarden’s mind, as her grin widens more.
With one hand gripping the caged mutt’s chin, Minthara slides two fingers from her free hand through the open metal ring holding Rana’s mouth open. She pushes down to the knuckle into their mouth, pressing against the back of their tongue firmly and threatening to activate their gag reflex. Rana tries to open their mouth enough to dislodge the gag and bite down on her to no avail, only managing to run their tongue across the pads of her fingers and dampen them with saliva. Compared to their own body, Minthara is warm, her fingers radiating warmth into their corpse-cold mouth.
Minthara hums in interest at feeling the cold of their mouth, their flesh. This hound wretch at her mercy is quite peculiar. Not undead, for their heart still beats in their chest and her divine sense does not ping that characteristic stink of undeath on them. Not quite mortal, for their blood oozes the essence of death. She slowly pumps her fingers in and out of their mouth, drawing out a groan from their open throat.
“Hmm? What was that, pet? I couldn’t hear you over the mess you’re making of my hand.”
Their spit dribbles down their chin and pools on the thumb holding their face in place, the blush on their cheeks darkening even more. There’s a gurgle in their throat as she fucks their mouth with her fingers in earnest, running her fingers along the length of their tongue with the intensity of a cock finding the center of an aching cunt. She draws an obscene groan from their throat. It started as a growl and devolved into a groan of need when she hit the back of their throat with her nails.
Satisfied with the mess of spit they made, she lets go of their chin and slowly pulls her hand out of their mouth. Briefly they lean forward to follow the fingers before a glimmer of reason finds them and they pull back to glare up at her. So close to being a mindless whore over a set of fingers in their mouth. Oh, they are fun to toy with.
“Aw, does the dog miss having their mouth filled? Patience pet, I have more in store for you.” The mock care in her voice makes Rana turn their face away in embarrassment. Their ears droop and pin back against their head much like a sulking puppy. She runs her spit-soaked fingers through their hair, then grabs a fistful to pull their face back towards hers.
“I didn’t say you could look away from me, elg'caress. I am the only thing that matters to you now. Gaze only at me.” She pulls their hair back to crane their neck up, rewarding her with an obscene moan through their forced open mouth. The flex of muscle in their neck looks too tantalizing to ignore. Minthara leans down to sink her teeth into the curve of their neck and suck at the dried black blood dotting it. Their taste is divine. Metallic like most blood, but with an intoxicating feeling of power that comes with it, along with a subtle aftertaste of salt and death. Another groan rumbles in their throat. Oh, they are a delicious pet.
When she finally pulls away from their neck, a pretty purple bruise is left in its wake, surrounded by deep tooth marks beading with their ichor. She watches the blood pooling in the indents, then licks it off of them. Her saliva has a mild numbing effect on their skin from the variety of poisons she doses herself on to build up immunity. Each drop of black that touches her tongue brings a slight tint of red to her vision. A strange primal urge to maim, to kill, spreads through her mind as she relishes in her prisoner's taste. That same red urge swirls in the black of their eyes.
With a deliberate lack of care, she trails teeth and nails down their neck to their collarbones and breasts to leave angry marks in her wake, then circles their stiffened nipple with her tongue and sucks indulgently on their chilly skin. Her hands claw bleeding trenches in their scarred-up back, then pinch at their other breast with practiced precision. She’s rewarded with several growls and pained whimpers escaping her captive’s throat. Yes, good, let the whole camp know whose Bitch you are, wretch.
Rana begins to squirm under her touch, which earns them a hard slap to the face that makes their nose bleed. Minthara lets go of one breast with a squelch then sucks the other into her mouth. They don’t get a moment of rest from pain or overwhelming sensations, whenever her mouth leaves their skin her nails replace her teeth. She suckles on their breasts until every touch to their bruised chest elicits a wince or twitch.
To test their level of frustration she probes their mind, and with delight finds her new toy is already inconsolably pent up from her ministrations. Good. While they’re unable to defend themself against her, she can do anything to them. Now her hands grip their shoulders to push them back from being on their knees to being on their back on the floor.
“Stay, mutt.”
When they make no motion to move in response, Minthara pushes herself to her feet to return to her bag. She takes her time rummaging through her toys and torture tools, making sure to take long enough to sense through her psionic probing that she’s frustrated her captive even more. Finally she pulls out a leather harness with a hardened leather length attached to the base. A firm strap-on phallus, it will do perfectly for her aim of humiliation. Pleasure can serve as its own kind of torture, when used deliberately.
Once she’s walked into view of the chained wretch on the floor, she takes her time putting the harness on, then crouches down to grab and pull them so they’re kneeling at her feet again. She runs her hand along the firm leather length, lines herself up in front of their face, and grabs their face to guide their gagged open mouth over the dildo. It is too long to fit fully in their mouth, at eight inches long, but it does not matter. They gurgle in weak protest as its length is forced into their mouth, then pumped in and out of them. Their tongue slathers their spit on its length, each thrust pulls a low growl from their throat. Several times their face scrunches up to resist gagging.
Minthara openly grins down at them as she forces their mouth to take the length strapped to her hips. “That’s right, take it like a good obedient pet. If you’re good I might even breed you like the bitch you are!”
Rana can’t hold back the obscenely loud groan that draws from their mouth. Their eyes have glazed over with the fog of pain-filled lust and humiliation. Their captor dragging the leather cock out of their mouth pulls a needy whimper from their bruised lips. They lower their gaze in shame as Minthara chuckles at how desperate they are. She snaps at them to make them look back up at her, which they comply with silently. They’re met with that sadistic smile.
Silently she points down at her feet, and Rana crawls on their hands and knees to reach her. “Stay.”
They stay stock still in wordless compliance. If being a good, malleable fucktoy is what it takes to survive Minthara, they will do so. If anything this serves as a test of their resolve. The woman standing over them leans down to pull their smallclothes down off their hips until their naked ass is on display. Huh, the mark of the Absolute has been branded into their cheek. Clearly branded then tattooed there as a form of humiliation prior to ever finding this goblin camp. How it got there does not matter as long as they refuse to give the information she seeks. As it is now, the mark serves as a perfect target for her to strike them with her hand. Strangled gasps and whimpers meet relentless strikes to firm muscle. Through the din of pulsing pain, Rana dimly hears their captor whispering what must be filthy obscenities or degrading names in undercommon. They feel tears running down their face as the hands are replaced by a paddle, then cane, then riding crop, then whip. Surely the flesh of their ass is bleeding from the welts left by her measured hits.
There’s a lull in the pain, the cruel mistress stepped away from them. They can’t crane their head up to look for her, for the scream of their spent muscles makes every movement burn. They feel eyes on them. Their captor drinks in the sorry state they’re in with glee.
Rana flinches as warm hands cup their bruised backside. A hand trails down to reach underneath to run a finger through the slick building up between their thighs, which brings another shiver from them. Their thighs are positively soaked with proof of their shameful arousal. Those deft long fingers reach and find the hardened member above their cunt, and squeeze it with curiosity. Too long to just be an engorged clit, yet still too small to be a cock worth riding in any capacity. Rana whimpers and twitches as Minthara explores their naked body out of their line of sight.
“You have quite an interesting body, pet. Breasts of a woman, a shriveled cock like that of a man, and yet still a wet cunt perfect for breeding and being bred. You would have been culled at birth in Menzoberranzan, or kept as an oddity. I’m sure many matrons would have paid a pretty penny to keep you as their consort. You’re the perfect bitch for breeding stock.”
Fuck, she’s so good at melting their sense of reason. Rana’s mind pleads to be the Nightwarden’s bitch, please please use me, I’ll be a good dog, I’ll be your good bitch, your elg'caress.
Minthara hears their lustful submissive thoughts and audibly laughs at their plight. She tests the waters by sliding one, then two, then three fingers and crooking them inside Rana’s aching cunt. They’re easy access from how much she’s played with them, even with their walls shuddering around her she’s able to fit a fourth finger inside them.
“Hungry creature, three fingers is not enough for you? What an eager bitch you are.”
With slow pumping and twisting of the wrist, she’s able to push her thumb in with her other fingers, then slowly push the rest of her hand deeper until she brushes their cervix, bringing out a ragged gasp from her toy. Each movement of her hand inside them makes them groan, pant, whimper, keen. They arch their back instinctively as she forms a full fist inside of their tightening cunt. A twist of her fist brings out a loud gasp. Another twist, they throw their head back. Now her movements become fast and rough, she twists her fist back and forth inside them to send shockwaves of overstimulating ecstasy up their spine. Their breathing is ragged as she puts more pressure inside them, then one more turn of her knuckles sends their taught thighs shuddering relentlessly as they climax before they can stop themself.
She feels like her hand is in a vice as they clench down on her, animalistic growls punctuating them coming down from the edge. Milky white paints the stone floor beneath them in thin ribbons from their small twitching cock. The hand is wrenched out of their still clenching cunt painfully, leaving them feeling empty. That soaked hand circles around their still twitching and tiny cock to squeeze out every drop of cum they have in them. And keeps squeezing. The pressure is too much.
Their growling gasps turn to whimpers and cries from overstimulation. The other hand comes down to grip their hair and press their face into the ground. Her warm body presses against theirs roughly, the hard leather strap-on pressing against their ass then lifted to line up with the gaping wetness left from the fist. Rana can only mewl in fruitless protest as the leather length sinks inside of their cunt with no resistance. The tip hits at their cervix, bringing a strangled cry out of them. And keeps hitting it. They’re feeling so much at once they’re seeing stars. Please. Please. They want it to stop. Please make it stop.
Minthara shows no sign of stopping, she pumps into them relentlessly with the leather cock to wring out a second climax from their squelching cunt, then a third, then a fourth. They feel like they’ve been here for hours, days, they don’t know how much time has passed, all they know is the overwhelming pressure the Nightwarden presses inside of them and her hand grazing their oversensitive cock. Their blood roars in their ears so that they can barely hear the cutting insults she volleys at them. Bitch. Only good for breeding stock. Tiny cock not even fit for riding. Only fit to be a hole to be fucked and used. Darthiir whore. Drooling dog. Unworthy. Pathetic. Iblith.
Their chest heaves in sobs as they sink further onto the floor, their body pushed to the edge of yet another painful climax just before their captor stills. Overspent nerves twitch with every movement, aching to finish and be done with it, but the cruel Nightwarden stops just short of sending them over the edge again. She slowly pulls out of them, a wet squelching following the leather cock as it exits them. She lets go of them, steps away, leaves them there trembling and clenching around nothing.
“I will return for you later, pet. You’ve been a good dog so far. When I come back, you will tell me the location of the grove, or I will make you further regret stepping foot here.”
Without another word, Minthara cleans herself off, sets her tools back in her bag, and exits the cell. She really is a cruel cultist, to leave them debased like that and not take the gag out their mouth. Rana slumps onto the floor exhausted, spent, too tired to even feel disgust with themself. The throbbing headache now meeting them lulls them into the darkness of sleep while trapped in this forsaken camp.
Rana is shocked out of their unconsciousness by ice-cold water splashing onto their head and back. The bucket is thrown to the side, wooden clattering on the stone floor. They grit their teeth to fight away the violent shivers and full-body aches. Gods know how long they must have lied there unconscious.
“Up, now.”
The Nightwarden’s command rasps low in their ears. When Rana hesitates to push themself to their feet, a hand presses into their wetted scalp and claws into their hair to pull them up. Even with their muscles screaming, they do their best to comply without a sound. The other hand reaches behind them and undoes the clasp holding the gag in their mouth. They feel the leather straps digging into their face loosen, and so they spit out the gag and sigh in relief. Their jaw aches with throbbing soreness from being forced open so long. Their tongue runs over the tips of their teeth, the dryness of their mouth from hours of being held open making them horribly parched.
The hand gripping their hair pulls them around so the still exhausted prisoner turns to face their captor. Minthara holds a bottle to their parched lips and compels them to drink. They open their lips to accept it, hoping for water, but instead find the sour taste of vinegar coating their tongue. They grimace and try to pull away, but the Nightwarden presses the lip of the bottle further into their lips, and with resignation they gulp down the sour acidic liquid. The bile in their throat threatens to come up again.
When the bottle of vinegar is drained down their unwilling gullet, Minthara pulls it away and releases her grip on their hair. Still weak from hours before, Rana falls to their knees in front of her. They stare blankly up at her, fighting the downward pull of their lips to grimace. They know they’ve been tortured before, somehow they know they’ve been through worse, and so they will not give their captor the satisfaction of pained expressions she surely desires. The red clouds their vision.
Whatever or whoever left this worm and these holes in their addled brain is what broke them before, and they have no intention of letting another break them like that again. They clawed their way out of whatever place they were trapped in before, they were left beaten and broken and left for dead, unworthy of Father’s gifts, Father’s Love, and now they face someone intent on breaking their still-healing spirit to slaughter on behalf of something that is not their Father. No. Not this time. Not again. They are the slayer, the Deathstalker, they are the one that draws blood to soak into the stones, they are the Bladedancer that will bring the world to its knees.
Rana forces the red out of their vision. No. No . They can’t let the red fully take over again. That was the Urge talking, not Rana. Rana doesn’t want to kill for the sake of this unremembered Father that eludes them. They don’t want to kill at all! Every life they take as themself has been because their hand was forced and they felt they had no other option. The last time the red flooded their vision… it… it killed… it slaughtered Alfira. Even as this drow barks orders and questions and degrades at them, they do not want to kill her. She’s under the thumb of a cult, it’s this Absolute compelling her to do what she’s done to Rana, right? People will do unspeakable things in the name of gods and superiors. Was Rana like this once? Did they commit heinous acts in the name of a god or master?
Their captor slaps them out of their silent musings. She glares down at them, spits on their face, and bristles more when Rana doesn’t even flinch from the spit coating their prosthetic eye. The red swirls in that void filling their right eye, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Her poison laced saliva numbs the socket it landed in.
“Focus. Look at me, darthiir scum. You may wear the face of a drow, but you are no kin of mine. I do not know what you are, but I do know you are no natural being. I can sense something tainted and vile running through your veins. Tell me the location of that druid’s grove.”
Rana blinks the spit out of their eye and glares up at Minthara, cold gaze meeting colder glare. The red in their eyes gets brighter, despite their efforts it is closing in from the edges of their vision. Though subtle, the Nightwarden feels a deep sense of dread at the red in this prisoner’s gaze. They purse their cracked lips, worrying their teeth on the inside of their cheek, and let their bile-tinged spit build up in their mouth. Before their captor gets the chance to bark questions at them again, Rana reels back and defiantly spits back at Minthara. Their aim lands true, it splatters on her snarling cheek, and the Nightwarden can’t stop the wince it instinctively draws from her. There’s a pause, deadly quiet, as she reaches up to wipe their vile saliva off her cheek. She stares at the spittle drying on her fingers, then down at Rana. Face briefly impassive and stonelike, then contorted in an enraged snarl as she kicks Rana in the gut to force them down on the floor.
Rana coughs clutching their gut, then gets another flash of radiating pain from their captor’s boot kicking the side of their head and pressing down to grind their nose into the stone floor.
They hear the Nightwarden scoff at them disdainfully. “I’ll admit, you put up a good fight. More resilient than most captives, I assume from your training in torture. Even wretches like you have a breaking point. Is your life, your mind, worth losing over a pathetic grove of sniveling tieflings and blasphemous druids?”
Her heel grinds into their scalp to press their face harder into the ground. Rana makes no noise or motion to show deference. She waits for a moment, several moments, for an admission, to no avail. The boot lifts off their head and dips to lift their face under its leather toe. Their minds meld briefly with the wriggling of the tadpoles. Rana glares up at her. “No, I will not give you the grove, you won’t even get the answer from my corpse. I’d rather die than serve your Absolute.”
“Hmph. We shall see about that. Clearly you are not in the mood to give me answers, but perhaps you can do something else for me instead.”
Dark drow leather boots tap Rana’s chin expectantly. The boots are stained with blood, mud, dirt, and residual vinegar that dribbled from Rana’s face.
Minthara tilts her head and grins darkly at her captive. Her next words come out verbally instead of through the psionic connection, for emphasis.
“Your stubbornness has soiled my good boots. Do something useful with that bitch tongue of yours and clean that which you have sullied.”
Rana glances between the boot perched under their chin and the purple-tinged face leering down at them. When they don’t immediately get to work, the other boot comes down to press their head harder into the leather holding their face off the ground.
“Clean my boots, or I will cut that defiant tongue from your mouth.”
Slowly at first, then with determination to get this over with, Rana dips their face down to use their tongue to lick the blood and grime off the boots. It’s not as bad as the vinegar or the bile ever present in their throat. They can feel the smirk of satisfaction on the Nightwarden’s face as they lick a spit-shine into the leather. She carefully repositions her boots to give them access to every surface on the footwear that require attention.
Outside the worg pen turned interrogation cell, they can dimly hear the thumping footsteps of an ogre stalking around a room, and the light pitter-patter of goblin footsteps. From this position, naked and flayed to a bloody pulp on hands and knees, forced to clean their captor’s boots, they must look like they’re worshiping the drow true soul standing over them. Though they can’t make out the words, they can hear the goblin and ogre muttering to each other nearby, then cackling. Are they laughing at Rana’s plight? Or something else?
“Ah, look at the bloody bugger! Never seen a drow made to stoop to our level! Well good, stay on our level, traitor scum! If ya ain’t gonna accept the voice of the Absolute, ya don’t deserve the legs ya stand on!”
Ah, they are laughing at Rana. Pointing and mocking. Minthara gives her audience outside the cell an icy glare to shut them up. She will not be condescended to by a goblin, even if that goblin is a True Soul. Though, it does give her an idea.
Content with the level of cleanliness brought by Rana’s tongue running over her boot, Minthara steps away and snaps to get the attention of Priestess Gut voyeuristically watching her humiliate their prisoner.
“True Soul Gut, an idea has occurred to me while trying to gain information from this traitorous wretch.” Minthara pokes at Rana with her boot for emphasis. “Before I discovered their treachery, they made it clear to me that they were quite, shall we say, acquainted with the arts of torture. I surmised conventional torture methods will not work on them, and I was right.”
She steps further away from the prostrating captive and unlocks the cell to step out of it, standing at attention to greet the goblin priestess.
“Hot brands will not make them break, nor sharpened blades, nor the lash of a whip, nor the bile of dehydration. I have another idea for how to make them squeal.”
“Of course, Nightwarden! What do ya suggest? My boys have been practicing with that priest of Loviatar, surely they’ve learned a thing or two!”
The Nightwarden’s gaze fills with dark mischief as she turns to survey her quarry, her gaze met by the orange and swirling red in Rana’s eyes. They slowly pull themself back up from the floor to sit upright and pull their dirtied smallclothes off the ground and back over their aching legs.
“Drow or not, there is one thing most people never want to endure. Public humiliation. Make sure they are muzzled and bound, then drag this mad dog into the center of camp and let our soldiers have a bit of fun with them. My only stipulation is that they remain alive, and with the ability to speak intact, so that they may spill their secrets. If they are brought to the brink of death, heal them so that they may still be of use.”
Priestess Gut blinks in disbelief at the request, and looks between Minthara and the prisoner. She wants to debase one of her own kind that badly?! Well, who is she to argue with the drow officer, she knows best to deal with one of her own right? Gut gulps and nods.
“O’course, Nightwarden. We can do that. I’m surprised you’d resort to that with ona yer own, but if you believe it will make them crack, so be it! They are quite a pretty piece of meat, even with all the bruises.”
Minthara leans against the wall to watch as Gut has her ogre bodyguard bound into the cell holding chains and a muzzle fit for a dog. Rana realizes shit, they’re serious, and backs into the wall. They stare up at the leering ogre with red swirling further into their vision. No. No . Even at this, they can keep the red at bay. If anything they take this debasement as a challenge. How low can they be forced to stoop while still keeping the Red at bay?
Rana makes no effort to fight back as the large rough hands circle their head to secure the muzzle. Not quite a gag, they are able to open and close their mouth freely, but now they cannot bite at the hand that leashes them. One by one the chains binding them are unhooked and replaced by new ones attached to a metal staff that serves as a crude leash. They’re led out of the cell, through the Priestess’s chambers, back through the entrance hall where the priestess’s crude throne is, and back outside the large front doors to the platform in front of the roaring fire currently roasting delicious smelling dwarf meat on a spit.
With the goblin priestess barking orders, several goblins and hobgoblins drag up onto the platform an old wooden stock and pillory to force Rana into, then chain the wooden contraption down so Rana can’t try to drag themself away still in the device. Dozens of goblins, hobgoblins, several ogres, and a few drow fill the crowd as they mock and jeer and gaze at Rana’s beaten and trapped form. A wave of silence as Priestess Gut informs them of the Nightwarden’s verdict. Have fun with this traitor, but keep it alive so if it breaks it can still spill its secrets!
Debased to a toy, an it, a thing, an animal for their amusement. Rana closes their eyes to focus on their breathing and force the waves of red back. No, they will not listen to their Dark Urge, they will escape without the use of debaucherous violence. They have to.
Dirty rough hands grasp the fabric of their underwear and tear it off of them. There goes the illusion of modesty . Dozens, maybe even a hundred or more, ravenous lecherous eyes on their body. First they throw rotten food at them, smear the moldy flesh of putrid tomatoes and spoiled meat into their wounds. Rana does their best to hold back the hisses and growls of pain as the army of Absolutists quite literally rub salt in their wounds.
Something warm and wet hits their back. The rank smell of piss hits their nostrils. Lobs of spit lodged into their hair. Goblin piss dribbles down their legs. The thump of an approaching ogre is the only warning before an entire barrel of spoiled wine is poured over their body. Ironically the wine serves to clean their wounds more than the water from earlier did. Dribbles of sour wine fill their mouth, and they swallow it wordlessly. It’s gross, but better than vinegar. Rana’s stomach gurgles with hunger each time the smoke of the fire wafts the smell of roasted dwarf to their nostrils.
The stocks holding their ankles in place and pillory holding their head and wrists keeps them from slumping onto the ground when their knees give out from effort to stand tall despite the aches. Damp mildewed wood digs into their neck. Goblinoid snickering fills their head as the scores of goblins line up to take turns with Rana’s body. Dimly they hear goblins drag up a wooden step stool since they’re too tall for most goblins to reach their hips. Grubby green hands rake over their back and add more marks over the tallies raised on their flesh. Rana wills themself to embrace the void of their eyelids to focus on anything but the burning pain pressing into them. Rhythmically. Pumping. Squeezing. Biting. Clawing. Groping. Their pain is a drumbeat inside their head.
Rana’s mind is far away from the spectacle made of their body. The pulse of pain becomes a drumbeat of some foggy memory. The pain of the stocks replaced by a phantom pain of hot coals on their feet. Tongues of flame lick at their heels. Distant screaming of a crowd echo the beating of a drum. Drums breaking, cymbals clashing, drumsticks and broken lyres scattered on the ground. A hand warmed by blood gushing over its knife. Nails digging into steaming viscera until small hands find their way through to squeeze at the still-beating heart. The growls of a great beast, brought to its death too soon. The glassy red eyes of a drow woman held in their bloodied hands. Her white and red makeup smeared to obscure the jaunty image of a clown that she once was. Their gaze, blurred with tears, clouds with red as they’re dragged away from the dead woman. Red eyes surround them in a dark room. Red eyes. The Red.
Red fades to engulfing darkness. The metal bars of a cage cut against their skin, their small grubby fingers reaching through the bars in vain towards a scrap of food left on the dirty ground.
“No, not yet, you have not learned your lesson today, young master. Your Father insists you do this.” A nasally obnoxious and all-too-familiar voice startles them away from the bars. That cruel butler. He drags them back towards the trembling rabbit hiding in the corner of their cage. They’re a caged animal, just like the rabbit.
They only get praise and decency when they do what Father wants. All Father wants is for them to kill, to kill then kill again, and again, and again. Kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it kill it. The red invades their vision, and hands move against their wishes to grab the cowering animal and snap its neck. Already dead, and yet the hands continue.
They pull at the legs until they hear a wet snap, then squelch, then the tearing of sinew and tendons as they tear a still warm leg off of the limp body. Warm red blood covers their cold hands. Oh how they hunger. The food outside the cell already forgotten, their still-growing-in teeth sink into the exposed flesh and gulp down the fresh blood of the now dead rabbit. It warms their cold throat and fans the flames of that red intent to kill. They grab the butler in the midst of him praising them for doing as they’re told to snap his neck too, then pull and claw at his shriveled flesh until it too tears from his body. Inexperienced hands dip into the cracked open ribcage to hold the stilled heart. His blood is black, just like their own. He’s some vile unnatural creation of their Father. Not quite undead, but not purely alive.
Were they ever alive in the first place? Do they even have a soul? Or is the spirit keeping their cold heart beating just the torn off shrapnel of their Father’s rage? They are crafted from the torn heart of the Slayer itself. Black ichor for blood, cold as a corpse, and profoundly adept at killing. Their purpose in life is to bring death to others in their Father's name.
"Make all folk fear the Lord of Murder. Let your killings be especially elegant, or grisly, or seem easy so that observers are awed and terrified. Tell folk that gold proffered to the Father of Murder's church can make Him overlook them for today. Blood money for another day alive, lest the next blood spilled be your own."
Rana comes back from the glaze of red-tinged dissociation to see their immediate surroundings, hours after the spectacle of abusing their body lulled to a pile of sleeping goblins sleeping around the camp. Most of the goblins and other cultists tired themselves out using Rana as a hole to fuck. Most of these green brutes are too dim-witted to realize that the cloudy glaze over Rana’s eye was a sign they were not mentally present enough to care about their humiliation. The ache in their core and thighs is ever-present, yet they feel a renewed wave of stamina in their weary muscles. They must have healed Rana a few times through the night.
Carefully, quietly, Rana tests the give of their restraints. Did they forget to secure the top of the stocks? With some effort, they’re able to lift their head and the top of the stocks with it just enough to slip their hands out of the restraints and then pull their head out of its confines. They look around for any sign of danger or movement, but the guards at the bridge all face away and pay the inside of the camp no mind.
Rana reaches up to find their hair much shorter than before. Damn goblins chopped their hair off while they were dissociating. Damn. Damn them all. That’s the last straw they can take. The humiliation they could bear, the gang rape and public mockery and overstimulation and physical torture they could endure, but their hair?! Somehow they know they had worked so hard to grow it out from some previous unremembered instance that robbed them of their station, they know that it used to be much, much longer than it was before even the goblins got to them. And the goblins did such a shit job that it is all uneven and choppy now! Rana may not have been raised in the underdark like other drow, but even they valued their hair as a sign of their own station and dignity. To cut a drow’s hair without their consent was dishonor of a most hideous kind.
The red swirls into their vision again as they see the discarded strands of their own hair littering the platform under the stocks. Oh, these Absolutists will pay. That Nightwarden will pay. Cultist or not, she has disrespected Rana in a way only another drow can, and so Rana will disrespect her right the fuck back.
Rana silently surveys the area. With light steps they pad around the sleeping camp and pilfer items to give them some decency and protection - a goblin blade, a ragged tunic, a belt and bag, an oversized cloak, and some vials of poison. They don’t bother taking the muzzle off, they want Minthara to see their muzzled face before they disgrace her. Shoes would only give away their footsteps.
One by one, they make their way across the outside of the camp and snap the neck of each goblin, hobgoblin, and ogre they find asleep. They let the red tinge their vision just enough to let the Urge guide their actions, without letting it take completely over. They don’t need wanton overkill, they need just enough to kill the entire camp and get away intact. The ogres guarding the door are no trouble when already asleep - the goblin blade cuts through flesh just the same as any other blade. With their spinal cords severed, they can make no attempt to retaliate. No goblins outside to care or call for backup as Rana pries open the cage a poor owlbear is trapped in. The creature darts out of the bars and disappears into the darkness, finally free, finally uncaged.
Instead of going in through the front doors, Rana scales the cliffs in the camp to find another way in. They find a burrow clearly left by animals that tunnels into the sanctum, and though they look much too big to fit into the dirt hovel, they still retain the unnatural flexibility of their youth. Slowly, painfully, they contort their way through, letting the wet dirt paint their skin and hide the bruises on their flesh. They pop out in a room filled with kegs of wine and explosives. There’s a loud series of cracks as they pop their dislocated joints back into place. They were called the Bladedancer for a reason. Who is the Bladedancer? The Red keeps referring to them as that.
Shit, the popping of their bones must have alerted someone. They jump up to scale the rafters and hide from the Zhents that are now opening the door to check inside the room. Breath stilled, held, waiting for them to leave. The halfling Zhent looks around, then closes the door with a click. Unnoticed. Good. They'd rather not kill a neutral party, even if that neutral party is making its bed with such cultists.
Quietly they sneak through the door underneath the rafters on the other side of the wall, to the place they were held in half a day earlier. No new prisoners sit in the cell. They can hear the sound of distant overlapping snores. The priestess Gut and her ogre bodyguard. They make quick work severing the neck of the ogre, but the gurgling of the blood gushing through her mouth makes the priestess stir. Shit. Rana lunges at the priestess just as her eyes open and she leans up to look in the direction of her guard. All Gut sees before she’s embraced by the darkness of death is a mud-slathered muzzle, glowing red eyes, and a blade at her neck. She didn’t even have the chance to scream.
Next on their shit list is that hobgoblin Dror Razlin, or whatever his name is. He had the gall to command Rana to speak with a dead mindflayer on his behalf, then barked orders at them to speak to the Nightwarden and bristled when they hesitated. Though they were not focused on the moment, they are dimly aware he was among the crowd of lecherous goblinoids that had their way with Rana’s body. Rana finds him sleeping on his own throne, head propped up on his fist. That head finds itself rolling onto the floor in front of him, his body slumping down and falling out of its seat to follow. Along the way Rana has destroyed every war drum and percussive instrument they find. No drumming calls to battle for these zealots.
Rana makes their way to the cell trapping Volo. Good, he’s still alive, and wasn’t present to witness their defilement. Volo cowers at first, not recognizing Rana under the cloak and muzzle, but heaves a sigh of relief when they break the lock on his cell open and gesture for him to leave. With a gulp of an invisibility potion he scurries away. They find the other prisoner, still strung on a torture rack, and pull him down from the restraints to free him. Wordlessly they gesture for him to run too, so he does. The goblin guarding him wakes up and is about to scream for backup before Rana grabs a still hot poker from the smoldering fire beside the rack and jams it through his skull. The sizzle of red hot iron in goblin brains brings some profane satisfaction to the Red tinging their vision. That priest of Loviatar must have left before the show of public humiliation. Good, they would have been a bit sad to kill the man when he's so skilled at his art of pain. Maybe one day they shall meet again.
Making their way to the worg pens proves some challenge after they discover several still awake goblins guarding the snarling creatures. Luckily the thick walls and door to this part of the complex muffle their battle cries and subsequent screams of agony as Rana cuts them down. These goblins may be fast, but Rana is faster. They are an expert at killing, they won’t be felled by a few swipes from goblin swords.
The bear trapped in the pens snarls at them and bristles at first, then calms down when he sees Rana pull the lever to release him. Then snarls again when Rana pulls the other lever that releases the Worgs. Rana stands back to watch the spectacle as the bear tears into the worgs and leaves their steaming blood to pool on the cold stone floor.
The bear snarls at Rana and barrels toward them threateningly. Rana makes no moves to attack. They wait as the bear sniffs at them and wrinkles his nose in disgust at how rank they must be. He retreats several steps, and transforms back into the form of a tall burly wood elf. Halsin. The Druid.
Before he can begin to speak, Rana holds up their hand to stop him. “No time to talk. Escape. The way is clear for you to run out of this godsforsaken place. I have killed two of the three true souls here, as well as more than half of their camp and forces. Even if these zealots march to attack your grove, their numbers are now too few to win. Go.”
Halsin opens his mouth to speak again, only to be interrupted by Rana barking GO at him and pointing towards the door. He bows his head and walks past them to leave, then chooses to wildshape into the form of a rat to slip through one of the many holes in the edges of this place’s foundation. Damn druid could have done that this whole time if he were smart. No, he’s not as bright as he was made out to be by the druids of the grove. Some great and wise druid he is.
Rana has killed each and every goblin they’ve found in this temple complex, and now the target of their rage is within their sights. They had to take out that scrying eye from a distance with a stolen goblin bow and several arrows. Much to their dismay, the sound of arrow tips hitting magic eye then alerts the Nightwarden and her goblin lieutenant further into the chamber. The goblin pads into what once was a library to look around for the source of the sound, and notices the scrying eye is absent. Just as his voice raises to alert his mistress, an arrow shoots through his eye and sends him spinning into the chasm between the once-library and Nightwarden’s makeshift war table and chambers.
Rana hears shifting then rapid footsteps as Minthara with mace at the ready in her hand stalks into sight. She hasn’t yet noticed Rana in the rafters. Perfect. Just as Rana nocks an arrow, Minthara sniffs and crinkles her nose in disgust and looks up to find the source of the rancid scent of unholy essence. Eyes widen, shield comes up and deflects the arrow, she stumbles back and snarls at their presence.
“You Bitch! How did you get out of the stocks, you were chained-” She’s interrupted by another arrow whistling past her ear. Shit. Only one arrow left now.
“Get down here and fight me with dignity, if you are to fight me!”
Rana’s voice is low and full of gravel and malice from the red threatening to cloud their vision again. “Dignity ? You call this dignity, Nightwarden? Hah, if you had any dignity left you would have killed yourself under the spider queen’s oath instead of becoming a pawn to another god.”
Rana jumps down from the rafters and rolls onto the floor, then steps up and stands tall across the bridge from the other drow. They know how Lolthsworn drow look, and this woman definitely was one of Lolth’s lackeys before the Absolute got to her.
Minthara widens her stance and glares at Rana, mace and shield ready to smite them if they draw too close. She doesn’t expect the violent mental intrusion of Rana psionically pressing into her mind the way she did to them. They show her visions of them killing her comrades, her soldiers, of them freeing the druid, of decapitating Dror Razlin and gutting Priestess Gut. The forced vision makes her clench her eyes shut and shudder with the shared ecstasy of killing they felt in the moment, then opens her eyes in time to see Rana has shed the cloak and lunged at her with the goblin blade they stole. Instead of the blade driving through her throat or piercing her chest, she feels a sudden lightness to her head as they cleave the bun off hair off of her head. Her near-white mop of hair falls onto the ground below. She sees the messy chopped up hair on Rana’s head, and a sudden understanding hits her like a bucket of ice-water on her head.
Rana pushes into her space and wraps their arms around her in a mockery of a hug, grinning at the snarl it draws from the smaller drow woman. They easily pick her up so that her legs dangle, and they carry her back to the war table and shove her onto it. She loses grip of her shield and lunges to slug them with her mace, only for them to grab her wrist mere millimeters from hitting their face. Mud and blood cover their head, their muzzle, their limbs and ragged tunic, and yet she can tell they’re smiling at her. The red glowing in their eyes intensifies as they lock eyes with her, then the red fades back to ink black and fiery orange.
“Tell me, Nightwarden Minthara. From one mad dog of a god to another. How does it feel to lose, but not be given the dignity of death?”
“You scoundrel, unhand me now before I-” Minthara grits her teeth to not give the satisfaction of a scream of pain as the dull goblin blade digs into her hand, pinning it to the table.
“I could do tenfold to you what you have done to me, if I wanted. I could let the Red win and paint this room with your innards. I could do so, so many things to you… but I won’t. Not because I am better than you, no, because I am worse. You can sense the taint in my veins. You couldn’t even give me the decency to cut my hair yourself. I give you the decency to know who dishonored you.”
She continues to struggle against them, even managing to land a searing smite into their chest, which burns away the threadbare fabric hiding their battered breast. She punches at their face enough to knock the muzzle off their face. That smug smile makes her blood boil. She goes to curse them again, but is interrupted by Rana’s cold, bloody, bruised lips crashing onto hers. The vial of poison they held in their mouth drains into hers, and even with her resistance built up through years of micro-dosing, it brings a sudden wooziness to her head.
Rana’s larger rougher hands find the writhing hand of Minthara and wrap around her to pin it to the table by her head. They force the kiss further, long enough to let all the poison drip through their lips into hers. Then they release her and pull the blade out of her other hand, only to knock her hard in the temple with the bone-made pommel. She’s out, muscles go slack, red blood still draining through her stabbed through hand.
Rana doesn’t want her to die, no, not yet. With another kiss of their lips and a hum rumbling in their chest, they heal the wounds they left on Minthara to leave her alive. Her army is dead, her mission forsaken. Either she will go running with her tail between her legs to whatever zealous general sent her here, or she will kill herself for disgracing her name and mission. Hell, she might do neither, Rana does not know what the future holds. But they do know she’s as mad as them to subject them to all of that. It’s weird, to feel kinship and understanding for the woman who held them captive and was so brutal to them.
That feeling can be processed later when they’re not in the den of their enemy. Rana leaves the goblin weapons by the drow and searches for their own belongings, finally finding their beloved death jester outfit and weapons stowed in a makeshift evidence chest by their former cage. They don’t put their clothes back on yet, this mud and blood would soil the fabric.
Rana limps their way out of the camp, fills their belly with the remains of the roasted dwarf meat left on the spit, and walks down to the river flowing under the bridge to the goblin encampment. Fresh water to clean their defiled flesh. With their belongings left on the riverbank, they peel the ragged tunic off and wade into the stream, and stand there for longer than would be wise so that the muck leeches off of them. No matter how long they’d stand in the water, the muck in their veins will never wash away. Surely they will have several new scars from this excursion. They need to add at least 70 more tally marks to their back to account for the bodies left in this defiled temple. Don’t know what the original purpose of the tallies was other than being a tally of deaths by their hand. They haven’t been keeping track as of late.
Oh, right, they came here so they didn’t have to worry about their new companions dying on a goblin’s blade. When the mud and muck is gone enough from their flesh, they step back onto the riverbank and pull their clothes back on their skin. It’s difficult to pull dry fabric over wet flesh, but they make it work. They’d rather be damp than covered in mud and grime.
In their pack they find a remaining health potion. Down the hatch it goes. It doesn’t mend every wound, but it gives them the strength they need to limp their way back to the grove, and back to camp. These tadpoled idiots have no idea the lengths Rana would go to in order to keep them alive.Included below are two companion artworks for this fic, one of which is explicit (sexual nudity, bruises, blood, and edgeplay warning)----- -