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The Worlds Within Choose a chapter: Chapter 4 After finishing her meal Hypatia examined the section
of the cavern that they had selected to rest in.
It was off the main room, almost like a largish alcove.
Against the northwest wall there was what looked like a stalagmite
that had been sheared off just about knee high to Hypatia. She walked over to it
and realized there was plenty of room to walk between it and the cavern
wall. In fact, as she
considered it, it appeared to be just right for her to turn into an altar
to her goddess for her evening prayers.
She would be well within Valen’s vision, and she could kneel with
her back to the cavern wall, thus facing out into the cavern proper. She stepped back around the stalagmite and past Valen
out into the larger room of the cavern where they’d fought the battle
against the Drow. To her
surprise she found that the little alcove was not visible from the main
cavern, save if someone were to stand along the west wall and be looking
for them. Making a pleased sound in her throat, Hypatia went back to
the stalagmite and proceeded to bless it and the area around it. Once she had finished purifying the area and had
placed her holy symbol on the newly blessed altar Hypatia began to pray.
As was her custom, she first gave thanks for the spells she had
been given to cast for the previous day.
She liked to linger over her thanks giving, for she felt that too
many clerics hurried through that part or skipped it altogether to get to
the part where they ask for spells for tomorrow.
After, what she deemed an appropriate amount of time had been spent
thanking and praising her goddess, she began to mentally review the spells
she was blessed with the knowledge of.
She always felt like a child in a sweet shop when looking over all
the divine spells she could pray and ask for. To her utter delight she found that she had been
blessed with new spells to choose from.
More! She had been
blessed with a whole new type of spell to cast.
She could see these spells being cast more quickly than normal, the
trade off being that they occupied a higher place on her spell list than
they might normally. Her
goddess must have heard her grumbling about the speed with which Halaster
had cast his spells. Too delighted to keep still, Hypatia jumped up and
began dancing around the altar, while singing a song of praise and
adoration to her goddess. Valen, who had been quietly polishing his armor
looked up a bit startled when Hypatia started dancing and singing.
Frowning he put his breastplate down and stood, his brown peasants
tunic a bit smudged. “I
hope you don’t plan on carrying on like this every time we rest.” With a laugh Hypatia pirouetted over and threw her
arms around his neck in a brief hug, unable to contain her exuberance,
then danced away laughing again at the look of utter consternation on his
face. “Of course not.” With one more twirl she settled back to her knees behind her
altar. She did pause to
glance back at Valen before resuming her prayers.
He was still watching her and she noticed that his tail was utterly
still. Thinking back, she
couldn’t remember another time when his tail was not swaying in some
rhythm behind him. With a
philosophical shrug she turned to the altar. She was definitely going to pray for one of those
quickened Heal spells. To
be able to cast a spell that would fully heal herself or one of her allies
in half the time it would normally take would be more than worth
forfeiting a more powerful spell. It didn’t take Hypatia too long to prayerfully
request the spells she wanted for the next day and once finished she stood
and stretched to ease the tension in her muscles.
She was surprised, upon turning, to see that Valen was still
watching her. In fact it
didn’t look like he’d moved since she had resumed praying. Coming around her altar she got supplies out of her
pack and sitting down she picked up her armor and began to clean and
polish it. “You sleep,
Valen. I’ll take the first watch.” Valen blinked several times rapidly as if Hypatia had
broken his train of thought, then without a word got his thin bedroll out
of his pack and laid down. After she’d polished her armor, Hypatia looked over
their little camp. It was
snug, if a damp alcove off of a huge natural cavern could be called that.
The fire she had cooked over had gone out and to be honest she was
glad. Hypatia was sure she
would never get used to the oppressiveness of the air of the Underdark. Quietly, Hypatia stood and with the katana her aunt
Yzma had gifted her with, began a slow circuit of the alcove, scanning the
entrance as she passed by and peering as far up into the darkness above as
she could. With due
consideration she selected a perch on a rocky outcropping that would give
her a good view not only of the entrance but also a fair distance out into
the main cavern. The spot she’d chosen also allowed her to keep the sleeping
Valen within her sight. At least she hoped he was sleeping for his tail was
twitching somewhat irritably she thought and she was afraid she might have
disturbed his sleep, for all she had tried to be silent in her movements.
A barely audible growl emanated from him and she realized that he
must be caught up in some kind of dream.
Not a pleasant dream at that.
She watched as he jerked once then seemed to calm, the dream
apparently over. Throughout the long hours of her watch, Hypatia
considered her situation. How
she had become the only hope of the great city of Waterdeep and had been
transported to the Underdark. Which,
if she was being honest with herself, was fully where she had intended to
go. In truth, I probably owe Halaster a word or two of
gratitude for saving me the trouble of fighting my way down here. She considered also her unlikely allies in this quest
to stop the Valsharess. The
Seer and her followers, the Drow of Lith My’athar and whom ever else she
could scrounge up. Finally,
though she had avoided it, her thoughts turned to Valen.
As a cleric she knew that it was safest for her to travel with a
skilled fighter. Certainly he
looked more than competent. He
was tall and muscular, confident to the point of arrogance.
As if the slightly alien cast to his features wasn’t enough, his
tail and horns were also quite interesting, and she imagined intimidating
on the field of battle. As Hypatia’s gaze once again sought out the hidden
corners where an enemy might sneak up on them, her mind turned again to
the problem that she had been unable to see Valen when she’d looked
at him. In a few short hours
it would be his watch and she would have to trust him to watch over her.
Trust him with her life. Though
in truth he had saved her from the Drow assassin during the previous
battle, still it made her uneasy that she had not the reassurance of knowing
what kind of person he was. This is how most people must live.
Hypatia reminded herself.
They must choose to trust in others without knowing if their trust
is being misplaced. What an
uncertain way to live. Still, I’m sure I would have known if he could not be
trusted. Everything I know of
him speaks of honor and heaven knows he’s honest. At the appropriate time Hypatia woke Valen and lay
down to get some much needed sleep. To
her surprise, weary from the battles of the previous day she slept well
and only woke when Valen roused her so that they might continue on their
quest. To the west of the entrance they’d first come
through there was another narrow passageway. It was the only other
passable way they could go. Valen followed Hypatia closely and grumbled, “If
you would tell me where we are going I would much prefer to be in the lead
rather than follow you around.” Hypatia ignored him.
They followed the crevasse for a time then squeezed through a
particularly narrow passage and suddenly they could see where the
passageway opened out into another natural cavern. Hypatia stopped in her tracks upon seeing scores of
winged elves occupying the cavern. “Oh,
they’re beautiful,” she breathed. “They’re called Avariel,” Valen spoke quietly
from right behind her. “It
is my understanding that they do not care much for strangers.”
He looked around suspiciously.
“It is also my understanding that they do not live underground,
but rather high up in a place called The Lost Peaks.” Hypatia nodded to him, and drawing a deep breath,
approached two of the Avariel who seemed to have stationed themselves near
where the narrow passageway they were in ended and the large cavern began. As she drew close to them she began to notice
disturbing things about them. Firstly,
they seemed to move as if in a slight daze and their wings were mottled
and ragged. Probably the
result of too much time spent beneath the cold dark earth. Hypatia stopped, waiting expectantly as a male and a
female approached them. Even
before they spoke, she knew there was something quite amiss with them.
They spoke earnestly, but underneath what they seemed to believe,
she could tell that their words were false.
Leaning into her own intuition she began to get a hint of
something, layers of truth and reality, falsehood and altered reality. The two Avariel spoke of their Queen, Shaori,
bringing their town to the Underdark.
It seemed that she had left the palace to live in a cave.
Since then Driders had moved into the palace. They spoke in circles when questioned about how their
town had suddenly been transported to the Underdark, or even why.
They even spoke of preferring the darkness to the open air.
Through it all though there was a quiet desperation about them as
if on some level even they knew something was horribly wrong. Frustrated Hypatia decided to take a look.
Immediately she began to see a ghostly grayness that seemed to
cocoon the Avariel. They
believed their words in their minds, but their hearts cried out against
whatever was imprisoning them. Emotions
swirled with their exact opposites through these beautiful winged elves. She needed to look more deeply to see what was
causing this. Focusing her
concentration she was just about to open her heart when a strong hand
gripped her arm and whirled her about. Startled out of her vision she looked up into
Valen’s eyes, only they were not the crystal blue she’d become
accustomed to. They were
frighteningly tinged with a deep angry red. “Do Not!” Valen
commanded her. Then when he
was certain he had her attention he spoke quietly in her ear. “These elves are under some kind of enchantment.
If you ‘look’ at them you might be dragged into the same
enchantment.” Hypatia shuddered uncontrollably. She vividly remembered her time in the plane of shadow.
She had panicked and tried to see how she might get out of
that life-stealing place. In
trying to follow the probabilities there, she had almost had her very soul
torn apart. In the plane of
shadow, all lines were equally probable, but worse, each probability had a
desperate hunger about it. As
if drawing her into one would make it more real than the others.
They were almost living things, these probabilities, each desperate
to become somehow real. Just thinking about it brought back the inky
blackness, the soul chilling coldness, the oily feel of shadows and
possibilities almost real. Shadows
so wraithlike normally, here in this place real enough to have devoured
her, to have fed off of her own life force, her own passions.
Shadows and possibilities desperately hungry to cross the boundary
between the almost life they had and into a life of substance. Hypatia blinked several times as, with a force of
will, she pulled herself out of memories so vivid that she sometimes
feared that they would drag her back to that non-place.
She found herself still looking up into Valen’s eyes and silently
cursed her own expressive orbs. She, unlike her twin, had never learned to shutter
the emotions reflected in her emerald eyes.
In truth it had never before been necessary. Few looked into her eyes.
Her own force of personality was such that most did not feel
comfortable facing it. She
felt things too deeply, too passionately and those who preferred their
lives untroubled shied away from looking too closely at her. “Forgive me, Valen.” She whispered, her voice raw
with emotions. “You are
correct. I should be very careful.” With a grim nod Valen released her, though by the
questions in his eyes she knew he’d seen more than she wished he had. “There is an old Drow saying about the Underdark, I
hear,” Valen casually mentioned as they made their way into the town of
Shaori’s Fell. “Only
death awaits the unwary within its shadows.” Hypatia grimaced, “Consider me suitably warned.” Several times Hypatia stopped to greet and question a
passing Avariel, but the answers she got to her questions were just as
uninformative as before. She
did manage to learn where the major buildings were, the temple, the
library, a wizards tower and the palace. After a moments thought, she decided to start at the
palace. Perhaps if the
Driders were gone, the Queen might return.
Hopefully, once in her castle, the Queen could do something about
her poor enchanted subjects. The palace was located to the west of the central
cavern. Rounding a corner of
a wide passageway Hypatia could see its carved column’s some distance
ahead. “Valen?” She
turned to him. “I am yours to command,” came his voice just over
her left shoulder. For some reason those words totally distracted Hypatia. In a brief instant she was reminded of something her sister had said. Cimmera had been describing what she would do once she met her true love. Cimmera was always going on about her true love. But this time she had been very explicit about it and with his words Valen had reminded Hypatia of a scene Cimmera had described. Only the image that flashed through Hypatia’s mind was not of some unknown true love. Instead she saw an opulent room filled with rich tapestries and silk pillows, satin curtains all in rich colors and finely embroidered hung from the windows. Low tables were set with exotic delicacies and fine wines. In this setting she saw Valen in a rich silk tunic and she was feeding him ripe berries as he reclined on a couch. Hypatia blushed a deep shade as she shook her head to
dispel the image. How could
she even for an instant let such a thought flit through her mind? I know you are laughing at me Cimmera.
Somehow, somewhere I know you are laughing about this. |
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