Resurrected as a Drow Chapter 3

“Mistress!” The hobgoblin, Fespius, along with the three drow sisters ran toward their mother while the bullbears and I approached more slowly.

I eyed the creatures warily, but they apparently heeded the Matron Mother’s edict when she “gave” me to Tryss, because they didn’t try to take my head off with their formidable claws.

Win.

By the time the rest of us got up to the Mother, she was already pulling herself together and impatiently brushing her daughters away from her.

“Back, you cling bats! I’m fine. For Du’s sake, you’d think none of you are familiar with a simple Fidelity Spell.” She shooed them away as she hopped down from the altar.

“There was nothing ‘simple’ about that spell, Mother, and you know it,” Tryss said and then flung out her hand at the obelisks still stationed around the circle. Instead of their weak flickering from before, the crystal structures were now glowing richly with an internal flame that cast dancing shadows in all directions. “You promised some of your life in payment if you couldn’t keep your word with the Goddess.”

“Not some of it, sweetling,” Sevahtra said as she led the way toward the other end of the Temple across from the entrance. With a wave of her hand, the wall rearranged itself and revealed a hidden doorway that led out onto a balcony.

“What do you mean ‘not some’ of it?” Helera demanded, and this dissolved into a bickering match between the two women before the Matron Mother expertly diverted the argument by shouting orders at her hobgoblins behind us to start bringing the bodies outside.

“I didn’t know there was an Egress Platform here,” Dagwyn said as she looked around the balcony.

“A what?” I asked as I stepped up to the balcony’s ledge and looked down the sheer drop off where the dark waves of some kind of ocean thrashed against the side of the giant structure.

When I looked up, I nearly fell off the platform trying to see the top of the gargantuan tower that went up into the fathomless blackness above.

“Look out,” Tryss said as she grabbed my arm in order to steady me. “Not up.”

“Alright,” I said shakily, and I focused my regular eye out across the back water where there were dozens of pointed spires piercing the surface like a series of teeth from some monster rising out of the deep.

Between the spires that encircled the main one we were on, there was a series of rope bridges and stone staircases that connected the ring of dark spires like a web. My good eye practically spazzed out when I attempted to even track one of the bridges to its origin, but I gave up pretty quickly after that, shook my head a little, and then focused back down on the water.

“Lake Subata,” Tryss said as she also watched the white froth of the waves crash against the Tower’s base far below. “It would be a shame if you were to fall. In the water are the ridian-- monsters of the deep who used to be drow but failed the Goddess’ test. This is why the ‘simple spell’ Mother claims isn’t so simple.”

“What do you mean?” I asked as I followed her back into the Temple’s sanctuary so I could help with the body disposal effort taking place.

“She alluded to the fact she not only bargained some of her life force, but all of it in an attempt to honor her Fidelity Spell,” Tryss explained, and she grabbed the ankles of a dead bullbear with his eyes scorched out while I hefted him under his tree log arms.

Even though Tryss and I were a lot smaller than the bullbear, I discovered that between the two of us, the corpse wasn’t much heavier than… than… a futon?

A futon from Target still in the box.

The thought rattled loose from some dusty corner of my empty brain attic, but I still didn’t fully understand the words.

“Team lift,” I snarked without really knowing why.

“What?” Tryss questioned with a curious frown.

“Nothing,” I dismissed as we approached the Ledge of Doom. “Tell me about this Fidelity thing.”

“You are a bit demanding, aren’t you,” she stated instead of answering me directly.

“Am I not supposed to be?” I asked in a lowered voice as we started to swing the corpse between us like some macabre skipping rope.

“You are a male,” Tryss deadpanned as if that explained everything.

“I am indeed,” I agreed, and then on about the fifth swing, we both released the corpse at the same time so it could fall into the dark lake far below. “But you say it like it’s supposed to mean something.”

“It is,” she said in that slippery way of hers, and I got the sense she was doing this verbal sparring thing to stall.

“Pretend like I was born today,” I suggested with a sharp grin and narrowed eyes. “Explain it to me.”

The crafty woman grinned back, and even though it seemed as if she wanted to keep turning the tables on this conversation, at the last moment, she seemed to make up her mind about something and switched tack.

“You should know I have every right to let you dangle above these uncharted waters just because you told me that,” she finally said, but something warmed slightly in her naturally guarded gaze. “You are first and foremost a drow, and you must learn quickly the only progress that matters is for the good of the whole. This means individual gain is what roots out the weak so the drow can rise in dominance as the superior species we are.”

“Huh…” I commented as we made our second trip back into the temple. “That seems…”

I trailed off because I wasn’t sure if saying this way of thinking seemed inherently counterproductive would make me sound even more wet behind my long ears than I already was.

“Ah, you are learning,” Tryss said with a wink of approval. “To hold back is oft better than to reveal the inner workings of your mind lest an enemy overhear and use it against you.”

“I see…” I murmured in a lowered voice even though we weren’t really talking very loud to begin with. Besides, Fespius and the other bullbear slaves had started up an argument in which I only had vocabulary for Fespius’ side of things. The din was plenty loud enough to cover the specifics of our conversation, but still. “What is it you can tell me?”

“A good question,” she chuckled, and we both grabbed some type of fat goblin guy that smelled about as grotesque as he looked. “For one, males like yourself are supposed to be obsequious by nature. Obsequious means--”

“Obedient, yeah, I know what it means,” I huffed another good-natured laugh. “I know I did say pretend like I was born today, but assume if I don’t know anything, I’ll ask.”

“Fair enough,” Tryss said and pursed her lips into the smallest of heart-shaped smiles, and something about that little smirk trying so hard not to shine made my heart thump a little oddly in my chest.

Who knew “cute” would be an adjective I would use to describe a fearsome dark-elf priestess woman who belonged to a House named “Warriors of the Void.”

But there it was.

Tryss was cute.

As Fuck.

So, I decided to tell her.

“You’re adorable when you smile like that, just so you know,” I said casually as we threw the hideous bloated goblin over the edge of the platform.

I continued to watch the corpse fall even though I was actually paying attention to the way my companion’s claret eyes snapped to mine out of my peripheral vision.

Apparently, my words somehow took her off guard enough to become less than articulate, and I didn’t even try to hide my shit-eating grin when she blushed a deeper purple and actually stammered.

“Wh-- I don’t, um… ahem.”

When I felt like I had let her squirm enough, I finally let her off the hook. “Obsequious enough for you, Toots?”

“It’s Tryss,” she said primly, and the way she snapped out the s-sound at the end of her name sounded as sharp as the dagger on her belt.

“Tryssss,” I emphasized and finally turned toward her.

We continued to stare at one another in a battle of wills that actually turned rather playful and flirty toward the end when it seemed as if we were both struggling to keep our lips from breaking out into a full fledged smirk.

But finally, Dagwyn bombed our little moment like the cockblock I just knew she was going to be in the future.

“You better watch your shiny prize as diligently as you are now, Tryskaylan,” the Second Daughter said as she shoved her shoulder into Tryss’ back on her way to the ledge. She then tossed two smaller goblin corpses into the drink one after the other with a scoff.

“You heard Mother,” Tryss said with a dismissive sniff similar to the Matron herself. “He’s mine. You know what the punishment is for touching things that aren’t yours, Daggy.”

“Trust me, if I wanted to touch what was yours, you’d never know about it,” Dagwyn sneered.

“All you’d have to do is ask my permission, sister,” the younger woman said nonchalantly. “I’d gladly let you ride him until you are feeling more agreeable to be around. Frankly, I would wager it would do you some good.”

“If there ever comes a time which I would like to be alone with your Omen scum, it will only be to cut off this head and purge him of his impure and cursed blood,” Dagwyn said and glared at both of us with her brick-red eyes. “I’ll let you consider which ‘head’ I mean.

With that ominous threat in place, she turned sharply on her heel and marched back into the temple to find more bodies to toss into the abyss.

“She’ll come around,” I said, and surprisingly, Tryss blurted out a laugh.

“What makes you so sure, chattel?” she asked in a fair imitation of the Matron Mother, but it was ruined due to her giggles.

“I have a feeling my natural disposition is such that I find a way around any obstacle that may prevent me from my goal,” I said as we made our third trek back into the temple.

“And the goal?” she asked as she played along and even looped her arm through mine.

Heyy. Maybe the whole Charming Amnesiac Schtick would work for me after all.

“The goal is getting Daggy over there to like me,” I said and jutted my chin in the direction of where the woman in question was in the middle of punching Fespius in the face. “Or at least, make her tolerate me enough so she doesn’t think of purging me from your bloodline every time she sees me.”

“A reasonable goal.” The female nodded her snow white head and then dropped her hold on my arm when we approached the last of the bullbear creatures.

The biggest one left.

“Can I ask another question?” I asked.

“Normally, the answer to that is it depends on who you might be asking,” Tryss responded and clasped her hands around the corpse’s ankles. “But since you are asking me, I will say you do not have to ask beforehand whenever you have a question.”

“Okay, well at the risk of sounding like an idiot…” I grunted when I locked my arms around the dead bullbear’s chest. “But why can’t we levitate or use magic to-- unf! To dispose of the dead?”

“Do you see how heavy this… urg.” Her grip slipped a little, and she had to readjust for a moment. “Do you see how heavy this slave bastard is? Levitation magic cannot exceed the mass of the person performing it. It’s the Basics of Diminished Return drowlings learn when they are being taught the basics of Levitation.”

“Right, maybe for one person, but what if we were to combine our Levitation magic?” I needed a break, so I dropped my half of the stinking corpse. “Like if I levitate one ankle and you do the other, maybe we can drag his ass over. Easy peasy l-lemon… squeezy?”

“What?” she asked with a confused expression.

“Nothing, continue.” I shook my head.

“We would be combining soul magicks,” Tryss said as she also dropped her load.

“I can tell by the way you’re crossing your arms again like an adorable purple anger-kitten that this is not an acceptable way of thinking,” I commented and gestured to her closed off posture.

She glanced down at her crossed arms and tried not to smirk again, even though I had no such compunction and grinned wide when that lovely purple flushed her high cheekbones again.

“Erm,” she said as she glanced away from me, and then she put one hand on her hip for lack of anything better to do.

“What’s wrong?” I questioned.

“Nothing, I’m just unused to… to the…” she trailed off and made some sort of twirling gesture with her hand.

“Flattery?” I supplied and made both my eyebrows jump up toward my hairline once.

“No, I am used to being flattered in all sorts of ways by all sorts of mouths, but only yours has ever called me things so--” Tryss broke off when she once again ran out of vocabulary to describe what she was trying to convey.

“Sweet?” I threw out at the same time as she said, “Endearing.”

“Oh,” she said as her blush grew a little deeper. “Yes, sweet. Ahem.”

I tilted my head so I could examine this exquisite creature from a different angle. If I had to wake up with no memories in this harsh alien world, then I considered myself lucky Tryss was here, all things considered.

“Back to what I was asking about the whole levitating magic thing,” I finally tried to get us back on track.

“Right, well as I’ve said, this would require us to open ourselves up to one another and combine our soul magicks, which isn’t done,” Tryss went on and grabbed the bullbear’s hooved legs again like she was towing a wheelbarrow.

But I didn’t budge.

“I know I’m supposed to be ‘obsequious’ and just fall in line, but seriously, what is the big deal about this where we can’t do that just to make our lives easier?” I asked, and Tryss shot me a look over her shoulder which told me I was probably being “demanding” again, but whatever.

It seemed another part of my nature was to keep picking until my curiosity was satisfied.

Tryss apparently knew when to pick her battles because she dropped the bullbear’s feet again with a huff. “This is not done because it can leave you vulnerable to other beings who can steal your ether or use it against you, like sorcerers, priestesses, dark fae, and a host of many other magical or psionic denizens in the Neverlight.”

“Neverlight…” I mused as I gazed around the dimly illuminated landscape. “Good name. And I get it, but like… none of those denizens are around right now except for you and me and this dead guy, here. What could happen if we tried it?”

“Did you not hear me when I said that drow are those who can attack the ether of another if made so vulnerable?” she said with a slight shake of her head.

“No, no, I heard you, but… what if I promise not to do whatever it is you said?” I asked.

“Unlike you, I was not born today,” she scoffed.

“Come on, what am I even going to do?” I reasoned. “You have to teach it all to me anyway, even the stealing your soul bit.”

This gave her pause as she eyed me as well as the dead beast who wasn’t getting any deader.

“You must never do this with anyone other than me, do you understand?” she finally whispered.

“Sure.” I grinned, but then she grabbed my chin between two of her delicate yet surprisingly strong fingers, and the smile sloughed off my face.

“I am serious,” she said, and I swallowed.

“I understand,” I said with a serious nod, and she released my face once she was satisfied I was aware of the gravity of what she was about to do.

“This actually might be a good way for you to learn how to harness the power for yourself if you can feel how I do it,” she said, and this time, it didn’t sound like she was trying so hard to convince herself this was a good idea.

Progress.

“Okay, what do I do?” I asked eagerly.

“Don’t call attention to ourselves,” she warned and then held up two fingers, and I mirrored her so she could touch our fingers together. “Now, focus on your life’s energy beating through you. You should be able to identify your blood, your bones, your muscles, and finally, your ether. This is the flow of energy that all magical beings have within them.”

“So, we’re the same?” I questioned as I closed my good eye along with my dark one. I concentrated on feeling for each of the things she told me about, and it was only after identifying the usual suspects in my body that I could sense the fourth component pulsing through every fiber.

“Not exactly,” she whispered and slightly curled her fingers around mine. “I am a novice priestess-- or one that has just begun training-- as you can see by my tattoos. Priestesses are able to draw from Drogu’s own power that she derives from the moon, so when I’m low on my own ether, I can siphon some of Hers.”

“Convenient,” I remarked.

“It is, and it isn’t,” Tryss explained. “A lot of the time, the Spider Goddess will demand a payment if you use too much of her power.”

“Like a Fidelity Spell?” I asked and peeked open my good eye. “You said it was a big deal.”

“Yes, correct.” The drow woman nodded her white head, and I took a moment to admire how beautiful she was while her eyes were still closed. Her lips were just a shade darker than her lavender tinted skin and were almost the exact shade of belladonna.

I only hoped they weren’t as poisonous if I ever got a chance to kiss them…

“What exactly did the Matron Mother do with that spell?” I asked and leaned in a bit. Tryss even smelled as good as she looked. Something floral, yet, there was the sharp odor of her musk from all of the hard work we were doing, and as I leaned closer still, I saw the glimmer of sweat dotting the swell of her perfect breasts like diamonds I wanted to lick off with my tongue.

Tryss opened her eyes, and other than a slight widening of her pupils, she didn’t seem perturbed with my proximity.

“Sevahtra basically promised Drogu that Claden’Du would Honor Her by doing all of the things she said she would in her fearsome speech,” she explained. “If the Goddess granted the Matron Mother what she asked for, then she would fulfill her pledge, or else forfeit some of her immortal life.”

“What could be so important that she would sacrifice her immortality for?” I wondered.

“It seems as if she asked the Goddess to recharge the relics we used up for the Beseeching,” Tryss said. “The relics allow those like Dagwyn who are technically priestesses because they have more than the standard amount of ether, but hers is considerably less than Hel or I. The relic helps those like Dag commune directly with Drogu without tapping all of her magic supply. It usually takes the power of eight people to complete a spell such as this, but since there were only four of us, four of the crystals stood in for those missing, plus one to help out Dag. But, as you saw, the summoning spell used up the power in them, power that must be recharged by the moonlight.”

“That doesn’t seem very convenient,” I said and glanced up at the spangled and moonless night above.

In fact, now that I was able to catch my breath for a second and really look around with a more wide angle view on things, I could see a veritable forest of stalagmites rising out of the churning lake water like the teeth of some fearsome underwater leviathan.

When I squinted, I could see something like an elaborate network of stairs and rope bridges spanning between spires like clots of sticky spider web, and more twinkling lights could be seen caught in these webs like fireflies. They matched the sparkling lights from up above, and I realized what I thought were stars in a black velvet sky were actually the lights flickering from the doors and windows cut into the stone just like down here.

So, this begged the question: if there were people living in the stone spires down here, then there must be more of them up there.

Which meant the Tower we were in was actually an enormous cave column that had developed when both a stalactite and a stalagmite met in the middle over a long period of time.

It was curious there was only one, but with the dark waters of the ostensibly monster-filled lake below, it was easy to see how the Tower would be an ideal place to hole up in.

Very fortress-like.

“Focus, Fynn,” Tryss chided me, but not unkindly, and I grinned at her as she tugged at my fingers she still had twined with hers. “You’re right, us in The Below rely on The Uppards to exchange our relics when old ones need to be charged. They are the ones who have access to the only valley topside that is unreachable by man, elf, or otherwise.”

“Interesting,” I mused and spared one more glance up at the glittering night-scape above me before I returned my focus to the matter at hand. “Okay, so I can feel the magical energy within me, but because I’m not a priestess… then. Um. What?”

“You’re lucky there is something innately endearing about you, Fynn Noname,” Tyrss giggled and picked up the oaf’s legs one more time. “Help me take him closer to the edge, and I will explain.”

“Okay,” I said, and I helped her take the large corpse right up to the ledge.

“So, because you are not a priestess, your energy source must be replenished either by rest, or by meditating next to a relic,” the novice priestess explained. Then she looked subtly around to make sure no one was around and grasped my hand in hers. “Okay, now, picture wrapping the minotaur’s fist, here, in some of that energy. Imagine pushing it out from the center of your chest like a bubble with a gravity defying force field inside. I will help you by adding mine alongside yours once you figure it out.”

“Alright…” I said and tried to wrap my head around this abstract effort she was talking about. Then I took a breath and felt for those things she told me to focus on in order to find the ether flowing through me.

Bone, blood, sinew, and-- magic.

There was a current buzzing like a moth’s wings against the cage of my ribs, and just like a moth that wanted to get out, this little spark of effervescence wanted the same.

So, I pictured opening a window to let it out.

“Oh! Wow, okay, yes, you’ve got it exactly,” Tryss huffed. Then she flung out a hand like she was reigning in the burst of invisible power I let escape, and I discovered I could actually feel how she was trying to direct the thin stream of power spooling out from the center of my chest.

It was such an odd feeling.

As if someone had grabbed a snagged thread on the woolen sweater of my soul and started tugging until it unraveled bit by bit. If I focused too closely on the sensation, I was likely to vomit because it wasn’t the best feeling in the world, so I focused on the other sensation I could feel butting up against mine like… like…

The sight of a black and white feline creature flashed through the dim corners of my mind.

Shake. Shake.

Oreo! Come here, boy!

House cat.

Tryss’ essence was butting up against mine like a warm house cat, and I felt less sick to my stomach, like I had an anchor now, and my soul’s power wouldn’t just unspool until there was nothing left but a tangled pile of thread.

With her guidance, I sensed how Tryss used that pile of thread to weave a type of sphere with both of our magical essence combined. Then she divided the sphere into two, and it was almost like she “tossed” me one of them because I felt my power and hers being returned to me in a neat bundle, and on reflex, I “caught” it with the hand not linked to hers.

Then the two of us guided our invisible spheres of energy to their destinations, which was around one hooved foot and one balled up fist respectfully.

“On three, picture moving your sphere forward while we push from the other side,” Tyrss instructed, and we both went around to the minotaur’s other flank. “One, two… three!”

When she said three, I imagined a strong chain around the beast-man’s adjacent limbs, and then I pictured a winch pulling the sad sack over the ledge.

“I think it’s working,” I said as the corpse began to slide as easily as if it were on casters.

“It really is!” Tryss said, and we chuckled when we resorted to nudging the minotaur man with our toes alone until the bulk of him was finally sliding over the side and into the arms of gravity.

Or so I thought.

See, when the levitation magic was no longer needed to get the job done, Tryss had begun to unthread her essence with mine, but I wasn’t entirely sure if I knew how to do that yet, and instead of the minotaur sliding effortlessly over the side, it seemed as if he got all tangled in a net since my essence was still wrapped around his fist and ankle.

“Fuck!” I growled as I was suddenly hooked sharply behind my sternum and dragged forward.

“Fynn!” Tyrss gasped and grabbed me around the waist, but the minotaur was too heavy now that gravity really was taking over.

“Oh, shit!” I yelled as my foot slid over the edge.

“Arrrghh!” Tryss yelled through her gritted teeth, and then she came around to my front and tried to stop me that way.

But because our combined mass was definitely smaller than the big beastman over here, it was no use, and it was clear we were both seconds away from joining him in his watery grave.

How did that one saying go that I knew for some reason?

Oh yeah, out of the pan and into the fire.