The Hostile North 1

	“Triera!”  The waif of a girl disappeared into a pair of concurrent bear hugs from Luanea and Kyria, who nearly bowled her over.  Normally, Axio knew, neither drow in general nor clergy specifically were quite so tactile, but Triera was family, and both women had been instrumental in saving her life mere months before.  “How are you, sweetheart?” Luanea asked.

	Triera extricated herself from Luanea’s ample bosom and took a step back.  “Well, almost as good as new,” she said. “Axio said that your group is pretty much assembled?”

	“It is, yes,” Luanea confirmed.  The elegant priestess was wearing a white velvet cloak over her minimal clerical garb; Axio surmised she must have just returned from errands in the city.  Kyria was wearing nothing but a red and green tie skirt and matching halter with sandals.  She looked like she was off to go swimming.  Both were more dressed than they would have been if the Temple had been completed, but there were still construction workers around.  Eilistraeeans were very strong advocates of the idea that clothing just gets between a person and the world, and never bothered with much of it in their own company, especially in holy places.  Triera was silently grateful for that; friends they may have been, but both women were intimidatingly beautiful, which did nothing for her self-image.  Verashon was no different.  He poked his head in from the tiny kitchen behind the rectory of the income the Temple and his night-black face split in a grin.

	“Good to see you, Tirera,” Verashon said, wiping his hands on a towel and tossing it back into the kitchen.  He bowed, and Triera flushed at the sight of his sculpture-like, bare torso in the dim torchlight.

	“Yes, hello,” she managed.

	Axio buried his face in his palm.  He had not intended this visit amongst friends to result in his sister plumbing the depths of her sexuality.  He spotted Doshellas and Suivi on the way over, and noted to himself that it was the man responsible for Triera’s kidnapping that was best dressed to accompany her around the Temple.  “Luanea, Triera expressed an interest in seeing the new rooms in the Temple,” he said.  “Can somebody show her around?”

	“I would love to,” Kyria said.  She held a door open for Triera, and the two of them walked off into the airy temple.  “This is the part they finished first,” the others heard her say, “since it’s the living quarters, and we needed a place to live while the refugees were resettling…”

	Her voice faded down the corridors as Axio shut the door.  He ground his hands into his eyes with a sigh, then winced as he remembered he had gemstones for eyes.  “Maybe this was a bad idea,” he grunted.

	“How so?” Verashon asked.

	“She’s exactly the right age to notice how sexy you Eilistraeens all are,” Axio said drily.  Doshellas snorted and Suivi looked uncomfortable, but Luanea adopted a more thoughtful look.

	“Might I be of help?” she asked.  “I have helped generations of Underdark refugees and orphans who have had no guidance on such issues.”

	“I want to give my parents a chance to fumble their way through it first,” Axio said bitterly.  Then he sighed again, shaking his head.  “No, that’s not fair.  I’m sure they will at least try their best.  Anyway,” he said quickly, “we should discuss the coming mission.  Does anybody have anything to add, or are we all up to speed?”

	“I had questions,” Suivi said.  “The cult’s paperwork said that this was a big cell, right?  Most of their forces in the southern Sword Coast and Northlands, right?”

	“That was what we read, yes,” Axio confirmed.  “I suspect it to be true.  They were clearly unprepared for us to invade their base of operations.”

	“Unprepared?” Doshellas echoed.  “We fought fifty men!”

	Verashon nodded.  “From what your wrote to me of your battle, love, did you not find an entire floor of the place entirely abandoned?  And, that it took you half an hour to even be noticed?”

	“That is true,” Luanea admitted.  A hardened cleric she may have been, but Verashon had been a professional tunnel fighter for over a century and a half, and she trusted his tactical instincts.

	“Didn’t feel unprepared to me,” Doshellas grumped.  “They damn near killed us.”

	“Indeed,” Luanea said gravely.

	“If Darius Vorthane had been ready for us, we never would have set foot outside the portal room,” Axio insisted.  “Nor did he seem prepared to accommodate the extent of the losses of his force from when he attacked our own church.  Verashon is right.”

	“My point is that they may not necessarily be ready for us to go after them directly with this Giant stuff.  How do we know what we’ll find up north?” Suivi asked.

	“Oh, we don’t know verbatim, but Ryaire assures us that Ilmater has a lot of those old places well-mapped, and they had a lot of knowledge of the planes we could use to cut off this ritual from the far side,” Cavria said.  “Having second thoughts?”

	Suivi looked coolly at her.  “No.  Of course not.”


	Triera looked around the Temple in awe.  She had been raised in a church, but it was a small one, nothing like this.  The new Temple of the Dark Dancer was an architectural masterwork, raised on a large plot of land that had been left abandoned in the aftermath of the Tarrasque assault against Waterdeep.  Initially, the plan had been to erect a smaller building, but the sheer number of Underdark refugees coming from the total chaos left in the wake of the Spellplague and Sundering had necessitated a larger structure.  Beyond that, of course, the return of the Dark Maiden herself from the confines of the Weave of Mystra had allowed her faith to flourish once more.

	The grounds of the Temple were largely abandoned, save for construction workers, and a few Eilistraeean monks.  The clergy of the Dark Dancer rarely took up a monastic tradition, and what few did all did so here.  Really, it was the exact opposite of the Ryairans.

	“This is beautiful,” Triera breathed.  They were standing on the edge of the largest finished room.  Every single wall tile, every single floor time, every ceiling panel and doorframe, every pew, bench, and dance square, was decorated with patterns so tiny and precise that Triera felt her skin pucker when she brushed against one and discovered it wasn’t tree bark.  The God-blooded human ran her fingers over one bench back and squinted.  If she hadn’t been standing above it, she would have thought it was part of the pattern of fallen trees and dead leaves on the ground.  The effect was uncanny.

	“Isn’t it?” Kyria asked happily.  “I love it in here.”

	“What do you use this room for?” Triera asked reverently.  Every single inch of the room felt holy.  She imagined she knew how her brother had felt when he dreamed of the Arbor.

	“Rituals.  Ceremonies.  We prefer to carry them out under the moon, but this is pretty good too,” Kyria joked.  “Weddings, elevations in the monastery, official proclamations.”

	“I’ve seen Paladin anointment and Oathing ceremonies,” Treira said.  She sat on the bench and looked up.  The ceiling was a perfect recreation of the night sky over Waterdeep at around midnight, this time of year.  Her respect for the place grew.

	“Nah, we do things differently from you Ryairans,” Kyria said.  She walked over and sat beside Triera on the bench.  “We do all the personal religious ceremonies out in the forest, even if it’s harder to get there.”

	“Wow.”  Triera drew in a breath and held it.  “This is… a good place,” she said, feeling slightly foolish.

	“Yep.”  Kyria stretched out on the bench and idly worked the knot of her top with one finger as they stared at the stars overhead.

	After a few seconds, Triera spoke again.  “So… is there an entrance to the Underdark in this Temple?”

	Kyria gave her a very odd look.  “Where did you hear that?”

	Triera recoiled slightly.  “Uh… I mean, I didn’t,” she said gingerly.  Had she offended?  “It’s just… there’s so few surface drow…”

	“Mmm.  No, there’s no Underdark connection here,” Kyria said.  “It would be nice, but nope.”

	“Did I say something wrong?”

	Kyria sighed.  “No, it’s just a question that gets asked a lot around here.”  She stood and stretched, then edged out of the bench and walked towards the distant altar.  “Wanna see something interesting?”

	“All right.”  Triera scooted out and followed Kyria.  As she walked, the colored and textured effects of the surfaces around her shifted from her perspective, making it look like she was walking into a vast forest clearing at night.  “Is this a real place?”

	“Hmm?  Oh, the forest?” Kyria asked, looking over the line of sight of the younger girl.  “Well… kind of.  This is a representation of two places in the Outer Planes.”

	“Two?”

	“Yes.  The first is Imperpetuam, a secret grove in the heart of Arvandor, where Lady Eilistraee’s divine servants and Chosen dwelled after dying, if they needed to get away from the general petitioners or planestravelers,” Kyria explained.  “The name means ‘everlasting,’ which is kind of ironic,” she added under her breath.  “It only existed for about one hundred twenty years before the Sundering destroyed it.”

	Triera gulped.  “You can destroy an afterlife?”

	“She saved the souls,” Kyria hastened to assure her.  “But she had to rebuild her own realm in Svartalfheim, on Ysgard.”  She stopped and turned around, then guided Triera’s shoulders until she had turned around too.  “See?  Now…”

	“It looks like we’re underground,” Tiera noted.

	“Smart girl.  Yep!  This is what it looks like in the new afterlife for drow and us dark elves who love her, called Nidavellir.”  Kyria released Triera’s shoulders and stepped back to the altar.  Triera just stared.  The overhead arches from here looked like the ceiling of a cave, and from here, the benches and floor looked like a blended-together surface of a volcanic spring pool.  She squinted, and she could see how people sitting in the benches would look like they were immersed in the water.

	“It’s all so beautiful,” she finally said.  “We don’t have anything like this.”

	“Neither did we, a hundred years ago,” Kyria said.  “But this is the most fascinating part.  Press this button here,” she said, jerking a thumb at the altar, “and the benches all sink into the ground.  The whole floor turns into a dance square.  The participants can kneel or sit inside, while the priestesses dance around them.”

	Triera turned and saw the young wizard bow deep before the altar.  “Bless us both, Dark Lady,” Kyria whispered.  “We’re going to need it again soon.”