Lythana and the Sea Troll
Dramatis Personae:
Lythana Belmyr, the Half-Drow Blood Hunter of Eilistraee
*****
I came to, feeling groggy and blurry eyed, with my head pounding and a sick, wet feeling down my hair; I was chained securely to a rough stone wall. I was vaguely aware that most of my clothing had been torn away, and my nerves were on fire with the sensation of hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny cuts covering my flesh- like I had lost a war with a book and was coated in paper cuts. I sensed movement in that was just beyond my field of vision, and a I heard a deep, guttural laugh before the world went black again.
The next thing I remember is the strong, acrid scent of acids, fluids, and bases burning my nostrils. The chamber I was in was thick with clouds of multicolored smoke. My eyes watered and stung as the crust gluing them shut was broken open. As my senses seemed to clear, a large figure stepped up to me and roughly grabbed my face, forcing some vile concoction down my throat. It felt like it was stripping the flesh away from my tongue, throat, and stomach as it went down. The pain radiated out from my core, first to my lungs and chest, then into my extremities. I began to shudder and convulse before tumbling back into darkness.
I have no clue how much time passed before I next came to. When I did, I felt queasy, but otherwise better than I have felt in years. My flesh was tight with hundreds, if not thousands, of small spots, that as my vision focused on them, I realized were small spiraling "Y" shaped scars- my entire body was covered in them. I could worry about the scars later, I needed to figure out where the hell I was, get out of the chains binding me to this wall, and get back to Elle.
In one corner of the chamber was a broken alchemy lab strewn across the floor- likely the cause of the smoke- and the bleeding corpse of a large troll that was nearly bisected through the skull, and halfway through his chest and torso. Under the body was a large two-headed battleaxe that was rusted and pitted, but somehow looked freshly sharpened. I began working to wriggle out of these damned chains. White-hot pain lanced through my shoulder as it dislocated, and the flesh from that hand got stripped away- but I was free. The hand was mangled and broken, but that was the least of my worries; Elle could fix it once I found her.
I inspected the alchemy set and found absolutely nothing of use- the set was completely destroyed. With my broken hand, I couldn't even heft the battleaxe. The troll began twitching, so I left through a hole in the ground. It ended up dropping me into a tunnel of water, I was somewhere in the depths of Dark Lake, probably with those damned trolls who kept attacking our ship.
After swimming for a ways I came into another dry chamber- a bed chamber- with two snoring trolls. I crept past them and opened a chest, finding a short sword and a dagger. I felt a little better now that I was armed again. I exited that chamber through another hole in the ground, and found myself in a tunnel that had tons of crates in it. I decided to poke around in those in hopes of finding something useful; I found some leather armor that looked disgusting, but when you're desperate and naked, any armor is better than none; when I next emerged for air I discovered that the armor smelled even worse than it looked.
Behind the crates I found a secret passage to another bedchamber, but this one was much fancier. I guess it was the head troll's room, though I didn't think until now that trolls actually had a societal structure. I found some weird looking potions in that room, that I figured might be worth keeping. I hadn't found that damn circlet yet, I hoped it would pop up soon. The next room I swam into looked like a dining area, with nothing of use in it.
The next tunnel I swam down brought me to a cavern of glowing purple and blue crystals. Lythana didn't know what faerzress crystals were, since she didn't grow up in the Underdark in drow society. I walked through it for a minute, with my skin tingling more and more as I did. There seemed to be another voice in my head, telling me to just lie down and take a nap. When it seemed I was getting nowhere fast, I turned around.
I came upon an alcove next, but that was a dead end, so I circled back to the dining area I had last passed through. I took a different branch of the tunnel I'd used to get there originally, and found myself swimming into a large, open cavern. Before I could enjoy that I had possibly just escaped, a current caught me and slammed me into a rock, knocking all the breath from my lungs. Lythana fell unconscious and was swept away by the current.
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| Photo from deviantart.com |
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