In one world, Minthara Baenre was incited to leave Lolth behind by the ministrations of Orin the Red. In this one, however… well, Menzoberranzan does not instill motherly feeling in her children. What will happen when Lolth's claim on her is vacated and the Celestial Forge steps in?
Big Metal Shoe
- Thread starter Lucifra
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
- 97
- Recent readers
- 0
- Threadmarks
- 4
-
Statistics (3 threadmarks, 8.3k words)
User Total Lucifra 3 -
Loading…
A Warrior Will Soon Run Wild
- Pronouns
- She/They
That face when you have an idea and then the muse just takes it and mcfucking runs with it
So uh yeah ojala this should be the last CF story I start for a hot minute, knock on wood.
Title from a RWBY song because Jeff and Casey Lee Williams are really good at what they do and also because one of the end goals that I have in mind for this fic is to build a mech and step on Lolth.
Oh, also, this is very much pre proper canon for BG3, to the point where... well, spellplague go brrr
Some fall from grace… some are pushed.
It begun when her mother granted her permission to study at the wizardly academy at Sorcere instead of Arach-Tinilith, all those centuries ago- she was the first, but by no means the last, and her natural success, while expected in the face of her only competition being mere men, paved the way for other daughters of the noble houses whose inclinations lay more towards studying the Weave than the average Priestess of the Spider Queen to attend in dribs and drabs over the decades.
Over the centuries, that pattern held true, if in less grandiose manner- her "individual raids" upon the faeries of the surface had been forgiven when she came back soaked in far more blood than any other bodily fluid and dragging zombie faeries behind her, and it saved her mother the expense of resurrecting living consorts for her. Even Minthara, the one result of her trysts on the surface who had enough drow blood win out to be worth sparing her miserable life, was something that could be overlooked, but it was something that even reanimated faerie servants couldn't buy her out of the consequences of.
The Spider Queen's edict in response to this was… harsh, but she could not say it was undeserved, with how careless she had been about safety measures in the past. Still, though, it was a slight, and Kiaransalee's teachings (yet another exception to the strictures of Menzoberranzan that she'd been granted in the early days of her time at Sorcere, when she was still realizing her talent for binding the dead to her will) would not allow such to stand.
The Spider Queen was, naturally, out of her reach, and by the time she had lain in wait for long enough that her mother would no longer be on the lookout for such betrayal, her mother had been slain by the foolish surface dwarf lord, removing that avenue for vengeance.
The only remaining target possible, therefore, was Minthara.
The girl was, unfortunately, more resilient than the mere faeries that Noori had made a hobby of killing, and her coin couldn't buy enough assassins to overcome the up-and-coming paladin in Lolth's service (another new concept spearheaded by her line, one that brought her pride and vexed her in equal amount), so naturally she had to do it herself.
Her failure and Minthara's subsequent escape was at once a boon and a bane: a boon in that Minthara showed the strength of will that she inherited from her mother, strength enough to withstand being subject to the strongest disjunction that she could muster, and a bane in that her campaign of vengeance could no longer be kept sub tela.
"Explain to me," said Triel, glaring down imperiously at Noori from their mother's throne, "why exactly you saw fit to attempt to murder a member of our house in good standing on the eve of her graduation from Tier Breche."
"Kiaransalee demands reprisal for every slight, no matter how small," Noori responded, as firm in her faith as any matron mother if perhaps less effusive, "and I could not revenge myself against the dead or the Spider Queen. Minthara was the only possible target for my vengeance, and I owe her a further debt of vengeance for her escape."
The stone of the throne cracked under Triel's furious grip, but a moment later violet light spiderwebbed out over the damaged section, and when it vanished, the armrest was as intact as it had been at the beginning of the conversation. "What Mother ever saw in you other than rank arrogance and foolish pride I cannot tell," she snarled, and it was only out of respect for Triel's position as Matron Mother of House Baenre that stayed her tongue.
Triel closed her eyes, and for just an instant a set of spider's legs splayed out about her head in a mockery of some of the surface-dwellers' depictions of their gods with halos, but Noori blinked and they were gone. "You will be required to lead the hunt for our wayward member," Triel said, the authority of the Spider Queen's favored priestess in her voice, "using all the spies and soldiers our house can afford to bring to bear. The Dark Mother's judgment will remain in abeyance until you return her here to us, but be warned, that if she is dead, the Revenancer's blessing will not stop you from being dragged into the Demonweb Pits for your transgressions, am I understood?"
"I hear and obey," said Noori, bowing at the waist before turning on her heel to exit the room, head held high in defiance of her eldest sister's command and ignoring the disappointed resolve painted over her sister's face.
For all Minthara's strengths, the subtleties of the Spider Queen's societies are hardly among them, so it shouldn't be much longer until she's back within the House compound.
Back within her reach.
Minthara was very evidently not one of her favored children, or Lolth's, as evidenced by the fact that her mother had managed to sneak into her room in Melee-Magthere and attempt to carve her heart out after casting some form of magic upon her that forcibly sundered her from her oath to Lolth.
The weight of that broken oath was enough for Minthara to cling to life, drawing power from the Weave to both bind the wound in her chest and send her mother slamming through a wall, but the fact that she'd made it through the academy's staff to her room to begin with meant that she'd lost the favor that she thought she enjoyed, and so she had to flee with little more than what she could grab immediately.
That amounted to little more than a coin pouch, her piwafwi, and the dagger her mother had nearly planted in her heart, still slick with her blood before she managed to heat it enough to solidify the stuff so she could chip it off.
Her coin pouch had barely managed to buy her a tenday's worth of supplies, as well as an amulet that could protect her from the divinations of those who would seek to assassinate her now, with how far into the underworld of Menzoberranzan she'd had to dive in order to find vendors who would sell to her without knowing her identity. This would have been wholly untenable if not for the fact that at the same time her oath to Lolth failed her, something else had connected to her, something far greater than an oath to a single deity or concept.
There was an armory in her soul, now, and the first spear that had been added to the cavernous hall of empty racks was an incredibly valuable one. On top of the ragged remnants of her oath to Lolth, she now had the knowledge of a master alchemist to draw upon- one that was clearly a surface-dweller, and one from a distant land as well given how many unfamiliar surface plants and animal parts were part of the recipes.
One tenday of supplies for a master alchemist went a long way, even if she was held back by the limited variety sold by the vendors she'd been forced to rely on, and one tenday of potions and elixirs sold to the dregs of Menzoberranzan as well as deniable assets bought her enough resources to be able to think about more than just immediate survival.
Her outlook was… well, bad.
Her mother had all but waltzed onto the campus to murder her outright. Had her grandmother still been alive, she would have had the protection of House Baenre and her mother would have been put to death outright for her second major indiscretion within half a century, for it was Yvonnel Baenre who had decreed that Minthara would attend both Melee-Magthere and Arach-Tinilith to become the first of a new class of priestess of Lolth. Yvonnel Baenre was dead, though, and Triel ruled House Baenre now, following Lolth's plans for her children.
Triel had always resented some of the… liberties that had been granted to Noori Baenre, and in her eyes the dispensation to study at both academies for Minthara was a continuation of that, so it was likely that one way or another that it was not her mother being a rogue agent, as she was so wont to be, but instead an official act of House Baenre and, by extension, Lolth.
The only way that Minthara could survive being in House Baenre's disfavor within Menzoberranzan was to be thought dead, which was not something she really trusted herself to maintain. She was trained as a warrior, the mighty tip of Lolth's fangs, not as an assassin- she had no understanding of how to assume a new identity and shed her past.
She was grateful that her oath to Lolth had been severed, in that it would have allowed the Spider Queen to track her regardless of her protective amulet, but losing the power of the Spider Queen was leaving her feeling unbalanced, and she hadn't nearly enough alchemical concoctions to truly use them to fight at the level she'd been able to at Melee-Magthere, let alone at the level she'd need to in order to follow the path of the departed Do'Urden boy.
Being able to think that was… odd, she was used to having all treasonous thoughts pressed away from her mind by the power that Lolth had impressed into her, but she supposed that now that her very existence went against the Spider Queen's edicts, she may as well embrace it.
For now, though, Minthara had to focus on building up what resources she could before she fled Menzoberranzan, and that meant peddling potions deep in the Braeryn, amongst the dregs and castoffs that wouldn't have been worth her notice a month ago.
"Will that be all?" she asked, giving the shabby warrior a glare over the half-face mask she wore after he spent almost a half hour sniffing one potion and then the next, resisting the urge to shower the mere man with acid. Murdering customers was likely to cause problems, potentially including the attention of House Baenre if he was a particularly well-disguised assassin for one of the Major Houses, and she couldn't afford that before she'd managed to scrape together enough gold to outfit herself to flee Menzoberranzan, although to where she knew not.
"Keep your legs on, lady," he drawled, arrogant smirk grating against Minthara's nerves further and making her fingers long for the vials of acid in newly sewn pockets of her piwafwi. "House Baenre's out in force, these days, and we need the best of the best in order to keep ahead of them."
Minthara's concern battered against her iron will, and evidently some bled through to her body language as he chuckled. "No need for the likes of you to be concerned, no. Seems like they've lost their pet project, the one at Melee-Magthere, and rumor says they're trying to find her to silence her before she spills too many of their secrets to… whoever kidnapped her right out of the academy. The priestesses aren't too happy about that, either, and are taking a good hard look at their guards."
The man continued to blather on about further developments to the rest of Menzoberranzan in the wake of House Baenre throwing its weight around so overtly, talking about the uneasy rumbling of the lesser Houses and the plotting of the greater, but Minthara couldn't bring herself to pay him much heed, so lost was she in her own thoughts.
Eventually, he departed, taking with him only a handful of her more expensive elixirs, and left her contemplating a more complicated situation than she thought she existed within.
If she wanted to remain in Menzoberranzan, she had more options- House Xorlarrin, perhaps, or maybe House Mizzrym could serve as a patron. Both of those were among the eight ruling Houses of Menzoberranzan, and Triel lacked the utter dominion over the other Houses that Yvonnel had exercised.
Still, something gave her pause, and it was only a moment where she attempted to reach through her link to Lolth for guidance to remember that her attack had the backing of the Spider Queen, directly or otherwise.
Minthara was shaken out of her musings by movement from the armory within her soul- the spear held within rattled once, then twice within the rack, then settled. As it settled, a sword made itself manifest- no, a paired set of daggers, one that seemed at times to meld together into a shortsword.
With these blades came knowledge- knowledge of how to infuse two things together while crafting them, to create an infant with the arcane might of a dragon or a vial full of the raw destructive power of both alchemist's fire and the most virulent acid she could create.
She didn't have the skill to make full use of this technique- even aside from the further potential to develop the idea beyond what had been dreamt of by its creators, she lacked the requisite crafting skills to use to infuse the powers of her elixirs into weaponry or armor during the forging process, and some of the materials required for the grandest reaches that this magical trick could take her to were beyond her reach, she could still enhance her own concoctions beyond what most alchemists could conceive of.
Stay or leave, she had many more options than she had a mere tenday ago.
Perks Earned:
Alchemist Supreme (Baldur's Gate 3, 400CP): You are a natural prodigy of all things related to alchemy, while having the work experience of decades old savant of the craft. You can brew potions, elixirs, poisons and oils of endless varieties. They could mend the flesh and knit the wound, grant anyone who drinks them strength of a giant for a time, or even grant the ability to read people's minds. These are just few examples of the sheer utility these potions and elixirs provide to you and your allies as they could have even more exotic effects that can be achieved with the appropriate time and resource investment. You'll find that you can brew any potion and elixir that you have the complete recipe for perfectly each time without any error during the process. Oh, and you are a genius at creating more recipes and completing unfinished ones too. Few things on top of that: they take half the resources to craft, half the time required for the brew time, and their potency are increased by %25. Your genius in alchemy not only is measured in brews but also you are able to create various grenades that have high destructive potential and utility as well. Your skill with creating them makes them perfectly safe during assembly processes. With a proper recipe and materials, you can even create enchanted bombs like runepowder too. But you at least need a sample to analyze and some guidelines for starters. This also makes you an expert on gathering resources for alchemy needs. You can easily search for resources both in wild and urban environments. You even get luckier too, often encountering these alchemical supplies on your adventures. Turning these raw resources into suitable forms for alchemy takes almost no time for you.
Conceptual Fertilization (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon, 200CP): The secret art of Conceptual Fertilization is one that may seem a bit strange and even unnatural to those not as invested as you in the mystic arts but...well, they don't complain so much when you show them the results. Conceptual Fertilization refers to a very rare magical ability that allows one to combine two things during the creation process of one of those things, transferring the qualities of the second thing onto the first. Combining the blood of a dragon with a infant in the womb to grant them the magical power of that dragon as they grow up, for instance. With time and further mastery, it may even be possible to combine more than one thing in this way, though one cannot begin to think of the sacrifices the failed attempts might cause. Additionally, you find that you are also able to perform this process on other things in their creation process, not just living beings, allowing you to infuse weapons or other objects in the process of being created with the traits of other things.
If you want to support me as a writer, I've got me a Ko-fi (Buy Lucifra a Coffee. ko-fi.com/lucifra) and a Patreon (Get more from Lucifra on Patreon), and if you become a patron, you can see my chapters a week early, plus for this fic see two chapters not available on other platforms yet.
Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin, Mtron, AntaeusTheGiant, Starfall20, Danielle, Ultama Omega, Asuran Fun, Bailey Matutine, Mr Phantom, Thomas Vernet, Allen Baker, Conor Cooney and Ember for being patrons!
I also have a discord sir ver for author stuff- if you have questions or comments that you'd like a more direct line to ask me, or if you want to see me chatting about my writing process, that's another option: Join the The Lucifralorn Forest Discord Server!
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
So uh yeah ojala this should be the last CF story I start for a hot minute, knock on wood.
Title from a RWBY song because Jeff and Casey Lee Williams are really good at what they do and also because one of the end goals that I have in mind for this fic is to build a mech and step on Lolth.
Oh, also, this is very much pre proper canon for BG3, to the point where... well, spellplague go brrr
-----
A Warrior Will Soon Run WildSome fall from grace… some are pushed.
-----
Beta'd by… whoops forgor-----
Noori Baenre was used to being an exception to the rules.It begun when her mother granted her permission to study at the wizardly academy at Sorcere instead of Arach-Tinilith, all those centuries ago- she was the first, but by no means the last, and her natural success, while expected in the face of her only competition being mere men, paved the way for other daughters of the noble houses whose inclinations lay more towards studying the Weave than the average Priestess of the Spider Queen to attend in dribs and drabs over the decades.
Over the centuries, that pattern held true, if in less grandiose manner- her "individual raids" upon the faeries of the surface had been forgiven when she came back soaked in far more blood than any other bodily fluid and dragging zombie faeries behind her, and it saved her mother the expense of resurrecting living consorts for her. Even Minthara, the one result of her trysts on the surface who had enough drow blood win out to be worth sparing her miserable life, was something that could be overlooked, but it was something that even reanimated faerie servants couldn't buy her out of the consequences of.
The Spider Queen's edict in response to this was… harsh, but she could not say it was undeserved, with how careless she had been about safety measures in the past. Still, though, it was a slight, and Kiaransalee's teachings (yet another exception to the strictures of Menzoberranzan that she'd been granted in the early days of her time at Sorcere, when she was still realizing her talent for binding the dead to her will) would not allow such to stand.
The Spider Queen was, naturally, out of her reach, and by the time she had lain in wait for long enough that her mother would no longer be on the lookout for such betrayal, her mother had been slain by the foolish surface dwarf lord, removing that avenue for vengeance.
The only remaining target possible, therefore, was Minthara.
The girl was, unfortunately, more resilient than the mere faeries that Noori had made a hobby of killing, and her coin couldn't buy enough assassins to overcome the up-and-coming paladin in Lolth's service (another new concept spearheaded by her line, one that brought her pride and vexed her in equal amount), so naturally she had to do it herself.
Her failure and Minthara's subsequent escape was at once a boon and a bane: a boon in that Minthara showed the strength of will that she inherited from her mother, strength enough to withstand being subject to the strongest disjunction that she could muster, and a bane in that her campaign of vengeance could no longer be kept sub tela.
"Explain to me," said Triel, glaring down imperiously at Noori from their mother's throne, "why exactly you saw fit to attempt to murder a member of our house in good standing on the eve of her graduation from Tier Breche."
"Kiaransalee demands reprisal for every slight, no matter how small," Noori responded, as firm in her faith as any matron mother if perhaps less effusive, "and I could not revenge myself against the dead or the Spider Queen. Minthara was the only possible target for my vengeance, and I owe her a further debt of vengeance for her escape."
The stone of the throne cracked under Triel's furious grip, but a moment later violet light spiderwebbed out over the damaged section, and when it vanished, the armrest was as intact as it had been at the beginning of the conversation. "What Mother ever saw in you other than rank arrogance and foolish pride I cannot tell," she snarled, and it was only out of respect for Triel's position as Matron Mother of House Baenre that stayed her tongue.
Triel closed her eyes, and for just an instant a set of spider's legs splayed out about her head in a mockery of some of the surface-dwellers' depictions of their gods with halos, but Noori blinked and they were gone. "You will be required to lead the hunt for our wayward member," Triel said, the authority of the Spider Queen's favored priestess in her voice, "using all the spies and soldiers our house can afford to bring to bear. The Dark Mother's judgment will remain in abeyance until you return her here to us, but be warned, that if she is dead, the Revenancer's blessing will not stop you from being dragged into the Demonweb Pits for your transgressions, am I understood?"
"I hear and obey," said Noori, bowing at the waist before turning on her heel to exit the room, head held high in defiance of her eldest sister's command and ignoring the disappointed resolve painted over her sister's face.
For all Minthara's strengths, the subtleties of the Spider Queen's societies are hardly among them, so it shouldn't be much longer until she's back within the House compound.
Back within her reach.
-----
Menzoberranzan was not a kind city, even to her favored children.Minthara was very evidently not one of her favored children, or Lolth's, as evidenced by the fact that her mother had managed to sneak into her room in Melee-Magthere and attempt to carve her heart out after casting some form of magic upon her that forcibly sundered her from her oath to Lolth.
The weight of that broken oath was enough for Minthara to cling to life, drawing power from the Weave to both bind the wound in her chest and send her mother slamming through a wall, but the fact that she'd made it through the academy's staff to her room to begin with meant that she'd lost the favor that she thought she enjoyed, and so she had to flee with little more than what she could grab immediately.
That amounted to little more than a coin pouch, her piwafwi, and the dagger her mother had nearly planted in her heart, still slick with her blood before she managed to heat it enough to solidify the stuff so she could chip it off.
Her coin pouch had barely managed to buy her a tenday's worth of supplies, as well as an amulet that could protect her from the divinations of those who would seek to assassinate her now, with how far into the underworld of Menzoberranzan she'd had to dive in order to find vendors who would sell to her without knowing her identity. This would have been wholly untenable if not for the fact that at the same time her oath to Lolth failed her, something else had connected to her, something far greater than an oath to a single deity or concept.
There was an armory in her soul, now, and the first spear that had been added to the cavernous hall of empty racks was an incredibly valuable one. On top of the ragged remnants of her oath to Lolth, she now had the knowledge of a master alchemist to draw upon- one that was clearly a surface-dweller, and one from a distant land as well given how many unfamiliar surface plants and animal parts were part of the recipes.
One tenday of supplies for a master alchemist went a long way, even if she was held back by the limited variety sold by the vendors she'd been forced to rely on, and one tenday of potions and elixirs sold to the dregs of Menzoberranzan as well as deniable assets bought her enough resources to be able to think about more than just immediate survival.
Her outlook was… well, bad.
Her mother had all but waltzed onto the campus to murder her outright. Had her grandmother still been alive, she would have had the protection of House Baenre and her mother would have been put to death outright for her second major indiscretion within half a century, for it was Yvonnel Baenre who had decreed that Minthara would attend both Melee-Magthere and Arach-Tinilith to become the first of a new class of priestess of Lolth. Yvonnel Baenre was dead, though, and Triel ruled House Baenre now, following Lolth's plans for her children.
Triel had always resented some of the… liberties that had been granted to Noori Baenre, and in her eyes the dispensation to study at both academies for Minthara was a continuation of that, so it was likely that one way or another that it was not her mother being a rogue agent, as she was so wont to be, but instead an official act of House Baenre and, by extension, Lolth.
The only way that Minthara could survive being in House Baenre's disfavor within Menzoberranzan was to be thought dead, which was not something she really trusted herself to maintain. She was trained as a warrior, the mighty tip of Lolth's fangs, not as an assassin- she had no understanding of how to assume a new identity and shed her past.
She was grateful that her oath to Lolth had been severed, in that it would have allowed the Spider Queen to track her regardless of her protective amulet, but losing the power of the Spider Queen was leaving her feeling unbalanced, and she hadn't nearly enough alchemical concoctions to truly use them to fight at the level she'd been able to at Melee-Magthere, let alone at the level she'd need to in order to follow the path of the departed Do'Urden boy.
Being able to think that was… odd, she was used to having all treasonous thoughts pressed away from her mind by the power that Lolth had impressed into her, but she supposed that now that her very existence went against the Spider Queen's edicts, she may as well embrace it.
For now, though, Minthara had to focus on building up what resources she could before she fled Menzoberranzan, and that meant peddling potions deep in the Braeryn, amongst the dregs and castoffs that wouldn't have been worth her notice a month ago.
"Will that be all?" she asked, giving the shabby warrior a glare over the half-face mask she wore after he spent almost a half hour sniffing one potion and then the next, resisting the urge to shower the mere man with acid. Murdering customers was likely to cause problems, potentially including the attention of House Baenre if he was a particularly well-disguised assassin for one of the Major Houses, and she couldn't afford that before she'd managed to scrape together enough gold to outfit herself to flee Menzoberranzan, although to where she knew not.
"Keep your legs on, lady," he drawled, arrogant smirk grating against Minthara's nerves further and making her fingers long for the vials of acid in newly sewn pockets of her piwafwi. "House Baenre's out in force, these days, and we need the best of the best in order to keep ahead of them."
Minthara's concern battered against her iron will, and evidently some bled through to her body language as he chuckled. "No need for the likes of you to be concerned, no. Seems like they've lost their pet project, the one at Melee-Magthere, and rumor says they're trying to find her to silence her before she spills too many of their secrets to… whoever kidnapped her right out of the academy. The priestesses aren't too happy about that, either, and are taking a good hard look at their guards."
The man continued to blather on about further developments to the rest of Menzoberranzan in the wake of House Baenre throwing its weight around so overtly, talking about the uneasy rumbling of the lesser Houses and the plotting of the greater, but Minthara couldn't bring herself to pay him much heed, so lost was she in her own thoughts.
Eventually, he departed, taking with him only a handful of her more expensive elixirs, and left her contemplating a more complicated situation than she thought she existed within.
If she wanted to remain in Menzoberranzan, she had more options- House Xorlarrin, perhaps, or maybe House Mizzrym could serve as a patron. Both of those were among the eight ruling Houses of Menzoberranzan, and Triel lacked the utter dominion over the other Houses that Yvonnel had exercised.
Still, something gave her pause, and it was only a moment where she attempted to reach through her link to Lolth for guidance to remember that her attack had the backing of the Spider Queen, directly or otherwise.
Minthara was shaken out of her musings by movement from the armory within her soul- the spear held within rattled once, then twice within the rack, then settled. As it settled, a sword made itself manifest- no, a paired set of daggers, one that seemed at times to meld together into a shortsword.
With these blades came knowledge- knowledge of how to infuse two things together while crafting them, to create an infant with the arcane might of a dragon or a vial full of the raw destructive power of both alchemist's fire and the most virulent acid she could create.
She didn't have the skill to make full use of this technique- even aside from the further potential to develop the idea beyond what had been dreamt of by its creators, she lacked the requisite crafting skills to use to infuse the powers of her elixirs into weaponry or armor during the forging process, and some of the materials required for the grandest reaches that this magical trick could take her to were beyond her reach, she could still enhance her own concoctions beyond what most alchemists could conceive of.
Stay or leave, she had many more options than she had a mere tenday ago.
-----
And that's that!Perks Earned:
Alchemist Supreme (Baldur's Gate 3, 400CP): You are a natural prodigy of all things related to alchemy, while having the work experience of decades old savant of the craft. You can brew potions, elixirs, poisons and oils of endless varieties. They could mend the flesh and knit the wound, grant anyone who drinks them strength of a giant for a time, or even grant the ability to read people's minds. These are just few examples of the sheer utility these potions and elixirs provide to you and your allies as they could have even more exotic effects that can be achieved with the appropriate time and resource investment. You'll find that you can brew any potion and elixir that you have the complete recipe for perfectly each time without any error during the process. Oh, and you are a genius at creating more recipes and completing unfinished ones too. Few things on top of that: they take half the resources to craft, half the time required for the brew time, and their potency are increased by %25. Your genius in alchemy not only is measured in brews but also you are able to create various grenades that have high destructive potential and utility as well. Your skill with creating them makes them perfectly safe during assembly processes. With a proper recipe and materials, you can even create enchanted bombs like runepowder too. But you at least need a sample to analyze and some guidelines for starters. This also makes you an expert on gathering resources for alchemy needs. You can easily search for resources both in wild and urban environments. You even get luckier too, often encountering these alchemical supplies on your adventures. Turning these raw resources into suitable forms for alchemy takes almost no time for you.
Conceptual Fertilization (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon, 200CP): The secret art of Conceptual Fertilization is one that may seem a bit strange and even unnatural to those not as invested as you in the mystic arts but...well, they don't complain so much when you show them the results. Conceptual Fertilization refers to a very rare magical ability that allows one to combine two things during the creation process of one of those things, transferring the qualities of the second thing onto the first. Combining the blood of a dragon with a infant in the womb to grant them the magical power of that dragon as they grow up, for instance. With time and further mastery, it may even be possible to combine more than one thing in this way, though one cannot begin to think of the sacrifices the failed attempts might cause. Additionally, you find that you are also able to perform this process on other things in their creation process, not just living beings, allowing you to infuse weapons or other objects in the process of being created with the traits of other things.
If you want to support me as a writer, I've got me a Ko-fi (Buy Lucifra a Coffee. ko-fi.com/lucifra) and a Patreon (Get more from Lucifra on Patreon), and if you become a patron, you can see my chapters a week early, plus for this fic see two chapters not available on other platforms yet.
Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin, Mtron, AntaeusTheGiant, Starfall20, Danielle, Ultama Omega, Asuran Fun, Bailey Matutine, Mr Phantom, Thomas Vernet, Allen Baker, Conor Cooney and Ember for being patrons!
I also have a discord sir ver for author stuff- if you have questions or comments that you'd like a more direct line to ask me, or if you want to see me chatting about my writing process, that's another option: Join the The Lucifralorn Forest Discord Server!
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
Perk List
- Pronouns
- She/They
Before I forget again (and post chapter 2 later today) let me put this up
Chapter 1:
Alchemist Supreme (Baldur's Gate 3, 400CP): You are a natural prodigy of all things related to alchemy, while having the work experience of decades old savant of the craft. You can brew potions, elixirs, poisons and oils of endless varieties. They could mend the flesh and knit the wound, grant anyone who drinks them strength of a giant for a time, or even grant the ability to read people's minds. These are just few examples of the sheer utility these potions and elixirs provide to you and your allies as they could have even more exotic effects that can be achieved with the appropriate time and resource investment. You'll find that you can brew any potion and elixir that you have the complete recipe for perfectly each time without any error during the process. Oh, and you are a genius at creating more recipes and completing unfinished ones too. Few things on top of that: they take half the resources to craft, half the time required for the brew time, and their potency are increased by %25. Your genius in alchemy not only is measured in brews but also you are able to create various grenades that have high destructive potential and utility as well. Your skill with creating them makes them perfectly safe during assembly processes. With a proper recipe and materials, you can even create enchanted bombs like runepowder too. But you at least need a sample to analyze and some guidelines for starters. This also makes you an expert on gathering resources for alchemy needs. You can easily search for resources both in wild and urban environments. You even get luckier too, often encountering these alchemical supplies on your adventures. Turning these raw resources into suitable forms for alchemy takes almost no time for you.
Conceptual Fertilization (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon, 200CP): The secret art of Conceptual Fertilization is one that may seem a bit strange and even unnatural to those not as invested as you in the mystic arts but...well, they don't complain so much when you show them the results. Conceptual Fertilization refers to a very rare magical ability that allows one to combine two things during the creation process of one of those things, transferring the qualities of the second thing onto the first. Combining the blood of a dragon with a infant in the womb to grant them the magical power of that dragon as they grow up, for instance. With time and further mastery, it may even be possible to combine more than one thing in this way, though one cannot begin to think of the sacrifices the failed attempts might cause. Additionally, you find that you are also able to perform this process on other things in their creation process, not just living beings, allowing you to infuse weapons or other objects in the process of being created with the traits of other things.
Chapter 1:
Alchemist Supreme (Baldur's Gate 3, 400CP): You are a natural prodigy of all things related to alchemy, while having the work experience of decades old savant of the craft. You can brew potions, elixirs, poisons and oils of endless varieties. They could mend the flesh and knit the wound, grant anyone who drinks them strength of a giant for a time, or even grant the ability to read people's minds. These are just few examples of the sheer utility these potions and elixirs provide to you and your allies as they could have even more exotic effects that can be achieved with the appropriate time and resource investment. You'll find that you can brew any potion and elixir that you have the complete recipe for perfectly each time without any error during the process. Oh, and you are a genius at creating more recipes and completing unfinished ones too. Few things on top of that: they take half the resources to craft, half the time required for the brew time, and their potency are increased by %25. Your genius in alchemy not only is measured in brews but also you are able to create various grenades that have high destructive potential and utility as well. Your skill with creating them makes them perfectly safe during assembly processes. With a proper recipe and materials, you can even create enchanted bombs like runepowder too. But you at least need a sample to analyze and some guidelines for starters. This also makes you an expert on gathering resources for alchemy needs. You can easily search for resources both in wild and urban environments. You even get luckier too, often encountering these alchemical supplies on your adventures. Turning these raw resources into suitable forms for alchemy takes almost no time for you.
Conceptual Fertilization (Fate/Legends: Garden of Avalon, 200CP): The secret art of Conceptual Fertilization is one that may seem a bit strange and even unnatural to those not as invested as you in the mystic arts but...well, they don't complain so much when you show them the results. Conceptual Fertilization refers to a very rare magical ability that allows one to combine two things during the creation process of one of those things, transferring the qualities of the second thing onto the first. Combining the blood of a dragon with a infant in the womb to grant them the magical power of that dragon as they grow up, for instance. With time and further mastery, it may even be possible to combine more than one thing in this way, though one cannot begin to think of the sacrifices the failed attempts might cause. Additionally, you find that you are also able to perform this process on other things in their creation process, not just living beings, allowing you to infuse weapons or other objects in the process of being created with the traits of other things.
None
Demonic Bartender (Exalted - The Infernals, 200CP): Demons love their liquor. As water is extremely rare and milk nearly unknown in the demon realm, Hell instead offers a thousand infernal wines, whiskeys, brandies, vodkas and other drinks. Many of them contain other drugs, both natural and supernatural. Some are flat-out toxic to mortals. Still, those Exalts who cultivates an immunity to poison and cast-iron gullet can explore a world of strange intoxicants that range from gut-ripping vileness to soul-shuddering delight. You've gained an understanding on how to create all these brews yourself. How to ferment bone-wine, thanachvil, and gurshant. How to distill liquid emotions and waking dreams derived from Hegra's rains into elixirs. How to bottle the perfect pleasure that is sypax, or the liquid Lethe of final rest elixir... and finally, even the most precious drink in all of Malfeas, chalcanth. chalcanth is the liquefied, distilled essence of a demon. The unfortunate demon is dissolved in pure vitriol while still alive, so that drinking chalcanth is like tasting pure Being to a demon, and grants both Essence and memories to any who drink it. Of course if you'd prefer, it could also be used in forging infernal relics, by far the most common artifacts in hell.
Chalcanth (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): The life force of a demon preserved in vitriol, chalcanth appears as a cupful of vibrant liquid. The color and consistency of any given dose varies with its origin, but the fluid always stirs restlessly of its own accord and issues a faint susurrus, as the demon liquified in its creation still lives. Chalcanth's primary purpose is the creation of infernal relics, but that is not its only use. Many in Malfeas seek it out as an intoxicating source of essence, because if one drinks it they will be energized as the flavors of the demon's mind and soul tumble through the drinker's brain in a synesthetic wash of images and emotions. With one purchase of this, you will gain a cupful of high quality Chalcanth once every five days.
Purest Vitriol (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): Passive and reactive in nature, Vitriol was designed by the Primordials to catalyze evolutionary transformation in matter and Essence. But in the millennia since the Primordial War, the Yozis' loathing for their jailers, their captivity, and their own broken natures has permeated the very nature of vitriol, infusing it with their hate. Now, it consumes all that it encounters. The stuff bubbles in open pits laden with the detritus of all that it has dissolved, and these impurities must be removed before the vitriol may be used for magical purposes. With one purchase of this, you will gain a weekly supply of enough pure Vitriol to dissolve a demon in or baptise one relic smaller than a vehicle.
Chalcanth (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): The life force of a demon preserved in vitriol, chalcanth appears as a cupful of vibrant liquid. The color and consistency of any given dose varies with its origin, but the fluid always stirs restlessly of its own accord and issues a faint susurrus, as the demon liquified in its creation still lives. Chalcanth's primary purpose is the creation of infernal relics, but that is not its only use. Many in Malfeas seek it out as an intoxicating source of essence, because if one drinks it they will be energized as the flavors of the demon's mind and soul tumble through the drinker's brain in a synesthetic wash of images and emotions. With one purchase of this, you will gain a cupful of high quality Chalcanth once every five days.
Purest Vitriol (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): Passive and reactive in nature, Vitriol was designed by the Primordials to catalyze evolutionary transformation in matter and Essence. But in the millennia since the Primordial War, the Yozis' loathing for their jailers, their captivity, and their own broken natures has permeated the very nature of vitriol, infusing it with their hate. Now, it consumes all that it encounters. The stuff bubbles in open pits laden with the detritus of all that it has dissolved, and these impurities must be removed before the vitriol may be used for magical purposes. With one purchase of this, you will gain a weekly supply of enough pure Vitriol to dissolve a demon in or baptise one relic smaller than a vehicle.
Vitriolic Craftsman (Exalted - The Infernals, 400CP): The artifacts of Malfeas differ on a fundamental level from those of Creation, and as such Infernal artisans have devised many techniques to create these infernal relics. The making of such artifacts requires the pure form of the dark and acrid liquid known as vitriol, and the binding of demons into these relics, dissolving their forms and integrating their still-living Essences into their creation.
Under an infernal artisan's ministrations, pure vitriol serves as a catalyst. Objects bathed in it are seared free of weakness, making them as strong as any of Creation's magical materials; component parts flow together and intermingle, amalgamating into a unified whole. Where an artificer in Creation would spend months carving and shaping an artifact's components, his Malfean counterpart immerses them in vitriol and guides their slow, inextricable melding. Then, one slowly integrates the dissolved form of a living demon, known as Chalcanth or Azoth depending on their power, into the device's nascent structure.
A demon must be of sufficient stature to match the power of a relic in order to bond with it, and likewise must its nature also accord with the relic's function if the procedure is to succeed. Now you too will join the ranks of hell's greatest artisans, with knowledge and skill that encompasses vitriol itself, the acids and catalysts derived from it and its use in the crafting of infernal relics.
Your knowledge encompasses much understanding of demonic Essence, as well as the instinctive ability to use the appropriate mundane crafts to use together with vitriol as the catalyst. Bonding the Chalcanth to a Brass blade of your own design shall be a labor almost considered easy to an craftsman of your skill. Likewise the arts of demonic magi-technology and the creation and modification of life through vitalizing essence are known and practised by you, though their applications are somewhat more complex. As one of Hell's master artisans you may even surpass the limitations of the dull and feeble demonic essence contained within your creations, to instill them with a demonic will as a true Hellforged wonder with its own intellect and awakened essence.
Under an infernal artisan's ministrations, pure vitriol serves as a catalyst. Objects bathed in it are seared free of weakness, making them as strong as any of Creation's magical materials; component parts flow together and intermingle, amalgamating into a unified whole. Where an artificer in Creation would spend months carving and shaping an artifact's components, his Malfean counterpart immerses them in vitriol and guides their slow, inextricable melding. Then, one slowly integrates the dissolved form of a living demon, known as Chalcanth or Azoth depending on their power, into the device's nascent structure.
A demon must be of sufficient stature to match the power of a relic in order to bond with it, and likewise must its nature also accord with the relic's function if the procedure is to succeed. Now you too will join the ranks of hell's greatest artisans, with knowledge and skill that encompasses vitriol itself, the acids and catalysts derived from it and its use in the crafting of infernal relics.
Your knowledge encompasses much understanding of demonic Essence, as well as the instinctive ability to use the appropriate mundane crafts to use together with vitriol as the catalyst. Bonding the Chalcanth to a Brass blade of your own design shall be a labor almost considered easy to an craftsman of your skill. Likewise the arts of demonic magi-technology and the creation and modification of life through vitalizing essence are known and practised by you, though their applications are somewhat more complex. As one of Hell's master artisans you may even surpass the limitations of the dull and feeble demonic essence contained within your creations, to instill them with a demonic will as a true Hellforged wonder with its own intellect and awakened essence.
Exotic Components (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): Artificers of hell construct their relics with a greater pool of exotic reagents than those of Creation-made artifacts, for the world-bodies of the Yozi are rich with alien metals, stones and woods, not to mention the tissues and excretions of countless species of lesser demons, animals, plants and other entities that mortal savants might not even recognize as life. Of course, while these many be easy to come across in hell itself, not all Infernals have the luxury of staying there whenever they work on their relics. So with one purchase of this, you will gain a starting wealth of exotic components and an additional weekly supply of more than enough to construct a lesser relic, straight from the Demon Realm.
Cranial Implants (Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus, 100CP): The brain of every magos undergoes extensive modification over time, but you have put great care into preparing your mind for the Machine God's mysteries. Beyond the gene-alterations and bionic sub-systems that have boosted your intelligence, regulated neuro-chemistry reduces the influence that hunger, pain, fear and other flesh-distractions can have upon your thoughts. Your ability to enjoy these things are not impeded. Further neurological modifications will be faster and easier to adapt to with less worry of rejection.
Lingua-Technis (Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus, Free): Known only to the devotees of the Machine God despite the best efforts of outsiders over millennia, the adepts of Mars speak to each other in bursts of binaric code. This allows for a great deal of information to be communicated quickly and discreetly. Even if translated, it is a complex language thick with ancient and arcane terminology that few outsiders could ever hope to make any sense of. This language and your implants allow you to communicate quickly with other adepts, transferring messages and code many times faster than ordinary speech.
Cranial Implants (Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus, 100CP): The brain of every magos undergoes extensive modification over time, but you have put great care into preparing your mind for the Machine God's mysteries. Beyond the gene-alterations and bionic sub-systems that have boosted your intelligence, regulated neuro-chemistry reduces the influence that hunger, pain, fear and other flesh-distractions can have upon your thoughts. Your ability to enjoy these things are not impeded. Further neurological modifications will be faster and easier to adapt to with less worry of rejection.
Lingua-Technis (Warhammer 40K: Adeptus Mechanicus, Free): Known only to the devotees of the Machine God despite the best efforts of outsiders over millennia, the adepts of Mars speak to each other in bursts of binaric code. This allows for a great deal of information to be communicated quickly and discreetly. Even if translated, it is a complex language thick with ancient and arcane terminology that few outsiders could ever hope to make any sense of. This language and your implants allow you to communicate quickly with other adepts, transferring messages and code many times faster than ordinary speech.
Send Your Fighters, One And All
- Pronouns
- She/They
Well, devils don't have character classes, but you get the point…
Even if she chose a patron- no, to be honest, it would be little more than ownership, and she couldn't afford the self-deception. Even if she chose an owner who could afford to deflect attention, she would be below even the lowliest of males. Her need for protection from House Baenre would make her little more than a slave to the house, if they even let her in- it was entirely possible that Minthara's presence would be more attention-grabbing than they'd be willing to handle for such paltry compensation as alchemical support from a disgraced student.
All of this, of course, paled in the face of the fact that she was very much in Lolth's bad graces.
She should have thought of that in the context of her future plans much sooner- it was inconceivable that any of the Houses of Menzoberranzan would offer her succor, not if such an act would bring with it the disfavor of the Spider Queen.
More than that, though… Minthara wasn't willing to stay in the Spider Queen's dominion, even if the specter of her wrath didn't loom over the situation she found herself in. While she understood that Lolth's favor was a function of the loyal service she could give to the mistress of the Demonweb Pits in Menzoberranzan, she had been loyal, and Lolth still discarded her servant without a seeming second thought. That was hard to justify, even with the strictures of the Spider Queen's faith and the high standards of its mistress.
Neither was Bregan D'aerthe an option- she'd seen Jarlaxle flit in and out of House Baenre over the years, and very well knew that his loyalty was to House Baenre as much as the coin that crossed his palm, if not more so.
So, she would have to get out of the reach of both the Spider Queen and her devoted followers, and to do that, she needed coin.
In that respect, the armory that had been appended to her soul was an incredibly lucky break. Alchemical concoctions were always in demand, and after murdering a well-hidden diabolist she'd heard rumors of in Melee-Magthere, as well as his devil familiar (who was, in fact, how she'd managed to find him, through her Divine Sense), and taking over the squalid room he'd taken over in the Stenchstreets, she had the tools to actually make use of what meager supplies that her half-depleted coinpouch had managed to snare her.
Even in the slums of Menzoberranzan, she was more than skilled enough to make back the coin she'd had to spend in order to get what supplies she hadn't been able to pluck from the walls of Araurilcaurak even while reserving the absolute best of the concoctions she'd managed to create for herself.
Even so, she didn't have nearly as much coin as she would prefer to leave, and without dipping into the reserves of potions that would really be worth making, her chances to earn that coin before the troops of House Baenre would sweep down through the Braeryn and find her were… lower than she'd prefer, and having been forced to leave Xyanyde behind, she didn't like her chances at being able to fight her way out even against the most decrepit of her mother's undead servants, let alone a squad of House Baenre's best.
At best, maybe she could sell some of the trinkets and implements left in the diabolist's living quarters, perhaps, but even if she knew where she could convince someone to take them off her hands, she didn't have nearly enough resources to manage a disguise for herself if she-
Something shifted in the world, and it took a moment for Minthara to realize what it was- she smelled the stench of sulfur and heard the clank of steel that had led her to the imp that had lived in this cramped room before her, but multiplied scores of times over. That could only mean one thing here: more devils, direly close, and she hadn't seen fit to replace Xyanyde with so much as a second dagger to pair with the one that had very nearly ended her life a mere two tendays ago.
In the moments she had left, she took stock of what alchemical options she had in hand, so to speak. Alchemist's fire was worthless- devils were partially formed of the fires of Baator, and as such mundane fire would do nothing to them, but she had acid aplenty, as well as thunderstones and tanglefoot bags. She even had a handful of tanglefoot bags combined with acid using the mystical art that had been the second weapon in her soul's armory, although she'd combined more with alchemist's fire which wouldn't help her now.
Minthara paused briefly as that armory rattled once, but after it subsided, she swept her piwafwi on over the bag of alchemical solutions and strode out onto the street.
It was only when she emerged that she realized her mistake: the devils were newly summoned and, more importantly, far more regimented than the demons she was far more used to seeing invoked by both her aunts and the few wizards that House Baenre retained who preferred to summon others to fight in their stead.
In short, she just placed herself out in the middle of the street for all and sundry to take potshots at.
It wasn't entirely a negative, Minthara realized, turning back to the apartment to see three different devils- two kytons and one the lanky figure of an osyluth, that was not optimal- erupt through three different walls, as at least this way she had decent lines of sight and wasn't surrounded.
The rest of her was too busy trying to stay alive to mull over her situation.
From the start of the battle she was on the back foot, with the kytons' chains lashing out at her and trying to herd her into the scything path of the osyluth's poleaxe or stabbing stinger-tail, which she could barely deflect away with both hands on her dagger.
This was not sustainable, and it was only a matter of time before something broke to change the battle.
Indeed, it only took a matter of seconds beyond when Minthara had the realization that her situation changed. Her ankle rolled underneath her as a loose paver in the road slipped, and the air was forced from her lungs as her back hit the floor.
It was only iron discipline that let her take advantage of the situation. She slammed her dagger into the sheath that she'd managed to scrounge off a corpse in a gutter, then pulled a vial out of her pouch. She saw the three devils notice her on her back as she stabbed her thumbnail into the vial's cap, black streaks disrupted in their yellow fluid as she jerked it off, and as the poleaxe swung over her head, she opened her mouth, pouring the potion down her throat just as she gasped air back into her lungs.
Time slowed down as she felt the magic rush into her system, and she bared her teeth at the devils. She drew power from… well, not Lolth, but wherever the shreds of her oath connected to now, and as the energy suffused her flesh, she felt more than just the healing rush of power that she knew to expect. She felt… she felt strong, swifter than even her potion made her, but more than that…
She felt glorious.
Before the pale poleaxe swept fully past her, Minthara rolled forwards, coming to her feet in one smooth motion. Her hand dipped into her pouch, and she came out with a pouch full of tar. Her hand snapped out, and as the bag burst against the haft of the poleaxe just under its head, her fist closed around it, and the poleaxe halted mid-swing.
The osyluth didn't goggle at her, but it did blink in shock, and in that moment, Minthara struck, swinging the polearm's butt into its jagged lower jaw and then jerking it out of the devil's clawed grasp.
She swung it around, in a full rotation and then more, before smashing a vial of an alchemical solvent on the haft to solvate the tar away, freeing her hand to choke down and hold it in the way that her instructors at Melee-Magthere had. Polearms weren't her preferred weapons, of course, but this pale weapon would have to serve, at least until she got her hands on a mace or something similar.
"Now then," she sneered, looking upon the suddenly less-fierce devils, "shall we?"
Minthara didn't wait for a response, advancing on the devils with short swipes and sharp stabs at them. Most of her attacks were deflected by the whirling hooks and chains of the kytons, but every now and then she managed to score the flesh of the chain devils, or more rarely draw blood from the circling osyluth. Every time she did, she drew on the divine power granted her by her oath, sending radiant power down the length of the polearm into the devils to sear their flesh.
Once she was relatively sure she'd learned the fighting patterns of these particular devils, she swiped out, driving them all back, and her primary hand dipped down into her pouch.
Immediately, seeing her partially disarm herself, the devils all lunged for her, but none of them were fast enough to stop her from drawing three of her five acid-laced tanglefoot bags. The osyluth was swift enough to dodge the bag, skittering away on sharp-clawed limbs, but the kytons weren't nearly as fast, and both of them found themselves covered in corrosive tar, sizzling into their flesh and slowing their motions.
Feeling the last dregs of power of the potion start to drain away, Minthara moved in as the kytons were distracted with the acid, and with one massive arc, swung her confiscated poleaxe through the necks of both kytons.
Both of the chain devils collapsed to the ground in a rattle of infernal chains, and Minthara barely managed to turn to face the osyluth and set herself in a defensive stance before she felt the power of the potion fully wink out.
The osyluth snarled, swiping out with its claws and stabbing forwards with its bloodred stinger, and it was only Minthara's incredible training that let her deflect the blows as time took its due in the aftermath of the potion of speed.
The devil reared back, raising both claws and tail to make one mighty blow… but before it could, a deep red tiefling leapt off a roof behind the devil, screaming with incredible fury and driving her massive axe into the shoulder of the osyluth with all the force of her fall.
While the blow didn't kill the devil, it did give Minthara an opportunity, and she stepped forwards with two swift steps, leaving behind the sluggishness of the end of the potion, and drove the poleaxe through one of the osyluth's beady yellow eyes. This time, when she drove radiant energy through the weapon, the devil's head burned, and its corpse collapsed to the floor in white-gold flames.
The tiefling grinned down at Minthara and spoke in the surface trade language. "You have no idea," she panted, flames rising from two ports visible on her exposed, scarred shoulder in time with her heaving breaths, "how long I've wanted to do that."
"I might be able to imagine," drawled Minthara, allowing herself a moment of weakness and leaning on the polearm. Restorative magic or not, the expenditure of so much raw power in such a short amount of time was wearying, and even Minthara's trained fortitude had its limits. Then, she shoved herself off the polearm. "Quickly, come with me. We must kill the diabolists who did this before they can bring down more attention on us."
"Sure thing," the tiefling replied. "Always ready for a scrap."
Minthara looked the woman up and down. She was almost too thin, and what bulk she did have was almost entirely muscle that was covered by a patchwork of belts and leather scraps that barely left her decent enough for a slave auction, let alone proper battle. Still, despite the cracked-off horn, her gaze was fierce and focused, and she hefted the massive axe she held with little discernible effort.
Even beyond that, though… even though she wasn't a true devil, the stench that Minthara associated with the fiends wafted off of her, and it took a moment for Minthara to localize it- within her chest burned a machine, blazing with hellfire, that kept her blood moving. It resembled the hulking ruins of the Hellfire Engines that had been taken as trophies by her uncle, when he had been summoned by the Spider Queen to repel an incursion into the Demonweb Pits, if only remotely, and yet something about it stuck in the back of her mind, like a bulette lurking under the ground to erupt from it to devour an unsuspecting dwarf.
"Very well, I shall follow your lead. I am Minthara Ba- just Minthara, and yourself?" Minthara cursed herself at the foolhardy attempt to claim the Baenre name- that would be more trouble than the diabolists could hope to bring down on them, all over the memories of her uncle that the tiefling roused.
"Karlach Cliffgate, nice to meetcha. Now then," she said, something glowing a hellish orange behind her sternum, "let's get a move on, we got us some summoners to fuck up."
Perks earned:
None
If you want to support me as a writer, I've got me a Ko-fi (Buy Lucifra a Coffee. ko-fi.com/lucifra) and a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Lucifra), and if you become a patron, you can see my chapters a week early, plus for this fic see two chapters not available on other platforms yet.
Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin, Mtron, AntaeusTheGiant, Starfall20, Danielle, Ultama Omega, Asuran Fun, Bailey Matutine, Mr Phantom, Thomas Vernet, Allen Baker, Conor Cooney and Ember for being patrons!
I also have a discord sir ver for author stuff- if you have questions or comments that you'd like a more direct line to ask me, or if you want to see me chatting about my writing process, that's another option: Join the The Lucifralorn Forest Discord Server!
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
-----
Beta'd by… whoops forgor-----
Minthara had spent another tenday experimenting with the most efficacious combinations of different alchemical solutions before deciding she would not- could not- stay in Menzoberranzan.Even if she chose a patron- no, to be honest, it would be little more than ownership, and she couldn't afford the self-deception. Even if she chose an owner who could afford to deflect attention, she would be below even the lowliest of males. Her need for protection from House Baenre would make her little more than a slave to the house, if they even let her in- it was entirely possible that Minthara's presence would be more attention-grabbing than they'd be willing to handle for such paltry compensation as alchemical support from a disgraced student.
All of this, of course, paled in the face of the fact that she was very much in Lolth's bad graces.
She should have thought of that in the context of her future plans much sooner- it was inconceivable that any of the Houses of Menzoberranzan would offer her succor, not if such an act would bring with it the disfavor of the Spider Queen.
More than that, though… Minthara wasn't willing to stay in the Spider Queen's dominion, even if the specter of her wrath didn't loom over the situation she found herself in. While she understood that Lolth's favor was a function of the loyal service she could give to the mistress of the Demonweb Pits in Menzoberranzan, she had been loyal, and Lolth still discarded her servant without a seeming second thought. That was hard to justify, even with the strictures of the Spider Queen's faith and the high standards of its mistress.
Neither was Bregan D'aerthe an option- she'd seen Jarlaxle flit in and out of House Baenre over the years, and very well knew that his loyalty was to House Baenre as much as the coin that crossed his palm, if not more so.
So, she would have to get out of the reach of both the Spider Queen and her devoted followers, and to do that, she needed coin.
In that respect, the armory that had been appended to her soul was an incredibly lucky break. Alchemical concoctions were always in demand, and after murdering a well-hidden diabolist she'd heard rumors of in Melee-Magthere, as well as his devil familiar (who was, in fact, how she'd managed to find him, through her Divine Sense), and taking over the squalid room he'd taken over in the Stenchstreets, she had the tools to actually make use of what meager supplies that her half-depleted coinpouch had managed to snare her.
Even in the slums of Menzoberranzan, she was more than skilled enough to make back the coin she'd had to spend in order to get what supplies she hadn't been able to pluck from the walls of Araurilcaurak even while reserving the absolute best of the concoctions she'd managed to create for herself.
Even so, she didn't have nearly as much coin as she would prefer to leave, and without dipping into the reserves of potions that would really be worth making, her chances to earn that coin before the troops of House Baenre would sweep down through the Braeryn and find her were… lower than she'd prefer, and having been forced to leave Xyanyde behind, she didn't like her chances at being able to fight her way out even against the most decrepit of her mother's undead servants, let alone a squad of House Baenre's best.
At best, maybe she could sell some of the trinkets and implements left in the diabolist's living quarters, perhaps, but even if she knew where she could convince someone to take them off her hands, she didn't have nearly enough resources to manage a disguise for herself if she-
Something shifted in the world, and it took a moment for Minthara to realize what it was- she smelled the stench of sulfur and heard the clank of steel that had led her to the imp that had lived in this cramped room before her, but multiplied scores of times over. That could only mean one thing here: more devils, direly close, and she hadn't seen fit to replace Xyanyde with so much as a second dagger to pair with the one that had very nearly ended her life a mere two tendays ago.
In the moments she had left, she took stock of what alchemical options she had in hand, so to speak. Alchemist's fire was worthless- devils were partially formed of the fires of Baator, and as such mundane fire would do nothing to them, but she had acid aplenty, as well as thunderstones and tanglefoot bags. She even had a handful of tanglefoot bags combined with acid using the mystical art that had been the second weapon in her soul's armory, although she'd combined more with alchemist's fire which wouldn't help her now.
Minthara paused briefly as that armory rattled once, but after it subsided, she swept her piwafwi on over the bag of alchemical solutions and strode out onto the street.
It was only when she emerged that she realized her mistake: the devils were newly summoned and, more importantly, far more regimented than the demons she was far more used to seeing invoked by both her aunts and the few wizards that House Baenre retained who preferred to summon others to fight in their stead.
In short, she just placed herself out in the middle of the street for all and sundry to take potshots at.
It wasn't entirely a negative, Minthara realized, turning back to the apartment to see three different devils- two kytons and one the lanky figure of an osyluth, that was not optimal- erupt through three different walls, as at least this way she had decent lines of sight and wasn't surrounded.
The rest of her was too busy trying to stay alive to mull over her situation.
From the start of the battle she was on the back foot, with the kytons' chains lashing out at her and trying to herd her into the scything path of the osyluth's poleaxe or stabbing stinger-tail, which she could barely deflect away with both hands on her dagger.
This was not sustainable, and it was only a matter of time before something broke to change the battle.
Indeed, it only took a matter of seconds beyond when Minthara had the realization that her situation changed. Her ankle rolled underneath her as a loose paver in the road slipped, and the air was forced from her lungs as her back hit the floor.
It was only iron discipline that let her take advantage of the situation. She slammed her dagger into the sheath that she'd managed to scrounge off a corpse in a gutter, then pulled a vial out of her pouch. She saw the three devils notice her on her back as she stabbed her thumbnail into the vial's cap, black streaks disrupted in their yellow fluid as she jerked it off, and as the poleaxe swung over her head, she opened her mouth, pouring the potion down her throat just as she gasped air back into her lungs.
Time slowed down as she felt the magic rush into her system, and she bared her teeth at the devils. She drew power from… well, not Lolth, but wherever the shreds of her oath connected to now, and as the energy suffused her flesh, she felt more than just the healing rush of power that she knew to expect. She felt… she felt strong, swifter than even her potion made her, but more than that…
She felt glorious.
Before the pale poleaxe swept fully past her, Minthara rolled forwards, coming to her feet in one smooth motion. Her hand dipped into her pouch, and she came out with a pouch full of tar. Her hand snapped out, and as the bag burst against the haft of the poleaxe just under its head, her fist closed around it, and the poleaxe halted mid-swing.
The osyluth didn't goggle at her, but it did blink in shock, and in that moment, Minthara struck, swinging the polearm's butt into its jagged lower jaw and then jerking it out of the devil's clawed grasp.
She swung it around, in a full rotation and then more, before smashing a vial of an alchemical solvent on the haft to solvate the tar away, freeing her hand to choke down and hold it in the way that her instructors at Melee-Magthere had. Polearms weren't her preferred weapons, of course, but this pale weapon would have to serve, at least until she got her hands on a mace or something similar.
"Now then," she sneered, looking upon the suddenly less-fierce devils, "shall we?"
Minthara didn't wait for a response, advancing on the devils with short swipes and sharp stabs at them. Most of her attacks were deflected by the whirling hooks and chains of the kytons, but every now and then she managed to score the flesh of the chain devils, or more rarely draw blood from the circling osyluth. Every time she did, she drew on the divine power granted her by her oath, sending radiant power down the length of the polearm into the devils to sear their flesh.
Once she was relatively sure she'd learned the fighting patterns of these particular devils, she swiped out, driving them all back, and her primary hand dipped down into her pouch.
Immediately, seeing her partially disarm herself, the devils all lunged for her, but none of them were fast enough to stop her from drawing three of her five acid-laced tanglefoot bags. The osyluth was swift enough to dodge the bag, skittering away on sharp-clawed limbs, but the kytons weren't nearly as fast, and both of them found themselves covered in corrosive tar, sizzling into their flesh and slowing their motions.
Feeling the last dregs of power of the potion start to drain away, Minthara moved in as the kytons were distracted with the acid, and with one massive arc, swung her confiscated poleaxe through the necks of both kytons.
Both of the chain devils collapsed to the ground in a rattle of infernal chains, and Minthara barely managed to turn to face the osyluth and set herself in a defensive stance before she felt the power of the potion fully wink out.
The osyluth snarled, swiping out with its claws and stabbing forwards with its bloodred stinger, and it was only Minthara's incredible training that let her deflect the blows as time took its due in the aftermath of the potion of speed.
The devil reared back, raising both claws and tail to make one mighty blow… but before it could, a deep red tiefling leapt off a roof behind the devil, screaming with incredible fury and driving her massive axe into the shoulder of the osyluth with all the force of her fall.
While the blow didn't kill the devil, it did give Minthara an opportunity, and she stepped forwards with two swift steps, leaving behind the sluggishness of the end of the potion, and drove the poleaxe through one of the osyluth's beady yellow eyes. This time, when she drove radiant energy through the weapon, the devil's head burned, and its corpse collapsed to the floor in white-gold flames.
The tiefling grinned down at Minthara and spoke in the surface trade language. "You have no idea," she panted, flames rising from two ports visible on her exposed, scarred shoulder in time with her heaving breaths, "how long I've wanted to do that."
"I might be able to imagine," drawled Minthara, allowing herself a moment of weakness and leaning on the polearm. Restorative magic or not, the expenditure of so much raw power in such a short amount of time was wearying, and even Minthara's trained fortitude had its limits. Then, she shoved herself off the polearm. "Quickly, come with me. We must kill the diabolists who did this before they can bring down more attention on us."
"Sure thing," the tiefling replied. "Always ready for a scrap."
Minthara looked the woman up and down. She was almost too thin, and what bulk she did have was almost entirely muscle that was covered by a patchwork of belts and leather scraps that barely left her decent enough for a slave auction, let alone proper battle. Still, despite the cracked-off horn, her gaze was fierce and focused, and she hefted the massive axe she held with little discernible effort.
Even beyond that, though… even though she wasn't a true devil, the stench that Minthara associated with the fiends wafted off of her, and it took a moment for Minthara to localize it- within her chest burned a machine, blazing with hellfire, that kept her blood moving. It resembled the hulking ruins of the Hellfire Engines that had been taken as trophies by her uncle, when he had been summoned by the Spider Queen to repel an incursion into the Demonweb Pits, if only remotely, and yet something about it stuck in the back of her mind, like a bulette lurking under the ground to erupt from it to devour an unsuspecting dwarf.
"Very well, I shall follow your lead. I am Minthara Ba- just Minthara, and yourself?" Minthara cursed herself at the foolhardy attempt to claim the Baenre name- that would be more trouble than the diabolists could hope to bring down on them, all over the memories of her uncle that the tiefling roused.
"Karlach Cliffgate, nice to meetcha. Now then," she said, something glowing a hellish orange behind her sternum, "let's get a move on, we got us some summoners to fuck up."
-----
And that's that!Perks earned:
None
If you want to support me as a writer, I've got me a Ko-fi (Buy Lucifra a Coffee. ko-fi.com/lucifra) and a Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/Lucifra), and if you become a patron, you can see my chapters a week early, plus for this fic see two chapters not available on other platforms yet.
Speaking of which, my thanks to NotableRonin, Mtron, AntaeusTheGiant, Starfall20, Danielle, Ultama Omega, Asuran Fun, Bailey Matutine, Mr Phantom, Thomas Vernet, Allen Baker, Conor Cooney and Ember for being patrons!
I also have a discord sir ver for author stuff- if you have questions or comments that you'd like a more direct line to ask me, or if you want to see me chatting about my writing process, that's another option: Join the The Lucifralorn Forest Discord Server!
That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!
Blood On Fire Pumpin' Through My Veins
- Pronouns
- She/They
More fighty punchy stabby blood
That was even during the handful of minutes where she was gawking around at Menzoberranzan, her dimly glowing eyes presumably granting her enough infrasight to make her way around the city.
"Where are we?" she asked, thankfully keeping her voice low.
"Menzoberranzan." At Karlach's blank look, Minthara held back a sigh- clearly the woman was far less informed than she could have hoped, based on how she'd showed such clear familiarity with the devils. "The single largest drow city on Toril, with a population of almost twenty five thousand drow." At Karlach's shrug, Minthara's restraint failed, and she actually sighed. "We are in a city within the Underdark that you very clearly know nothing about."
Oddly enough, it was that that finally got recognition out of the tiefling. "Oh, right, the Underdark! Why didn't you say so to start with?"
Minthara gave the other woman a dry look after she finished sniffing the air, relying on her more esoteric senses to track the stench trail of the devils back to their summoners. "I clearly thought that you would be aware of the sovereign city-state of Menzoberranzan and its reach within the surface world of Toril."
Karlach nodded. "Yeah, well, when you spend ten years in Avernus conscripted into the Blood War after your boss tried to sacrifice you to Bane and then sold you off to Zariel, you tend to lose track of…" She gestured vaguely with one hand, and something drew Minthara's attention to the almost talon-like nails that would not have surprised there if they had whistled as they split the air. "Y'know, all that political stuff."
Minthara refocused on the conversation, frowning as she parsed the unfamiliar surface words, then turned one raised eyebrow on the heavily scarred tiefling, along with a more appraising look. "A full decade in Baator standing against the best the Abyss had to throw at you, you say?"
Caught somewhat off guard, Karlach raised one hand to rub at the back of her skull sheepishly. "Uh, I'm not sure it's the best, really…"
"Nonsense, now is not the time for false modesty. A decade on the front lines of the Blood War will make anyone a formidable combatant. What it wouldn't make is one specialized against mages, so were I in your boots I would focus on whichever devils they've doubtless retained to serve as a bulwark against attacks while I eliminate the mages." Minthara turned to face the door that the stench trail led to, then flexed her wrists and rose up onto the balls of her feet, feeling the strain of both the stretch and the earlier fight and judging it not too much for her to continue fighting, if she's relatively careful.
"I… thank you?" Minthara wasn't nearly good enough at reading skin tone on ruddier complexions, but were she a betting woman, she would have found herself willing to place odds on Karlach blushing, though she wasn't sure why- it was a simple statement of facts. "Right-o, is this it? All these buildings look the same to me."
Minthara nodded. "Indeed, are you prepared for combat?" She rapped the poleaxe on the floor twice, then swung it back, grateful that whatever had granted her the rush of strength hadn't faded with the restorative magics she'd cast on herself. Then, before she forgot again, she downed another potion of speed, grimacing at the stink of ozone that filled her nostrils and covered up the stench of the devils within the room as the magic wound its way throughout every bone in her body.
The armory within her soul clattered loudly, but thankfully it settled in time for Minthara to hear Karlach respond. "That I am. You got Knock bound to that pigsticker of yours?"
"I lack training in such subtle magics, and we lack the time it would take me to pick the lock open without alerting them to our presence, which would allow them to rely on the weight of numbers to overtake us." Minthara drew once again on what remained of her oath, wrapping the poleaxe in a sheath of vibrating, barely-stable sound. "Expediency must take precedence over stealth, in this situation."
Behind her, Minthara slipped into the room, grateful for Karlach for drawing attention so she could slip past the devils- two barbazus and a hamatula, they were clearly running through their summoners' stamina quickly to pull so many so quickly, especially if the osyluth was the peak of what their reach could invoke- and turn her attentions to their summoners.
To her surprise, only one of them was a drow, and he was a mere male, scarred across the face in the characteristic manner that spoke to the staff of Melee-Magthere expelling him dishonorably. The other three were foreign to Menzoberranzan, one being a gray dwarf, one a short, nimble-looking creature looking like a human save for its childish face (the innocent illusion that offered, the bloodred eyes and interrupted chant put paid to, as well as the stench of sulfur), and the last being one of the accursed faeries of the surface. All four diabolists bore bloodred robes, and each of them had a different pattern embroidered along the edges. The small creature had small bones covering the robes irregularly as well as a small headdress of the things, whereas the other three only had the dull yellow thread (and bloodstained patches, admittedly) on their robes.
They didn't see her coming until she'd already opened the faerie's throat with a thrust that its fidgeting nearly saw miss- damnation, her inexperience with this weapon was showing. Still, it was enough for her, and even if the faerie managed to cling to life somehow it wouldn't be doing any spellcasting without its voice.
The other three turned to her, and she bared her teeth. "Come, then, you who would consort with Asmodeus in Menzoberranzan! Come, and contend with her warrior!"
The small creature looked away from the blood spilling from the hole in the faerie's throat and lunged, abnormally sharp canines matching the dagger that gleamed in its fist as it barreled for Minthara, snarling a word in a foreign tongue as his advance abruptly accelerated.
Ah, the Haste spell, the eternal companion of the spellcaster forced to fight for their life. It was as predictable as it was reliable- with it, any two-bit hedge wizard with a dagger and a limb with which to hold it could become a threat to an average drow soldier (or, at least, the males).
Is it any wonder that Melee-Magthere taught its students specifically how to fight against such tactics?
Even without the potion of speed bubbling within her veins, she was still more than enough to handle a small creature. Its dagger hand was easily caught, and before it could attempt to flip the blade around and try and catch her hand with an icepick grip, Minthara squeezed, glorious strength still reinforcing her muscles, and she felt the cracking of bones splintering within her grasp more than heard it.
She turned from the hips, slamming the creature headfirst into the wall, which cracked but did not give. The same could not be said of its skull, which cracked loudly, and it did not rise after Minthara dropped it.
The other two mages, however, had managed to rally in the time that it had taken to put down the one who charged. One of them snarled out an arcane word, hand clutched into a clawlike grasp, and she could feel her body grow frailer as a fell hand grasp onto her hand. The other one took the opportunity to hurl a gust of wind at her, driving her a step back and, more importantly, tearing the poorly-held poleaxe from her grasp.
She advanced on them, hand reaching for her dagger, but they were swift casters, and had evidently taken the time to cast Haste on themselves to focus instead on their own spells instead of daring to attack a trained warrior in close combat.
Rays of scorching light flickered at her, and while she dodged most of them, some few hit home, and while the gust of wind stalled her advance, the gray dwarf took the time to shape a lance of psionic force to stagger her.
Clearly melee combat was not going to be practical, at this point, but no matter- Minthara had more than mere force in her arsenal.
A vial of alchemically-produced acid hurtled from her hands, and while the still-blowing wind sent it off-course, it didn't deflect the second after she adjusted her aim, and by the time the third left her hand the wind had winked out as the gray dwarf's concentration was shattered by the pain of acid eating away at his flesh.
Minthara jabbed the toe of her boot under the dropped poleaxe and flipped it up, taking it in both hands this time, and turned to the wizards. This time, with no gust of wind to drive her back, she strode up the gray dwarf and cleaved his skull in twain before turning to the human and-
She grunted as she felt a blade punch through her piwafwi to take her in the back- not quite in the kidneys, so she'd have more than enough time to outlast the wizard's conjuration. More importantly was the creature that had attempted to stab her- apparently she had only broken some of the bones on the odd headdress instead of his skull. This time she didn't make the same mistake, driving raw power through the poleaxe before smashing his head into the floor with the butt hard enough to watch as his skull caved in, her radiant fury already starting to burn from the inside, before turning back to the other wizard and bashing in his knee with the hammer opposite the axe blade, sending him to the ground with a cry of pain.
Minthara turned to see whether Karlach needed help, but staggered and braced herself against the ground with the haft of the poleaxe as the armory within her soul expanded without warning.
In the rack her first spear had appeared in, another spear manifested, except where every aspect of the initial spear had been perfect, this one was jagged and chaotic, almost as if someone had cast a lightning bolt in iron. With it came a cup full of some liquid that all but radiated the power of the Abyss, of pure unbound chaos, and a pit of a second liquid, one that resembled the cup in some ways but lacked the raw unbridled power of the first. Some part of her knew, with absolute certainty, that she could draw both the cup and the pit into Faerûn, and should she deplete either, they would refill sooner or later, although the exact timeframe was unclear to her.
With the spear came knowledge, knowledge of how to make brews that even the hardiest of dwarves couldn't stomach and those to make the finest of drow wines pale in comparison, knowledge of how to distill liquor from concepts… knowledge of chalcanth, with all its great and terrible demon-borne power, and with that she recognized the liquids she'd been granted as chalcanth and the great vitriol of Malfeas.
Minthara forced her mind back to reality, and raised the poleaxe back to a proper fighting stance, but by the time she had the fighting was done, and all three devils were lying dead on the floor, hacked apart by the tiefling's mighty axe.
"Whoo," she said, wiping sweat from her brow. "That was a good scrap!"
"So it was," said Minthara, lowering her poleaxe and healing away the injuries she'd sustained in the battle once she realized that the fell hand conjured by the human diabolist had vanished. "Would you happen to know how to remove one of the other doors and mount it on the front?"
"Uh… it's been a while, but I could probably puzzle it out. Why?" she asked.
"Even if this area is… not well patrolled, eventually someone will take notice if the door has been destroyed when patrols come along, and it would be ideal to avoid notice as long as possible so we can depart without notice. I need to see to our prisoner-" Minthara pointed at the human male, who was still cradling his injured knee, "-and retrieve my supplies and tools from where I've been living so that they aren't taken out from under me, which would mean it would take longer for us to be able to leave Menzoberranzan."
Karlach visibly bit back questions before responding. "Right-o, I'll get to some emergency carpentry, you go ahead and go grab what you need to grab."
"Right," Minthara said. "I shan't be gone long."
Karlach very audibly failed to muffle laughter in a cough, and Minthara turned back to the tiefling with an eyebrow raised. "Something funny?"
"Yeah, just-" She had to smother more chuckles. "Shant, really? How old is the person you learned Common from?"
Minthara just growled, deep in her throat, and turned to stride out of the building with the shreds of her dignity.
"See you soon, gram-gram!"
Minthara's fist clenched.
Perks earned:
Demonic Bartender (Exalted - The Infernals, 200CP): Demons love their liquor. As water is extremely rare and milk nearly unknown in the demon realm, Hell instead offers a thousand infernal wines, whiskeys, brandies, vodkas and other drinks. Many of them contain other drugs, both natural and supernatural. Some are flat-out toxic to mortals. Still, those Exalts who cultivates an immunity to poison and cast-iron gullet can explore a world of strange intoxicants that range from gut-ripping vileness to soul-shuddering delight. You've gained an understanding on how to create all these brews yourself. How to ferment bone-wine, thanachvil, and gurshant. How to distill liquid emotions and waking dreams derived from Hegra's rains into elixirs. How to bottle the perfect pleasure that is sypax, or the liquid Lethe of final rest elixir... and finally, even the most precious drink in all of Malfeas, chalcanth. chalcanth is the liquefied, distilled essence of a demon. The unfortunate demon is dissolved in pure vitriol while still alive, so that drinking chalcanth is like tasting pure Being to a demon, and grants both Essence and memories to any who drink it. Of course if you'd prefer, it could also be used in forging infernal relics, by far the most common artifacts in hell.
Chalcanth (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): The life force of a demon preserved in vitriol, chalcanth appears as a cupful of vibrant liquid. The color and consistency of any given dose varies with its origin, but the fluid always stirs restlessly of its own accord and issues a faint susurrus, as the demon liquified in its creation still lives. Chalcanth's primary purpose is the creation of infernal relics, but that is not its only use. Many in Malfeas seek it out as an intoxicating source of essence, because if one drinks it they will be energized as the flavors of the demon's mind and soul tumble through the drinker's brain in a synesthetic wash of images and emotions. With one purchase of this, you will gain a cupful of high quality Chalcanth once every five days.
Purest Vitriol (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): Passive and reactive in nature, Vitriol was designed by the Primordials to catalyze evolutionary transformation in matter and Essence. But in the millennia since the Primordial War, the Yozis' loathing for their jailers, their captivity, and their own broken natures has permeated the very nature of vitriol, infusing it with their hate. Now, it consumes all that it encounters. The stuff bubbles in open pits laden with the detritus of all that it has dissolved, and these impurities must be removed before the vitriol may be used for magical purposes. With one purchase of this, you will gain a weekly supply of enough pure Vitriol to dissolve a demon in or baptise one relic smaller than a vehicle.
Rest of the perk bundle is coming over chapters four and five, gang.
-----
Beta'd by… whoops forgor-----
The tiefling was surprisingly light on her feet.That was even during the handful of minutes where she was gawking around at Menzoberranzan, her dimly glowing eyes presumably granting her enough infrasight to make her way around the city.
"Where are we?" she asked, thankfully keeping her voice low.
"Menzoberranzan." At Karlach's blank look, Minthara held back a sigh- clearly the woman was far less informed than she could have hoped, based on how she'd showed such clear familiarity with the devils. "The single largest drow city on Toril, with a population of almost twenty five thousand drow." At Karlach's shrug, Minthara's restraint failed, and she actually sighed. "We are in a city within the Underdark that you very clearly know nothing about."
Oddly enough, it was that that finally got recognition out of the tiefling. "Oh, right, the Underdark! Why didn't you say so to start with?"
Minthara gave the other woman a dry look after she finished sniffing the air, relying on her more esoteric senses to track the stench trail of the devils back to their summoners. "I clearly thought that you would be aware of the sovereign city-state of Menzoberranzan and its reach within the surface world of Toril."
Karlach nodded. "Yeah, well, when you spend ten years in Avernus conscripted into the Blood War after your boss tried to sacrifice you to Bane and then sold you off to Zariel, you tend to lose track of…" She gestured vaguely with one hand, and something drew Minthara's attention to the almost talon-like nails that would not have surprised there if they had whistled as they split the air. "Y'know, all that political stuff."
Minthara refocused on the conversation, frowning as she parsed the unfamiliar surface words, then turned one raised eyebrow on the heavily scarred tiefling, along with a more appraising look. "A full decade in Baator standing against the best the Abyss had to throw at you, you say?"
Caught somewhat off guard, Karlach raised one hand to rub at the back of her skull sheepishly. "Uh, I'm not sure it's the best, really…"
"Nonsense, now is not the time for false modesty. A decade on the front lines of the Blood War will make anyone a formidable combatant. What it wouldn't make is one specialized against mages, so were I in your boots I would focus on whichever devils they've doubtless retained to serve as a bulwark against attacks while I eliminate the mages." Minthara turned to face the door that the stench trail led to, then flexed her wrists and rose up onto the balls of her feet, feeling the strain of both the stretch and the earlier fight and judging it not too much for her to continue fighting, if she's relatively careful.
"I… thank you?" Minthara wasn't nearly good enough at reading skin tone on ruddier complexions, but were she a betting woman, she would have found herself willing to place odds on Karlach blushing, though she wasn't sure why- it was a simple statement of facts. "Right-o, is this it? All these buildings look the same to me."
Minthara nodded. "Indeed, are you prepared for combat?" She rapped the poleaxe on the floor twice, then swung it back, grateful that whatever had granted her the rush of strength hadn't faded with the restorative magics she'd cast on herself. Then, before she forgot again, she downed another potion of speed, grimacing at the stink of ozone that filled her nostrils and covered up the stench of the devils within the room as the magic wound its way throughout every bone in her body.
The armory within her soul clattered loudly, but thankfully it settled in time for Minthara to hear Karlach respond. "That I am. You got Knock bound to that pigsticker of yours?"
"I lack training in such subtle magics, and we lack the time it would take me to pick the lock open without alerting them to our presence, which would allow them to rely on the weight of numbers to overtake us." Minthara drew once again on what remained of her oath, wrapping the poleaxe in a sheath of vibrating, barely-stable sound. "Expediency must take precedence over stealth, in this situation."
-----
The door exploded inwards in a hail of splinters and fist-sized chunks of zurkhwood, followed very shortly by a screaming tiefling, axe already in motion.Behind her, Minthara slipped into the room, grateful for Karlach for drawing attention so she could slip past the devils- two barbazus and a hamatula, they were clearly running through their summoners' stamina quickly to pull so many so quickly, especially if the osyluth was the peak of what their reach could invoke- and turn her attentions to their summoners.
To her surprise, only one of them was a drow, and he was a mere male, scarred across the face in the characteristic manner that spoke to the staff of Melee-Magthere expelling him dishonorably. The other three were foreign to Menzoberranzan, one being a gray dwarf, one a short, nimble-looking creature looking like a human save for its childish face (the innocent illusion that offered, the bloodred eyes and interrupted chant put paid to, as well as the stench of sulfur), and the last being one of the accursed faeries of the surface. All four diabolists bore bloodred robes, and each of them had a different pattern embroidered along the edges. The small creature had small bones covering the robes irregularly as well as a small headdress of the things, whereas the other three only had the dull yellow thread (and bloodstained patches, admittedly) on their robes.
They didn't see her coming until she'd already opened the faerie's throat with a thrust that its fidgeting nearly saw miss- damnation, her inexperience with this weapon was showing. Still, it was enough for her, and even if the faerie managed to cling to life somehow it wouldn't be doing any spellcasting without its voice.
The other three turned to her, and she bared her teeth. "Come, then, you who would consort with Asmodeus in Menzoberranzan! Come, and contend with her warrior!"
The small creature looked away from the blood spilling from the hole in the faerie's throat and lunged, abnormally sharp canines matching the dagger that gleamed in its fist as it barreled for Minthara, snarling a word in a foreign tongue as his advance abruptly accelerated.
Ah, the Haste spell, the eternal companion of the spellcaster forced to fight for their life. It was as predictable as it was reliable- with it, any two-bit hedge wizard with a dagger and a limb with which to hold it could become a threat to an average drow soldier (or, at least, the males).
Is it any wonder that Melee-Magthere taught its students specifically how to fight against such tactics?
Even without the potion of speed bubbling within her veins, she was still more than enough to handle a small creature. Its dagger hand was easily caught, and before it could attempt to flip the blade around and try and catch her hand with an icepick grip, Minthara squeezed, glorious strength still reinforcing her muscles, and she felt the cracking of bones splintering within her grasp more than heard it.
She turned from the hips, slamming the creature headfirst into the wall, which cracked but did not give. The same could not be said of its skull, which cracked loudly, and it did not rise after Minthara dropped it.
The other two mages, however, had managed to rally in the time that it had taken to put down the one who charged. One of them snarled out an arcane word, hand clutched into a clawlike grasp, and she could feel her body grow frailer as a fell hand grasp onto her hand. The other one took the opportunity to hurl a gust of wind at her, driving her a step back and, more importantly, tearing the poorly-held poleaxe from her grasp.
She advanced on them, hand reaching for her dagger, but they were swift casters, and had evidently taken the time to cast Haste on themselves to focus instead on their own spells instead of daring to attack a trained warrior in close combat.
Rays of scorching light flickered at her, and while she dodged most of them, some few hit home, and while the gust of wind stalled her advance, the gray dwarf took the time to shape a lance of psionic force to stagger her.
Clearly melee combat was not going to be practical, at this point, but no matter- Minthara had more than mere force in her arsenal.
A vial of alchemically-produced acid hurtled from her hands, and while the still-blowing wind sent it off-course, it didn't deflect the second after she adjusted her aim, and by the time the third left her hand the wind had winked out as the gray dwarf's concentration was shattered by the pain of acid eating away at his flesh.
Minthara jabbed the toe of her boot under the dropped poleaxe and flipped it up, taking it in both hands this time, and turned to the wizards. This time, with no gust of wind to drive her back, she strode up the gray dwarf and cleaved his skull in twain before turning to the human and-
She grunted as she felt a blade punch through her piwafwi to take her in the back- not quite in the kidneys, so she'd have more than enough time to outlast the wizard's conjuration. More importantly was the creature that had attempted to stab her- apparently she had only broken some of the bones on the odd headdress instead of his skull. This time she didn't make the same mistake, driving raw power through the poleaxe before smashing his head into the floor with the butt hard enough to watch as his skull caved in, her radiant fury already starting to burn from the inside, before turning back to the other wizard and bashing in his knee with the hammer opposite the axe blade, sending him to the ground with a cry of pain.
Minthara turned to see whether Karlach needed help, but staggered and braced herself against the ground with the haft of the poleaxe as the armory within her soul expanded without warning.
In the rack her first spear had appeared in, another spear manifested, except where every aspect of the initial spear had been perfect, this one was jagged and chaotic, almost as if someone had cast a lightning bolt in iron. With it came a cup full of some liquid that all but radiated the power of the Abyss, of pure unbound chaos, and a pit of a second liquid, one that resembled the cup in some ways but lacked the raw unbridled power of the first. Some part of her knew, with absolute certainty, that she could draw both the cup and the pit into Faerûn, and should she deplete either, they would refill sooner or later, although the exact timeframe was unclear to her.
With the spear came knowledge, knowledge of how to make brews that even the hardiest of dwarves couldn't stomach and those to make the finest of drow wines pale in comparison, knowledge of how to distill liquor from concepts… knowledge of chalcanth, with all its great and terrible demon-borne power, and with that she recognized the liquids she'd been granted as chalcanth and the great vitriol of Malfeas.
Minthara forced her mind back to reality, and raised the poleaxe back to a proper fighting stance, but by the time she had the fighting was done, and all three devils were lying dead on the floor, hacked apart by the tiefling's mighty axe.
"Whoo," she said, wiping sweat from her brow. "That was a good scrap!"
"So it was," said Minthara, lowering her poleaxe and healing away the injuries she'd sustained in the battle once she realized that the fell hand conjured by the human diabolist had vanished. "Would you happen to know how to remove one of the other doors and mount it on the front?"
"Uh… it's been a while, but I could probably puzzle it out. Why?" she asked.
"Even if this area is… not well patrolled, eventually someone will take notice if the door has been destroyed when patrols come along, and it would be ideal to avoid notice as long as possible so we can depart without notice. I need to see to our prisoner-" Minthara pointed at the human male, who was still cradling his injured knee, "-and retrieve my supplies and tools from where I've been living so that they aren't taken out from under me, which would mean it would take longer for us to be able to leave Menzoberranzan."
Karlach visibly bit back questions before responding. "Right-o, I'll get to some emergency carpentry, you go ahead and go grab what you need to grab."
"Right," Minthara said. "I shan't be gone long."
Karlach very audibly failed to muffle laughter in a cough, and Minthara turned back to the tiefling with an eyebrow raised. "Something funny?"
"Yeah, just-" She had to smother more chuckles. "Shant, really? How old is the person you learned Common from?"
Minthara just growled, deep in her throat, and turned to stride out of the building with the shreds of her dignity.
"See you soon, gram-gram!"
Minthara's fist clenched.
-----
And that's that!Perks earned:
Demonic Bartender (Exalted - The Infernals, 200CP): Demons love their liquor. As water is extremely rare and milk nearly unknown in the demon realm, Hell instead offers a thousand infernal wines, whiskeys, brandies, vodkas and other drinks. Many of them contain other drugs, both natural and supernatural. Some are flat-out toxic to mortals. Still, those Exalts who cultivates an immunity to poison and cast-iron gullet can explore a world of strange intoxicants that range from gut-ripping vileness to soul-shuddering delight. You've gained an understanding on how to create all these brews yourself. How to ferment bone-wine, thanachvil, and gurshant. How to distill liquid emotions and waking dreams derived from Hegra's rains into elixirs. How to bottle the perfect pleasure that is sypax, or the liquid Lethe of final rest elixir... and finally, even the most precious drink in all of Malfeas, chalcanth. chalcanth is the liquefied, distilled essence of a demon. The unfortunate demon is dissolved in pure vitriol while still alive, so that drinking chalcanth is like tasting pure Being to a demon, and grants both Essence and memories to any who drink it. Of course if you'd prefer, it could also be used in forging infernal relics, by far the most common artifacts in hell.
Chalcanth (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): The life force of a demon preserved in vitriol, chalcanth appears as a cupful of vibrant liquid. The color and consistency of any given dose varies with its origin, but the fluid always stirs restlessly of its own accord and issues a faint susurrus, as the demon liquified in its creation still lives. Chalcanth's primary purpose is the creation of infernal relics, but that is not its only use. Many in Malfeas seek it out as an intoxicating source of essence, because if one drinks it they will be energized as the flavors of the demon's mind and soul tumble through the drinker's brain in a synesthetic wash of images and emotions. With one purchase of this, you will gain a cupful of high quality Chalcanth once every five days.
Purest Vitriol (Exalted - The Infernals, 50CP): Passive and reactive in nature, Vitriol was designed by the Primordials to catalyze evolutionary transformation in matter and Essence. But in the millennia since the Primordial War, the Yozis' loathing for their jailers, their captivity, and their own broken natures has permeated the very nature of vitriol, infusing it with their hate. Now, it consumes all that it encounters. The stuff bubbles in open pits laden with the detritus of all that it has dissolved, and these impurities must be removed before the vitriol may be used for magical purposes. With one purchase of this, you will gain a weekly supply of enough pure Vitriol to dissolve a demon in or baptise one relic smaller than a vehicle.
Rest of the perk bundle is coming over chapters four and five, gang.