Grauf had then been sacrificed to the spider-goddess for the good of the priestesses, currying favor as the Matron had in the past with especially worthy sacrifices.
As an archmage though, he'd made other plans.
A cloned body in stasis had been prepared in a hiding place. They had been ready for him to try transferring his essence to a lich or similar container - he wouldn't have been the first to try escaping the knife like that. Similarly a living cloned body was something they checked for before plunging the knife in. It wouldn't do to have a gift to Lolth not actually reach her.
Now he was a powerful mage but in a body that had been fabricated for just such an emergency.
So Grauf (formerly of Redwidow) was a powerful drow male archmage in the body of a golem made entirely of black basalt. A small "failed experiment" of his years ago that he'd shown as proof of his agile experimental mind. Nobody had been particularly impressed with the slender form of the stone golem, though the idea of making a stone golem that could move quickly and silently and hide in shadows had been well received at the time.
So the stone form of Grauf had snuck off before the looting of his laboratory had been completed. The thief that had died in the escape was assumed by all to have accidently set off the golem.
Nobody cared. Another "death by miscalculation" was added to the running score for the daily tallies.
Well, someone cared, actually. Grauf wasn't the most sentimental of folk, though amongst the drow of his city perhaps he was in the top ten - not that anyone would admit belonging to that list. He had actually grieved for a few moments that one of his children had been killed. Even if that particular girl had been nasty, shrewish, demanding, and just as splendid an example of viciousness as the drow usually produced.
There was something else that Grauf had noticed as he occasionally prowled the city after his death.
The drow were evil. Evil was a mainstay of the universe. He had no trouble with it - survival of the fittest and all that. If he'd heard the term before, he would have described it as evolution. The drow and their city were constantly trying to better themselves, the nastiest clawed their way to the top, and only those truly fit stayed there any length of time. It was the way of life.
The problem was that the drow had settled into infighting. While the species had betrayed him, killed him, and had in no way made his life pleasurable - it was the species of his birth.
Sentimentality.
After much thinking on the subject, Grauf had come to a simple conclusion. Left to itself and Lolth's directions, the drow would slaughter themselves in trying to attain their dominancy over themselves. What was needed was another path. The solutions were simple:
1) War could make the drow strong again, if they had an enemy truly threatening and powerful enough to stand against them. It was their pride and self-confidence that made the drow turn against each other, for where was the enemy that could challenge them?The problem that Grauf saw there was the finding of a threat that could challenge the mighty drow. (Grauf had a bit of racial pride himself.) Aboleth - not enough number and they tended towards the deeper and moister caverns. It might be possible to flood the Underdark and provide them access to caverns above, but that would produce other problems. Goblinkin - neither powerful enough nor organized enough. Deep Gnomes, Deep Dwarves - both races had some measure of skill and power, but they fell far short of what was needed. Mind Flayers - might work but they had their own problems and were not the easiest group to manipulate. Surface races - not powerful enough, though there were exceptional individuals.
Likewise the demon races might form a suitable army to challenge the drow, getting their attention away from the Blood War would not be easy.
2) A complete change of pace. Something to threaten and challenge them but in a less open conflict.
3) A complete lifestyle change.
He was naturally most inclined to go with some sort of war. Who could the drow fight that wouldn't be a pushover? With their level of magic, summoned demonic allies, and the power of their patron goddess even the surface elves wouldn't last more than a decade.
Matron Redwidow had lost two more sacrifices, which to Grauf had indicated that his former House was on the skids. With the other escaped slaves, the total was closer to twenty.
While ruminating on this, Grauf had an epiphany.
The drow, particularly of his original House, had become decadent and it was only a matter of time before their strength began to fade. If the bickering grew too entrenched, they wouldn't even respond to an outside menace by uniting.
The black basalt body quickly slew three soldier women as they passed nearby, and divested them of equipment that could be used elsewhere. Then he animated the three as zombies with orders to continue marching as far as they could, setting them on a tunnel towards the surface.
The two who had escaped with the human, a minor mage/cleric and a warrior/thief. Not much to start with.
He'd watched in silence as a Retriever had been summoned and put on their trail, and he'd watched as the Retriever vanished.
He couldn't figure out where the human had taken the two girls, but he could certainly watch the path taken by the Retriever.
And if the Retriever returned defeated, perhaps he'd have the Enemy who could challenge the Drow.
"Fire SOUL!" Flames stabbed out at the spider-being and seemed to hit some barrier about two feet away.
"Look out!" Jupiter grabbed Mars in a sideways leap as eyebeams stabbed out. They touched a brick wall which then turned brittle and crystalline.
"Watch out for the eyebeams, they tranmute substances," called out Sailor Mercury.
The Retriever didn't like this. Mages of some kind coming out of nowhere. Yes, it had anticipated magical attacks and had cast protections, but it had been given a task by a particularly unforgiving individual and this was taking entirely too long. That one seemed to be a commander, so...
Mercury looked up from her computer in time to see a spray of white before it covered her.
"It's cocooning Mercury!" declared Jupiter. "Try this! Jupiter Thunder Crash!"
Lightning snapped out, and arced over to hit a girl in an orange skirt.
"Oopsie," said Jupiter.
Eyebeams stabbed out at the tall girl. In an eyeblink she seemed to become a golden statue. The statue cracked a moment later to reveal that her Senshi transformation had protected her, but she'd gotten very little air while imprisoned.
"Jupiter! Venus! Mercury! Rrrrr," growled Sailor Mars. "I'll get you for that! Akuryo Taisan!"
THIS the Retriever leapt away from, cursing in a high speed chitter. The protective spells had had to be modified for its spell resistance not to dissipate - and these odd magical attacks seemed to be randomly affected by those protective spells. That attack had been with spirit wards, which could potentially do some serious damage unlike the fire spells.
"I can't get a clear shot," yelped Sailor Moon as she yanked at an arm trapped by a loop of webbing.
"(Do you see that, Sanri?)"
"(It's a Retriever, Unri! My spells won't affect it and only magic weapons can hurt it.)"
All the fighting outside had drawn the inhabitants out.
"EEEK!" said Kasumi, not particularly liking spiders in the first place. Especially the giant, venom-dripping, fighting magical girls kind.
Nabiki managed to get a few pictures because she absolutely refused to consider what she was looking at. She'd panic later, thank you very much.
P-chan arrived, saw the fight going on, and started frantically looking for some hot water. This ended up taking him back to the Furinkan High School Gymnasium again, but his heart was in the right place.
"Aiyah!" Shampoo saw a giant bug and put the bonbori away. Swords were a lot quicker.
Ranma felt like pointing and exclaiming to the world. See! He was right! Monsters! Even when he brought elves back he could tell that the Tendo family was skeptical when he'd mentioned them earlier. Though this one was uglier even than the last group.
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(Posted Sun, 07 Sep 2003 13:27)
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