Her plan had been five years in the making, five long tedious years, that seemed to have lasted far too long, while being all too short for what she needed to do; but she needed to make a move within the next ten years before she began clerical training. That would be when her life would change, and most likely her magical inclination would be brought into full light unless she knew how to mask, or even change, her arcane abilities, which was something that only the highest caliber of spellcasters could accomplish, and even then they were far and few between.
And in the drow life, ten years was only a blink in time; a decade done and past, leading to another year of tumult and strife, with lower Houses falling as if they were pawns in a grand game of politics and death, which, in truth, they were. It was harmful also to the populous in the streets, for with the destructive and tribulant nature of the society about them, as Houses fell, they would surely fall with them, and this was especially distressing since her visit to the Nook five years prior, as the state of disarray and fear she found the people in due to the unpredictable nature of those in the less notable families. Raids hung over them like the noose drawing ever closer to them as Matron Aunerae further squeezed her fist of influence about their necks, until, as they would ultimately do, the people cracked under pressure, offering enough opportunity to strike.
If it were up to Arachne, that being without the further threat of death looming over her, akin to the invisible, but still crippling, fist in which almost everyone was kept under, even those who never touched the near dystopia that was drow society, such as the mindflayer colonies, kingdoms of svirfneblin, as well as mines where the duergar lived, typically near the acid pits a few hundred miles away from Menzoberranzan, the place where one of the first drow rebels had been born, who now lived on the surface, widowed and father to a half-elven child. He had also been gifted with lavender eyes, which was a simple genetic mutation that happened in the birth of one in five hundred drow; and there were millions of them in the Underdark.
When he had escaped, almost a hundred years before the Time of Troubles began, it had caused unrest in his House, leading to its downfall, but it also set things in motion that disrupted a balance in Menzoberranzan, his influence reaching beyond the city's bounds. His name was but a whisper on people's tongues now, a name many feared to utter, but many respected and despised him, there was no in between. His story, and many others after his own, had been something of a novelty to her when she had first learned about it when she was Durdyn's age five years ago, she couldn't comprehend why anyone would want to leave. Come twenty five years later, Arachne had learned to understand, and had even fallen into the same ideals of the escapees of the Underdark, which had led to where she was now, pure and simple.
Arachne was hovering over her window, her piwafwi discarded on her bed, its magical clasp in her hands, while instead she opted for what she had worn to see the Gray Sword Syndicate only five years ago, baggy hood hovering over her face. She even decided to wear her veil to disguise herself as what the lowborn called, "Maidens," who were allegedly agents of different Gods trying to convert the Godless peoples in the streets. While they were largely ignored, they were respected beyond compare, almost considered the only pure people amongst the Houseless.
With her, she had also brought rations and a large waterskin, that hung about her waist, tapping at her outer thigh at the moment of any movement she made, which was an almost comforting rhythm, the soft swishing of the water brought serenity, perhaps even certainty. That was something Arachne was in desperate supply and need for, and she had readily anticipated the despondency that would be brought with her journey alone through the deep and cavernous underground.
For the last time she took in the sulfur smell of the hot springs near the garden, the one thing that had been a normality in the abnormal events in her life. For the last time Arachne rubbed her hands against the rough window panes, one part relatively jagged from when she had been practicing throwing knives, to no avail, as she had been trying to pretend it was her mother after her brother's death by her own hand. And for the last time she accepted her fate. Her only fate; the only safe one.
Holding the ripped off clasp of her piwafwi, she jumped downwards from her window, closing her eyes as she muttered the spell's incantation, once again breathing in her home's air, before feeling the force of magic keep her up in flight. This was leading to one of the more dangerous parts of Arachne's plan, something she felt owed to the person in which she was soaring to before she made her true escape. Departing her own room was nothing compared to what she hoped would not impair her plan.
Willing the magic to move her forward, she made her way to the room adjacent to her own, peeking through the open window, a smile, not suppressed by the fear of death, painted on her face, wide and kind as she watched her brother slumber. The boy was fast asleep, grasping the blankets close to him during his rest, a rogue smile on his face as well, akin to her own, for they were not too different. Durdyn was the reason she had the desire to stay, but with her influence, he may yet find his way out, or perhaps without her influence if it was purged from him, he would become strong. Either way, it was better than dead.
Crawling through the window, she placed a note under his delicate pillow, folded together in a special enchantment taught to her by Cazna's memoir, indicating that only the one addressed in the letter could open it, and, in turn, analyze it properly. But as she moved to turn away, Arachne couldn't bring herself to do it, to leave the boy she had brought up, to no longer see his face, and to no longer feel his soft, untouched, palms.
His face was young and round, one that had always been brought up by very evident dimples whenever he smiled, which had become a rare occurrence as he began more extensive training. Durdyn's eyelashes were black and short, contrary to his growing, and overall long, white hair, yet again a staple of status of drow nobles, which curled slightly at the bottom, indicating his due trim, something that she would also miss. The feeling of the shears in her hands as Arachne held his silky hair in place was nostalgic, and something she would forever miss.
But this glance, a lingering one, had to be her last. She was running short on time.
So turning away for a final time, she muttered a farewell to him before she flew back down his window, and crept her way into the hot springs as she halted her artificial flight, instead relying on her silent, almost nimble, feet against the frigid stone.
Arachne had been sure to deviate from the paved garden path, as that would be inconspicuous, and instead tuck away in the shadows cast by tall plants, statues of Matron Mothers and of Lolth, and even large stalks of vegetation, before she found herself in the hot springs, eerie bubbling slipping into her ears as the azure and orange ombre waters sat undisturbed in the quiet of the darkened cycle. If she hadn't been so certain of everyone's slumber, the reformed heiress would have been led to believe that someone was watching her.
However, paranoia overruled her own staunchness, and Arachne gave one unplanned and discreet look backward, a smile of relief falling onto her features as she saw a hooded figure holding up a silver sigil of a gray iron sword in the center, indicating that her contacts had followed through, and that the Gray Sword Syndicate had sent their help to her. That straightened out a certain wrinkle in her plan, for she would not need to go down into the streets, offering a wider time window.
For, a few weeks prior, Arachne had sent a message by the means of locating Black Powder's operatives, and sending them with her request, but that had been trying enough, and had it not been for a minor misstep of the small svirfneblin who had been watching her, she would not have found her at all. However, due to her remarkable stroke of luck, the drow elf had sent the spy with a message, that being that she intended to leave Abburth, and would like to employ help from the syndicate in exchange for fine gold, gems, and weaponry; but she had not heard back from them, not until she saw the operative behind her.
The two exchanged subtle glances, Arachne still continuing her prowl despite the recognized person trailing behind her, the edge nicked off from her worry, knowing that a skilled warrior was protecting her flank, or at least what she had hoped was a skilled warrior. But, she reminded herself this, and she reminded herself well, that the silhouette of a man was behind her, and drow men under Matron Aunerae would have charged at her, knowing that their Matron would be at their backs.
She instead focused on her surroundings, the almost bioluminescent mushrooms and plants twinkling gently against the steamy backdrop, underground flies buzzing about, offering a consistent, rhythmic, noise. The blue and red hues of the springs in close view contrasted the cooler colors about the surrounding garden, but that field of red, hot, sulfur, would be a field in which both Arachne and her counterpart would be traversing as a shortcut to the streets, where they would part, and the aspiring escapee would begin to travel down a cavern which would lead to her first rest point, her first out of 42 rest points, six weeks of strenuous travel.
And when she and the syndicate member reached the plains of the hot springs, the burning sensation that Arachne, and no doubt her welcomed stalker as well, had become accustomed to had been increased tenfold, almost as if a horde of matches had been collected beside her, and had all been lit, to which then they were doused in water, a pungent fragrance of reminisced burning filling her nostrils. This had been a smell that the drow elf had lived with all her life, but only from a distance, and never before had she been that close to the springs. The only woman who had was her mother, and she had been bathing in the waters since she had gone into power three centuries prior.
If she had not been forced to learn respect for her mother beforehand, her own will would force her to feel as such as she walked across the ground, the torrid stone itself heating up her boots, for every time she stepped her foot down in the slightest way, a small burning sensation was sent down her nerves like small insect legs tickling her flesh. Arachne would be glad to never have that feeling again, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up in worry, the soles of her feet feeling as if they were on fire, and an eerie chill up her spine despite the heat.
And Arachne, continuing to walk, the syndicate member close behind her, was soon hit with refreshing cold air once the barren wasteland had been abandoned, and she had never believed that she would be so happy to see life again in any street, let alone one where many fought for their lives, but here she was, breathing the air that filled her body with energy, something the drow elf tried to hold close, as her despair intensified the farther away she was from her brother.
She hadn't realized it until then, her head almost looking downwards at where her growing brother was meant to be, even though he was tall enough to reach her stomach already, albeit the drow elf wasn't too angular herself, to check on him. But her frown had deepened, but this time of despair instead of Arachne's appropriate staidness, and all she longed to do was to go back, but she knew she had to go on.
And maybe, one day she would come back for him.
Arachne waited for but a moment for the man behind her to reach her side, her lavender eyes reaching the left sides of their confines to give what some would call a subtle glance, and it proved to be quite the good distractor for what had been floating about in her brain beforehand, something to refocus her attention on the task at hand, to assure herself that the decision she was making was right for the circumstance in which she was in. Although the drow elf found no resemblance to any man she knew, it wasn't as if she could see past the shadow that his hood cast over his face, akin to her own.
And had it not been for him to speak first, in deep speech to ensure some form of secrecy, Arachne would have thought that the whole affair would be silent. "Queen of Monsters, Black Powder wished me to gift you supplies when we part, and his best wishes, and I will say this much of my own desired opinion; what you are doing is something that Lady Bug had attempted to do, and she had showed her hand too late in the game, and the Gray Sword Syndicate only hopes that you have showed your hand when you should." They began to walk, but not in the streets themselves, but weaving through alleyways and side roads so as to not be spotted, her own eyes never leaving her guide, for she knew not the ways of the streets of the city, she only knew how to instill fear in them.
"As do I. The waiting game has been trying over the past five years. Your help is much appreciated, ser, although I am sure you had little choice in the matter." Arachne replied in a hushed whisper, which was simple enough, for in the dialect it was a mixed language of muffled sounds, grunts, and the like.
A chuckle reverberated from the hooded man in front of her, "Black Powder gave all of us a choice if we wished to take on the task, and I was the only one, for I am one of the few that don't hold you responsible for the Surface Tiger's demise, for your hand was forced. However, most of my brothers-in-arms believe differently. It was for the best that you only contacted us for this matter and nothing much else."
Arachne shivered at the thought of her blade slicing against Kethan's throat, which had remained to be an unpleasant memory of hers for its gruesome weight, although most of her memories were filled with such things. It was similar to her last memory with Bemril, for it had been her hand that had ended it all for the both of them, but the remaining deaths she witnessed were at the hands of others, those who had been used to the life that they lived, content with the blood on their hands. Her thought process took her across a different path, however, for the two lives she had taken had been two too many, but many of her brethren hungered for more. This was something that she wished to change, but knew she would be unable to.
She sighed, "I understand their thinking, and there was no pride in my veins when I ended his life. Part of me has learned to tell myself that it was more of a mercy; that he would have loathed his new existence in service to my mother. But, in truth, I cannot change what I have done." And when she finished her sentence, the two of them reached the wall of which Abburth ended, its wide obsidian and granite textures plain to see, the spectacles of earthen colors almost intimidating for the account of its beauty.
For Abburth, in all of its glory, was like every drow city, as it was built inside a gaping cavern underground, a trench as some would call it, and it wasn't much of a small trench, either. In fact, one thousand years ago, the city had been larger if not for the fact that a Dracolitch had been set upon them, collapsing what was then the Lower House region, which was rebuilt and brought to become adjacent to the main Houseless quarter of the city itself. But even then, the trench was larger than a dragon, and it still was.
And the true magic of the seemingly empty wall was that of its hidden exits, created long ago when the drow were still fair of skin and could not see completely in the dark as they could now, and Arachne and her counterpart were standing in front of such exit, mapped out to her by Cazna's last gift to her.
She turned to her acquaintance, lowering her hood, long white hair cradled now in the cowl itself. "Whatever it is you wish to give me, now is the time, for I wish to not step foot in this place unless I must, and desire to not dally much longer."
The man before her nodded his head, and from a protruding pouch of cloth on his side, he handed them to her, "These are clothes crafted on the surface world, made for you for our clothes and armor will lose their protective properties in the light of the sun. My best wishes to you."
Arachne took the bundle quite willingly, nodding her head in thanks, a smile ghosting her features. "And mine to you." And they turned away from each other, her form disappearing in the deceptive part of the wall, and the man in the streets once more.
She was finally free.