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Deciding that he had torred so near, Pharaun s hispii,then continued to examine the Araumycos
As Ryld joined him, the wizard , eh?"
"You shouldn&039;t taunt her," Ryld us and reaching for his short sword "All you&039;re going to do is cause us anguish later"
He took an experiroay from the main body It fell to the floor at his feet, and he bent to pick it up, but it was already beginning to blacken and decay
"Oh, I think you mean &039; a small vial of acid fro the contents on the surface of the fungus "I&039;ll be inundated with enough anguish for the lot of us before we ever reach Ched Nasad, I fear"
Where the liquid coated the growth, the fungus began to sizzle and blacken
Ryld paused and cast a glance over at his friend The warrior looked taken aback Despite their many years of friendship, Pharaun knew that even Ryld still occasionally found the wizard&039;s behavior uncouth
It&039;s the price I pay forpersonality and clever wit, Pharaun told himself wryly
He watched as a reasonably sized hole was eaten through the fungus There was only us beyond it
"We could try to hack or burn our way through this stuff forever," Ryld grue to a point directly beneath where Valas had ascended "There&039;s no telling how deep or how thick it is"
"True, but it&039;s fascinating, nonetheless Thus far, I have discovered that it can be daardless, the pieces I remove simply dissolve into a dark, decayed mass Remarkable! I wonder if - "
"I certainly hope you don&039;tall of your potent wizardly forces on this thing," Ryld asked, glancing back at the still-darkened curtain of ic behind them "We may need your tricks far more desperately in aco a piece of rosy stone back into a pocket
"With o around for everyone, even our chare hunk of fungus hit the floor of the cavern at Ryld&039;s feet, already in the process of blackening Ryld took a single step back, out of the line of fire, as several
"It would appear that Valas is cutting his way through to so up to where the scout had, until recently, been visible "I wonder if he&039;s just experiress"
The wizard craned his neck, trying to get a clearer view
"There&039;s a way through up here," Valas said, reappearing in full "Coo," Pharaun said, turning to the rest of the group He directed Quenthel and Faeryl upward, pointing to where the scout was visible "We only have a few more moments before loth began floating upward, able to ascend through the nias One by one, they disappeared through soically rise up hilad he was that they were not turning back to fight more of the tanarukks
Aliisza ses tremble and lie still The black tentacles that had destroyed the new to latch onto The alu-fiend was careful to stay out of reach of the grasping black appendages, though she knew that she could have reically, if necessary In fact, she could have intervened and dises, but she had decided against it, and it wasn&039;t because she feared to waste the spell She was
Aliisza knew that the dark elves and their demon would bethe passage through which she and her squad of tanarukks had followed the drow, knowing that at least two of theh they were running, Aliisza doubted the droere there for any reason related to Kaanyr Vhok
The alu wasted no ti to the point at which she had set out with only the single squad, rejoining the larger force of which they had been a part, the force she coher halls," she announced to thea new route "We will cut them off at Blacktooth Rock Do not tarry They rumble, the horde of humanoids set off, and it didn&039;t take thereat intersection known to the Scourged Legion as Blacktooth Rock It was a large, es connected, and Aliisza wasn&039;t even sure what the dwarves who&039;d cut the chamber once used it for Much of it had been filled with the fungus colony the stoutfolk called Araues there, however, that patrols of the Scourged Legion passed through frequently, and she knew that unless they utilized soe the drow had taken to escape would ultimately lead the what she would do upon confronting the drohen her sent of the hu another route
"What are you doing here?" she asked the sergeant, though she was actually glad for the reinforcened you to the Colu fro speciood head taller than any of his fellows, his speech thick due to his proray dwarves was spotted h the south part of Ammarindar, and a second patrol, one that had been stationed farther to the north and east, has completely disappeared"
"By the Abyss," Aliisza whispered "What is going on?" She considered for a moment, then issued orders for a small squad of tanarukks to return to Vhok&039;s palace to report the nehile she and the remainder of the force continued to pursue the drow
They know so about all this, she told herself as they set out, and I&039;er ju the group&039;s back trail, so he showed no reaction when the warrior suddenly roup&039;s midst Splitter was still sheathed across the there&039;s back, so Pharaun knew that they were in no ier Nonetheless, he paid careful attention as his old friend began to convey a report to Quenthel in the silent hand language of the drow
Our pursuers are on our trail again,the burly warrior signaledSeveral squads, all closing the gap
The snake heads hissed, echoing their mistress&039;s irritation at this news before Quenthel quieted the before we are overtaken?she responded
In the darkness, Pharaun saw Ryld shrugPerhaps ten minutes, no more
Quenthel replied,We er Besides, Valas has notyet returned Figure out which way he went
She gestured at the intersection Ryld nodded and moved to examine the walls near the three-way tunnel If Valas had left son of the direction he&039;d taken, Ryld would find it, and they could continue
Pharaun sighed, regretting ever having suggested they coh the domain of Kaanyr Vhok had been a risky choice, but one that Quenthel had finally insisted on, preferring speed over safety So, the group s of an evensince wiped out
Pharaun knew that Kaanyr Vhok had laid claiate Keep, which stood somewhere overhead in the World Above Vhok, a marquis cambion demon, was an intensely unpleasant host, as Pharaun recalled Most caravans generally avoided his little patch of the Underdark, so the passages they traversed had been little traveled, which Pharaun had hoped would helpas surreptitiously as possible, the tea the attention of Vhok&039;s minions, and several of the ca theh the Araumycos would have thrown the tanarukks off, but he realized that they - or rather, the she-fiend, he supposed - knew exactly where the expedition was headed, even if they the to outflank theion and beyond Vhok&039;s reach The question was, could they stay ahead of the patrols this time?
The Menzoberranyr couldn&039;t afford to have to deal with the de attention to thereat races of the Underdark was para to be no easyto be easy, he was certain There was risk in every move, just like on thesava board
In its oay, Quenthel&039;s decision to relieve the group of extra baggage - and baggage bearers - had been fortuitous They could set a faster pace without all the extras the high priestesses had initially insisted they bring along The led between the notion of setting a faster pace and being sick to death of carrying a load thatPharaun suspected they could have gotten by with even less, and Quenthelmore unnecessary provisions, before they reached the City of Webs If they found theht with Vhok&039;s hordes, it ht be sooner rather than later
Al short, Valas appeared, followed by Ryld and Jeggred The drow scout trotted into the intersection and hunkered down against one wall of the passage, absently fingering one of the many outlandish trinkets that adorned his vest
As Pharaun and Quenthel nals
Our route takes us into a large chae fronaled ius, but it doesn&039;t block our path this time We&039;re alo,Quenthel repliedI&039;ain The passages through which the scout led theain wide and smooth, cut from the rock of the Underdark by skilled dwarf hands They seeo, as Faeryl co to look familiar to her With any luck, they would be out of Kaanyr Vhok&039;s doions in short order Quenthel seemed content this time to let Valas and Ryld interpret the ancient Dethek runes inscribed on the thoroughfares of the long-abandoned dwarven city and go where they suggested, for which Pharaun was intensely grateful The sooner they reached the comforts of Ched Nasad, the better he&039;d feel, at least physically
The estion to Quenthel, proposing to her that they enter the city discreetly He wouldn&039;t put it past the high priestess to want to stroll in with banners unfurled and demand to see the most powerful representatives of the noble Houses, just so she could tell the as hers, Ched Nasad be damned He had to think of a way to convince her to s her pride and do the s, instead It would be so much better for all of them if they didn&039;t attract a lot of attention to themselves, at least not in the city streets
Besides, Pharaun thought, why do I want to be the guests of a bunch more matron mothers? An inn, especially a particularly splendid inn, would be
The trick, he realized, was in how to go about convincing Quenthel Trying toout a good, subtle way to plant the seed was tricky where the high priestess was concerned She&039;d already shown that she was difficult to maneuver
Push a little too hard, and she&039;d slap you down just because you were a h, and she&039;d be too busy being in a foul te in front of her face Pharaun could think of a nuu to trick her into doing it his way, but again, with Quenthel, he knew he could argue until he was out of breath, and she ht still refuse
Pharaun suddenly realized that the passageway had begun to ascend, and fairly steeply, too He glanced up and saw the others laboring to reach the top of the rise As they crested the ridge, they drew to a halt, and Faeryl said so softly as she pointed into the distance The wizard wondered what they had spotted He quickened his own step, and when he caught up with thereeted hi frorand, but us He shook his head, more iroas a single living organise could determine That this was a different part of the sao was astonishing, but knowing that what he had seen, at least to this point, was still only a tiny part of the whole thing made his head swim
The chamber itself was natural, with a e fang just beginning to bite into the fungus, being thewas also in abundance The drow had entered at a point fairly high along the exposed wall of the cavern, the passage ee that overlooked the floor A large raons side by side, descended fro into a series of switchbacks that crisscrossed down the side of the cavern below the ledge until it reached the floor There, a s the floor where other roads shot off toto anumber of tunnels In many cases, the pathways sius
To Pharaun&039;s eye, the whole place could have been a tiny city, similar to a portion of Menzoberranzan, except for two notable differences First, the architecture was obviously and repulsively dwarven, all thick and blocky and dull to the eye Second was the dilow froave the whole chalow In Menzoberranzan, the city&039;s velvety was blackness was broken by rich, luxurious hues of violet, green, and a Here, everything was visible, glowing froht that illu had any color
The dark elf wizard ed to sit atop the balconies of the Academy and look out over the city He yearned for even the si the hours of the day and night In the wilds, Pharaun had discovered that without the fareat clock in the City of Spiders he was losing all track of ti its passage For a brief moain, and he felt a touch of - of what? Sadness? Was that what sadness felt like? It was odd, and the e determined to shake it off
What you need is a nice, hot, oiled bath, Mizzrym, followed by a deepstroke perfor in your step in no tihtened up and turned his attention to his co the ramp and had reached the first switchback Froe point, the di the master of Sorcere a better sense of the scale of the chared, and Ryld, h the air to the next section of the path and were about halfway down, dropping in a loose cluster Pharaun chuckled, wondering how the Mistress of the Acadee
Well, Pharaun thought, that oil bath is waiting for you
He took two steps toward the edge of the balcony to follow the high priestess and the others, when he felt rather than heard a disturbance behind him