Darthirâe Zhalberen

[SteveMaurer]

Day 1 - The Inauspicious beginning

I exited the barn and walked straight to civilization.   It was hard to miss.  A great fortified city lay before me.   And beyond it, the sea.

The sea!  Its size was unfathomable.  I could hardly believe such an expanse of water could exist anywhere but on its elemental plane, but there it was, in the distance.   And so I walked towards it.

When I arrived, I was relatively pleased with myself.  I had managed to live an entire hour with the wrath of both Qualvarsharess and the Lord of Spiders upon me.    Deep inside I had not truly expected such success.

Of course it was still sun-up.

There were two guards at the gate, and a sign.  It said orcs, half-orcs (by which, I am sure it meant half-humans), and kobolds were not allowed in the city.  They would be warned once, then killed on return.  The chosen ones, "dark elves", were to be killed on sight.  I walked through the gate unmolested.   I am glad for my body paint.    I am disguised as pink now as I was disguised black then.    Truly in this condition, I don't think my own slaves would recognize me.

Of course I should stop thinking of such things.  I have no slaves now, nor any other possession save that which I carry.

So.  The city.  Port Hampstead.   I was doubly glad for the sign.  It occurs to me it would have been terribly suspicious to go asking, "What is the name of this city?".   Beings of light are foolishly trusting, but such a question would arouse suspicion, even for them, I would think.    I walked the place trying to learn it.   Could, disguised, I pass myself off as a native?   The truth dawned on me that it was quite possible.    This was a human city, and humans were indeed, as it has been said, the "people of water" - mixing well with everything.   Not just their bodies, human/elf and human/orc mixtures, but mixing culturally.   On my walk I must have seen nearly every race I once forced to fight to the death in the Arena, except here they were alive and happy.

Was I safe?   I did not know.   But there was a park and some benches.   The guard did not even blink when I laid out on one.   I was exhausted and did not even know it.

I broke from my trance in the evening to the sight of stars, walked to the docks and gazed out at the great expanse of sea.   After an hour of staring, I realized I needed to do something.   I was thirsty and drank from my canteen.  I knew hunger would not soon follow after, so I purchased some hard tack from a merchantman.   This led me to realize that I needed to plan what to do next.    I had money.   But it would not last forever.

I miss my bedroom.  My bath.   My goblin slave Teva, who kept my secrets so well.   I treated her kindly, I think.   I miss my father.   And mother.

It is weak to sit around pitying yourself.  Time to do something.   Make a name.    So I wandered the rest of the city taking in the sights.  It was suspiciously empty.   Soon I found out why.   From a human named Ferit Pandorn, I found that an invasion was expected.   Green Dragon Cultists, whatever that was.   Many had clearly decided to leave.

At daybreak, I found something interesting: a woman complaining about something clogging the sewers.  And rats.   She promised a reward if I killed the former.    It did not matter to me.   More than the coin, I needed practice using spells for violence and death.  Target practice.   It would hone my skills.

So I summoned Silence, my most beautiful familiar.   Sleek and black and deadly, she prowled about.   A large cat to hunt mice.   Or so I thought.

In truth, I was lucky to get out alive.   Silence could kill a rat or two, but she was no match for many of them in numbers.   And they attacked rather than ran away.    When she was disembodied, I felt the shock to my very soul.   It dazed me for a moment, and then I realized they were after me.   I ran for the door and barely made it.   But a rat came through and chased me around the docks as the rest of the onlookers just stared.       I tried to pull out my crossbow, but it had disappeared, right under the nose of the guard.   Magiced away.

Panicked, I cast a spell, and holding it in my mind was able to focus to kill the thing, even as it bit my leg.   Fortunately, it died and I did not.

Not exactly the auspicious beginning I expected of myself, but I was alive.   That would have been most embarrassing: the end of my story before it had truly begun.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Coddling The Weak

I am not sure I will ever get used to how alien the surface is.  Not just the blinding sun, but its people.

After my ignominious retreat from the sewers, I left to find a merchant of bandages.   The blood already dried on my wound, but I decided it would be prudent to have some just in case this was not my last experience with being blooded.   It was there I chanced upon a human.  Rather than ignoring me, he greeted me directly, and inquired as to my health.

Disturbed as to the purpose of his questioning, I could think of no reason not to answer honestly.   And from this, he decided to help me.

I asked what the price would be for this help, but he declined any recompense.  I almost felt insulted, but then realized that this act was not ill intended on his part.  He was not gloating, bragging of his superiority over me, wishing to make me feel worthless, but honestly going out of his way to help an absolute stranger.   This is the way of the darthir, after my mother named me.   But still it was... how should I put this?   I suppose just a culture shock.   One can read about this kind of behavior in a book.  But it is entirely different to see it directly.     I walked behind him, flabbergasted.

He met a woman.   They embraced with hugs, and I mistook them for lovers.  But no.  She was merely a priestess of Ilsare, this Ranèwin.  Ilsare, one of the hated betrayers of Qualsharveress.   Not that I care.   The goddess of darkness betrays her own people, so I care little for her quarrels anymore.  She can burn in the sun, for all I care.

The woman Ranèwin, decided to aid me in my new job of dung-pipe cleaner, for no purpose I could discern.   And this time, I accepted the aid readily.  But I don't think I will ever get used to it.   It is not intended as an insult, this pointing out of my weakness.

And I must admit I am weak.

Protected by spells of mighty power, derived from both nature and the gods, Silence became the panther she was supposed to be.  She chased the rats through the sewers, readily mauling them, turning them over with a deft slap of her paws, and biting their throats, until squeaking and moaning each finally grew limp, and expired with a final frothy blooded breath.   I eyed my... companion? ... yes the word to be used is "companion" for she desired to be neither my master nor servant...  she seemed unperturbed by this, and said simply that she liked cats.

Clearly, the massacre of these rats did not concern her.   What massacres would she prevent?   I wonder how she would feel about a massacre of orcs.  Or half-human orcs.  Or humans.   Where did she draw the line to start coddling the weak against the strong, interfering with nature? I did not know.

Then it struck me like a blow to my gut.   I was the one being coddled here.

I am not sure I will ever get used to how alien the surface is.

After all was done, I thanked her.   For my own pride, I promised her a future favor.   I am not sure how I will ever repay it, but there is some exchange in it at least.
I am not worthless.   To survive, I must believe that.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Counting By Days

It has been, since my last entry, another 342 bells since I last wrote.   Well, approximately.   It's hard to tell here.   I calculated that last mathematically, multiplying days to get bells.

I remember watching the high-slaves in the arena temple refectory performing the time chore: turning over the timeglass and pealing out the corresponding bells.   But it is entirely different on the surface.   Everyone knows the surface lives its life by days.   Their warriors even time their attacks by it, which always seemed odd to me, since we knew when they were going to attack.

Yet now I do understand their predictability.   The sun comes and goes, swinging through the sky like a blinding oversize hypnotic charm.   The rhythm of the thing just seeps into you.   Even the surface animals and plants live their lives by it.   How could they not?   Yet it lacks a preciseness that I am simply not used to.   People measure by quarters.  Sun up, Sun High, Sun down, and "Midnight", which is the approximate opposite of Sun High.

Measurement of distances is also problematic.   I keep forgetting that there is simply no word for "up-ways" and "down-ways" in common surface tongue.   You say, "the distance is 200 miles" without indicating whether it is an up mile, a down mile, or a flat mile.   This two-dimensionality of thinking is always present, even though there are plenty of terrain features, such as mountains and valleys, that would make it convenient to know.

What I do know is this: the distance between Port Hempstead and Dapplegreen is, by Dark Elven reckoning, 700 flatmiles.   By both jogging, and weaving as I rest each Sun Up as many spells of Quickrun as I can tension, I believe I can make the journey in just a touch over 17 days.   This is faster than all but the messengers who change horses every 30 flatmiles, and overwhelmingly fast compared to the merchant wagons who take two months to make the trip.   Just practicing in the Hempstead peninsula, I have outrun bandits, who I think expect me to be disoriented at night.

I must say that Quickrun, or as I've heard it amusingly called here, "Expeditious Retreat", is perhaps the most useful spell I've learned, even though it kills nothing - directly or indirectly.   I try not to say this with too much disgust, but it is a profoundly blessed-good world we live in.

Or mostly.  I have learned more information about the invasion.   The coasts have been ordered evacuated.    I have also decided to try attend the battle.   I cannot help but think that it would be interesting to watch, so I might practice my generalship.   I shall pretend to myself that all the warriors fighting are under my leadership, though of course none are.

I also strongly suspect that this Dragon Cult is not actually invading to conquer.  The defenses of this place seem too built up, on account of war with some other City of Dark Chosen I am unfamiliar with.  It is too big a risk, unless they have overwhelming hidden power.  And even then, this place seems not worth the bother.  So I feel there must be another purpose.   Perhaps a diversion to pull the defenders away from their real objective?   I have heard of a bloodpool around here.  Maybe it is that.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Spinning Towards Chaos

It is time for me to speak of the Dragon in the room no one ever wants to talk about: Layonara is in terrible peril.

But let me back up, dear posterity, and start at the beginning.

Studying cosmology in my Father's libraries, I found myself wondering about the Gods.   Yes, yes, it's sacrilegious to even talk about such things, but still, imagine the Gods as not so greatly above us, but instead merely creatures of the world.   What could one conclude about them?    More importantly, as everyone knows the Gods have set themselves against one another, what are the major points of contention?

And even more important than that, which God is winning?

Let us first draw the stakes.   There are Gods of Light and Shadow, the Surface and the Deep, or as they are called in the common surface tongue, "Good" and "Evil".    I set aside the question for the moment of what these things mean in a magical context.   Books I have read do not seem to be in agreement on the subject.   But the basic ideologies can be distinguished, at least generally.   Light means Altruism: the willingness to aid others for no particular purpose.  This can be good, for instance aiding a companion who will later aid you, or bad, aiding the inferior creature that, if allowed to breed, would cause their species to weaken.    Darkness means Predation: benefiting yourself at the expense of others.  This also can be good or bad, depending on whether you are culling the weak to make room for the strong in the ranks of your enemies, or engaging in destruction for destruction's sake alone.

So how to the Gods rank on this scale?   While one can quibble around the edges, I would put the basic outline as thus:

Champion of Altruism: Ilsare - Love
Very Altruistic: Lucinda - Positive magical energy, Az'atta - Alteration of Allegiance, Prunila - Fertility, Toran - Light based "Justice"
Somewhat Altruistic: Deliar - Changing of Wealth, Goran - Inventions,  Aeridin - Naturalism, Shindaleria - Oceans, Beryl - Gnomes and Gems, Folian S'pae - Wolfpacks, Vorax - Wars of "Justice"
Altruistic and Predatory: Aragen - Knowledge, Katia - Nature, Kithairien - Feral Thinking, Mist - Tempests, Shadon - Caprice, Xeen - Debauchery, Grannoch - Giants, Rofirein - Law/Order
Somewhat Predatory: Dorand - Dwarven Racism, Hypocrisy, and Smithery, Grand - Orcish Racism and Smithery, Sulterio - Deep Dwarven Racism and Smithery
Very Predatory: Baeron Ca'Duz - Hate, Qualsharveress - Darkness, Branderback - Sadism and Theft, Prytechon - Destruction and Dissolution
Champion of Predation: Corath - Insanity

As you can see, this is fairly balanced, although not necessarily by race.  The majority of Elves, other than my people, tend to Altruism.  Dwarves tend towards Predation, though because they are at least somewhat Orderly, and keep their word, they are accepted often by surface races.   But in the battle of Ilsare against Corath, Ilsare might be winning slightly, but in general all is well matched.  

Yet there is another way to view the Gods that illuminates the terrible danger Layonara is in.   And this scale is that of Order against Entropy.  Let us once again rank the Gods, as I did before.

Champion of Order: Rofirein - Law/Order
Very Orderly:
Somewhat Orderly: Vorax - Wars of "Justice", Sulterio - Deep Dwarven Racism and Smithery, Toran - Light based "Justice"
Orderly and Entropic: Aragen - Knowledge, Katia - Nature, Grannoch - Giants, Lucinda - Positive magical energy, Baeron Ca'Duz - Hate, Qualsharveress - Darkness, Beryl - Gnomes and Gems, Folian S'pae - Wolfpacks, Aeridin - Naturalism, Shindaleria - Oceans, Dorand - Dwarven Racism, Hypocrisy, and Smithery
Somewhat Entropic: Goran - Inventions,  Deliar -  Changing of Wealth, Prunila - Fertility
Very Entropic: Az'atta - Alteration of Allegiance, Branderback - Sadism and Theft, Corath - Insanity, Ilsare - Love, Kithairien - Feral Thinking, Mist - Tempests, Shadon - Caprice, Xeen - Debauchery, Grand - Orcish Racism and Smithery
Champion of Disorder: Prytechon - Destruction and Dissolution

Do you see the unbalance?   In the war between the Dragons, Prytechon, whose ultimate goal is the dissolution of all Layonara is winning.  He is doing so by making use of Gods, many of whom pretend to themselves to be his enemy.   Yet most have set themselves against his true enemy: Rofirein, who is bereft of allies except for a couple of crazy Dwarves.  

And the result of this can be seen in the very foundation of Layonara.  Many people carry Orbs of Remembrance, not to remember anything, but to bring enough Order to a specific place of Layonara that it does not dissolve into chaos.   The world sometimes stutters.   We don't talk of it, but everyone has experienced it at some point.   And there are oddities of one person seeing one thing, a different another, not due to Al'Noth but because the world is so Entropic it sometimes cannot decide what is truly real.

I go so far as to declare my belief that if Roferin ever left Layonara, it is quite possible everything would dissolve, as Pyrtechon has always intended.  This is the true danger to Layonara.  Not the endless debate over which race is the "Good" one and which is the "Bad".    Nor the destruction of some great triumph of Predation, as surface races worry about.   Instead, if Layonara dies, it will be like this:  first confusion, then stuttering of the world, and finally simple non-existence, good and evil, Gods, kings, and commoners alike.   We shall all be as if we never were.

Of course, actually doing anything about this state of affairs among the Gods may well be beyond mortal ken.   But for me, at least, it means that no matter what my other affairs or disagreements with "Paladins" of Roferein, I shall always show deference to them, and support his church, at least economically.

For as that Dragon goes, so goes Layonara.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Chaos and Undying

These are perhaps the strangest words I will ever expect to utter: I might have died last night.   I do not know.

I am truly not certain what happened.   I was walking upon one of the interminable stretches of road it takes to get from one place to another on this blasted continent when the world began to stutter.

I am sure, posterity, that you are perfectly aware of the effect I am describing.   People call this "the Gods warring" and other excuses, though as I have written before, I do not believe it is the warring of Gods but rather the effects of Chaos, as Pyrtecon plays out his endgame of dissolving Layonara.  But I leave the cosmological philosophizing, since I have already written about it earlier.

I was walking on the road and suddenly everything stopped.    Determined to make time to my destination, instead of making camp or pausing and meditating with my Orb of Remembrance, I simply tried to move forward along the road.    But because the world was stopped, nothing happened for quite some time.

Then it did.   The road had turned, but I had not, and suddenly I found myself near a camp of Orgres.    Being wild and not broken to the whip, the things immediately moved towards me.  The look on their face was unmistakable: elven dinner.  I tried to run then.  I think with my spell of Quickrun I could have left them easily.   But just then, the world stuttered again.

When it stopped, I felt pain coming from nowhere.   There was a flash of an Ogre atop me.   I could cast no spells.  The world stuttered again.

Then I dreamt I was was in a place of darkness.    So dreaming, I slept.

....and woke in Port Hempstead, several hundreds of miles away.

Looking back on this experience,  I find two quite unlikely explanations.  The first, the Ogres knocked me out, but just then (perhaps due to the world stuttering), some unknown champion came and killed them all, and then, not wishing to disturb my slumber, brought me back the the Port.     The second is that my soul has been bound to a Soulstone.

Funny, I do not recall ever doing that.

Or perhaps there is a third: due to the Chaos of the world, my death had not been properly registered.   In other words, just as we all sometimes lose things we have all just picked up while the world stutters, the Soul Mother may have thought she claimed me, only to find me not there when she looked.   Prytechon assaults Time itself, and this could also be what saved me.   I never even walked that road.

I have met a human Wizard named Timulty Keel.   He believes I did die and was brought back.   He thinks I was returned because I am a champion, of some sorts.  I have no idea, but do not intend to repeat this experience if I can help it.

But I do not know if I CAN help it.  Or anyone else for that matter, no matter how powerful they be.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - The Graciousness of Evil

One of the things I have found most surprising in this surface-adventure I've been having is how well received I've been.    I greet people and they immediately start smiling at me!    Most odd.

Lest you think, in case you are not me, dear Deeptongue reader of my diary, that this is just the way of all surface races, let me disabuse you of the notion.  People speak to each other here the same way that orcs do.    Indeed, I was certain more than half a dozen times that a fight was about to break out.   But nothing ever does.   They just glare at each other for a moment and then do nothing.   Ever.

Indeed, some of the worst behavior I've seen has come from Paladins of Toran.   Things that earn needless enmity seem to come from their mouths quite often.   It is so bad that I have met people who have confessed to me that they often avoid speaking to Paladins, despite their being allies.   These are people they may risk their own lives saving.   Yet despite this, they simply don't like them!

My routine courtesy is seen as something extraordinary, which accounts, I believe, for much of my reception.

And here I think I have found the paradox.   The reason people are so rude to one another on the surface is because they feel safe doing so.  After giving deliberate offense, they do not expect those they have insulted to go do something that might teach them manners: destroying one of their homes, poisoning one of their servants, crippling their child, or any one of a number of less subtle ways of sending a message of displeasure.    When you live among people who naturally do not seek vengeance, one can give offense without the tiniest thought as to what the consequence might be.

And so therefore, many people on the side of so-called "good" are naturally rude, boorish, ill spoken, and otherwise entirely offensive.

I must say that "evil" creatures can also be insulting.   But we never do it unthinkingly.   We only do it for specific purposes: to establish dominance, or when dealing with underlings.   One is never anything but extremely courteous to those one wishes not to offend, such as any who could make our lives difficult.

I wonder if this is one reason why surfacers are so poor at infiltrating Dark Elven cities, while we have plenty who disguise themselves here.   I never bothered to find out, but I suspect it isn't the disguise that is penetrated, but the inappropriate rudeness, the lack of knowledge of the position of the person one is addressing while speaking, that gives them away.   Imagine a visitor failing to curtsy before asking a stranger to go out of their way to answer a question, or worse - being asked as if one was a servant!

But the observation stands.   Now that I am aware of it, the differences in culture should be a useful means to detect spies.  Anyone who coveres their face and is too courteous may very well be a Qualsharveressian or Ca'Duzian assassin.

Rude arrogant idiots?   Probably surfacers.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Dress for (Un)Death

If you had told me three months ago, that I would be attending a party of any kind, much less one extended specifically, by invitation only, to only the most dread of all Layonara's horrors, I would have never believed you.

And yet, I was.  For somehow I have become one of those horrors myself: a Dragoncalled.

I have no idea how this came to be.  I suspect it may have had something to do with my oath to save my people, but still, the cold of undeath, as one is after having been pulled to a Bindstone, is not something one ever gets used to.   And I can no longer fool myself into believing this has not happened to me.  I woke up several weeks ago, and almost by accident, touched a child in Port Hempstead.  When I did, I found him burning hot, while he flinched away from my ice cold flesh, and ran to his gnomish mother screaming.

The party itself was a pageant of ironies, not the least of which being that it was styled a masquerade with the theme, Dress Like a Demon.    I honestly do not believe it occurred to any of the attendees other than myself, that the Dragoncalled are far more feared, by most, than demons are.   You can see this, if your eyes are open to it, by the furtive looks you get from peasants, though of course they say nothing.

And discomfort they're entitled to, for Angels of both Mercy and Strife at least have the common courtesy to stay dead if you ever somehow manage to defeat them.    But even a full and complete Rift in Al'Noth does not have any effect on the Dragoncalled's ability to return to their Bindstones.  Almost nothing does, except the Soul Mother herself, and yet even that hold is tenuous at best.

Indeed, father, who dealt with devils and demons on a routine basis, always feared the Dragoncalled, this strange alive-undead I have become.   I still remember his advice ringing in my ears: "Don't kill a Dragoncalled. You'll only make them madder."

And yet here at this party, the Dragoncalled were taking on forms they considered at least moderately frightening.  (Though in truth, the only thing they really fear is the Soul Mother.)  There were demons, a pretty succubus, an Angel of Order, one of Light, a blue tiefling (a tribute to Lord S----), and Lord S---- himself, handsomely dressed up.   And myself, of course.

If you had told me three months ago, that I would ever in my life dress as I did that night, I am certain I would have never believed you.   My costume was called "daring".  They had no idea.  In fact, I cannot imagine a single place anywhere, other than that room, where such clothing would not have invited immediate attack from any who saw me.

It was not merely that I darkened my skin to once again look as I have nearly all my life.  It is that I came dressed as Az'atta.

Not, of course, the Az'atta that surfacers know as the "Goddess of Redemption".  No, I came as she had been for most of her life: unredeemed - in the clawsuit and colors of a High Priestess of Baeron Ca'Duz.  This history of Az'atta isn't well known.  I don't think even her cult dwells on it: how at Ca'Duz's bidding, she killed the child-god Aragen.  And how Aragen, instead of anger, curiously found a white thread running through the dark cloak of her soul.  And how his pull of self-knowledge caused her to betray everyone she ever knew and everything she ever believed in.

Surfacers outside that room would have tried to kill me for being a Dark Elf.  Ca'Duzites would immediately recognize my profound mockery of his inability to discover Az'atta's treachery, and likely be so enraged they would not even plot before they attacked.  The Qualsharvessen would likely laugh at my taunt, but immediately know I was outcast for daring it, and thus make me a target.   And would Az'atta herself be pleased by my reminding her of what she was?   Honestly, I do not know.   But it is kind of like mockingly waving a bottle of Xeenite wine before a dry drunk, saying "Come on - you know you want it."

Speaking of which, I must say that though Dragoncalled are largely creatures of light, there were traces of darkness in that room.   Lord S---- is disciplined, but I can still feel his angelic heritage of strife leaking through sometimes (and damnably attractive it is, I must say).  There is myself, of course, but that is unsurprising.   What was surprising though, was that there was another, a child of betrayers, who had both arrogance and condescension on full display.

This was clearly directed at me.  And I could hardly blame her, for I have not the power to rival these Dragoncalled yet, and she knew that like a disobedient slave, I put myself above my place by pretending to be an equal in that room.  That was the source of her dislike.

But still, while others called her out and rejected her, I could not help but like her.  Her anger, like a thread of dark silk woven into the white cloth of her soul, makes her both harsh and strong.    Even more than me, I see a throwback to what my ancestors were, before the great betrayal.   In her, I see what the Dark Elves were, before they were Dark.

And far from being offended by her derision, I am utterly fascinated by it.  Perhaps when I am stronger, and can earn her respect, we may become allies.


As a small postscript, I must report that I have decided to reclaim the colors of House Zhalberen: Silver, Black, and Red.  The silver should be Mithril, and the black should be Adamant.  But I have no access to those metals yet, so the silver is silver and the black is obsidian.   The red is, of course, blood red - made of a dye from killed dwarf and surface elf.   This latter I thought would be extremely hard to obtain without raising the ire of authorities, but it turned out to be extremely easy: there are dwarf and elf bandit gangs in the forests northwest of Fort Vehl, and pretending to be a lone innocent traveler allowed me draw them out and slay quite a number of them.  Not only is this legal, I was treated as a heroine by several local human farmers for making the roads safer.    So it worked out well for everyone.   (Except those whose blood I drained for my fashions, of course.)

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - The Insidious Seduction of Good

I nearly died again today.  Foolishly.

All deaths are foolish, of course.  There is always something you could have done differently that would have led to a different result, but this one was particularly annoying.   Died in the Red Light caves - helping someone.  

Helping!    Not helping someone whose favor I needed to curry for my own purposes, but helping, just for the sake of helping.   The details of the death I don't even want to think about.  I did not prepare well.   I assumed that this human swordsman knew more than he did.   That he had at least a little strategy in his head.    But none of that matters, really.

What I cannot get over is that no matter how much I mentally dedicate myself to self-interest, to helping the strong gain victory over the weak, I keep failing.   There is this terrible flaw in me that makes me put myself in the position of a creature I am combating.

I try to be evil, I really do.  But then... one thing leads to another, and I find myself adopting creatures that are clearly inferior.    And this time it led to my death.

What?    Am I going to fully take on the characteristics of my namesake, and become utterly darthiir?   Shall I cease to fish because I pity my food?  Shall I end up eating only fruits, berries, and already-dead carrion, because I am too weak to bring anything to harm?

Just to prove myself I could do it I went out and tortured a bug to death.  It didn't make me feel any better though.   It never has.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Plots within Plots

Plots within plots.  Schemes within schemes.   I have so far to climb, I have so many ways to fail, that I know I would stop if I ever considered the enormity of it.    And yet, I have been cursed with such awareness.   I am simply not able to pretend it does not exist.

Let me start from my goal, and work back to the beginning.

My goal is to save my people.

Not from some external threat, mind you, but from themselves.   Dark elves simply cannot continue to kill each other at the rate we do, for we do not breed like lesser races.   Kill a goblin chieftain and almost immediately one of his litter-brothers will replace him.   Do the same with us, and it is two hundred years.

The only countervailing effect is the practice of keeping body slaves.   Some male, or more commonly, some female, are kept chained, and those that are unwilling mistresses may bring forth children at the necessary replacement rate to keep our numbers from dwindling: six or more.    Yet even this is horrific, for who becomes a body-slave in the first place?  Our best?   No!   Of course not.   Body slaves necessarily come from the weakest Dark Elven stock: the least physically strong males, the least magically adept females.   Those weak enough to be captured.     And the results, even after a mere thousand years can be felt.  Our race sickens from the breeding of the inferior.

So - how does one save the Dark Elves from themselves?  Insure the species at least continues, if not dominates?  There are two ways:

The first, to remove from them their predation.   This is the way of Az'atta.   And it is a mistake.   For she seeks to change the elemental nature of what it means to be a Dark Elf.    We must be predators, for that is what we do.   Do not try to make Panthers into vegetarians.

The second is to remove from them their unpredictability.   To a certain degree, this is what a bodyslave already is, broken and obedient, both hating and yet loving his master.   Imagine, however, if the benefit of slavery were extended to the entire race.   This would be the means to replenish our numbers, to insure that death was the last resort, not the first.   To ensure the strongest had the children, so that the race itself would become not only more numerous, but ever more dominant.  This is my dream: to conquer the Deep, and deliver to Qualvarsharess the victory that she herself is far too weak and disorganized to ever accomplish on her own.

What would be necessary for such enslavement?   Clearly, it would have to be a spell.  A spell that would bind people to their own freely given word.

Once I have such a spell, much will be possible.   Instead of killing, say, a wounded orc, one would say instead, "Promise to serve me utterly as my slave, or die".   And many, I believe would freely chose not to die, if given the opportunity.   Think of the lives I could save with just this one spell!

After that, I would need to conquer the Deep.

And that would require friends.  Not merely allies, but those who accept me as I am.

And that, in turn, requires great deeds to be done my myself.   So presently, I am working on rolling up this Dragonstealer cult, while I also study them.    There is much to be said about their management of war and societies and they are opponents it would be wise to respect.

[SteveMaurer]

Darthirâe Zhalberen - Family

It has been years since I last opened this diary.   Perhaps it may be decades until I open it again.   What can I report except my continued ascension and alienation from much of what I once knew?

And alienated I have become.  I met some dark elves recently: a male cleric of Ca'Duz and a female cleric of Qualsharvaress.    Two more weak and worthless individuals I have never yet laid eyes on.   They traipse around the edges of civilization, covering themselves in black; the male, who styles himself "Magus", covered with spiders.   Yet somehow they imagine that they're disguised.

Personally, it is clear that the only reason why they are alive is because they're part of the family - which I shall explain.

I met another dark elf.  Tyillian. She is nearly as pathetic, but for nearly the opposite reason.  She was raised by the Az'attans,  stuttering and shivering like a fawn before spiders.   I did my best to hide my distaste.   After all, it is not her fault to have been raised as prey, rather than predator.   And in this, my faith has been rewarded, for every day as I have seen her, her true nature calls to her, even though she does not admit it.     She fancies herself a champion of "good", but I see the pleasure she feels in using her bow, taking down giants with spells and arrows.   My greatest hope for her is to see her outgrow the sanctimony and cultivated victimhood of Az'atta, and embrace herself as she truly should be.   And I do see a confidence growing in her, which is unsurprising, since she is family too.

As are the others: Tralek and Vrebel, the surface elf and his human companions whose brief time spent as slaves to the ant people made them almost as brothers.   The dwarves, Kurn and Gorm, who love battle and blood with such fierce unbridled joy, I almost suspect their souls are reincarnated dark elves.   And the others, Caerwyn, a woodsman of not inconsiderable skill, Omer, Headmaster of the Tower academy, to whom I have pledged service for a time, in exchange for his instruction.   And many others, I do not name.   All family.

What do I mean by that word?   It is simple.   Each of these I have named, along with myself, touched the bindstones, and gained additional life therefore.     This shared experience, the blackness of death that is then at the last instant removed, forges a common bond between us.

There are some who would deny it, but it it there.     We deliberately look past each other when we should be killing each other, we stonebound.  A Ca'Duzite elf covered in spiders barges in on a party and stands only a few feet from a paladin who quickly discerns that he is an enemy worshiper.   So what happens?    The Paladin frowns a bit.   And when asked to pay an entrance fee of one thousand True, the Ca'Duzite, like a meek little Deliarite, coughs it up with nary a whimper.

And why should this not be so?     Every race pretends to itself that it is the superior one.  That is something I have learned from my extended time on the surface.   Yet who are the true superior ones?   The ones who wield overwhelming power?   Who slaughter any who oppose us with merry abandon?  We are.

Those of the family.

[SteveMaurer]

What is love, really?

In Ti'thrara I was taught that love is merely sexual desire combined with an instinct to partner with ones mate so as to give oneself the greatest possibility of having successful offspring.    This was all romanticized by Ilsare the Oathbreaker, and used as a subtle poison to weaken our resolve and destroy us.

To admit to Love was to admit weakness.   And not just that.   It was sacrilege against the Lord of Hate.

So what does one feel instead?   "Comfort".  One is comfortable with one's slaves.   Once they have been tamed in the manner of the sex of the victor: males whipped by a superior female into fearful submission, females ensorceled by a superior male.   It is even acceptable for allies to willingly be sexual mates, though with the continuing war of the sexes between the Mother of Darkness and Baeron Ca'Duz, it's frowned upon.

This does not mean one does not confess love, of course.  I did to my father.   But more than stating a mere feeling, to confess love is the most profound act a dark elf can commit.  You place yourself at their complete mercy.   And mercy is rare among dark elves, even those who have earned love from another.   You are, quite literally the slave of the one you love, for one word from them, and the Gods will rend your spirit.

On the surface, of course, it is absolutely the opposite.  Love is everywhere, even when it isn't love.   "I have a taste for pie,"  from the mouth of a halfling, becomes "I love pie".  All sorts of people are in "Love" one minute, out of it the next.    I find it strangely hilarious that through the overuse of the word, surfacers have deprived it of all meaning.   I cannot conceive of a greater sacrilege against Ilsare, though I'm not at all certain that she's bright enough to understand the mockery they've made of her most profound attribute.

So... to be clear at the outset of our relationship...  I told Steel I would never tell him I loved him.  Even if I was some weakling who did fall to Ilsare and her damned arrows - which I am not - a  no dark elf can ever admit to Love.  Much less one of royal blood, who seeks to conquer and remake dark elven society, and return to it its honor, and make it stronger thereby.   Perhaps I might survive the revelation that I Loved my father, though it would be a bad scandal.   But a half human?    I could never love something like that.

Oh, but he a demon too, and dark elf.  Curse Aerdin for creating such a creature to tempt me!   Dark, deadly, beautiful in his own way, the disquiet of his demonic nature burns like the heat of a furnace, affecting all around him.   Most shrink from that I think, to feel innately how you live only at his unpredictable mercy.     And they instinctively dislike him for that.   Weak fools!   Yet for me, it is like an intoxicating potion.   I cannot get enough.   And my loins were secretly appreciative too whenever I was near him, even as I tried to betray no hint of it.

But it is much more than desire.   We are both creatures of two worlds, belonging to neither.   I think he is more comfortable with that position, than I, for demons find disquiet and anarchy to be natural.  Still, he and I understand each other.  And I find him nearly as complicated as myself.  Powerful.  An equal.

Oh, but neither is he too perfect, which is something I would never stand.   His major flaw?  He is good.    He tries to deny it, but I see good streaked through him in all its idiotic glory.   Really sometimes I think he actually believes that large, hungry, lions, with very sharp claws, will in some perfect country, like Trelania, ruled by it's perfect queen (who in real life is so weakly "good", she can't control her own queendom without him helping her out constantly) will lay down with very edible lambs.   And not eat them.

Because that would be Good.   Not an abomination against the natural order of things.  Lions eating grass.    And Steel is willing to commit any act of evil to make that Good come to pass.

But these absurdities just amuse me.   It's so over the top crazy that I just can't help but enjoy it.   There is something so deliciously twisted about being with a good man.   Oh, I know the advice: never settle down with a male not willing to be controlling, domineering, brutal.   What will the children end up like if you don't?    Merciful?    Weak?  Unselfish?

But this isn't even about children.  He's no elf, and Aeridin lost his power to blend the races as he willed.    It's about...   oh, I don't even know!   Forget the pleasures of dalliance, I'm just happy when I'm with him.  Even if we're just talking.  I find myself wanting him to somehow succeed in all his half-baked plots.   His flaws just make him more endearing to me.   I could easily imagine retiring to be with him for the rest of his life, which due to his demonic and elvin heritage, may be very nearly my own.

I think about him constantly.  I miss him when he is away.    Though I never betray it, I count the hours until I can see him again.   In Hlint, I was ambushed by some talentless Ilsarian bard, and actually didn't amuse myself imagining all sorts of gruesome deaths for the hackneyed sod.      And I mean seriously, that human was bad.   This was a stanza of what I was subjected to:

Oh your love gives me the power/
To live by hour and hour/
And make it through the day/
So please baby please stay/

All I was doing while putting up with this bohemian beggar's drunken serenade, was thinking of Steel.    Instead of how to get away with murder.

I just.... I just don't know what is wrong with me.

But I'm not in love.    That is certain.    Absolutely.  Beyond a doubt.   I mean it.

Not.   In.   Love.

[SteveMaurer]

I spent yesterday crying.    I try not to cry now.

Some say the most intense moments of your life come when some grand plot of yours is fulfilled, or perhaps when your enemies is fulfilled against you.   I have to say that this is not true.   Many changes happen during idle hours, completely by surprise, even though they are obvious in retrospect.

A year ago, I told a human woman that she was pregnant.   She did not expect it because her newlywed husband had otherworld blood in him, and she expected Aerdin's injury prevented such crossbreeding from working.  But he was more human than not, and the news I delivered could not have been more devastating to her.   A life turned upside down by what, in retrospect, was inevitable.   She just refused to see it.

For me the inevitable has come as well.   Just a different sort.

I was resting in a private safe-house I rent at times.  My mind was filled with the various plots of the day.   My paramour Steel may not be very good at anticipating the full results of what he is doing, but I must say that few do better than he at moving a haphazard non-plot forward.   So we do the bidding of the Dark Tower to obtain their temporary alliance with Fisterion against the Dragonstealers.   This all will, of course, turn out for the best.   He is certain of it.

(He is so cute when he's being foolish.)

In the midst of my meandering thoughts, I heard a scratch at the door.   It was Vanorsh, my familiar.    I almost did not answer it, but perhaps there was something to it that made me go anyway.   She was acting uncharacteristically.    Vanorsh is "silence" in the ancient high holy speech, and she has always been true to her name, except when I learned to disguise a voice-cast cantrip to shock people into thinking she was speaking.

When I opened the door, she was there.   With a little dead spider.   And kitten eyes.

"Vanorsh!"  I told her angrily.   She well knew my rules about presenting me with her little gifts, a habit she's had ever since I rescued her as a little mewling kitten from the animal pens in the arena.     A spider was her first such gift.  A spider!   The holy animal of the Lord of Hate!   That panther kitten, barely bigger than a housecat, had committed an act of sacrilege, and laid the evidence at my doorstep, literally.  I could have been in such trouble.

Thinking back, it now seems like a clear omen of my path away from the Deep.   But at the time, as angry I as I was, I remember being so pleased.   She was mine.  Though silent, she was clearly doing this as an act of love.    And I enjoyed having such power over a wild creature, to possess it's affection.    It... felt good.   To be loved.    Even by a little cat.   No one else, not even animals, would ever admit such weakness to have that emotion.   Not in Ti'thrara.

That feeling stayed my hand.   I did not harm her for her dangerous gift.  Instead, she became my little exotic pet, a stranger in the deep, and eventually I bound her as my familiar.    She was my alter ego.

Vanorsh just stood there at the door.   Normally she hates the indoors.   It reminds her of the Deep, which she always hated.   But now she was clearly asking in, so I stood aside.

She walked several trembling steps.    Then collapsed.

"Vanorsh!"

I slammed the door shut, cursing myself for not being more careful.   By habit I always take precautions against assassins via invisibility, teleport, greater sanctuary, but if they were outside...   my blood surged, my mind raced.   I cast spells I had prepared for such an eventuality.   But the mechanics of self-defense were complicated by Vanorsh lying on the floor.   If I were to take on these creatures who dare harm my own, I needed her. So I decided to take a calculated risk to see if I could diagnose the cause of her poisoning before going on the offensive.

Vanorsh.   I pride myself on being a student of all my enemies, and potential ones, examining their every quirk.    But for my own... they are too close for that.   As I bent down, I realized... it had been..  what?...  decades?...  since I last examined her closely.  She still had her characteristic smell, her lean muscle, almost too much so, her razor sharp claws.   But it was only now that I saw something in the midnight black of her fur I had been blind to before: gray.

Her breathing was labored.   I searched for the poison's entry: any sign of bite, or dart, froth from a dust.   I knew she had not been fed anything.   She never ate anything she did not kill herself, finicky princess of the beautiful hunt.  But for all my skill, I just was not finding anything.    I reached into the Al'Noth, looking for what had wounded her.   Still nothing.

I ran my fingers through her fur.   "What is wrong with you?" I spoke to her, breaking the first rule of Greater Sanctuary.   But my frustration was mounting.

Empathic communication is a strange sort of thing, wordless yet powerful.  Indeed any intent to bring words into it seem to lessen the bond.     I found that at its most extreme, I could be Vanorsh, so long as I not try to speak as her, for she does not speak.    Yet occasionally, emotions are so strong, that words seems to form in my mind for cat-like thoughts.   And as I felt her tiredness, the pain of her arthritis, the gentleness of acceptance, these words formed clearly in my mind:

"There is nothing at all wrong with me, my mistress.    I'm just...

...dying".

It hit me like a blow.   How old was she?   What was the life expectancy of panthers?    But all these thoughts were overwhelmed by one emotion: rage.

"You can't die," I screamed at her in Deeptongue.  "I've not given you permission."

She did not move, but only gave the accepting shrug of a slave who has been given contradictory orders by two different mistresses, in this case, myself and Katia.     Cursing, I dispelled my Sanctuary and threw an Endurance spell upon her.   This seemed to help, but only slightly.

"I will not let you," I told her through gritted teeth.   "You are my familiar.   Familiars do not die."

She accepted this with her usual feline insouciance, an air of affectionate mockery.  Ever since I first rescued her from the cages she has acted this way.  No matter how superior you are to a cat, they never acknowledge it.  And in this case, I felt the cause of her amusement.    I had just taken on the goal of opposing not just nature, but time itself.    If cats could laugh, she would be doing so, at me.

And yet what else was I to do?    The most common way to fail is to never try.   My Endurance spell, though extended, would not last forever.   I had a few days, at most, and that was it.

But what?   All my researches had been pointed in other directions, by my own plots, not this one.   Life extension.   This is the last thing an elf of any stripe worries about, especially one of the Deep where death from violence always comes before age.   Make her a lich?   No.  Even if she accepted, and she would not, that would not stave off death, just create unlife.   Stone healing?   Yes, the bindstones did somehow repair the injuries that nearly took your life, but there is nothing that indicates they have power against the withering aspects of age.    The only thing I could think of that might possibly save her was to find a way for her to become divine before she died.   My cat, a goddess.   All that would entail is for her to kill a God.

Despair, like a dagger, struck me.   I breathed deeply.  Tears came unbidden.   I had to admit the obvious.  I could do nothing.

"Vanorsh," I told her.  "You can't leave me.   You're all I have left."   My mother, lost.  My father, dead.   Now her.

She just breathed in and out, with acceptance.   There was gratitude as well.  My spell had made her dying less painful.   When the end came, it would be quick.   Her animal nature told her so.   She was so tired.   So she rested.

It is times like these that you really wonder what you are doing with your life.   I had striven so hard to attain my mastery, convinced that by doing so I would save the world by shifting it away from impending chaos, for the gods themselves seemed unbalanced - not just with each other, but mentally unbalanced, psychotic and idiotic.    Yet now as sit and contemplate, I see I failed to notice an equal, yet opposite effect: the unchanging frozen nature of existence.

Nothing changes upon the face of Layonara.   Churches do not rise.   Empires do not fall.  How long has it been since I first received warning from Ferrit about the Dragonstealers?   The bird lord's echo of that warning?   Two, three, decades?    And yet, what has come of it?  For all the supposed power, what have they ever actually done?   Who have they ever even mildly inconvenienced?     It is as if the world itself is covered in invisible spiderwebs, preventing anything of actual consequence from occurring.   Even if you pull at it, the web simply snaps back into shape again.   So all threats are not really threats at all.    The Gods may be crazy, but their insanity will never actually brings harm to the world, or at least any more than it already has.

This was the cause of my illusion of eternal youth.   If one measures time by meaningful events, Layonara is eternally young, for it has almost none. There are only two agents of any true change in Layonara: the bindstones, which occasionally allow someone who touches them to live, and the Soul Mother, who takes one or two so bound, and dispatches them permanently, as Hedessa has recently fallen.     But time still marches on, and now it made this death which was taking Vanorsh from me.

But those are all personal events.   I need do nothing to help the world.  It is frozen, mid-pratfall, a form of solidified trifling nonsense, and will remain so forever.   I will only die of boredom, unless I am taken by the Soul Mother because I get careless in gathering materials, which I would do largely out of boredom looking for something meaningful to do.

I stroked Vanorsh's fur, and contemplated all the time I should have spent with her instead of rote practice of my spells upon tens of thousands of expendable targets.   I take pride in my hard-won skills, but I wonder whether it was worth the cost.

She woke briefly, and put her head in my lap.  I sat weeping as she slowly, gently, died.

In the end I told her I loved her.   A terrible weakness on my part.   But I knew it to be true.

  This brought the barest flicker.  "I know," she seemed to say, lovingly.  "Live well, my angel."

[SteveMaurer]

Long ago I promised myself never to risk my life for anything or anyone I did not truly care about.    Along with all such promises, I seem to have a particular penchant for finding new and unique ways to break them.   And while this time, it did not lead me to any untimely meeting with the Soul Mother, that this particular weakness is perhaps the one I find most annoying.

And yet, strangely, my weakness sometimes gives insights I would never otherwise have.


This happened not so long ago.   I came to watch a ritual which in the city of my birth would have been so alien as to be incomprehensible.   Even for surfacers, it would have been a strange sight, had it been public.  (It was not.)   Yet I've seen enough of these over the years that I feel it deserves a name.   Call it, "The gulling of the stonebound".

It starts as thus: some group of utter political incompetents are about to have a very bad week almost entirely because they were stupid about a problem they had years to solve but did not.   Squatting like fat deep-cows on their noble titles, they've suddenly come to the realization that someone else is going to harm their position.   Naturally, they think this is a terrible thing, and so the call goes forth to the stonebound to "save" the "people", and by this, they mean the current government, from their well deserved fate.

The Stonebound arrive and mill about, iconoclasts all.   A sob story is told, the enemy is identified, and inevitably there is an agreement to go off to commit acts of war, or what have you, until the perceived threat is entirely wiped out.

This is never mercenary.   No one cares for reward.  Stonebound typically have so much money from sacking and looting, they can never be actually motivated by such, although sometimes a pathetic amount made in offer is well received, because it allows them to look down their noses at those making the request, proverbially patting their patrons' heads like little children, telling them everything will be all right.

Instead, Stonebound typically are motivated by (often quite understandable) religious hatred, delusions of moral superiority, or actual belief in the sob story.   I never fall to the latter, since I've never found one that stands up to scrutiny at its telling.    And these are usually nobles and politicians who speak.     They lie as a matter of course.

Yet Stonebound also lie, at least by omission, as to why they take up such tasks.   The truth is too gauche to admit: racist bloodlust.   Stonebound love nothing better than to travel far and wide to find tribes of creatures which do not look like them, often in the most inaccessible regions of the world where the intelligent beings could not possibly, by sheer distance, ever threaten anyone or anything, and engage in a orgy of genocidal bloodletting that makes Dark-Mother worshipers seem like mewling Az'attans in comparison.   (This, I think, is one reason why I feel so at home among the Stonebound - they are almost exactly like my people, except even more loyal to their own and more hostile to everything else.)

I did not think there was a another reason.   But I was wrong, and just discovered it.      It is this: sheer boredom and morbid curiosity.


How else could one explain what happened in Lor?   The council of Lor has been kissing up to Rael (a ruler I admire for his competence despite his enmity with my paramour), and discovered a plot against him.    According to the story, a Green Dragon Cult spy had been trading suspicious oils into Prantz.   This was some attempt to destroy Rael by some poisonous subterfuge.    Yet we were told that despite providing this information to them, the Raelites did not care to follow up to at least examine the seriousness of the threat to their kingdom.

Clearly, elements of the story were lies.   No one in their right mind imagines Rael, or anyone who works for him, to be so derelict in their duty as ignore any credible warning.   So it seems obvious that the Lorites had not told Rael's army of this threat.   I don't blame them - Rael is not beyond killing the messenger.

Various of the assembled Stonebound immediately launched into a set of quite reasonable complaints about the behavior of the council which led them to this state, which were brushed aside.   There were also silly complaints about why Lor did not somehow take on both the Cult and Prantz themselves.    (Only Stonebound are stupid enough to imagine that such sacrificial foolhardiness would be effective.)

But it was of no matter.   The Lorite mayor, who did not even have the support of his own council, had his own orders - which the Stonebound were to follow, or leave.   We were to quietly find out what was going on, and handle the situation.

I immediately launched into my information gathering mode.  My plot was simple enough: given that it is widely known among those who care to know that Cultists are nearly impossible to interrogate, I arranged to ride with the wagon containing the spy.   I was plotting to have many of the other Stonebound pretend to be a mercenary company willing to sell their services to the wagoner essentially for free (or perhaps a little food, just to seem realistic).   And from there, we would learn all sorts of things.

Alas, the mayor had made a classic mistake of sending out an open call for all Stonebound.   I returned from my success to find one of them, a dwarf whose enormous biceps were only matched by the tininess of his pea-sized brain, tackling the spy in about the most obvious manner possible.   Apparently not screaming at the top of his lungs and slaughtering the entire city was his version of "quiet".

It had literally taken ten minutes for a few idiots to completely unravel the entire plot.

Oh yes, they took the spy into the sewers to interrogate him, but it was already a failure before it started.   Every time I've ever met one, it's plain that Cultists just do not fear death.   I'm not sure why - perhaps they have their own version of remote resurrection similar to what the stones provide - but there it is, regardless.    Due to this, no one has ever successfully interrogated one.    And certainly, given that the party had plenty of worshipers of the hypocritical gods, no one was ever going to be able to believably threaten the spy with a fate worse than death.   At least, not without starting an argument that would never have been resolved.

So given the situation, I decided to try magic.  I made a very careful magical analysis of the spy, and found absolutely no dweomer of any sort on him, around him, or in him.   So I decided to cast a Domination spell, which I hoped might salvage the situation.

Instead, it accelerated it.   The spy had a tattoo on him which was somehow entirely invisible to all magical analysis.   It was triggered by my spell, and this caused it to explode after a few seconds of delay.   I had enough time to get out of the blast, but I, and I alone, was struck by a secondary blast of magic, seemingly from nowhere, that nearly took my life.

Well, perhaps.   I am, of course, Stonebound too.

We exited the sewer, I took a few hard glares in stride from some who clearly had no clue about the situation, and left.  For a while, I thought I learned nothing.


And yet, as I think back on this entire sorry episode, I can't help but see all sorts of insights, each tinged with more than a little irony.

First, Strength can be Weak.  The Stonebound have shown me why they are not, and never will be, a political force anywhere.   Besides their insatiable bloodlust, they are also completely disorganized to the point of absurdity.   Truly, the mayor, and his obedient, ear-muffed, guards, would have likely found more success in hiring a pack of raving orcs to accomplish his mission.   You can at least threaten an orc with death to get it to temporarily not be stupid.    Not so a Stonebound.

Second, Failure can lead to Success.   If Lor ever tried to go mandible to mandible against any significant portion of either Rael's or Molvaren's forces, they would be crushed like a spiderling.   Their only hope to remain free is to become the ignorable prize, laying low, and offering a path of least resistance through which the two pretenders to world conquest can battle for domination, hopefully weakening both enough to allow them to break free.   So by sabotaging this absurd non-plot of the mayors, the dwarf may very well have done him the best favor he could have.

And Third, Silence is Telling.  Why make tattoo's explosive?    Isn't that a tad bit of an overreaction?    Since apparently as soon as cultists succumb to any mind spell, they explode, I am already plotting the use of a "Mass Charm" spell against them.     I figure that otherwise worthless spell should be able to detonate an entire tattooed army in its place.    All I need is a spell mantle to shield me from the backlash.

So again, why the explosions?    Why not simply do what most rulers do, and just not tell your spies anything, so they can't divulge what they do not know?    The only explanation that seems to make sense is that there is some secret that they all must know, some great secret which if revealed, would do great damage to the cult.

In short, if ever someone does manage to "turn" a Cultist, I suspect that Molvaren will be very unhappy indeed.