Meanwhile … in the underdark

“But he would have his revenge!” Laughed Oswald von Lipp. The ribald Duerger sneered as he took a last melodramatic quaff of his Mushroom Absinthe and upside downed the empty obsidian shot glass with a stubby fingered flourish. “Yes Lorn would!” He turned to face Drex Drooz Menzius.

It was only the two of them in the bar and Drex was not really listening to Oswald. He was watching the street outside, intently.

“Lieutenant Menzius!” The Duerger cried. “You want to know about Lorn?! I have other tales to tell. Would you care to choose your own adventure?!”

Drex sighed a little. He was not wearing his eye patch or mirrored spectacles at that moment as they limited his vision and he was watching the street for good reason. He could not risk showing this dwarf his left eye so he was not going to turn to look at the dwarf.

Drex’s mismatched eyes continued to look out on the street. They narrowed, the left acid green iris and the opposing hot pink orb flecked with a tangerine orange accents, equally acidic, steadfastly watching the alley through the grimy window. The pink eye was unmistakably drow. The odd left eyeball, green as a goblin’s, was clearly not and betrayed his mixed heritage. Heterochromia affected one in a hundred drow but no pure blood drow had a green eye.

Drex informed anyone that asked that it was a magic eye but was in the habit of keeping his green eye hidden and casting a minor enchantment on it every day. If ever someone cast detect magic the eye would glow.

The watchman had hoped to avoid engaging with anyone tonight, after all he was being hunted. He had chosen the Crushed Skull as it was an establishment that no self respecting Drow would frequent. The slow smoked food was terribly over seasoned, the overproof spirits were likely to blind you and, most problematically, it was a grey dwarves haunt. Drex ran his hand through his course curly hair, stark white from bleach, coarse and curling.

“Goldilocks, you want to hear about Bargle the sorcerer, a fool of a man that ended up a pretty slave girl kneeling before her master right beside her former rival? Or perhaps-“ the Duerger rambled

“You think my hair is too pale?” Drex asked more to interrupt the dwarf than from any real curiosity about the dwarves thinking on his hair. He dyed his hair white because there was a single black tuft that came out of his left brow, pointing at his green left eye - another goblin trait. Some drow bleached their off white hair silver white as an affectation of beauty. He did it to disguise his lock of black hair and he did it regularly.

“Oh vanity your name is drow!” Laughed Lipp.

“Careful Oswald, comments like that to a vane drow might get your namesake writ in your throat in red. Best not to needlessly sport a too wide dagger carved death grin,” Drooz advised. It was not a threat. It was a reminder. He closed his left eye and briefly turned to face Oswald, flashing a quick grin that was at once playful and sinister. “Vanity is a terrible thing to wound.”

Drooz turned back to the window. Drow vanity… he had never been overly pleased with his looks but he was not vane. It was a matter or survival. Being a quarter goblin and three quarters dark elf was a death sentence if it was discovered. He knew that his mother had been a half goblin slave. It was in his bastard green eye, his too ready and too wide grin, the coarseness of his black streaked curly hair, his diminutive stature and his often merry outlook. But no one but he knew the truth of his heritage… well perhaps his father knew. He didn’t know his father but he suspected.

“So what did Lorn do?” Drex laughed at the tall tail in the empty cramped tavern as a comely goblin bar maid took the bald dwarves empty glass and moved back behind the bar.

“Hah! You are interested! Well I hav a tale that even a jaded and deviant drow like herself might enjoy!” Lipp promised.

Officer Drex stood apart, half listening as he watched the street of the emporium of delights through the led pained glass. The bazaar’s fairy fire lanterns burned endlessly amidst the shadows in mysterious purples, angry oranges and brooding reds.

Outside. Out there was trouble. Drex was the law of the undercities lowest streets, a Machiavellian shanty city that sat beneath the heel of the ruling houses above, each with their crazed families of despotic nobles, mad wizards, cruel warriors and zealous priestesses. House ruled by capricious matron mothers and armed to the teeth with their private armies. The houses were a law unto themselves. And of times they came down from their art nouveau stalactite towers, gaudy Gaudi castles and their arcane fortress compounds that hemmed the walls above the undercity, they came down and lorded over the undercities denizens.

There was a loose agreement that everyone would obey the laws of the under city in the under city. No killing, no thieving, no slaving. But that was only a veneer of civility - those things were crimes only if you got caught in the eyes of the drow. Which happened to be most of them.

Last night one the overcities piss born third sons, Alfrond de Nihl of house de Nihl, had been indiscreet enough to kill a courtesan in a tavern full of witnesses that had included both Drex, Oswald and two of the under-cities oligarchs. Alfrond was a wet behind the ears wizard fresh out of Sorcere, full of himself and his own self importance and had slain the courtesan for some imagined slight. The details were not important sadly, but to do such in he presence of two of the eight oligarchs that kept the undercity watch in pocket to keep the peace meant Drex had to act.

Complicating matters, because affairs of drow were always complicated, de Nihl had been attended by his illithid partner and five of his house guards.

Drex was alone but had been duty bound to confront the smug noble. Steel had been drawn and the noble and his entourage had departed with Alfrond making blistering threats that Drex knew the petty noble would feel honour bound to act upon. No. Not honour. Vanity. Pride.