The Menagerie

The drow takes your group to a gathering place for slaves, and those who sell or capture them, just past the city gates. Another fine example of a city's perks, you think to yourself. And it's not like this is exclusive to drow culture. You have been to **** markets on the surface as well, though Paladin often kept you away, to not see the ugly underbelly of his 'secure and lawful' society.

Mistress drags you and Paladin off to the side, while Wizard, Cleric and Fighter are divided among the lines of the captured. All along the way she kicks you, throwing you to the dusty ground, cursing at you to get up again. She REALLY didn't like you threatening her authority over the arachnids.

"The blonde one comes with me, as a gift to my Matriarch." The drow woman talks to a male drow, that is sitting at a table filled with papers, ink, seals and books. Away from the turmoil of the **** sorting. He looks bored out of his mind by the proceedings, and begins filling out papers. "And that one," Mistress pokes one of her sharp nails into your cheek, "this little shit is going to the director of the menagerie. Attach a note, telling her to consider my debt fulfilled, oh and to watch out for his magic. And those back there...."

You stopped listening. It didn't matter what she was saying. All that mattered was the presence, that you've felt during the encounter with her. If only you could feel it again...

You're in a large, domed room, made of white marble.

Mistress has handed you over to the guards, who clothed you in dirty brown rags, and guided you along the halls of the menagerie.

"... to build a place for science and discovery." The drow that is with you in the hall has been droning on about what she does here, while she gestured at the mounted, stuffed animal corpses, the preserved heads of magical beasts, and the skeletal remains of creatures you have never seen before, hanging from the ceiling.

She introduced herself as the Director. She is tall, even for a drow, but not particularly muscular. She wears round glasses, like the ones Wizard has, a buttoned up, white coat, that ends just above her knees, and high heeled, white shoes. Her top button is undone, exposing her dark purple cleavage. She wears her long, white hair in a bun, with two sharp looking needles driven through the knot. She has a stern face, and she seemed entirely disinterested in you, until she read the note Mistress has sent you with. After that her face lit up, and she started chattering away.

"Lolth's blessing", she literally did airquotes at that, "leaves the drow, once they cross Menzoberranzan's borders..." You give her a quizzical look, which she returns with the same look Wizard gave Fighter, when Fighter asked how long a 10-foot-pole was.

"Menzoberranzan? The city? The one you are currently in?" She adjusts her glasses and rolls her eyes at your ignorance. "Seeing how you don't even know where you are, you probably don't know about the 'special condition' of the female drow of Menzoberranzan."

She directs your attention at a chart on one of the walls, it depicts a female drow... going by her upper half at least. The lower half, the crotch area to be precise, is decidedly male. It's basically a picture of a naked woman, with a large, purple penis.

"For all females with said condition, we chose the designation 'futa', or rather our High Priestess did. Every female drow that was residing inside our city's borders, when Lolth's... 'divinity' graced us, lost their female reproductive organs, and had them replaced with male ones. But as soon as a futa leaves the city, they revert to their natural state. Many of the matriarchs, of the noble houses of Menzoberranzan, have asked me if I could provide a solution for this conundrum, as they have grown very fond of their... appendages."

At that she guides you into an adjacent hall, with high, open windows, and several large cages along the walls. You can make out movement within three of them.

"My most successful test subjects." She's clearly very proud of the perversions of nature, she keeps locked behind bars here.

All of the creatures seem to have been animals at some point. A direwolf, a displacer beast, which you have only seen in books so far, and an albino giant bat.

But they barely look anything like they should. They all pace up and down in their cages, walking only on two humanoid legs. They all have large, exposed breasts, two each. Their fur is so short in most places, you can barely differentiate it from skin. Only the direwolf female has long fur on the back of her arms and hands, and flowing down from her head in a wild mane across her back.

"These are the reason you are here. My most magnificent achievements. My hybrids"

You want to throw up. What has this insane woman done to these poor creatures.

"You see, sometimes, during testing, my subjects get a little... agitated, and once they do the guards aren't always up to the task, of bringing them back under control. Mistress was right in assuming, I could make use of your abilities. Since we're not exactly drowning in druids down here, I need you to calm them, so I can continue testing asap."

With that she snaps her fingers, and the two guards that were standing at attention throw you into one of the empty cages, locking the door behind you.

"We'll continue testing tomorrow!", Director curtly announces as she walks out of the hall, leaving you and the hybrids alone.

You lay awake at night, in the small space of your cage. It should've been long enough now. The hybrids are asleep, and the drow are long gone.

If you can muster your last bit of concentration, you should be able to reach out to the presence again. Maybe you can talk it into helping you.

Roll Wisdom