Of course

Teysa looked into El'keth's hopeful face. She had a point, and she probably had the right to go where she pleased. If she said no, El'keth might tag along anyways. "Of course," Teysa said, and smiled. "But this is a business trip. You have to pitch in. Do you have weapons? Armor?"

El'keth looked down and clasped one wrist in her other hand. "Not yet," she said. "I don't-- that is to say, my mother thinks that it is too early for me to learn warcraft." She clenched her fists. "She says that **** should be a last resort, but I've seen her threaten other driders to keep them in line! She's just treating me like a spiderling!"

"Don't you think maybe she threatens so she doesn't have to use ****?" Teysa asked. "But if you want, I can teach you some basics. I saw you when I was sparring with Lil'esh. You have to be ready to defend yourself down here."

El'keth nodded happily. "Oh! I would very much like that."

"I'll look forward to it." Teysa patted El'keth's forearm. "Now, why don't you help Jez'ria pack the caravan? You've got to pitch in somehow."

El'keth's face fell. "Well... all right. My mother says that I must not shirk tasks just because I will be Matron someday." She bowed to Teysa and scuttled off.

Aliara was buckling on her daggers when Teysa returned. "Ah. I expect you want help armoring up? Or is that just an excuse to feel my hands all over you?" She gyrated her hips drunkenly. "You cannot resist, no?"

Teysa snorted. "If you don't want to help, you can just say so."

"Not at all! I would be glad to tighten... your... straps...!"

Teysa held still while Aliara buckled on her breastplate, faulds, and spaulders, then fastened her besagues into place and helped her slip her arms into their vambraces. Finally, she crowned Teysa with a steel halfhelm they had found in the armory. The craftsmanship was masterful, the nasal decorated with looping whorls of silver. Teysa didn't know who had owned it before, but in her line of work, she had gotten used to secondhand armor. The driders certainly had quite the collection, a chilling reminder of their old ways. Teysa hoped that the previous owner of this helmet had gotten away. Far more likely, she had been killed-- or captured, bred, and left to rot in the darkness.

Aliara grabbed a lantern from an iron hook in the wall and the two of them set off through the warren. Caravans arrived and left via a wide-open cavern at the northern border of the warren, the mouth of an ancient road kept in good repair by the driders. Lacking pack animals, they made do with small two-wheeled carts that could be hitched to their powerful bodies. Jez'ria was a tall and muscular drider with blunt features that marked her out from her sisters. Teysa wondered if she had been human once, or something else. It seemed rude to ask. She regarded the two women impassively. "I am told you two vill be guarding uz today?" she asked. Her voice was rough with an accent that Teysa couldn't identify, but her Common was flawless. "And I see that my partner for the day is this one." She gestured at El'keth, who was laboring to tie off a silk strand to her cart. Scattered bits of silk lay in pieces on the floor. "Ach, tovya. Let me do it, little girl! Here, you loop it around the hook like thiz, then you slip into the harness like thiz." She finished her demonstration and pulled the silk rope tight, making El'keth gasp. "T-thank you," stammered the young drider.

"Ve are all ready?" asked Jez'ria. "Most excellent. Follow my lead and you will not be lost." She did not wait for confirmation, but trundled forward, dragging her cart behind her. It was loaded with clay pots, each sealed with a wax stopper, along with a scattering of other things: a small iron lockbox, a couple piles of coins, a leather scroll tube, and two bolts of silk. El'keth's cart was similarly encumbered, and soon she was struggling to maintain her balance. Teysa could see the sweat standing out on El'keth's forehead, but to her credit, she never complained. Her cart wobbled over the rough stone floor, crunching small stones under its heavy iron wheels. Teysa marched alongside it with her mace drawn. The feeling of deja vu was strong. She fell easily back into her old gait, a rolling march that matched the pace of the caravan. How many times had they guarded some fat merchant or frail diplomat? She had earned a fortune selling her mace. Several fortunes. Where was it all now? What had it amounted to?

El'keth was clearly trying her best, but she began to fall behind. Jez'ria seemed tireless. Muscles bulged and humped in her back as she pulled her cart. Like most driders, she was unashamedly naked apart from her jewelry; copper rings lined both arms, and she wore a golden stud in one nostril that connected to an earring via a thin gold chain. El'keth, for her part, wore a grey silk vest and elbow-length gloves of glittering silver thread. Her hair had been tied back, but as she grunted and strained with effort it began to pull itself loose and cascade down her shoulders and into her eyes. Her arms were starting to shake with fatigue, but she seemed determined to press on. Feeling pity for the poor girl, Teysa called out.

"Jez'ria, can we stop here? I'd like to take a moment for lunch."

Jez'ria looked down on her with narrowed eyes. "If you vish. You are tired so soon?"

"Oh, yes. You know, it's walking in this plate. It's quite heavy."

"Hmph." Jez'ria crossed her arms under her breasts. "You are the one who met Mother Lolth under the ground, are you not?"

"I am." Teysa uncorked her canteen and tipped a cold drink into her mouth. "I am honored to have been-"

"I do not see vhy she chose you. You are frail. Perhaps she took pity on you, no?"

Teysa gave her a long, appraising look. "You don't approve?"

"It is not mine to approve or disapprove." Jez'ria shrugged. "The Matron says that ve must follow your 'new vay,' so ve do. She haz earned the right to lead. You? I do not understand vhy she listens to you. You turned avay from ascension. You vere offered Lolth's blessing and you said no."

"That's not fair!" El'keth cried out. "Teysa is a hero! She risked everything to save us!"

Jez'ria turned on her. "Fair? Not a vord ve use often, little girl. Life iz not fair. It iz not fair that a little spiderling like you vith the smell of the creche still on her iz groomed to lead. Iz of no matter. Life iz not fair. Don't vorry, I do az the Matron says. Alvays. She earned her position." She smiled, showing an astonishing number of pointy teeth. "Maybe you needed someone to save you. I did not."

"Wait," said Aliara, holding up a hand. "Did you-"

With a great, thundering crash, part of the wall blew inward. A cloud of dust and whizzing quartz fragments filled the air. Teysa threw herself to the ground as something enormous burst through the shattered wall and rolled through the middle of their formation. She caught a glimpse of a great grey shape moving at speed, then there was another deafening boom as whatever it was came to rest against the far wall. Coughing and spitting, she got to her feet, and looked around through the haze. Her visibility was severely impacted. That dark shape- was that Aliara? And that larger shadow seemed to be where El'keth had been. What were those shapes? Stunted, vaguely humanoid, they capered through the **** dust towards her. Teysa's eyes widened and she brought her mace up just in time. Kobolds!

Two of them came at her with spears. Her mace checked the first thrust, and the crude bone blade of the spear shattered against her steel. Its owner stared in horror at his truncated weapon for just a second too long-- Teysa's mace whirled around and caught him in the side of the head, slamming him off his feet and out of sight. The other kobold hunched over and gibbered madly. He jabbed with his spear, and the point scraped off of Teysa's breastplate. Her return blow shattered his arm with a snap like a bundle of dried twigs. Crying out, he dropped his spear and lurched off into the dust cloud.

Teysa took a moment to get her bearings. The dust was clearing, and she could see more kobolds swarming out of the wall. Resting against the opposite wall was a massive granite boulder. She could see the hole it had made, a rough circle gouged about halfway up the wall. Beyond it was a tunnel that sloped away upward into darkness. Aliara was in the middle of a knot of kobolds with her daggers weaving through the air in front of her. As Teysa watched, she closed them like shears around the neck of an incautious kobold and snipped the beast's head off. El'keth had retreated behind her cart and was watching with wide eyes. And Jez'ria...

Jez'ria was leaning against the far wall with a sick expression on her face. Her cart was nowhere to be seen, but fragments of clay and silk suggested that it had been directly in the path of the boulder. Dark ichor stained the ground in front of her, and she lay flat against the ground with her legs splayed. Teysa crossed the cave towards her with her mace held up protectively. Close to, Jez'ria looked worse. She was breathing heavily and clutching her side. One of her legs was a crushed and mangled ruin. Another had been sheared off halfway along its length. The broken end leaked black blood and twitched like a beetle in its **** throes. The drider hissed as Teysa neared. "Go! Protect the spiderling, she needz you more than I do!"

"She can take her of herself!" Teysa replied, hoping it was true. "You're hurt! How bad is it?"

"I'll... ahhhh, I'll live. I have eight of the damn thingz. My spear..." she trailed off into a sibilant growl.

"What was that?"
"Aaaahh! Hurtz! My spear, it vaz in the cart. You vant to be useful, find it for me!"

Three kobolds came running out of the cloud. There seemed to be no end to them. Teysa swung wildly with her mace and they danced backward out of range. These were cannier than the first two; they stayed together, jabbing in rhythm so that she couldn't find her balance. She tried to break for the wreckage of the cart, but they moved to cut her off. Gritting her teeth, she put a shoulder down and charged straight into them. Despite their advantage in numbers and reach, they squawked in panic. One abandoned his friends and dove away; the other two thrust blindly with their spears. Teysa's mace deflected one, but the other pierced the meat of her calf, and she let out a grunt of pain and anger. Then she was past them and they were hurrying to regroup. There, on the ground, was a long iron-shafted spear with a wide tip. Teysa scooped it up, turned, and threw it in one fluid motion. Jez'ria's hand shot out like a snake and grabbed the flying spear behind the head. She spun it around her wrist and flicked her arm out. An astonished kobold who had been sneaking up on her looked down to see the length of steel impaling him through the chest, then dropped his axe from nerveless fingers. Jez'ria rolled the spear to slide his body off of it, then brought it up in a two-handed grip.

Teysa looked around for Aliara. The half-elf was hard-pressed, surrounded by a ring of kobolds. None of them seemed to want to get close to her weaving steel, but she looked like she was flagging, her chest rising and falling with exertion. A few yards away, El'keth crouched behind her cart with her head in her hands. A half-dozen of the little beasts were creeping up on her. Two of them held a large weighted net between them, the others were armed with a variety of crude blades and clubs. As Teysa looked from one to the other, she became aware of a flickering green glow. It seemed to pour out of the tunnel from which the kobolds had sprung their ambush. The thin haze of rock dust in the air caught the light and reflected it oddly, making it look like they were fighting in the middle of a cloud of fireflies.