Lil Orbb's Tsoss (The Spider's Kiss)

[Satoshi]

Pale lavender eyes gazed through the night's inky darkness, glowing softly against the waning light cast by the low-hanging moon. They belonged to a small form, probably no taller than four and a half feet, with ebony-violet skin and silver-white hair that starkly defied the darkness around it. Thin robes danced in the cool breeze wrapping his form, blowing past him and upon the forms of the three figures flanking his own. Two were somewhat larger, heavier forms, wrapped in blackened steel and carrying shields almost as large as the small man. The third tightly gripped a curved bow of exquisite craft, his slender form almost a sillouette in the darkness.

The smallest form could see the forms moving in the darkness up the twisting hill from beyond the rock formations they took shelter behind: humans, armed with crude weaponry and clothed in patchwork fabric. Pathetic prey, but enough to suffice for his purposes. The eyes turned from the cliff, to the three forms that stood behind, lips twisting into a pleased smile. A soft, melodious voice filled the air, exotic and pleasing while at the same time unnerving and somehow malicious. The words carried through the air gently, like a haunting song drifting unto the ears of the audience.

"Zahanzon, plynn ussgyot. Elgg l' rivven xuil veir duucald sarolen ust, p'los nind shlu'ta veir wun."

The slender archer nodded softly, then moved carefully towards the edge of the rock barrier. His hands took hold of a single arrow, notching it in the same fluid motion as he drew it, and silently took aim. The small, robe-clad dark elf lifted a hand in a silent signal to hold, then turned to the other forms at his flank. Again, his soft voice called out, the speech of his kind reminiscent of a siren beckoning prey to it's death.

"Orior mir lil rivvil srow rath ka nind inbau ichl veir. Usstan inbal nau ssrig'luin whol ninta valyrin ulu inbau ninta vlos pholor usstan."

The two soldiers looked to each other, then back to the one before them, nodding. Even behind the fierce helmets, decorated for war and to hide the faces of their wearers, the drow could see the resemblance between the two. Cousins, and both skilled warriors in the service of his House. He watched them lift their shields, level with their chins, and place their hands upon their blades a bit tighter than before. The warpriest even curled his lips, his wicked smile displaying for all his thirst for blood. The wizard smiled at this, shift his back against the rocks, and tilting his head to cast a gaze once more upon the twisting road into the hills.

"Chath, jaluk. Lueth a l' Orbb Valsharess, dos inbalus alur naut lle'warin."

The arrow was sent through the air with little more than a whisper, but to the drow beside the archer, the noise was a glorious symphony that would soon bring an ever-sweeter choir to his ears. And he was not disappointed, for the short sound of a garbled scream almost instantly pierced the near-silence of the night. The sound was dulled by the flood of blood, for the arrow had punctured through the throat of the human it struck. In his dying moments, the bandit reached for the arrow, gripping the wooden shaft as he fell, lifeless and silent, to the ground.

Another human let out a shout, this one of suprise and anger, as he rushed down the hill in pursuit of the unseen assailants. The shout was echoed by more of the bandits, following the lead in a mad, foolish charge. Like flies into the spider's web. The one who started the charge fell with a harsh yelp, dead on the flat of his back with a bolt lodged between his ribs. Another scream, but this time it did not end so suddenly. The mage turned his eyes to the source, and saw one of the bandits brandishing a crude iron sword over his head in his right arm, his left hanging limply with an arrow through the shoulder.

Before the scout could notch another arrow the human was upon him, swinging wildly with no finesse. His slow, stupid movements were like those of a pregnant cow. So pathetically human. Turning his eyes back to the still-approaching humans, the small drow rest his crossbow upon the rocks, freeing his hands. Words of draconian power rolled from his tongue, the air itself coiling and rolling with the arcane power. With a flourish, the dark elf gestured towards the closest of the human fools still running, twin bolts of shimmering force screeching through the air towards him.

The human attempted to stop his charge short, his feet digging into dirt and displacing loose stones, but he was too slow. The bolts struck forcefully against his chest, the sound of shattering ribs and blooded vomit filling the smiling arcanist's ears. His lips curled into a smile, his tongue drawn across his lips in delight. His thoughts were suddenly disrupted by searing pain in his right shoulder, his eyes turning upon the source of the pain. A four inch gash spanned much of his shoudler, the cloth of the robes sheared away at the wound. One of the archers atop the cliffs must have caught sight of them.

The drow pushed his left hand into his pouch, reaching for a potion, but the warpriest was already upon him. His nimble hands treated the wound with precision born of countless battlefields, his skill more than ample to seal the small gash. The wizard turned his attention back upon the archers, his lips curling into an angered sneers. With a word and a gesture, he outstretched his hand- an orb of lightning rolling through the air. It moved slow at first, then suddenly spanned the distance in the blink of an eye, exploding into a rapture of screams and charred flesh. The twinge of a bow came thrice more, the forms shuddering from the spell falling where they stood.

At the scout's feet lay the body of his attacker, his neck rent open by a skilled blade. However, the fool had managed a lucky blow amidst his clumsy flailings and the mark showed upon the scout's chest. The warpriest could deal with it, for it was nothing of dire consequence. With most of the human scum dead, the mage moved out from behind the rocks, towards his final goal. The second soldier followed close behind him, the warpriest staying back to tend the scout. At the foot of the road leading up the hills and to the cliffs, the broken form of a still-living human lay. He gripped his shattered chest, coughing up blood and groaning in pain, but he was alive. The pale lavender eyes of the small drow wizard seemed, for a moment, to shimmer even brighter in the darkness.

"Usstan quin dron. Inbau l' rothe sslu."

"Xas, ussta senger."

[Satoshi]

The smell of mold and stagnant water filled the air, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping upon stone. A harsh grunt was heard as a form was tossed carelessly upon the damp stone. The screech of metal rang out again, the barred doors of the cage swinging forcefully closed. The disheveled figure, a human male, tried to rise to his feet, cursing loudly at his captors. The locking of several bolts into hand-held crossbows silenced the litany coming from the captured bandit. Instead, he turned his eyes to the room he now found himself in.

The stone was roughly hewn, cut into a natural cavern formation of some sort. Several sections of the natural walls were covered in lichen and moss, fed and moistened with slick trickles of water that rolled ever so slowly to the floor. It was surprisingly large: the single 'room' was probably roughly one hundred and twenty feet wide, though he was confined to a twenty by forty cell blocked in by heavy bars of dark metal. Beyond his 'prison', he saw several dimly lit armored forms standing around a campfire. He could make out a few more shapes in the darkness, and what appeared to be a make-shift camp, but little else outside the shadows afforded by the single fire.

The man moved carefully to the edge of the bars, wrapping his hands around the dark metal. It was cold and wet, as he expected, but it didn't strike him as iron or steel. He gave a strong thrust upon the bars, and he was suprised to find not even the slightest give in the bars. The bars didn't rattle, didn't even budge an inch: he cursed under his breath. His muttered words were responded, to his surprise, by a low hiss from the shadows directly in front of him. He squinted his eyes, peering into the darkness in an attempt to see what had made the noise...

"Burnin' Hells!"

He screamed out, stumbling backwards and upon the wet floor once more as a massive form slammed itself against the bars of the cage. He stared in terror up at a black widow, as large as a pure-bred horse, the creature's many eyes sparkling with his reflection. It's wickedly curved fangs dripped with a clear liquid- either some form of saliva or a potent poisen that would have ended his life with even the smallest dose. His hand rose to his chest, fighting back the pounding within that threatened to throw him into a panic. What sort of prison held such monsters as guards was the only question his mind was registering, his situation becoming several times more serious in his own perception.

"Tlu honglath, dalhar del Lloth."

The voice seemed to still the monstrous vermin, the spider removing it's forelegs from the bars and crawling back into the darkness. The human crawled back, skidding across the slick rock surface until his back struck sorely against the far rock wall. A sharp outcropping had struck him in the shoulder, but the mismatched patchwork leather he wore had withstood the sharp edges and left him with likely only a bruise. This brought back painful memories of what had happened to his ribs... hours ago? Days? His head was swimming now, as he tried to remember, tried to understand why a massive spider was sitting at the edges of the prison cell, trying to see who the robed figure striding up to the bars of his dark prison was.

It was the wizard from that night, he realized sudden, but now he could see who his captor was. And, in that instant, he wished he hadn't: for the wizard was a short, ebony-skinned man with high cheeks and sinister lips curled into a venemous smile. Hair the color of moonlight and those damned pointed ears rising from beneath. He was not simply captured and in a prison, as he had feared- he was at the mercy of the Drow. For a moment, all of the highwayman's courage left him, and he balked at the sight of the leering figure that watched him from the other side of the bars. The sight only seemed to make the dark elf smile wider, his hands gripping a quill in one hand and a thick, leatherbound book in the other.

"I want you to tell me what hurts worse: your insides or your outsides. And do be honest."

The words, though spoken in common, held a thick accent that twisted the words to an almost indistinguishable mumble. And even though he could just barely understand the words, he wasn't sure how to answer the question posed to him. Or if it was even a question that was directed to him. His eyes cast about the makeshift jail, but he was the only figure present. He was about to ask the elf what he was talking about, ask him what he wanted to simply let him go, but his words never had a chance to leave his mouth. Before he could speak, a line of caustic acid shot from the drow's fingertips, splattering across the thigh and belly of the man.

The acid ate through the leather almost instantly, scalding flesh to boils and sores on contact. Even though most of the damage was merely tissue in nature, the human wailed in anguish as his body convulsed from the attack. His hands reached to the wounds, but flailed ineffectually around it. He fanned at the skin, afraid to touch the sores and boils in the event that the acid may burn his hands as well. His screams slowed, turning into panting exclaimations and high-pitched curses. His eyes wildly darted about the cage for some means of escape, or even a place of shelter from another such attack, but there was nothing. Desperately, he turned to the wizard and half-shouted, half-pleaded with his captor.

"YOU SICK BASTARD! WHY DID YOU DO THAT? JUST LET ME GO! Y-you'll never see me again! I'll leave the gods-damned country! Anything!"

"Inside or outside?"

"W-what the hells? Are you EVEN LISTENING?! JUST LET ME FUCKING GO!"

The drow furrowed his brow, and slowly began striding along the outside of the cage. His lengthy robes of red and black draped his small frame in a billowing fashion, seeming to dance of it's own accord with his every step. The bandit's wild eyes followed him, terrified and at the same time hypnotized, until he stood at a much closer vantage near him behind the bars. The mage's face betrayed little emotion, and he bore a demandingly serious expression as he lifted his hands. The human struggled to force his body into motion, but the burns on his thigh as well as the position at which he had been laying made him too slow. A gout of flames rushed past the bars from the dark elf's outstretched hands and washed over the human's body.

When subject to the acid, his wails had been high-pitched and uninterrupted. As his clothes, hair, and flesh burned, however, his screams of pure agony echoed again and again in a broken litany, the sound reverberating through the cold, wet stone. The last flickers of orange light reflected off of the wet stone walls as the bandit stopped thrashing- his voice hoarse from his pitious cries. With no voice left to scream, he clutched himself in a ball as disjointed sobs left his burned and trembling lips. The thick metal doors of the prison grated open and the warpriest strobe in, his heavy armor rattling with every step. All the while, thosr pale lavender eyes watched the pitiful human, recording every motion, every scream, everything upon the pages of the leatherbound book in his hand.

"Opholudou."