R. Salvatore - Archmage

If he was the only conduit allowing them to return to the Prime Material Plane before their sentence was served, would they not serve him? Willingly?

Gromph began to chuckle as some other possibilities began to sort themselves out in his thoughts. He believed that he had figured out how he had broken the most ancient code, that his psionics had enhanced his arcane spell of summoning so greatly that Marilith’s banishment could not stop him from pulling her forth from the Abyss. But no other drow would know that, or even begin to consider it. Perhaps he could indeed parade Marilith in front of Mez’Barris Armgo and humiliate her in front of the other matron mothers.

“Your call was. . different, Archmage,” Marilith said. “Stronger and more insistent. I lamented it at first, fearing that I could not answer, yet eager to return to Menzoberranzan. But something in the call, some deeper power that I have not felt before, made me believe it was possible, and so here I am.”

“To serve me,” Gromph said.

Marilith nodded. “That is the price of answering your call.”

“Serve me well, Marilith,” Gromph explained. “We will together find a most delicious revenge on House Barrison Del’Armgo.”

“You will let me kill the weapons master?”

“Eventually, perhaps. But first, we will humiliate them. All of them.”

Connerad Brawnanvil beamed with pride as he stood on the bank of the underground pond, having called Bruenor and Emerus to his side. The two had asked Connerad to oversee the defensive coordination of the outside chamber, Bruenor pointedly reminding him that his father had been one of the greatest military tacticians Mithral Hall had ever known. Now, judging from the younger dwarf’s somewhat smug expression, it seemed that Connerad intended to do his father proud.

“We got our shots sighted in at every guard station,” he explained, pointing out various stalagmites and stalactites that were hollowed out, either recently or in the original dwarven settlement of Gauntlgrym. “So say we got an enemy on the north wall, creeping for the lake.”

He gave a sharp whistle, and a torch flared along the northern wall of the cavern, followed by shouts form various stalactite and stalagmite mounds referencing the “mark.”

“Aye, there they be!” Connerad exclaimed, pointing to a pile of stones and sticks set up to resemble a group of goblins or orcs or some other intruders.

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, the dwarf sentinels let fly with their side-slinger catapults and rebuilt ballistae, and the entire area around those targets filled with flying stones and spears, and finally, with burning pitch.

The speed and violence of the attack had Bruenor and Emerus rocking back on their heels.

“Just for that one spot?” Bruenor asked.

“All about the cavern,” Connerad replied. “We put our war engines on pivots and sighted in, don’t ye doubt, near and far. If it’s in here, movin’ or not, we can hit it!”

“Well played, young Brawnanvil!” King Emerus said.

“Just as it was in the first days o’ Gauntlgrym, and woe to any foe trying to sneak in,” Connerad explained. “And I got some boys scraping mica and polishin’ silver, working on focusin’ mirrors so we can send light from every tower into every crack in the cavern. As it was in the first days o’ Gauntlgrym.”

“How’re ye knowin’. .” Emerus started to ask, but Bruenor cut him short.

“Ye sat yer bum on the throne,” he said, staring at Connerad.

The young king didn’t argue.

“Bah, but we telled ye to let us be with ye!” said Emerus.

“And I taked it upon meself to do it meself,” Connerad replied. “Getting ready for comragh !”

Bruenor and Emerus looked at each other then, somewhat surprised and a bit perturbed, but only until they realized that Connerad had used the ancient word for “battle.” Aye, he had sat his bum on the throne, and aye, the old ones had talked to him, as they had talked to Bruenor and Emerus. As they had both been leading their respective clans for centuries, it was hard for either of the older kings to think of Connerad as an equal, but by rights, he was just that. He hadn’t been Steward of Mithral Hall for the last decades, but King of Mithral Hall, and once again, as with their earlier conversation about Bruenor taking back the throne of Mithral Hall, Connerad had reminded them both that he didn’t need their permission.

“The throne showed ye the old designs?” Bruenor asked.

“We’re pushin’ out into the tunnels beyond, them leadin’ back to the rocky dale,” he answered. “That’s goin’ to be takin’ some time.”

“How many’re ye using?” Bruenor asked.

“One brigade only,” Connerad answered. “We can’t be splittin’ our forces with a nest o’ drow below.”

“Nest o’ kobolds not far below,” Bruenor reminded him, and the other two nodded.

“Ye plannin’ their party?” Connerad asked.

“Aye, and sure to be a good one.”

“I’ll be expectin’ an invitation,” said Connerad.

“Right by me side,” Bruenor promised, and he clapped Connerad on the shoulder. “Wouldn’t be havin’ it any other way!” Bruenor turned back out to the wider cavern, impressed by the progress. The bridge was almost finished already, with solid abutments and a center span wired to drop.

“And we’ve one more thing we’re needin’ to do afore the fighting starts in full,” Connerad said.

The other two looked at him.

“Clangeddin didn’t tell ye, then,” Connerad asked, “when ye sat yer bums on the throne?”

“Say it clear, lad,” Bruenor bade him.

“Deas-ghnaith inntrigidh,” Connerad replied.

Bruenor and Emerus turned to each other curiously. These were words neither dwarf had ever heard before, and yet as they stared at each other, each came to understand the phrase, as if they were pulling the wrapping off a present. And more than the words, Connerad’s mere recital of the ancient Delzoun phrase, opened in the minds of the other two images of what could be, of what should be, of what must be.

“All th’ others need to put their bums on that throne, then,” Bruenor whispered, and Emerus nodded his agreement.

“ Tariseachd, the Rite o’ Fealty, the call o’ Kith’n Kin,” said Connerad. “Three kingdoms joined as one.”

“Aye,” the other two said in unison.

A sharp sound from behind startled Bruenor and turned him around to note work on the wall of the complex. Connerad was building nests for archers, and even some war engines back there.

Bruenor thought back to his unpleasant exchange with Lord Neverember, and he couldn’t help but grin. Send all of Waterdeep down here, he thought, and watch them limp away, battered, before they ever reached Gauntlgrym’s front door.

Because of King Connerad, Gauntlgrym’s entry cavern was ready for comragh !

“They are just kobolds,” Tiago grumbled, tugging his shoulder away from Doum’wielle’s grip.

“This is their lair and they are many,” the half-drow warned.

But Tiago wasn’t listening. Kobolds, he thought with disgust-at them and at Doum’wielle for even hinting that these two-legged rats might pose a threat. Menzoberranzan was thick with the vermin, as almost every House used them as slaves. House Baenre kept hundreds, thousands even, tending the gardens, cleaning the compound, and going out into the Underdark to hunt for giant red-cap mushrooms whenever one of the priestesses was in the mood for the delicacy.

Tiago could hardly believe that a colony of kobolds was living here now, in the deeper rooms of the complex’s upper tunnels. Why hadn’t Matron Mother Zeerith enslaved the beasts by now? Or murdered them?