VOUNDARRA: This young sorceress is met only briefly, on her helpless flight down an alley in Skullport to an unwanted meeting with Vulharindauloth. The spell that sent her on that journey, and the one who cast it, are secrets to be revealed elsewhere and else-when… as is Voundarra's fate.
VULHARINDAULOTH: A gigantic elder black dragon, Vulharindauloth is peacefully asleep in a wall of the cavern that holds the corner of Skullport we visit… or at least, is peacefully asleep until the dying moments of this tale (and I do mean dying…). How Vulharindauloth came to be there, and what he'll do in his awakened rage, are matters to be explored at later time-and from a safe distance. On the far side of) Selune, a century from now, perhaps.
XUZOUN: This beholder (eye tyrant) is old enough to know better, but too impatient with skulking not to try to place several mind-controlled doppleganger slaves in the places of Durnan and other important Waterdhavians, so as to set itself up as the true ruler the city. There are graveyards full of folk who've coveted that position… but Xuzoun did keep more of an, eye on things than most of them. (Sorry.)
YLOEBRE: An illithid (mind flayer) and fellow schemer of Iraeghlee, Yloebre shares his business partner's shattering fate. It's possible Yloebre might have a future career-but, knowing Halaster, not likely.
ZARISSA: The second and even more lushly beautiful sorceress we see plunging helplessly through the murky air of that alley in Skullport, Zarissa is on her unwilling way to awaken a black dragon. It's possible we'll learn about the spell that sent her along with Voundarra, its caster, and Zarissa's fate, in some other tale. And then again-perhaps not.
RITE OF BLOOD
Chapter One: Journey into Darkness
There were in the lands of Toril powerful men whose names were seldom heard, and whose deeds were spoken of only in furtive whispers. Among these were the Twilight Traders, a coalition of merchant captains who did business with the mysterious peoples of the Underdark.
There were perhaps six in this exclusive brotherhood, and all were canny, fearless souls who possessed far more ambitions than morals. Membership in this clandestine group was carefully guarded, achieved only through a long and difficult process that was monitored not only by the members, but by mysterious forces from Below. Those who survived the initiation were granted a rare window into the hidden realms: the right to enter the underground trade city known as Mantol-Derith.
An enormous cavern hidden some three miles below the surface, Mantol-Derith was shrouded with more layers of magic and might than a wizard's stronghold. Secrecy was its first line of defense: even in the Underdark, not many knew of the marketplace's existence. Its exact location was known only to a few. Even many of the merchants who regularly did business there would have been hard pressed to place the cavern on a map. So convoluted were the routes leading to Mantol-Derith that even duergar and deep gnomes could not hold their relative bearings along the way. Between the market and any nearby settlement lay labyrinths of monster-infested tunnels complicated by secret doors, portals of teleportation, and magical traps.
No one "stumbled upon Mantol-Derith," a merchant either knew the route intimately or died along the way.
Nor could the marketplace be located by magical means. The strange radiations of the Underdark were strong in the thick, solid stone surrounding the cavern. No tendril of magic could pass through-all were either diffused or reflected back to the sender, sometimes dangerously mutated. Thus, any attempt at magical inquiry into the mysteries of Mantol-Derith was fated to end in frustration or tragedy.
Even the drow, the undisputed masters of the Underdark, did not have easy access to this market. In the nearest dark-elven settlement, the great city of Menzoberranzan, no more than eight merchant companies at any one time knew the secret paths. This knowledge was the key to immense wealth and power, and its possession the highest mark of status attainable by members of the merchant class. Accordingly, it was pursued with an avid ferocity, with complex levels of intrigue and bloody battles of weaponry and magic, all of which would probably earn nods of approval from the city's ruling matrons-if indeed the priestesses of Lloth were inclined to take notice of the doings of mere commoners.
Few of Menzoberranzan's ruling females-except for those matron mothers who maintained alliances with this or that merchant band-had much interest in the world beyond their city's cavern. These drow were an insular people: utterly convinced of their own racial superiority, fanatically absorbed in their worship of Lloth, completely enmeshed in the strife and intrigue inspired by their Lady of Chaos.
Status was all, and the struggle for power all-consuming. Very little could compel the subterranean elves to tear their eyes from their traditionally narrow focus. But Xandra Shobalar, third-born daughter of a noble house, was driven by the most powerful motivating forces known to the drow: hatred and revenge.
The members of House Shobalar were reclusive even by the standards of paranoid Menzoberranzan, and they were seldom seen outside of the family complex. At the moment, Xandra was farther from home than she had ever intended to go. The journey to Mantol-Derith was long-the midnight hour of Narbondel would come and pass perhaps as many as one hundred times from the outset of her quest until she stood once again within the walls of House Shobalar.
Few noble females cared to be away for so long, for fear that they would return to find their positions usurped. Xandra had no such fears. She had ten sisters, five of whom were, like Xandra, counted among the rare female wizards of Menzoberranzan. But none of these five wanted her job.
Xandra was Mistress of Magic, charged with the wizardly training of all young Shobalars as well as the household's magically gifted fosterlings. She had a great deal of responsibility, certainly, but there was far more glory to be found in the hoarding of spell power, and in conducting the mysterious experiments that yielded new and wondrous items of magic. If one of the Shobalar wizards should ever have a change of heart and try to wrest the instructor's position away, the powerful Xandra would certainly kill her-but only as a matter of form. No drow female allowed another to take what was hers, even if she herself did not particularly want it.
Xandra Shobalar might not have been particularly enamored of her role, but she was exceedingly good at what she did. The Shobalar wizards were reputed to be among the most innovative in Menzoberranzan, and all of her students were well and thoroughly taught.
These included the children-both female and male-of House Shobalar, a few second- and third-born sons from other noble houses, which Xandra accepted as apprentices, and a number of promising common-born boy-children that she acquired by purchase, theft, or adoption-an option that usually occurred after the convenient death of an entire family, rendering the magically-gifted child an orphan.
However they came to House Shobalar, Xandra's students routinely won top marks in yearly competitions meant to spur the efforts of the young drow. Such victories opened the doors of Sorcere, the mage school at the famed academy Tier Breche. So far every Shobalar-trained student who wished to become a wizard had been admitted to the academy, and most had excelled in the Art. Even those students who learned only the rudiments of magic, and went on to become priestesses or fighters, were considered formidable magical opponents.
This high standard was a matter of pride, which Xandra Shobalar possessed in no small measure.