DISCLAIMER: I don't own Redwall or any novels in said series, I don't own Dungeons and Dragons or Forgotten Realms, or any characters.
Forgotten Redwall
(If this story absolutely needs to take place at a certain time it'd be a little while before War of the Spider Queen. This is a possible–but of course fictional–explanation of why Lolth abandoned her servants)
She was unstoppable, beautiful, raw, untamed power in it's purest form. She was Lolth, and she decided she was bored.
Unfortunately the destruction of some greater fiends, the rape and sacrifice of some princes, and many, many ritualistic Priestess/Glabrezu couplings didn't really do much to remedy this if anything it made things worse. There's only so many times you can watch an attractive high priestess, or bored young cleric, or a would be high priestess lose her 'purity' (each one a bigger whore than the ones who worked on the streets, who did they think they were kidding?) to dog faced demons before it gets boring. Actually she was getting a little annoyed, Glabrezu coupling was never meant to be a pass time, that's what she'd kept the males around for, it was getting so bad that there simply weren't enough of the demons on Lolth's 'payroll' for every hungered priestess, which had left many believing they had lost her favor when they failed to summon one, and thus they began bugging her with their whiney prayers causing her to truly lose favor with them.
Seeing a bunch of fanatics dice up some hot young piece of flesh was a little wasteful, but then they sent the souls straight to their goddess anyway. And destroying great fiends was only fun until she ran out of fiends in her immediate area, and as before she sort of needed the Glabrezus, at least until she decided how to get her priestesses to stop abusing the ritual without having to outright say "Okay, your goddess is a little concerned with your strange as the abyss sexual habits, people!".
"I need a change." She decided. Suddenly all the drow had purple skin. "No, I didn't mean that!" She said. The dark elves recovered their ebony skin, none seemed to notice the fluctuation.
None except for one high priestess, a rather uninteresting little girl who Lolth had, on occasion, considered personally killing.
As soon as the thought occurred to her that one priestess dropped dead. 'A little careless with the godly powers today.' Lolth sighed, and revived the priestess, who was now having a nervous break down at having turned purple, and shortly thereafter, dying.
Lolth decided to have a little fun with this one. She snapped her fingers and the subject was before her. "Daughter Drow, look upon Lolth!"
"My lady! I am yours to command."
"Of course you silly twit. Now, to the point, you're boring. Very boring."
"M'lady?"
"Seriously, you make me want to shout, here's your new angle, you're a matron mother, your house is about to crumble, you're under attack by house Baenre, good luck!" Lolth said, about to dismiss the newly appointed matron.
"Wait!" The priestess cried.
"Eh?" Lolth raised an eyebrow.
"Surely I am not the most boring of females!"
"Oh . . . no, I'm pretty sure you are."
"What about Kair Riak?"
"Oh she gets down and parties every now and then, and has five husbands that only she and–well, frankly, I–know about whom she occasionally sets upon one another in violent mortal combat for her own entertainment. Oh no, I like Kair Riak."Lolth said. "But you . . . you're boring."
"I had two slaves fight to the death once!"
"That was fifty years ago, you're boring."
"What about Nika Akin?"
"Keeping her alive makes her mother nervous. And she's having affairs with both of her brothers, her secret life isn't boring at all. Disgusting, but not boring. Yours on the other hand, or your lack-there-of makes me want to cry. G'bye!"
"I kissed my cousin once!"
"You thought she was someone else, and it wasn't a very spicy kiss either, it was just a 'aint seen you in a while' peck on the cheek." Lolth sighed. "Just die already."
"How about Sos'Umptu Baenre?"
"She's . . . hmm . . . you know, that girl is pretty boring too." Lolth decided. "It's been what? A hundred years since she's gotten laid? I love the attention she pays to the temple but she's a high priestess, and a Baenre daughter, *not* some janitor. Oh wait, there's her suppressed cunning, the intelligent, conniving, cruel side of her she likes to hide from her sisters, her clever interpretation of my will . . . and yet a hundred years unlaid . . . faked it at that last ceremony, that really pissed me off . . ."
"So can she die instead of me?" The priestess asked.
"Hmm? She can, but she wont. I'd rather kill you both, go suffer!"
The priestess screamed and was teleported to the throne room of house Sk'Rood which was magically surrounded by five hundred Baenre soldiers, it was suddenly night time and Sk'Rood got smashed.
"Hmm . . . that was fun . . . but only for an instant." Lolth decided, listening to the frantic pleading of her priestesses in house Sk'Rood. "Guess I'll mess with that Baenre girl."
Sos'Umptu was hard at work scrubbing a statue. It was slave's work, but she didn't trust this particular statue to any slave, nor did she trust any other statue, pew, anything to any slave, servant or even another high priestess unless she was overseeing it personally. Hell, she'd clean the entire temple on her own, on her hands and knees if she had the time, it was a large place though.
Clean, clean, clean! She had to clean! Cleanliness was next to godliness! In this place she was the matron, the weapon master, the fighter, the cleric, the princess, the slave, she was the alpha, the omega, practically a goddess! Oops, sacrilege, she'd have to punish herself later. She'd suffocate herself with a pillow until she passed out.
Oh wait, she did that every night to silence the screams in her head. She'd rip off one of her fingers, then go through the long and incredibly painful process of regrowing them, that'd learn her not to be sacrilegious in Lolth's holy house.
But then pain wasnt really something she was fond of . . . suddenly the huge chapel doors slammed shut, and the avatar of Lolth appeared before her. "EIP! I was gonna cut off my fingers, I swear!" Sos'Umptu cried.
"SILENCE! I am Lolth! Goddess of your people!"
"Yes, I know, we met around the end of the Time of Troubles if you recall, well we didn't meet I just sort of saw you and I like to think you stole a glance my way?" Sos'Umptu squeaked.
"What? Oh . . . no . . . no, I just sort of glared at you because you had this radiance . . . or lack of it. You lack the glow of a proper drow. Where's your ambition?"
"Eh? I'm ambitious."
"Cleaning the blood stains around the alter isn't an ambition." Lolth scoffed.
"Oh right. . ."
"I think you should be cowering before me or something." Lolth noted.
Sos fell to the ground, trembling, truly frightened. "Y-yes my mistress!" She moaned. "P-p-p-please don't k-k-kill me!"
"Better. Much better." Lolth nodded. "Sossy–"
"Actually my name is pronounced–"
"No one knows, or cares how your name is pronounced, so shut up." Lolth growled.
"Y-yes mistress!" Sos'Umptu went back to groveling.
"Sossy, Sossy, my dear daughter Baenre, you shall be charged with a task."
"Can I do it after I clean those blood stains?"
Lolth's eyes twitched, Sos'Umptu squeaked and went back to groveling. "Listen here missy, when your goddess gives you an unholy quest you don't ask about blood stains, you hear me?"
"Yes goddess!" Sos'Umptu whined.
"And stop whining! You need to get laid!"
"I what?" Sos'Umptu frowned. "Nonsense, I took care of that last week."
"You think you can lie to your goddess?" Lolth sounded shocked and amused.
"Sorry about that." Sos'Umptu admitted. She wasnt used to talking to people who read her mind automatically.
"At least you haven't given in to the recent demon summoning craze."
"No, but I hear great things from Triel, I was going to do that next week." Sos'Umptu admitted.
"For the love of . . . well . . . ME! It's like opium!"
"What?" Sos asked.
"Never you mind child, never you mind."
"Uh . . . Okay . . ."
"And don't worry about your sister, I'll learn her not to abuse the ritualistic coupling, she's top dog now he needs to set an example for the weaker priestesses."
"Yes mistress."
Loth paced back and forth for a while, then said, "Listen here, you're going to take part in a contest, yes I can see it all now! You and a male will compete for the ultimate prize!"
"What's that?" Sos asked.
"Oh I'll think of something . . . what do you want?"
"I thought you could read my mind!" Sos'Umptu chuckled.
Lolth's eye twitched again. "I would not be a smart ass if I were you."
"Sorry, I spent too much time with Liriel." Sos admitted.
"I know a hundred Liriels." Lolth scoffed. She put up a hand before Sos'Umptu could tell her what she'd meant. "No, I know the brat you were talking about, I'm your blasted goddess! Now silence! Ahem. This is the ultimate challenge, Sos'Umptu Baenre! If you fail you will suffer great and terrible humiliation, and you will be left alive to be tortured and violated when your household, your sisters, and your brother, and your servants and such are all masacred." Lolth said simply.
"So I get to laugh and watch them die, and finally get laid, what's the down side?" Sos'Umptu blinked.
Lolth stared at her for a moment. "Keep that up and you might just make me glad I didn't kill you with a thought."
"Uh . . . thanks?"
"Don't mention it." Lolth shrugged. "The down side, Sos'Umptu Baenre, is that you'll have the emotions of a surface elf, you'll be grieved when you see your family die, not amused, and violation would both humiliate and traumatize."
"Surface elves are freaks." Sos'Umptu spat.
"Indeed." Lolth nodded. "Well there's that, and your violation will be performed by the ugliest orcs you've ever seen, and exceedingly painful, as I'll be renewing your maidenhood with every thrust."
"One might get used to that." Sos'Umptu bluffed.
"I'll see to it you don't." Lolth said.
"Wh-what if I win?"
"If you win, as I'm sure you will, you may make a wish, any wish and I will grant it." Lolth said. "Except of course, you may not wish for my powers, or anything outside of my powers, you know, that sort of thing, text book stuff."
"R-right." Sos nodded. "Against whom do I compete?" Sos'Umptu asked. "And how?"
Lolth frowned. "Hmm . . . let me think . . . I know! Dinin Du'urden!"
"Drizzt Du'urden!?" Sos screamed. "I must defeat Drizzt Du'urden? Have you not noticed? Our entire race has been trying to destroy Drizzt Du'urden ever since he went rouge! He's too good! It is not possible!"
"I 'ought to smite you just for that wench, do not tell your goddess what is and is not possible!"
"Are you sure you're Lolth?" Sos'Umptu raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you were good at interpreting my will." Lolth snarled, Sos went back to groveling. "Anyway, I didn't say 'Drizzt' I said Dinin. Do you know who that is?"
"I probably should, huh?" Sos'Umptu sighed.
"No, he was no one of consequence."
"So . . . this will be fairly easy, yes?"
"Perhaps. We shall see."
"What is the real purpose of this?"
"Besides amusing me? Well it'll obviously decide which sex is more useful to me, and thus which sex will rule over Menzoberranzan for the next two thousand years."
"Then why not send Gromph?"
"He'd cream you. Besides, he's going to be busy trying to kill Quenthel. Bloody waste, they bring her back just to kill her again."
"What? We haven't brought Quenthel back to life!" Sos'Umptu cried.
"Oh right, that's a few weeks into the future, sorry about that."
"Aha . . ." Sos'Umptu frowned. "Uh . . . okay. Any way we can prevent that? I don't much care for Quenthel."
"More to the point with her back to life and going around as Triel's advisor, the new Matron wouldn't need to listen to your dim-witted opinions."
"Hey, I interpreted your will properly *twice* before anyone else could, and I–"
"Idiot, I know all that, remember?"
"Right."
"Well I have to go." Lolth said. "Try not to get assassinated for the next day or so while I set up the challenge."
"Cant you cast divine protection over me?"
"I could . . . but I wont." Lolth said simply.
"Well . . . farewell I guess . . . nice meeting you. For an evil, chaos deity you're not half bad, rather easy to get along with actually, I look forward to my tenure in the afterlife." Sos'Umptu said cheerfully.
Lolth' eye twitched. "You're right." She snapped her fingers and Sos'Umptu spontaneously combusted, and was brought back to life only to repeat the process ten times in a second, then she spent the next five hundred years being tortured by Lolth's most skilled demons in an alternate dimension wherein she aged not at all and where time flowed so that it only lasted the next half second in the real dimension, but she had perfect memory of every day, including her birthdays when the demons had celebrated by removing her skull from her head, showing it to her, then shoving it back into her head through her nose. That amused them quite a bit.
"That better?" Lolth asked.
"I'm so afraid I could soil myself." Sos'Umptu nodded.
"And I was being 'nice' your mother gets that for hours, you got it for a second and a half. That'll learn you not to worship evil." Lolth chuckled. "Of course you're still supposed to worship me!" The Chaos goddess added quickly.
"Of course." Sos'Umptu nodded. She decided she'd like to live forever.
About a week later . . .
One moment Sos'Umptu was getting lectured by Triel about being useless, and the conversation was moving dangerously close to the subject of sacrifice, then she blinked and found herself in a green grassy field of lovely flowers.
Lolth was there too.
Dinin wandered around, he wasnt sure where he was, or why he was here, he had no memory of anything. Except Vierna commanding him to follow her . . . then there were blurs of memory, fighting Drizzt, some human wench, and . . . a dwarf. He feared the dwarf for some reason.
He looked around and saw a fire up ahead. He decided to investigate.
He saw some cloaked figures sitting around a fire roasting meat. He decided to waylay the blighters, and steal their food and any money that had on them, just because he could.
He jumped out of the bushes and shouted "Surrender and die! I mean 'or' die! Oh Who am I kidding, I will kill you anyway!" He reached for his sword . . . it wasnt there.
The enemy turned around, it was the largest, ugliest rat Dinin had ever seen. It stood on two legs and waved a dagger in his general direction. "What's that yer sayin' mate?"
"Gods damn it." Dinin sighed.
"So the contest begins, I transported him somewhere and . . . aw me dammit he's died." Lolth sighed.
"Do I win?" Sos'Umptu asked.
"No, *you* have to kill him."
"Damn." Sos'Umptu sighed. "So do I loose?"
"No, I'll just have to keep reviving you idiots until one of you manages to get a killing blow in."
"Oh . . . So we're immortal until we kill each other?"
"Or until this game stops being fun." Lolth said.
"Okay. Can I ask a question?"
"Sure." Lolth shrugged.
"Why are you doing this? If you want blood sports, we have them back in Menzoberranzan all the time."
"Oh sure, but this'll be more fun. You see you're in a new dimension, I have no power here, everyone here is goody, goody, they keep killing off the evil ones, y'know? So you two will be hunted by the natives as well as each other . . . and you have no weapons."
"So what? We kill each other with harsh language?" Sos'Umptu asked.
"Or rocks." Lolth pointed out. "Whatever works. See the fun?"
"Yes . . . I suppose." Sos'Umptu sighed.
"You want to clean something don't you?" Lolth scowled, disgusted.
"Uh-huh." Sos'Umptu whimpered.
"For the love of . . . well . . . ME! You're hopeless. I'm going to go revive your opponent now, start looking for a rock or something, the mayhem begins!"
"Uh . . . okay." Sos'Umptu sighed. Lolth disappeared and she grabbed a sizeable rock and started wandering around.
Dinin came back to life in the same field he'd started in, not far from the giant freak rats. "Alright, those scum are going to die!" He decided, this time he checked to see that he had his sword. He didn't. That didn't matter much, since now he knew he didn't have it, and could prepare a plan without relying on it. And there was a nice big stick over by that bush. He moved out towards the rat's location.
He didn't know or care why surface rats were so large, or why they could speak, they'd attacked him, who cared that it was self defense?
He snuck into the woods again, used his initiate powers to summon up some Fairy Fire, lining the three rats with harmless flames. However when they saw it they panicked, one actually stopped, dropped, and rolled right into the fire. Dinin leapt out, he leapt onto the rat that had killed him, wrestled the dagger away and slit the beast's throat, he turned to the next one and lunged, slamming the dagger into the panicked creature's chest, grabbing the poorly made sword it had tied to it's waist, and shoved the blade into the fat creature's stomach, then turned on the third rat, which was rolling around in the fire and just stood there and watched, laughing sinisterly to himself.
Then he discovered the rats had a sentry, a fourth rat lunged forward, spear pointed forward, Dinin turned and in one smooth movement removed the beast's head with his stolen sword.
He spat on the corpse, suddenly the flames went out, the burning rat had extinguished them, Dinin's infrared vision went to work, he saw another drow, female, magnificent.
"Fine work. And yet you cannot manage to defeat your brother."
"These were wild animals." Dinin scoffed."
"Well actually they are the natives of this place, they come in all sorts of varieties too. Well, anyway, I'm Lolth, your goddess, the ultimate power, be honored."
"Whatever."
"I 'ought to smite you." Lolth scowled.
"Smite me then," Dinin scoffed "I'm the one holding the sword."
"Didn't I just tell you I was your goddess?" Lolth demanded.
"Yeah, I've got a bit of a bone to pick with you."
"If you ask me a single 'why are we here' question I'll eat your soul!" Lolth cired.
Dinin frowned. "Okay, I've got nothing to say then."
"Good. I knew you'd ask me something like that, every male does. Oh Lolth, why are we here? Oh Lolth, why do females rule our society? Oh Lolth, why do you let good things happen to bad females? Oh Lolth–"
"I get the picture!" Dinin said.
"Good. Now, to explain why you're here–"
"But you just said–"
"Shut up!"
"Sorry."
"Okay, anyway you're here to compete in the greatest blood spot of your time."
"Uh . . . okay . . ." Dinin frowned. 'Why couldn't I stay dead?'
"And I don't want to hear any 'why did I die?' complains either, I get enough of those from murder victims, who I have to deal with personally mind you because all my demons are off getting laid!" Lolth cried.
"I didn't say anything." Dinin said.
"I can read your mind!" Lolth cried.
"Stay out of there!" The former mercenary scoffed.
"Why should I?" Lolth sneered.
Dinin started undressing her with his mind...
"You scum, I'm your creator!" She cried. "As voluptuous as I am, the image you paint is unwanted, I have half a mind to inflict you with an uncontrollable attraction to boys! You're lucky I don't control that sort of thing."
Dinin laughed bitterly. "What do I get if I win?"
"You will be brought back to life as your brother's fighting equal."
"Drizzt or that other guy?" Dinin scoffed.
"Me damn it, I hoped you wouldn't catch that one! Fine, Drizzt!" Lolth sighed.
"All I have to do is kill my opponent?"
"Yep."
"Anyone I know?"
"Sos'Umptu Baenre."
"Doesn't ring any bells." Dinin frowned.
"Y'know, the neat freak?" Lolth offered.
"Uh . . . not following you."
"The skinny one that gets too much candlelight." Lolth said.
"I don't know who you're talking about."
"She's in your head somewhere!" Lolth cried. "Back of your mind, filed under 'make fun of behind back' if that helps."
"Cant you just craft a mental image of her for me?"
"I could . . . but I wont."
"You're a lazy deity, aren't you?"
"Shut up mortal!" Lolth cried, snapped her fingers and Dinin suddenly knew who she was talking about. "Just kill her and you're the new hero of your kind."
"Sounds good."
"But one thing . . ."
"Hmm?"
"The two of you cannot die, unless you land the killing blow on each other, that said you will come back to life here, in this forest clearing every time you die. She too will return to her forest clearing every time she dies."
"Is her clearing nicer than mine?" Dinin asked, looking at the smelly, green, foresty clearing.
"Duh!" Lolth scoffed.
"What's that mean?" Dinin frowned.
"It means 'yes'." Lolth sighed.
"Can I just come back to life at her clearing?" Dinin asked.
"No. If you did that you could just wait for something to kill her, then stab her in the back when she comes back here."
"That was the general idea, yes." Dinin nodded.
"Hmm . . . interesting . . . still no." Lolth said. With that she disappeared. Dinin scowled and began to wander around.
The sun rose, in accordance he hissed threateningly at it and dove for shade, to his surprise the sunlight didn't burn, or harm him at all. He noticed, as he came out of the goddess forsaken forest that there was a dirt road, and a large tower in the distance. With some stupid looking bells in it. He moved stealthily towards the place, only to find it's gates wide open! His stomach rumbled, and he smelled food!
'How coincidental!' Dinin realized. 'Well, I've got a sword, and no rats or whatever it is in there can stand up to a hungry sword-wielding drow!' He ran towards the gate and ran into a huge . . . something. Looked simply hideous, with big long ears and a bob or a tail!
"I say sah, what are you?"
"IT TALKS! KILL IT!" Dinin screamed.
"That's my jolly old line chap." The thing commented.
"What have we here?" Some smaller yet none-the-less giant rat asked.
"A bally little ferret wot's lost his fur I say." The eared thing said.
"Oh, he looks simply dear!" The rat thing said.
"Excuse me, did you just say 'simply dear'? Because if you did I'm going to–" Dinin began, but the thing cut him off.
"Oh I beg your pardon! I'm Sister Kate, welcome to Redwall Abbey!"
Dinin didn't recognize the name, but for some reason it urged a scream from his lips.
Sos'Umptu on the other hand was far too busy to bother with Dinin, she was surrounded by some angry looking giant rats who's burned companion claimed their "mates" had been killed by a creature resembling herself. "I'm on the right track!" She thought enthusiastically.
Forgotten Redwall
(If this story absolutely needs to take place at a certain time it'd be a little while before War of the Spider Queen. This is a possible–but of course fictional–explanation of why Lolth abandoned her servants)
She was unstoppable, beautiful, raw, untamed power in it's purest form. She was Lolth, and she decided she was bored.
Unfortunately the destruction of some greater fiends, the rape and sacrifice of some princes, and many, many ritualistic Priestess/Glabrezu couplings didn't really do much to remedy this if anything it made things worse. There's only so many times you can watch an attractive high priestess, or bored young cleric, or a would be high priestess lose her 'purity' (each one a bigger whore than the ones who worked on the streets, who did they think they were kidding?) to dog faced demons before it gets boring. Actually she was getting a little annoyed, Glabrezu coupling was never meant to be a pass time, that's what she'd kept the males around for, it was getting so bad that there simply weren't enough of the demons on Lolth's 'payroll' for every hungered priestess, which had left many believing they had lost her favor when they failed to summon one, and thus they began bugging her with their whiney prayers causing her to truly lose favor with them.
Seeing a bunch of fanatics dice up some hot young piece of flesh was a little wasteful, but then they sent the souls straight to their goddess anyway. And destroying great fiends was only fun until she ran out of fiends in her immediate area, and as before she sort of needed the Glabrezus, at least until she decided how to get her priestesses to stop abusing the ritual without having to outright say "Okay, your goddess is a little concerned with your strange as the abyss sexual habits, people!".
"I need a change." She decided. Suddenly all the drow had purple skin. "No, I didn't mean that!" She said. The dark elves recovered their ebony skin, none seemed to notice the fluctuation.
None except for one high priestess, a rather uninteresting little girl who Lolth had, on occasion, considered personally killing.
As soon as the thought occurred to her that one priestess dropped dead. 'A little careless with the godly powers today.' Lolth sighed, and revived the priestess, who was now having a nervous break down at having turned purple, and shortly thereafter, dying.
Lolth decided to have a little fun with this one. She snapped her fingers and the subject was before her. "Daughter Drow, look upon Lolth!"
"My lady! I am yours to command."
"Of course you silly twit. Now, to the point, you're boring. Very boring."
"M'lady?"
"Seriously, you make me want to shout, here's your new angle, you're a matron mother, your house is about to crumble, you're under attack by house Baenre, good luck!" Lolth said, about to dismiss the newly appointed matron.
"Wait!" The priestess cried.
"Eh?" Lolth raised an eyebrow.
"Surely I am not the most boring of females!"
"Oh . . . no, I'm pretty sure you are."
"What about Kair Riak?"
"Oh she gets down and parties every now and then, and has five husbands that only she and–well, frankly, I–know about whom she occasionally sets upon one another in violent mortal combat for her own entertainment. Oh no, I like Kair Riak."Lolth said. "But you . . . you're boring."
"I had two slaves fight to the death once!"
"That was fifty years ago, you're boring."
"What about Nika Akin?"
"Keeping her alive makes her mother nervous. And she's having affairs with both of her brothers, her secret life isn't boring at all. Disgusting, but not boring. Yours on the other hand, or your lack-there-of makes me want to cry. G'bye!"
"I kissed my cousin once!"
"You thought she was someone else, and it wasn't a very spicy kiss either, it was just a 'aint seen you in a while' peck on the cheek." Lolth sighed. "Just die already."
"How about Sos'Umptu Baenre?"
"She's . . . hmm . . . you know, that girl is pretty boring too." Lolth decided. "It's been what? A hundred years since she's gotten laid? I love the attention she pays to the temple but she's a high priestess, and a Baenre daughter, *not* some janitor. Oh wait, there's her suppressed cunning, the intelligent, conniving, cruel side of her she likes to hide from her sisters, her clever interpretation of my will . . . and yet a hundred years unlaid . . . faked it at that last ceremony, that really pissed me off . . ."
"So can she die instead of me?" The priestess asked.
"Hmm? She can, but she wont. I'd rather kill you both, go suffer!"
The priestess screamed and was teleported to the throne room of house Sk'Rood which was magically surrounded by five hundred Baenre soldiers, it was suddenly night time and Sk'Rood got smashed.
"Hmm . . . that was fun . . . but only for an instant." Lolth decided, listening to the frantic pleading of her priestesses in house Sk'Rood. "Guess I'll mess with that Baenre girl."
Sos'Umptu was hard at work scrubbing a statue. It was slave's work, but she didn't trust this particular statue to any slave, nor did she trust any other statue, pew, anything to any slave, servant or even another high priestess unless she was overseeing it personally. Hell, she'd clean the entire temple on her own, on her hands and knees if she had the time, it was a large place though.
Clean, clean, clean! She had to clean! Cleanliness was next to godliness! In this place she was the matron, the weapon master, the fighter, the cleric, the princess, the slave, she was the alpha, the omega, practically a goddess! Oops, sacrilege, she'd have to punish herself later. She'd suffocate herself with a pillow until she passed out.
Oh wait, she did that every night to silence the screams in her head. She'd rip off one of her fingers, then go through the long and incredibly painful process of regrowing them, that'd learn her not to be sacrilegious in Lolth's holy house.
But then pain wasnt really something she was fond of . . . suddenly the huge chapel doors slammed shut, and the avatar of Lolth appeared before her. "EIP! I was gonna cut off my fingers, I swear!" Sos'Umptu cried.
"SILENCE! I am Lolth! Goddess of your people!"
"Yes, I know, we met around the end of the Time of Troubles if you recall, well we didn't meet I just sort of saw you and I like to think you stole a glance my way?" Sos'Umptu squeaked.
"What? Oh . . . no . . . no, I just sort of glared at you because you had this radiance . . . or lack of it. You lack the glow of a proper drow. Where's your ambition?"
"Eh? I'm ambitious."
"Cleaning the blood stains around the alter isn't an ambition." Lolth scoffed.
"Oh right. . ."
"I think you should be cowering before me or something." Lolth noted.
Sos fell to the ground, trembling, truly frightened. "Y-yes my mistress!" She moaned. "P-p-p-please don't k-k-kill me!"
"Better. Much better." Lolth nodded. "Sossy–"
"Actually my name is pronounced–"
"No one knows, or cares how your name is pronounced, so shut up." Lolth growled.
"Y-yes mistress!" Sos'Umptu went back to groveling.
"Sossy, Sossy, my dear daughter Baenre, you shall be charged with a task."
"Can I do it after I clean those blood stains?"
Lolth's eyes twitched, Sos'Umptu squeaked and went back to groveling. "Listen here missy, when your goddess gives you an unholy quest you don't ask about blood stains, you hear me?"
"Yes goddess!" Sos'Umptu whined.
"And stop whining! You need to get laid!"
"I what?" Sos'Umptu frowned. "Nonsense, I took care of that last week."
"You think you can lie to your goddess?" Lolth sounded shocked and amused.
"Sorry about that." Sos'Umptu admitted. She wasnt used to talking to people who read her mind automatically.
"At least you haven't given in to the recent demon summoning craze."
"No, but I hear great things from Triel, I was going to do that next week." Sos'Umptu admitted.
"For the love of . . . well . . . ME! It's like opium!"
"What?" Sos asked.
"Never you mind child, never you mind."
"Uh . . . Okay . . ."
"And don't worry about your sister, I'll learn her not to abuse the ritualistic coupling, she's top dog now he needs to set an example for the weaker priestesses."
"Yes mistress."
Loth paced back and forth for a while, then said, "Listen here, you're going to take part in a contest, yes I can see it all now! You and a male will compete for the ultimate prize!"
"What's that?" Sos asked.
"Oh I'll think of something . . . what do you want?"
"I thought you could read my mind!" Sos'Umptu chuckled.
Lolth's eye twitched again. "I would not be a smart ass if I were you."
"Sorry, I spent too much time with Liriel." Sos admitted.
"I know a hundred Liriels." Lolth scoffed. She put up a hand before Sos'Umptu could tell her what she'd meant. "No, I know the brat you were talking about, I'm your blasted goddess! Now silence! Ahem. This is the ultimate challenge, Sos'Umptu Baenre! If you fail you will suffer great and terrible humiliation, and you will be left alive to be tortured and violated when your household, your sisters, and your brother, and your servants and such are all masacred." Lolth said simply.
"So I get to laugh and watch them die, and finally get laid, what's the down side?" Sos'Umptu blinked.
Lolth stared at her for a moment. "Keep that up and you might just make me glad I didn't kill you with a thought."
"Uh . . . thanks?"
"Don't mention it." Lolth shrugged. "The down side, Sos'Umptu Baenre, is that you'll have the emotions of a surface elf, you'll be grieved when you see your family die, not amused, and violation would both humiliate and traumatize."
"Surface elves are freaks." Sos'Umptu spat.
"Indeed." Lolth nodded. "Well there's that, and your violation will be performed by the ugliest orcs you've ever seen, and exceedingly painful, as I'll be renewing your maidenhood with every thrust."
"One might get used to that." Sos'Umptu bluffed.
"I'll see to it you don't." Lolth said.
"Wh-what if I win?"
"If you win, as I'm sure you will, you may make a wish, any wish and I will grant it." Lolth said. "Except of course, you may not wish for my powers, or anything outside of my powers, you know, that sort of thing, text book stuff."
"R-right." Sos nodded. "Against whom do I compete?" Sos'Umptu asked. "And how?"
Lolth frowned. "Hmm . . . let me think . . . I know! Dinin Du'urden!"
"Drizzt Du'urden!?" Sos screamed. "I must defeat Drizzt Du'urden? Have you not noticed? Our entire race has been trying to destroy Drizzt Du'urden ever since he went rouge! He's too good! It is not possible!"
"I 'ought to smite you just for that wench, do not tell your goddess what is and is not possible!"
"Are you sure you're Lolth?" Sos'Umptu raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you were good at interpreting my will." Lolth snarled, Sos went back to groveling. "Anyway, I didn't say 'Drizzt' I said Dinin. Do you know who that is?"
"I probably should, huh?" Sos'Umptu sighed.
"No, he was no one of consequence."
"So . . . this will be fairly easy, yes?"
"Perhaps. We shall see."
"What is the real purpose of this?"
"Besides amusing me? Well it'll obviously decide which sex is more useful to me, and thus which sex will rule over Menzoberranzan for the next two thousand years."
"Then why not send Gromph?"
"He'd cream you. Besides, he's going to be busy trying to kill Quenthel. Bloody waste, they bring her back just to kill her again."
"What? We haven't brought Quenthel back to life!" Sos'Umptu cried.
"Oh right, that's a few weeks into the future, sorry about that."
"Aha . . ." Sos'Umptu frowned. "Uh . . . okay. Any way we can prevent that? I don't much care for Quenthel."
"More to the point with her back to life and going around as Triel's advisor, the new Matron wouldn't need to listen to your dim-witted opinions."
"Hey, I interpreted your will properly *twice* before anyone else could, and I–"
"Idiot, I know all that, remember?"
"Right."
"Well I have to go." Lolth said. "Try not to get assassinated for the next day or so while I set up the challenge."
"Cant you cast divine protection over me?"
"I could . . . but I wont." Lolth said simply.
"Well . . . farewell I guess . . . nice meeting you. For an evil, chaos deity you're not half bad, rather easy to get along with actually, I look forward to my tenure in the afterlife." Sos'Umptu said cheerfully.
Lolth' eye twitched. "You're right." She snapped her fingers and Sos'Umptu spontaneously combusted, and was brought back to life only to repeat the process ten times in a second, then she spent the next five hundred years being tortured by Lolth's most skilled demons in an alternate dimension wherein she aged not at all and where time flowed so that it only lasted the next half second in the real dimension, but she had perfect memory of every day, including her birthdays when the demons had celebrated by removing her skull from her head, showing it to her, then shoving it back into her head through her nose. That amused them quite a bit.
"That better?" Lolth asked.
"I'm so afraid I could soil myself." Sos'Umptu nodded.
"And I was being 'nice' your mother gets that for hours, you got it for a second and a half. That'll learn you not to worship evil." Lolth chuckled. "Of course you're still supposed to worship me!" The Chaos goddess added quickly.
"Of course." Sos'Umptu nodded. She decided she'd like to live forever.
About a week later . . .
One moment Sos'Umptu was getting lectured by Triel about being useless, and the conversation was moving dangerously close to the subject of sacrifice, then she blinked and found herself in a green grassy field of lovely flowers.
Lolth was there too.
Dinin wandered around, he wasnt sure where he was, or why he was here, he had no memory of anything. Except Vierna commanding him to follow her . . . then there were blurs of memory, fighting Drizzt, some human wench, and . . . a dwarf. He feared the dwarf for some reason.
He looked around and saw a fire up ahead. He decided to investigate.
He saw some cloaked figures sitting around a fire roasting meat. He decided to waylay the blighters, and steal their food and any money that had on them, just because he could.
He jumped out of the bushes and shouted "Surrender and die! I mean 'or' die! Oh Who am I kidding, I will kill you anyway!" He reached for his sword . . . it wasnt there.
The enemy turned around, it was the largest, ugliest rat Dinin had ever seen. It stood on two legs and waved a dagger in his general direction. "What's that yer sayin' mate?"
"Gods damn it." Dinin sighed.
"So the contest begins, I transported him somewhere and . . . aw me dammit he's died." Lolth sighed.
"Do I win?" Sos'Umptu asked.
"No, *you* have to kill him."
"Damn." Sos'Umptu sighed. "So do I loose?"
"No, I'll just have to keep reviving you idiots until one of you manages to get a killing blow in."
"Oh . . . So we're immortal until we kill each other?"
"Or until this game stops being fun." Lolth said.
"Okay. Can I ask a question?"
"Sure." Lolth shrugged.
"Why are you doing this? If you want blood sports, we have them back in Menzoberranzan all the time."
"Oh sure, but this'll be more fun. You see you're in a new dimension, I have no power here, everyone here is goody, goody, they keep killing off the evil ones, y'know? So you two will be hunted by the natives as well as each other . . . and you have no weapons."
"So what? We kill each other with harsh language?" Sos'Umptu asked.
"Or rocks." Lolth pointed out. "Whatever works. See the fun?"
"Yes . . . I suppose." Sos'Umptu sighed.
"You want to clean something don't you?" Lolth scowled, disgusted.
"Uh-huh." Sos'Umptu whimpered.
"For the love of . . . well . . . ME! You're hopeless. I'm going to go revive your opponent now, start looking for a rock or something, the mayhem begins!"
"Uh . . . okay." Sos'Umptu sighed. Lolth disappeared and she grabbed a sizeable rock and started wandering around.
Dinin came back to life in the same field he'd started in, not far from the giant freak rats. "Alright, those scum are going to die!" He decided, this time he checked to see that he had his sword. He didn't. That didn't matter much, since now he knew he didn't have it, and could prepare a plan without relying on it. And there was a nice big stick over by that bush. He moved out towards the rat's location.
He didn't know or care why surface rats were so large, or why they could speak, they'd attacked him, who cared that it was self defense?
He snuck into the woods again, used his initiate powers to summon up some Fairy Fire, lining the three rats with harmless flames. However when they saw it they panicked, one actually stopped, dropped, and rolled right into the fire. Dinin leapt out, he leapt onto the rat that had killed him, wrestled the dagger away and slit the beast's throat, he turned to the next one and lunged, slamming the dagger into the panicked creature's chest, grabbing the poorly made sword it had tied to it's waist, and shoved the blade into the fat creature's stomach, then turned on the third rat, which was rolling around in the fire and just stood there and watched, laughing sinisterly to himself.
Then he discovered the rats had a sentry, a fourth rat lunged forward, spear pointed forward, Dinin turned and in one smooth movement removed the beast's head with his stolen sword.
He spat on the corpse, suddenly the flames went out, the burning rat had extinguished them, Dinin's infrared vision went to work, he saw another drow, female, magnificent.
"Fine work. And yet you cannot manage to defeat your brother."
"These were wild animals." Dinin scoffed."
"Well actually they are the natives of this place, they come in all sorts of varieties too. Well, anyway, I'm Lolth, your goddess, the ultimate power, be honored."
"Whatever."
"I 'ought to smite you." Lolth scowled.
"Smite me then," Dinin scoffed "I'm the one holding the sword."
"Didn't I just tell you I was your goddess?" Lolth demanded.
"Yeah, I've got a bit of a bone to pick with you."
"If you ask me a single 'why are we here' question I'll eat your soul!" Lolth cired.
Dinin frowned. "Okay, I've got nothing to say then."
"Good. I knew you'd ask me something like that, every male does. Oh Lolth, why are we here? Oh Lolth, why do females rule our society? Oh Lolth, why do you let good things happen to bad females? Oh Lolth–"
"I get the picture!" Dinin said.
"Good. Now, to explain why you're here–"
"But you just said–"
"Shut up!"
"Sorry."
"Okay, anyway you're here to compete in the greatest blood spot of your time."
"Uh . . . okay . . ." Dinin frowned. 'Why couldn't I stay dead?'
"And I don't want to hear any 'why did I die?' complains either, I get enough of those from murder victims, who I have to deal with personally mind you because all my demons are off getting laid!" Lolth cried.
"I didn't say anything." Dinin said.
"I can read your mind!" Lolth cried.
"Stay out of there!" The former mercenary scoffed.
"Why should I?" Lolth sneered.
Dinin started undressing her with his mind...
"You scum, I'm your creator!" She cried. "As voluptuous as I am, the image you paint is unwanted, I have half a mind to inflict you with an uncontrollable attraction to boys! You're lucky I don't control that sort of thing."
Dinin laughed bitterly. "What do I get if I win?"
"You will be brought back to life as your brother's fighting equal."
"Drizzt or that other guy?" Dinin scoffed.
"Me damn it, I hoped you wouldn't catch that one! Fine, Drizzt!" Lolth sighed.
"All I have to do is kill my opponent?"
"Yep."
"Anyone I know?"
"Sos'Umptu Baenre."
"Doesn't ring any bells." Dinin frowned.
"Y'know, the neat freak?" Lolth offered.
"Uh . . . not following you."
"The skinny one that gets too much candlelight." Lolth said.
"I don't know who you're talking about."
"She's in your head somewhere!" Lolth cried. "Back of your mind, filed under 'make fun of behind back' if that helps."
"Cant you just craft a mental image of her for me?"
"I could . . . but I wont."
"You're a lazy deity, aren't you?"
"Shut up mortal!" Lolth cried, snapped her fingers and Dinin suddenly knew who she was talking about. "Just kill her and you're the new hero of your kind."
"Sounds good."
"But one thing . . ."
"Hmm?"
"The two of you cannot die, unless you land the killing blow on each other, that said you will come back to life here, in this forest clearing every time you die. She too will return to her forest clearing every time she dies."
"Is her clearing nicer than mine?" Dinin asked, looking at the smelly, green, foresty clearing.
"Duh!" Lolth scoffed.
"What's that mean?" Dinin frowned.
"It means 'yes'." Lolth sighed.
"Can I just come back to life at her clearing?" Dinin asked.
"No. If you did that you could just wait for something to kill her, then stab her in the back when she comes back here."
"That was the general idea, yes." Dinin nodded.
"Hmm . . . interesting . . . still no." Lolth said. With that she disappeared. Dinin scowled and began to wander around.
The sun rose, in accordance he hissed threateningly at it and dove for shade, to his surprise the sunlight didn't burn, or harm him at all. He noticed, as he came out of the goddess forsaken forest that there was a dirt road, and a large tower in the distance. With some stupid looking bells in it. He moved stealthily towards the place, only to find it's gates wide open! His stomach rumbled, and he smelled food!
'How coincidental!' Dinin realized. 'Well, I've got a sword, and no rats or whatever it is in there can stand up to a hungry sword-wielding drow!' He ran towards the gate and ran into a huge . . . something. Looked simply hideous, with big long ears and a bob or a tail!
"I say sah, what are you?"
"IT TALKS! KILL IT!" Dinin screamed.
"That's my jolly old line chap." The thing commented.
"What have we here?" Some smaller yet none-the-less giant rat asked.
"A bally little ferret wot's lost his fur I say." The eared thing said.
"Oh, he looks simply dear!" The rat thing said.
"Excuse me, did you just say 'simply dear'? Because if you did I'm going to–" Dinin began, but the thing cut him off.
"Oh I beg your pardon! I'm Sister Kate, welcome to Redwall Abbey!"
Dinin didn't recognize the name, but for some reason it urged a scream from his lips.
Sos'Umptu on the other hand was far too busy to bother with Dinin, she was surrounded by some angry looking giant rats who's burned companion claimed their "mates" had been killed by a creature resembling herself. "I'm on the right track!" She thought enthusiastically.