Quarra

The Sharnlands, Underdark—Eleint 5, 1364 DR, Year of the Wave

The spider-silk slippers whisper against the wet stone as Quarra melts into the shadow of a stalagmite, her red eyes fixed on the flickering wandlight of the patrol ahead. The drow males move with that careful, militarized precision she knows so well—head of house Ul'ath'tall, no doubt, judging by those hideous spider-emblazoned pauldrons. Her lips curl.

She shifts just enough for the knife hidden in her sleeve to slide into her palm, its edge blackened with a paralytic paste. The patrol passes so close she can smell the sweat beneath their polished armor—closer, closer—until the rearmost guard pauses, his head tilting slightly. Quarra stops breathing.

Fool. You're not worth the blade. Keep walking, little male.

And he does. The tension bleeds from her shoulders, but her fingers stay tight around the knife.

Once their glow fades into the cavern's labyrinth, she exhales sharply. "Stupid. Stupid," she mutters, slipping the blade back into its sheath. "Should have slit his throat just for his poor posture. But no, no—Quarra the cautious, Quarra the careful." Her laugh is a venomous little thing. "Careful gets you staked out for the driders."

She glances up at the jagged ceiling, half-expecting eight glittering eyes to blink back at her. "Zinzerena spare me from my own restraint."

Movement. Not the patrol—something lighter, quicker, behind her. Quarra doesn't turn. She lets her weight shift just enough to settle onto the balls of her feet, ready to pivot or strike. "If you're going to skulk," she murmurs, "at least have the decency to skulk quietly."

Ardeep Forest—Eleint 7, 1364 DR, Year of the Wave

The scent of damp leaves and pine resin clings to the air, thick enough to coat the back of Quarra's throat. She crouches low beneath the tangled roots of an ancient oak, her red eyes scanning the crumbling stone wall that separates the wilds of Ardeep from the so-called grandeur of Waterdeep. The city's torches flicker like distant stars through the fog.

Pathetic. They build walls to keep out the dark, then light fires to keep away the night. As if wood and stone could ever contain what lurks beneath them.

Her fingers trace the hilt of her dagger absently, its edge still crusted with dried blood from the last idiot who thought a lone drow woman would be easy prey. She hadn't even needed the poison for him—just a well-placed knee to the groin and three quick slashes across the tendons of his legs. The way he'd screamed when she'd knelt beside him after, whispering all the ways she might let him live if he begged prettily enough—

She exhales sharply, shaking off the memory.

"City of Splendors," she mutters, lips curling. "More like City of Smug, Soft-Fingered Merchants Who've Never Felt a Knife Between Their Ribs." Her tongue flicks over the points of her teeth. "But they'll learn. Oh, they'll learn."

Her gaze drifts to the patrol moving along the wall—humans, armored in polished steel, their faces slack with boredom. One yawns, scratching at his beard. Quarra's nostrils flare.

"How hard could it be?" she murmurs. "Slip in with the dawn traders, slit a throat or two in some noble's bedchamber, take what I need—" She cuts herself off with a scoff. "No. Too direct. Too messy. They'd turn the whole city upside down looking for a drow assassin."

Her fingers drum against her thigh.

"Maybe... a disguise. Play the exotic trinket for some fool with more coin than sense." Her lips twist into something between a smile and a sneer. "Or—better yet—find a wizard. They always have secrets worth trading..."

Waterdeep—Eleint 8, 1364 DR, Year of the Wave

The alleyway reeks of piss and rotting fish, the cobblestones slick with something far worse underfoot as Quarra bolts around another corner, her breath coming in sharp, furious gasps. Behind her, the clatter of armored boots—too close, far too close—echoes off the narrow walls.

She'd underestimated them. Underestimated how fast they'd mobilize when a noble's son turned up dead in his own bed with his throat slit and his purse missing. Underestimated how quickly they'd connect the dots between the exotic "surface elf" courtesan who'd slipped into his chambers the night before and the drow now sprinting through the sewers like a rat.

Stupid. Stupid. Should've taken the eyes too—left them staring at the ceiling with empty sockets. Would've bought me more time.

Her hand lashes out, fingers curling around the edge of a rusted iron grate as she pivots, flinging herself down a side passage barely wide enough for her slender frame. The shouts behind her grow louder—they've seen her turn.

Then...

A doorway. Unmarked, unremarkable, the wood warped and splintering with age. But the space beyond it...

Not darkness. Not stone. Not the dank underbelly of Waterdeep.

A swirling, yawning vortex of impossible colors, pulsing like a living thing.

Quarra doesn't hesitate. She lunges.

The world folds in on itself, her stomach lurching as vertigo claws at her senses. There's no ground beneath her feet, no sky above—just a sickening, weightless rush.

Then impact. Hard. Cold stone against her palms, her knees, the taste of blood across her tongue where she's bitten it.

She lifts her head—and freezes.

Around her, buildings—if they can even be called that—twist skyward in impossible geometries, their surfaces shimmering as though carved from living crystal. The air hums with a thousand discordant sounds at once: laughter in languages she doesn't recognize, the distant clang of metal on metal, the murmur of a crowd somewhere far above—or below? The sky—no, not sky—a vast, curving dome of shifting gray—glows with its own eerie light, casting no shadows.

And the smell—ozone and spice and something sweetly rotten, thick enough to coat the back of her throat.

Quarra's fingers dig into the stone beneath her. Her dagger is still in her hand. She doesn't remember unsheathing it.

"Where in the fucking Hells—?"