#solistre

How disappointing; she’d expected more from Bhaal’s assassins. Instead, one had fled the instant he was exposed, leaving the rest to mount an impotent assault. In Menzoberranzan, they would’ve been laughed out of the city for being nothing more than upstart toddlers flailing for recognition.

She waves away Shadowheart’s offer of healing, though the cleric frowns and walks in a circle around her anyway, intent on a visual examination. Leaving her to it, Solistre gestures for Karlach and Gale to move – the latter accepting Cora’s profuse thanks and pouch of coins with a gracious bow.

Solistre walks away, reaching into her pouch for the Bhaalist’s note, even as she runs through the list of targets in her mind. Before she steps one foot out of the patio, however, she finds that her fingers can’t secure a proper grip on the folded parchment in her pouch. The city slows around her, with her, and she is dimly aware of Shadowheart calling her name.

Turning her senses inward, she feels the strained, rapid beats of her heart, the leaden quality of her limbs, the slight nausea indicative of the war that her drow-cultivated immunity is waging against a foreign poison. 

Poison. Nothing had passed her lips during the fight, not even blood. But she does remember being nicked somewhere on the back of her thigh, shrugging it off as a scratch.

With effort, she looks down, and finds a small pool of blood under her boot, dripping down her leg. She tries to move, and manages a sluggy shift of the heel. Huh. So it is not the world that has slowed, it is her–

Solistre falls forward, only half-stiff thanks to her body’s stubborn refusal to give in. Warm, bulky arms catch her neatly and lay her down. It’s Karlach, and Shadowheart is there in less than a heartbeat, kneeling beside her. The cleric touches her thigh, healing its wound. 

“Paralysis,” Solistre forces out of her frozen mouth, and Shadowheart casts its cure without hesitation, hands arching in graceful passes to invoke the spell’s power.

Control over her body restored, Solistre sits up with Shadowheart’s hand on her back, grumbling under her breath, “Ugh. Embarrassing.”

Her scowl is made worse when Karlach ruffles her hair and stands, though Shadowheart’s chuckle and attempt to tame the mess keeps murderous thoughts away.

“Are you quite alright, dear?” Cora has come over, concern plain on her face. Gale steps in smoothly, holding her back with a smile before she can be scared away by the drow’s grumpy disposition.

“She is well, Lady Highberry. We will see her back to the inn and–”

“Oh, nonsense! My house is right here! Come in, and allow me to repay your heroism…”

Beaming, Karlach follows Cora into the house, while Gale shrugs at Solistre in good humour and does the same. Despite the drow’s low growl, Shadowheart helps Solistre to her feet, and keeps an arm around her waist – less to give support, more to relieve her own concern.

“I’m fine.”

“I know. I’m just making sure you won’t hurt anyone in your bad temper.”

“Shut up,” Solistre groans, trying to ignore Shadowheart’s lop-sided smile – and succeeds.

The glint of sunlight from an empty vial on the floor catches her eye. Solistre bends down when they reach it, picking it up for a careful whiff of its once-contents. Sharp, pungent, almost like molten metal. Her nose tingles from the odour, and she lowers the vial, reasonably confident that this was the cause of her paralysis.

“Why are you keeping that?” Shadowheart asks, when she slips the vial into a belt pouch.

“Research,” Solistre says simply.

“You are not ingesting that,” Shadowheart states, voice flat as the stare she levels at Solistre.

“There’s nothing left.”

“I have no doubt that you will recreate it…somehow. At least make sure I’m around when you try to build your immunity.”

Shadowheart’s dry look cracks a sly smile over Solistre’s placid mask. This half-elf knows her all too well, and it makes her drow heart crow in delight.

“We can build immunity together.”

A little ‘what-if’ scenario I’m playing with for Sol’s ‘personal quest’. Lolth issues Sol an ultimatum: submit to Lolth’s service and be blessed as her favoured assassin again, or die and have her soul claimed in the Demonweb Pits anyway. 

Lolth wears Sol’s face from another realm of possibility - one where she had fallen back into Lolth’s embrace. She takes on the form that Sol would hate to become, taunts her with it, dangles the promise of power laced with the poison of eternal subservience.

She knows Sol hates it - and she revels in the fact. This is why Lolth kept her in service for those few years, then went silent to Sol after releasing her; keeping her in a state of religious limbo and feeding on her visceral hate and fear, her habitual worship despite her own uncertainty under the goddess’ dominion.