>>5298855>>5298873>>5298903>>5298908>>5298910>>5298916>>5299069>>5299119>>5299411"It's different," you sigh, sifting through the memories of your life as Jezyrene. "The air is bad, mostly. Not easy, finding a place with fresh air. We've always eaten mushrooms and lichen. Rothé and lizards and bats. Anything we can get from the surface. Sometimes we go hungry." The calamitous battle you were entangled in ten years ago and its consequences come to mind. Even an individual of your standing faced hardship on a regular basis. Scarcity is reality in the Underdark, an immutable law from which none are exempt. "It's better here."
"Lots of fighting. War with dwarves and trolls and other Ilythiiri. I don't remember a time when we haven't fought," you offer pensively. Ilanis frowns and creases her brow, quietly hanging on your every word. "Even when I was a girl, I did what I had to do to survive." You shrug. "That's just how it is."
"How does someone live like that?" She asks, puzzled by your description of daily life. "Always hungry, and struggling, and fighting?" The girl's morbid curiosity is not to be understated. You can see in her eyes that Ilanis had a difficult time envisioning a world where privation is a simple fact of life. Crossing your arms, you explain. "It's not always bad. Facing challenges makes us stronger, better. There's a lot worth seeing, too," you add. "Some caves have their own weather, rain and lightning falls from the ceiling. Even an entire sea that glows. I saw it, once." Your rudimentary description of the Glimmersea did it no justice - it is an entire subterranean ocean, lit by luminescent stones suspended in the ceiling above much like the night sky of the surface.
"Then, does that mean you liked it?" She asks, trying derive an opinion from your clumsy ramblings.
