>>5445210You stare, too stunned to look away respectfully, right into the deep pit into darkest places which form the ‘face’ of the abyssal shadow before you.
“What do you mean?” you ask, forcing yourself not to stammer.
“You must understand,” Death says, without pity or malice. “In betraying her people, your lover became oathbreaker and kinslayer. These are unforgivable crimes to The Dwarf-God. He would never take her back… But nor would my siblings have any interest.”
“But… She died for them!” you protest.
“For YOU,” Death corrects. “And what worth was she to them? Davora the Dwarf was no great scholar or mystic. She did not aspire to personal greatness—she was happy as she was, where she was, with simple comforts. She had never borne children or fought in defence of the children of the Lady.”
You don’t know how to react, how to feel. You can only stare. You scarcely register the confused, alarmed whispering of the assembled Drow faithful.
“She was nothing,” Death explains, without condemnation. “Just life formed and unformed again. Her soul was unworthy of damnation, tied to no devils or demons and weighted by no great sin… But an unprotected soul is destined to be snatched up by the Hells.”
You snap to attention, terrified and outraged anew. No! That cannot be her fate!
“It was not,” Death assuages you, in response to your silent fright and fury. “I spared her that. Death can be a kindness, of a sort. Like the elven spirits you liberated when you and I blessed these caves, she went to oblivion… Her life, returned to the flow of the world’s matter and energy.”
This is cold comfort, to say the least. You’d thought… You’d hoped…
>Ask after your Mother, and try to… Forget all this…>Plead for Death to undo this thing—to bring Davora back!>Curse Death and the Dark Pantheon, who abandoned and destroyed your Herbalist!>Take your leave, before you do or say something you regret>Write-in[Reminder: backlink your 1id posts if you want them to count, as this is a pretty big deal.]
[Also, remember that you've already just incurred a debt. More favours mean more debts.]