>>5465796The Tlintear House is well-situated along a major trade-road threw the city. Nestled comfortably in a nest of plenty. Along the route, you pass many Drow merchants plying stolen surface-wares battered by travel, old artefacts with lingering lustre that look as if they have seen better centuries, and the best artisan sculpture and crystal decoration which the dark elves seem capable of manufacturing in their current sorry condition. So too do you see clutches of eggs, and adult insects of unusual size purported to be their parent—pets and helpers for the nobility. Among them spiders and glittering hard-shelled beetles seem most popular. Between the captured cloth and cultivated carapaces, this is the most colour which your eyes have ever glimpsed in Wevenore…
Until you see Tlintear’s compelx itself.
Every wall—outside and, once you are announced and invited, inside—is replete with the hanging banners of which bear the black bird-sigil of the house. The symbols is a later addition, sewn over the crests of surface nations and their own nobility, or over spools of fascinatingly-patterned cloth from across the world above. It is, honestly, a little tacky… But it is ostentatious and a clear display of wealth. Even more than the Queen’s own palace, this place is well-lit, breaking up the darkness of these deep reaches to better show off this phantasmagorical gallery in something other than the grayscale of Darkvision.
You can see why so many of those in attendance are so jubilant. Many are intoxicated, true, but others sober in body if not in spirit. Olu and Ivno, accompanying you, keep their hands on their weapons and their eyes ever vigilant for threats, but none offer you other than curious looks or boisterous salutations as you stride into the large, open ‘courtyard’ of the festively-decorated complex.
You ignore them all. You are here for two elves alone: the Prince, and his little spy.
You find the latter first… or rather, Azonia the Duelist finds YOU.
“The dragon sees fit to come visit at last!”
You turn to face the familiar voice, and find… Not exactly what you expected. Gone is the armour, the gauntlets, and greaves. Instead, the Duelist is clad in a richly-if-gaudily decorated black-and-green robe, bound at the waist by a single long tassel tied in a complicated knot. It’s technically a less-revealing outfit than her combat attire in terms of skin on display, but contrasts her gemlike eyes rather beautifully…
And her chest-bindings are gone, too. By the Dark Gods Beyond and Below… They’re each larger than her HEAD!
