The Ascent: Tales of Sanctuary and Traensyr

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Foreword

   I am Nilraghar Do’anarret, born into the grips of House Baen`rhael. No longer slave to the servants of Kiaransalee, no longer slave to Aunphaeraste Baen`rhael. Now I see it necessary to transcribe times past of House Baen`rhael of Traensyr and Sanctuary.
   
  What follows is a tale of truths, murders, and a city of former slaves.

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Table of Contents

Birth................................1

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My Queen, forever shall your face smolder within my mind. Wretched was the love I felt, but strong seethed the passion that burned within a shattered shell. Shattered not only by a cursed, aberrant birthright, but the cold whips of the Traensyrian matriarchy
   
  Birth
   
  I was born a slave to Aunphaeraste Baen`rhael. The memories of that time are vague, and I piece together what little remains from what I was told.
   
  Already from birth, I could walk. Two years after my birth, I spoke my first words in the language of the drow. First words in Common were not spoken until I was twenty. The third year, I swung my first blade. I was not particularly talented with the blade at that time. Whips met my bare skin for every time I dropped the blade.
   
  The years that follow are imprinted more vividly within my mind.  
   
  My tenth year, I attended a ritual with Aunphaeraste dedicated not to the Spider Goddess, but a spirit of vengeance, a renegade goddess known as Kiaransalee. Aunphaeraste dragged a thin woman towards the altar. She pleaded and begged, but for every word that escaped her mouth she was struck by a whip. As she was thrown onto the altar, our gazes met.
   
  She was brown eyed. Strangely, something felt familiar about her nose and lips. Our gazes remained locked Aunphaeraste’s dagger punctured her abdomen. A wretched scream escaped her lips and blood flowed from her mouth. But our gazes remained locked until the life faded from her eyes.
   
  After the ritual, Aunphaeraste spoke to me. I was to be trained, but priesthood was not fitting for an abomination as I. My duty was to serve her, to protect her. She handed me to T’risfynn Baen`rhael, a swordsman, historian, and musician to be trained.
   
  Before I departed to T’risfynn’s room, I stared into the mirror.
   
  I understood why she called me an abomination. I lacked hair, and my eyes were colored violet, different from the crimson of my other half.
   
  I continued gazing into the mirror. The nose that I saw, the lip that I saw, they were so similar to those of the woman sacrificed on the altar.

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The day I stared into T’risfynn crimson eyes I understood that everything can be taken. Our attitude, our own path, our freedom. There is a time in life where we can no longer change circumstances.
   

T’risfynn Baen`rhael
   
   
   T’risfynn of Baen`rhael looked upon me with a scowl,” Kitre ilythiiri. You disgust me.” As he approached me, I placed my eyes upon his breastplate. The mithral adopted a purple shade from the mixture of blood and the metal. Would my blood further stain his mithral? A strange sensation manifested within my chest. Far from pain, but rather, pressure. My breathing became heavy as frustration clouded my mind. I was an abomination in their eyes. A kitre ilythiiry, or half drow in the common tongue.
   
   I was lost in my mind and heard no more of his words until a sharp pain in my side stole me from my thoughts. I collapsed, groaning. Before I could take a breath, again I felt a sharp pain. Glancing at T’risfynn I grasped that the sharp pain came from his blade. Attempting to stand, I placed my hands onto the ground, but the blade moved from my side to my wrists, striking me there. Again and again. Again and again he struck me with the flat of the blade. My hands could support me no longer with the stinging pain. I collapsed. His swordarm followed me to the ground, and he continued to clout me in the back. “Listen, you filth. Stand.” Then the hilt of the blade struck me in the nose.
   
  I remained on the ground for several moments, my breathing heavy. Damned to a life as this, one as I did not even pray, nor plead, nor hope. T’risfynn shadow loomed over the blood flowing from my nose. I stood, coughing and hacking, barely able to stand after the vicious beating.
   
  “As you should know, I am T’risfynn. A deathsinger of House Baen’rhael. I will prepare you. Aunphaeraste must be protected, but no more men can be spared. Therefore you will see to that duty.”
   
  I stared at him silently as the blood flowed across my lip. The strange sensation I felt in my chest returned. This time it was accompanied by a further peculiar sensation. My vision blurred and a haze formed before my eyes. Everything before me seemed unfamiliar. But I felt so for only a moment, and I returned to the reality.
   
  “I have watched you. You have found a liking to music. Excellent. I am a deathsinger of Baen’rhael, and I will teach you what I have been taught. You are not fit to be a priest, nor can your blade alone protect Aunphaeraste in this cave.”
   
  A deathsinger. They were not so dissimilar to the bladesingers of the surface elves. While the songs of the bladesinger were more cheerful in nature, the deathsinger spouted somber and melancholic lyrics. They combined the arcane and the blade.
   
  Years passed. I learned of the history of the drow, bladework, musicianship, and the arcane.
   
   The lessons were often combined with beatings similar to the one received on the day I met T’risfynn. But I grew indifferent to the strikes of the blade over the years. The pain mattered no more. I could not escape. Nothing mattered anymore. Even my life. I did not even have the will to end it.