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Suddenly everything went dark and Kreet thought she had died, but an instant later she heard shouting from the drow. Thinking quickly, she rolled away and scrambled to her feet, backing away to where she recalled the nearest wall was.

Darkness. She should be able to see, but she saw nothing. The drow could not see either apparently. She heard the voice of Urmelena call her name in anger, but she dared not respond. Then the gates began to open, impossibly. A voice came from nearby, demanding the gate be closed, but another voice swore it was still bolted - yet it continued to open. She saw the line of the opening widening against a starlit background, but something was blocking most of the sky. Then all the drow went silent and she saw it clearly. She saw her.

Silhouetted against the starlight was the outline of a woman, wreathed in silver hair, impossibly huge and... floating. She was moving. Undulating. Dancing. And then Kreet heard her voice. The language was both foreign yet still completely understandable. Kreet suddenly realized who this must be. She had seen her carved in the ceiling of the cavern. This could be none other than the goddess Eilistraee herself. Kreet prostrated herself on the floor and listened to the song of the goddess. She had never imagined such a song.

She was never able to properly interpret the song afterwards. She tried, but felt her words simply couldn't convey the depth of emotion. Eilistraee sang of her people, the drow, doomed to live in the Underdark for eternity. The constant strife, both within the drow community and with those who lived in the light outside. The drow were meant for better than this.

She heard some of the drow weeping, knowing their failing and their miserable fate, and taking the blame on themselves for causing this beautiful goddess, who loved them dearly, such pain and misery. Then she heard her name.

"Kreet," the goddess said, and she had never wished to be hidden from view more than at that moment, but she realized that she could not hide from a goddess.

"Kreet. Raise your eyes. Do you know who I am?"

Kreet looked up at the impossible beauty of the silver-haired being that seemed to have shrunk to the size of a normal drow, and yet had become even more godlike than before. The dark dancer glowed with something that was not light and her eyes were white orbs within that perfect ebony face.

Kreet forced the name from her too-crude throat, "Eilistraee".

"Yes Kreet. That is my name. Stand. I am here for you. I have heard of you, Kreet."

"Me?" Kreet said, standing only because she was asked to do so. The goddess approached her as if walking, but Kreet knew her feet did not touch the cold hard rock.

"Do you know of me, little kobold? Do you know my desire? Do you know my fundamental wish? I wish for my kind to leave these infernal caverns, kobold. They are my children, but they become more perverted below every day. They war, they intrigue, they scheme. But it was not always so. Once they were kind and loving creatures. It is this place that has done this to them. Someday I hope to take them away from this and return to the surface world that is their birthright. They are meant to walk the earth at night, as others walk it by daylight..."

She began to sing again, and Kreet thought to look back at the drow who had gone silent. The starlight provided plenty of light now, not to mention the glow from the goddess' eyes and hair. They were all sitting, watching their goddess as if in a trance. She saw Urmelena and Houndril among them, as rapt as the others.

"These," the goddess continued, "will not see that day. They are too warped and twisted. But I will not rest until that day comes. I sing for them, and for some few I provide aid, much as your Pelor has done for you."

"I hope your wish will come true, beautiful goddess of darkness," Kreet said honestly. "But what can a mere kobold do for you?"

"You already have done a great deal for me, Kreet. You were a dweller of the dark, as are they. But you rose from that station. You left your caverns and became known to the daylight. You have proven that those who live underground can uplift themselves and return to the surface. Others have managed it for a brief time, but you... you are home Outside."

"I am, it is true. I am seeking my home."

The goddess smiled then and stepped even closer. Kreet was suddenly torn between an intense desire to wrap her arms around this image of female perfection - to pull her to herself in an eternal embrace, and a desire every bit as intense to run away from this being that was as different from her as she was from a beetle. And yet she knew that if she touched the goddess, her soul would be lost, forever a part of the goddess herself. Instead, she did neither, but she trembled with a kind of fear. Not fear of danger or of impending disaster, but fear of being overwhelmed by something she could never understand. A source of Power, similar to that she felt from Pelor, yet distinct - as if a different color on the spectrum.

"Kreet. Your home lies within you. Wherever you go, you are home."

Kreet looked up. "But... there are those I love. I want to see them again."

The goddess' pupil-less eyes turned sad. "It is a thing I cannot experience, little kobold. I do not understand loss as you do. It is so easy to forget that. Love, though, that is something I understand well. You will love again, Kreet. Be assured of that. But there will also be loss. Until you all meet again in the next world."

Then suddenly the goddess shifted in some fundamental way. She still stood before the kobold, but somehow she seemed less. She diminished. Somehow the awe that had caused Kreet to tremble was gone, though the goddess still stood before her, still as beautiful and dark as ever. But Kreet noticed that her feet now touched the ground and her blue eyes were no longer pupil-less.

"Now, Kreet. We have business to attend to. Drow. Rise!" she commanded.

The drow got to their feet, still silent, but eyes wide.

Then the goddess touched Kreet's hand and the kobold nearly lost what little composure she had managed.

"Stand strong, little kobold. This is just my avatar. You may treat me as a mortal now. But it is your wish to leave the Underdark, or so I am given to understand."

"Yes Goddess! We..."

"We? I wasn't aware there were others."

"Oh yes! I have two companions. Please, I must take them with me!"

"Companions? They cannot be drow. Who are they?"

Kreet turned. She saw both Sigmundurr and Kallid still sleeping where she had left them. She motioned to them.

Eilistraee turned and walked over to the two. Kreet noticed that the goddess' hair continued to flow around her as if in complete disregard of gravity, wind or any other earthly power. Avatar or no, no one was going to mistake this person for a mere mortal, even if that flowing hair alternatively covered and revealed a body that even the most graceful elf would be jealous of. As a kobold, she was simply ashamed.

"A kobold," the goddess said as she knelt beside Kallid. "Oh! Your mate? I didn't know you had a mate, Kreet!"

"I... well... I guess I do now."

"Would you like to marry him?" the Avatar laughed. It was an unexpected sound, but somehow comforting. It made her seem more mortal. "You can't get a better minister than I!"

"It's... complicated. We... Well, I may be pregnant by him."

"Oh! Really?" the Avatar said, a delighted look on her face. She turned back to Kreet and knelt down, putting her ear to Kreet's abdomen.

Kreet was dumbstruck, but giggled a little when the goddess moved her head around as if listening at various places.

"Um... Eilistraee... It was just a couple of days ago."

The goddess stood, a sad look on her face. "That doesn't matter. I'd hear your children's souls anyway. But I'm afraid there's nothing. Sorry Kreet. You're not pregnant."

Kreet sat down on the hard ground. This was all a bit much. She wasn't sure if she was happy or sad, but she knew the goddess was not guessing. She knew. Kreet was not pregnant.

"Shall I wake him?" Eilistraee asked, and suddenly Kreet realized how important that question was. How very, very important.

She was not pregnant. Kallid had no need to come further with her. He could return to his life here in the Underdark and go back to normal. She could leave without him, and he would not follow. She could just leave him to sleep. Even Urmelena was no threat to Kallid. Then why didn't she already tell the goddess to leave him to sleep? What reason was there otherwise?

She looked at the goddess. The pale blue eyes looked back at her, patient as death. Patient as life.

"Kreet. You know the answer to the question. You just don't want to voice it."

"It's not an easy question," Kreet whined.

"It's very easy Kreet. You already know the answer. And you already know why."

"I am selfish. But maybe... Wake him."

The goddess smiled. "Right answer. But about this human...."

"I can't leave him here, Eilistraee. They'll castrate him and enslave him for life."

"Yes, they will. But I have a feeling that may not be an undeserved fate for this man. He has the blood of many on his hands, and many were not deserved."

"I think he can be... changed."

"You might be overestimating your abilities, kobold. He likes you, granted, but it is not easy to change a person's nature. His nature is wild. In many ways he resembles an animal - but worse, as he has the cunning of a human. I do not think he will hurt you or your mate, Kreet, but he will cause you grief. Of that I can assure you."

"Do you know the future, goddess?"

"If I want to, I do. But you should not know the future. It is too much for mortals. Right now, I am clouding the future to myself so I don't reveal more than is good for you. Your life will change because of your decisions right here, right now. This man will cause you grief. The kobold... He is a good person."

"Wake the human too. Grief or no, I will not subject him to a life of eunuch slavery just to ease my own life. I take responsibility for him."

"NO!" the goddess roared suddenly and it felt as if the walls of the Underdark itself shook.

"No," she said again, returning to a mortal tone. "You are not responsible for him or anyone else, Cleric of Pelor. You are responsible only for yourself and your actions. Do not wish to take more than that. It is far, far enough."