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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kid Charlemagne" data-source="post: 19513" data-attributes="member: 93">Aboard the Waterbug, Retic Sea, January 24th, AE 420The party starts licking their wounds, and Sir Brennen tries to explain to Captain DiNovo (skipper of the Waterbug) what’s going on, and that DeLaGuarde is working with forces counter to the interests of Ghithor.  DiNovo accepts Brennen’s story, and the atmosphere on the ship gets a little less tense.But only for a moment; Jalea slips up next to the Sword of Kelanen and whispers in his ear:“Don’t look now, but there’s another small fishing vessel approaching us!”“Oh, no,” moans Brennen.The party gathers to meet this new potential threat.  The light is failing, and the occupants of the ship can barely be seen, although it is sailing with lanterns aglow.  A small figure is standing in the prow of the ship while a couple of sailors man the sails and rudder.“Aris?  Are you there?  It looked like a battle going on…  Are you alright?”It is Tolaro Telegar, Aris’ mentor from Cape Varna.The party breathes a collective sigh of relief, followed by a collective thought that Aris voices.“Tolaro!  It’s good to see you!  But…  what are you doing here?”  The bladesinger helps the elderly grey elf on board.“Dear Lord!  Aris…  You should really know better, giving me a scare like that.  I’m fifteen hundred years old, for goodness sake!”“Uh,” Aris stumbles.  “A scare like what?”“Near gave me a heart attack!  PS, What’s a Loraxite? Indeed!  I should never have given you a pass on your history exams, it just goes to show the dangers of not paying attention in school…”Aris is flumoxed.  He tries to regain the upper hand in the conversation.“How…  how did you get here?  How did you find us?”“Dear me, Aris, it wasn’t all that difficult.  Time-consuming, but not all that difficult, not for a competent mage…  I scryed you, of course.  And then teleported to as close as I could reasonably get.  And then hired this fine fisherman to bring me out here to your ship, er, ships.”  The grey elven scholar looks about him at the crew and captain of the Waterbug, who return his quizzical looks.  Tolaro sees the dead Drow bodies on the deck, and walks over to investigate them.“So, you have found some Drow, I see.”  He bends down and examines them.“There was another group of them,” Batista says, and Tolaro looks up sharply at the Ranger.“Really?  And, um, did they seem like the others?”  Tolaro examines Batista for injuries, tilting his head to one side and the other like a barber getting ready to shave a customer.“They went invisible, and were moving at an extraordinarily high speed,” Reana says.“Ah.” Tolaro says.  “Loraxites.”“Did they injure any of you?”“No, not really,” she replies.  “But what are they?  Another faction of Drow?”“Well, sort of, but not really,” Tolaro says.  “We’d better sit down, this is a bit of a story.”“Can we just cut to the chase?” Gavin asks, not hopeful that a 1,500 year old elf will get to the point at anytime in the near future.“Hmm.”  Tolaro pauses.  “No, I think you need the full story.”The party finds some chairs and sits down for the full version.  Tolaro tells them the full tale.“At the most basic level, Loraxites are followers of Loraxus.  Loraxus was a powerful Grey Elf who lived around 4,000 years ago, long before Vecna and the Long Night.  Only the Grey Elves have histories of those times.  The Elves were one people then, united.  There was a distinction between High and Grey, and between them and the Wood Elves, but it was more one of interests than of race.  The Grey Elves were the rulers, more in fact then than now.  The Elven High King lived in his great city in the Witching Woods, far north of here.  The Princes lived in Cape Varna and in Zelligar, as they do now.“The High King was elderly, and died childless; a common problem among Grey Elves for millenia.  Loraxus was the Chamberlain, a powerful figure in the Elven capitol, and a member of a leading noble family.  She was ambitious, and tried to take the throne for herself.“She put together a coalition of allies who were more enamored of wealth and power than the average Elf.  She swayed the priesthood of a powerful merchant-goddess, the goddess of weaving and wealth – the weaving of cloth from spider silk has long been the Elves’ chief export to human lands, and a great source of wealth.“The weaving-goddess’ name was Lolth.”“Several noble houses joined with Loraxus.  It devolved to the point of civil war, and elven blood was spilled in the streets of the capitol for the first time in its history.“Loraxus forces were defeated, and retreated to the mountains, where they holed up and tried to regroup.  The were forced ever deeper in the mountains, and eventually found places defensible enough that they could hold off the other Elves.  The Elves forced beneath the surface were Grey Elves, and they took the name ‘Drow’ for themselves, and made Lolth their goddess-protector.“Loraxus wasn’t finished, though.  Her delusions of power led her to try and defy the priestesses of Lolth, who had taken the mantle of leadership of the Drow.  Loraxus tried to depose Lolth and set herself in her place.  Loraxus was powerful, and Lolth was not yet the hard and vile goddess she is now, but still, Lolth won, and Loraxus was defeated a second time.  “She was banned from the Drow enclaves as well as from ever returning to the surface.  And for her temerity and for the evil she had done to the Elvish race, she was cursed by the gods themselves, never to see the Sun again.“This is the part that the Grey Elves aren’t terribly fond of letting out.” Tolaro says, mopping his brow.“Loraxus was turned into a Vampire.  In fact, the very first Vampire.“And the Loraxites share her curse.”</blockquote>

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