The Underdark was a hostile place. Any adventurer worth their salt could tell you that. Sure, people of the surface told plenty of lies about drow and duergar, about how they’d steal surface children to sell into slavery or torture for their own sick amusement— none of that was true. Most of the Underdark held too much contempt for surface dwellers to bring them down for labour or entertainment.

But they were cruel towards each other. Brutal Lolthite soldiers, deep gnomes enslaved to duergar, and the political feuds of Myconid colonies filled the Underdark.

Perhaps none knew this better than the Dark Archer Verimir of Shadowdale. He’d escaped imprisonment by his Lolthite family, if one could call them that, some decades ago— but duergar had finally caught up with him. They took him from his clergy, right under their noses, and Verimir had gathered they were planning to sell him back to them, once the Lolthites found their stronghold.

To their credit, the duergar were a more practical sort than the drow. When they tortured him, it wasn’t for fun— what it was for, Verimir couldn’t say, but they didn’t seem to find it very amusing.

Another thing about the duergar? They were tough as brick. Verimir had grown up on stories of duergar armies, but he’d never seen their fortitude in person until today, when a group of adventurers came in looking for a fight. The duergar had nearly knocked them all to the ground, until a timely magical fire roared from the last soldier standing, scorching the last guard.

As the adventurer healed their compatriots, Verimir wandered to the front of his cell, trying to get a look. A member of his clergy, perhaps, a fellow devotee of the Dark Dancer? No— he did not recognise this person. He couldn’t tell if they were even from the Underdark at all.

Verimir tensed. If they were not a member of his clergy, then why would they come to free him?