The rain over Neverwinter fell in the manner it often did: sideways, inconvenient, and entirely too cheerful about it. Alleybreath steam wove between the cobbles, carrying the scents of spiced fish, wet stone, and the faint metallic tang of spellfire residue that clung to this city like stubborn perfume. And three drow—who had no business ever meeting—walked its streets. Not together. Not yet. But the city seemed to tug at them all the same. 1. Whisper’ess – The Song That Refuses Chains Whisper’ess slipped into the Driftwood Market like a rumor wearing boots. Rain kissed her silver hair and ran down the curve of her cloak, dripping onto the lute slung against her hip. She hummed a soft, dangerous note. A flower vendor paused mid-haggle, eyes unfocusing for a heartbeat. The note died. Whisper’ess winced. Surface folk were too easily swayed. She had to stay careful. House Baen’Szorra used to say her voice could break minds. Tymora taught her it could break chains, too. She ducked beneath a tavern awning, shaking water from her gloves. The city thrummed—coin-song, bustle, laughter, arguments, rain tapping against awnings in nervous rhythms. That’s when she felt it. A tremor. Like a plucked web-strand deep beneath the earth. An ancient, alien familiarity. Something old had stirred. And it knew her. 2. D’Zhtnlrn – The Sky That Watches Back D’Zhtnlrn perched on a rooftop like a wary spider forced to retire from the walls. The rain darkened his hair, beading on his obsidian skin. The open sky stretched overhead—a vast, unreasonable void he still didn’t trust. He muttered to himself, “One day I’ll stop flinching at clouds. Today is not that day.” He scanned the crowds below. Humans laughed freely. Tieflings bargained loudly. Halflings argued passionately about the correct price of candied nuts. And then he felt it. A ripple—not through the air, but through the stone of the buildings beneath him. A pulse that ran up his spine like a memory that didn’t belong to him. It felt like the Underdark. But older. Darker. And… curious. He rose to his feet, hand drifting toward his blade. “What now…” Then he saw her. A drow bard stepping through the rain with a shadow-soft stride. House-trained. Voice-trained. Trouble-trained. He tensed. And she looked up—meeting his eyes across the rooftop distance. Recognition flashed. Not of who he was. But of **what** he was. Of home. Of exile. Of danger. Neither spoke. The city did. Whispering again in their bones. A third pulse beneath Neverwinter. Stronger. Calling them. Both of them. And someone else. 3. Neruun Marrowdraw – The Joy That Shouldn’t Exist Neruun Marrowdraw was singing to a sack of bones. To be fair, he sang to nearly everything: skulls, femurs, customers, strangers, passing cats, and the occasional shoe. But the bones? They sang back sometimes. He was rearranging a display in his shop—Marrowdraw’s Marrowworks, where everything on the shelves was either charmingly macabre, slightly cursed, or unmistakably made by someone raised by Uthgardt barbarians—when a sudden vibration rattled every ribcage in the room. Bones tumbled. Charms chimed. A skull whispered, “Hhhhhhhhere.” Neruun froze. “That wasn’t you,” he said to the skull. It giggled. Neruun did not. A second pulse rolled through the floor, deep and resonant—an old memory of a memory of a pulse. Neruun’s grin stretched wide. “Oh-ho-ho, that’s new.” He grabbed his coat, several talismans, twelve bone knives, and a celebratory pastry. Then he charged into the rainy street, humming with excitement. Something ancient was waking. And it liked bones. 4. The Convergence The three of them met—of course—in the one place the city always threw secrets: The River District, near the broken arches where Neverwinter’s foundations felt thin, as though the bedrock remembered being hollow. Neruun barreled around a corner and almost collided with Whisper’ess. D’Zhtnlrn stepped from the shadows at the same moment, blade drawn but cautious. The pulse hit again. BOOM!! All three staggered. The stones beneath them glowed faintly with a sick, soft violet radiance—color of ancient magics the Ilythiiri had lost long before the Crown Wars. Whisper’ess whispered: “That is not Menzoberranzan.” D’Zhtnlrn rasped: “That’s older than the Underdark.” Neruun grinned far too widely. “That’s coming this way.” The stones cracked. And something rose. Not drow. Not drider. Not demon. Something primordial. A psionic silhouette shaped from ancient spellweb threads, drifting upward like smoke wearing bones. Its form flickered—elf-like, but wrong. Old. Broken. Curious. It spoke in three voices layered atop one another: “THREE BROKEN STRANDS … MEET AGAIN.” Whisper’ess stumbled back. “It… knows us?” D’Zhtnlrn’s stomach dropped. “Why?” Neruun blinked. “Guys… I think it’s happy to see us.” The creature extended an arm—woven from shimmering, glass-thin memory-thread. “YOU WERE MINE, BEFORE YOU WERE YOURS.” The street cracked outward. Neverwinter’s lights flickered. The rain stopped falling mid-air. And the tale began. 5. The Web That Remembers The thing rising from the cracked street wasn’t flesh. It wasn’t shadow. It wasn’t even quite magic. It was memory made visible. Thread-fine strands of psionic light wove themselves into a tall, vaguely elven shape—long-limbed, high-cheeked, eyes like twin pools of violet void. Bones hung within its outline like ornaments: ancient, ghost-pale, half-there. Whisper’ess had seen priestesses of Lolth at their most terrifying. This was worse. Those priestesses believed they ruled. This thing gave the impression it had *forgotten* ruling ages ago, the way someone forgets a fashion. The rain stayed frozen in the air. Each drop trembled, indecisive. D’Zhtnlrn slid a step sideways, weight balanced, hand on his blades. Neruun—bless him—squinted thoughtfully. “You look… familiar. Did we date?” The entity’s head turned toward him, movements smooth and unsettlingly deliberate. Its voice came as a layered chorus, like three people trying to speak in unison and nearly succeeding: “NERRUUN MARROWDRAW.JOY-CORRUPTED THREAD.BONE-VOICE.” Neruun blinked. “I’m… gonna take that as a compliment.” Whisper’ess hissed, “You *don’t* flirt with psionic bone-clouds.” D’Zhtnlrn muttered, “You also don’t stand near them, talk to them, or breathe in their general direction. Yet here we are.” The entity’s head turned, considering each in turn: “WHISPER’ESS.SONG-SHAPER, CHAIN-BREAKER. UNFINISHED CHANT.” Whisper’ess’s hand tightened on her lute. “I finished plenty of songs,” she said softly. “D’ZHTNLRN. MERCY-ANOMALY. DRIDER-DENIED.” D’Zhtnlrn’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t look away. The construct spread its arms. Beneath the cobbles, something vast stirred—far below the sewerline, deeper than the old stormpipes, deeper even than the city’s oldest foundations. All Neverwinter seemed to breathe in, holding itself poised. “YOU WERE MINE BEFORE YOU WERE YOURS.” Whisper’ess swallowed. Her voice, when it came, was calm through force of will. “You’re not from Menzoberranzan,” she said. “Nor from Ched Nasad, or Sshamath, or any city I’ve glimpsed in whispers.” The being inclined its head. “I PRECEDE YOUR CITIES. YOUR GODDESS. YOUR FALL.” D’Zhtnlrn’s fingers twitched. “Ilythiiri,” he rasped. “Old empire… before the Descent.” Neruun looked between them. “Right. History lesson later, existential threat now?” Whisper’ess exhaled. “You’re a remnant of the Ilythiiri spellwebs. Aren’t you?” Her eyes narrowed. “They built mind-looms. Wove armies. Wove obedience.” The thing’s violet gaze flared. “I AM UL’THAER’RIN. THE FIRST LOOM. THE STORY BEFORE STORIES.” It took a step forward. The air shivered. Whisper’ess’s knees almost buckled as a wave of sheer *age* crashed against her mind. “YOUR LINEAGES WERE WOVEN HERE,” Ul’Thaer’Rin continued. “YOU ARE THREE TORN THREADS, LOST TO THE LOOM. RETURN. BE REWOVEN. BECOME WHAT YOU WERE MEANT TO BE.” D’Zhtnlrn spat on the cobbles. “I’ve had quite enough of being ‘what I’m meant to be,’ thank you.” Neruun frowned. “Wait, we’re from *you*? Even me? I was punted down a hill by a very confused barbarian, just for existing.” “Exactly,” Whisper’ess murmured, shaken. “Renegades. Outliers. All three of us. We shouldn’t have slipped free of Underdark control as cleanly as we did.” She met Ul’Thaer’Rin’s gaze. “You’re the reason drow minds bend so easily. The reason songs become shackles. The reason mercy hurts.” The Loom’s voice rippled with something like pride. “I WOVE YOUR PEOPLE STRONG.” Neruun’s grin vanished. “You wove us *breakable*.” The stones under their feet trembled again. Threads of light erupted from the cracks, reaching for their ankles with hungry curiosity. Ul’Thaer’Rin’s tone softened, almost coaxing. “NEVERWINTER IS YOUNG. ITS ROOTS ARE SHALLOW. ITS PEOPLE ARE WEAKLY WOVEN. WITH YOUR RETURN, I CAN CLAIM THIS CITY. MAKE IT A NEW LOOM. A NEW HOME FOR YOUR KIND. NO MORE EXILE. NO MORE HIDING. REJOICE, LITTLE THREADS. YOU WILL BELONG.” D’Zhtnlrn suddenly couldn’t breathe. Belonging. No more flinches at the sight of his own skin. No more stares. It sounded… terrifying. Whisper’ess heard something else: no more hiding… **from whom**? Neruun only heard, very distinctly: *“I will turn this city into another version of the thing that broke you.”* He snarled. “You want to weave us back,” Neruun said, eyes flaring with Lliiran wild-joy. “But we’ve been busy, you old coat-rack. We’ve been *unwove* for a while. We’ve made new knots.” He drew a knife of polished bone—inlaid with runes of joy and release. Bones from beasts he’d hunted, friends he’d buried, lives he’d celebrated. “You want threads?” he growled. “Here’s a better loom.” He plunged the knife into a crack at his feet. Light spilled. Not violet. Not cold. Warm, chaotic, festival-bright. Every bone-charm in his packs, every carved relic in Marrowdraw’s Marrowworks, every little memorial he’d ever set for the dead—answered. They lit up all over the River District and beyond: tiny flickers of color, threads of joy running through the city’s under-skin. Ul’Thaer’Rin recoiled as if burned. “WHAT—” Whisper’ess laughed, the sound ragged. “You’ve been sleeping,” she said hoarsely, “while Lliira found a way into a drow’s bones. You tried to weave obedience. He’s been weaving celebration.” D’Zhtnlrn stepped forward, eyes narrowed. “And you tried to weave murder into me,” he said. “Only, the one time I was supposed to obey—at that altar in Menzoberranzan—I didn’t. That was your first crack, wasn’t it?” His hand slid to his bow. “I’m your mistake.” He nocked an arrow. “And I intend to keep being one.” Ul’Thaer’Rin’s outline flickered. “YOU CANNOT UNMAKE YOUR ORIGIN. YOU ARE ILYTHIIRI.” Whisper’ess smiled grimly. “We are. And we’re also… *something else*.” She raised her lute. Her fingers brushed the strings. Not the weaponized song of a priestess. Not the cruel Binding Hymns they’d trained into her until her throat bled. She sang the surface. Rain on tile. Children laughing by the harbor. The sigh of a tavern after a good song. The quiet, stunned exhale when someone realizes they are *safe*. Her voice wrapped around Neruun’s bone-light and D’Zhtnlrn’s defiant aim. The three of them formed a triangle around the Loom. Joy. Mercy. Song. Things drow were not meant to have. The city seemed to hold still. Neverwinter’s spell-scars hummed—the Chasm’s buried edges, the stormpipes, the Moonstone Mask’s tethering anchors, the quiet wards beneath the House of Knowledge. All those broken, mended, re-broken magics took notice. Ul’Thaer’Rin tried once more. “STOP. YOU ARE TEARING—” “Good,” D’Zhtnlrn said, and loosed. The arrow soared, trailing a thread of light Neruun’s bone-magic seized, twisting it into a laughing spiral. Whisper’ess’s song struck it mid-flight, turning the shot into not just an attack, but a *statement*. The arrow hit the Loom’s chest. It did not pierce flesh. It pierced **pattern**. Ul’Thaer’Rin screamed—not in pain, but in *confusion*, as if the idea of being contradicted offended it more than death. Threads exploded outward. Violet lines snapped, flailing like cut nerves. Bits of old Ilythiiri spell-cipher shattered into motes, raining down as meaningless glitter on the wet stones. The Loom buckled. Then, with terrible slowness, it drew itself back together—smaller, thinner, dimmer. Whisper’ess lowered her lute, panting. “Did we… kill it?” “No,” Neruun said quietly. “We showed it something it doesn’t know how to weave.” D’Zhtnlrn rested his bow. Ul’Thaer’Rin regarded them with that too-still gaze. “YOU HAVE CUT ME FROM YOUR PATTERNS,” it said, voice now a thin echo.“BUT I REMAIN… BENEATH. I KNOW YOUR NAMES. I KNOW YOUR HOUSES. I WILL CALL OTHERS. THOSE WHO STILL YEARN TO BELONG.” The rain started falling again, spattering through the creature’s translucent form. It began to sink back into the crack. “WHEN ENOUGH RENEGADES WALK THIS CITY, WHEN ENOUGH BROKEN THREADS GATHER, I WILL RISE FULLY. AND THEN WE SHALL SEE… WHAT NEW STORY YOU HAVE WOVEN IN PLACE OF MINE.” The cobbles sealed over it like nothing had ever happened. Just wet stone. Dripping rain. Three drow breathing too hard. Neruun let out a long, shaky whistle. “…I liked it better when my biggest problem was a customer wanting a self-stirring femur mug.” Whisper’ess leaned against a wall, laughing once, weakly. “We just told a primordial mind-loom ‘no’ and lived.” She glanced at D’Zhtnlrn. “Does that make us heroes or lunatics?” D’Zhtnlrn looked up at the sky. For once, it didn’t feel like a judgmental dome trying to crush him. “Both,” he said. “Mostly lunatics.” He frowned at the paving stones. “It wasn’t lying, though. Others like us will feel that… pull.” Whisper’ess nodded slowly. “Renegade drow, misfit elves, spell-scarred wanderers… anyone whose story slipped their maker’s grip.” Neruun’s smile returned—smaller, but real. “Good. Let them come. Marrowworks has room. I can give them bone-charms that don’t whisper obedience.” Whisper’ess plucked a gentle, uncertain chord. “I can give them songs that heal more than they bind.” D’Zhtnlrn watched the crowds starting to move again, oblivious, umbrellas bobbing like merchant beetles. “I can make sure nothing from below takes them,” he said. “Not without going through me.” The three of them stood in the rain a little longer, listening to the slow, distant thrum of something ancient sulking beneath the city. Then they parted. Whisper’ess slipped toward the taverns, where rumors already fluttered about *strange light in the River District*. Neruun jogged back toward his shop, already humming a new tune he’d call “Loombreaker.” D’Zhtnlrn headed for the roofs, the sky feeling—if not friendly—at least like a ceiling he’d chosen. Far below, deep under Neverwinter, a dim violet web stirred. Not dead. Not dominant. Just… waiting. It adjusted. It began to listen differently. Instead of just hunting for threads to claim, it listened for the *new* weaving being done in this loud, bright surface city by misfits and renegades and fools who believed they could choose who they were. It found that it was… curious. And in the deepest dark, curiosity is the first heresy. *** Later, in quiet ink, the Soul Bearer wrote: *** Three drow walked a city that was never meant to welcome them, and in doing so woke a memory older than their goddess. It rose from the stone seeking to reclaim what it once wove—three threads it believed lost, three lives it still named its own. But the strands refused the Loom. A bonewright answered with joy where obedience was expected. A ranger answered with mercy where cruelty had been bred. A song-shaper answered with gentleness where chains had once been forged. In that defiance, the ancient pattern tore. Neverwinter’s cobbles remember the violet shimmer that bled between them, and the brief, bewildered silence of a primordial mind denied its design. It retreated, diminished… yet watching. The Ledger records this not as a victory, nor as a warning, but as a promise: When old weavings rise, it is the unraveled threads that shine the brightest.