“Balaufein Kenlyl, the Drow. Rise!” A voice commanded. The black-skinned boy received a nudge in his back from an invisible force.
Drow? Is that what I am? He got up and tried not to wear uncertainty on his face, but it was an enemy he fought with each stride. Others were with him, but he couldn’t bring himself to take more than a glance. On the stage to which he walked he saw several men in what he could only describe as gangster suits and otherwise looked pretty normal, as normal as people in fluorescent pink, green and purple can be.
“Quit looking at us like that son, your eyes will fall out.” One said in an accent that was decidedly French. “As a Drow, you deserve a cloak.” Ashes started to form around Bal’s body. “You are the eyes of the flame, and sworn to the sword the fiery magma suits you well.” The cloak almost skimmed the ground ending midway along his calves. Cracks glowing like menacing magma stretched the length and breadth of it, the rest was the colour of pitch just like his armor, and there were two spiky outcrops on each shoulder. The bottom that waved as he walked was the orange-yellow glow of searing magma. A strange ease fell over him has he pulled up the hood. Along the balcony he saw the entirety of his school, the same uniform, similar faces and the like. The balcony had been extended to accommodate such an audience, and all remained deathly quiet. His hands were thinking of reaching for the scimitars.
“Introduce yourself Mr. Kenlyl.” One of the suited men pushed him, and the other ten or so combatants vanished as he landed in the middle of the now empty hall. He rolled as he landed, executing the maneuver even better than he had as a human.
Five figures not much taller than he, yet far bulkier approached. Balaufein didn’t give them enough time to approach before he sunk the dagger into the middle of one’s forehead. Two hung back while the remaining two took his right and left flanks, holding up their crude weapons seemingly fashioned from broken metal pipes that were sharpened callously.
Both of the slender steel blades came out and made a come hither gesture. Enraged they came at him, only to find him ducking as they struck. The twin blades each found a temporary home in the throats of the grunts. One of the two that hung back was now charging with his weapon flailing wildly. It came down, but the drow had cartwheeled aside and span on his hand to kick the monster in its face.
His movements were quick, and Bal needed to spend a few seconds on the ground to come to grips with his new body. The metal pipe came back up, and went down where Balaufein used to be, a scimitar blade slice the tendons in his shoulder as the drow warrior rolled by. He shot up and sliced the beast several times across the chest. The last attacked him, but he was the faster and sliced open one of its eyes, span around it masterfully and sliced its other eye.
The grunt fell to the ground and Baluafein stabbed it in the neck and twisted. From the stage he was directed to exit through one of the middle doors of the hall. He threw the hood back over his head and walked out. The other creatures appeared and the battlemage studied his enemies some were larger than he expected, at least two were ten feet in length, not including their torso.
