To Drow Elves, a prison cell was as warm and welcoming as home.
If a Dark Elf had never been punished with a stint in the family confinement room as a child, then his childhood was incomplete.
And that place was often more terrifying than a dungeon.
Nightingale's and Night Wind's hoods were pulled off together. The reek of blood was the richest floral fragrance filling their nostrils.
Faint groans of pain drifted through the pitch-black, cobweb-draped dungeon. Looking toward the sound, they finally saw the family they had "longed so dearly" to see—
Hundreds of Drow, without a patch of uninjured skin between them, hung from webs, walls, and corners. Sticky, fine spider silk wrapped their bodies, while iron bars separated them into individual cells fashioned from webs.
They saw the two new prisoners. To some, these were unfamiliar faces, and they had no idea why the newcomers had been locked up alongside them.
But the Matron Mother, who occupied a conspicuous spot in the center even as a prisoner so that others could regularly admire this lovely sight, recognized the two children who had left home years ago at a glance.
"I thought... you would never come back."
Her voice was faint. Through their Darkvision, the two could see the nearly festering whip marks across their mother's waist, abdomen, and arms. New wounds mingled with old ones. Starving and freezing, she was already straining what little strength she had just to speak.
"You should have... stayed on the surface. At least you could... carry on the family bloodline."
Once the jailer who had escorted them inside shut the door and left, several Giant Spiders lurking on the ceiling spat silk at the tightly bound pair. Using their weight like a pulley system, they eventually stuck both prisoners to