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Quote by R.A. Salvatore

“The truth is, you don’t know Menzoberranzan. Not even you, Jarlaxle, who has spent your life trying to figure it out. You cannot understand the hope that brought us to the great cavern those millennia removed. Yes, hope. It was not anger that brought us there, nor fear. It was hope. We fled a world of tyrant queens and insane kings, a place of unending war and injustice. We found a sanctuary, a deep cave, full of Faezress magic—though we did not understand that at the time—and easily defended. A sanctuary, I say, and indeed that is what the word ‘Menzoberranzan’ then meant in the ancient tongue of the drow. “A hundred families,” she continued. “Ten thousand dark elves. And each had a say in their family, and each family had a voice in the Plenum, and the largest families spoke those concerns in the Conclave, which you now—and only—know as the Ruling Council. We were not rulers then as much as servants, heeding the words of all the drow. And it was Lady Lolth that led us there, before she was called the Spider Queen.”

Quote by R.A. Salvatore

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Relentless

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R.A. Salvatore

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“Ah, yes, true that,” Jarlaxle agreed, feigning defeat. “It escaped me that you are without the strong sense of irony to go that delicious route.” Jarlaxle turned to the others. “So we have it, then,” he declared. “It was the illithids, a grand and brilliant plan! Or it was Lolth herself, ever making chaos for her enjoyment. Or it was one of her great rivals, then—perhaps Demogorgon!—blowing up the whole damned Lolthian world on Faerun.” “Or it was nothing at all beyond the epiphany of two women in position to make a difference,” Entreri said dryly. He sighed and shook his head, then looked up at Wulfgar, who stood beside him. “You see, my friend?” he asked with sarcasm exceeding that of the others. “This is why we can’t have good things, good thoughts, simple joy, or hope.” Jarlaxle laughed loudly at that, amused. But there really was a nagging doubt here, about all of it. The most important lesson he had learned in his desperate struggle to survive in Menzoberranzan was that nothing—nothing!—was as it seemed. Not ever. But how he wanted to believe that this time would be different.”

“Drizzt chuckled, but felt a pang within that honest laughter. This was the childhood he had never experienced, the carefree creation of giggles that too few got to enjoy. He wished he had played this game with Zaknafein, though he couldn’t even imagine the possibility of any such playfulness with his mother, Malice. Such a waste of life itself, he thought, given what he knew now, what Kimmuriel had helped the priestess Yvonnel and Matron Mother Quenthel Baenre reveal of the hopeful beginnings of Menzoberranzan before it had descended into its current, joyless reality. Before the way of Lolth, where the tension and excitement of chaos swirled away the pleasures of simplicity and love.”

“Dear sister, it is not hard to convince a mortal to believe that which she wants so badly to believe,” Eskavidne explained. “It is not hard to suggest deeper reason for mere coincidence, or to create patterns in events unrelated. These mortals yearn for a deeper truth—a hint of such a thing holds a powerful allure. And they seek an orderly multiverse about them, fanatically seeking patterns when none exist, and praying, ever praying, for a controlling figure to parent them.” “And so now Kyrnill Kenafin knows what she knows, and anyone trying to convince her otherwise will be met with a wall of doubt,” Yiccardaria reasoned. “And anger,” said Eskavidne. “Great anger. Violent anger.”

“I do not know how high the ladder of evil deeds such truth climbs, honestly. I have seen wicked dictators of every species and culture to match the vileness of the most zealous Lolthian priestess. I have witnessed truly evil people, from dwarfs to halflings to humans to elves to drow, and everything in between and every species or culture only a bit removed. So perhaps there are some individuals who have within them a natural evil. Or perhaps even with them, even with the most wicked, like Matron Zhindia Melarn or the magistrates of Luskan’s carnival, who torture accused criminals with such glee, there were steps in the earlier days of their personal journey which corrupted them and brought them to their present state. That is a question that I doubt will ever show an answer, nor is that answer truly the most important factor, for in the present, in the moment, in their own actions, these folk, as with us all, bear responsibility.”

“And the shadows went away, revealing Sos’Umptu as a drider! But she kept growing, and no, she was not a drider, for she was beautiful, not bloated in abomination. Too beautiful to look upon. Beautiful and terrible all at once, and huge, dwarfing the driders about her, bigger even than the jade spider constructs that had come in from the entry. And Yvonnel understood and knew she was doomed. “Behold!” the creature that had been Sos’Umptu demanded. “I am the avatar of Lolth. Kneel to me. Beg for my mercy.”