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[Thrax]

---

"Well, what have you discovered?" Lomar, full of curiosity and excited to have been summoned back to Dharzhal's home so quickly, inquired. He reclined in a chair, eager to absorb the news.

"The compound is very intricately made. Whoever came by it deliberately set safeguards to prevent ease of duplication."

"How so?"

"Some of the ingredients are extremely rare, and the amounts used in all of them are painfully precise."

"Painfully? Odd choice of words."

"Perhaps 'lethally' would have been a better word. Too much of one combined with too little of another and death quickly ensues. This was no novice alchemist; I could learn from such a person myself," Dhar confessed.

"Can you still duplicate it?"

Dhar shook his head, making the long strands of fine white hair dangling at the sides of his face, flutter slightly. "No, not safely, but I can create a suitable imitation... a variation, if you will."

"Variation?"

"One that will give similar effects but not as long-lasting; certain influences will be heightened, but their duration will be shorter."

"Which aspects?"

"A more intense euphoria; the sedative effects; perhaps increasing the sense of power over other beings... a delusional, if not entirely hallucenogenic, influence, or a combination of those."

"Meaning it will increase..."

"Psychological addiction and sales? Exponentially."

"What will you call it?"

"'Distopia,' for it will promise much, but give little."

"What do you need or want from me in exchange for it?"

The drow alchemist, an unwilling devotee of Lloth, did not hesitate in his reply. "It is time the religion of the Spider Queen take root in these lands. I am authorized..."

"Authorized?"

"By my Queen, to insist that her temple here receive not only one half of all proceeds, but the power over minds that is necessary to assert her authority on this plane, as it should be. Your own deity must not interfere with this process."

"My 'deity' is being constrained in the netherworld. He is impotent while imprisoned there and I only carry on his work," Lomar explained.

Dharzhal looked puzzled, but was clearly not unhappy with that news. "How did he come by that fate?"

"The goddess... she whom I will not name out of disgust and contempt... apparently aligned herself with another deity or deities worshipped by that priest across the way, and cast him out from this plane. I am not sure how they affected it, but I will find out."

Dhar smiled. "Oggaroth ganged up on... again," he shook his head, remembering from ancient lore how the god was thrust from the presence of his peers because of his demand that chaos must be injected into the creation of all material things in all material worlds. It took the entire pantheon of good and neutral deities to cast him into the plane of fire where he eventually assumed power. "Perhaps the Spider Queen can help you," he suggested.

"She would do that?"

"Maybe, for a price."

"I will pay it."

"Pay this one first, if you can. I shall begin in earnest the manufacture of Distopia."

"Can it be passed off as a food enhancer, like its predecessor?"

"Yes, but not as well as the original, though it *will* have one great advantage."

"Which is?"

"Its effects will not be diluted or negated in cooking."

Lomar smiled. This is even better than I had hoped for! The Council must hear about this, and soon!

After making a list of items needed to begin work on the substance, Lomar departed in haste to obtain them while Dharzhal prepared his lab.

[Thrax]

---

That day, while Dharzhal lay napping, he had a dream...

He lay face up, gazing upward into an intensely azure, cloudlessly sunlit sky, as he rested in a field of soft green meadow grass. He sensed he was in a glen, but not one that he had ever seen before. As he raised up, he saw the shimmering, glowing, form of a stunningly beautiful elvish woman levitating toward him; her flowing garments undulating in a breeze that he could not feel. She drew near, within touching distance, stopping beside him.

"Goddess?" he hailed her.

She did not verbally acknowledge his salute, but stood there for several moments, staring at him through gentle, sad, green eyes.

"Concordia?"

"Consider what it is you mean to do, my former disciple and priest. In your hand is the key to a door that can open to bring forth untold misery and death to those you both love, and hate."

Instinctively he looked at his hand, but there was no key. He clenched his fist and glared at her. "They already have that! The key is fashioned by the gods' hands, yours, not mine," he countered.

Unflustered she replied calmly. "That is true, but the choice to use it or not, is yours. Gods give power, and the means to wield it, but men and women decide for themselves if and how to use it." Her eyes grew clouded and tearful. "I beg you not to do this thing."

"My goddess commands it... or so I have been told."

"Yet it violates your conscience; that I can tell."

Dharzhal nodded slowly. "I thought that it had died. But I must obey. I gave Lloth my word to serve her for saving me when you abandoned me to a horrible fate."

"I did not abandon you; I warned you not to do what you did. You made a choice. I did not interfere. There are consequences for choices, Dharzhal. If you make one, good or ill, you must be prepared and willing to pay the cost. I taught you that."

"You left me alone in the hands of liches who would have made me one of them!" he charged, trying to keep his indignation kindled, though it was becoming difficult.

"You are never alone. I was with you then. I am with you now... a friend, an advisor, but no more. I will not save you from yourself. But I do warn you, once more."

"I gave my word to her."

"You gave your pledge to me also. But if you ever cared for me; if I ever did you any good turn, remember it, and stay your feet from this terrible path."

And in that instant, he awoke.