Why does Tymora have the ability to make a gamer, anyway?

I always knew that I was different from the others of my house; how could I not, when I was aware of the world even from the moment that I was born into what I now recognize as a dystopia? In the instant that I was born, though, there were only three things that were significant enough that I remember them even to this day; my Mother: Matron Malice Do’Urden; the “holy” dagger of the spider bitch Lolth; and the final thing, the one that truly set me apart from the rest of the drow, and the world as a whole: a message that no one else could see, saying: “Welcome, Drizzt Do’Urden; you have been chosen by Lady Tymora. You are the gamer.”

Now, naturally, as I was but an elfling of less than a day in age, I had no clue what this message said, though that would soon enough be changed. Luckily (at least for me, I imagine that Nalfien was none too happy about it) my mother learned that the Elderboy of the house had fallen in the battle that even now we were perpetrating to exterminate House De’Vir, and thus that I would live as the second male of the main house, instead of being sacrificed to the Spider Bitch, as all sons past the second living are in Drow noble houses.

I learned far faster than was normal for any elf, at a rate that was prodigious for a human, let alone for an elf, fallen or not, light fingers touching the strange boxes that shone blue under my infravision, while not casting a heat shadow upon the rest of the world. Indeed, when I was but half a year, I spoke my first word, though I mangled it horribly: “Vierna.”

Naturally, this induced the owner of the name, my sister and caretaker, to be a combination of quite confused, proud, and angry, as while on one hand my first word had been her name, I had, indeed, mangled it, and while later she admitted that the three lashes from her snake-whip were excessive at my current age, at the time she felt quite vindicated. When I continued to talk after that point, though, she knew that something rare had come to Menzoberranzan, and while disappointed that it was a lowly male, even of her own house’s nobility, she was quite ecstatic- after all, while I was the youngest of the house as a whole, and a male, she was the one that would do the base molding of what she recognized would be a prodigy of the highest degree. Later, she would think otherwise, but at that point her greed and shortsightedness blinded her to the fact that she would be forging a double-edged sword.

While I did have the duties of my position towards the house from the age of six, everything from serving meals to my family, to cleaning the house chapel to Lloth, to taking inventory of what goods we had available in the main compound, it certainly didn’t serve its purpose; as while I was by no means a master of them, my sister had taught me the basics of reading under the painful light of a candle, and while that alone had taught me the language that my messages always appeared in, the dreams certainly did. To this day, I remember perfectly each and every one of them, although the first still holds a special place in my heart - only understandable, for your first meeting with a goddess tends to do that to a mortal, be you five years of age or not.

A room, far brighter than any I had ever seen before, yet (as I later learned) nearly pitch black, filled with ornate scales of all kinds, all perfectly in balance; yet in the middle, upon a great white marble altar, sits the greatest of them all, a scale that somehow felt of fate. Suddenly, as I gazed upon the Great Scale, a spinning coin descended, first looking as if it would land of the white side, then the black, before a bright silver aura appeared around it and it finally fell, pushing the white side down just a hair at first, before slowly behind the altar a door, previously indistinguishable from any of the other deep alcoves opened, and a smiling woman with skin pale as the porcelain dishes the high table of the house ate upon, and hair as red as the flame I had learned to read under, yet somehow being more beautiful than any drow maiden I had ever gazed upon, walked out.

“Welcome, my young champion. I am Tymora, lady of good fortune, adventurers, and change. I am also your own patron, as while your family has served Lolth since its own founding, you are the first I’ve found amongst your race that has the possibility to truly take advantage of my greatest gift in over a millennium.”

Now, naturally, as a male raised in a drow noble house of Menzoberranzan, even a prodigy, I was used to many things from females; whippings, abuse, and in rare cases from my sister, some minor form of affection, and while this woman was clearly not Drow, or even elven - indeed, she looked rather like one of the slaves that regularly visited my elder brother in his bedchamber - I still was in as close to a perfect three-quarter bow as I could manage, as while her words carried no vitriol, I most certainly didn’t want to offend a female of her bearing. yet even as I settled into my bow, she spoke “Young Drizzt, there is no need for that with me. Rise, so that I make look upon the mortal that is to be my chosen.”

at this point I was quite confused, and inadvertently blurted out “Chosen, my lady?” before hurriedly adding “forgive me for speaking without your leave, my lady!”, silently hoping that I wouldn’t feel the bite a whip of snakes, as I no doubt would have by this point at home.

“None of that, my young champion. While you may have to cower in fear from the priestesses of your home, I rarely require anything of that nature from mine defeated foes, let alone the one who is to be my greatest servant. Now, will you sit with me? we have much to speak of this night, and precious little time for it.”

Even as Tymora spoke, the room dissolved into a mist that while giving off no light, seemed somehow bright. However, the mist dispersed quickly, revealing a room of perhaps ten meters square, containing perhaps half a dozen comfortable looking chairs of padded leather and cloth surrounding a fireplace with half again as many surrounding a circular table, all with patterns of coins with Tymora's own face inscribed upon them interspersed generously in the intricate woodwork.

Tymora walked over to the fireplace, filled with flames that softly illuminated the room yet somehow didn’t burn at my eyes, despite that even the small candle I’d used to learn to read had been near agonizing. I hesitated, not wishing to offend somebody that clearly had full control over my dream, before she gestured to the chair next to her own, third closest to the fire, and repeated herself “Come, and sit.” with a tone that while far more gentle than I was used to, was substantially firmer than what she had used before, and I hurried to sit down.

“Now, my champion, a time of great strife is going to be coming to the realms. Not soon, nor even for more than half a century, but it is coming. The world will not be prepared, I think, but I have felt the need to prepare for the worst, that when the gods fall and walk amongst the mortals, I have... Something of an edge, something to give me that much more strength that I might bind myself and remain constant, or even grow in power once the strife is ended. That is the prime reason for me that I have deigned to Choose you. However, you may ask yourself “Why me? Why a Drow, a member of a race so cruel that the reals whole loathe them? The answer is simple. You were always fated to do great things, perform acts that would inspire awe and fear in many, yet more the former than the later amongst the goodly races. Yet you would struggle worst now, in your early years before you met those that would, and indeed may still become your companions. Thus, I decided that I should, as we of the surface put it, ‘kill two birds with one stone’ and give you a gift of Power, that you might grow greater than ever before, even as you provide an anchor against the worst from happening to me in the strife to come. Now, let me explain to you what abilities you have gained from my Choice... “

And over that night and many others, during which time flowed at a pace seemingly glacial, I learned at Tymora’s knee. She taught me the secrets of my power, and even as I learned, things like The Menu, The Inventory, The Character Sheet, and The Map formed out of the aether, and I learned what Tymora informed me was the common language of the surface. By the time I had turned six, and thus was to be trained in the magics innate to those of Drow birth, I had become fluent enough to read it all.

Still, even with the welcome respite that the close of each cycle of Narbondel brought, the days were far from easy. The accelerated rate at which I learned most all things, thanks to Tymora, I hid for the most part, as while I was already known as a prodigy by much of the house, I had little desire for either my brother to feel threatened in his position as Headboy of the house, nor for Matron Mother Malice (never mother, as I had started to think of Tymora as a mother less than two months after meeting her, a fact which she knew and accepted, though not to the point of officially claiming me as anything more than as her Chosen.) to feel that I needed to be slain as too great a threat to either her, or the city as a whole.

The titles that I could now read informed me of Zaknafein being my father in addition to the house weapon master, and while it was somewhat comforting to know that my father was also something of a prodigy, our interactions were limited at that point enough that the comfort was minimal. Still, even as I carefully and quietly trained myself in skills such as cleaning, polishing, observe, subterfuge and (with unwitting and unwilling help from my mother and sisters) Physical endurance, and with the quests I completed from the tasks designed to train me in many ways; as a male servant to the matriarchy (which failed horribly thanks to Tymora), as a Drow noble, both cunning and cruel (which I learned, though I hated exercising the second), and as a servant to the Lloth, the dark goddess that the city followed, who could have been the most dangerous enemy to myself, but who seemed to find great amusement at the fact that the second son of the eighth house was born a traitor to city, house and race, something that brought me quite a bit of confusion until Tymora enlightened me to the fact that I was favored by Lolth simply for walking the same path she herself once walked with the elven pantheon, millennia ago.

Once I reached six, though, I started training that the Gift I had received from Tymora would aid in both the most, and the least: the innate magics of the Drow. I couldn’t hide the fact that once I was taught a skill but once, be it from reading a book (something Tymora informed me she had fixed from her last Chosen, who would simply destroy a book to gain its knowledge; flashy, but extremely expensive) or from the mouth of another, I would be able to execute the spell instantly. My endurance in practice fortunately gave them a (false) conclusion that explained the phenomenon, as I couldn’t cast nearly as many spells per day as would be normal for one my age, and at the advice of Tymora I hid that my capacity was growing rapidly for magecraft as it was normally extremely difficult to increase your capacity for innate magic in a short time period.

This training, though, was accompanied by becoming the Prince Page of the house as a whole, and in addition to my previous tasks I was assigned to both learn from, and serve in any way desired, my father. While we had interacted before, and I had even learned some of his cynical philosophy, this was the first time that I interacted with him for any long period of time, as his primary role of weapons master of the house took up much of his time. While I held back most of my abnormal skill here, I discovered that this still put me to fighting at a level far above what would be considered normal, and even as my studies in magick left their mark in my stats with [int] and [wis] being raised far out of proportion, this training took my [vit] , [srt] , and most of all, [agi] at a level far above where they were before, and before I knew it, I had been cycling through these tasks for a full decade.

 

On the very date of my sixteenth birthday, having had a small celebration with Tymora the night before, I was summoned before my mother. Her first command was something that previously would have been nearly enough to have given me another level of physical resistance; now, however, When she commanded me to “Look at me.” I did so immediately. She scowled at me for my nonexistent hesitation, but I was quick enough that she decided not to use her multi-snake-headed whip on me.

“No more are you a servant of house Do’Urden, no longer a prince page! You will immediately cease to act as a servant of this house, Drizzt Do’Urden. If you dishonor our house now, I shall not hesitate to put needles in those pretty, pretty purple eyes of yours.” she commanded, using a tone that was somehow both imperial and seductive, resulting in me firmly repressing a shudder as I realized that far from regretting it, she would quite enjoy putting those needles in my eyes, perhaps even sharpening the barbs on them herself.

---

“While you will assuredly increase his training now, Zaknafein, it shall not be by much. We already have Dinin as a fighter, and as he seems to have some great progress with his innate magicks, it seems only logical to have Drizzt trained as a wizard to replace Nalfien.” Malice announced.

“Are you sure? His blade work has already become quite promising, almost unnaturally so for one so young.” Replied Zak quickly, defiant to a level only just below that which would receive punishment in spite of his status as weapons master, and past Patron, to the house.

“Sorcere seems the natural course, giving our house the wizard we need instead of another warrior-noble, of which we already have two at the moment. He certainly seems intelligent enough.” Malice rebutted with a glare at Zak, even as Briza - my eldest sister, and already a high priestess of the Spider-Bitch - started to finger her own six-headed whip.

“Shall we see then?” Zak sniped back, reaching for a pair of coins and flipping them himself before snatching them out of the air.

Malice sent a lazy glare that promised him much pain at a later time, but agreed with a shrug, telling me to “Flip them.”

Now, while I doubt that I was supposed to understand that my fate was being decided with this action, I complied readily, easily catching both with a single hand despite having flipped them with both.

Zak gave just the lightest hint of a smirk to malice, before producing another pair of coins and saying “Now stack two on each hand, and send all four up together.”

Four coins went up, and four coins came down, stacked heads up with each coin from each hand perfectly stacked from whence it came, with only my arms having so much as twitched.

“Exact precision. This one’s a fighter, and clearly belongs at Melee-Magthere.” Zak stated to Malice, a smirk on his speech, though not his lips.

“I have seen wizards perform such feats before.” Malice retorted, clearly starting to grow annoyed at my continued success, though more at Zaknafien’s continued display of smugness. While he had once been her proclaimed husband, and the whole house knew he was her not-infrequent lover, though the house also knew that though it was the skills both in bed and combat that had caused her to keep him alive for so long, his continued defiance of her - and Lloth - gave her both great headaches, and more than once had landed Do’Urden as a whole into not inconsequential trouble. Even so, his only visible response this time was to stack another pair of coins upon each hand, before stepping back.

“Again.” was all he said, and while it was a very near thing, almost as if Luck itself was on my side all eight coins landed successfully upon your hands, all caught in the correct hands, though one coin was caught but four inches from the ground.

“Do you admit to him being a fighter, Malice?” he asked, putting a growl somewhere between defiant and seductive.

“Hmm... No. if he can do three more each, however, I will concede this to you.” She proclaimed, looking confident that no matter how skilled I was with my hands, fourteen coins with seven from each hand would prove impossible for me.

“Very well.” he replied with more gravity than any voice you’d ever heard before. “Catch them all, Drizzt. Catch them perfectly, lest you land where you belong not in Sorcere, the school of magick.”

Then, with a whisper that you barely heard - and luckily for both of us none of the Priestesses present did - he added “Good luck, my son.” even as he both stacked the six new coins upon my hands, even as he warmed those already there lest they have no heat for me to see them by.

Then I launched the coins, deliberately giving them substantially more power than before, both to launch all fourteen gold pieces, and to give myself a bit more time to catch them all, and with a flourish that made it look effortless, I did so, clearly snatching each and every coin that was launched out of the air in the same order that they were stacked, in addition to the expectation of being in the same hand they were launched from.

The entire room gasped with surprise at my feat here, and when Zak finally broke the silence, it was to state only “Two hands. He is a warrior of twin blades, and I am out of coins.” firmly.

Slowly breaking out of her stunned state, Malice breathed “How many could he do?” with an air of near awe, as she knew that Zaknafien himself, widely considered the greatest weapons master of Menzoberranzan, occasionally had difficulty achieving such a feat with five coins on each hand, let alone the seven that you had just caught flawlessly.

Finally able to snow a triumphant grin, the only reply she received was “How many could we stack?”

Her earlier growing rage abated by what she privately thought was a sure sign of a blessing of Lloth, for surely only the goddess could cause such a young elfling to show such skill, especially after the near fumble that had been displayed earlier, she chuckled, admitting “Very well, Zaknafien. The secondboy is a fighter... Perhaps to be the weapons master of Do’Urden soon? his skills seem to be eclipsing yours already... But truly, with such a lineage, how could we expect any less?”

This, of course, unsettled Rizzen, current Patron of the house... How could it not, when everybody, even the slaves of the house, knew that I was very clearly not his son?

 

As we walked into Zaknafien’s private training hall, I couldn’t help but ask about the other two doors. I had been informed that, until such a time as I could be considered "satisfactory", this room would be the sole focus of my existence, so naturally I was just slightly annoyed to be informed that I should "simply concern myself with this room alone."
“Why? There are two more rooms, neither with locks. Besides, there’s no privy - do you want that mess in here?” I expected my logic to prove superior.
“Ah, but those locks are made of common sense. That door -” and he gestured towards the south, pointing at the most ornate door I'd ever seen, not counting the compound gate “- leads to my private quarters. You do not want me to find you in there. As for the other, that’s the house tactics room, for war. Perhaps one day, I’ll deem you worthy to enter, but for now? You can consider this single, ah, magnificent hall -” he gestured around the room "-your home for however long it takes to turn you into a proper swordsman.”
I glanced around again, somewhat annoyed. Far from the grand treatment that I’d expected upon becoming secondboy, it seemed more a return to the days I’d spent with Vierna in the House chapel... though that this room wasn’t even half the size of that place.
Still, I’d learned not to question the weapons master in what few lessons he’d seen fit to give me. Besides, my only true issue with it was the lack of a privy, and I well knew that many lived in far worse conditions even in our compound, let alone elsewhere. I resolved to ask Tymora that night for assistance in creating a spell to free me of that uncomfortable necessity, or at least clear away the mess, as while it wasn't truly necessary it would hopefully make my father far less likely to “increase my training” to near-lethal levels any time soon.
The weapons master spoke again, drawing me out of my thoughts, though he seemed to speak more to himself than me.
“You seem to have learned control of your tongue, at least. Perhaps your time here might be somewhat enjoyable.” Though he said nothing of it, we both knew that I had yet to master the subtle signs of my body to any appreciable degree; in this city, such a language was almost more blatant than words.
Striding over to the curtains on the wall, he threw them wide, revealing not a great window as I had expected, but rather the most beautiful weapons rack I had ever laid eyes upon; every weapon I had even seen in passing was featured, and then half again as many I'd not heard so much as a whisper of.
“You might be better than most are when first they see this, but you're still leagues away from where you should be. Examine these, find those which best fit in your hands and feel right as you wield them. From most, I'd expect mastery of two at minimum before sending them off. With your gift, though, I'll be most disappointed if you haven't mastered at least half and reached proficiency with the rest.”
Before, I’d only ever managed tiny acts of defiance, disguised as proper obedience, training in things that for any other would be ridiculous. But now... now I could learn far more potent skills with which to defy dearest Matron Mother and better serve my saving light in her hour of need.
Zaknafien had stopped in the doorway to his private chambers, observing me, and so I pretended to struggle with a naginata of nearly twice my own height. He walked away, seemingly satisfied at my seeming incompetence with a more exotic weapon. I thought I might have heard a faint chuckle from him, but it could just as easily have been mere imagination.
~*~

'Well, he may not be the sharpest blade I've ever met, but he's certainly better than most... though, really, to think I wouldn't notice that he was only faking a beginner's struggle? He clearly still has much to learn, even if he has been taking lessons since infancy.'
The weapons master shook his head as he settled himself onto his couch, the only furnishing in his otherwise bare safe room.
'Still, even if he does smile with far more ease than all but a handful, he does at least seem to have some idea of the truth of things. He can see the taint, and that's far more than I can say of most these last four centuries. What is it that makes him so able to perceive it, I wonder? My blood, perhaps, from those years with Vierna?'
A frown.
'No. There's something... different about him, something that I can see no cause for. Regardless, though, he seems sensible enough, and a quick study.'
Near half an hour of further contemplation saw Zaknafien slip, slowly but surely, into an elf's waking dream, though it brought with it only tragedy: those he failed, the atrocities he and others committed, the bitter realization that young Drizzt would almost certainly fall helpless into those selfsame patterns that he himself had become prey to.
But even through the haze on his mind, a spark of... not hope, he couldn't call it that after this long, but perhaps an uncertainty? Yes. An uncertainty, despite all that seemed so certain.
'He's not like the others, though what it is that sets him apart I cannot tell. If he survives the trials ahead... I think he'll go far.'