It was the spring of 694 when I had the misfortune to fall into the clutches of the Drow. I was traveling through Vrago pass with a caravan of cloth merchants. The first clue we had of our danger was an avalanche up ahead, closing the route forward, followed in short succession by a second one behind us blocking off our retreat. Then, from out of the rocks where they had been hiding, they poured, a score of dark skinned raiders clad in purple cloaks and black leather armor. The few hired guards we had with us, worthless wretches, threw down their spears and bows in fear before the drow had even reached us.

I was in one of the wagons with some other female passengers when a burly drow approached, a curved scimitar in hand. Her hand, though I didn’t know at the time, her features obscured by the bulky armor and cloak she wore. As I was to learn, among the drow the women take the lead in all matters including war with their few men all but confined to their underground homes.

Anyway, this warrior woman barked at us to get down from the wagon in a gruff voice that left none willing to defy her. We clambered down, our hands raised in fear of death for at other points on the caravan we could hear screams from some of the merchants who it seemed had valued their gold above their lives, and ended up paying with both.

Our captor, meanwhile, had ordered us into line and, joined by two of her companions started to go down it. They stopped at each woman and searched them, carefully for jewelry and any money hidden on their persons, resorting to cutting open their dresses to get at secret pockets many experience merchants use to ward off pickpockets and thieves, though useless in this case.

Once searched, the woman had her hands bound and another rope tied around her neck which would be run to the next captive when her turn came. Those who put up too much of a fuss had yet more rope tied betwixt their jaws, as much to punish as silence them. I marveled at how amply provisioned the drow were with rope and realized they had come well prepared for taking prisoners and it made my very afraid, though there was little I could do but wait my turn.

When it came, the drow who frisked me unlaced the front of my shirt and reached in, feeling now for gold, but pawing at my breasts. I was, understandably outraged, and for my squawks got one of the punishing rope muzzles, but I was the more confused when I discovered the

gender of my captor. As I was to discover, with few menfolk shared entirely for the purposes of procreation, the females of the drow think nothing of seeking the carnal pleasures between themselves...and among those females of other races unfortunate enough to fall into their clutches, as I had now.

After they had bound all of us together, some of the drow took out whips and shouted at us in their tongue. That we did not, then, understand, but the whips we understood well enough. Helpless, we shuffled from the sacked caravan, following our captors up the winding mountain trail until we came to a cave entrance. Inside, it proved to be no natural formation, for at the back was a tunnel, leading deep underground. All of us wailed and sobbed, realizing we were to be dragged down to the lands of the drow, there to be enslaved and put to work in that dark kingdom far from hope of rescue, but there was little we could do to stop them as they dragged us into the tunnel.

For me, it would be the start of a long and arduous adventure in that underground world…

(Except from Six Years a Drow Slave: An account of Yvaith Morngeld and her captivity and Enslavement Underground, written 725 3rdAge)