[Excerpt : Path of the dark eldar] Reasonable archon Bezieth makes smartest choise of her live

As dysjunction is ravaging Commorragh and demons pour into the dark city, archon of no longer existing kabal Bezieth makes two choises in very short time that end up saving her live.

One is by deciding to sneak out from group of survivors and head out alone with duo serving haemonculi Bellathonis.

Second time when their escape vehicle crashes and body switching haemonculi Bellathonis takes a leads, preparing to lead them into relam of mandrakes to seek refuge.

Despite Bezieth’s warnings they encountered no ur-ghuls in the tunnel. She couldn’t shake the impression that they had all been spooked by something and cleared out. Perhaps the little murder engine had frightened them all off, but the troglodytic predators didn’t scare easily. Once they got closer to the vertical shaft Kharbyr had been so desperately trying to avoid she could see a more probable cause.

Vast, shadowy pseudopods were thrusting up from below, probing at the mouth of the shaft almost tenderly. Bellathonis directed Xagor to carry him right over to the edge without any regard for the sinister ink-black tentacles sweeping past only metres away. Bezieth joined them reluctantly, experiencing a rare twinge of vertigo as she peered over the edge into the kilometres-deep drop. The tentacles seemed to stretch up to impossible lengths from a roiling pit of darkness at the bottom.

‘Look at it,’ Bellathonis said. ‘Aelindrach, the shadow-realm. It has expanded during the Dysjunction by swallowing up more of the city into itself.’

‘Then we should be going the other way!’ Bezieth snarled, raising her djin-blade meaningfully.

‘No, not at all, my dear archon,’ Bellathonis said imperturbably. ‘I have friends in Aelindrach, contacts even with the ear of the mandrake kings. What you thought was an attack was them reaching out for me, or what they thought was me at the time. The shadow-realm offers sanctuary for all of us during a Dysjunction, trust me on this.’

‘With mandrakes? They’ll drink our blood and use our skulls for ornaments–’ Bezieth said.

‘Well the choice is yours,’ Bellathonis replied. ‘You must either trust me and follow or make your own way, it is all the same to me – Xagor, go ahead.’

The wrack turned and stepped over the edge without hesitation with Bellathonis still clutching his back. The two vanished from view instantly, swept up effortlessly by one of the questing tentacles. Bezieth hung back uncertainly for moment, watching for any glimpse of their falling bodies and listening for screams. She saw and heard nothing.

‘Oh to hell with that,’ Bezieth muttered to herself as she stalked away from the pit. ‘I’d rather take my chances with the ur-ghuls.’ She was reduced to being a kabal of one, two if you counted the spirit of Axhyrian and she didn’t. Sec Megara wouldn’t be such a bad place to start recruiting, certainly a damn sight better than Aelindrach.

Between >!chaos corrupted mandrakes, Vects killer automatons, solitarie running around, and full blown hot war within high Commorragh!< Bezieth basically dodged multipe bullets by deciding to dip out of the story there and then.