Miles underground hidden from the sun a male child is born. He has human mother, but an unknown father, the child appears to be human. Grateful to surprise the ordeal, and flushed with joy at her child's birth, the mother hates the circumstances that gave her this child. Within minutes, a hand as black as coal takes the child from his mother's breast.

The drow lifts the child and examines it the way a butcher would examine a herd of sheep being led to slaughter. "Small, weak, puny thing. I'd feed it to the kobalds if it were larger. As it is, I'll be forced to wait until it grows before I can sell it for anything. You pathetic humans can't even produce decent children. I ought to kill you outright, but there are creatures that are interested in you now that you've given birth, large creatures."
The woman shuddered, but dared not cry until the evil thing had left, taking with it her baby, her only hope of something close to human companionship. Her story is a tragic one, one that is repeated a thousand thousand times, but one that remains unknown to the dwellers on the surface, under Keoland skies. The child's story is the one to be told.

Living as a slave in the depths of the Oerth generally guarantees a very short lifespan. This is doubly true if born into slavery, and trebly true if the slave is human. Somehow though, a few do reach adolescence. "Why are we here?" the boy asked.

"You ask so many questions, let me ask you one," his gnomish companion responded. "Why do you think your name is Whyar?"

Whyar pouted, "I was just asking...Why are there slaves? It doesn't feel right."

The gnome grunted and moved to the edge of the cage. "Most of the races of the UnderOerth deal in slaves, use slaves, eat slaves, breed slaves, and, where we go now, to sell and buy slaves."

"We're going to be sold?" Whyar asked.

The gnome groaned, "Didn't I say that? The drow got tired of us and now we're going to be sold, probably to illithids or the koa-toa, and they'll eat us." After a bit of silence the gnome continued, "I hope a hungry mind flayer buys me, ain't much quicker way to go."

"Not me, I hope a Koa Toa buys me, I haven't ever seen one of those."

The lizard-drawn wagon travelled for many sleeps and both received what they wished in a new owner. The illithid that purchased the gnome brought him behind the nearest partition before drawing his brain from his skull. The Koa Toa that purchased Whyar, however, had other plans. It travelled alone, never riding and said nothing to the boy for a long journey. The creature's garb looked ragged and worn, though it clearly had enough valuables to purchase whatever it needed, it seemed not to value money, nor newer equipment. Many miles passed the Koa Toa stopping only to feed Whyar and actually carried him as he slept. It never said a word that entire time.

It was very large, even for a Koa Toa, but the thing that impressed Whyare the most was the incredible sense of age that emanated from this creature. In a cavern with a light near the top and a seemingly bottomless pit below Whyar's new master stopped.

"We live here now," it said.

"Why are you alone?" Whyar asked.

The Koa Toa looked at Whyar with an apparent hunger before turning away. "I am alone, because I am."

Confused, Whyar waited, expecting the Koa Toa to finish the sentence.

"I am not alone, I have slave." The Koa Toa concluded. "I am. I am called Res'Srock, Cleaver of Souls."

"I am Whyar," the boy responded.

The Koa Toa nodded, "First words you say, there wisdom in your name. "

"Why are there no other Koa Toa with you? I was always told that you were very communal creatures."

The creature winced before responding, "I see why you sold cheap. Res'Srock not belong. Res'Srock find new paths. Res'Srock turn back on old paths, wrong way, new way is right. Res'Srock like new path, now die."

Whyar scrambled to the end of his rope in fear at the crazed Koa Toan's last words. The old creature looked quizzically at the boy. "You talk lots for slave. I teach you so I die on right path."

Confused, the boy did as he was told. Res'Srock ordered him to do the strangest things, to punch and kick at the huge creature, to scribe glyphs that he could never seem to make properly and to examine the roof of their cavern when the light disappeared as it always seemed to do before sleeps. There were little lights that appeared when the brighter light had gone for a few hours, but the hole from which it was coming from was very far away. Res'Srock kept Whyar busy for several years teaching him something he couldn't understand for reasons he couldn't fathom.

Slowly Whyar came to understand that he was being trained for a ritual funeral for Res'Srock. He understood what was needed from him when the day came. The color of Res'Srock's scales gradually changed as the months went by to a sickly yellowish color and then paled to ivory. When the end finally came, Res'Srock knew, and called the grown boy to his side.

"I die, you draw glyph, wrap, burn, and push me for journey on last path."

It had taken Whyar some years to parse the Koa Toan's meaning as his mind had been going gradually before Whyar had been purchased. Res'Srock intended that Whyar act as the creature's priest in giving him final rites before pushing the creature over the edge of the abyss as his body burned.

"Why are you leaving me like this?" Whyar asked as Res'Srock's ragged breaths foretold his imminent end.

"You not alone. You find light. You find path. You die," Res'Srock croaked out before his fish-like eyes glazed over.

Whyar followed the instructions he had been taught these last few years before beginning the arduous climb up the cavern walls to the light emanating from the ceiling. The light had gone before he reached the hole at the top. There was a breeze that teased his hair as he squirmed his small frame into the last cavern. Too tired to move, Whyar rolled onto his back and looked up.

"I'll never reach the top of this cavern," he said. He turned his head from side to side. The walls of this final cavern seemed to go on forever. They had to exist though, and the entire cavern had little lights coming from every side. "I'll never even reach the sides of this cavern," he moaned before drifting off into an exhausted sleep.

He was awakened the next morning by strange sights and sounds. The fungi was green and grew in blades, the walls, they seemed to be blue in the distance, and the light. The glorious light was everywhere. At the edge of the wall was a single ball too bright to look at, but it was the shouting that caught his attention most immediately.

"Curse all Keolanders! Y'all ain't got the courtesy to stand up with your fellow man against the raiders in Sterich or Geoff! Curse you all! I'll do the job myself by Trithereon's Blade I will!"

Sitting astride the strangest creature Whyar had ever seen and almost half a mile away was a man. A man in armor and carrying weapons.

Whyar had left the world of the UnderOerth entirely.