Script of Sh'yalva Productions: Bandit Life by Szordrin Sh'yalva

Act 1: Introductions

Narrator: In this act, which is called "the introduction", we are introduced to Jimmy Freakin Hellball, a poor student down on his luck, and Adam, a crook with correct moral inclinations. We begin in the academy, where an elven professor, vile and disgusting, hideous and disfigured, traitorous and stupid, tells Jimmy the bad news...

[Scene: a desk, the elven professor sits at the desk, preferably played by a truly hideous actor - or at least an actor with a hideous disguise, the backdrop ought to have a library-like scene with words like "TREASON" and "IDIOCY" written over the bookshelves]

Jimmy [gesticulating wildly]: "But professor, I, Jimmy Freakin Hellball, can't deal with all this workload, I got a matron at home with our fifty strong human house and they all need my help - which they can't get if not for my academic success!

Professor [rubbing his hands while grinning]: Exactly, Jimmy! You are a human, and me, an elf! Us two will always be at odds. Not only do I not care about your issues - I revel in them! Me and my kin work constantly to keep your people down! Now away with you, Jimmy [he waves him off dismissively, perhaps doing an obscene gesture to the audience] for you are lazy, stupid, and aren't ever going to amount to anything but perhaps as a sacrifice to Lolth! Whom I hate and despise - as I am an elf! [he leaves the scene]

Jimmy [monologue]: Oh fie those stuffy elves in their adamantine towers! Why can't us, us humans, us non-elves, us renegades and visionaries, lead the academies and cities! Fie upon them all! I shall go out into the world, and search for my own people - my own "academy" to join!

[The academic backdrop is moved away to be replaced by an alleyway with elves kicking puppies and splashing mud at human beggars - I assume humans don't like those two things so it'll work wonderfully as propaganda]

Narrator: And thus, left without any future, Jimmy began to move from place to place - begging and stealing to survive. When one cycle he would happen to meet a certain thief by the name of Adam "Bound Hands" Rodriguez...

Adam [dragged out to the stage]: I am Adam! By Lolth, I have been yet again thwarted in my thefts and robberies by - who else? - the damned elves! Fie on them! Fie on them all and their Gods!

Jimmy: Vendui, strange crook and possible abbil, I too have been thwarted by elves.

Adam: Truly!? Those damned -

Jimmy: Damned, yes -

Adam: Vile -

Jimmy: Despicable -

Adam: Dirty -

Jimmy: Treasonous -

Adam: Elves!?

Jimmy: Quite so, abbil.

Adam [shaking with rage]: Good! By Lolth's sadistic punishments -

Jimmy: - May her children split apart the stomachs of her enemies -

Adam: - do I hate the elves! I have just escaped, with my "Bound Hands," from their prisons! Why, what say you, Jimmy? Let us join a bandit group, and start our own "academy!"

Jimmy: Our own "academy?" Why, Adam "Bound Hands" Rodriguez, I myself had a similar idea! One without elves - as they cannot be trusted. Even us humans can see this simple and clear-cut truth! [turning to the audience] And so should any non-elf!

Act 2: Success

[Backdrop of human bandits slaughtering elves, but also other humans - this is where we undercut support of Cordor in a most clever way]

Narrator: In this short act we see Jimmy and Adam after years of successfully robbing others

Jimmy [wearing a crown and playing with coin bags at a table]: Hahaha... Adam, can you believe that not only have we avenged ourselves on the elves -

Adam: By easily destroying their tree temples and slaughtering them

Jimmy: -and slaughtering them, yes. But also we have begun destroying Cordor! Us! The bandits! And Cordor is unable to stop us! Haha!

Adam: Indeed, Cordor, the human settlement, which we have been attacking - and whose financial minister, Thorough-mont Castlar, has not stopped us. We have proven ourselves to be

Thorough-mont Castlar most devious and harmful enemy - and whoever could possibly defeat the two of us would surely -

Jimmy: - surely prove themselves most competent and strong!

Adam: Ri - right, yeah, that's what I was going to say. We should -

Jimmy: - enjoy our time in the vile Sun for as long as possible! And we shall never lose or my name isn't Jimmy "Freakin" Hellball! Now bring forth our prisoner!

Slaver [kneeling on the floor, looking truly pathetic, but humans probably enjoy such people and sympathize with them]: Please! I am merely a humble Cordorian slaver, who has not done anyone any harm - why would you wish to execute me, Adam and Jimmy?

Adam & Jimmy laugh as a stage hand pretends to slice the Slaver's throat open

Slaver: No! My short-lived and yet fulfilling life is flowing away from me! The economic value of my merchandise - denied to the surface - by these vile bandits, who started with the most pious and good intentions, now corrupted! Oh woe is me! [collapses]

Act 3: Sh'yalva

Narrator: Indeed, who could possibly defeat these two menaces to human society? Who fell from grace and have begun attacking proper society while Cordor is incapable of doing anything to stop them. But what's this? House... Sh'yalva? The drow? Here to save the day? How can this be!

[Backdrop is the caves where we got these bandits from - stalagmites, stalagtites, you know the drill. There are three wooden cutouts of drow males representing Szordrin, Baven, Vae'thor]

[A drow matron, played by Vex Sh'yalva, I think, would be the best, and Jimmy and Adam in their denoument]

Matron Vex: Lovely. And who might you be?

Adam: Jimmy, this is bad, a drow matron - with three drow males with her! What should we do?

Jimmy: Same thing we always do, Adam, we defeat [he makes a step forward and trips] Gah!

Matron Vex: And yet, you didn't answer my question, hmmm?

Adam: Come on Jimmy! Get up! We can defeat these enemies who are vastly stronger than us!

Jimmy [weeping]: We can't, Adam! There's no way, all we can do is surrender and hope they treat us with mercy!

Matron:

Adam: We're Jimmy and Adam, terror of the surface!

[The matron calmly walks over to Adam, Jimmy still being stunned in silence, and begins choking him, then drags him off as Adam follows]

Adam: Wait! I said, wait! Bring him back!

Narrator: And so it was that the Matron of House Sh'yalva, Matron Vex, single-handedly captured these two terrors of the surface, bringing them back to the underdark to be sacrificed.

Narrator: ...And upon arriving there, our intrepid pair of incarcerated interlopers found themselves before a great and imposing altar."

[We probably don't have the budget to make an altar, maybe a sign painting of it?]

Adam: "What a fantastic altar."

Jimmy: "It scares me. What a horrific death awaits us."

Adam: "You know, there are worse ways to die than having your heart torn out and eaten in front of you."

Jimmy: "Sure. For example: [NOTE TO SELF, LOOK UP WORSE WAYS TO DIE]

Narrator: "But before they could fully admire the altar's spectacular design, the Reverend Mother arrived and sacrificed them both by tearing out their hearts. Here represented by uh, no one! Imagine a truly intimidating and strong drow"

[We cannot possibly depict Ahlysaaria in this play, the audience will have to suspend their disbelief]

Adam: *Blood pouring from his mouth* "This is gruesome but deserved."

Jimmy: "I hope when the playwrights pen this scene, they'll handle it with the brevity it deserves and nobody will accuse them of being lazy. And now, I die."

Matron Vex: [TO DO]

Epilogue:

[Our scene finds our actors on a naked stage, alone but for themselves and their palpable apprehension.]

Narrator: But not all that is human is flesh and bone, and the soul before meeting Lolth has a lot to say. An important moral is hidden in this, the epilogue. So listen to it well, if you can spot it!

Elf professor: [screaming in agony] Aaaah! The drow were right, I will suffer eternally for my sins at the hands of the all-powerful Queen of Spiders! AAAAAAAGHHH!!!

Adam: "Are we dead Jimmy?"

Jimmy: "I'm not sure Adam."

Adam: "I seem to remember dying."

Jimmy: "And I seem to remember living, what of it?"

Adam: "It's just that if you remember one and I remember the other-"

Jimmy: "Dying doesn't necessarily mean dead! Plenty of folks die and get better. The Arcane Tower is full of great wizards that all died and walked it off!"

Adam: "Are we great wizards, Jimmy?"

Jimmy: *conspicuously silent*

Adam: *inconspicuously silent*

Jimmy: "Where do you think we went wrong?"

Adam: "Well, we never became great wizards for one."

Jimmy: "Aside from that!"

Adam: "And then there was all the debauchery and hedonism."

Jimmy: "Right, which could have been spent pursuing more noble things."

Adam: "Like the wholesale slaughter of elves."

Jimmy: "Exactly!"

Adam: "Maybe our greatest mistake was not being born drow?"

Jimmy: "Why, you're right! Our hideous faces, our stout and freakishly large bodies - did you not see, Adam, we were born for failure from the start!" [moves away from the stage, leaving Adam alone, lit up by a light spell]

Adam [to the audience]:

"So in the end, our moral is this

Listen to us, let it not be remiss

If an elf you see, stalking the street

Slash its throat, let it be beat

For us humans may not be wise

And shortlived, ugly, nasty guys

But elves are far worse in every which way

So listen to us well, and have a nice day!"

        Day 8, Month 2 (Alturiak), 181 AR (1381 DR)
        Szordrin Sh'yalva