It might. Lolth was silent, after all, her priestesses bereft of their power. That was why Halisstra had been sent on this quest, except that something had turned Qilue's last spell, and the souls streaming into the darkened tunnel had been moving towards… something.

The font was quiet and still. Images no longer filled it. Qilue lifted her dripping hand from the water.

One of the priestesses leaned closer, stared down into the font's blank depths. "Mistress Qilue," she whispered-mistakenly addressing her, in a moment of extreme tension, as a drow of the Underdark would address her matron. "Is she… dead? Is all lost?"

The other priestesses held their breath, waiting for Qilue's reply.

Qilue glanced up at the moon. Eilistraee's moon. Selune shone brightly, not yet diminished, the Tears of Selune twinkling in its wake.

"There is still hope," she told them. "There is always hope."

She needed to believe that, yet deep in her heart was a sliver of doubt.

Qilue stood beside the font for the rest of the night. The other priestesses crowded around her for a time, and she answered their nervous questions as soothingly as she could. When at last they fell silent, she sought to touch the mind of Eilistraee.

In a moonlit glade, deep in a forest that needed only the moon's light to thrive and grow, she found her goddess. Eilistraee was a drow-shaped glimmer of unspeakably beautiful radiance. Qilue touched that with her mind. She needed no lips to frame her question. The goddess poured moonlight into her heart, throwing the words that were scribed upon it into sharp relief. She answered in a voice that flowed like liquid silver.