Disclaimer: The author doesn't have much to say, except your good old: "Neverwinter Nights 2, its characters and setting, all belong to their respective owners. Except Tayna. She's mine and thus it is up to me to torture her as I see fit." Which is exactly what I have in mind.
The Why and When: I'm not one to speak ill of those who made us .. suffer .. the End. Neither am I one to endure it though. So here it is, my personal "What is and what was", taking place just after the dubious victory against the King of Shadows. As it is with Fan Fiction, do not read unless you have played the game or like having things spoiled for you.
Gratitude: What's a writer without Editors? Well, I don't know. Because, let's face it, I'm not one. Yet thanks to the tireless help of my man (who might call me a fangirl once in a while, but that's easily forgiven winks) and WitchWolf's (go read her stuff here--now) merciless ripping at every word I type, I might just produce something worth a reader's time. So hey. Thanks. Credit ought to be given where credit is due.
Genre: Action? Drama (huh?) Romance? (he-he..) Well I never been good with Genre's. It's Fantasy, alright? And I'm a romantic, alright?
Anyways. Let's begin then, shall we? And no, I don't dislike criticism. I welcome it, actually. Have at it all you want.
Lost and Found
(Just another Neverwinter Nights Fan Fiction)
"In the darkest hour the soul is replenished and given strength to continue and endure (-Heart Warrior Chosa)
Chapter 1
Down— "And this would be the 'impending' part of our impending doom..." --Sand
Tayna was on fire. Or, more precisely, her back was.
Flames licked greedily at her, peeling away skin and flesh alike. Each taste of her made them sink deeper, until she thought the fire had slipped into her blood, coursing through her veins and burning her up from the inside.
Hot tears welled up in her eyes and she clenched her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms. Of course it would have been more reasonable to throw herself to the ground... to take a roll in the soothing, cold muck of the Mere, instead of standing still like a torch planted in the ground. But even though she wanted to, her legs refused. They were rather stubborn.
Along with the rest of her.
She couldn't drop... She couldn't run... She couldn't even scream. All that was left to do was to stare straight ahead through the mist of tears and watch the dense shadows moving steadily through the village of West Harbor. They flowed across the unscathed buildings that stood steadfast as ever, drowning everything in their wake. Even people and livestock, of which neither seemed to notice the darkness enveloping them. What remained was a sea of ugly, black Nothing.
A Nothing that bubbled like boiling mud. It bulged at the sides until ripping open to spill itself across the world on its steady push forward. And, eventually, across her.
Tayna held her breath and squeezed her eyes shut. She half expected—or somehow hoped—that it would feel like water once it wrapped itself around her. That way it might even douse the flames that continued their eager meal. Or maybe it would snuff out her life instead, and spare her the agony of burning up alive.
It did neither. It merely turned the world around her into more Nothing.
The sensation of falling through the shadows was just that - Falling. Her stomach churned and pushed itself against her lungs and every fiber of her body braced for the imminent impact. She knew it would happen. It always did. A bone breaking THUD that would... well do what impacts tended to do. The outcome was never pretty.
'You are not going anywhere,' the flames at her back insisted.
They coiled around her upper body and kept her from dropping through the waiting Nothing. Which, now that she snapped her eyes open—had she even closed them at all?— had changed. Radically. It had grown... edges?
Weathered stone slabs seemed to have slid into the Nothing, along with corners that were covered by thick layers of cobwebs and dirty green moss that came crawling through gaps and holes in the walls around her. These walls... trembled. They shook as though she was trapped within the belly of some gigantic beast having a laughing fit. The tremors were violent enough that dust and grains of stone were shed into the air, where they swirled around her and decided to slip into her mouth and eyes. If she'd been given the choice, Tayna would have held her breath and covered her stinging eyes. But considering that she was running, both were out of the question.
Her feet carried her headlong between the trembling walls, across ground that threatened to sweep her off her feet, and beneath a ceiling that peppered her vicinity with fragments ripped from its base.
She didn't exactly know why she was running. Or what the deep rumbling sound that rolled up behind her was supposed to mean... let alone the sudden, earsplitting series of thunder clashes that echoed all around her. All she knew was that it hurt and that the rocky ground came rushing at her too fast.
'I know that is probably too much to ask right now, but would you at least try not to kill us both?' The flames complained, digging into her back.
And now she was falling up, instead of down...
"A little help here would be welcome!"
Tayna's eyes snapped open as the persistent voice—'Sand?'—finally slipped through the veil of her dreams. Or visions. Or memories. Or whatever. It wasn't exactly an improvement though: Dark rock and shadowy nooks... torn metal that jutted into the air like snapped bones... wisps of dust trickling from cracks somewhere above... and a persistent, sickly green glow draped across it all.
She also noticed, barely at that, how the ground beneath her slanted at an angle, pointing towards a gaping chasm that lay just beyond her feet. Now that didn't make much sense at all, since she was still going up. For now.
CRACK—Tayna's stomach reminded her of it's distaste for downward movement as the ground sagged another few inches. There was a certain urgency to the sound of coarse stone giving in to pressure... especially when followed by a stressed "Help me, girl!" from right behind her and accompanied by the ground jerking.
Tayna complied. She scampered away from the chasm as quickly as she could—an effort that was somewhat slowed by the arms hooked around her shoulders. 'Get away—Get away--getawaygetaway!'
The stones continued to fracture and Tayna felt the ground tilting further. Loose rocks rolled lazily past her, just to pick up speed along their way towards the edge before vanishing out of sight.She tried to wrap her mind around all of this... to find at least some indication that this was not going to lead up to her ending in a pile of broken bones at the bottom of the chasm. But no matter how hard she tried, there was no wiggling out of it.
The resulting panic had her continue with her frantic scurrying even when she was already in the clear. She even failed to notice that the arms had let go of her—let alone that the large slab of ground she'd just been lying on was gone. All that reminded of it was a cloud of dust and an echo of it crashing against more rock below.
She eventually hit something solid. And that hurt.
Tayna wanted to scream—or at least whimper—yet all she managed was the low growl through her clenched teeth. The world around her turned into a blur of shifting images and she could have sworn that every bone in her body was about to break. Multiple times. Which was all still quite tolerable in comparison to what was happening to her back.
Somebody had either just stuck a meat-hook through her flesh and strung her up—or she was really burning up from the inside out.
Whatever it was, Tayna wanted it to stop, and crawling away seemed reasonable enough at that point. But she collapsed instead, her forehead solidly connecting with the ground as if bowed in prayer. Prayers, on the other hand, didn't usually consist of a row of curses and weren't necessarily accompanied by a palm striking the ground with all the strength you had to offer.
The hurt only got worse.
She ignored him, which wasn't a first and hopefully not a last either. But right then and there, with the world in shambles, Sand considered the stubborn disregard for his presence a particular insult.
He'd just saved the girl's life... didn't that count for something?
Apparently it didn't. From where he sat, with his back against a wall that he'd found to be comfortable retreat after she'd almost squashed him in her frantic scurrying backwards, Sand escaped her notice entirely.
"There is no need for all the exuberant gratitude, really. It's not like I exerted myself pulling you from that ledge... with death looming beyond and you kicking and screaming while you insisted on plunging us both into the abyss."
Her refusal to acknowledge him stretched on, interrupted only by the rather chatty voice of darkness around them.
DRIP DRIP – CRACK – DRIP – CRACK – GROAN! Latter from neither him, nor the heap on the ground, but sinking through the dark as a faint echo of something else.
Sand squared his shoulders and breathed in sharply—which he regretted instantly. He could have just as well breathed in through a bag of rusty nails.. a rather unpleasant way to be reminded of one's probably broken nose. But with all the tripping, staggering, falling, ducking, running, tumbling, etc, etc, he could hardly fake surprise.
Clearing his throat instead—'Shallow breaths. Through mouth. Don't sneeze'—Sand climbed to his feet. He doubted he could have done so without the wall to support him. Especially now that his knees had caught up with what they'd gone through as he'd dragged that flailing womanto safety.
Whether he'd done her a favor or not would be up for discussion.
Said woman no longer flailing, thank the gods—was still kneeling in the patch of her own misery. Her forehead remained solidly connected to the ground, but at least she'd stopped beating the rock and ceased filling its cracks with vivid insults. Instead she'd fallen silent and keeping a shallow rhythm to her breathing.
She was either preparing for another tirade or trying to calm down. He ratherhoped for the latter.
Tentatively, Sand moved towards her. There was absolutely nothing pleasant about the way his body treated him. It seemed to take great offense in having to move. If he hadn't known better, he would have thought he'd just been shattered… only to have his body parts found and put back together by some gnome in a most unorthodox and faulty manner.
Come to think of it, he wouldn't be surprised if his left arm wasn't actually serving as a leg or his spine partially screwed on in the wrong order...
A throaty groan from the bundle on the floor reminded him that he wasn't the only one having to deal with a mistreated physique at the moment. He'd been rather lucky, actually. …Really.
"My back hurts," she proclaimed.
"Yes, I imagine it would," he offered and lowered himself to his knees next to her. His body, still insulted by the previous request to move, thought this to be the best time to inform him of just how many bones and joints an elf consisted of.
There were entirely too many.
She was still not looking up and he took the time to place a—very—gentle hand on her right shoulder. It was supposed to be a more or less soothing distraction. Mind this hand, don't mind the other. And don't bite me. That sort of thing.
It did work on animals, right?
Tayna didn't object. Nor did she react as he carefully used his otherhand to pick at what was left of the armor on her left shoulder.
"How bad is it?"
"Well..." Sand cleared his throat, "Bad, I would say." He took a crimson fold of the leathery fabric between his fingers and tugged. Tayna's back went rigid and she emitted a loud hiss off pain from between clenched teeth.
"Bad…" she reflected. It was a mystery to him how she managed to actually hiss the word. Or remain frozen in place like that. "You don't say.. Do you think I should look?"
"No," he stated flatly while he dared to pull the fold another inch. "Not really. It wouldn't do you any good."
It wasn't as though he was enjoying the sight.
A stray, sharp piece of rockhad left the girl with a ripped back. It was plain as that. Luck had favored her, sparing her an inch here and an inch there, but...
Sand wondered why he couldn't find a bigger word for stitches.
The wound spread from the middle of her back where the rock had hooked itself into her flesh just half an inch next to her spine. From there it cut upwards in a slight arch, splitting skin, flesh and muscle alike, until exiting just short of her left shoulder blade. There was some white glistering from the mangled mass. Again, Sand was left wondering about stitches not having a more potent relative.
"You don't want to see what happened to your good set of leathers."
A poor effort on distracting her, but it was the truth. Her set of dusky brown leather armor and its folds of gray cloth had taken on the color of dark crimson. The blood was warm and slippery as Sand continued to peel at the fabric. She was still bleeding.
"Sand," Tayna squeezed through her lips. "I really think I should take a look."
"Be my guest then," he stopped the peeling and gave her enough space to straighten up... or at least to take on the posture of someone who attempted to straighten her back.
Attempted and failed, despite her stubborn nature.
She managed to fold her legs underneath her though, and placed her hands on her thighs without crumbling again. Fingers dug into the sagging fabric of her trousers.
A look of utter concentration was etched onto her haggard features; her brows drawn together, her pale lips nothing but a single, resolute line, and her eyes shut to the world around them. She didn't seem too eager to open them right then, but another faint echo of rock breaking somewhere in the distance had her reconsider.
Dark gray eyes blinked into reality. Obviously, they didn't find anything likable about it. Her brows furrowed and her nose twitched in what might have been a display of disgust.
She probably would have appreciated it more if the only light provided to them had been anything but that sickly, dying green. Dying quite literally; Sand knew she had started fading, yet the why to that remained a mystery. He'd just been grateful that the large crystal previously mounted to the wall—or ceiling, or whatever—had continued giving off that soft, eerie glow even after having been shattered and strewn all over the ground in all shapes and sizes. Their edges were sharp, he knew. He'd stepped on one just a few minutes ago.As for why they'd begun to dim... well, Sand hadn't exactly been worrying about that yet.
Actually, he hadn't had the time to worry about anything.
Waking to all of this, collecting his wits without scattering them further, and then saving that girl? It simplyhadn't occurred to him that he'd eventually be forced to face the more definite details of the situation. In particular What Now?
As if following his line of thought—which was headed into a direction he didn't appreciate—Tayna tilted her head and.. well.. looked at him. Strands of blood-soaked hair spread from her forehead, dangling lazily in front of that dark, gray gaze.
He could have compared her to a walking dead right then, but there was this certain beaten-dog quality to the way she had her eyes lifted towards him.
Her brows relaxed, her shoulders sagged, and she let out one of these soft sighs that spoke volumes without resorting towords. We'll... worry about this later, alright?
Or maybe he was just imagining it. …Or wishing for it? He sure wasn't the one who would bring it up.
She eased her lips into the pitiful remainder of a smile, as if adding a soft: "Thanks."
No. He wasn't.
"You look terrible, by the way," Tayna forced a hint of humor into her voice as she said that.
"I appreciate the honesty, but there was really no need."
"Would you have anything better to say about me?" She actually managed to straighten her spine this time around and crane her neck. Her jaw clenched and she let out another hiss that was followed by a discrete curse.
"Why, yes, of course," he watched her carefully probing the upper edge of the wound. The only part she was actually able to reach.
"You, dear girl, look horrendous."
"Thanks. I feel it."
Another sigh, this time sounding as though she tried to breathe the pain away; shaky and strained. She stopped the futile plucking at the shreds of her armor and turned her attention upwards instead. Sand caught himself following her gaze, for the first time staring at what was left of the ceiling. Which wasn't very much at all.
They'd dropped into some sort of cross section. Three and a half passages fanned out into each direction, one and a half not passable due to the floor being missing and the others filled to the top with thick shadows.
The ceiling hung rather high, maybe twelve feet high, and now boasted a gap large enough to fit a grown umber hulk.
"So. What happened?" Tayna asked finally, still studying the bleak darkness that had nestled itself into the formidable opening.
He cringed.
-- A large chunk of ceiling came down in front of Sand. An ill timing, to say the least, as he had just begun to believe that chasing after the paladin's bulk would grant him another few moments spent running for his life. Why he'd want to bother pursuing that life didn't make much sense to him though, since it had turned out to be an impressive example of Sour.
He could easily fill a whole book with the why's on the subject of sour. After all, the inspiration came natural... helped along by muses such as Lord Nasher and his favors, or a brunch of dimwitted Luskans attempting to frame a displaced quipster of a harbor'woman' for torching one of their border villages.
And yes, he couldn't forget to mention that pile of jagged rock and cloud of dust that assaulted him right now.
He dodged, stumbling into the violently shaking wall to his left and staggering onwards with one hand against the rock for support. He couldn't afford slowing down and pushed on, determined not to lose sight of Casavir's broad set of shoulders.
The paladin was gradually gaining ground. He reached a fork up ahead, took the left turn, and practically vanished into the shadows hugging the passage. Sand aimed to follow, despite his mind giving birth to a most unpleasant thought: Didn't that passage resemble the maw of some shadowy monarch they'd banished mere minutes ago?
Oh what a glorious victory it had been...
An even more forceful tremor shook the world and Sand's body made to defy the rules of gravity. The bane of the slight... He was lifted form his feet almost instantly and thrown against a stubborn wall.
Head first.
Colors, ranging from flaring white to painfully red, exploded in his vision. Dust filled his eyes and mouth. Stone nicked his skin, oblivious to his robes. A sour life? Where had that come from? Why, it didn't seem so bad after all... not now anyway, as he was headed for the floor, his arms failing at catching the fall and the resulting impact driving all air from his lungs.
Shapes rushed past him. One tall and dark, a long stride hidden beneath the swish of cloth, and a smell of raw, smoldering coal drifting from it. A short, yet stout, one with a ducked head followed, barreling its way forward and leaving a hint of damp, untainted earth in the air. Then came a frail one, looking (and smelling) very much like a fragile branch broken from an age old oak. An oak that stood amidst a vicious lighting storm right now and was terrified of being struck down. Trailing behind these three came one shape of average everything. A suggestion of shredded cedar bark wafted towards him, hidden within the heavy reek of marshes.
Them three were in a hurry, although he couldn't by the life of him figure out just why. He did know though that he envied them for still having their feet on the ground.
He blinked and shook his head, successfully fending off the tricky tendrils of sleep-by-concussion. Somewhat, anyway. Already they had torn at his vision, removing all the blinding color and cluttering it with black dots instead. Layers of warm and thick numb padded his skull, muting whatever coherent thoughts might have been left inside of it. Bile rose in his throat, but was merciful enough to stay there.
He noticed how Average stopped, sliding to a wobbly halt while the others ran on. Only the short one seemed to hesitate for a moment. Voices urged for retreat. Average didn't agree and scampered towards him—in all his downed glory—instead.
Ah, the quipster. Who else.
Her boots kicked up more dirt than the quaking ground as she reached him. Most of it seemed headed for his eyes and the rest just irritated his cheeks. One hand grabbed his arm, the other the back of his robe.
"Go!" the quipster demanded. The ground distanced itself from Sand and did so rather fast. By all means that sudden, forceful yank that took him back to vertical should have torn his robe in half. He would have liked to get the soles of his feet planted more firmly on the ground, but she didn't seem too inclined on waiting. Instead she pushed him into the direction he'd come from. The assembly of shapes and sizes were nowhere to be seen any longer.
And neither was the passage they'd chosen.
They ran anyway. --
"... I think we got quite far before I had my ear drums misplaced," Sand brought a hand to his right ear and rubbed it absentmindedly. Yes, that had hurt. "Judging by that sound, I am glad Casavir called for a retreat when the portal became unstable."
Her eyes hadn't once left the gap above. But there was a slight jerk to her shoulders and the downward flutter of lashes at the mention of the name.
"And then?"
"You must have tripped over your own feet..." —she snorted, the lashes beat open again— "...which resulted in the floor giving way upon meeting your tremendous weight. And... ah... I decided to follow."
"Ah..." she repeated, giving her very best to mimic his voice. She would have had to take a forceful blow to the nose for that though, Sand noted dryly. "... and there I thought you're smart."
"I tend to disappoint even myself," he had to restrain himself from touching the bridge of his nose.
"So, wha'do we do now?" The "now" rolled off her tongue in its usual, soft drawl. Sand liked the sound of it, but he didn't agree with the question. It had to be asked, but there were too many variables and he hated the fact that they had already taken it upon themselves to besiege his head.
Another crystal shard winked out and the green glow dimmed further.
"First of all, I suggest we find ourselves some light..." he stalled and turned his attention to the soft, black bag strapped firmly to his waist.
Too firm, he thought right then, as moisture and exhaustion made untying the leather cords securing his bag of holding a challenge. If it hadn't been that way however, he doubted it would stay right there at his hip, enduring even the most dire of situations a wizard like him could possibly face.
This tumble down the few floors of the unknown was a true laughing matter, really. At least compared to battling an army of undead. Or their King.
"Light... Yeah..." Tayna murmured. Sand looked up just as he was tackling an extremely stubborn knot. She had gotten to her feet—somehow—and was taking baby-steps across the uneven ground. her left arm held loosely in front of her.
Her eyes were scanning the area, slowly moving left and right, but never truly focusing. She was trying to search, make herself useful, but her vacant eyes weren't going to do her any good.
These variables had obviously caught up to her, Sand noted. He just wondered which one had come out the victor in fightingfor her attention.
He did hope it would be a reliable procedure on How to get out, but judging by the blank look she was giving her surroundings, his chances on that were small. No. She was almost certainly concerning herself with matters of amity and enmity.
Had anyone else survived? Who? And why the Hells had she let the Ranger go?
Then again, these were just guesses. Yet Sand had come to realize that he'd hardly ever guessed wrong.