Author's Note: This is a version of the well-known Baldur's Gate intro. It is, of course, my own personal vision and many others would have been possible. It explains what happened before the intro: who was that man, why was he running up, etc. I've only changed one thing, in my story he doesn't wear a helmet.
Sidon of Darromar sat comfortably on the couch, sipped the thayan wine and leaned back, effortlessly posing as a man who had grown too fond of his reflection. He was fully armored except for a helmet, and his rough appearance stood out from the rest of the stylish room and its occupants. He was a warrior -had always been one-, a mercenary leader, and he delighted in showing it off.
The scion of a disgraced and once-mighty family, he'd had to endure as a child the humiliation and injustice of seeing his peers of a former lesser standing sneer at him. They had mocked and insulted him for the sins, treachery and failings of his progenitors as if they had been of his own doing. His wrath had grown quickly for that reason, although in an unfocused and explosive way, directed both to other children, to his family, and to himself. Years later he would find a greater purpose, and all that suffering only made the revelation of his true origins and birthright much sweeter.
By revealing the truth to him, the wandering old priest had liberated him from the shackles of his "father's" blood and the shame it carried. The priest had not promised him empty illusions, phantoms and dreams of a long-lost past like the ones his mother had desperately embraced till his dying breath. No, he had only told him the truth, what he had always sensed as an unavoidable conviction. He had told him greatness was his destiny. He didn't ask for anything in exchange, but he did want proof of his strength. The black priest had demanded a sacrifice, something the fourteen-year-old Sidon had been happy to offer. Ten days after that, the body of the cruelest of his tormentors was found, his head dashed against the rocks of a waterfall. Although nobody knew for certain and nobody could prove anything, after that day Sidon wasn't mocked again.
"Candlekeep, you say?"
That had been asked by one of Rieltar's lieutenants. Diyab or something similar. Sidon didn't actually care. They were all faceless and backstabbing bureaucrats from the Iron Throne, or The Guild, as the merchant organization was called by its more zealous, hubristic, and power-hungry members.
"Yes, the fortress library," Sidon said, "it is isolated, the monks keep to themselves, and it should not be the source of any direct danger, but there lies the problem. By ignoring it now, it may grow into something more dangerous in the future, and then it could become an unassailable stronghold, a headquarter of sorts. The keep should be infiltrated before anyone realizes there is something amiss along The Coast Way."
The three underlings showed a modicum of interest for his advice but didn't answer for a very long time; of course, they kept irradiating disdain and arrogance even in silence.
"How do you propose to do that?" The same man asked. "You are a Tethyrian, you are far away from your kingdom and we are not sure you understand the difficulties involved in the plans you so easily conceive. In any event, we shall assume you want to be in charge of that hypothetical undertaking?"
"If that is what the Guild decides, yes. I'll be honored." Said Sidon. "My warriors and agents have been trained for this kind of operation. They are also more subtle in their methods than other more... unsavory mercenary groups."
His boast was met with amused interest though they knew he was right. Although to be fair, it was not that difficult to be more subtle than The Chill or the Black Talons, one a gang of subhuman monsters, and the other a company of militarized highway robbers.
Sidon wasn't only interested in the secrets Candlekeep hoarded. Alaundo's prophecies were there, true, but there was more to it than just that. They were, indeed, a necessary step to his vital ambition, but if he could also replace the Chill or Black Talons as Rieltar's principal enforcers... well, 'two dragons with one stone' as the halflings say. That influence would give him invaluable access to the Iron Throne's assets, leaders and to its imposing network of informers and agents. With all that at his disposal, he knew he would find his real family soon. But then, what would he do? The information he had discovered until then was, at best, flimsy and confusing, but he already suspected it had to end in bloodshed.
"You know Candlekeep is not a place one can just enter and rob at one's pleasure." Said to him a wiry old man, Winsky Perorate. A powerful gray eminence if the rumors Sidon had heard were true.
"I know." Said the offended mercenary leader, emphasizing that last word. "Let me show you something."
With a haughty waving of his armored hand, Sidon called his secretary, Daan. The young and nervous man had been standing near the entrance, by the open door, holding the precious packet and trying to look as if he had not heard the whole conversation. He gave it to his master and then sat uncomfortably at his side. Sidon unwrapped the package and showed its content -a brittle little book- to Winsky. He read the title.
"Plants, herbs and mushrooms from the mysterious East. From Kara-Tur to Kozakura. A translation of the original oriental book? Huh, Sarevok might like this one." Added the old man, mostly to himself.
For that commentary and for some reason Sidon didn't understand (nor cared), the other person in the room, a striking woman named Cythandria, glanced at Winsky with patent and piercing hostility.
"It should work." Continued Winsky, unaware or uninterested in the woman's reaction. "The sages and scholars of Candlekeep gather such odd books as if their lives depended on it. From where did you get it? You know, I do not want to know." He said, realizing there were a few bloodstains on the cover. "We'd better clean this a bit. Now... you see, we may have a problem."
Winsky drummed on the table with his fingers and whispered something incomprehensible. Sidon felt a piercing pain behind his eyes, like a sudden headache, and he attributed it to the horribly diluted wine and many sleepless nights. His nightmares had become much worse in the last days. He repeatedly blinked, trying to dispel the foggy sensation in his mind.
He didn't exactly know how or why, but Sidon knew something had changed in a, literally, blinking instant. For the first time, Sidon felt the darkness that surrounded him. He saw that only a lone candle lit the room, although he was sure there had been more when he had first entered. Behind him, a new sound had appeared. Rain pattered dolefully and rhythmically against the window panes, the sound only interrupted by the blinding light and thunder of a sudden storm.
Sidon put down the wine glass and, following old instincts, slowly drew his hand to his sword. His mind felt hazy and violent.
Winsky squirmed in his chair. "We are sorry, but we can't approve this Candlekeep operation."
Sidon could not shake the feeling that there was a gap in his mind, that this last sentence was the final point of a much bigger conversation he had missed. Or perhaps forgotten? Had he been drugged? Had Winsky continued speaking while he had been 'dazed'? And if so, for how long? The warrior could not, however, think too much about that since something else caught his altered attention.
His eyes were fixed beyond the three lieutenants, outside the room, at a figure in the corridor. There, on a scarcely illuminated pedestal, stood an enormous suit of black armor; he did not remember having seen it before when he had entered the room. It looked as though it had been crafted for a demon more than for men, and the firmness with which it stood hinted at some living presence inside it. He actually felt it. He felt a baleful and inhuman thing gazing at him from inside the open jaws of its skull-like helmet.
Doubting his own senses, he closed his eyes and pressured his temples. The menacing armor suit was still there when he looked again, although less 'alive' and threatening than before. Sidon forced himself to look at Winsky again and resume the conversation, to return to some sort of reality.
"Why... why I'm not allowed to?" He managed to ask. "It will be a quiet and precautionary operation. Spying, subversion, and disinformation will be the goal, that's..."
Winsky raised his hand. "No, you do not understand. We would quickly accept your proposal if it had come from any other source. In fact, we'll probably put it into operation ourselves, but you will not enter Candlekeep. We are worried about your... ancestor and what you intend to do there. Also, you look very ill, you should really sleep more."
Sidon didn't even hear the last sentence. The realization they knew about his true family, and most likely about his plans too, awakened him from his strange stupor. Furious and desperate like a cornered animal, Sidon rose up from the couch and draw his sword, pointing aimlessly at them.
"You know! What game are you playing?" Sidon screamed.
The three were all unfazed. Only Duyib seemed ready to jump at him.
"There is no game here, we are all friends." Said Winsky while moving his fingers under the table in strange patterns and looking at him between the eyes. Cythandria was also doing similar movements and she mouthed every word the man was saying.
"You are free to go." Continued the old man. "But you are not going to Candlekeep. It's too dangerous for you; imagine what could happen to you if they discover what you are. Leave this problem to us and we will inform you about our discoveries. Go home and don't worry, let your assistant help you. You have worked too much and you deserve resting."
Yes, that made sense. To Sidon, the last two sentences looked like the most sensible thing he had ever heard, and they appeared to him as a command of irresistible logic. True, they had discovered his secret but they didn't seem to care and were, after all, his friends. They were protecting him from potential threats. He had been foolish to even contemplate such a risky project, and he realized all would be better if they did the field work. Satisfied with his own reasoning and cunning, he sheathed his sword.
"Then I think this is settled" Said a changed Sidon, entirely unaware of the confusion inside his own mind. "Daan, let's go."
Without saying anything or commenting the odd situation, the assistant rose up. Then, during a sudden flash of lightning, the mercenary leader saw the face of his assistant. Paler than usual, his eyes looked at him with unusual predatory intensity and directness. His eyes were blue, or should have been because the right one was then yellow, and its pupil writhed playfully and unnaturally.
"What?" Asked Daan with a disarming smile, his eye turning instantaneously back to normal.
Something burst inside Sidon's mind, something he had not felt since his first murder. Still working through the maze of what he then assumed had been drugs and infernal magics, his paranoid mind awakened into a twisted reality. He didn't know how or why but he had accepted a load of rubbish during the whole conversation. Not only that, he had somehow agreed to hand over much of his responsibilities to his weak-willed assistant. Or to some fiend that looked like him. Sidon had done many horrible things to build his own personal empire, and he almost gave all of that to... him?
"What? We should be going..." Said again, a bit nervously this time.
"Sorcery..." Muttered Sidon, his sanity beginning to slip. "After all we have shared... You lying creature! How long have all of you being manipulating me?"
He did not wait for an answer. Howling madly, Sidon drew his sword and rammed it into the chest of his companion. Sidon looked at his dying assistant and waited, but there was no flare of wiggly light nor luminous sign, nothing to point at a curse dispelled; nothing to allay his troubled mind, only human blood pouring from his wound and mouth. His life quickly fading, Daan's eyes looked at him, confused and scared as any mortal eyes. If there had been a demon behind those eyes, it had certainly left by then. Panic-stricken and rambling, Sidon rushed out of the room, shoving everything that stood in his way. Nobody followed him.
The haunted warrior had already left the room when a harrowing scene halted his flight. Looking down at him, the hulking black armor stepped from the pedestal and uttered a resounding burst of laughter. A sudden lightning dispelled the darkness and for an instant Sidon saw a humanoid face inside the helmet's maw. Then, dark once more, its eyes appeared, giving off a deep and unholy golden glow. Sensing his intentions, the thing sidestepped slowly and blocked Sidon's path. He stumbled and fell to the ground, but the creature stood there, just looking at him. He didn't have the time or the lucidity to think about its reasons, so he just fled in the opposite direction, being closely followed by the creature's mocking laughter.
The armored Sidon of Darromar kept running. The clangor of his hurried flight resonated throughout the whole building. Searching for a way down to his men he found the stairs, but he did not find his soldiers but mocking figures wearing his own smiling face. They drew their weapons -though they didn't attack him- and threatened him with them, cursing him with his own voice, saying things only his men knew. The warrior fled from the nightmarish shapes and ran all the way up the stairs. Glancing back for an instant, he saw the armored thing running, getting closer by the moment. He went up -he didn't know for how many floors-, and sprinted almost to the point of collapse. At the top, he found at last a rickety old door and opened it. He was on the roof of the Iron Throne towering building, overlooking the whole city of Baldur's Gate, and without any visible escape.
The rain had already stopped and only lightning, thunder, and the full moon were there to greet him. No other living being was near and the whole city was sleeping or hiding from the thundering storm. The damp air helped him to free his mind a little from the horrors he had felt and seen inside, but his body gave in. Only then he thought about his sword... but he had left it on his friend's chest. Exhausted, he fell to his knees.
A creaky thump sounded behind him. He looked back and the door burst open, shattered into pieces. In came the yellow-eyed demon, bending its figure so it could pass through the opening. The moonlight exposed its features and for the first time Sidon clearly saw there was a man inside the demonic armor. That did not give him solace or hope.
Cowering with fear as he had never felt, the mercenary leader dragged himself backward along the ground.
"No... You can't." Begged Sidon, moving away from him.
"I will be the last..." The armored man said with a booming voice, his glowing eyes standing out in the darkness. "And you will go first."
Then Sidon understood. He had heard that sentence before, or at least something similar. In his feverish dreams the Voice had said the same, 'I will be the last... and they will go first.' He had never known who the voice was, or what it meant, but he had foolishly assumed the 'I' was, somehow, himself. Now he knew that was not true.
He also knew what his pursuer was. He knew he had been played. All the information he had gathered, they knew it already or, worse, he had given it to him. For how long had his "assistant" been feeding him the information? How many of his men, if they were still men, had been working for him?
"There are others... I can show you! Please... Please!" He begged in a last attempt, although there was little he knew that his pursuer did not; and Sidon knew that.
Sidon's back touched a low wall and he pushed himself up against the grating. The man, for then he saw the man inside the iron maw and realized who he was, hit him in the face with his armored fist. When Sidon regained consciousness, his foe gripped him by the throat with one hand and lifted him from the floor. Then, he dashed his hapless body against the fence until it broke. He laughed mockingly, holding him over the city streets below.
The mercenary tried to speak, to beg for his life, but he could do neither. He weakly hit and punched his murderer's arm, but that also proved futile. Of his own weight, his neck began to snap, but finally the armored being broke it with a crushing and quick grip.
With a roaring cry, he threw the mangled body over the smashed railing and waited there long enough to see it crash against the cobbled street. Yes, a perfect sacrifice to prove his strength.
Sidon had been the first, but there were many more to fall.