Temperament; or, Common Temperament; or, Of Temperament, Torment, and the Transferral of Misery.
Summary: By chance meeting a Sharran is rescued from a Beshaban prison by a Zhent. Viconia, Montaron, and Xzar team up to lurk in the shadows of Amn and spread misery wherever they go. Viconia/Montaron.
Warnings: Violence, FF. Net-rating, some sexual content, unusual shipping, crude language, friendship speeches, evil characters being evil, cruelty to minors, loitering, lack of fluffy Zhentarim and Sharrans, deaths of humanoid and other entities, totally serious warnings for traumatising content of a couple of different forms. Nothing much you couldn't find in-game. I think it's organic to the story rather than purely gratuitous, though. Especially the bit in Chapter Seven. And the depressing one in Chapter Twelve. And the other depressing one in Chapter Sixteen. And Chapter Twenty-Two.
—
There were a lot would've envied him; fat lot any of them knew. Tem-purr-a-mental, she was, and would've told him off for not speaking proper if she'd been born to Common. Temperamental, never slow to pitching a fit and taking it out on anyone near (not so bad when it was the crazy mage who got the worst of the death threats), rarely what ye might call exactly a close relationship with the truth, particularly given what she thought of as close, liked playing games in the head to try and make it all dance to her tunes, blowing boiling and iceberg-freezing by turn and turnabout. But he'd seen plenty o' manipulations by fool lordlings in his time and he knew plots and plans, and he knew nothing stopped those who tried too much of the complicated stuff better than a sword stuck in the back. Watch the names who ended up dead rather than the tongue-flappings and ye'd know the rights of it. The only problem with shaking her words off like scraping a bit of guts off your armour was that she'd start yelling for not listening. Then a little something to make things up 'twixt them, sometimes.
In the house in Athkatla the metal saucepan ricocheted from his head. Caught him a good one, though he'd been in a helm. He reached right hand to blade. "Yer whining quits or ye do."
She held a carving-knife, glaring.
"Rivvil iblith el nin vith'rell!"
Swearing he could hear in most tongues; that and the directions to the nearest brothel suited most needs. A blade and gold talked anywhere.
"Perchance your humble halfling servant might cordially invite yer Ladyship to press her own damned pantaloons?" he mocked, and her aim with the knife was off simply from rage. That, and the balance of 'em wasn't right for throwing. "You're welcome to wash your own dishes if ye feel like ever filling that boneless elven rear of yours."
"Alu vith natha rothe!"
Go fuck— Ye could guess at the rest with any imagination. A ceramic platter in her hands now; had to be careful she'd not ruin every piece of crockery in the house. "Got one of 'em here now to fuck, right?"
He stepped back while the platter flew through the air, and saw it crash on the floor in front of his feet in sharp brown shards. "You dare call me a cow!"
"Ye said it first," he reminded; her eyes were darker than the stories said of drow, but managed to snap a tarnished crimson as one of those fool novels. Good, mebbe, to know what the word meant.
"Vith'ir siffat sakphul! Vith'ir!" This time it was a porcelain bowl patterned in blue flowers that the crazy mage had bought on a whim, and one of the shards flew into his cheek.
Then the drow saw that his crossbow had made its way to his hands. "Such a small klez for a small man!"'
"Think you're faster?" Montaron taunted. The drow's right hand went to the holy symbol upon her neck.
"Shar could grant me the power to command you in an instant, small one!"
"Then why don't ye give it a try, doxy?" he sneered. Mebbe he shouldn't've let her stay after those fool Beshabans; the crazy mage wouldn't have objected either way.
"Because I show considerable restraint, fool!"
He snorted. Priests'd caught him creeping through their temple—shouldn't have taken the tip from that blasted Embarl. Then to the home-away-from-home of their private cells housed with an old annoyance; the Sharran'd made herself useful escaping after he'd broken the cell locks. He'd seen women more bloodthirsty than her in his time who'd rip your head off with bare hands or spellstrike even sooner than look at ye, whores more experienced at least in relative terms, and piss on knights and all their fool notions of chivalry: but he didn't get around to saying Yer here on sufferance, bitch.
The doorknob jiggled slowly and the spotty face of one of the mad mage's so-called apprentices leaned in. The drow backed down.
"Clean the floor, unnatural slave," she ordered, pointing; and the creature did so in a series of mechanical movements, taking down pan and broom methodically and with compliance.
"Must obey friends of the Master."
The drow leaned back on Montaron's shelf in a way that slid her hand dangerously close to the needle-trap he'd placed to guard one of his alcohol stashes. He didn't trouble to warn her.
"Your master, sakphul, at least knows how to maintain me in suitable style," Viconia said, lazily watching the apprentice clean for her. The face that looked uncannily like a human boy's was a claylike substance; the pair of them were creations of Xzar's as mad as anything else the mage did. Still, as long as his laboratory kept the corpse-snatcher quiet, Montaron had worked for worse.
Montaron barked a short laugh. "Ye think he'll support ye? Mad mage'd support an invisible butterfly in front of his face giving him orders from the King of the Handkerchief Thieves!"
She moved like a two-copper whore pretending to be a noble's courtesan. "Do you really think so, little man?" She was skinny as any other elf, not much on top by halfling's view, though she swayed her hips and waist to pretend her bust couldn't be outsized by a pair of pinheads. The apprentice didn't care.
Montaron cackled long and loud. "Yer worse than worthless as it stands," he said. "Ye could stay on your knees a month earning it back and still not make a paying proposition—"
"On my knees? Males would mine beljurils with bare fingernails for a mere glance from me. Only a worm would be low enough for you, slave!—" She curled her hands to fists, angry, her glare dark as her symbol.
"For cleaning yer own messes'd only take you from cost to nothing," Montaron said, kicking in the apprentice's direction. "Nothing but listening to yer sawbones-voice moan and bellyache on—"
It was a bottle of really rather expensive whisky that smashed itself upon the tiles in front of him this time, and he let her wail all she liked to slowly heal herself from the needles embedded in her hand.
—
"Monty, I want you to spy on the Harpers in their red-brick house in the docks. No, I don't, because it's dangerous, but sadly one of their number has engineered their visibility to our headquarters—meaning that we have to do work," Xzar said. Miserably, he looked down at the test tube bubbling with an unidentifiable green substance in his left hand. "Do you know how far this will put me behind in my experiments? Days! I was so looking forward to working the acid secretions below the fingernails out of dissected comparisons of the goblins and the slimes...perhaps if I add mustard to the mix..." He shook the mixture, which foamed several inches higher. "Motion reagent! Back to the laboratory! ...Oh, Monty, maybe take the dark priestess with you? I think she's been here some days and hasn't gone home yet."
Blasted Harpers, Montaron thought; 'twasn't bad to be hanging around the mad wizard and getting paid for making sure he didn't kill himself in his latest scheme of necromantic research. But the Zhents called, and sometimes they even rewarded success.
"I won't be needing any kind of—" he began. Thieving was best done alone; he'd never been in a group operation that wasn't failed by one fool or another needing their throat slit, and still not a day went by where he didn't want the same to the mad wizard. Yet the drow got up from lazing on her arse in a soft armchair to answer.
"Have you not implied that Viconia does not earn her keep?" She slithered up to a standing position, folding her arms above her chest. "She will go with Shar in the night." Pretentious bloody aristocrats, speaking about themselves that way.
"Yes, the association of the night was exactly what I had in mind," Xzar said. "Monty thinks I'm conspicuous and I suppose he must be right on these matters—"
As if six-something of crazy tattooed necromancer with a belt of dead spell components wasn't noticeable by any with half a brain. About as noticeable as a drow in a human city full of folk who'd burn her soon as look at her...come to think of it, that had points.
"Yeah," Montaron said, "you're explicitly invited. Drow bitch."
"Necromancer, silence your pet ape before I slowly cut him into tiny little pieces."
—
Bloody Harpers. Montaron'd tracked the guard wanderings, sent his climbing line across from the roof of a civilian's house across the street to get on the roof. They used it as some kind of bower, green things growing in pots; he'd never liked anything to do with forestry. They didn't set guards up top far's his night vision could tell, and he could see as far in dark as in light. The drow was the same way, cloaked up in conjure-shadows; cheap trick from a goddess. He checked the line and took up the pulley. He swung across easy as a blink while downstairs the guard—no, he begged the Harpers' pardon, the coincidental set of tars who happened to wander in circles down about the place—wasn't even there at the moment to look. He waited for the drow to follow; or if she weren't brave enough, it wasn't his to care. Simple in-and-out burglary like he'd done a thousand times in the streets.
The window below was the best target he could see; actual glass, waste of money. He dropped down to the windowsill landing like a cat and set about fiddling open the lock. Complicated one, smell of mage-taint at it too; but nothing he'd not seen. The Grand Dukes had some worse. He'd managed to plunder Silvershield himself after a few things the nobleman's gullypated twittering brat'd let slip on the road. One of the reasons why the ungrateful Bhaalspawn kid'd let him and Xzar go before things got real rough. He got to his third lockpick, turning the pins; he could've cut through the glass and done it that way, but he'd the sense of a mage-alarm for that. Better fool it into thinking the key'd been slipped through. Then the pick slipped in his hands, strained and cracking, and he'd have sworn out loud if it wouldn't get him caught. The drow'd landed beside him, stepping out from the shadows as if she'd managed to hide for a special surprise, balanced catlike on the windowsill and crowding him out with her bulk.
If that pick was broken they were halfway done for. "Don't cursed—" Montaron began in a whisper.
"Did I shock you, little master of shadows?" she taunted, placing a hand against the glass; darkness spread from it.
"Get that fool trick away from it," Montaron ordered. Pick was intact. It'd tripped a pin he had to shift once more; cursed delays.
"But I have disabled the alarm," she said. Not trusting that, he finished the lockpicking despite her body in the way; and leaped softly down into the Harper room. Longlimbs built human-tall, as if they wanted to make it easy for him. The drow slipped in behind him, contorting herself to pass through. On the rich carpet lay a section upraised by a tenth of an inch he recognised for a trap. It was empty and quiet; he could hear no movement in here, and the drow had the common sense to shut the window behind them in case of overcurious harp-fingerers looking up. From the books on the shelves and mage-gear scattered on a table this was a library; about one in ten were in scripts he knew how to read.
"Ye like spreading misery everywhere ye go, drow?" Montaron said. He leaned down to fix that little trap with a long dagger's sticking.
"It is the will of the Goddess," she preened.
"Let them Harpers feel it," Montaron ordered. They wouldn't leave the important stuff lying out on the shelves; he fiddled with the lock of the table's drawers, eyeing it for traps. The drow tapped a foot in impatience; not audibly on the soft carpet, but he could see it and let her wait for as long as he needed. He weren't wanting them to stick around for the betterment of their health on some peaceful holiday in the Harper hold. Several scrolls he stuffed in his armour; let the mad mage make what he would of 'em. A Harp-seal for stamping he left where it was.
The furnishings kept up rich beyond the library. Painted walls and carpet laid still on the floors, an alcove or two with fancy jugs and vases set pretty. The damned Harp kept their lodgings drab-dipt more often than not, too priggy and priest-ridden for luxuries; there were lords of the Zhentarim who favoured the same virtues, too much dusty noble blood and long noses turned down on the trimmings and trinkets that made life for ordinary rogues. This was different. Montaron didn't like changes to expectation.
Harpers weren't wandering about here; living quarters must be downward. Montaron picked open a door to find a lot of old cloaks and cloth stored; swore under his breath for the delay.
"The space," the drow whispered, leaning against the wall; "a wider room as marked by walls. One of the Underdark knows how to map important rooms."
Broken clock had it right for a moment or two a day. Montaron knew his crow-laying better than the backs of his palms. He slipped picks to the lock of another door, and jerked back in shock at the cries of surprised birds. Green things grew to fill the room and a golden cage held pale flyers shifted out of their sleep—
If Harpers saw fit to afford some damned aviary to stroll around in like some pampered nobleson, or if they'd their share of interfering vindictive druids here—
He closed the door to shut the birds up, pricking his ears for the sounds of someone woken; he'd put his hearing against a longlimb pointy-ear any day, far better than some human longlimb giving himself Harper airs. Seemed the stairs next; and he ought to be able to pick a front-door lock from the inside easily enough. Mebbe that first in preparation for an escape route if the drow saw them caught.
The carpet laid across the staircase was rich and thick and probably red in good light, Montaron thought in disgust; he stepped to its side in case of traps rooted below. That's what he'd try, set some horizontal spike below the softness to pop out into the foot when they didn't expect it, some good strong poison to finish man or halfling or drow—
She opened her mouth again for a few words in a language he didn't know, ignoring his kick to her shins to keep quiet; and glared down at him. "Beware, little man," Viconia whispered. "Shar shows me traps below that fine red; and I sense something cold in the air beyond." It worried him, but there weren't no choice he could see. He fixed the tangling brass lock in fancy marble doors pin by pin to coax it to open, and added oil to the hinges for good measure. They slipped calmly open with no sign of movement or observation.
Then he padded inside to a room where looked to be what he'd come for, polished desks and papers to nick for the mad wizard, valuables lying around and a small armoury of dweomered weapons, exactly what meant they didn't have to stay around here longer than good for his health and temper against her. He'd time to notice that there was a glimmering dagger or two sized right for hin hands before there were grey shapes in the air with hands and harps. Sweet Black Hound, they were coming at him and stopping his breath and he hit thin air and couldn't touch them. The cursed drow raised her black circle and said words that weren't working to drive them back, damn her to all the layers of the Abyss, and one last time Montaron swept his sword right through the ghosts that acted like damned Harpers and killed him. The last he saw was the grey hands in his head, not hitting him but going in beyond his eyes, and then he saw nothing.
He woke with a headache like a year's worth of hangover hitting all at once, and the drow's voice talking, which scraped and scratched more pain out of him. Metal at his feet and wrists, chained to some splintered board rubbing against him; not a stitch of clothing or weapon or hidden lockpick left on him. He kept his eyes shut. Delay the Harper bastards. Keep an ear on what the backstabbing bitch of a drow said.
"—They enslaved me," she said, artificial tears in her voice, "the loathsome necromancer and his halfling partner; I was to be executed for doing nothing to those rivvin, simply the colour of my skin; and I had nowhere else to turn. Forced here on this night I shall tell you everything; for they took the gravest of advantages of me, inflicted the most lurid torments..."
"Then you had better continue to tell us everything, drow," spoke a man's voice. Montaron caught a quick hitch in the drow's breath, as if they'd the common sense to chain her up too. Ought to have chained her to the kitchen wall, have her scrub the floors to earn her meals—
"They are Zhents; the human is a mad necromancer; his two apprenti are flesh golems of a sort, part clay and part of his art; he breeds goblins, —eight, no, nine tanks of them as I recall, two a tank, in the large central room of his lower floor. Beyond these he has no living—no, forgive me, moving—defences."
"And his wards?" the man's speech asked leisurely.
"The password, as far as I remember, is swordfish. But is it not always so on the surface?" Viconia said. "What else do you wish to know? Allow Viconia to tell you everything; she is grateful to you for her release—" She let out a small gasp as if someone had pulled her back. "And ask him of all the truth of what I have said! He has been awake and listening these past four minutes!"
Montaron woke and flung himself forward as far as he could, as if he could fix a dagger in her stoolpigeon throat. "Damn ye to all the Nine Hells for a traitor, bitch, may a million tanar'ri rut on your burning—" The chains didn't budge for him; and then the pommel of a dagger slammed into his jaw. Sparks flared in front of him but it wasn't enough to send him back to unconsciousness.
Five damned-bloody Harpers; the drow bitch was held back with her wrists tied and stretched out behind her by a burly human guard at her back, a shorter one watching her in front with a moon's head amulet raised up that made her cringe back from it. The leader a muscled human longlimb in a moon-and-stars robe flung over pyjamas, trying to look as if he was important; a hin-lass of Montaron's kind, in dark leathers and with blade and bow slung to her back, no sense of common kin in a scarred sneering face; a pointy-eared human in chain armour, some half-surface-elf like the druid bitch and her footstool bootlicker of a man. Fancy gold amulets were around each neck. Montaron saw damp wood walls behind them, chains and tool-shelves of things he knew the purposes for, smelt the mud and wine-cases of a cellar. They weren't going to let them out of here.
The half-elf walked up and brought down a hammer on Montaron's right hand. Broke the thumb; pride didn't matter to yell out and he cursed Viconia and the lot of them to the Abyss and beyond.
"Speak the truth, halfling," the chief longlimb said softly, holding a lamp, watching avidly as a hawk's eye as if he wanted to see all the torture. Harper and Zhent methods weren't different when you got down to it.
Weren't as if he cared to protect the mad mage, curses on his head and all of them, the drow'd done it already and he wouldn't bother to try to make as if she lied.
"—Go fuck a kobold!" Pain exploded like a lightning strike.
"I see a typical...half a man," the drow said, glancing down at the vulnerables. Get him out of here and he'd show a thing or two to the hin Harper bitch and her. He grit his teeth at the next blow and didn't give them the satisfaction of a shout. Making it slow—worse than Zhents—
Knew their business enough that they wouldn't let it go black before they wanted. He bred goblins. The password to his wards. The apprenti. No, truly don't know the Zhent plans. Want the Harpers gone and dead and an eye on that new guild in the streets. Cold water dumped over his head to keep him awake through a black eye that couldn't see anything and a broken nose; then poured it on his face through a cloth as if to drown him—never so quick. He knew pain; he screamed out what the drow had told.
"Enough," Montaron heard through ringing ears; bastard in the moon-and-stars. Watched from a distance, keeping his own hands clean; watched like he enjoyed it. "I think our halfling acquaintance has told us all he can. As has the drow."
Her wretched voice swept through the air. "Release me, then, male. You heard the sakphul repeat my truth."
"You think that we would trust a drow? I know your people, creature." Longlimb; might have been drooling over her for all he spoke; and it didn't change a thing. Bitch ought to have known it, Montaron thought through the red haze on him. Where he wasn't freezing cold he burned. They'd called the name Galvarey. "Accommodate the lady, Chamsil."
Viconia swore and hissed against it, but there were sounds of metal clinking. Zhents'd have raped her for good measure; she could have the screwing she'd given him and be grateful for it. He bled; could feel it trickling down wrists and outer thighs. Enough, perhaps, for darkness to swarm him for a while.
He opened an eye. Hadn't been out long, far's he could tell. Bloody Harper amateurs. It was dark again and they'd chained the drow standing to the wall, her dress still on; she pulled at her wrists.
"Happy now?" Montaron grunted. Harpers, harpy—same difference. Right wrist blood-slicked against the metal, thumb already out of joint and fingers numb; he could slip through if he pulled it the right way. The back of his hand scraped against the wood of the table. He pulled on the arm.
"What would have been the point of allowing them to torture me? The easiest solution was to avoid such pain as yours," Viconia said triumphantly.
Yeah, funny thing was, he'd have changed places with her given half a chance. "Ye see how far it got ye."
"Surfacers are so stupid." She moved in her chains in the dark, kicking up with her feet. They'd left her boots on. "Do you really think that your hand would open the other locks, even after you grind the bones further?"
"I've picked worse in my damned sleep," Montaron said.
"As you wish," the drow said, shifting position. "You're surprisingly enduring, little man. I have broken slaves of your kind with far less."
"You're a treacherous backstabbing bitch." Hand slipped through; fresh pain. He'd been bluffing. Could move a little finger; pick a splinter of wood and just try to go on nerve— "Most hin ain't me." Yeah, no pipeweed and stuffing his stomach and listening to the kobold crap they served up as cursed clan wisdom. He'd never looked back to what might've been.
The drow kicked up again in her chains, and this time her booted foot hit the underside of his table.
"You see how our interests align, sakphul?" she said. "I will release you; you will release me; and then I may heal you."
Or she could release him and he'd slit her throat—Montaron toyed with that idea for a long, happy moment, then thought that two alone in a Harper hold needed it. Through the streets, she wouldn't try to get anything on him while they walked through, then if the mad wizard was still alive they could kill her the way she was asking for it.
"Deal, drow." Montaron spat part of a tooth out of his mouth. She flung her leg up in another kick and this time left a dent in the wood. Then the panels began to warp apart. He used it to stretch out the warped rotten table, splinter it where the iron was nailed to the wood. He dropped to the floor, numb and cursing. Left hand still moved; they'd stowed behind some of what they'd taken from him. Right pick for the job. The drow wasn't so much taller than him, elves short for longlimbs and drow even shorter; but he shifted a stool to work on her arms pinned high above her head and stretching her to her toes. If she'd end her damn nagging about it; he could have shoved the pick in her eye to shut her up.
"At last. You smell foul," she said. He got down from her, limping; first thing she did was grasp up her black disc where they'd left it. Then finally she cast her spell and things started to knit together again. Hands, welts, nose, burns, ribs—
"But curing that bruising is not necessary to leave here, is it?"
"Shut up, drow." Cared more for skin than balls, at the given moment in time. She'd not done a proper job; like dark cold water poured behind his eyes that got him moving, nothing more. He forced down their cellar door. Dagger in hand—ripped-up thumbscrew. Viconia took up a heavy hammer.
Harper turned, waiting at the passage atop the steps. Montaron ran—muscles still aching, stop him from crying out, too slow for the man with the longsword sweeping down and fast enough to spit him. Then the Sharran's sharp cry brought the bloody Harper down and he quickly slit the throat. The drow panted as if it'd cost her, leaning against the wall. Below the blood was that glimmer of gold he'd seen round all their necks. Montaron cut through the links and took it up. Heavy weight, amberlike clear stone at the centre of it, a pretty thing. He put it slowly around his own neck.
"You waste time, sakphul!" Viconia whispered harshly. "Leave this place."
"Been thinking," Montaron said, kicking the corpse into a corner. "These things. And getting a bit of revenge before we do. Up for it, drow, or die here?"
He knew about the white things. Entered carefully, ready to run out; needing some good old-fashioned revenge was stronger for him than fear. Always had been. "Stick close, drow," he said. Her cold hand looped into the human-sized amulet, loose on his neck; he fiddled with it to make sure she couldn't turn it to garrotte. Into that elaborate room of the spectres; they approached, damn them—and turned away at the sight. He went to ripping through curtains and pages and piling into the fine marble fireplace in the corner of the room; tore down that fancy dagger to let it rip through the Harper mess. The drow finally understood it and reached up herself. Weren't near enough time; Montaron took a few to keep, wrapping them in part of a curtain he'd draped around his body. And in one desk an oil of burning, atop a few supplies for healing and hasting. What a pleasant surprise. Pour it on the stuff, splatter it around the room; then start a fire from tinder and let it take everything—
Galvarey had come down the steps, shouting and screaming, but by then the flames had erupted. They ran for it, out to a paned window, more fancy frosted glass; Montaron broke it and ignored the shards. Then it was to the cobbles safe as if they were a blanket, though the rough cold ground battered and bruised them. A Harper-watcher saw, and Montaron threw a knife he'd saved at her head—off-aimed but enough of a distraction, enough to fling themselves down below a fence to the lower part of the docks, to shadowed alleyways and turns all in the merry dawn comin' to Athkatla while a nicely burning house flared behind them.
"Drow, another healing spell," Montaron ordered.
—