This would then be the Original story, me still working on the BG1-part of
the…trilogy?
Yeah, that would be an idea…might help me keep avoiding that quest-mess in BG1 even more(.
As of yet, this is only from the Dungeon to the keep, then the portion I originally started with, FROM the keep to the end of SoA…later, I'll probably tag on the ToB-piece, then it's on to either small sidesteps, (foreseen I don't post them alongside; keep an eye out :P) or to this fellow's experiences in NEVERWINTER NIGHTS!!! **slobber**
NEGRATH'S TALE;
FROM THE DUNGEON TO THE KEEP
Pain.
Red hot, searing pain, made no less by the lack of memory from a time before it existed.
The man in the oversized metal birdcage would have escaped to his innermost sanctuary, had there been even the slightest chance that the pain would even diminish there…on the numerous occasions he had tried it(sometime before the dawn of time), the pain had followed him.
Had he cared to, he would have been puzzled at the fact that while there, he had felt another, different pain…as though the outside pain were simply a distraction.
Exhausted without ever having moved of his own accord as far as he could recall, screaming nerve endings telling him that his body was one big, open wound, he were unable to summon the strength to cringe as feet approached, his mind to weakened to care that the steps were to light, to hurried, to come from his nigh-ever-present tormentor.
Ears dazedly perking as unusual sounds came from where the walker(runner?) had stopped, he curled up into a ball as metal screeched, and the too-light feet entered his cage.
The first skin-contact were something of an anticlimax; as though his skin where still whole, uncut, healthy.
The voice immediately following it, where originally ignored, as the person that daily/weekly/hourly visited this pain upon him never wavered from his insane ramblings of "potential" and "untapped ability".
The slap upon his peculiarly painless skin of his face, though, were wholly impossible to ignore.
Blinking his eyes against the only light his mind could be bothered to remember, he found an addition to the unchanging scenario;
Kneeling beside him, looking anxious, were a young woman, garbed more for a trip in the countryside than in any kind of dungeon.
Just looking confusedly at this new inhabitant of his cage, his head ached as he tried to remember what was so strange about her…
By the time she spoke again, mere moments after the first, he had figured it out…
-"Come on, wake up you, wake up! On your feet!"
-"You opened the door." He commented, his voice little more than a rasp in his throat.
Grabbing him by the front of a shirt he had been unaware he had, she bodily lifted him off the floor;
-"GET UP!"
This time finding the energy to cringe, he peered at her, finding that doing as she said would probably be a good idea…if for nothing else than to figure out if he could.
Nigh-ineffective as her strength was in the endeavor, he were nonetheless thankful for her help…he had severe doubts he would ever have gotten his head up to it's intended height again without it.
Looking at her from his new altitude, he found that she were a head or two shorter than himself, something that troubled the part of his brain that usually recollected memories for him.
As he just stood there, studying her, she sighed like one who just lost her will to live.
-"Please! We need to get out, and I can't do that alone…nor do I want to. Come on, we need to go!"
-"…Imoen?"
Embracing him hard and sudden enough to almost bring them back to the floor if not for the surrounding metal wall he staggered into, she nodded fervently;
-"Yes!"
Pulling back, she studied him in return;
-"Do you remember your own name?"
-"I…I'm some sort of…fighter?"
-"Negrath! You are Negrath! You are a kensai, thanks to mingling with the guards in Candlekeep and wanting to be their better…"
At the mention of the honorable library fortress, her eyes glazes over, and her voice fades.
He simply looks on as she then smiles, appearing to relive memories of a place and time that to her is all but perfection.
The stirring the name caused in his own mind, makes him believe they probably shared some of those memories…though he probably wouldn't recall them as joyfully.
Blinking, a tear running down her face, she looks at him, grabbing his hand;
-"Come, we simply -must- get out of here, and we must do so NOW!"
Unenthusiastically following as she towed him from the cage, he numbly shook his head;
-"No,…no, there are others…we're not supposed to be alone…we must find…"
Smiling the smile of one never having planned it otherwise, she glanced back at him;
-"I see two other prisoners in those cages over there…might be them…some of them, anyway."
-"Enough." Were his responding statement, followed by a nod signifying a certainty he felt unsure he'd ever really feel, as the ease of their capture began becoming evident to his awakening memory.
-"Yeah, we had a pretty powerful group, didn't we? I simply had to change profession to keep up!" she laughed, the sound quickly getting stuck in her throat.
-"The travelling group who plans to do great deeds without the aid of a skilled thief won't last long…and anyone worthy of such deeds know that well enough." He assured her, silently puzzled at his sudden eloquence.
So was she, evidently, as a smile of relief spread across her face as she nodded her thanks.
Approaching the closest cage indicated to him, recognizing the shape sitting unmoving in it as vaguely familiar, he almost jumped back as the prisoner, proving to be a battlehardened female of mixed heritage, suddenly stood at the door to her cell, staring at him in surprise.
As her eyes fell on Imoen, she nodded once, a wry smile indicating knowledge of how he came to be free.
Then, turning back to him as they stopped in front of her cage, she spoke, the commanding, yet somewhat compassionate tone did more to refresh his memory than anything Imoen could ever tell him:
-"Quickly, we must get out of here before our captor returns!"
Chuckling humorlessly, she added: "I swear, travelling with you is -never- dull."
-"I can be inclined to agree,…Jaheira?" he replied, his recollection of the time before some event his mind fervently held back from him, and his present location seemingly one endless line of battles, ambushes, betrayals and god-aspiring, war-mongering family members...And one unexpected, intense feeling of heartwarming joy, caused by a party member not so much hidden by the shadows of his mind as a part of them…
-"…A Drow…" he intoned, unaware that he had left the others in a most unwelcome stretch of inactivity.
Jaheira said nothing, but as were usual for her, her eyes stated her opinion on the matter with all due clarity.
Imoen, however, spoke up;
-"Viconia? What about her?"
Glancing at the younger woman as though pitying her inability to see what was right in front of her, Jaheira rattled the cage door impatiently;
-"Never mind the Drow! Get this door open first, so we may escape as complete a group as possible!"
-"You seem…incomplete, somehow…?" he countered, seeming to have not heard her request at all.
Breathing deeply a few times, the druid smiled wryly, as she was wont to do, and nodded, her voice several notes softer;
-"Yes, you could say that. My husband Khalid is not with us here, and I worry for him.
Yet another reason to start moving elsewhere!" she stated, shaking the bars for emphasis.
-"Imoen?" he queried, stooping to pay close attention as she set to work on the strange-looking lock, for no better reason than to observe talents he would never master.
Having gone through a selection of items, looking more like rubble found on a dirty floor somewhere than a thief's usual equipment, she looked at him, shaking her head in disappointment, before standing to look at the druid…a druid that all but stomped her foot impatiently;
-"Am I supposed to be surprised?
GO! You can do nothing here with what you have! Find the key -meant- for the lock, and we'll all be happier for it."
-"I'm going, I'm going." Imoen muttered, setting off back the way they'd come.
-"We'll be back." Negrath assured her as he followed, well aware that it was wholly unnecessary to do so.
Catching up to the lithe mageling thief, he found that she was heading towards a door in the dungeon wall, near where they had stepped out of his cage, pushing through it without even slowing down.
By the time he followed her through, she was already by the other end, feeling along the edges of a pictureframe.
Glancing back at him as she moved on to another, she commented; "To many pictures here…one of them simply has to hide something.
Working her way around the room, she momentarily looked to him, still standing in the doorway, unmoving, following her with his eyes.
-"Table, chest." She ordered, adding distractedly: "I've checked them both. They're clean."
Following her "instructions" he moved over to the table, surprised that up until her comment on it, the pile of fighting equipment covering it had seemed all but natural.
Rummaging through it, he was immensely pleased to find both a katana and a longsword in the bundle; the two weapons he knew how to use effectively…and with both of them, he wouldn't need to be encumbered with a shield he wouldn't be able to use anyway.
Memorizing the fact that it also contained a sturdy quarterstaff and a well- honed Two-hand blade, he moved on to the chest, kneeling over it in time to have Imoen stumble backwards over him with an anguished scream;
-"NO!"
Smoke rising from her clothes in a patch crossing over to the bared skin at her throat, she pulled ineffectually at her tattered shirt, knowing full well that, seeing how the dart drenched in the stuff had already penetrated the skin at her shoulder, whether the acid-splattered piece of cloth were on her or not, were inconsequential.
-"Not now, not this way…" she wailed, scrambling to her unsteady feet, all but falling into the wall beneath the now torn painting, stabbing her hand into the hole, unheeding of any potential remaining traps within the hidden compartment, in moments retracting it with a familiar blue vial in hand.
Seeing it for herself as she slid down to sit against the wall, she almost tossed it to the floor: "Not enough!"
Still kneeling by the chest, Negrath blinked, coming into action just in time to stop her throwing motion, plucking the bottle from her fingers, pulling it open, and holding it to her lips;
-"It will have more effect in you than on the floor, though. I can add to its work once it's in you. OK?"
A flicker of recognition, and she nodded weakly, already pale as the acid worked her system into shutdown.
-"Drink, damn you!"
The sharp bark having the intended effect of focusing her attention on him, he tipped the blue-tinted fluid into her mouth.
Seeing her swallow the few mouthfuls it made up, he unceremoniously dropped the empty vial, enveloping her shoulder in his hands, calling on the healing magics he commanded as part of his divine heritage.
Noticing, as he did so, that from where the ability originated in him, there were now a slight murmur of noise, as though someone tried to speak to him. Realizing at once what, or rather who, it was, he clamped down on it, straining to shut it out as he used the powers his divine father's blood granted him.
As the healing force trickled to a stop, he grew cold as ice.
**OK, you bastard! You want murder? I'll give you murder. But only if you let her live! You let her die, this entire deal stops right here…and where does that leave you?!?**
With a sense of having been temporarily accepted as the keeper of some great honor, he almost cried in relief as he felt the restorative energies flow once more.
………
Her eyes fluttering open, the mageling thief tentatively lifted a hand to test her shoulder, hissing as her fingers met the still-open wound.
Looking at the figure crouched beside her, she smiled her thanks, uncertain of the current strength of her voice.
-"I had to concentrate on the poison." The kensai explained, helping her to her feet.
-"That's OK," Imoen smiled, coughing slightly: "I felt two more of them in there. They should probably do the trick."
Plucking the aforementioned items from the hollow behind the now all but empty frame, he watched as she hungrily consumed one.
Glancing at him, she then turned to the hidden compartment again, reaching in and feeling around a bit, before stepping back, an exquisite dagger in her hand.
Seeing him study the weapon appreciatively, she nodded, smiling;
-"Yes, it's quite the special item for a thief, this. A magical dagger!"
-"I take it you won't be stepping face to face with an opponent of your own free will, though?"
Looking at him with something close to shame, she shook her head:
-"Not if I get to choose, no. Not now, perhaps never again. I'm a thief with spells, and as such should never go face to face with anyone."
Wiping her brow theatrically, she adopted Jaheira's sly smile as she sighed:
-"Haven't I learned -that-!"
Holding back the automatic response of "I would guess you have" as unnecessary, the fighter led them, somewhat hurriedly, back to the half-elf in the cage, having found an odd-looking key on the table.
As the lock of the cage popped open, one item of impatient druid came rushing out, pulling the two with her over to the cell beside hers.
There, slumped by the wall behind it, a figure sat that only could belong to a single man in all of Faerun as far as Negrath were aware.
The small, furry creature sitting perched atop his head, quivering its whiskers at them, only confirmed his suspicions.
Jaheira wasted no more time on unnecessary explanations, than she would on necessary ones;
-"MINSC, Get up! As I've been trying to tell you for the last…hells, I don't know. But your pet is not trying to cheer you up! We are all here!"
No response, aside from a bit of frenzied chittering from Boo.
Hammering the bars with her fist, the druid grew severely annoyed as well:
-"MINSC! On your feet before I come in there and strangle that chattering beast of yours!"
not were the words out, before one furious berserker stood, snarling back at her through the bars, nearly causing her to fall flat on her behind;
-"Threaten Boo, and you threaten Minsc!
Threaten Minsc, and you DIE!"
-"Whoa! Hold on!" Negrath interrupted, as the large warrior began tearing at the bars of his cage…which seemed strangely empty of the joints and links necessary for the workings of a door.
-"Boo Minsc's friend!
Minsc will not loose another friend!
He Will Not!!!"
With explosions of snapping metal, the raging giant stepped through the opening, hands blindly seeking the throat of the druid.
But Jaheira would have none of that.
In lack of a proper weapon, she, instead of following the expected pattern of turning to run, barreled right back into him, shoulder first.
The smaller opponent's charge, despite her lack of sufficient strength, nevertheless unbalanced Minsc enough to make him stumble back into the now jagged edges of his self-made cage door.
The resulting pain were all but ignored as his knees buckled, and he found himself crouched on the ground, holding his groin.
-"Are you willing to listen to us now?!?" Jaheira growled, shaking the feeling back in her knee.
The rodent, still atop the fighters head, chittered and chattered for a while, then the berserker nodded weakly, slumping once more as he sighed.
-"What's wrong with him?" The kensai wondered, ignoring the uncomprehending, slightly mischievous look Imoen gave him.
-"His witch died at the hands of our captors."
Looking him square in the face;
-"Right in front of him."
-"…"
-"Yes."
-"Oooh…"Imoen sighed compassionately, before plucking the last blue vial from the hand of her childhood friend hand, kneeling to offer it to the defeated fighter.
Accepting the offer, Minsc looked at it with the expression of one never having wanted to rely on such extras, and then emptied it in one go.
Negrath suspected that it probably didn't even fill the large man's mouth.
Ignoring the fact that such a small dose would need some time to take effect, Minsc immediately jumped to his feet, looking for all the world as though he hadn't even had anyone slap him for several days…and were really looking forward to someone trying to.
Imoen momentarily examined a small room off of that end of the larger cell- room, finding nothing but a glowing disc of magical energy she supposed to be some sort of portal.
As it proved ineffectual in moving her anywhere, she hurried after the rest of the group as Negrath led them to the "armory".
There, Jaheira and Minsc got their preferred weapons, and although the kensai saw no flaw in the items, they evidently held no perfection in the two seasoned fighters' eyes.
Plucking and picking armor and shields from the chest, the latter being left where they lay, Minsc donned the sturdy splintmail, leaving the chainmail to Jaheira, while Imoen simply put the studded leather outfit in her pack…she was not about to let go of her only effective attacks!
Opening the door in the room, they had a quick, but somewhat chaotic encounter with some winged, magic-wielding beasts as they traversed the hallway thus discovered.
Finding the door at the other end locked beyond all picking and body- slamming, they retraced their steps to Negrath's vacated cell, the Bhaalspawn himself idly pondering why he, evidently the most important part in the maniac's "adventurer-collection", were the only one whose lock Imoen could pick.
An overwhelming surge of suspicion welled up in him, and his eyes flew of their own accord to the young multitalent, considerations of a wholly unnatural source flying through his mind.
**CUT THAT OUT!!!**
That taken care of, or so he hoped, Negrath jumped as the groups youngest member gasped and pointed.
Looking down the gangway from which his tormentor had arrived the few times the kensai had been conscious enough to notice, he saw several slumped figures, their black-on-black clothing making them all but invisible in the unlit doorway they evidently had tried to escape through.
Dismissing the "fallen folk" as only slightly less fortunate than him and his friends, he led the group trough the only exit open to them.
Around the first corner, all but just past the doorway, they were nearly blinded by a light so white it almost made their eyes water.
In the middle of the tiny room the tunnel-like hallway opened into, a slim, pillar-like structure stood, banishing whatever shadow that might have dared enter with its piercing glow.
While they watched, mesmerized, a bolt of lightning shot from it, slammed into a wall, and left another of the spellcasting beasts they had fought in the hallway off the "armory".
Imoen, ever attentive despite repeated claims to a nerveshattering headache, noticed a few of the black-clad folk slumped by a strange contraption by a side wall. Assuming they had known something she and her friends didn't, she darted into the room, jumped over the fallen men…and stopped.
Amid protrusions and unmovable levers that for all intents and purposes had none(*1), were a single, tiny switch.
Seeing the creature dive at her from the corner of her eye, she flicked it, groaning in disappointment as she saw a second bolt just managing to fly from the pillar-light before it dimmed, a thin, nigh-invisible layer of -something- closing over it.
In the resulting, almost bearable light, the thieving mage danced backwards, letting the winged beast she idly recognized as a "mephit" of some kind from her days in Candlekeep's libraries, fly past, rough wingtips rasping her throat.
**Damn, I need to get some proper healing, and that soon.** she thought, recognizing that her reflexes still left something to be desired in their effectiveness.
As the second Mephit sprang into existence, incidentally right next to where the first now hovered, screeching its challenge, Minsc, Jaheira and Negrath all charged after her, their only warning Minsc's bellow of:
-"Lay off our friend! Pick on someone…", cut short as he realized the statement he was making, inaccurate at the best of times, now where all but an indirect lie.
And as Minsc well knew, lying, indirectly or otherwise, were no business of a true ranger.
Imoen, growling to herself as she once again found herself fleeing her opponents, passed her friends running toward the beasts, and turned, immediately starting to manipulate the energies she knew where her only way of helping her friends to any effect.
An extraordinarily quickly conjured up Chromatic Orb and a group of Magic Missiles later, the three fighters found themselves out of targets before they had even reached them.
Negrath turned to look humorously at her as she grinned, almost maliciously, wiping sweatdrops of her forehead.
-"I've known archers that would be slower with their attack." He quipped, receiving nods of agreement from both his fellow fighters; so had they.
-"Well, anger'll do wonders for your performance in the strangest of places."
Minsc looking at his pet as it chittered a bit, and then back to look oddly at the young woman, Jaheira grinned slyly, nodding, while Negrath just nodded; so it could(*2).
With that, they decided to rest there, being pretty sure no-one would come through the doorway they had, and certain no enemy capable of fitting in the other would be too hard to beat for them.
For had they not vanquished the closest thing to the Lord of Murder to walk the land since Bhaal himself?
………
Getting to their feet the next morning, the group were surprised not to have been surrounded while they "rested".
Looking at each other, they shrugged, got their packs, equipped their armors and weapons, and headed through the only untried exit in the room…
That landed them straight into a land of someone's mad dreams;
Crystals.
Crystals on the floor, Crystals in the walls, Crystals around pools of strange unreflecting water that rippled in a rhythm never previously seen.
Walking around the massive crystal that made up the center of the room, and which added a strange humming to the air around them, they saw a floating figure with a blade, recognizing it as a creature not of the world they knew.
-"Ah, Negrath. Welcome to my little corner of this place. I hope you like it. I try my best to keep it a tad more appreciable than the rest."
As it floated toward them, they were puzzled to see it speak and behave as a lord accepting honored guests.
-"It's…remarkable." Negrath commented, drawing somewhat fervent nods from the others; they would at best be wholly outclassed if they had to go up against him.
-"Ah, but you have questions, no?"
Looking at his friends, who simply looked back at him when they didn't keep a close eye on the djinni-fellow, he gave a slight chuckle as he looked back to the otherworldly being;
-"Well, it wouldn't hurt."
-"I'm suspect that's the very reason why I can't answer them. My sincere apologies."
-"Oh, but of course." Negrath quipped…and could gladly have bitten his tongue off had it erased the comment.
To the groups collective disbelief, the supernatural creature ignored it, glancing at Jaheira, before turning back to the Bhaalspawn;
-"Child of Bhaal, are you instead prepared to answer me -my- question?"
-"What would I stand to loose on this?" Negrath wanted to know.
-"Nothing." The floater replied, an undertone of malice clearly evident.
-"You may leave at any time." It added, it's eyes making it clear that doing so would prove to be most unfortunate.
-"Well,…ask me, then."
-"You and your sibling", the spirit began, without further explanation; "are in separate cages. In front of each of you there's a magical button. You push it, you die.
If your sibling pushes it, he dies.
If neither of you push it, both of you die.
If both of you push it, both of you die.
Do You Push The Button?"
-"…And this is my sibling?"
-"So it is."
-"In what way?"
this puzzled the supernatural creature, for a moment, before it chuckled;
-"In the way Brothers are Brothers without divine intervention."
-"Oh. Then I push it."
-"No hesitation?"
-"He's a clean, fresh human being, I'm a Bhaalspawn. Who'd you kill? If uninformed?"
-"Important addition there. Makes all the difference…and I think you know who I'd kill in that case, given no option to ignore the both of you.
As for your response to my question, oh noble godchild, let's see how good you are dealing with the consequence of your noble act. Deal with This!"
With that, an immense Ogre Mage appeared in the spirit's place, swinging it's massive blade at Negrath's head.
In a flash, his katana was up, reducing the life-stealing blow to a messy haircut.
Mesmerized, the he stared at the hairs, cut by the mere contact with the blade of the conjured opponent.
Only a three-voiced shout of warning saved his head the second time, as he dived under a fist that would have sent it rolling on its own.
Drawing his other blade as well, he switched views.
From seeing it as combat, he viewed it as a training session with a possibly superior fighter.
In the later such he had gone through, the one rule had been not to get hit…and he had that down to near-perfection; blades had more and more often been proven to be next to useless against him as long as he could move freely.
Hopping lightly from one foot to another, he plastered a smile on his face, its sole intent to confuse and possibly anger his opponent.
As it turned out, angering it were not necessary;
Yelling an unintelligible warcry, the Ogre Mage stepped even closer, the kensai's feet only saved by their quick counteraction, as a massive fist came in hard and low.
Wanting to put an end to that, Negrath danced sideways, cutting deeply into the mages thick wrist, nearly severing it.
If he had hoped that it would diminish the efficiency with which the creature used it's blade, a two-hander even to Minsc, he were sorely disappointed:
If anything, its efficiency increased!
The kensai wondered if it had anything to do with an ability to transfer abilities from one limb to another…Helm knew he had heard of stranger things.
As the result led to a series of near-misses on the mages part, Negrath found himself changing views once more; avoidance were no longer a viable issue.
Parrying with the longblade, he cut with the katana, bluntly ignoring that the renewed force in the Ogre's swings were nigh-unstoppable to the single blade.
-"I could help…should I?" he heard Imoen call out.
-"No!" he replied, ducking low to avoid an unexpected slice;
-"He's mine!"
As he knew Minsc would understand, Jaheira would simply hold back, and Imoen…at least as he knew her…would decide that she held back her help "to show him".
Dancing backwards, he then jumped straight at the fiend, both blades extended before him.
As the massive blade came down to deflect/decapitate/cut in half his attack, he carefully maintained enough strength in the hand holding the katana to keep it straight, pouring every last shred of energy into the other, sending it up to meet the defending charge.
The katana impaling the creature, Negrath's grin froze as he watched the longblade shatter upon impact with the falling doom.
Pulling back what he could, he found himself fighting an insane bellow of laughter as the Ogre's sword, now only powered pretty much by it's own impressive weight, cut just short of his hand, slamming into the blade still a ways into the creature, causing it to drive the katana down and out, effectively finishing his otherworldly opponent.
As it fell to its knees in a daze, still trying to figure out what went wrong, Negrath pulled the blade free, only to neatly decapitate it.
-"Well done. You will, if you search thoroughly, find a man named Rielev. He seeks release.
Give it to him, and he will guide you further."
And with that, the djinni, having appeared beside him, vanished, taking the corpse with it.
-"I almost lost my life to be told to do things I would have done anyway?!?"
-"He couldn't know that." Imoen stated, sounding less certain than she'd wish to.
Minsc wandering over to a pool to drink, Jaheira looked between the two exits open to them;
-"Which one, father blade?" she quipped.
-"Take your pick, sister rose." He smiled in return, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.
Her usual wry smile in place, she nodded,
-"Aye, that'd be me. Not to be handled carelessly."
Chuckling, the two Candlekeep orphans turned to look for Minsc.
They found him staring dumbly into a pool of the strange, unreflecting water…
As they cluttered around him, he muttered;
-"Touched the water…and it…showed Minsc things."
Deciding to have a go at it, Negrath put his hand in the pool, as if to scoop up a mouthful…and froze.
Aside from the chill running up his arm upon contact with the fluid, his eyes refused to believe what they showed him:
A table, around which sat hooded figures, soundlessly arguing.
Despite hearing nothing of the evidently heated argument, and seeing only a fragment of the symbol on the table, he instinctively -knew- that they were discussing him, and that the symbol carved in the table by which they did so, where an exact replica of the one atop which Sarevok had bled his last…
With that, the water turned dark and empty once more, never deigning to show him a single one of the figures in a way that could lead to later recognition.
Knowing full well that, despite whatever still lay ahead, he were not home free yet…not by one of Kivan's longest shots.
………
However much he wished to rest there and then, he knew they couldn't afford a second more than necessary.
Heading down the widest corridor, they came upon a pack of chattering mudrunners, charging the moment the adventurers turned the corner behind which they'd been "hiding".
-"Goblins! I -hate- goblins!" Imoen complained, drawing her dagger and rushing headlong at the little beasts.
-"Is she a ranger, too?" Minsc wondered, only having seen similarly sudden battlehunger in rangers encountering their designated racial enemy.
-"No, she just really, -really- hates the little buggers. Come on, in packs they're still dangerous."
-"Dangerous to her, you mean." Jaheira commented a moment later, as she rummaged around in the mangled bodies, cut and clobbered down before ever having a chance at response.
-"Yeah, that would be it." The swordswinger sighed, looking to the thief leaning up against the side of the corridor, dejectedly studying her feet.
As they wandered further on, they ended up at a cross; an opening straight ahead and a room on either side.
Noticing Imoen shying away from the nearest room, showing fear at the sight of it without any indication that she knew why, Negrath decided to leave it for last, heading towards the other.
Opening the door, Jaheira and Imoen knew nothing of it before they were alone, Minsc and Negrath having fallen prey to the conscious-stealing "color spray" of the attacking mephit.
Before long, however, it had joined their friends on the floor, beaten to a pulp as Jaheira took out her annoyance over their slow progress on its corpse.
Imoen stalking into the room beyond the door, froze at the sight of the Golem in the middle of the floor, next to another table of defensive/offensive equipment.
Dismissing it as inferior to what they already had, reasoning that none of the fighters would be able to use the particular ones on that table effectively anyway, she headed for the chest, spending enough time going over it that when she finally popped it open, the men where able to help her judge the contents importance…which quickly transformed into the three others teaching her how to judge such things correctly.
As it turned out, when they left the room, the table had been severely depleted…weak metal in all sorts of things prior to Sarevok's demise had made them somewhat paranoid about not having replacements.
Wandering through the doorless opening, they found themselves in a different sort of rusty corridor…the key word being "rusty".
There were not a single spot of clean metal anywhere.
-"From dirt, to stone, to metal…will he have us wandering through earth, wind and fire, next?" Jaheira commented, slamming her quarterstaff into the nearby wall.
Rust falling away, rust were uncovered.
-"Hells!" the druid exclaimed; "How long has he left this unattended???"
-"What makes you think it's a he?" Negrath countered, smiling distractedly as he listened for some noise he'd just heard to reappear.
-"Trust me, It's a "he"." Jaheira acidly replied, evidently not considering it a subject worthy of discussion.
Looking at her for a moment, he chuckled;
-"Aye. A female, of whatever race, would for certain not get into the trouble this guy has, whereas we would not be free to roam his halls, looking for the exit while batting away his useless servants. Remind me to thank him for being male when we see him."
Nodding, the berserker added; "Minsc knows women that would leave people healthy as a hamster, but with no sense in their heads. No spells, not even a club. Just words they couldn't ignore."
-"Do we have to discuss this now?!?" Imoen wanted to know, inching away from them, further into the unknown corridor.
-"No, we don't." Negrath agreed, grinning humorously; "Not that we would have any real discussion on it, as we can naught but agree."
-"I would nevertheless consider it proper caution to check the secrets of that door before proceeding." Jaheira pointed out, pointing back the way they had come.
-"Imoen?" the Bhaalspawn queried, looking to the mage, now over by another door past the initial corner of the corridor, simply standing there, evidently not eager to leave -two- unchecked doors in her path, but nor showing any sign of approaching either of them.
-"Jaheira, stay with her. Minsc, follow me." Negrath instructed, retracing their steps to the unknown door.
Finding it unlocked, he pushed, rushing in with the berserker as it swung open…and stopping:
Jars.
Jars by the dozen, large, domed glass containers with what appeared to be people in each one.
Snapped out of their shock by a charging mephit's call, they made short work of it, almost absent-mindedly, before setting to the task of searching what could be searched, looking at the contents of the jars as little as practically possible.
As they joined up with their friends again, they gave Jaheira a weapon more suited to her ability, seeing her nod with something similar to satisfaction as she received the impressively crafted staff they had found.
Putting the lesser weapon up against a wall, she went through a series of thrust and parries against an invisible, equally skilled opponent, coming away from the exercise with an expression of definite pleasure;
-"Now, -this- would be a staff worthy the most powerful of mages!
Where did you say you found it?"
-"Locked in a magically trapped chest. Almost got fried."
Studying him, she tsk'd as she turned back to the weapon; "Poorly set, then."
Nodding with mock annoyance, he replied : "Must have been."
A brief, companionable sharing of smiles, and the group gathered around the nearby door.
Imoen deftly slipping inside, she were nearly just as fast back out;
-"Golems. Doesn't react to intruders."
-"Set for something else, maybe? I can't imagine anyone walking these halls just to get a Golem or two." Jaheira commented.
-"Possibly…I only know I have no urge to be fallen in the back by such creatures." The kensai stated.
-"I could…" Imoen began, going silent as she realized she could not.
-"Sorry. Forgot for a moment that I'm still learning."
-"No need of that. How many?"
-"Only two. Pure "solid mud"-folk."
-"A punch would still hurt, I imagine." Negrath smiled, gesturing to Minsc;
-"Feel like kicking some dirty butts?"
-"Aye!" the berserker exclaimed, brandishing his two-hander almost eagerly as he strode in.
-"And you're sure there were no more?" Jaheira queried, glancing from the door to Imoen with bored annoyance.
-"No. I'm guessing Minsc'll do fine alone."
-"We all -know- he will, girl. That's what annoys me."
Turning to Negrath:
-"My turn next time, bladesinger?"
-"When I can trust you not to loose your head." Were the cautious reply.
-"The more you hold me back, the greater that chance will be! I demand the right to fight!"
-"What'll Khalid say if we find him after I've managed to get his wife killed?" Negrath quipped, regretting the comment as he saw all spirit fleeing the druid.
Clearly fighting to uphold a semblance of her usual personality, she shrugged noncommittally;
-"He'd scold you for the rest of your life, which in turn would make you want to kill yourself to get away…you wouldn't otherwise."
-"He wouldn't try to avenge you?"
-"Why do you think he'd bother to hang around with you for other reasons?"
-"Your standing order for him to do so?" the kensai smiled benevolently.
At that, some life returned as she stared him in the eye, smiling mischievously;
-"You think I'm the one to give those?"
The resulting image of the valor-cunning Fighter giving orders to the viciously independent druid…orders she followed…nearly caused Negrath to laugh out loud.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he calmed himself, replying with a smile;
-"None of you do…correct?"
-"None of us would dare." She countered, turning to continue down the corridor as Minsc returned, a satisfied grin on his face, brushing dirt of his blade.
-"I'll bet…" the Bhaalspawn commented, before he remembered that she'd said that -neither- of them would dare…
Pondering that, he followed as she waltzed through a sudden patch of noisy goblins to get at their archers further up.
The tiny thugs so much chunky soup on the floor, the two turned their attention to the fact that their friends had gone a different path.
Retracing their steps to an extension off the corridor they were in that they had ignored in the ruckus of the annoying little buggers, they hurried through it, into a room that struck the kensai as odd.
All the room, long as it was, seemed to center around one object; another of the domed jars.
In this one, though, the inhabitant seems slightly more alive...it actually turned to look at them;
-"Ah, who be thee? Servants of the master?"
Unsure from where the voice had issued, but assuming the creature in the jar had something to do with it, and would be able to hear him as well, Negrath approached, shaking his head as he sheathed his katana;
-"Not of any master putting his servants in glass jars. Who are you, and what do you know of the bastard that put us here?"
Spending a moment to figure out that he by "us" meant his companions, and not the two of them, the man-thing in the jar smiled like a benevolent uncle in the strange liquid filling the dome;
-"Prisoners be ye? Not be calling the master names, else you shall surely perish.
Left me here he has, for far too long to be of comfort…"
-"And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do about that?" Negrath grunted, instinctively repulsed by taking to a person that by all accounts should have drowned ages ago.
-"He promised to release me once he had aid to give me, dying as I was…or dead, it doesn't matter…I'll never get anywhere now…poor Rielev…"
-"Rielev?"
The creature nodded, dazed puzzlement in its eyes;
-"That be me. You seek Rielev?"
-"Aye, that we do." Minsc commented from the back of the group, keeping an ear to the door.
-"Found me then, you have."
-"So I see." Nodded Negrath, looking distractedly at Jaheira and Imoen;
-"What was it he would tell us again?"
-"If you know what Rielev will tell," the creature wondered, "Why look for him?"
-"You haven't told us anything yet, have you?" Imoen pointed out.
Turning disturbingly empty eyes on the sticky-fingered mage, Rielev just stared for a while, before nodding;
-"So I haven't."
-"Then why don't you?" she wondered.
-"Rielev doesn't know what to tell." The creature stated, as though it was obvious.
-"The old "you didn't ask"-routine, eh?" Jaheira smirked, before brandishing her staff;
-"Why are we here? Where is this? And who the hells is your master?!?"
-"…Rielev cannot tell."
-"-Can- not or -will- not ?!?"
-"Cannot."
-"So, what can you tell us?" Negrath requested, cringing slightly as the druid smashed her weapon down on a nearby table hard enough to almost break it in half.
Indeed a staff worthy of kings, it didn't even bend.
Idly determining that they had better locate her husband and his calming influence on her temper post-haste, he turned to listen as Rielev started talking in his strange, oddly interesting fashion, evidently intending to tell them every bit of his knowledge…to the letter.
………
-"Hold on! Cast out, you say?"
-"Indeed. Out he was cast, cast out he was. Shall I continue?"
-"Ah, no. Who were you? -Aside- from this monster's "friend"?"
-"Not of your kind. Not your kind…but you…"he continued, turning his wholly inhuman gaze on Jaheira, who recoiled;
-"You are no relative of mine! In any way!"
-"No, no…so I am not. But close…ooh, I was close…"
Momentarily pausing as her mind wandered, she then steeled her resolve;
-"You were not! We could not be further apart if you were a gnome and I a dragon! You were not!"
-"Uncomfortable memories, Jaheira?" Negrath cautiously queried.
A burning glare made him silently retract his question.
-"So, at one point you and the master were friends, and then he was cast out…from where?" Imoen interjected, in an attempt to erase the tension.
-"Rielev cannot remember. He just wants release."
-"And how would we give you that?"
A sudden light in his eyes, the creature that once had been kin to its master, but now barely were kin to itself, leaned toward the glass, lifting a bony hand to point toward the base of the jar;
-"Jewels. Crystals. Remove, and Rielev dies. Put in other's. They might tell more. Answer questions. Give you purpose. A way out. Please."
Reaching for the object, visible as a set of rubies lodged in a slot at the metal base, as soon as they had been indicated, the mageling thief's hand shivered as she fought to hold it back, allowing Rielev to finish his fervent farewell-speech.
The moment he went silent, her fingers closed on the life-giving item, all but tearing it from its socket.
Looking up from her crouch, she watched as he fell, unnaturally slowly in the liquid, to settle in a pile of bone and lifeless skin.
She kept looking until the crystals were plucked from her numb fingers, at which point she turned to look at her childhood friend;
-"I…I had no control…I…a part of me wanted to kill…wanted to see him die…I…I had no control…"
The anguish in her eyes nearly tore his heart asunder.
Not wanting to rest in the room with the dead…creature, they headed back to the largest known room in the dungeon, where the two men had seen several of the domed things.
Walking into the room, almost drowning in its ominous silence, the other three whirled around as Imoen, having lagged behind as they crossed the threshold, fell to her knees clutching her head, and nearly toppling over as she screamed.
The kensai and the berserker capable of little other than looking on, but both wishing they would get a round alone with the man responsible, Jaheira hurried to kneel at the thief's side;
-"What, child? What can we do?"
-"Out…out of here…" she whimpered, huddled together as if to hide from the light flowing from the jars surrounding them.
Gnashing her teeth, but wisely holding her anger back, the druid turned to the other two;
-"I'll take her outside."
Giving them both a warning glare;
-"But take care not to waste time. I'm adding this to the list of complaints I'll give the bloody beast…-personally-!"
The two bladeswingers wincing in mock pity for the mysterious man behind their capture, Minsc followed the women, lifting Imoen as if she weighed nothing…not that any of them believed it would have mattered much to the berserker if she had been equal in weight to an ancient red dragon, he would have done his best to carry her either way.
………
Coming out, shuddering from the insanity he had been an indirect witness to, the Bhaalspawn gestured for the others to follow as he headed back to Rielev's final resting place, plucking an odd rock from off the badly treated table, and headed back out, offering his friends nothing but an apologetic shrug and a wry smile.
As they silently followed, he lead them up the corridor in which he and Jaheira had eradicated the patch of the dungeon's many goblin bands, he turned the first corner, steering straight at the door ahead.
As he was about to open it, a mephit shrieked from within, almost as if it knew they were there, and issued a challenge.
Sharing a wry smile with Jaheira, and drawing his blade in unison with Minsc, he held back for Imoen to make her comment. She didn't disappoint;
-"They are small, but honestly: how big a body can you build around so small a brain?"
Chuckling, almost maliciously; Jaheira quipped;
-"Doesn't matter. The creature that is to stop me from paying our captor my "respects" is not yet created."
With that, they rushed the door, Minsc slamming it off its hinges, engaging at once the collection of winged and ground-bound beasts within.
When he a while later could be bothered to pay attention to their surroundings, as Imoen had for several moments already at that point, Negrath were stunned;
Bookshelf upon bookshelf, a table to read by, even the odd pedestal for preaching or a loose scroll shoved in a convenient space…it was Candlekeep all over again. And combined with the surrounding dungeon, a natural ingredient to shock people from such a place.
**What the hell is it this guy want with me, that he goes to such lengths to torture me?** Negrath wondered, before realizing that he, for all intents and purposes, were never meant to see this room…something the mass of goblins and mephits that had currently swarmed his friends were further proof of.
Holding back so as not to endanger his companions, already way to close together for a safe fighting environment, he found time to ponder; if they killed enough of these folks, would it have the same effect as Sarevok's insane plan? Or would it only be "civilized" blood that were accepted in such an undertaking?
Noticing that the sounds of combat had diminished, he looked to his friends…and found the previously busy adventurers now simply watching as the druid made short work of every small-bodied individual unfortunate enough to come within reach…and she was not averse to giving chase, either.
As she felled the last goblin at the only visible exit, the two from Candlekeep had already gone through a major part of the bookshelves, treating both books and loose parchment like precious treasures, possible to sunder by a harsh thought…and to at least one of them, it were just that…
-"Ooh, this reminds me -so- much of Candlekeep…dusty old tomes all over, bookcases nearly spilling…It's…like we never left…"
Dreamy expression, so short to exist, gone, she leaned against the side of a bookshelf, sliding down to sit at it's base, grabbing a book from the row behind her head, and opening it up in her lap, turning a few pages solemnly before looking up at the others, now all looking at her as if unsure what they could do.
-"But we did, didn't we?"
Receiving bewildered nods from all around, she looked to the kensai.
-"Negrath, I just want to go home again!"
Knowing as well as they all did, that if Candlekeep at all were like what they remembered, they would not be welcome there anymore, she sighed, turning back to the book;
-"I don't care where, as long as I can call it home."
-"Boo says: Home is where the heart is. While with friends, you -are- home."
Chuckling softly, she smiled sorrowfully at the ranger and his pet;
-"Sorry, but I think I'd prefer a home that didn't require quite this much walking.
OR riding!" she added as the rodent chittered at her.
-"Would you accept a druid's grove?" Jaheira wondered, kneeling by the thief.
Smiling benevolently, she added;
-"I think I know a few that would be interested in a talented mage…?"
Almost laughing out loud, Imoen shook her head;
-"No, I don't think My kind of magic study would fit badly in -any- kind of natural residence."
-"Then what you require is a civilized, still-standing home with people that would accept a thieving mage? I'm sorry, I don't think even…our father would have accepted such a one." Negrath quipped, neatly skipping over the scholarly mage's name.
Laughing so hard the book fell off her lap, the recently so somber young woman hollered;
-"I -know-!" evidently finding it the most humorous thing in all the realms.
By way of a tension release chain reaction, her friends soon joined her in an all out laughing-fest.
That'd be the beginning of the first part.
The second you likely already know.
(and to think this guy started out as a collection of odd sounds, and a wish to try out the new specialty classes… vbg)
As for this particular piece, I have one request…in connection with my numerous rants on the newsgroup about the novels, I'd like to know how I fare in comparison…
Please…Tear it to pieces.
Pluck it apart, point out every flaw, make up some if you truly can't find them(severely doubt thatg) and do what you can to humble me regarding my writing skill.
(the odd nice comment wouldn't be -completely- unwelcome, though. :-P )
When I start posting The BG1-portion though, let me warn you; then I'll NEED every kind word you got, more than likely…I just cannot seem to do decent literary work with that one…(possibly because my thorough, well- remembered reading-through of Bethphel makes me think that I couldn't possibly come up with anything viable along the same, seriously tangled storyline.
*1: Sorry, just couldn't resist :P
*2: And so, as some of you probably know, it will… ;)
And BTW, if anyone can point me in the direction of an exhaustive biography on Mr. "E", I'd be -most- grateful.
Next part to arrive shortly…and that's a threat! :P
.
Yeah, that would be an idea…might help me keep avoiding that quest-mess in BG1 even more(.
As of yet, this is only from the Dungeon to the keep, then the portion I originally started with, FROM the keep to the end of SoA…later, I'll probably tag on the ToB-piece, then it's on to either small sidesteps, (foreseen I don't post them alongside; keep an eye out :P) or to this fellow's experiences in NEVERWINTER NIGHTS!!! **slobber**
NEGRATH'S TALE;
FROM THE DUNGEON TO THE KEEP
Pain.
Red hot, searing pain, made no less by the lack of memory from a time before it existed.
The man in the oversized metal birdcage would have escaped to his innermost sanctuary, had there been even the slightest chance that the pain would even diminish there…on the numerous occasions he had tried it(sometime before the dawn of time), the pain had followed him.
Had he cared to, he would have been puzzled at the fact that while there, he had felt another, different pain…as though the outside pain were simply a distraction.
Exhausted without ever having moved of his own accord as far as he could recall, screaming nerve endings telling him that his body was one big, open wound, he were unable to summon the strength to cringe as feet approached, his mind to weakened to care that the steps were to light, to hurried, to come from his nigh-ever-present tormentor.
Ears dazedly perking as unusual sounds came from where the walker(runner?) had stopped, he curled up into a ball as metal screeched, and the too-light feet entered his cage.
The first skin-contact were something of an anticlimax; as though his skin where still whole, uncut, healthy.
The voice immediately following it, where originally ignored, as the person that daily/weekly/hourly visited this pain upon him never wavered from his insane ramblings of "potential" and "untapped ability".
The slap upon his peculiarly painless skin of his face, though, were wholly impossible to ignore.
Blinking his eyes against the only light his mind could be bothered to remember, he found an addition to the unchanging scenario;
Kneeling beside him, looking anxious, were a young woman, garbed more for a trip in the countryside than in any kind of dungeon.
Just looking confusedly at this new inhabitant of his cage, his head ached as he tried to remember what was so strange about her…
By the time she spoke again, mere moments after the first, he had figured it out…
-"Come on, wake up you, wake up! On your feet!"
-"You opened the door." He commented, his voice little more than a rasp in his throat.
Grabbing him by the front of a shirt he had been unaware he had, she bodily lifted him off the floor;
-"GET UP!"
This time finding the energy to cringe, he peered at her, finding that doing as she said would probably be a good idea…if for nothing else than to figure out if he could.
Nigh-ineffective as her strength was in the endeavor, he were nonetheless thankful for her help…he had severe doubts he would ever have gotten his head up to it's intended height again without it.
Looking at her from his new altitude, he found that she were a head or two shorter than himself, something that troubled the part of his brain that usually recollected memories for him.
As he just stood there, studying her, she sighed like one who just lost her will to live.
-"Please! We need to get out, and I can't do that alone…nor do I want to. Come on, we need to go!"
-"…Imoen?"
Embracing him hard and sudden enough to almost bring them back to the floor if not for the surrounding metal wall he staggered into, she nodded fervently;
-"Yes!"
Pulling back, she studied him in return;
-"Do you remember your own name?"
-"I…I'm some sort of…fighter?"
-"Negrath! You are Negrath! You are a kensai, thanks to mingling with the guards in Candlekeep and wanting to be their better…"
At the mention of the honorable library fortress, her eyes glazes over, and her voice fades.
He simply looks on as she then smiles, appearing to relive memories of a place and time that to her is all but perfection.
The stirring the name caused in his own mind, makes him believe they probably shared some of those memories…though he probably wouldn't recall them as joyfully.
Blinking, a tear running down her face, she looks at him, grabbing his hand;
-"Come, we simply -must- get out of here, and we must do so NOW!"
Unenthusiastically following as she towed him from the cage, he numbly shook his head;
-"No,…no, there are others…we're not supposed to be alone…we must find…"
Smiling the smile of one never having planned it otherwise, she glanced back at him;
-"I see two other prisoners in those cages over there…might be them…some of them, anyway."
-"Enough." Were his responding statement, followed by a nod signifying a certainty he felt unsure he'd ever really feel, as the ease of their capture began becoming evident to his awakening memory.
-"Yeah, we had a pretty powerful group, didn't we? I simply had to change profession to keep up!" she laughed, the sound quickly getting stuck in her throat.
-"The travelling group who plans to do great deeds without the aid of a skilled thief won't last long…and anyone worthy of such deeds know that well enough." He assured her, silently puzzled at his sudden eloquence.
So was she, evidently, as a smile of relief spread across her face as she nodded her thanks.
Approaching the closest cage indicated to him, recognizing the shape sitting unmoving in it as vaguely familiar, he almost jumped back as the prisoner, proving to be a battlehardened female of mixed heritage, suddenly stood at the door to her cell, staring at him in surprise.
As her eyes fell on Imoen, she nodded once, a wry smile indicating knowledge of how he came to be free.
Then, turning back to him as they stopped in front of her cage, she spoke, the commanding, yet somewhat compassionate tone did more to refresh his memory than anything Imoen could ever tell him:
-"Quickly, we must get out of here before our captor returns!"
Chuckling humorlessly, she added: "I swear, travelling with you is -never- dull."
-"I can be inclined to agree,…Jaheira?" he replied, his recollection of the time before some event his mind fervently held back from him, and his present location seemingly one endless line of battles, ambushes, betrayals and god-aspiring, war-mongering family members...And one unexpected, intense feeling of heartwarming joy, caused by a party member not so much hidden by the shadows of his mind as a part of them…
-"…A Drow…" he intoned, unaware that he had left the others in a most unwelcome stretch of inactivity.
Jaheira said nothing, but as were usual for her, her eyes stated her opinion on the matter with all due clarity.
Imoen, however, spoke up;
-"Viconia? What about her?"
Glancing at the younger woman as though pitying her inability to see what was right in front of her, Jaheira rattled the cage door impatiently;
-"Never mind the Drow! Get this door open first, so we may escape as complete a group as possible!"
-"You seem…incomplete, somehow…?" he countered, seeming to have not heard her request at all.
Breathing deeply a few times, the druid smiled wryly, as she was wont to do, and nodded, her voice several notes softer;
-"Yes, you could say that. My husband Khalid is not with us here, and I worry for him.
Yet another reason to start moving elsewhere!" she stated, shaking the bars for emphasis.
-"Imoen?" he queried, stooping to pay close attention as she set to work on the strange-looking lock, for no better reason than to observe talents he would never master.
Having gone through a selection of items, looking more like rubble found on a dirty floor somewhere than a thief's usual equipment, she looked at him, shaking her head in disappointment, before standing to look at the druid…a druid that all but stomped her foot impatiently;
-"Am I supposed to be surprised?
GO! You can do nothing here with what you have! Find the key -meant- for the lock, and we'll all be happier for it."
-"I'm going, I'm going." Imoen muttered, setting off back the way they'd come.
-"We'll be back." Negrath assured her as he followed, well aware that it was wholly unnecessary to do so.
Catching up to the lithe mageling thief, he found that she was heading towards a door in the dungeon wall, near where they had stepped out of his cage, pushing through it without even slowing down.
By the time he followed her through, she was already by the other end, feeling along the edges of a pictureframe.
Glancing back at him as she moved on to another, she commented; "To many pictures here…one of them simply has to hide something.
Working her way around the room, she momentarily looked to him, still standing in the doorway, unmoving, following her with his eyes.
-"Table, chest." She ordered, adding distractedly: "I've checked them both. They're clean."
Following her "instructions" he moved over to the table, surprised that up until her comment on it, the pile of fighting equipment covering it had seemed all but natural.
Rummaging through it, he was immensely pleased to find both a katana and a longsword in the bundle; the two weapons he knew how to use effectively…and with both of them, he wouldn't need to be encumbered with a shield he wouldn't be able to use anyway.
Memorizing the fact that it also contained a sturdy quarterstaff and a well- honed Two-hand blade, he moved on to the chest, kneeling over it in time to have Imoen stumble backwards over him with an anguished scream;
-"NO!"
Smoke rising from her clothes in a patch crossing over to the bared skin at her throat, she pulled ineffectually at her tattered shirt, knowing full well that, seeing how the dart drenched in the stuff had already penetrated the skin at her shoulder, whether the acid-splattered piece of cloth were on her or not, were inconsequential.
-"Not now, not this way…" she wailed, scrambling to her unsteady feet, all but falling into the wall beneath the now torn painting, stabbing her hand into the hole, unheeding of any potential remaining traps within the hidden compartment, in moments retracting it with a familiar blue vial in hand.
Seeing it for herself as she slid down to sit against the wall, she almost tossed it to the floor: "Not enough!"
Still kneeling by the chest, Negrath blinked, coming into action just in time to stop her throwing motion, plucking the bottle from her fingers, pulling it open, and holding it to her lips;
-"It will have more effect in you than on the floor, though. I can add to its work once it's in you. OK?"
A flicker of recognition, and she nodded weakly, already pale as the acid worked her system into shutdown.
-"Drink, damn you!"
The sharp bark having the intended effect of focusing her attention on him, he tipped the blue-tinted fluid into her mouth.
Seeing her swallow the few mouthfuls it made up, he unceremoniously dropped the empty vial, enveloping her shoulder in his hands, calling on the healing magics he commanded as part of his divine heritage.
Noticing, as he did so, that from where the ability originated in him, there were now a slight murmur of noise, as though someone tried to speak to him. Realizing at once what, or rather who, it was, he clamped down on it, straining to shut it out as he used the powers his divine father's blood granted him.
As the healing force trickled to a stop, he grew cold as ice.
**OK, you bastard! You want murder? I'll give you murder. But only if you let her live! You let her die, this entire deal stops right here…and where does that leave you?!?**
With a sense of having been temporarily accepted as the keeper of some great honor, he almost cried in relief as he felt the restorative energies flow once more.
………
Her eyes fluttering open, the mageling thief tentatively lifted a hand to test her shoulder, hissing as her fingers met the still-open wound.
Looking at the figure crouched beside her, she smiled her thanks, uncertain of the current strength of her voice.
-"I had to concentrate on the poison." The kensai explained, helping her to her feet.
-"That's OK," Imoen smiled, coughing slightly: "I felt two more of them in there. They should probably do the trick."
Plucking the aforementioned items from the hollow behind the now all but empty frame, he watched as she hungrily consumed one.
Glancing at him, she then turned to the hidden compartment again, reaching in and feeling around a bit, before stepping back, an exquisite dagger in her hand.
Seeing him study the weapon appreciatively, she nodded, smiling;
-"Yes, it's quite the special item for a thief, this. A magical dagger!"
-"I take it you won't be stepping face to face with an opponent of your own free will, though?"
Looking at him with something close to shame, she shook her head:
-"Not if I get to choose, no. Not now, perhaps never again. I'm a thief with spells, and as such should never go face to face with anyone."
Wiping her brow theatrically, she adopted Jaheira's sly smile as she sighed:
-"Haven't I learned -that-!"
Holding back the automatic response of "I would guess you have" as unnecessary, the fighter led them, somewhat hurriedly, back to the half-elf in the cage, having found an odd-looking key on the table.
As the lock of the cage popped open, one item of impatient druid came rushing out, pulling the two with her over to the cell beside hers.
There, slumped by the wall behind it, a figure sat that only could belong to a single man in all of Faerun as far as Negrath were aware.
The small, furry creature sitting perched atop his head, quivering its whiskers at them, only confirmed his suspicions.
Jaheira wasted no more time on unnecessary explanations, than she would on necessary ones;
-"MINSC, Get up! As I've been trying to tell you for the last…hells, I don't know. But your pet is not trying to cheer you up! We are all here!"
No response, aside from a bit of frenzied chittering from Boo.
Hammering the bars with her fist, the druid grew severely annoyed as well:
-"MINSC! On your feet before I come in there and strangle that chattering beast of yours!"
not were the words out, before one furious berserker stood, snarling back at her through the bars, nearly causing her to fall flat on her behind;
-"Threaten Boo, and you threaten Minsc!
Threaten Minsc, and you DIE!"
-"Whoa! Hold on!" Negrath interrupted, as the large warrior began tearing at the bars of his cage…which seemed strangely empty of the joints and links necessary for the workings of a door.
-"Boo Minsc's friend!
Minsc will not loose another friend!
He Will Not!!!"
With explosions of snapping metal, the raging giant stepped through the opening, hands blindly seeking the throat of the druid.
But Jaheira would have none of that.
In lack of a proper weapon, she, instead of following the expected pattern of turning to run, barreled right back into him, shoulder first.
The smaller opponent's charge, despite her lack of sufficient strength, nevertheless unbalanced Minsc enough to make him stumble back into the now jagged edges of his self-made cage door.
The resulting pain were all but ignored as his knees buckled, and he found himself crouched on the ground, holding his groin.
-"Are you willing to listen to us now?!?" Jaheira growled, shaking the feeling back in her knee.
The rodent, still atop the fighters head, chittered and chattered for a while, then the berserker nodded weakly, slumping once more as he sighed.
-"What's wrong with him?" The kensai wondered, ignoring the uncomprehending, slightly mischievous look Imoen gave him.
-"His witch died at the hands of our captors."
Looking him square in the face;
-"Right in front of him."
-"…"
-"Yes."
-"Oooh…"Imoen sighed compassionately, before plucking the last blue vial from the hand of her childhood friend hand, kneeling to offer it to the defeated fighter.
Accepting the offer, Minsc looked at it with the expression of one never having wanted to rely on such extras, and then emptied it in one go.
Negrath suspected that it probably didn't even fill the large man's mouth.
Ignoring the fact that such a small dose would need some time to take effect, Minsc immediately jumped to his feet, looking for all the world as though he hadn't even had anyone slap him for several days…and were really looking forward to someone trying to.
Imoen momentarily examined a small room off of that end of the larger cell- room, finding nothing but a glowing disc of magical energy she supposed to be some sort of portal.
As it proved ineffectual in moving her anywhere, she hurried after the rest of the group as Negrath led them to the "armory".
There, Jaheira and Minsc got their preferred weapons, and although the kensai saw no flaw in the items, they evidently held no perfection in the two seasoned fighters' eyes.
Plucking and picking armor and shields from the chest, the latter being left where they lay, Minsc donned the sturdy splintmail, leaving the chainmail to Jaheira, while Imoen simply put the studded leather outfit in her pack…she was not about to let go of her only effective attacks!
Opening the door in the room, they had a quick, but somewhat chaotic encounter with some winged, magic-wielding beasts as they traversed the hallway thus discovered.
Finding the door at the other end locked beyond all picking and body- slamming, they retraced their steps to Negrath's vacated cell, the Bhaalspawn himself idly pondering why he, evidently the most important part in the maniac's "adventurer-collection", were the only one whose lock Imoen could pick.
An overwhelming surge of suspicion welled up in him, and his eyes flew of their own accord to the young multitalent, considerations of a wholly unnatural source flying through his mind.
**CUT THAT OUT!!!**
That taken care of, or so he hoped, Negrath jumped as the groups youngest member gasped and pointed.
Looking down the gangway from which his tormentor had arrived the few times the kensai had been conscious enough to notice, he saw several slumped figures, their black-on-black clothing making them all but invisible in the unlit doorway they evidently had tried to escape through.
Dismissing the "fallen folk" as only slightly less fortunate than him and his friends, he led the group trough the only exit open to them.
Around the first corner, all but just past the doorway, they were nearly blinded by a light so white it almost made their eyes water.
In the middle of the tiny room the tunnel-like hallway opened into, a slim, pillar-like structure stood, banishing whatever shadow that might have dared enter with its piercing glow.
While they watched, mesmerized, a bolt of lightning shot from it, slammed into a wall, and left another of the spellcasting beasts they had fought in the hallway off the "armory".
Imoen, ever attentive despite repeated claims to a nerveshattering headache, noticed a few of the black-clad folk slumped by a strange contraption by a side wall. Assuming they had known something she and her friends didn't, she darted into the room, jumped over the fallen men…and stopped.
Amid protrusions and unmovable levers that for all intents and purposes had none(*1), were a single, tiny switch.
Seeing the creature dive at her from the corner of her eye, she flicked it, groaning in disappointment as she saw a second bolt just managing to fly from the pillar-light before it dimmed, a thin, nigh-invisible layer of -something- closing over it.
In the resulting, almost bearable light, the thieving mage danced backwards, letting the winged beast she idly recognized as a "mephit" of some kind from her days in Candlekeep's libraries, fly past, rough wingtips rasping her throat.
**Damn, I need to get some proper healing, and that soon.** she thought, recognizing that her reflexes still left something to be desired in their effectiveness.
As the second Mephit sprang into existence, incidentally right next to where the first now hovered, screeching its challenge, Minsc, Jaheira and Negrath all charged after her, their only warning Minsc's bellow of:
-"Lay off our friend! Pick on someone…", cut short as he realized the statement he was making, inaccurate at the best of times, now where all but an indirect lie.
And as Minsc well knew, lying, indirectly or otherwise, were no business of a true ranger.
Imoen, growling to herself as she once again found herself fleeing her opponents, passed her friends running toward the beasts, and turned, immediately starting to manipulate the energies she knew where her only way of helping her friends to any effect.
An extraordinarily quickly conjured up Chromatic Orb and a group of Magic Missiles later, the three fighters found themselves out of targets before they had even reached them.
Negrath turned to look humorously at her as she grinned, almost maliciously, wiping sweatdrops of her forehead.
-"I've known archers that would be slower with their attack." He quipped, receiving nods of agreement from both his fellow fighters; so had they.
-"Well, anger'll do wonders for your performance in the strangest of places."
Minsc looking at his pet as it chittered a bit, and then back to look oddly at the young woman, Jaheira grinned slyly, nodding, while Negrath just nodded; so it could(*2).
With that, they decided to rest there, being pretty sure no-one would come through the doorway they had, and certain no enemy capable of fitting in the other would be too hard to beat for them.
For had they not vanquished the closest thing to the Lord of Murder to walk the land since Bhaal himself?
………
Getting to their feet the next morning, the group were surprised not to have been surrounded while they "rested".
Looking at each other, they shrugged, got their packs, equipped their armors and weapons, and headed through the only untried exit in the room…
That landed them straight into a land of someone's mad dreams;
Crystals.
Crystals on the floor, Crystals in the walls, Crystals around pools of strange unreflecting water that rippled in a rhythm never previously seen.
Walking around the massive crystal that made up the center of the room, and which added a strange humming to the air around them, they saw a floating figure with a blade, recognizing it as a creature not of the world they knew.
-"Ah, Negrath. Welcome to my little corner of this place. I hope you like it. I try my best to keep it a tad more appreciable than the rest."
As it floated toward them, they were puzzled to see it speak and behave as a lord accepting honored guests.
-"It's…remarkable." Negrath commented, drawing somewhat fervent nods from the others; they would at best be wholly outclassed if they had to go up against him.
-"Ah, but you have questions, no?"
Looking at his friends, who simply looked back at him when they didn't keep a close eye on the djinni-fellow, he gave a slight chuckle as he looked back to the otherworldly being;
-"Well, it wouldn't hurt."
-"I'm suspect that's the very reason why I can't answer them. My sincere apologies."
-"Oh, but of course." Negrath quipped…and could gladly have bitten his tongue off had it erased the comment.
To the groups collective disbelief, the supernatural creature ignored it, glancing at Jaheira, before turning back to the Bhaalspawn;
-"Child of Bhaal, are you instead prepared to answer me -my- question?"
-"What would I stand to loose on this?" Negrath wanted to know.
-"Nothing." The floater replied, an undertone of malice clearly evident.
-"You may leave at any time." It added, it's eyes making it clear that doing so would prove to be most unfortunate.
-"Well,…ask me, then."
-"You and your sibling", the spirit began, without further explanation; "are in separate cages. In front of each of you there's a magical button. You push it, you die.
If your sibling pushes it, he dies.
If neither of you push it, both of you die.
If both of you push it, both of you die.
Do You Push The Button?"
-"…And this is my sibling?"
-"So it is."
-"In what way?"
this puzzled the supernatural creature, for a moment, before it chuckled;
-"In the way Brothers are Brothers without divine intervention."
-"Oh. Then I push it."
-"No hesitation?"
-"He's a clean, fresh human being, I'm a Bhaalspawn. Who'd you kill? If uninformed?"
-"Important addition there. Makes all the difference…and I think you know who I'd kill in that case, given no option to ignore the both of you.
As for your response to my question, oh noble godchild, let's see how good you are dealing with the consequence of your noble act. Deal with This!"
With that, an immense Ogre Mage appeared in the spirit's place, swinging it's massive blade at Negrath's head.
In a flash, his katana was up, reducing the life-stealing blow to a messy haircut.
Mesmerized, the he stared at the hairs, cut by the mere contact with the blade of the conjured opponent.
Only a three-voiced shout of warning saved his head the second time, as he dived under a fist that would have sent it rolling on its own.
Drawing his other blade as well, he switched views.
From seeing it as combat, he viewed it as a training session with a possibly superior fighter.
In the later such he had gone through, the one rule had been not to get hit…and he had that down to near-perfection; blades had more and more often been proven to be next to useless against him as long as he could move freely.
Hopping lightly from one foot to another, he plastered a smile on his face, its sole intent to confuse and possibly anger his opponent.
As it turned out, angering it were not necessary;
Yelling an unintelligible warcry, the Ogre Mage stepped even closer, the kensai's feet only saved by their quick counteraction, as a massive fist came in hard and low.
Wanting to put an end to that, Negrath danced sideways, cutting deeply into the mages thick wrist, nearly severing it.
If he had hoped that it would diminish the efficiency with which the creature used it's blade, a two-hander even to Minsc, he were sorely disappointed:
If anything, its efficiency increased!
The kensai wondered if it had anything to do with an ability to transfer abilities from one limb to another…Helm knew he had heard of stranger things.
As the result led to a series of near-misses on the mages part, Negrath found himself changing views once more; avoidance were no longer a viable issue.
Parrying with the longblade, he cut with the katana, bluntly ignoring that the renewed force in the Ogre's swings were nigh-unstoppable to the single blade.
-"I could help…should I?" he heard Imoen call out.
-"No!" he replied, ducking low to avoid an unexpected slice;
-"He's mine!"
As he knew Minsc would understand, Jaheira would simply hold back, and Imoen…at least as he knew her…would decide that she held back her help "to show him".
Dancing backwards, he then jumped straight at the fiend, both blades extended before him.
As the massive blade came down to deflect/decapitate/cut in half his attack, he carefully maintained enough strength in the hand holding the katana to keep it straight, pouring every last shred of energy into the other, sending it up to meet the defending charge.
The katana impaling the creature, Negrath's grin froze as he watched the longblade shatter upon impact with the falling doom.
Pulling back what he could, he found himself fighting an insane bellow of laughter as the Ogre's sword, now only powered pretty much by it's own impressive weight, cut just short of his hand, slamming into the blade still a ways into the creature, causing it to drive the katana down and out, effectively finishing his otherworldly opponent.
As it fell to its knees in a daze, still trying to figure out what went wrong, Negrath pulled the blade free, only to neatly decapitate it.
-"Well done. You will, if you search thoroughly, find a man named Rielev. He seeks release.
Give it to him, and he will guide you further."
And with that, the djinni, having appeared beside him, vanished, taking the corpse with it.
-"I almost lost my life to be told to do things I would have done anyway?!?"
-"He couldn't know that." Imoen stated, sounding less certain than she'd wish to.
Minsc wandering over to a pool to drink, Jaheira looked between the two exits open to them;
-"Which one, father blade?" she quipped.
-"Take your pick, sister rose." He smiled in return, a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.
Her usual wry smile in place, she nodded,
-"Aye, that'd be me. Not to be handled carelessly."
Chuckling, the two Candlekeep orphans turned to look for Minsc.
They found him staring dumbly into a pool of the strange, unreflecting water…
As they cluttered around him, he muttered;
-"Touched the water…and it…showed Minsc things."
Deciding to have a go at it, Negrath put his hand in the pool, as if to scoop up a mouthful…and froze.
Aside from the chill running up his arm upon contact with the fluid, his eyes refused to believe what they showed him:
A table, around which sat hooded figures, soundlessly arguing.
Despite hearing nothing of the evidently heated argument, and seeing only a fragment of the symbol on the table, he instinctively -knew- that they were discussing him, and that the symbol carved in the table by which they did so, where an exact replica of the one atop which Sarevok had bled his last…
With that, the water turned dark and empty once more, never deigning to show him a single one of the figures in a way that could lead to later recognition.
Knowing full well that, despite whatever still lay ahead, he were not home free yet…not by one of Kivan's longest shots.
………
However much he wished to rest there and then, he knew they couldn't afford a second more than necessary.
Heading down the widest corridor, they came upon a pack of chattering mudrunners, charging the moment the adventurers turned the corner behind which they'd been "hiding".
-"Goblins! I -hate- goblins!" Imoen complained, drawing her dagger and rushing headlong at the little beasts.
-"Is she a ranger, too?" Minsc wondered, only having seen similarly sudden battlehunger in rangers encountering their designated racial enemy.
-"No, she just really, -really- hates the little buggers. Come on, in packs they're still dangerous."
-"Dangerous to her, you mean." Jaheira commented a moment later, as she rummaged around in the mangled bodies, cut and clobbered down before ever having a chance at response.
-"Yeah, that would be it." The swordswinger sighed, looking to the thief leaning up against the side of the corridor, dejectedly studying her feet.
As they wandered further on, they ended up at a cross; an opening straight ahead and a room on either side.
Noticing Imoen shying away from the nearest room, showing fear at the sight of it without any indication that she knew why, Negrath decided to leave it for last, heading towards the other.
Opening the door, Jaheira and Imoen knew nothing of it before they were alone, Minsc and Negrath having fallen prey to the conscious-stealing "color spray" of the attacking mephit.
Before long, however, it had joined their friends on the floor, beaten to a pulp as Jaheira took out her annoyance over their slow progress on its corpse.
Imoen stalking into the room beyond the door, froze at the sight of the Golem in the middle of the floor, next to another table of defensive/offensive equipment.
Dismissing it as inferior to what they already had, reasoning that none of the fighters would be able to use the particular ones on that table effectively anyway, she headed for the chest, spending enough time going over it that when she finally popped it open, the men where able to help her judge the contents importance…which quickly transformed into the three others teaching her how to judge such things correctly.
As it turned out, when they left the room, the table had been severely depleted…weak metal in all sorts of things prior to Sarevok's demise had made them somewhat paranoid about not having replacements.
Wandering through the doorless opening, they found themselves in a different sort of rusty corridor…the key word being "rusty".
There were not a single spot of clean metal anywhere.
-"From dirt, to stone, to metal…will he have us wandering through earth, wind and fire, next?" Jaheira commented, slamming her quarterstaff into the nearby wall.
Rust falling away, rust were uncovered.
-"Hells!" the druid exclaimed; "How long has he left this unattended???"
-"What makes you think it's a he?" Negrath countered, smiling distractedly as he listened for some noise he'd just heard to reappear.
-"Trust me, It's a "he"." Jaheira acidly replied, evidently not considering it a subject worthy of discussion.
Looking at her for a moment, he chuckled;
-"Aye. A female, of whatever race, would for certain not get into the trouble this guy has, whereas we would not be free to roam his halls, looking for the exit while batting away his useless servants. Remind me to thank him for being male when we see him."
Nodding, the berserker added; "Minsc knows women that would leave people healthy as a hamster, but with no sense in their heads. No spells, not even a club. Just words they couldn't ignore."
-"Do we have to discuss this now?!?" Imoen wanted to know, inching away from them, further into the unknown corridor.
-"No, we don't." Negrath agreed, grinning humorously; "Not that we would have any real discussion on it, as we can naught but agree."
-"I would nevertheless consider it proper caution to check the secrets of that door before proceeding." Jaheira pointed out, pointing back the way they had come.
-"Imoen?" the Bhaalspawn queried, looking to the mage, now over by another door past the initial corner of the corridor, simply standing there, evidently not eager to leave -two- unchecked doors in her path, but nor showing any sign of approaching either of them.
-"Jaheira, stay with her. Minsc, follow me." Negrath instructed, retracing their steps to the unknown door.
Finding it unlocked, he pushed, rushing in with the berserker as it swung open…and stopping:
Jars.
Jars by the dozen, large, domed glass containers with what appeared to be people in each one.
Snapped out of their shock by a charging mephit's call, they made short work of it, almost absent-mindedly, before setting to the task of searching what could be searched, looking at the contents of the jars as little as practically possible.
As they joined up with their friends again, they gave Jaheira a weapon more suited to her ability, seeing her nod with something similar to satisfaction as she received the impressively crafted staff they had found.
Putting the lesser weapon up against a wall, she went through a series of thrust and parries against an invisible, equally skilled opponent, coming away from the exercise with an expression of definite pleasure;
-"Now, -this- would be a staff worthy the most powerful of mages!
Where did you say you found it?"
-"Locked in a magically trapped chest. Almost got fried."
Studying him, she tsk'd as she turned back to the weapon; "Poorly set, then."
Nodding with mock annoyance, he replied : "Must have been."
A brief, companionable sharing of smiles, and the group gathered around the nearby door.
Imoen deftly slipping inside, she were nearly just as fast back out;
-"Golems. Doesn't react to intruders."
-"Set for something else, maybe? I can't imagine anyone walking these halls just to get a Golem or two." Jaheira commented.
-"Possibly…I only know I have no urge to be fallen in the back by such creatures." The kensai stated.
-"I could…" Imoen began, going silent as she realized she could not.
-"Sorry. Forgot for a moment that I'm still learning."
-"No need of that. How many?"
-"Only two. Pure "solid mud"-folk."
-"A punch would still hurt, I imagine." Negrath smiled, gesturing to Minsc;
-"Feel like kicking some dirty butts?"
-"Aye!" the berserker exclaimed, brandishing his two-hander almost eagerly as he strode in.
-"And you're sure there were no more?" Jaheira queried, glancing from the door to Imoen with bored annoyance.
-"No. I'm guessing Minsc'll do fine alone."
-"We all -know- he will, girl. That's what annoys me."
Turning to Negrath:
-"My turn next time, bladesinger?"
-"When I can trust you not to loose your head." Were the cautious reply.
-"The more you hold me back, the greater that chance will be! I demand the right to fight!"
-"What'll Khalid say if we find him after I've managed to get his wife killed?" Negrath quipped, regretting the comment as he saw all spirit fleeing the druid.
Clearly fighting to uphold a semblance of her usual personality, she shrugged noncommittally;
-"He'd scold you for the rest of your life, which in turn would make you want to kill yourself to get away…you wouldn't otherwise."
-"He wouldn't try to avenge you?"
-"Why do you think he'd bother to hang around with you for other reasons?"
-"Your standing order for him to do so?" the kensai smiled benevolently.
At that, some life returned as she stared him in the eye, smiling mischievously;
-"You think I'm the one to give those?"
The resulting image of the valor-cunning Fighter giving orders to the viciously independent druid…orders she followed…nearly caused Negrath to laugh out loud.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he calmed himself, replying with a smile;
-"None of you do…correct?"
-"None of us would dare." She countered, turning to continue down the corridor as Minsc returned, a satisfied grin on his face, brushing dirt of his blade.
-"I'll bet…" the Bhaalspawn commented, before he remembered that she'd said that -neither- of them would dare…
Pondering that, he followed as she waltzed through a sudden patch of noisy goblins to get at their archers further up.
The tiny thugs so much chunky soup on the floor, the two turned their attention to the fact that their friends had gone a different path.
Retracing their steps to an extension off the corridor they were in that they had ignored in the ruckus of the annoying little buggers, they hurried through it, into a room that struck the kensai as odd.
All the room, long as it was, seemed to center around one object; another of the domed jars.
In this one, though, the inhabitant seems slightly more alive...it actually turned to look at them;
-"Ah, who be thee? Servants of the master?"
Unsure from where the voice had issued, but assuming the creature in the jar had something to do with it, and would be able to hear him as well, Negrath approached, shaking his head as he sheathed his katana;
-"Not of any master putting his servants in glass jars. Who are you, and what do you know of the bastard that put us here?"
Spending a moment to figure out that he by "us" meant his companions, and not the two of them, the man-thing in the jar smiled like a benevolent uncle in the strange liquid filling the dome;
-"Prisoners be ye? Not be calling the master names, else you shall surely perish.
Left me here he has, for far too long to be of comfort…"
-"And what, pray tell, do you expect me to do about that?" Negrath grunted, instinctively repulsed by taking to a person that by all accounts should have drowned ages ago.
-"He promised to release me once he had aid to give me, dying as I was…or dead, it doesn't matter…I'll never get anywhere now…poor Rielev…"
-"Rielev?"
The creature nodded, dazed puzzlement in its eyes;
-"That be me. You seek Rielev?"
-"Aye, that we do." Minsc commented from the back of the group, keeping an ear to the door.
-"Found me then, you have."
-"So I see." Nodded Negrath, looking distractedly at Jaheira and Imoen;
-"What was it he would tell us again?"
-"If you know what Rielev will tell," the creature wondered, "Why look for him?"
-"You haven't told us anything yet, have you?" Imoen pointed out.
Turning disturbingly empty eyes on the sticky-fingered mage, Rielev just stared for a while, before nodding;
-"So I haven't."
-"Then why don't you?" she wondered.
-"Rielev doesn't know what to tell." The creature stated, as though it was obvious.
-"The old "you didn't ask"-routine, eh?" Jaheira smirked, before brandishing her staff;
-"Why are we here? Where is this? And who the hells is your master?!?"
-"…Rielev cannot tell."
-"-Can- not or -will- not ?!?"
-"Cannot."
-"So, what can you tell us?" Negrath requested, cringing slightly as the druid smashed her weapon down on a nearby table hard enough to almost break it in half.
Indeed a staff worthy of kings, it didn't even bend.
Idly determining that they had better locate her husband and his calming influence on her temper post-haste, he turned to listen as Rielev started talking in his strange, oddly interesting fashion, evidently intending to tell them every bit of his knowledge…to the letter.
………
-"Hold on! Cast out, you say?"
-"Indeed. Out he was cast, cast out he was. Shall I continue?"
-"Ah, no. Who were you? -Aside- from this monster's "friend"?"
-"Not of your kind. Not your kind…but you…"he continued, turning his wholly inhuman gaze on Jaheira, who recoiled;
-"You are no relative of mine! In any way!"
-"No, no…so I am not. But close…ooh, I was close…"
Momentarily pausing as her mind wandered, she then steeled her resolve;
-"You were not! We could not be further apart if you were a gnome and I a dragon! You were not!"
-"Uncomfortable memories, Jaheira?" Negrath cautiously queried.
A burning glare made him silently retract his question.
-"So, at one point you and the master were friends, and then he was cast out…from where?" Imoen interjected, in an attempt to erase the tension.
-"Rielev cannot remember. He just wants release."
-"And how would we give you that?"
A sudden light in his eyes, the creature that once had been kin to its master, but now barely were kin to itself, leaned toward the glass, lifting a bony hand to point toward the base of the jar;
-"Jewels. Crystals. Remove, and Rielev dies. Put in other's. They might tell more. Answer questions. Give you purpose. A way out. Please."
Reaching for the object, visible as a set of rubies lodged in a slot at the metal base, as soon as they had been indicated, the mageling thief's hand shivered as she fought to hold it back, allowing Rielev to finish his fervent farewell-speech.
The moment he went silent, her fingers closed on the life-giving item, all but tearing it from its socket.
Looking up from her crouch, she watched as he fell, unnaturally slowly in the liquid, to settle in a pile of bone and lifeless skin.
She kept looking until the crystals were plucked from her numb fingers, at which point she turned to look at her childhood friend;
-"I…I had no control…I…a part of me wanted to kill…wanted to see him die…I…I had no control…"
The anguish in her eyes nearly tore his heart asunder.
Not wanting to rest in the room with the dead…creature, they headed back to the largest known room in the dungeon, where the two men had seen several of the domed things.
Walking into the room, almost drowning in its ominous silence, the other three whirled around as Imoen, having lagged behind as they crossed the threshold, fell to her knees clutching her head, and nearly toppling over as she screamed.
The kensai and the berserker capable of little other than looking on, but both wishing they would get a round alone with the man responsible, Jaheira hurried to kneel at the thief's side;
-"What, child? What can we do?"
-"Out…out of here…" she whimpered, huddled together as if to hide from the light flowing from the jars surrounding them.
Gnashing her teeth, but wisely holding her anger back, the druid turned to the other two;
-"I'll take her outside."
Giving them both a warning glare;
-"But take care not to waste time. I'm adding this to the list of complaints I'll give the bloody beast…-personally-!"
The two bladeswingers wincing in mock pity for the mysterious man behind their capture, Minsc followed the women, lifting Imoen as if she weighed nothing…not that any of them believed it would have mattered much to the berserker if she had been equal in weight to an ancient red dragon, he would have done his best to carry her either way.
………
Coming out, shuddering from the insanity he had been an indirect witness to, the Bhaalspawn gestured for the others to follow as he headed back to Rielev's final resting place, plucking an odd rock from off the badly treated table, and headed back out, offering his friends nothing but an apologetic shrug and a wry smile.
As they silently followed, he lead them up the corridor in which he and Jaheira had eradicated the patch of the dungeon's many goblin bands, he turned the first corner, steering straight at the door ahead.
As he was about to open it, a mephit shrieked from within, almost as if it knew they were there, and issued a challenge.
Sharing a wry smile with Jaheira, and drawing his blade in unison with Minsc, he held back for Imoen to make her comment. She didn't disappoint;
-"They are small, but honestly: how big a body can you build around so small a brain?"
Chuckling, almost maliciously; Jaheira quipped;
-"Doesn't matter. The creature that is to stop me from paying our captor my "respects" is not yet created."
With that, they rushed the door, Minsc slamming it off its hinges, engaging at once the collection of winged and ground-bound beasts within.
When he a while later could be bothered to pay attention to their surroundings, as Imoen had for several moments already at that point, Negrath were stunned;
Bookshelf upon bookshelf, a table to read by, even the odd pedestal for preaching or a loose scroll shoved in a convenient space…it was Candlekeep all over again. And combined with the surrounding dungeon, a natural ingredient to shock people from such a place.
**What the hell is it this guy want with me, that he goes to such lengths to torture me?** Negrath wondered, before realizing that he, for all intents and purposes, were never meant to see this room…something the mass of goblins and mephits that had currently swarmed his friends were further proof of.
Holding back so as not to endanger his companions, already way to close together for a safe fighting environment, he found time to ponder; if they killed enough of these folks, would it have the same effect as Sarevok's insane plan? Or would it only be "civilized" blood that were accepted in such an undertaking?
Noticing that the sounds of combat had diminished, he looked to his friends…and found the previously busy adventurers now simply watching as the druid made short work of every small-bodied individual unfortunate enough to come within reach…and she was not averse to giving chase, either.
As she felled the last goblin at the only visible exit, the two from Candlekeep had already gone through a major part of the bookshelves, treating both books and loose parchment like precious treasures, possible to sunder by a harsh thought…and to at least one of them, it were just that…
-"Ooh, this reminds me -so- much of Candlekeep…dusty old tomes all over, bookcases nearly spilling…It's…like we never left…"
Dreamy expression, so short to exist, gone, she leaned against the side of a bookshelf, sliding down to sit at it's base, grabbing a book from the row behind her head, and opening it up in her lap, turning a few pages solemnly before looking up at the others, now all looking at her as if unsure what they could do.
-"But we did, didn't we?"
Receiving bewildered nods from all around, she looked to the kensai.
-"Negrath, I just want to go home again!"
Knowing as well as they all did, that if Candlekeep at all were like what they remembered, they would not be welcome there anymore, she sighed, turning back to the book;
-"I don't care where, as long as I can call it home."
-"Boo says: Home is where the heart is. While with friends, you -are- home."
Chuckling softly, she smiled sorrowfully at the ranger and his pet;
-"Sorry, but I think I'd prefer a home that didn't require quite this much walking.
OR riding!" she added as the rodent chittered at her.
-"Would you accept a druid's grove?" Jaheira wondered, kneeling by the thief.
Smiling benevolently, she added;
-"I think I know a few that would be interested in a talented mage…?"
Almost laughing out loud, Imoen shook her head;
-"No, I don't think My kind of magic study would fit badly in -any- kind of natural residence."
-"Then what you require is a civilized, still-standing home with people that would accept a thieving mage? I'm sorry, I don't think even…our father would have accepted such a one." Negrath quipped, neatly skipping over the scholarly mage's name.
Laughing so hard the book fell off her lap, the recently so somber young woman hollered;
-"I -know-!" evidently finding it the most humorous thing in all the realms.
By way of a tension release chain reaction, her friends soon joined her in an all out laughing-fest.
That'd be the beginning of the first part.
The second you likely already know.
(and to think this guy started out as a collection of odd sounds, and a wish to try out the new specialty classes… vbg)
As for this particular piece, I have one request…in connection with my numerous rants on the newsgroup about the novels, I'd like to know how I fare in comparison…
Please…Tear it to pieces.
Pluck it apart, point out every flaw, make up some if you truly can't find them(severely doubt thatg) and do what you can to humble me regarding my writing skill.
(the odd nice comment wouldn't be -completely- unwelcome, though. :-P )
When I start posting The BG1-portion though, let me warn you; then I'll NEED every kind word you got, more than likely…I just cannot seem to do decent literary work with that one…(possibly because my thorough, well- remembered reading-through of Bethphel makes me think that I couldn't possibly come up with anything viable along the same, seriously tangled storyline.
*1: Sorry, just couldn't resist :P
*2: And so, as some of you probably know, it will… ;)
And BTW, if anyone can point me in the direction of an exhaustive biography on Mr. "E", I'd be -most- grateful.
Next part to arrive shortly…and that's a threat! :P
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