Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn
By: redtrouble
Disclaimer: I do not own anything within the Baldur's Gate franchise or the Forgotten Realms universe. Jayda is my own creation, as are many of the personalities developed for under-explored NPCs (ex: Gaelan Bayle).
I have been in love with the Bhaalspawn's story from the moment I first played this game more than 10 years ago. I always wanted to write down my own adventure but I knew it would be a serious commitment and never found the time, until now. Early this year, I decided to write an abridged version (which has turned out to be less and less abridged as it goes on). However, as any writer of fanfiction knows, their work is only a fraction of their own. It is a collaborative process, be it be between the author and the game designers or a much larger relationship to include community creators. My story is only what it is thanks to BioWare and the modding community. I planned to include my disclaimer, my credits, and my thanks at the end, but really it should be stated first and foremost.
Credits:
BioWare
Aeryn Phoenix for her wonderful Haer'dalis romance mod. It provided a wonderful world of interactions with him and I loved every second of it. You can find it here: http / / www . spellholdstudios . net ie/haerdalisromance (Please add a forward slash between . net and ie). I highly recommend it.
Gibberlings 3 for their Romantic Encounters mod. While Jayda didn't have too many romantic encounters with anyone, snippets of dialogue and hilarious situations used in the mod inspired several moments in the story. You can find it here: http / / www . gibberlings3 . net romanticencounters/ (Please add a forward slash between . net and romantic)
I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope you check out all the awesome mods available out there and have as good a time with them as I did.
Act 1
City of Coin
The ground shook around them as the four adventurers raced up the trembling tunnel, sprinting toward the light that grew brighter and brighter the closer they came. Imoen nearly tripped but Minsc's strong arm pulled her back onto her feet. Behind them, the sound of fighting and of fleeing screeched after their flight while horrific memories and the ghosts of their dead loved ones burned holes in their vulnerable backs. Dust and pebbles dislodged from above and showered their heads, stinging their eyes. But the light came closer.
Jaheira cried out in the seconds of the last stretch, and even as the four friends leapt through the mouth of the tunnel, the earth shook violently and an explosion sent a powerful wave of energy through the gap, throwing them from the passageway. A high-pitched whine blocked out all other noise as Jayda fought to grasp her bearings, and then a terrifying scream of rage echoed over the explosion and thunderous rockslide. When the group looked up, they could see through their hazy vision that the passageway had collapsed.
Jayda reached out, fingers slipping over loose chunks of rock. The sounds of battle came crashing onto her eardrums and her blurry gaze began to focus on slippery foes charging a bold figure that stood atop the ruined tunnel. She sucked in a breath as a lump of anger welled in her chest, threatening to blind her already cloudy vision. She knew this man. He was her tormentor. He was the murderer of her friends. He was Jon Irenicus. He would soon be a dead man.
She clenched her sword and pushed through the mangle of stone at her feet, focused on her target. Her companions called after her but she did not acknowledge their cries.
"You dare to attack me here?" Irenicus exclaimed as dark-clad strangers threw themselves at him. "Do you even know whom you face?" Magical energies gathered between his hands as though he were born of the stuff and he unleashed bolt after bolt of deadly light. "You will suffer! You will all suffer!"
In a matter of moments, all the foes that dared attack him were vaporized. His power was unlike anything she had ever seen or ever faced. But she was not afraid. She gripped her sword tightly and stalked forward, hatred burning at her core. And then the mage turned on her and his cold, soulless eyes gripped hers in a deadlock of fury.
"So, godchild, you have escaped. You are more resourceful than I had thought," he said.
Jayda stopped and planted her feet firmly, ready for what was to come. She was exhausted, molested, terrified, and in mourning. Most of all, she was enraged. Was their desperate fight for freedom a mere inconvenient escape to him?
"You killed my friends, tortured those still alive, tormented me, and now you dare stand before me and bark of my resourcefulness?" she exclaimed. "I will have your head on a pike!"
Imoen stepped up to her right side while Minsc and Jaheira filled the space on the left, all brandishing weapons.
"You're not going to torture us any longer!" Imoen shouted.
"Torture?" Irenicus echoed in a patronizing tone, as though he were scolding a child. "Silly girl, you just don't understand what I'm doing, do you?"
"I don't care what you're doing!" she replied, and her anguish was evident. "Let us go!"
"I won't let you leave!" His muscles flexed as his arms swiveled wide for another spell and his gaze shifted to Jayda's. "Not when I'm so close to unlocking your power!"
Jayda tightened her grip on her sword and started forward but Imoen reacted first.
"We don't want anything from you!" she cried out bravely, and red lights flew from her fingertips.
The mage soaked up the magic missile as though a mere breeze had brushed his skin. He tilted his chin up and gazed condescendingly upon them.
"Enough," he growled. "I will no longer listen to the babbling of ignorant children!"
As Jayda lifted her sword and took the first step of her charge, purple helixes of light flashed all around them and five black-robed wizards appeared.
"This is an unsanctioned use of magical energies!" one exclaimed.
"All involved will be held!" another declared. "This disturbance is over!"
"Must I be interrupted at every turn?" Irenicus seethed. "Enough of this!"
Jayda pushed Imoen back and she, too, shuffled away from the dueling wizards. Bright lights burst back and forth, but, like the foes before, each wizard that dared face her tormentor disintegrated under the ferocity of his power. In the smoldering aftermath, he stood victorious and untouched amid the dust of his victims.
Reinforcements teleported in as their companions were overcome, demanding for his surrender.
"Enough! I do not have time for this. Your pathetic magics are useless. Let this end," Irenicus told them.
"Even if we fall, our numbers are many!" one of the wizards warned him. "You will be overwhelmed."
"You bore me mageling," he spat. "You may take me in but you will take the girl as well!" And then he turned his glare on Imoen and she shrank back against Jayda in sudden terror.
"What?" she cried. "No… No! I've done nothing wrong!"
"You have been involved in the illegal use of magic! You will come with us!" one of the wizards hissed.
"No," Imoen whimpered, desperately clinging to Jayda. "I'm not going with him. I'm not!" She screamed when the magical helix began to overtake her. "Help me!"
"Imoen!" Jayda shouted, grabbing fistfuls of her clothes as she attempted to drag her out of the spell. "Imoen!"
"Help me!"
And then she was gone. They were all gone. There was only ruin and rubble and the heavy weight of the dead.
Guards rushed to clear the mess while a crowd quickly amassed to gawk and gossip. Questions were hurled at them but Jayda didn't remember speaking to them. She felt like a lump, slumped onto the stone, barely held up by the bones in her body. The voices, muffled, sounded far away and the sun that arced across the sky brightened blurry lights and darkened shadows that shuffled to-and-fro, but she saw none of what they were. She could only see the great jest that was her life and the sorrow she suffered and wrought by her existence.
The last few months had been trial and tribulation, and when the dark followers finally descended upon them, she and her companions had awoken alone, afraid, and in pain. For an unknown amount of time, she had been tortured and harassed, and waited in the dark for some sign, for even an answer to just one of her hundreds of questions, but hope was silent to her cries.
The attack on the prison brought more peril and pain as the momentary flicker of relief at being once again reunited with Imoen, Minsc, and Jaheira was snuffed out with battles, bloodshed, and the discovery of Dynaheir's mangled body and Khalid's lacerated corpse. Imoen's trauma at their captor's hands echoed their haunted flight, her cheerful spirit and innocent vigor displaced by terror, paranoia, and a sudden and sick obsession with death.
Once again, Jayda and those close to her were forced into action, forced into fighting, forced into dying, forced into madness and chaos! Her captor's name, she learned, was Jon Irenicus, and he had dared to touch that corrupted part of her, unlock it—but why? As if her power was not enough, he took all that he could before his departure, and with him went Imoen—her sister and oldest friend. She was trapped in darkness. It was a feeling she hadn't felt since her foster father Gorion was murdered before her eyes.
The scream, the sickening plunge of the sword in his back, the life leaving his eyes—Jayda jerked as she snapped out of the memory, wide-eyed and heart pounding. Minsc stood nearby as Jaheira knelt in front of her and placed a mocha-skinned hand on her knee.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
It was then that Jayda noticed the commotion had passed. The guards that remained milled about, sealing off the area, and the throng gathered had mostly dispersed. They were sitting on white stone steps not far from the collapsed tunnel and there were dark strips of cloud streaking across the deep orange and fading yellow sky.
"Where are we?" she asked quietly.
"Athkatla," Jaheira replied, "in Amn."
"We've gone south," Jayda mumbled numbly.
"We must go quickly and save Imoen!" Minsc declared from above her. "The wizard may be leering over her evilly even now!"
"Do not be foolish, Minsc," Jaheira quietly scolded him. "We must know our enemies… and the extent of our danger, here… before we rush into anything."
"Something must be done, Jayda," Minsc insisted, stepping closer. "We must find this evil wizard! All that is goodness cries out for this! Even little Boo, although he cannot cry out quite so loudly."
Jayda nodded. "What do we know?"
She intercepted the glance exchanged between her two friends and listened attentively as Jaheira explained the situation.
"Imoen and Irenicus were taken by the Cowled Wizards. None seem to know much about them… only that those who are taken are rarely seen again. No one dares cross them and few know anything about them at all. They say these Cowled Wizards cannot be found nor challenged." She took a deep, exasperated breath and continued. "There's a war going on in this city, it seems, between the Shadow Thieves and some unknown rival guild recently come to Athkatla. The city guard has little control over the situation, and the turmoil has brought all manner of character to an already-diverse city."
"Mm," Jayda grunted as she digested the information, grasping for self-control as she wrestled against herself to focus on what her friend was saying and not what her mind was remembering. "We need answers. We have to find where the Cowled Wizards have taken Imoen and how to get her back. I won't leave her with that madman. I won't accept 'cannot be found'."
Jaheira's hand moved from Jayda's knee to her hand and that's when she realized her fists were clenched, every muscle in her body drawn up tight. With a bit of a struggle, she managed to uncurl her twitching fingers.
"Now that is a marvelous plan!" Minsc declared enthusiastically, already vamping himself up for a fight. "We will face the enemy head-on and deliver a righteous butt-kicking vengeance!"
Jaheira narrowed her green gaze on Jayda's gray eyes.
"I find it odd that this Irenicus would leave of his own volition," she said quietly. "And why take Imoen when it is you he is so obviously interested in? Perhaps he expects us to give chase."
"Of course he does," Jayda replied solemnly. "We eluded him and now he has found a way to bring us to him." There was a sudden bitter taste in her mouth. "And of that he is right…"
Jaheira nodded. "We must step carefully, then. We know little about him, who he was fighting, who took him, or even where we are. Perhaps we should see if allies can be found here…"
Jayda, Minsc, and Jaheira sat in silence, thoughts communicated by looks and nods. They were in agreement. So Jaheira stood and offered Jayda her hand, pulling the red-headed rogue to her feet.
"A guard suggested an inn called the Copper Coronet in the Slums. I believe it was his way of unwelcoming us to Athkatla."
Jayda glanced back at the blasted rubble that had taken a portion of the wall down, collapsing several tiers worth of shops and buildings.
"I don't really blame him. We've just arrived and already we're blowing up their city."
"Tsk, even Boo knows that a little destruction is good for a city's morale," Minsc interjected in all of his Rashemi wisdom. "Only then can it be rebuilt into something newer and better."
"Jaheira," Jayda began quietly, stepping closer to her druid friend. "About Khalid…"
"Don't," she hissed painfully, face contorting into sorrow. "Not now. I can't."
Jayda nodded and pushed forward through Waukeen's Promenade as the last strands of light left the sky and the Adventurer's Mart was deserted.