Summary: Glaxisimmilan, the half-goblin, half-dwarfling spawn of the dead god Bhaal, leads a party with a bit of a love triangle going on. The bloodthirsty dwarven barbarian Korgan, the formerly-Zhentish thief and killer halfling Montaron, and the future world dominating gnome Tiax the Great all desire the dictatorial paladin halfling Mazzy Fentan's hand and heart. In a party with maybe one sane man at best, who if any will win romance and Mazzy's love?
Written for xiuxi for Yuletide 2013.
—
The lass was a fighter!
Korgan Bloodaxe couldn't deny it. In fact, Korgan Bloodaxe never denied himself anything. He had the necklace of severed ears to prove it.
Aye, Fentan was a glorious sight in the midst of battle, swinging her sword like a dervish and loosing arrows dead to the eyes of her enemies. It was no wonder she had what passed as Korgan's heart.
And the lass would be his yet! Korgan swore his oath between clenched teeth. The Bloodaxe dwarven charm could never fail.
—
She was a fine fertile furrow of a lady, as some weak ol' halfling grannie would say. Ruby all the way through, worth her weight in black lotus. Montaron would admit a thousand times that Mazzy Fentan was a right peach of a woman. He would be the one to pluck her in the end, sure as eggs were eggs.
She was tough right enough. Montaron could've watched her fight all day. Finer set of muscles he'd never seen. To say nothing of gams and jubblies...
A lady to bring a tear to your eye even when she didn't punch you in the face. By Mask! Montaron thought. Mazzy Fentan would be his.
—
The Great Tiax had gained a divine revelation from his god Cyric. It was clear as the great nose on the great face of the Great Tiax that his greatness deserved a consort. And a more wonderful servant of the divine he could not imagine than his red-haired chief-solar-to-be.
Not just a whipper of the slaves and faithless. Oh, no. A woman of peerless beauty and strength deserved a grander role than this in the rule of Tiax the Mighty! Mazzy Fentan, a name that reeked of unbetold divinity, should be his grand paladin when he ruled as a god. She would bring divine fire upon the heads of all who doubted Tiax, and she would reign in luxury when the great Tiax presented her a shiny new Maztica when he ruled!
It did not matter that certain of Tiax' companions failed to see the future divinity of Grand Tiax. Nor was the petty rivalry of others of import. 'Twas Tiax' fate to triumph over others in the rulership of the world and in the heart of Mazzy Fentan.
—
Glaxisimmilan, the half-goblin, half-dwarfling spawn of the dead god Bhaal, rolled his green eyes at the psychotic midget patrol he led along with him. Dictatorial Mazzy Fentan, psychopathic Korgan, bloodthirsty Montaron, would-be-world-dominator Tiax - the sane one among his fellow adventurers was Valygar, surely. The laconic, sensible, tall human said hardly anything as he followed with quiet practicality. At last there was someone to depend upon here.
"Squire Valygar," Mazzy asked, "scout the nearby area. Night falls and 'tis best we rest from our march."
Valygar gave a good-natured shrug. "As you wish." He loped off into the bushes, deserting the rest of them.
"Glaxi," Mazzy said, "you are a fine cook and I should like you to prepare a simple meal tonight. You have very nimble hands."
There was something which sounded like a jealous roar from Korgan, a double entendre from Montaron, and an entitled whine from Tiax.
Glaxisimmilan, the half-goblin, half-dwarfling spawn of the dead god Bhaal, went to prepare dinner.
—
It was particularly disturbing when Korgan, after a pitched battle with a deadly band of marauding bandit orcs, asked to be allowed to lag behind after the battle. He came back with five hearts arranged on a pink platter. Tied up with blood-red ribbon.
"Mazzy, lass, I'd give ye my heart but I thought ye'd rather the hearts of the ones I killed instead. 'Twere invigorating indeed to watch ye in the fray! Will you accept the hearts of this humble dwarf?"
Mazzy's face had almost turned the colour of the hearts. Glaxisimmilan wondered if that were a good sign or a bad.
"Korgan! This dishonourable savagery treats our fallen foes most foully," Mazzy said. "I was beginning to think you had sense enough to stay your one-handed wooing, but now I see I was mistaken. Cease such behaviour forthwith! You will treat our deceased enemies with justice and respect at all times."
"A-ha! The lass loves me, she does! Ye heard that she thinks I have sense," Korgan boasted. Glaxisimmilan felt a miasma of unending misery settle on him.
—
Later that day, Glaxisimmilan discovered that a pair of really rather nice copper earrings that Nalia de'Arnise once gave to him after an extended haggling session, the price of saving her Keep from trolls, were missing. He searched his pack everywhere to no avail.
"Glaxi! I'll kick your arse if I find ye took my gold!" Korgan called. Glaxi shook his head; he didn't have any idea where the dwarf had mislaid his treasure stash.
Tiax waddled over to them. "Forget your petty problems. The Great Tiax has had worse. From him, someone has stolen a precious enchanted sacrificial dagger of the great god Cyric! Without this, how can Tiax slay sacrifices for his god to promote his future rule?"
Valygar walked over to them wearing those oversized human ranger boots of his. He peered down at the group. "If I find that anyone in our group was foolish enough to thieve the objects I kept in the lining of my second best jerkin," he said, "they will be fully repaid with interest."
"What objects are those, anyway?" Glaxi asked, but Valygar seemed to be no longer paying attention.
It seemed that everyone else was still bellyaching later that night, after Glaxi had long given up asking people where his earrings were. Some people liked to whine so much.
"But Squire Valygar, exactly what are these objects stolen from you?" Mazzy asked. "Honestly, I cannot see how I can help you retrieve them if you cannot even tell us what was stolen."
Valygar turned his face to the smoke of the fire and muttered something indistinct.
"I'm sorry, good squire, I cannot hear a word of it," Mazzy said cheerfully.
Valygar shook his head. "Nothing of any real importance," he said, probably losing patience with Mazzy's ceaseless poking and prying, and wandered off like the sensible man he was.
Glaxi dreamt that night of Candlekeep, as he so often did. He was once more in the cellars with Imoen, as his adoptive sister tried one more exciting chemical experiment of the sort that led to every possible magic tutor for her in the Keep choosing to permanently retire from teaching.
"Imoen, you can't mix boar's teeth with wyvern blood again," he told her, "it blew up things the last time as well!"
Glaxisimmilan awoke with a start. Something had blown up outside his dream as well. He wondered what it was.
There was a beautiful cascade of magical fireworks that waterfalled in red, silver, and gold near Mazzy Fentan's bedroll. The exact colours of Arvoreen, Glaxi was very displeased to realise. A black box slowly opened in the lights of the fireworks to reveal a glittering display enough to delight any magpie. Gold coins shone. Two gigantic copper-and-gold earrings hung in the middle, both pieces trailing enough weight to kill a two-year-old child if dropped from a height of half a foot. The vague shape of a cupid had been drawn on the box, apparently with the help of an enchanted dagger marked with a Cyricist symbol.
Came the cries:
"Me gold!"
"My earrings!"
"My dagger, ye cack-brained future slaves of Tiax!"
"Stand back! Can't ye see this is a gift for the queen of hearts?"
Montaron swept a low bow before Mazzy. "Gold and a show be the way to a woman's heart. I gained my materials through skills of my own hands, see?" He flexed his expert pickpocket's fingers.
"Mazzy, lass, make him give my gold back!" Korgan shouted.
Valygar came to them with wide eyes. "Stolen magical fireworks!" he wailed. "Don't you all know that any magic at all is a gateway drug? One minute you're casting Magic Missile, the next you're turning your husband into an undead abomination followed by you yourself so that your only son has to slay you both! You stole my...my...fireworks! That I was only keeping myself for safety purposes," he added.
Mazzy rose up from bed like an angry solar roused by a wasp sting.
"Squire Valygar, how dare you wake me so!" she lectured. He took the brunt of her anger for several minutes.
"And my gold? It's mine," Korgan pointed. Mazzy frowned.
"I see the primary instigator was you, Montaron. My apologies, Squire Valygar. Montaron, you will return everybody else's property forthwith!" she said. "Stealing is wrong!"
"Yeah. I've always thought a bit that way myself," Montaron said. "Why don't ye tell me more about it over a glass of something at the Copper Coronet?" He moved closely enough to her to nudge her in the ribcage with his elbow.
This didn't seem to please Mazzy. "Montaron, it is most likely the third or fourth hour in the middle of the night! I intend to be sleeping, and so should all the rest of us. Squire Valygar, I appoint you to take the rest of the watch!"
"Yes, Mistress Mazzy," Valygar agreed. Glaxisimmilan shook his head. His only sane man in the party had no spine whatsoever. He went to his own bedroll and buried himself in his pillow.
"I be temporarily set back but I ain't done for yet," Montaron said. "She called me the primary instigator of her heart. The lass loves me, just doesn't know it yet!"
—
They were in Athkatla once more on their adventures. They were trawling about the temple district in service of some ridiculously complicated quest or another that really you'd expect the people who lived there to perform in approximately an hour flat.
"Mazzy, o blazing future divinely appointed queen!" Tiax uttered, sweeping into a bow only slightly marred in its impressiveness by a chamberpot being emptied on him from above at that particular moment. "Tiax invites you to accompany him on a mission of religious relief! Would you care to assist Tiax in giving beggars items to cheer their daily existence?"
To all their surprise, Mazzy agreed pleasantly. "'Tis always good for the soul to help the helpless," she said. "Why, Tiax, I should be delighted to help you and they ascend a better path."
But it was not long before the Great Tiax returned alone.
"In the spirit of honesty I must inform my pathetic rivals in love that the present gambit of Tiax the Grand has failed," he said. Tiax unrolled a sample parchment scroll for them to look at. Valygar kept aloof and above them, but it happened to be within Glaxisimmilan's height. "In my holy work distributing these, it turns out that Mazzy objected to their content."
A gleeful gnomish priest of Cyric, who happened to look very much like Tiax but who had a much larger nose, was whipping some naked slaves and faithless in a very graphic design.
"I call these tiny tracts Tiax Tracts. The proper pronunciation is Tick Tracts," Tiax proclaimed. "They are all about Tiax' future reign over the world and the eternal glory of the great dread lord Cyric, when he makes Tiax rule! But it seems that Mazzy Fentan has some religious objections.
"Ah, but tomorrow is another day," Tiax swore. "Mazzy referred to me as a foul-speaking heretic. This surely means that deep down, she will be mine!"
—
Glaxisimmilan watched in breathless disbelief over the next few tendays as events continued to escalate.
Korgan made Mazzy her own cupid out of a dead doppleganger shapeshifted into a naked baby and a pair of avariel wings illegally obtained on the black market.
Montaron took up the guitar and serenaded Mazzy all through the night with love poetry, apparently written by some Garrick bloke Glaxisimmilan hadn't even heard of. He had all the musical sense of a tone-deaf tomcat.
Tiax made Mazzy a papier-mache effigy of himself as a god and instructed her how to worship it.
Korgan presented Mazzy with flowers he'd found growing out of a druid's dead body. They gave her a rash because she turned out to have an allergy to deadly nightshade.
Tiax wrote out a parchment gift certificate giving Mazzy a shiny new Maztica all her very own, as soon as he could conquer it when he took over the world and ruled.
Montaron stole Korgan's collection of gold teeth taken out of the mouths of fallen corpses, and hired a goldsmith at dagger's point to make Mazzy a brooch nearly as big as she was.
Korgan talked seriously to Mazzy about his past life, his surprisingly effective poetry, and the way that he respected her strength. Mazzy responded with a little sympathy.
Surely something would have to be done soon, Glaxi thought. This insanity would absolutely have to end.
—
Glaxisimmilan, the half-goblin, half-dwarfling spawn of the dead god Bhaal, decided the time had come for drastic measures. To dare all on the throw of a dice, as he believed was somewhere in the author of the Turmish Play's almost equally famous play about two hearts from two feuding houses alike in dignity. Or something like that.
Glaxisimmilan sat alone in a clearing. He deeply concentrated. The power of Bhaal was within him, a dead deity. He was more than an ordinary half-goblin, half-dwarfling bastard. He was the son of the Lord of Murder. The power was here!
For he too loved Mazzy Fentan. He could no longer deny it. The glorious tones of her voice as she told him exactly what he should do. The wonderful bell-like ring of her battlecries as she set off to take heads in Arvoreen's name. Her glorious fiery red hair, high lovely cheekbones, and deep deadly serious eyes. The incredibly beautiful way she shot people's eyes out of their heads at fifty paces flat.
The incredibly powerful Slayer avatar of the dread god Bhaal walked off to win the woman he loved.
"A monster! Let us slay it!" Mazzy called. She kicked the Slayer in the head thanks to a boost from Valygar, punched it in the kidneys, performed a complicated weight-shifting wrestling move she'd learnt from a Kara-Turan adventurer long ago, and by that time the dread form of Bhaal had simply given up the ghost.
"I've stopped being the Slayer now!" Glaxisimmilan said. "I've stopped because of you, Mazzy! I've realised that I'm wholly in love with you!"
He went down on one knee before her and held out an emerald ring he'd hacked off the fingers of one of the sahuagin in the City of Caves under the sea. He thought it suited her personality.
Mazzy Fentan sighed gently.
"Honestly, Glaxisimmilan, I find your gesture sweet and genuine. You are a kind and considerate young man, and I am glad to work with your party." Mazzy beamed a friendly smile at him and ruffled his hair. "But I am afraid I have already fallen in love with another. After Patrick died I did not think it possible to find true love twice in a lifetime, but I have been proven wrong."
As always, the only sane member of Glaxisimmilan's party was standing nearby, laconically watching over them and saying nothing.
"Squire Valygar?" Mazzy said crisply. She walked to him and looked up at his face lovingly.
"Mistress, you know I love you," Valygar said, "but I would greatly appreciate it if you would call me anything but that."
—
As Mazzy and Valygar were holding hands together in the light of the setting sun, Glaxisimmilan sat on a rock, mourning his broken heart. The course of true love never did run smooth.
Montaron, Korgan, and Tiax were talking animatedly between each other.
"If the longlimb hadn't stolen her, the lass woulda been mine!" Korgan said.
"Nay!" Tiax called. "The Great Tiax' siege to the beauteous lady's heart would have been the one to succeed. Who would turn down a shiny new Maztica?"
"Ye both be delusional fecking eejits," Montaron told them. "If'n Mazzy'd gone with one of us, 'twould have been me. But she is going with none. All that's left is drowning our sorrows in good booze and picking up consolation where we can."
"The hin speaks true enough," Korgan said with sorrow.
"The three of us are united in disappointment," Tiax added. "Would the wisdom of a future ruler of the world suggest that we should unite in..."
There was a slight pause. Korgan seemed to eye Montaron's muscles, Montaron seemed to eye Tiax' posterior, and Tiax gazed abstractly off into space at some fantasy of world or personal domination.
"Nay," Korgan said heavily.
"Not even bloody likely," Montaron said.
"The Great Tiax will still rule someday," Tiax concluded.
—
the end
—