Author's Notes:
Sorry this took so long. You know how it is – "Thanksgiving's coming up, so let's shove every possible test/project in before the break!" Turkey wipes the mind, you know. Case in point, I spent my entire Thanksgiving break playing Mario. Good game, good game.
Anyhow, there are things I forgot to say:
1. As with the last story, I'm not really taking this too seriously. Not that I'm saying you can't give me critiques, of course, I'm a big girl (submitting an urban fantasy piece in a college fiction workshop will thicken anyone's skin, let-me-tell-you), but I'm just saying don't nit-pick too much, just enjoy. Happy story!
2. I don't own anyone other than Grace. I do own the game in the sense that right now I have a character just getting to Neverwinter and thanks to the MOTB patch Neverwinter and Mulsantir crash or bug the game beyond completion, so I'm not bothering to try playing again until they release a new patch. My intention was to play the game again in order to better get a handle on characterization, but…
3. If anyone has a link to some site or outlines or details about the Casavir dropped subplot, I would appreciate it. I know I've seen it somewhere before, but I couldn't find it again. And, to be honest, I don't understand what's going on half the time. BUT… I think you know where I'm going with it. So if you have it, I would appreciate it. Danke!
IV.
Bishop was running so fast he really wasn't sure where he was going. Not to mention at this point he was becoming exhausted from all the fleeing. That too.
"Look out, mister!"
The kind of nice guy who wouldn't knock over a group of children (not admittedly, of course), Bishop veered to the right and tripped over a tombstone, hitting it with such force that he broke the thing in half and subsequently broke his left leg.
He let out a string of obscenities.
Three girls, two dressed in solid black and one dressed in normal clothes, looked down at him. "Are you okay?" the prettier of the black-clad ones asked.
His response was barely coherent, other than the swearing and the leg grabbing.
"Aren't you a priest?" the little one asked the other black-clad one.
"Shut up, Kyli!" she snapped.
"There you are!" Casavir exclaimed, also out of breath. In fact, he bent over and caught his breath.
"Oo, a paladin!" the little girl squealed.
Casavir ignored the three girls, pulling out a roll of duct tape and taping an unresisting, still-writhing Bishop's hands behind his back. Wordless in his task, his healed Bishop's leg and duct-taped his feet together.
"What are you doing?" the second black-clad girl asked, looking perturbed.
"Nothing. Does something seem to be the matter? Why are you young girls standing in a graveyard?" he asked, hoisting Bishop to his feet and beginning to bind Bishop's arms to his torso.
"Oh come on," he whined.
Casavir covered his mouth in a piece.
The little one looked thrilled; it was apparent she'd had an epiphany. "Raven wants Lisbet to go into the crypts! They stole Daddy's key and they're doing bad stuff! Stop them!"
"Lisbet, what did I say I was going to do to your sister if she didn't shut up?" the girl called Raven said to her dark-clad companion.
Lisbet rolled her eyes. "Kyli, go home. And don't get the paladin involved in something that's not his business."
"Paladins think everything is their business," Bishop said wisely. With his mouth being shut as it was, it came out as "mphmphmphs mphk mphmphmph mph mph mpnmph."
"Don't make me cover your ears too."
"Mph mphu."
"So the reasoning behind your forcing Bishop and Casavir together is the hope that you will get a threesome out of the deal," Sand translated as the group traipsed through the woods.
"Yep," Grace answered honestly.
"So rather than have them here, where they can keep us alive and we can not get lost, you would prefer that they stay in Neverwinter together in the hopes that they will spontaneously develop homosexuality."
"Bisexuality," she corrected. "I need to be involved in this too."
"I want a bath!" Qara whined.
"There's a river right over there!" Khelgar snapped back.
"But that's cold! I want real, hot water! This is all Grace's fault, making our druid and our ranger stay behind when they should be leading us places!"
"Qara," Shandra's fists were clenched, "you haven't stopped complaining since we left Neverwinter."
"And all of that time has needed my complaints! My feet hurt!" the sorceress snapped back.
"And it's not so much that I'm hoping they will randomly develop bisexuality," Grace continued with Sand, ignoring the bickering, "it's more along the lines of I hope that they recognize that their outward animosity is due to their inward lust for each other… … … and me. Although I acknowledge that I am not what's important here."
"You might be the worst paladin ever," Sand admitted, "But as a personal hater of paladins, I can respect that."
"Thank you."
Meanwhile, deciding that the goings-on of teenagers in crypts was, in fact, his business, and after forming a handle made of duct tape that he could use to drag Bishop along, Casavir valiantly vowed to Kyli that he would "rescue" Lisbet from the foul, evil, unorderly…
"Emo kids," Bishop drawled. For the promise of good behavior, Casavir had removed his gag. "I can't believe we're doing this! Two trained killers, playing babysitter for some emo kids!"
Casavir dragged him down a small set of stairs, taking him into the crypts. "I don't recall asking for your opinion on the matter."
"You ungagged me, and I'm here. That automatically qualifies as asking for my opinion. And this is pointless!"
There were at least fifteen kids in the first two rooms of the crypts, all wearing black clothing and makeup and giving the two "heroes" disdainful looks. "No one invited you," one said to them, crossing her arms over her chest in a gesture that was supposed to be threatening.
"We're here for a girl named Lisbet," Casavir responded, looking warily around for some sort of danger.
"Lisbet's not here," a boy responded haughtily, "so you two can leave now."
"Make us!" Bishop crooned.
"We will!" another boy retorted.
"What're going to do, cry on me? Write some poetry on me in permanent marker?"
"Bishop," Casavir growled warningly.
"I wish my grass was emo," he began, a grin on his face, "so that it would – uh, hey, uh, paladin…"
"I have a name."
"And they have a horde of undead!"
In a move that was done in slow-motion and with lots of shiny effects while a dramatic theme from Lord of the Rings played in the background, Casavir withdrew his shining sword and cleanly sliced the duct tape, not hitting Bishop's skin but slicing the strings on his tunic open. Also in shiny slow motion, Bishop pulled out his longbow and started firing off arrows.
"My nose is bleeding!" Sandra reported.
"Well, that didn't work," one of the kids said as the two heroes dispatched the shade horde that had been summoned.
"You purposefully summoned those undead?" Casavir demanded.
Bishop awkwardly crossed his arms over his chest. "It's frickin' cold down here…"
The kids looked amongst each other. "We could kill them."
"That's what we tried to do the first time," one reminded the speaker.
"Can someone lend me a shirt or something?"
"You're going to make us kill you all, aren't you?" Casavir asked in a resigned tone.
One of the kids nodded. "Yeah, this might be a good place for a scene change, because that's just a lot easier, right?"
"It helps if you tilt your head back," Neeshka instructed Shandra.
"I heard that makes the blood run into your stomach, or somethin'," Khelgar chimed in.
"Who asked you?"
"Oh great!" Qara said with clearly sarcastic joy, "I just stepped in some poison ivy! Now I'm tired and have a skin rash! Fantastic!"
The cultists slain, Bishop inquired, "So now what? You're not really going to make us go in deeper, are you?"
"As opposed to doing what?" Casavir asked as he wiped cultist blood of his blade. "Going back to the Flagon? Risking being turned into squirrels by Elanee? If nothing else, saving the girl will prove a distraction and put our skills to use."
"Point. But could I get a new tunic before we go down?"
"Here's my pack - you can just have one of mine."
"Now my nose is bleeding!" Grace exclaimed.
As the paladin and the newly-redressed ranger stalked through the crypts, Casavir inevitably brought to light one source of their contention.
He slammed his sword's point into the forehead of a summoned shade, finishing off this group of enemies. "I don't understand!" he blurted.
"That's because you're a moron," Bishop replied smarmily.
"Why," he continued, "is it that you're obviously attempting to court Miss Grace? She's a paladin! You should hate her on principle! And why is she humoring you?" He actually looked angry.
Bishop did not look daunted. "Depends on your definition of 'court,'" he explained. "I see us hooking up more like this-"
"Oh Bishop, you're so sexy and hot!" Grace purred, stripping for Bishop, "I've wanted to do you since we first met and you called me a whore!"
"Yeah, baby, everybody wants a piece of Bishop," he replied, looking at her appraisingly.
She straddled his hips. "I can't fight this feeling anymore! I've forgotten what I've started fighting for!"
"But won't sleeping with me make you Fall?" he asked, just to drive the point home.
"Yes, but I don't care! You're too sexy to resist!"
Bishop gave a self-satisfied smirk. "She's hot, and sleeping with her will make her lose her paladinhood. Add the fact that her threatening me all the time is so damn hot, and you got the basic gist of why I'm trying to hook up with her."
Casavir had a whole host of questions to ask, such as "and you're telling me, your romantic rival, this why?" or "what makes you think I'm going to let you make a fellow paladin Fall?", but what he finally settled for was, "REO Speedwagon?"
He snorted and muttered, "Shut up," before shuffling off further into the crypts.
Casavir frowned, but found he couldn't resist commenting, "You can take it on the run, if that's the way you want it."
" SHUT UP!" Bishop's voice came back.
