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Summary: Minsc and Baeloth sitting by the tree / Playing with a hamster wild and wee!
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The Perfectly Puny Pugnacious Pugilist
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"Pet Boo if you must, but you pet him at your peril!" Minsc bellowed, though not unkindly.
Whiskers twitched and twiddled as Boo poked his nose through the man's fingers. With gentleness surprising for his hulking form, the ranger tenderly held his hamster though in a manner suggesting that the diminutive companion was being held back from going for anyone's eyes.
Imoen clasped her hands and begged, "D'aw! C'mon, you big lug! I'm not gonna hurt the little guy. I'll be gentle as a feather, like I'm holding a teeny baby!"
Despite the girl's pleading eyes, Minsc shook his head, stern and grave.
"No no no, Little Imoen! I say this for your own good. Boo may be small, so small it seems his tiny paws cannot scratch the eyes of evil but make no mistake! He is a Miniature Giant Space Hamster and no baby to be dandled like babies who cannot yet walk and kick at wicked butts. Boo is proud and must be treated like the fiercest of all hamsters to have ever crawled upon the realms!"
Imoen rubbed her chin, grinning. "Yeah? How fierce? Like if you dropped Boo in a mini ring in a one-on-one fight against a squirrel…"
Before the fanciful notion completely left her mouth, she yelped as one of their companions popped in between them and shoved her to the side with thoughtless nonchalance.
"What is this I hear? A viewpoint versed in my vernacular?" Baeloth chimed in.
"We're not talking in drow," Imoen retorted, eyes narrowing at the newcomer.
"And neither am I catering to the crude caterwauling of simpleminded surfacers."
Seeing Imoen stubbornly holding her ground, Baeloth wagged his staff at the girl.
"Had you reigned in your persistent prattling during supper, you would have heard that the Rashemi and I are to take the first watch which starts now. In other words, begone! Leave the responsible adults to their task," he shooed at her.
Imoen glared at him for a moment then stomped off.
"Bufflehead!" she muttered over her shoulder as she made her way to where the others rested and prepared to retire.
Baeloth then rounded on the ranger, a ruby-red eye winking at the creature in the other man's hands.
"Now where we before we were rudely interrupted?" he purred. "Is it indeed a verified veracity that your charming comrade here is a Miniature Giant Space Hamster?"
Minsc held out an open palm to reveal Boo in his minuscule magnificence. The hamster pulled its whiskers, pawed its snout, and scratched at its ear with a hind leg.
"Indeed, the only Miniature Giant Space Hamster in the realms who can hold the heavy nuts of justice in his goodly cheek pouches. But he might even be the only Miniature Giant Space Hamster in all of the realms!"
"And why, pray tell?"
Minsc shot him a puzzled look. "Because all the other space hamsters live in space!"
Baeloth smacked his forehead with flair. "Of course, of course! They reside up there in space, hence their name. Your knowledge certainly exceeds mine on the subject! Perhaps, oh my friend so familiar with fascinating fauna, you would care to enlighten me? For having lived nowhere but in the Underdark until I was cruelly cast out by craven chattels, I confess I am woefully uneducated on the curious compendium of creatures in the surface world."
Minsc furrowed his brows, seemingly at odds with the idea. He leaned his hulking form over the diminutive drow, nostrils flaring. Righteous glare trained at the other man, he peered into Baeloth's face with broadened eyes as if the expanded ocular capacity could detect the slightest hint of duplicity.
"I don't know, Mister Drow. Fair Dynaheir warned me about your kind. You live in the dark where evil likes to hide in the deepest wickedest holes, so you can better sneak away from the blazing brand of goodness. How do I know you're not asking Minsc about the animals just so you can catch them and teach them to play evil tricks in your evil circus?"
"Circus? You assumed my Black Pits, the most stupendously spectacular sport in all of the Sword Coast was nothing more than a common circus?" Baeloth spat, umbrage coiling in his belly at the audacity of this wretched rivvil's scurrility.
But Minsc's face remained hard and wary. Alarmed, the drow inwardly repented his momentary heedlessness. Baeloth loosened his stance and beamed his most disarming smile, the same honeyed pursed-lip grin best at deflecting a complaining customer's wrath. Always worked like a charm with the most demanding of his patrons – the haughty handful handmaidens of the Spider Queen. Gathering his shoulders to make himself appear smaller and harmless, a practiced performance for the occasional audience with a matron mother, he held out his hands to placate and pacify the ruffled ranger.
"There must be some misunderstanding at work. I'm aware you've heard the druid accuse me of compelling the combatants to fight in my arena through compulsory conscription. Such allegations are spurious. Falsehoods far removed from factuality."
"Eh? Not true? How so?" Minsc boomed his doubt.
Baeloth felt sure his heightened hearing caught the echo of an indignant contrarian squeak.
"Well, as you can see," the drow began, drawing out his reply. "A circus implies I force creatures to entertain the spectators using cruel training methods to bend their wild and natural will to mine. Not so with the Black Pits. In my colossal complex of combat, all of my gladiators are trained professionals who are there by invitation to engage in matches of their own volition."
Not a complete untruth, for those suckered stooges had the choice to fight and live for the next battle or stand down and die right then and there.
Minsc straightened up, bobbing his bald head in evident understanding. He reached out a huge hand and clamped it heavily on Baeloth's shoulders, pulling down the other to sit on the grass with him. Baeloth winced but obeyed without protest.
As he had learned from a lifetime in drow society - interim discomforts, tentacle rods included, must be endured if one were to achieve a greater prize.
And such greater prize now sat on the Rashemi's open palm, cleaning itself, oblivious to the designs developing in Baeloth's scheming subconscious.
"Though Boo is not wholly convinced that you have forsaken your dark ways, Boo also says that like ordinary hamsters, a lonely little drow like you is just as helpless if left alone to fend for himself in the woods."
Helpless, he says? Deep in his darkened heart, Baeloth fumed, deploring the deviousness wherewith his former servant, the deceitful djinn, had deployed to double-cross and diminish the drow sorcerer.
"And so Boo agrees with Minsc to teach you about the animals in the forest so you will know which ones to make your friend and share your dinner, which ones to make your dinner, and which ones will make you their dinner!"
The ranger threw back his head and laughed, clearly pleased at what passed for woodland witticism. Baeloth cringed and bared his teeth in the facsimile of finding it equally funny.
Minsc cleared his throat. "Enough of jokes! We must get down to learning business!"
The large human leaned over him and commenced in a more amiable tone. "You see, friend drow, in these woods you shall find creatures big and small. Big, like the bears and…"
"Should we not start with the small ones? Work our way up the food chain?" Baeloth interrupted in a tone he confidently projected as one of genuine curiosity and not at all of impatience.
"Oh. Small ones first. Well, there are bees, and birds, and squirrels, and racoons and…"
"And hamsters? Specifically, our dear dashing little Boo, a Miniature Giant Space Hamster?"
"You want to know more about Boo, greatest littlest warrior in the realms? You've asked the right man for no one knows more about Boo, the greatest dispenser of hamster justice, other than Minsc, the greatest dispenser of butt-kicking justice!"
And so Baeloth sat and squirmed through a lengthy lecture about Boo's propensities and proclivities – its burrowing, eating, sleeping, nipping habits. But his ears perked up when Minsc finally came to the hamster's fights, hung on every word for the ferocity of this creature could not be dismissed.
"… and that was the terrible end of the vile rat who chewed holes in my pack," the ranger concluded.
"A moment there, you mentioned somewhere along your droning discourse that Boo is a giant space hamster, except he is instead a miniature. Did it mean he himself used to be large but had been shrunk to his present size? Or is he descended from stock that used to be large but had been miniaturized?" Baeloth quizzed the other man.
Minsc paused to give thought to the question. He raised the hamster to his lips, whispering to the tiny ears before tilting his head to place his own against the rodent's twitchy snout. Baeloth observed the proceedings, suppressing the urge to snap his fingers.
"Boo says his father before him was also a Miniature Giant Space Hamster, as was his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him…"
"Ah, I understand! Truly a noteworthy lineage!" the drow interjected before the ranger could run down through the entire genealogy.
Minsc beamed at the flattery and clapped him at the back in a hearty show of approval. Baeloth sputtered, wondering if his ribs could survive another such assault. After a while, the ranger rose from his place and walked away, commencing with his patrol of the camp perimeter, leaving the drow to his thoughts.
Baeloth's mind drifted back to his former enterprise. When he had been Master of the Black Pits, he had come across a strange pamphlet - dog-eared, chewed-off in some pages, flecked with bits of blood and gore, and smelling faintly of sulfur.
A pamphlet discarded under the benches previously occupied by a troop of tieflings before a pit fiend summoned by a desperate combatant, had recognized them among the watching crowd, no doubt for some old slight committed under that tedious business that is the Blood War.
Said pit fiend then tore through the barriers and through their screaming little leathery hides. Fortunately, Najim had dealt with that messy little incident, including banishment of the troublesome terror back to whatever circle of hells it crawled out of, clean-up and repairs, and charging the other spectators a fine sum for helping themselves to the souvenirs left behind, namely to the torn-up horns and tails.
Curious if such find would yield profitable information, Baeloth had casually skimmed through the pamphlet, titled Catalog of Creatures for Pets and Provisions, Courtesy of the Prime Exotics of Sigil, Forty-Third Edition.
Returning to the first page, the languid leafing progressed to rapid reading. The catalog featured none other than Giant Space Hamsters, creatures of great size and variety, found only outside of Toril among the other worlds of realmspace and other crystal spheres.
Though a hamster in form and temperament and habit, they came in the dimensions of a fully-grown bear, appearing plump and flabby yet in truth muscular, their primary weapons their sharp teeth. First bred and domesticated as pets by gnomes from the other world of Krynn to run and power their sidewheelers, giant space hamsters come in a wide assortment – from the most mundane whose variances were only of the color and pattern of their fur to the more strange and truly bizarre.
And if creatures bizarre would lead to battles barbaric and bloody, why not?
First introduced in the catalog was the Armor-Plated Giant Space Hamster, furless but covered in thick hide like a rhinoceros. Wait, he once kept a rhinoceros in the Pit for a planned special spectacle, did he not? Why had he never acquired another? A broken-down pen and flattened servants costing him dearly in coin, manpower, and lost time. That was why.
Then there was the Invisible Giant Space Hamster, able to make itself magically imperceptible in battle. Baeloth furrowed his snowy brows. Quite the feat it exhibited, but if pitted against a gladiator, where is the excitement in watching a fighter swinging his weapon against naught but air? Boring! But then seeing this warrior suddenly bitten by invisible jaws and hoisted in the air as if they were levitating, then having his ribs crunched and crushed by unseen teeth – well then, perhaps there is evident entertainment value in the indiscernible after all.
Another curious creature was the Ethereal Giant Space Hamster with its see-through skin. He imagined its foes usually defeated not by its combat prowess, but by crippling nausea at seeing the pulsing innards and skeleton through semi-transparent fur. Hmmm, may have to stock on basins for spectators with feeble constitutions. And charge them a pretty coin for the use.
Next in the catalog was the Fire-Breathing Phase Doppelganger Giant Space Hamster, having the ability to spout a cone of fire and phase between the Prime Material plane and the Ethereal plane. Baeloth pondered the sheer volume of black lotus the gnomish breeders had to sniff and snort to have come up with this crazed combination.
Then there was the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen, the largest of these deviations and possessing spelljamming powers. Hold on there - spelljamming powers? Baeloth imagined one sailing through the phlogiston, not in the form of a ship but of a living breathing behemoth hamster. A furrily fascinating vessel, perhaps even comfy and cushy, but could get quite cranky and gamey in a tenday's time. Likely the reason for the "ill omen" in its moniker.
Meanwhile, the least passive of its kind, the Rather Wild Giant Space Hamster displays extreme aggression towards non-hamsters. Truly? More aggressive than the Sabre-Toothed Giant Space Hamster? The latter tusked like its namesake, clearly the overbite not purposed for devouring nuts and seeds.
What of the Tyrannohamsterus Rex? A much larger variant, but exceedingly spineless, fleeing in terror even from foes less threatening. Also has the shortest stumpy forepaws. A novelty cute and curious indeed, but such cowardice won't do for the arena.
Then there were the Two-Headed Lernaean Bombardier Giant Space Hamster which can stun its foes with the loudness of its belch, and the Yellow Musk Giant Space Hamster, a golden specimen whose beautiful coat belies its noxious odor and ability to emit a cloud of toxic gas. Matches involving these two types should be held in a glass dome. He'd rather not have the crowd passing out and demanding refunds for missing out on the fight.
And finally, the Miniature Giant Space Hamster, bred as pets and traded in the Prime Exotics shop in Sigil. Touted as possessing a calm disposition, intelligent and capable of speech though sounding more like normal squeaks, and most importantly - gentle with children. Also, tasty when deep-fried and seasoned with herbs and tears, as served at the Infernal Rapture roving restaurant in the Nine Hells.
Excellent! A creature that can be sold at the exits both ways - either as a quaint souvenir or a savory snack.
Though yet to complete the entire pamphlet, Baeloth's mind already reeled with giddy excitement at the mental image of these massive mammals battling in his arena.
Regardless of their inherent docility, surely a way could be found to prod these beasts to hostility. If female, he could cast an illusion making her perceive her pups to be in mortal danger from the gladiators. If male, an illusion shrouding the gladiators in the guise of females of his species – extra desirable females of his species, Baeloth thought with a titillating titter. Or another male challenging his territory, or a massive smoky sunflower seed. Yes, that could work too.
But the catalog had saved the best information for last. It said rearing these giant rodents to achieve the desired traits merely required the insertion of an enchanted substance into their bodies at certain junctions of the reproductive cycle.
The vast number of combinations limited only by one's imagination, funds, and level of disregard for safety standards.
Now if only he could find a living sampling wherewith to begin propagating his fighting hamster empire! And yet here now, a specimen has just landed on his lap, ripe for the exploiting!
Well, not yet on his lap. Nonetheless, a miniature giant space hamster in your compatriot's hand is worth two out there in realmspace.
Certainly there could be ways to start with even just a single male – enlarge the creature by magical means, extract its seed, transform it into a female - there's an enchanted girdle for that and he knew a competent tailor who could stitch it into an appropriate size. Implant the seed into its new womb and voila! Gold and fame and notoriety breeding like duergars dallying in dirt.
And so Baeloth sat before the campfire, considering the perfect time and circumstance to snatch the rodent and abscond before none could be the wiser.
Midnight came and their watch ended. They were relieved by Khalid and Edwin, a puzzling pairing considering their diverging dexterities in conversation; though the draconian druid's reasons for putting those two together were far from arbitrary.
The stuttering half-breed could see better in the dark unaided, and of them all he was the one least likely to lose patience and finally silence the puffed-up peacock in red robes with something pointy and permanent.
Baeloth started for his tent which he was forced to share with the Thayan, pleased at the latter's absence for a few more hours. He glanced back and saw Minsc duck inside his which he had all to himself, for no one else could sleep through his sonorous snores. Besides, the wily witch and the burgling brat had appropriated a tent for themselves on account of the Wychalaran mentoring the girl in magic, and hopefully, manners as well.
And then it hit Baeloth, as bright and clear as a stray lightning bolt cast in a confined corner. The Rashemi would be sleeping by himself and at a time when no one would expect the drow to be on guard duty or awake, leaving him free from the vexatious vigilance of the self-righteous prats in their party.
An hour he waited in his tent for the opportune time to strike. Observations of his human companions' nocturnal habits revealed their slumber is at its deepest around moondark. Peering through the opening, he checked to make sure Khalid had already returned from his rounds and was then sitting across the Red Wizard, the bonfire between them having more semblance of cheer. Entertaining as it were to eavesdrop on their riveting ripostes, Baeloth decided that now was the time to make his move.
Belly flat upon the earth, he crawled out from underneath the side facing away from the watchers and the fire. Garbed only in his underclothes, Baeloth had discarded his usual robe and cloak to mitigate the slightest risk of entanglement.
Like the alluring anfractuous adder, he snaked his way through the grass, guided by the ranger's wood-sawing snores that pierced even through the hide. Not too long and he found what he was sure was the Rashemi's tent.
With utmost care he lifted the hem and sneaked a provident peek.
His target confirmed, Baeloth crept in, quiet and cautious, eyes never leaving the slumbering hulk. Once fully inside, he crouched and paused to survey its occupant. Stripped of his armor and tunic, Minsc lay on his back, having almost rolled off his bedroll, blanket carelessly tangled with his body. The ranger's pack and weapons were placed not far from his head.
But where, oh where hides the Ranger's Runty Rodent?
A quick sweep over the large man's person and immediate space revealed nothing. Just as well that he slept not with his pet lest he roll over and inadvertently make hamster flatcake for breakfast. On the other hand, neither could he find anything among the man's visible possessions a receptacle that might function as a cage.
Baeloth made for the pack, untied the straps, and commenced with taking out its contents with as much deftness and silence as sidestepping another claim for recompense over accidental deaths at the ring-side benches.
Must take care not to rouse the ranger and provoke him to anger, useless as it would be to employ a spell to spook or confuse the man. They had been warned by the witch that Minsc going into a berserker's rage renders him immune to such magic.
Furthermore, Baeloth's arsenal of arcane were more of the destructive kind.
Best not to hazard killing the hamster that sires the golden pups.
He was already halfway through the pack when he paused, as it were his wrists slapped by an invisible reprimand.
The drow turned his gaze to the source of that inexplicable sensation, to the hamster perched on the ranger's forehead, glaring at him with indignant itty-bitty beady eyes.
Keep silent and I will let you live to peruse a profitable proposal, Baeloth mouthed then placed a shushing finger on his lips.
Whiskers twitching furiously, Boo straightened and reared up on his hind legs.
And launched a litany of what were surely the angriest squeaks in all of the realms.
Baeloth clapped a hand on his mouth in mounting panic. The minikin moron will certainly rouse the more monstrous moron if it ceases not its shrill shrieking!
Desperate to silence the hamster, Baeloth tossed the pack away and lunged forward to swipe at the keening critter, narrowly avoiding an accidental slap at the ranger's face. However, Boo dodged him, leaping from Minsc's forehead, landing all paws on the ground.
Boo zigzagged across the tent floor, Baeloth in heated but heedful pursuit. They raced around the sleeping man; the drow tiptoeing to avoid stepping on both master and pet, even as the hamster scurried and scrambled just beyond his reach.
Hold still, vexing vermin, let your new Hamster Master take you, the drow inwardly cursed.
"Wait!" he hissed under his breath as he halted.
Likewise, Boo froze then turned around to look up.
"Little One, I have something for you," Baeloth teased in a whisper as he made a great show of reaching into his pocket and rummaging for something. He got down on one knee and extended a hand, laying it flat on the ground before the hamster.
"Care for some Underdark Nuts? Yes, you would like that, wouldn't you? Extra crunchy from cruelty and salted with slaves' tears. I assure you – though not ethically grown, they are sustainably harvested."
Boo crept towards him and tentatively sniffed at his fingers.
Almost there, a bit more, climb on to my palm, the sorcerer mentally goaded.
Boo paused, glanced up, then sank his teeth into Baeloth's pinkie.
Thinking quick, the drow pressed a knuckle against his mouth to stifle a scream and drew back his hand. He sucked at the bite wound as he glared at the defiant rodent. Boo glowered back, then darted towards Minsc and dived in beneath the blanket.
So the rat thinks to find refuge in the ranger, Baeloth understood and paused to consider this new conundrum. How best to seize the smallish scourge without stirring the sleeper?
He bent down, and with the same care as when caressing a priestess' ego, Baeloth took hold of the blanket's edge and swiftly pulled it away. Then shrank back, shielding himself.
Minsc only snorted, scratched at where the cloth brushed him, and snored some more, eyes still shut.
Baeloth sighed and relaxed. He leaned forward for closer inspection but found no sign of Boo. Where could the wretched rodent be?
His eyes caught the slightest movement, localized around the ranger's loins. There, under the cover of Minsc's breeches, the hamster had snucked in and settled between the man's tree trunk thighs, trapped and trembling in timidity!
Baeloth rubbed his hands in confident anticipation. For if the ranger roused not at the chase neither at the taking of his blanket, then surely he would remain rigid and resting while the drow extracted his tremulous target.
The hamster must have sensed its impending capture for it twitched and throbbed in terror. No time to lift and pull at the cloth lest it use the opening to get away.
Like the predatory peregrine, Baeloth swooped down and swiftly cupped his hands over the concealed creature.
"Caught you, hairy one!" he whispered, victorious.
You shall not escape Baeloth's masterly fingers now, he thought in triumph as he knelt still by the man's torso, squeezing just hard enough to ensure it won't break free from his clutches.
It was then that he heard a squeak, neither muffled nor restrained.
Baeloth's eyes narrowed in bafflement as he found himself looking at Boo.
Perched on the ranger's knee.
"Eh?" he stammered and looked down at his hands still in a vise-like grip on something indisputably solid.
It was then that he felt on his face the heavy heaving breath hot with righteous rage. His eyes widened in sinking realization as they dared to glance at an awakened and enraged Minsc.
"Good evening, friend. Perhaps, I could enlighten and explain?" the drow squeaked as well.
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Baeloth cursed the druid, though not entirely for lack of gratitude.
After all, Jaheira had only half-heartedly healed him of his injuries, the amelioration sufficient to mend merely broken bones but not bruised muscles.
Speaking of bruises, he stayed on his feet for he could not bear to seat his still tender behind. As he most excruciatingly learned last night, that boorish human's brawny bare foot could inflict just as much pain as a leathered sole.
Baeloth rubbed at his hands which bore the brunt of Boo's blasted bites – a fair warning, for next time it will be his eyes then. The Harper harpy had not even bothered to fully treat the scabbed pockmarks which now earned the sanctimonious scrutiny of the Red Wizard before him.
"Say what you will, Thayan. Your words are but prickles to my plight," Baeloth spat.
Yet the usual sneer never materialized on Edwin's face. Rather, he appeared surprisingly and atypically sympathetic.
"And why should I rejoice over a failed attempt to make my enemy suffer?" the wizard huffed.
"Rather, I would say, you are now initiated into the Enclave," Edwin added, as he imperiously pulled back his sleeve.
Baeloth examined the tiny and numerous scars on the other man's forearm. It seemed the Red Wizard had likewise paid dearly for daring to lay a hand on the witch. But something else in Edwin's words caught his attention.
"You mentioned an Enclave? Others in our group who similarly survived the rages of the Rashemi and his rodent?" Baeloth asked, astonished.
"Not others. Only another," Edwin corrected him. "Another more moronic and fractious," the Red Wizard added under his breath as he turned his head at the approach of one of their companions.
"I prefer to fall first in battle before I ever deign to count myself among your wicked number. But honor dictates that I remain truthful even in my failings. I could show you my bite scars, but it would be most improper to pull down my trousers out here in the open where the fairer sex might see," said Ajantis, abashed and patting at his own armor-plated posterior.
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Spacey Hamster-y Scribblings:
True facts about the Miniature and Giant Space Hamsters credited to the highly educative material so generously shared by the gnomish breeders of Krynn (a.k.a. the wiki pages).
Written for the Baldur's Gate Gift Exchange 2020 and humbly offered to Babblefishgirl who asked for a fic with Minsc and Boo and Baeloth. (｡◕‿◕｡)
No real Baeloths and Edwins were harmed in the making of this fic. ;P
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