Writer's Note (June 2021): The Bitch of Baldur's Gate is undergoing a rewrite similar to what I did for Shifting Targets because I need to refresh some of the details before I finish Ashes of Urst Natha. While I'm reading it I plan to correct a few plot holes so some things will change as I go along- nothing major.

Fifteen years ago:

"Really, really?" the little girl squealed with excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "You can really make it pink?"

"If you hold still Imoen," Gorion smiled at his tiny daughter. The small girl stood up straight, hands by her sides, but she was practically vibrating with energy. She managed exactly three seconds of patience before she lifted a lock of her mousey hair to inspect it. He laughed. "I haven't even cast it yet."

"How long will it last?" she asked eagerly.

"Until I lift the spell," he replied. He was quite pleased with himself. It had taken him several days of research and experimentation on the Candlekeep cats to perfect his enchantment. There were hair potions which would do the same job, but they were less easily reversible and would require Imoen to sit still and not touch them for an hour. Whereas this charm, once completed, he could apply and lift at will. "Which I will do when I return from my next trip."

"Why do you have to go?" she whined.

"Some people are planning to do a very bad thing," explained Gorion patiently, "They want to hurt children. And I have to stop them."

"Will you see Mummy?"

The question made him flinch. He longed with all his heart to see Alianna again, but he feared what he would be forced to do if their paths crossed. She had left their mortal daughter to be raised by him in safety, but she had a very different fate in mind for her infant son by Bhaal.

He supposed, afterward, that Imoen's question must have distracted him as he started the incantation. He must have made a mistake or said something wrong. Perhaps thinking of the Bhaal cultists and their death rituals had slipped different words into his mouth.

There was a sound like the striking of a hollow gong and all of the colour drained from the room. For a long moment the world seemed hollow, grey and distant. Imoen sat frozen, her blank, milky eyes staring at nothing at all. She toppled very slowly, like a rag doll slipping from a shelf, though her body made no sound as she hit the floor.

As the ringing died down and the colours returned Gorion's howl must have shattered the peace of the gods themselves. Little Imoen's wish had been granted and her hair turned a vivid pink, but she would never see it. Mortal-Imoen was dead and in the deepest catacombs of Candlekeep there lies an empty tomb etched with the words;

Here lies Imoen, daughter of Gorion and Alianna.

Imoen, my precious girl. My light, my jewel, my life. Were the soul of a mortal man payment enough I would give my own to bring you back.

Farewell my little angel. Love is a light that never dims.

Her passing left behind an intelligent man with too much time to brood. At first he preserved her body using magics not dissimilar to those another grieving father would one day use on Skie Silvershield, despite the insistence of Candlekeep's best healers that whatever he had done was beyond the help of resurrection spells. Caving to pressure he let them build the tomb and bury his daughter in it, but never with the intent that she should stay there for long.

For Gorion had returned from thwarting the 'bad people' with the very children he went to save. Young Bhaalspawn, hidden from the world and each other by a powerful enchantment that made everyone who stepped foot into Candlekeep forget that they were not the same person. From each of their souls he stole a fragment, merging them into a replacement for his dead daughter. It worked to a point. Imoen's body sat up, looked around in confusion at the other children surrounding her coffin, cried and spoke. Yet this was a new soul, as disconnected from the mortal Imoen as a doppelganger, and for the rest of his life Gorian had treated her with as much loathing and contempt as if she were one.

It had worked out badly for her, fatally for him and disastrously for the Bhaalspawn themselves. All but two were dead now; the Hero of Baldur's Gate and the other one who people tended to forget about.

Present Day:

"See a recruitment officer and claim the glory of Caelar's crusade for yourself!" read Freya as she ascended the crypt's stairs toward daylight. They had just seen off the last of Sarevok's followers, but it had been a tedious mission as dungeon crawls went and it had plunged the Hero into a sour mood. "Ha! Chance would be a fine thing. If I put so much as a toe outside of this city the Hooded Git will have me. Fuck me, I'm bored."

"We were wondering..." one of the officers accompanying her ventured tentatively. "What do you reckon to this crusade? We were thinking of joining. After we've served our term with the Flaming Fist of course. We can leave at the end of the month. They say that it's double the pay."

"Sounds like a deal to me!" Freya laughed flippantly. Then she cocked her head to one side. "Mind you, double nothing is still nothing."

"No need to rub it in," the officer muttered resentfully. It had been two months since their last round of coins and his rent was overdue. Duty and honour were all very well but tell that to his snooty landlady and her baliffs.

"I'd insist on three months in advance if I were you," she replied glibly. "Otherwise I doubt you'll see a penny more from this Caelar character than we're getting from Duke Skinflint Silvershield."

"Even you aren't getting paid?" gasped the guard.

"Am I fuck!" answered Freya. "We're paid in loot. Why do you think I'm so pissed off that my thief didn't bother showing up? I bet those locked catacombs are packed with gemstones, if Coran weren't too busy cuckolding half the aristocracy of Baldur's Gate to help me get at them! Still the jewelled daggers off those skeletons ought to be worth something. How many did you pick up?"

The guards exchanged a doubtful look. Freya pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Tell me you've been stripping the bodies," she growled. "You have actually collected some loot, right?"

"Well not exactly..."

"We were told in orientation not to..."

"Right!" barked Freya, her blonde head snapping up and grey eyes flashing. This is what she got for working with amateurs. She drew her twin bastard swords and stomped down the stairs again. "Back we go!"