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Summary: Edwin Odesseiron, Imoen, and Branwen most certainly didn't sign up for a random excursion in the Far Realms. Will our plucky heroes find their way home before they end up burning down the whole plane and three-way wringing each other's necks? Or will they stay stuck there forever, burning down the whole plane and three-way wringing each other's necks?

For GriegPlants at the Baldur's Gate Gift Exchange 2021.

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The Somewhat Adventures of Edwin Odesseiron, Imoen, and Branwen in the Far-Gotten Realms
(Yes, groan in terror and awe at the magnificent title, you simians!)

Part One


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"Uh, guys?" Imoen said haltingly in awe and wide-eyed as she stared at their surroundings. "I don't think we're in Toril anymore."

"What an astute assessment," Edwin huffed, ignoring the small flock of glowing ectoplasm floating in their midst. "No doubt regurgitated from a rarely utilized fragment of your simian brain not preoccupied with appropriating property that isn't yours."

He turned around and wagged a fist at their other companion. "And cease trying to bash everything like a mindless gorilla with a maul!"

Branwen paused in mid-bash, warhammer in the air, and glowered at the Red Wizard for his interruption. The ectoplasm in front of her squeaked gratefully and wriggled away.

For no discernible reason, the trio found themselves standing in an endless plain devoid of any vegetation, the ground not of grass nor earth but as it were a rubbery mottled grayish carapace. Every now and then it heaved in some places. Almost as if it were breathing.

No single sun lighted this strange world, rather the entire landscape lay bathed in pale illumination from multitudes of globes of pulsating brightness scattered across the firmament around them. The sky, if it could be called as such, proved no better in lending hints of their current location – an immense membrane stretching itself far above their heads, gently bobbing as it were a placenta filled with fluid and humors.

Beyond the diaphanous layer floated monstrous shapes, flashes of distant lightning revealing massive creatures in the likeness of manatees gracefully swimming through the etheric atmosphere, propelled by absurdly tiny yet swiftly fluttering feathery wings upon their humped backs.

As his clueless companions gawked at the curious horde, Edwin pinched the bridge of his nose. By Kossuth and the Weave, how did he end up in this place…

"Awww, look at those things! They're huge! Do they come in pink?"

… with the obnoxiously impudent sibling of the Bhaalspawn?

"More importantly, can they do battle?"

… and the unalluringly abrasive war-wench?

"Is it an unattainable impossibility for you monkeys to attempt some semblance of reining in your base impulses in order to focus on the more important matter at hand?"

Namely the matter of how his magnificent person had been teleported into this weird plane wherever it resides in some demented deity's unbalanced sphere, and how to return to the Prime at the soonest and most convenient method.

And possibly leave these two morons behind here. Forever.

Gallingly they disregarded him until the creatures floated away from sight.

After a while Imoen looked at him. "If you're asking how we got here, I dunno at all. You're the wiz, Edwin. Aren't you supposed to be the expert in all kinds of arcane stuff?"

He dignified her query with a glare. How this unschooled brat managed to dabble with the Weave without inadvertently disintegrating herself will always be beyond him.

"I agree with her, mage," Branwen said. "You are the only one among us who has no compunction when it comes to meddling with dark and evil magics. I doubt you have even learned your lesson from the failed Nether scrolls. Who knows? Maybe you were attempting another ritual like before, and your incompetence has -"

The nerve of this snow hag! "It is not the same ritual! It is entirely different! And I am not incompetent!" Edwin shrieked, then clapped a hand over his mouth.

"Eddie?" Imoen teased, eyebrow raised, leaning forward and hands squarely on her waist. "Are you trying to gain limitless power from a long-dead ancient empire again?"

"Noooooo," he replied, crossing his arms with an indignant air.

Imoen elbowed the cleric. "Yep, he's lying."

"How are you certain? Did she cast another lie detection cantrip on me without my permission?" Edwin retorted, waving a dismissive hand at Branwen.

"It wasn't necessary to expend a Zone of Truth on you, Wizard. Your falsehoods are as plain as the tattoos on your person."

"Besides, everyone can tell you're fibbing 'cause your right whisker twitches when you do," Imoen said, tapping at the corner of her mouth then pointing excitedly at his face. "There, it just did again!"

Edwin sputtered and awkwardly held down the traitorous mustache. "Perhaps there's a partial truth to your assertions. Before our arrival here, I was in my quarters, minding my own business and perusing this newly acquired manuscript of some middling academic value –"

Both women narrowed their eyes at him.

"Fine, then! Some itinerant sage sold me what may or may not be one of the Nether Scrolls and I had cast the spell right before we were taken here."

Unkempt and rambling while hawking his wares in a corner, said sage undeniably reeked with the aura of one who has forsaken the world and periodic bathing in the name of unfettered pursuit of hidden esoteric knowledge. Based on his claims, the spell was not of mere transmutation nor transformation. Rather, potent magic capable of manipulating the very fabric of reality and existence!

Edwin nearly had to summon a construct to physically restrain him from violently shaking the man into expeditiously spilling the secret.

The disheveled hoary lunatic had explained how the ritual imbues the caster with the ability to conjure the probability distribution of all conceivable and inconceivable outcomes of each dimension of a totality contained within the universal set of determinative and indeterminate corollaries. And then it should substantiate as superpositions of infinitely designated perspectives presently eventualizing from all iterations of continuance, all of which and none are ostending simultaneously at the designated constants as a derivative of an unequivocal sequent encapsulated in the valance of space-time.

Spectacularly convoluted, but how is it supposed to bestow one with unbridled power and immortality and unlimited wealth and prodigious fame and the adoration of legions of worshippers and of course an army of voluptuous concubines, Edwin had needled the man.

Oh quite mechanically simple, the cuckoo crowed, by mere physical observation of the desired causatum, the wave function is effectively collapsed into a single eigenstate and –

Yes yes yes how fascinating now shut up and relinquish the scroll, Edwin had cut him off while frantically digging into his own purse.

Absolutely no need for further delays. The Red Wizard's superior intellect had immediately deduced how the conjuration was nothing more than a mere materialization of desire. A variation of the Wish Spell where instead of a treacherous djinn defrauding you with the most minute of miswordings, the caster is empowered to select their preferred state of being.

And what could be a more preferred state of being than possession of unbridled power and immortality and unlimited wealth and prodigious fame and the adoration of legions of worshippers and of course an army of voluptuous concubines?

And so without hesitation, Edwin bought the scroll. A good and rare find, indeed. That, and the manuscript had been acquired for a measly bargain of fifty-five copper pieces and threats to magically incinerate the seller's lice-infested beard if he didn't discount the price from the original seventy coppers.

Upon tossing his payment at the man's face, Edwin had pestered his companions, nay, lackeys and projectile fodders, to leave the city immediately and retreat to the Pocket Plane. There he hastened to seclude himself in his personal chamber, quite a lofty term for a hollowed-out cavern in that dreary dimension. With manic excitement he had meticulously scribed the runes on the floor in the form of linearly arranged symbols reminiscent of ancient Chessentan glyphs, transversal outlines and sinuate delineations in accordance with the illustrated graphs in the manuscript.

Remarkably, the requisite spell components were commonly found in any household pantry - flour, salt, zest of lemon, dried rosemary, three cloves of garlic, a dash of paprika, mushrooms, among others. Yet it took a whole day to procure, no thanks to uncooperative party members refusing to relinquish these common items from their provisions. What utterly selfish simpletons.

On the other hand, it proved easiest to convince Cernd to part with some of his strange mushrooms. Edwin handled the tumaceous fungi with extreme caution lest a single whiff or accidental skin and tongue contact alter his perception and lucidity enough for him to actually appreciate the derelict wolfish druid's nature-oriented aphorisms.

But another source of delay had been Imoen pestering him about letting her mend the frayed hem in his robe, claiming her skills with the needle were impeccable and how she was just being nice to him. Nice? He would have found her over-eagerness to volunteer for such a mundane task to be suspicious at the time, but he relented and surrendered his robe to her.

After all, who was he to deny the brat the chance to curry favor with a soon-to-be formidable power in the realms? And besides, should he not be garbed with perfection upon the moment of receiving his long-pursued greatness?

Within the hour Imoen had returned his robe, though such middling endeavor should have been completed much sooner. While satisfactorily restored, Edwin was no fool and did not neglect to check for traps likely sewn in the fabric, whether garish glitter or itching powder. None were found, all protective enchantments untampered. Well then, miracles do occur in Toril.

Then it had been a simple matter of emulating the shockingly straightforward verbal and somatic segments prescribed in the guidelines, followed by the unmistakable feel of the Weave rousing, evidently responding to his summons, and -

Then they found themselves here.

"It is as I suspected, this all your doing, foul wizard." Branwen hefted her weapon, prevented from her advance only by Imoen's outstretched arm barring her way.

"My doing or not, regardless, none of you simpletons can appreciate the returns on the risks being shouldered by visionaries with massive intellectual capital such as myself and -," Edwin muttered then yelled at the two women suddenly walking away, their backs turned on him while avidly whispering to each other.

"Where do you think you're going? How dare you abandon me! Think not you won't regret this in any form and - Bah! What will those fools accomplish without my indispensable talents?"

Undignified and clutching at his robes, the wizard scampered after the thief and the priestess, his complaints echoing yet unheard across the vast and perplexing landscape.

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