„The Rage"
All was still, unmoving. The giant minotaur, with his both horns broken, was a statue and he didn't charge at them with its heavy-looking stone hammer to stop them from reaching an exit, he didn't move at all. The closed door behind the statue didn't dance to the rhythm of an invisible draft of fresh air that they felt on their faces, it was far too weighty to move guided by the wind. And Bodhi with two of her minions, standing by minotaur's oversized stone hooves didn't move either.
The cold fresh air bit Daria's lungs when she took a sharp intake of the breeze. Something was happening with her and the elf didn't know how to stop it. Fear was never so intense, but now she could feel nothing but it, making her knees feel like a jelly, her stomach seemingly coming to her throat. Scream never made it from her mouth only because she was too terrified to breathe. Only a second it took from the mindless state in which she could feel nothing, being guided by her friends like cattle, to being completely dominated by fear, born at the sight of Bodhi.
"Oh, I know I'm early" Bodhi smiled, showing her needle-like teeth, making a step forward, and Daria felt as if the vampiress was already by her throat. Sound of drawn weapons surrounded her at once, but that only made the predatory smile widen. "I promised my brother I'll clean after him, so here I am. Are you scared little Bhaalspawn?" The vampiress turned to the sun elf, leaning on the wall, her breathing accelerated to heavy panting. "You should be."
The same move as before, probably an instinct of a predator, guided Bodhi to leap through the room like a lightning to grip the small sun elf's throat. This time no Tenser's berserk could save Daria, she couldn't even follow the rapid movement with her eyes, only able to feel cold finger's closing her neck in an iron grip.
"No!" someone screamed. Minsc's sword, a crooked blade found in a pile of rubbish, bounced of the vampiress' skin without any visible effect. Imoen began to chant.
"LET GO!" Daria roared with the last reserve of her strength and will to fight, when the fingers began to crush her throat. And suddenly, only Bodhi mattered. Irenicus' sister, who took Imoen's soul, whose minions nearly killed Jaheira, who wanted to kill them all now. The fear disappeared like a blown candle. Only Bodhi mattered now. And she had to die.
Gathering the resolve Daria drove her hands forward trying to push the vampiress away, with surprising effect. A sudden blindness fell on her eyes, but that didn't matter, only Bodhi did, and the Bhaalspawn could still sense her, a cold undead force trying to back away from her. Daria wasn't going to let her escape that easily. She wasn't going to let her escape at all.
"Child of Bhaal? What happened to you?" the undead hissed, but nothing in Daria could listen to any spoken words anymore. All she knew were the surrounding beings – cold undead and still warm living. The fact that the cold ones were meant to die was so obvious that Daria wondered why Bodhi was even wasting her strength to speak.
A large scaled arm shot forward thrusting though an undead minion's heart. The creature that was once Daria crouched by the floor, balancing rapid movements with a lizard-like tail, covered in blood-colored scales. In a split second its jaws closed around second minion's neck.
"What is this?" Bodhi only managed to stutter before the monster was just a breath away from her. It didn't hesitate or wait, it wasn't a predator hunting for a pray knowing that one day it might be hunted as well. It was death itself, walking among the living and all it knew was murder.
No words or considerations could stop it and Bodhi brushed with death the first time since she embraced vampirism, changing into a bat moment before being cut by Bhaalspawn's claws. Not even a powerful undead like a vampire could take a hit like that and survive, her instinct told her, and she couldn't doubt them this time.
The blood-scaled monster howled in rage as she flew out of its range and Bodhi realized that the fact that the undead cannot feel any fear was a myth…
Her head hurt.
She tried to stop the dull throbbing inside her skull pressing her cold hands to her forehead, but that didn't work one bit, so she huddled herself in the corner of the large chamber in attempt to absorb some of the wall's indifference to pain. Her companions haven't stopped debating yet, even though almost an hour passed already since the Bodhi 'incident'. Each and every one of them was glancing cautiously at her every few minutes, probably making sure she wasn't doing anything suspicious behind their backs.
She shouldn't have a tail, she shouldn't be covered with scales, her arm shouldn't be so long. And it wasn't now that she calmed down, realizing her clothes were torn by spikes she shouldn't and didn't have. Her senses returned to normal as well after a short moment of confusing whirlwind, leaving a tingling sensation confirming that whatever happened might very likely happen again.
Daria didn't mind. It made her strong, stronger than a coven-master vampire and its two minions, in a split second. The loss of sight and hearing – the two primary senses for an elf, was perfectly rebalanced by a mysterious new sense, allowing her to be aware of energies of the living and undead close to her, experiencing their emotions like scents. She was wondering about the exact extent and range of this new ability, already deciding to pursue it further. As for drawbacks… any impact the new manifestation of her taint had on her soul, couldn't possibly matter now.
It was strange. Bodhi almost killed her moments ago, and yet Daria never before felt so calm in the face of death. Her fear was like a memory from a childhood – she couldn't believe she felt something like that, either an hour ago, or ever.
"How do you feel?" Imoen crossed the chamber, passing the broken minotaur statue on her way, halting in assumingly safe distance from her sister. Looking behind the thief's back the sun elf could see all eyes were centered on her, watching her like judges would, rather than friends.
"My head hurts a lot." Daria answered the honest truth.
"You don't feel any emotions, do you?"
"My spirit was ripped to pieces and stolen from me" the elf said with unwavering calm. No, she didn't feel any emotions.
"Sis…" Imoen hesitated. "You became the Slayer back then, an avatar of Bhaal. The taint must have taken control over you."
"Ah." Daria muttered, seeing clearly that Imoen expects some response. Her sister looked her with a mix of worry and terror.
"We have to take your soul back from Irenicus, the exit is near. Can you… Can you hold it back?" she whispered, maybe thinking that raising her voice would set off the transformation again?
The diviner lowered her head pondering on the question for a while. The tingling was still present, barely, but there, making her feel something akin to an extra limb now available to use. Recalling one of the meditation methods taught to her in Candlekeep she imagined a light, representing the ability, and then a strong hand closing around it, locking it firmly in its grasp. Why did she never ask why she's being taught meditations to regain control?
"I think I can" she answered turning to Imoen just in time to see her eyes becoming wide with fear.
"Sis? I can see you lips moving, but I hear no voice. Sis?"
All light disappeared as if the chamber was suddenly cloaked with Darkness spell. Daria leaned on the wall when the space around her span out of sudden. Her skin began to harden like a rock and her bones cracked, trying to fit the new form. Without anything to distract her Daria gave in to the sensation of her body melting and then solidifying in quite new shape, not an unpleasant feeling, but one almost impossible to describe. She screamed as spikes thrust out from her spine and torso, her fingers becoming sharp and durable talons. Blindness clouded her eyes for good, but she couldn't help wondering if she was wearing now the shape Sarevok was trying to imitate with his armor.
The inner sense stirred and woke, forcing her to look at the word from a new perspective in one astounding flash. Daria turned her blind eyes to her friends, smelling the air. It took her a moment to realize what she was feeling was actually what they felt.
Their clear-cut fear boiled blood in her veins, assuming she still had those. The Slayer crouched instinctively taking a defensive position, when weapons appeared in her friends' hands.
'What kind of abomination is that?' the elf felt a thought like a mental signal coming from Valygar, accompanied with pure contempt sticking to her like tar.
'We won't stop it with our current weapons' Jaheira considered almost coolly in her head, an image of a fiery sword forming in her mind as a preparation to cast a spell.
'Slayer' – the name was written all over their thoughts, a condemnation. It was like a dream she had long time ago, after learning who her biological father was. A monster, abomination, evil goblin, a tale to scare the little children – she was all that from a very beginning and could never become more. She unconsciously searched for Xan's thoughts, not even realizing how much it mattered for her what she'd hear
'Not her, never, not like that…' she felt thoughts dangerously close to hysteria. 'Not ever, her, becoming like that… I'd rather she died than…'
Slayer's roar shook the foundations of the asylum. So they'd rather have her dead?... Whispering behind her back, like if she was on her deathbed already, deciding her fate, debating her sanity. Was she herself still? Was it true? Was any of this real? A tension of not felt emotions gathered inside her and she felt that she'd explode if she didn't release it somehow. Something tried to restrict her arm, but she threw it off with the strength that sent Bodhi flying. She finally felt something… and it was… pain…
Her breath became short and she backed against the wall. Light began to make it through the black spots before her eyes. She saw Minsc leaning against the opposite wall, his armor in shreds, and Viconia patching up his arm, which looked like a pincushion with one giant blood-red spike still inside the wound. Valygar and Jaheira were trying to shield the pair from Daria while Imoen and Xan were attempting to summon an invisible wall to protect them from the monster… Berserker's blood was still pouring on the floor and some of it was on her hands.
But Daria didn't care.