Disclaimer :

I played the early acess and couldn't resist to urge to write a few prompts picturing my custom character in the game.

The game is tons of fun, even in EA, and I really love Larian studio's work.

I try not to write too much about the events of the game because I wouldn't like to spoil things for those that are waiting for the final release of the game, which I totally understand. And it is completely possible that the game changes a lot in-between. So this is writing just for fun and to share my love for the game :)

As I played the game, I made a lot of bad decisions just for the heck of it and I got the idea that my custom character was a bit of an eccentric idiot (as your companions like to remind you from times to times as well ^^ ) So I had fun picturing an anti-hero character, not really good, not really bad, just...a bit of a loser with a poor sense of self-preservation. And so this fic is about picturing my character's background and thoughts as she interacts with her companions or around very specific scenes of the game. Like I said, I try to stay a bit undefined about the events of the game themselves so as not to spoil too much.

According to her fellow students from the Academy of Magic in Baldur's Gate, Mereana was what you would call an irritating and quite stereotypical spoiled little brat. In truth, none of her fellow students really liked her and they certainly didn't miss her when she dropped out of her studies. Daughter of an aristocratic family of the Gate, she had a powerful and wealthy mother, whom she deeply hated, mainly because her mother seemed to be a kind, intelligent soul, with an acute sense of responsibility, whereas Mereana herself was...undisciplined, selfish, with no sense of the reality of the world.

So, like many children of the aristocracy, Mereana was doing things just to piss her mother off or tarnish her family's name.

Henche the haircut, the multitude of scandalous love affairs, the poor choice of looks and generally speaking a great deal of wasting everyone's time. Mereana latest's fantasy was attending a career of some sort amongst the artistic circles of Baldur's Gate, as a musician. Too bad that she had no real talent to speak of, but she was very good at pretending to have some. She had observed local bards and decided that mostly the secret of getting famous was being cute, seductive, and poor. Unfortunately, she wasn't poor by any means, but she knew getting a chaotic haircut and some ragged clothes would do the trick, as well as unnerve her mother to no end. As for being cute and seductive, Mereana could fit the bill, in a very aggressive and provoking way. She tended to have lots of lovers, men or women alike, and had a tendency to select whomever may have the worst reputation possible or might have a marriage going on, because she liked to break things people cared about. The key to succeed in such an awful endeavor was to have no standard at all and to think only about herself. The latest was a natural to nobles and didn"t require much effort on her part.

Mereana though this lifestyle would make her look cool and charismatic, but she was the only one to think so. To all the other's eyes, she seemed a bit pathetic, but then, with her family name, she could do as she pleased without ever having to face consequences. Her mother, a high-elf priestess of Corellon, would sigh and comment that it was just a phase. A phase that would last a few decades, but then her daughter would grow up and finally do something productive with her life.

When her mother was utterly alone, she would add that it was probably the human blood in her child that made her so impulsive. This would be a clue to the way the high priestess truly thought of the other races in the baldurian population, but only Mereana had seen this side of her before. As for her father, his identity was shrouded in secrecy. Her mom did not like to be reminded of the human male that managed to seduce her. Mereana never truly cared enough about him to make any deeper inquiries.

Her only remarkable success was her arcanic studies, which was also the only thing her mother talked about at mundane events. Her daughter had somehow managed to pass through all exams with excellent grades. To this day, Mereana herself had no idea how she did that. True, she had some talent, as a wizard. But she had decided to not pursue her studies longer, because of her newly found interest for the bard career, which proved to be a complete disaster that she still refused to acknowledge. Sure, she could probably try to get an apprenticeship with a local wizard, and spend all her days cleaning up his alchemy lab and helping with getting the ingredients. Maybe in a few years she would be able to make a name for herself and get her own mage tower, as her mother wished her to. But truth be told, this did not appeal much to her. It all seemed kind of boring and she disliked studying anyway. Plus, mages were the worst kind of companions ever. All nerdy and better-than-thou like, and they never wanted to try to invoke a demon for fun or press the magic button no one knew what was its purposes. Well, they would know what the magic button was all about if they had let Mereana touch it !

With this introduction over with, our dear reader would now totally understand why Mereana's disappearance during the illithid attack over the city was only met with a sigh of satisfaction by her mother. The spoiled little brat was gone, and everyone that had crossed path with her agreed : it was such a relief that she died. Her mother could pretend to be in grievance and gain more political power over thanks to the empathy of the people, her best friend could steal her actual boyfriend, and the bards of the Mermaid's song would sleep safe and sound knowing the drunk musician wannabe was never going to try to steal the show from them again.

But Mereana was not dead.

She knew that because things hurt. It hurt in her chest, in her head, in her hands, in her legs, and gosh what was that awful throbbing pain behind her eye - oh shit, her eyes.

In a flash, she remembered the tadpole that illithid monster had stuck right in her eyeball. That was gross. That was disgusting. She put her hands all over her face and hair. She could not feel anything under her skin. So maybe she was okay.

Mostly she was very hungover, because her capture to the illithid's tentacles had happened as she was making her way out of a tavern. She had not put up a fight or a run, mainly because she had not totally understood what was going on amidst the haze of ebriety overwhelming her mind.

Maybe it was because she was still a bit drunk, but she didn't feel particularly appalled by finding herself on a flying tentacle ship getting ambushed by dragons and devils. She supposed this sort of thing could happen, like, in the world, generally speaking. That it would happen to her was a bit of a stretch, but then Mereana was a noble child, so she kind of thought that she was special by default.

She quickly made friends with another prisoner, Lae'zel, a githianky warrior. She was pretty glad to have found herself a bodyguard on the ship. Though she had learned magic in her younger days, she didn't feel like facing all these enemies alone. At least the gith girl could act like a meat shield.

It would have been better, though, if Lae'zel had not seemed to think exactly the same thing about her.

Or if she had shown any kind of form of respect or empathy to her situation, which she didn't.

Mereana knew things were going to be complicated with her newfound companion when they were faced with a strange, weird-looking board carved with runes and symbols over three buttons.

As she leant over the board to examine the glyphs closer, she could hear Lae'zel ordered strictly over her shoulder :

" Don't touch it. We don't know what it does."

" I'm pretty sure I can decipher it", the mage replied with certainty. Her response was met only by an annoyed growl.

She looked at the symbols calmly, but wasn't able to understand any single ones of them. Am I really this bad ? Maybe she had dropped out of the Academy for too long. She felt like she should have understood the runes. It seemed familiar. Now the buttons and the board seemed like some sort of challenge. As if it was teasing her : you're not good enough to understand what is our function.

" Let's go", decided Lae'zel abruptly. " We are wasting time."

" Just let me try it."

" Have you deciphered it ?"

" Yes", Mereana lied. " It might help saving this young lady over there." She pointed to the fleshy pod where a young half-elf had asked for their help, which they weren't able to provide.

" I told you : there is nothing to be done for her. Now, let's hurry to the helm while we still…"

That's it. I'm pushing the magic button no one knows what it is for. I'm alone now, I'm on an adventure, I'm putting my damn hands where I damn well please, including weird looking arcanic glyphs !

Without further ado, Mereana pressed one of the three button with a sense of excitement. She had never felt so free before.

Something was screaming above her. She raised her head just in time to catch a glance at three bodies falling down their pods into the grounds...from quite an admirable height. They crashed down on the platform in a gory blood mud, their bodies turned into meat mash by the fall. Lae'zel stood very silent behind her, glancing at her with barely contained anger and contempt.

Even the half-elf on the other side of the room, looking at her, was making clear signs to her to stop hovering over the next button.

Mereana cleared her throat as she slowly put her hand back into her pocket. " - I suppose you are right. We have no time to waste doing experiments."

She turned her back on the half-elf in the pod and crossed the room towards the next platform, which was supposed to lead to the helm.

Following her with utter contempt, Lae'zel murmured through gritted teeth : " ...idiot."