It wasn't like Xzar always had a plan, but his time insane had given him certain... Insights. Working for the Zhentarim had given him leave to travel the length and breadth of the sword coast, to the point where he had heard of or been in nearly every mental asylum for 'storage' while traveling with Montaron. It certainly hadn't been his first mission with a ball and chain that had allowed him to cross paths with Damiondred, but it was perhaps the only one that he had ever found a measure of actual happiness and contentment.
His memories were a little hazy regarding some of them, but he had his own little house in Athkatla and Amn for a reason. Monty and he were meant to do a job that involved infiltrating the Harpers, and had received a general run down of what was expected of them, what to avoid, and why. He hadn't quite been paying attention, but after some rumination he had a pretty good idea of what he was looking for. He also knew he was the one singularly talented, skilled, and capable enough to get to where he wanted to go. Getting out... Well, he would worry about that later.
Thusly, after a short trek to the Government district, he took his shoes off and stepped into the fountain to start humming and muttering to himself. It wasn't long before his 'work' started drawing attention, guards gathering and trying to drag him kicking and screaming from the ice sculptures he had made of of several robed men sodomizing each other in a nice human centipede around the main section of the fountain.
Not enough to draw the attention of those he wanted. So be it.
A subtle utterance of another spell while a guard tried to wrestle him to the ground resulted in a proverbial stampede of small, undead animal skeletons clambering up legs and nipping at private parts. He was released, bounced back to his feet and hooted and hollered before cackling in glee until an orb enclosed him and cut him off from the outside world. He poked the inside of the dome, identified the type of spell and giggled while gnawing on his thumb nail.
There was a brief deliberation from outside the bubble, and he canted his head to the side with his eyes wide and full of wonder as one of the Cowled Wizards turned towards him and began to chant. The bubble dispersed, and Xzar was mid-way through mentioning he knew stories of dragons with feet like rabbits before their teleportation spell took hold. Processing was about what was expected, and he could tell by the familiar taste of the potions they forced him to drink that they largely were sedatives. Lavender, chamomile, lemon balm.
Closing his eyes, he silently prayed. He prayed as the sluggish feeling hit his system and clawed at his consciousness, and prayed when they settled him into the chair. Head lolling, green eyes caught sight of a pink-clad figure in the corner and he mumbled his way through the fog in his mind. It took two tries, and he had started to lose sight of why he was praying in the first place, before he came back to full consciousness with a sensation similar to that of breaking the surface of a pond for that first breath of air. It was difficult for him to swallow the giddy feeling that swept through him as the tingle of a successful spell faded from his third eye. Priest indeed, and he knew the bhaalspawn had a chance of feeling his essence being drawn upon.
Slowly, Xzar pushed his way to his feet so that he could totter his way towards the pink-clad thief (No, that wasn't right. Pink-clad mage, if she was here. That explained a few things.) to reach out and gently settle his hand on her shoulder. She jerked slightly, as if to try and get away before actually looking at his hand and following it up to his face.
"Hush-a-bye baby, doon't you cry..."
She gaped at him, before reaching out as if to check if he was real as he quietly crooned. The necromancer caught her hand, swaying as he continued to quietly croon even as he mentally compared the scars that laced her hand to the ones that he had studied across her brothers. Not for the first time, he wondered if there was any actual relation between them, but shelved that thought for the long dark hours he doubtless had coming in a padded cell.
"Auuntie and brooother, they did not die... Auuntie will stay, a-cross the sea, while brooother comes running, just to save thee..." He grunted as she threw her arms around him, and he blinked at her as his voice lifted into a nasal whine. "Who you are, know not I. Know you how fast the wild sparrow flies?"
"Xzar you... You don't know me? I thought..." She trailed off, eyes widening as he winked at her, bawdily eyed her up and down with a lascivious 'preeeety laaaady~!' and then turned to teeter back to the chair they had put him in. She watched him go, and curled back in her corner to keep her thoughts to herself.
Imoen saw Xzar again after that. He never interacted with her more than the others, hooting and hollering whenever his medication began to wear off, bursting into song and periodically giggling and sniggering as he spoke to himself in tongues. She almost believed that he had truly forgotten her until a few days later when one of the patients fought off an orderly with a chair. The ragged looking red-head had turned and caught sight of her before charging across the room with hands outstretched, grasping at her clothing and tearing at it as he howled until something slammed bodily into both of them with a roar. She pried one of the hands off of her and backed into the corner as Xzar clawed and snarled, biting the other patient several times before finally getting him in a headlock and getting him to his knees. The other orderlies had finally gotten into the room and split them up, using syringes to inject both of them. The red-head slumped first, while Xzar muttered and cursed before spitting out part of the ear he had ripped off.
He glanced over at her, as if to make sure she was okay, and she was struck by how utterly sane his eyes were above the bloody, manic grin.
"Pret-ty Laaady~, gives us a kisss! Dun dun dun dun, make it the bestest, and one that we'll miss..." He blew her a kiss as they hauled him off, cackling trailing off as he slumped and his head lolled.
She was certain he knew her then, and that he was there because of her. Who else would Damiondred have trusted to send into a mad house to protect her? To let her know he was coming, without tipping his hand? She remembered learning about the group and their methods from Scar after hauling him out of the alley and into her room through the window, a worried Jaheira casting repeatedly over the human before his colour turned from pale white to a more normal tan and told them, between ragged breaths, everything he knew about what Damiondred had been doing. She had always known her brother was smart, but it seemed as if he had started to grow exponentially after meeting the necromancer.
She remembered how Xzar had watched her brother when she had met them north of Beregost, and almost cried for the death of the child she had been at the hands of Jon Irenicus. When she was returned to her room for the night, she even had proof when she found a rudimentary set of lockpicks had been tucked onto her person sometime during the scuffle. Scavenged wires that looked like straightened hairpins and a nail file. Hope kindled within her, and she clutched them against her chest as she thought about everything she knew about the layout.
The door to her cell opened and she turned, fear overturning hope as Irenicus stood in the doorway.
"Come, girl. We have work to do."
Xzar lay back in his padded cell. It had been almost a week since he had been teleported into Spellhold. Slow poison was about the most powerful clerical spell he could muster, but every time he used it he could feel the source he drew upon drawing closer. From how the spell would last all day, he knew also that his casting capacity was undiminished from when he had been a faithful of Bhaal and that the limit of his granted power was determined by the limits of the source. How much divine power could be siphoned from a bhaalspawn at once? Could he use the power to heal? Could he call fire down from the sky and form barriers of blades? Could he restore the dead to life?
Eventually, potentially, but the necromancer tucked his hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling rather than try. With how flimsy the thread connecting them he felt perhaps that the higher tiered spells would require the actual presence of the archer, but that was an experiment for another day. For now, he had to figure out what, exactly, was going on. He had managed to capture a mouse recently, bribing it out with crumbs and then killing it with a deft twist of its neck. A few drops of blood and a sliver of one of his nails was enough to raise the creature and bind it to him, and he used it to scout out what he dared to. The things he had seen through its eyes were worrisome.
Irenicus had wasted no time with his construction, having largely killed anyone who didn't immediately agree to obey him and setting the rest to either keep order or build the contraption in the larger room down a floor and to the south west. He had the general sense that it was meant to use people as a powering force, but without a better look at the workstation that Irenicus rarely left or left unguarded he didn't dare risk his eyes. He had done what he could to give Imoen the tools for freedom, but... There was a piece of the puzzle he was missing. How was she tied into all of this? What did she and the bhaalspawn have in common, that they should be physically tortured in a similar manner while Jaheira and Minsc were by all accounts simply held in cells like cattle?
The archer had recounted some of the conversations between the siblings to him, and he found he liked less and less where his discoveries and ruminations were leading him. What were the odds, after all, of not only one but a second Child of Bhaal being raised among the stuffy tomes of Candlekeep? She had lacked the aura of death that the archer carried with him, and had by all accounts seemed like a well adjusted regular human...
Only one way to truly find out. The taint could express itself a variety of ways, but death was a constant.
He knew something was different when he woke up. He could feel the whisper of a breeze though his being that held the froth of familiar, barely-contained rage. It felt like smelling a bonfire before seeing it or feeling its heat, hearing the distant roar of flames as they were fanned. Chewing on his lip, he finished his prayers and debated his course of action before the door opened and two orderlies came in and hauled him up. He was jabbed with a needle (A sedative, the advance of which was slowed by his previous prayers, thank... Bhaal? Damiondred? The latter, he decided, as he was the well from which he was drawing such things.) and then hauled along towards a room. They passed empty cells, and he weighed his odds of being able to get a spell out before they noticed, deciding against it considering both of them were much stronger than he was and already had him by the arms.
Eventually, he was stuffed into a glass tube and blinked as it was closed off behind him. He could feel the roaring bonfire nearby, felt the flames seethe and grow, and glanced down. Green eyes followed the rows of tubes before settling on the one in the middle to meet eyes so dark they were black. He immediately launched into casting, body crumpling a moment later as those dark eyes widened.
Nimloth! You keep me going when it comes to writing this. I don't mind spelling errors being pointed out at all, so long as it's not just differences in spelling like colour and color. Quite honestly I corrected myself a few times with her name because I've played more hours of Final Fantasy VII than almost any other playstation one game, and my brain keeps autocorrecting any close spelling of the word -to- Aeris. Which isn't even correct, considering it's supposed to be Aerith. I'll see what I can do to adjust the spelling later today or tomorrow.
Regarding Wilson, he's actually a companion you can get in the enhanced edition. He's literally a bear. Can't equip anything, but damned if I don't love him anyways. With my current group (dorn, dami, viconia, wilson, hexxat and haer'dalis) the only trouble I have is against spells like disintegration. Dorn just this morning solo-tanked the caster vampire in Bohdi's tomb until she disintegrated him, and then when I raised him after coming in and finally dispelling her protections and offensive spinning her face off like a blender he proceeded to solo-tank Bohdi until she turned into a bat and flew away. Usually things die in seven or less hits.
Questions? Comments? Consistency issues?
Leave a message after the tone,
-KD