Chapter 13 – Shiver Me Timbers
"Hey, soldier."
Lyric startled awake from a pleasant doze, the water of the massive bathtub still warm and steaming around her. Reflexively, she dipped down into the suds, covering her entire body up to her chin in the soapy clouds.
Karlach ambled over and sat down on the edge of the wooden basin, dipping one finger into the edge of the water to cheekily heat it up a little more with the fire that occasionally licked up from her skin.
"It's no worry." She said to the eyes and ear tips peeking out above the bubbles. "I get it. I know a little about what it's like to have some shitshow rip your chest open and make a right mess of things. How ya feelin'?"
Lyric sighed and sat up, exposing the completely flat plane of her chest now decorated in an elaborate entanglement of scars, misdirected blue woad vines, and mostly healed wounds.
"Halsin did some good work there!" Karlach added in her usual ebullient manner. "Saved your life outright I'd say."
Lyric nodded, passing her hand idly over the raised texture. "Yeah, yeah, he did. I owe him for that one. Think I got hit so hard back there that, for a moment, I saw Withers."
Karlach laughed. A rich, hearty, sound that filled the entire top floor of the Elfsong Tavern with joy. "Oh, he mumbled something about the Fate thing spinning along and all that, but you should have seen Halsin. Well, I mean you couldn't because you were, like, dead at the time, but anyway, he conjured so much magic I thought the whole place was going to sprout trees and start hemorrhaging butterflies. Less like a little laying on of hands, if you know what I mean, and more like he was straight-up summoning you back from Fairyland."
The ranger actually had to chuckle at that. Technically, she was not all that far removed from the Feywild but the mental image of Halsin bellowing out a wild prayer to the Oak Father while standing over the remains of several dozen undead struck her as pretty funny. But speaking of undead…
"Where's Astarion?"
"Oh, don't fret your smitten little head. He's back there, probably asleep or whatever by now. Was up with you for like three days and nights straight. Didn't even so much as take a pee break. Oh, right, well, I guess he wouldn't have to, anyway, once we knew you were gonna be okay it was obvious he needed a nap. He's getting some rest while the others get up to speed."
"Right. You went to the Circus of the Last Days, you said. Ready to tell me what you found?"
Karlach swirled the water around absently again. "Gale's gonna be better at this than me. He really gets it, I think. But you said something about Olivet being a cleric or a war priest of some kind, yeah?"
"Cleric of The Mask, I'm sure of it."
"Yeah, makes sense. Lord of Shadows, what we used to call him. Enemy of Selûne, ally of Bane. Figures he'd have something to do with all this. Anyway, your Olivet is a high roller around here. Rich, connected, everybody thinks he's the shit even though he's running a train on the whole city. Sound like someone else we know?"
"You mean Enver Gortash."
"Fuck right I mean Gortash. But it's all coming together now. Gale's saying that we've got the first part of the whole Grand Design thing but not the second. The Netherstones are what the Chosen of the Dead Three are using to control the elder brain. The elder brain is, of course, the source of the tadpoles and the cult of the Absolute. So, like Wyll was going on about, Thorm raises the army and marches on Baldur's Gate. Gortash then "saves" the city and become all high muckity-muck of the Sword Coast, after offing the old pops, Ulder Ravengard."
Lyric scowled and scratched at her nose. "Okay. Fits. Olivet has been part of the Upper City circles for his entire life. That he runs in Gortash's orbit would be self-evident. Probably acting as some kind of advisor or strategist, power behind the throne. That's very in-character for him."
"Like, unsubtle, right?" At this point, Karlach swung her legs over the edge of the tub and slipped her feet in up to the knees. The water immediately jumped up by several degrees and Lyric had to admit, it felt divine. The tiefling continued however, "but what didn't quite fit was Orin. Sure, she's one crazy bitch and probably just wants big daddy Bhaal's favor but there's got to be more to it than that, since she's kinda got her own cult thing going on. Bhaalists, not Absolutists. She's got a plan too. Otherwise, she'd just go on a massive murder spree until the entire Lower City was literally painted red. So, Gale's got this theory. With Ketheric gone, her next target is actually Gortash. Who she'll replace with Olivet."
"And, you got all this from…. the circus?"
Karlach laughed. "You'd be surprised what you can learn from a hot purple necromancer, a djinn, and an adorable kobold when you know exactly how to do the talking. And, uh, I don't mean me, mind. Wyll did the talking. Lae did the glaring. I was just muscle. Then we put it all together with what Gale got from the magic shop."
Lyric couldn't help but pinch her forehead as she tried to take it all in. "Ok, so, basically what you're saying is that you think Olivet is a double agent. He's one person with Gortash, he's another person with Orin – Mask, right, figures – and he's playing them off of one another all the while acting as the bridge between them in Thorm's absence. But that still doesn't tell me why he would do all this. Plus Cazador."
"I think I might be of help with that!" A proud voice of pure velvet announced its owner from the hallway.
Lyric smiled. Astarion always knew exactly how to make an entrance, even in the mildest of circumstances. Here, he smoothly turned the corner of the archway leading into the bath area, resplendent in an obsidian long-coat with hand-stitched golden embroidery (clearly, he'd found at least some time to do a little shopping while she was out). Truthfully, he looked absolutely beautiful. His hair was neat and deftly curled, his skin flawless, and even his shoes had been recently buffed to a brand-new shine. Lyric noted briefly that water heated up just a little bit more as well.
He strode confidently into their midst with a flair to his step. "There will be time for details and complicated layers later, my darling, so I'll get to the point. We think that The Mask seeks ascension to his previous place of power. To consume the Dead Three, with our participation of course, and then to name Olivet Ingen Ailil as his rightful Chosen. What this means, ultimately, is that Ailil must therefore find a way to gain control of the Crown of Karsus. That's his goal, as Gale has so persuasively argued. An argument, I suspect, he is overly familiar with because he's thought much the same thing for himself. Controlling this Netherese Weave and all that."
"Well, this is all getting even more disturbing by the second." Lyric replied, swishing the delightfully hot water around her arms. "So why would Olivet kill me then? Especially in service to Cazador's ritual? If he wants us to be the instrument of his underhanded victory, shouldn't he be, I don't know, kind of back-hand helping us?"
"No." Her lover answered with a click of his tongue. "Because it's not actually us he favors as his secret vanguard. No, no, we're the sacrifices he intends to make to create his preferred front. With Gortash, he has influence with the Steel Watch. With Orin, he has a foothold among the Cult of Bhaal, and with Cazador as the Vampire Ascendent, he'd have command of the undead hordes and bands of War Wolves at his disposal. I'm afraid we've just disrupted one of those planned offerings though."
It was utterly the wrong time and such a stupid gesture, but Lyric smiled at him with that same goofy, enticing look she always had whenever Astarion was near. And he smiled back.
Oblivious, Karlach kicked her feet with a splash and picked up the thread. "Wow, this guy's a real asshole, in't he? But if he's the cleric sort, it does mean he's, like, totally set up for exactly this kind of thing. Calling on divine power and all that. Disguising himself, passing through places without anyone noticing, giving blessings and curses, just all bad news from page one. And with The Lord of Shadows at his back, artful manipulation doesn't even cover it. Literally gods manipulating gods. Oh, that sucks."
"It does." Astarion agreed. "Best to rally ourselves now then, since I doubt there will be much chance once Olivet gets real word of what happened on the Crimson Hill. Assuming he hasn't already, naturally."
Though his voice was calm and casual, Lyric watched with barely restrained mirth as Astarion simply began to strip without so much as a preamble. He unbuttoned the coat with quick, dexterous fingers and shrugged it onto the floor, followed immediately by his shirt, pants, and shoes. He then discarded his underwear by tossing it onto the corner of the mirror just opposite of where he now stood in all his pale, austere, glory. It was the sight, caught just out of the corner of her eye, of the small bit of teal fabric sailing past her that got Karlach's attention though. She turned to see where it had come from.
Astarion was absolutely shameless and stretched languidly, completely naked as he rolled his lower back and cracked his knuckles over his head. Lyric didn't think she'd ever seen Karlach's eyes get that big.
"Buh…I….um…. I mean…. oh, I should…."
"Nonsense. Stay. That tub's big enough for all of us and I haven't had a proper steam bath in ages." He said, sauntering over to the two women and climbing in with an audible sigh of comfort. "Oh, that's quite excellent."
The water sluiced over his skin, making his chest and neck glisten with a pearlescent luster. The temperature also went up several more degrees.
Lyric grabbed the soap and handed it to him but instead of fortifying their bubbly shield, he began to lazily scrub it over her shoulders.
Karlach coughed.
Though thoroughly enjoying Astarion's tender touch, Lyric managed to keep her voice level and serious. "The Mask is a deity of intrigue, mimicry, shadows, and death. An ally of Bane and Shar, and a contemporary of Cyric; the Prince of Lies who helped to orchestrate the murder of Mystra. An enemy of Selûne and Waukeen. We've been seeing him at work this whole time, even since the appearance of the nautiloid. We just didn't know it was him. And through Olivet, he has woven his shadow-whispers throughout Baldur's Gate in anticipation of the Dead Three enacting their plan of conquest. We have to assume he's got hooks into everything. Gortash, Orin, the Patriars, the Fist, everything is connected. But we have at least one advantage now. We know. And that's the downfall of The Mask's Demarchs. Like Shar and the others, they thrive in darkness and obscurity. They rely on secrets and ignorance. When revealed, that is when they are the most vulnerable, and the most dangerous."
Astarion's hand slipped beneath the water to caress her thigh with a soap-slick palm.
"Fuck yeah!" Karlach brightened, almost completely forgetting that she was still sitting on the edge of bathtub just a few feet from two of her naked companions. "So what do we do next? How do we get this guy?"
Astarion purred softly into her ear and Lyric had to take a slow, deep, breath to maintain her concentration. To anyone else, it would appear that Astarion was merely getting frisky in the water, salaciously teasing and arousing his lover in full view of anyone who might be there to watch. But Lyric also knew his actions had a far more quietly profound meaning because she knew, better than anyone, how Astarion communicated through touch. He was telling her that he didn't care about the scars, about the loss of her breasts, or about the wounds that would forever mar her. He was telling her that he didn't care what her body looked like, and that he still found every part of her exquisite and delicious. He was telling her just how much he still wanted her; Olivet, their companions, and the world outside be damned. For him, nothing had changed.
It almost moved her to tears, if not for the fact that his fingers were precariously close to the apex of her thighs. Drifting upwards with purpose. She thought back to their time in the upstairs rooms of the Lamb's Head, back in the Hecatomb, and remembered that her lover was definitely not above starting something with literally everyone in the room. In fact, it rather seemed to amuse him as she either tried to desperately pretend nothing was going on or retaliated with some maneuvers of her own.
"We…um." Lyric swallowed. "Well, as much as I hate to say it, I think we take the fight to him. Directly. The longer Olivet has to scheme, the worse he's going to be. The more dug in he'll get. Did you have any luck at the Circus figuring out where the Cult of Bhaal might be hiding?"
"Oh yes!" Karlach beamed. "Ok, so, this was really cool. Halsin talked to this dinosaur thing, which was by this big stage area. But this goes all the way back to Dribbles the Clown. The one that got totally replaced by some shapeshifters and then dismembered. Which means Orin, you know right? But then, Orin herself turned up wearing the face of this poor wood nymph who was doing some kind of love fortune act – poor girl – and then Lae'zel, like, totally went to town on her but she twisted this ring and disappeared BUT!"
The words just ran together in one, long, excited rush.
"We went back to the little red kobold Popper, who still had Dribbles' hand and that was weird, but he said that we should talk to Akabi the djinn with the jackpot wheel, who totally was cheating by the way and then I got mad – sorry – and he teleported me to this jungle place where I found a bitchin' trident and anyway, once I got back I was all fire and burning 'cause that was a shit thing to do, and so he got nervous told us to go talk to this zombie guy over by the Basilisk Barracks and, man oh man, did HE have some stuff to say!"
Lyric was dizzy. She thought she understood maybe about half of what Karlach was talking about while the rest just fell right out of her ears as Astarion began to gently nibble at the back of her neck, tasting the mixture of sweat and steam collecting just below her hairline.
Her friend, however, was completely unfazed, waving her arms madly as she raced through the rest of the story. "Oh, we gotta help Thrumbo by the way, but before that, he had some information about some nefarious events going down at Candulhallow's Tombstones that suggests that the Bhaal Murder Tribunal has been doing some bad work at the Lower City morgue, so it must be somewhere below the casket and grave maker which is in the building directly behind us. Like, right over there." She pointed out the window.
"Wait, I'm sorry." Lyric put her hand against Astarion's chest to pause his attentions. "Did you just say that the Bhaalist cult is most likely…. right…. there?"
"Yep!"
"Right there. That building. Through the window, right there. Behind us. In view."
"Yep!"
"Karlach…"
"Isn't that great?!"
"…THEN WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?!"
"Uhhh…. you?"
"Darling." Astarion finally interrupted, taking her hand from his chest and kissing it playfully. "You don't seriously think we were going to attempt to take on Ailil and an entire cult plus one of the Chosen of the Dead Three while still a man down, do you?"
"Astarion!" She spluttered. "They could have found us here at any moment! Raided the tavern! Slaughtered everyone in their sleep!"
"Pfff." He flicked his wrist. "Hardly. This is the most defensible position we've ever had. Better than in that camp, right out in the open, where, I might remind you, you were taken from us without so much as a stifled scream to alert the watch. No, we've held strong right here for the past few days. Given us all a chance to recuperate from the journey after Moonrise and our fight with Cazador."
"Besides." Karlach interjected. "Gale's been at the library for, like, days and Wyll and I have done some great spy work! We're gonna be prepared this time, soldier. You're just about tip top again, the others will be back by dinner, and then we can show those fucks what's what."
"Right. You're right." Lyric finally relaxed, allowing Astarion to take her buoyant weight against the length of his body as she leaned back into the hot bath. "So, what's for dinner anyway?"
"Ha!" Karlach squealed. "We've got a dumbwaiter!"
With a sudden barrage of droplets and wave of water, Karlach leapt from the rim of the tub and ran, sopping wet, out of the room and into the hallway where both Lyric and Astarion could hear her yelling at Withers to put in an order. He probably answered with some cryptic phrase, but they were too far away to hear him. All that followed was a metallic clanging, the sound of wood scraping on wood, and Karlach listing a full menu's worth of food to someone down the shaft of the tiny elevator.
After some more ruckus and a crash, Lyric finally turned to Astarion, who tilted his head and smiled warmly.
"Hey." She said.
"Hey." He replied.
"Are you ok?"
"Never better, lovely."
"No, I mean it. Cazador, your old master, he's dead. Gone. For real this time. The other spawn too. You're free. Truly and honestly free."
"Yes." He said, his tone one of finality. "I will never have to fear him, or anyone, ever again. But the work isn't done yet."
"What do you mean?"
"I won't be free, my love, until you are. It's time for Olivet to die."