Gale was sent to get her. She'd expected him covered in gore from head to toe, but she reminded herself he must cast prestidigation after every bloody encounter.
"Anyone hurt?" she quizzed as they headed on in past the decrepit gate. Vaguely, she understood she was asking if Gus was hurt.
"No. Well, Shadowheart was, but not anymore" he wiggled his fingers in explanation.
Nodding, they met up with the others at the well. The ground inside the village was muddy & slippery, as she found out as she nearly performed the splits, grabbing onto Gale's sleeve & sending them both to the ground.
"Thank god I don't have balls," she commented as they straightened each other, Gale going red & disentangling himself from her quickly.
The little gnome, Barcus, was hanging around, finishing up chatting with Gus.
"Hi there," she intercepted, "I've heard a lot about you. Can we have a quick chat, please?"
He eyed her suspiciously, before nodding cautiously, as she led him just off aways from the others.
She didn't lower herself to his stature, no matter how much she was tempted to. He wasn't a child & didn't need to be patronized like that.
"Your reputation precedes you, you know. I've heard you're quite the genius."
"Really? I mean, I do like to dabble, but that's quite … nice …. to hear."
His face brightened considerably under her praise.
"I've quite a few connections who have heard some interesting things you're working on." She encouraged.
"Oh, I'm always working on something or other." He smiled shyly.
"So I've heard. One of your experiments, I must admit, set my own brain on fire with its possibilities."
"Oh …. ?"
"Hmmm-hmmm," she leant down, just slightly, conveying confidentiality for just the two of them.
"Magic rune powder."
His face closed instantly. That was fine. She'd planted a seed there for now.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about." He said flatly, & very politely, as he backed away.
"I'm sure; but my interest is in its application. If we see each other again, I hope to discuss it further."
He looked at her distrustfully before turning & hightailing it out of the village.
She felt pretty smug with herself. This is what Raphael must feel when he was planting his seeds around, too. No wonder he enjoyed his job!
Rejoining the others, she spied Astarion casually throwing a large, palm sized shiny purple rock up in the air, over & over.
"Are we ready to head out?" Gus addressed her suddenly.
"What? No, haven't you explored the buildings yet?"
"No, there doesn't seem to be much left here."
"Well, we need to investigate that building, right there. There's something you might have missed. In the basement. In the secret chamber behind the basement."
He gave her a wuthering look.
"Who should go down there?"
"Me. Wyll. Astarion. Lae'zel."
He sighed.
"Fine. Make it quick."
He called to others, letting them know that, on a hunch, they should check out the old apothecary shop. Belle led them in, feeling like a mother hen.
"What are we looking for again?" Astarion asked, bored, as he picked up an old, ornate silver mirror. She saw him raise an eyebrow, look around quickly at the others, then stow it in his pack. God, he was such a peacock!
"Anything of value. Saaay, isn't that a trapdoor?" How convenient of her to just spot it like that!
Lae'zel did the honours, going down first, followed by Wyll, then Astarion, then herself.
"The view from here is lovely" his voice floated up to her as she descended.
"You're lucky she doesn't rip your head off in the mornings, Astarion," she heard Lae'zel defend her purity.
She looked down quickly to see him at the bottom of the ladder, grinning back up at her shamelessly.
"I could hawk a logey on you from this height. I wouldn't miss."
"I have no idea what that means, dear" & he sauntered off to go investigate the basement.
Reaching the bottom, she looked around in the dim light. Wyll graciously handed her a lit torch, seeing as how she'd forgotten to bring one with her. She gave him a quick smile before zooming around the perimeter of the basement, making a half-assed effort to look like she was rummaging.
Everyone else was being too thorough. i.e. taking too long.
"Oh, what's that?" she called brainlessly & loudly to the room at large as she found the not so hidden switch.
At the promise of hidden treasure, Astarion materialised by her side to see what she'd found.
"It looks like a switch", he said, going in for a closer look. "It's not trapped." So, he pushed it.
The wall near it ground loudly, stone over stone, as it slid sideways, revealing a hidden passage.
"This is so coooool, I never got to do escape rooms back home!" Belle said excitedly, letting the more capable fighters in first.
No one answered, probably because they were concentrating on a possibly dangerous situation.
The little area opened to reveal a grassy area, covered with coffins.
"Well, that's always a good sign," Astarion muttered, readying his bow.
Belle crept right up behind him, peering over his shoulder while the other two carefully kicked open the coffins, one by one.
On the opposite side, a loud crunching explosion suddenly drew all their attention as a skellie jumped out of its box.
She couldn't help but jump herself, even though she'd half expected it. Wyll started firing fire at the thing as it hissed and brandished its sword & Lae'zel went in charging like a bull at a gate. Astarion started to lose arrows at it, faster than she'd thought possible, & she was momentarily distracted by how that made his light armour pull & tug against his back. During that distraction, skellie decided to charge right at her & Astarion, except, when it got close to them, it suddenly crumbled.
Everyone stopped what they were doing. They all looked from the skellie to Belle.
"Oh yeah, I'd forgotten" she said, eyes growing wide, stepping out from behind Astarion & heading to the nearest coffin.
It rattled briefly as she approached. Wyll lifted the lid quickly, & they found a dead skellie inside.
"Well, this makes it easy, then" she muttered, simply walking around the rest of the coffins. Two more rattled, & that was that.
"I wonder what else that ability of yours can negate" Astarion said thoughtfully as he raided the last coffin near where she stood.
"I know, right? If it negates magic, which means the weave, does it negate everything to do with the weave?"
That line of questioning had them both looking at each other, the ramifications of that not lost on either of them.
Shaking herself free of that massive thought, she stepped away to go speak with the magic mirror. The others followed quietly.
The floor length mirror looked just like an ordinary mirror as she peered at her reflection. Shit, Astarion had been right, she was puffy around the eyes! That was it, as soon as someone found cucumbers, she was bagging them!
Aaaand …. Shouldn't the face have appeared by now?
Cocking her head, she gave it the count of five. Nothing.
"Hello?" she said, rapping on the glass.
"Are you expecting an answer?" Lae'zel questioned impatiently.
"Ob-vious-ly not" she replied, gesturing for the gith to shatter the glass.
Surely her ability wasn't that strong …. was it?
Stepping through into the room beyond was like stepping into whacky dinosaur bones exhibit in a museum. They were everywhere! The giant one in the middle of the room warranted a good minute just staring at while the others went off to do their looting thang.
"What have we here?" Astarion murmured, kneeling to apply the little tools he kept handy to the trapped gate.
Belle came swanning in beside him, kneeling right next to him & peering way too close at what he was doing. He paused, looking down his nose at her.
"Do you mind, I'm trying to work."
"Don't mind me, I find this fascinating." She didn't back off.
"I do believe I've offered you a demonstration of my dextrous fingers before."
Only her eyes slid up to his. His were obscured behind his lashes, looking like they were smouldering. She didn't buy it. Astarion had honed his bedroom eyes into an artform. But his body language, or rather, the aura he gave off, said something else entirely. Being in the beauty industry, the type of industry that called for close body contact; how to touch people to instantly put them at ease; how to pick up on if they were on edge; meant she'd developed a finely honed instinct to what she could only call 'aura' around people.
Belle was beginning to believe he meant what he'd stated later in the game; all his promiscuous jibes were deflections. He didn't know what to say once she'd refused to move away from him.
She slid out of his way. He hesitated only a moment before getting back to work. She tried a different tact.
"Astarion?"
"What?" he asked, annoyance in his tone now as he twisted the little tools.
"Can you teach me that?"
"I'm not a teacher." He said flatly, tongue poking out the edge of his mouth as he tried to concentrate on unpicking the lock safely.
"There's always a first time."
He swore as the lockpick broke.
"Over there. Now." He pointed at the other side of the room for her to go retreat to.
She slunk away, resolved to annoy the shit out of him until he gave in & taught her how to pick locks.