Got the idea when I was running a crazy OP modded build in BG3 and a the same time, I remembered about a quest in Arroyo with the food vendor who was nearly robbed of his bike in CP2077. And then I read GITC and needless to say, the idea stayed and wouldn't get out of my head. So, might well put it down while waiting for the next chapter from Seras.

A Day In The Life of a Food Vendor

Darrell Zhou began his daily routine as usual at the Manufactory, a busy trading hub in the Arroyo sub-district of Santo Domingo, by bringing out his stall from its storage area and began the task of setting it up, getting ready for another day of business.

It was a rote task already ingrained in his muscles after years of plying his trade at the hub as he assembled the stall and arranged the stools, the stoves, cooking implements and ingredients and his inventory of beverages, mostly canned drinks but he did a small selection of teas for those few customers who preferred their drinks personally prepared and piping hot.

Once the stall was set up to his satisfaction, a process that took him only twenty minutes at most even without his younger sister's help, he dutifully tended to the food and beverages in preparation for the typically hectic breakfast runs as the inhabitants of Arroyo began to fill the streets. As he busied himself over the stove, the Manufactory was also stirring to life as the other vendors began their preparation for opening their own stores, some waving in greeting. As he did so, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was already 6.00 in the morning.

'Oops, running late! Better start taking out the wontons from their containers before the rush starts.' Darrell thought to himself as he turned around and–

"GAHHH!" A familiar tall man was right behind him and was almost in his personal space. The man's face was blank, utterly devoid of emotion…almost if not for the very slight narrowing of the eyes as he stared down, obviously in mirth of his discomfort of being startled to near death.

"WHAT THE HELL, BOSS?!" Darrell yelled while making the effort to punctuate his words one by one and glared the man before him. A few of his fellow vendors stuck their heads out of their shops at the commotion but after they saw the source, their curious but cautious demeanours quickly turned into smirks at his misfortune and a few snickers were faintly heard.

"Yo Darrell, your loyal customer's here. Better make his tea stat before he starts glaring at everybody and scaring all our customers off," the voice came from a partially open shop two rows to his right.

'Jason, you asshole.' Darrell switched his heated glare but the offender wisely remained out of his sight. 'Come out here and say that to my face! Coward!'

"Shut up, Jason! The rest of you gonks can shut the hell up too and go back to opening your shops!" Darrell pointed at a few of his fellow vendors at which point they all broke into laughter that became fainter as they returned back to their own tasks. 'Ugh, why me? It's way too early for this shit.' He had the urge to facepalm in exasperation before he remembered that the man who was still standing before him.

After taking a few deep breaths to turn his heart rate back to a reasonably sane rate, he opened his eyes and turned his glare back to the inconsiderate gonk in front of him.

"You. Not a word. Front of the stall. Sit." He pointed imperiously at the row of still empty stools. The man turned swiftly, his black overcoat flared around him like a cape and he silently walked to the front before sitting himself without a single sound. Just how the hell was this gonk able to approach so stealthily, without making any noise at all despite the two years that he had known the man was something that still perplexed him. No sound of rustling clothes, not even footsteps! Nothing! Curses!

Darrell grumbled to himself as he reached for the can of green tea leaves to prepare his loyal (but also a pain in the butt!) customer's beverage, one that he also knew by heart as the man had never ordered anything else ever since he knew him. A few minutes of silence passed as he mixed the beverage, poured the tea into a large paper cup, tamped the lid down and almost forcefully plopped down it on the stall's counter top.

"Your tea, Boss," he tried to put on a deeply aggrieved look on his face, "and just so you know, I'll be charging you double for this cup today and every day for the next two weeks. If you're hellbent on scaring the bejeezus out of me or trying to make me keel over from a heart attack, I might as well charge you extra so I can afford that Trauma Team subscription. Unlike you, at least everyone will know when they're coming."

He expected the man to display some degrees of regret for startling the shit out of him or maybe a nod to acknowledge the point that he was owed some redress for his grievances, hell, he'd even settle for a very small wince from that petty threat of price increase but all he got was a raised eyebrow on an expressionless face even as a gloved hand rose to grab the cup of tea and brought it slowly to pale, almost bloodless lips.

'Wait, is that…?' There it was…a barely noticeable upward quirk at the corner of the lips. That bastard was laughing at him!

'You motherfucker…'

"Do not resort to such blasphemies, friend. It does not suit you", came the quiet reply at last.

'How the hell…ugh.' Rolling his eyes and huffing in resignation, Darrell turned back to the stove fully intending to ignore his unrepentant customer. However, he could not help sneaking in glances. If there was one thing he noticed for the past two years, the lone customer currently gracing his stall seemed to wear the same clothes every single day. Black overcoat, trousers, gloves and boots with a dark grey buttoned-up shirt being the only item of clothing breaking the monotone of colour.

Physically, the man was tall and appeared to be powerfully built judging from the way his frame filled his clothes. However, his face was a contradiction altogether to the otherwise seemingly healthy appearance. It was gaunt, almost sickly in visage with sunken eyes that appeared to glow at times with terrible light.

There was always an uneasy feeling wherever he went, a sense of wrongness like a deep-seated dread in the pit of the stomach. Darrell had seen him walk amongst throngs of pedestrians at and around the Manufactory and it was as if he was watching rivers of humanity slowly parting like flows of water separating before an invisible wall, recoiling against his presence.

In the rarest of cases, those that he had only felt twice since he had known the man, it was as if the world itself stilled, holding its breath in the anticipation of sudden incredible violence without any warning. He remembered the feeling well, the way his stomach clenched painfully and his lizard brain screaming to him to freeze on the spot in terror and yet at the same time also screaming at him to run for his life.

'Who are you, Ardin my friend? No…what are you?'

His internal musing was abruptly and rudely interrupted by the roar of engine as a modified Archer Hella bearing the markings and colours of the 6th Street gang tore down the street, the gang members within it firing wildly through the side windows at the pursuing NPCD patrol cars, utterly heedless of the morning pedestrians who threw themselves prone on the sidewalk screaming in fear as a sudden storm of bullets flew over their heads. An unlucky few of them however who hadn't managed to throw themselves to the ground or dove for shelter behind the nearest cover caught stray bullets and was now crumpled on the ground in pools of their own blood, new statistics of the senseless violence that had erupted and could erupt at any moment in Night City.

Within seconds the sounds of cars and furious gunfight faded into the distance and Darrell cautiously raised his head over the counter top after he had dove for cover behind his stall the moment he heard the first gunshot, trusting in the armor steel plates built into the inner layers of the stall to absorb any stray bullets. He felt fortunate that he heeded his sister's advice to spend those extra eddies for the additional protection as the armor plates were not exactly standard construction for vendor stalls in Night City.

To his surprise though, he found his friend still seated at the front of the stall nursing his matcha tea without a care in the world.

"What the…uh Boss? Hey Boss, you ok there?"

"I am fine, my friend. Why do you ask?" Ardin's eyes were closed and his expression unchanged but Darrell felt the beginnings of the same freezing terror he had felt before began to creep into his mind. He felt the temperature plummet as his breath misted before his eyes. It felt like his blood was turning to ice in his veins. He wanted nothing more than to dive back into safety behind his stall but his body could not move. He could not tear his gaze away from the man sitting calmly only a meter away from him.

Ardin's eyes slowly opened and Darrel saw the orange glow of the irides as if the unholy fires of hell were burning within. In the space of a few heartbeats, he hallucinated that the image of the face before him wavered and blurred like it was made of illusion. The gaunt face was a virtually transparent image, superimposed on a charred skull and in the empty eye sockets, twin tiny orbs of fire floated within them.

He couldn't draw another breath, the air was frozen in his lungs. In his peripheral vision, he knew that the others at the Manufactory were affected in the same way as he was and they too were frozen in place, too terrified to move or make even the slightest noise. 'Oh God, please please please…'

As abruptly as it had happened, the sensation of imminent doom vanished, suppressed by a brutal application of will. His hallucination ended and Darrell reeled as his mind cleared, his muscles were suddenly his own to command once again. He took a shuddering breath, sweet sweet air flowing back into his lungs, bereft of the icy bite it had just mere seconds ago.

"My apologies...for that brief moment of distress that you have suffered, my friend. Here, for your troubles." His friend slowly rose from his seat and reached into his coat pocket, drawing his Agent and he tapped lazily at the interface. A second later and Darrell saw the amount of eddies credited into his account. That amount though…it was much much more than double the price of the tea. It was too much…

"You– I was kidding about the price earlier. You don't have to–," he began but Ardin cut him off.

"It is nothing, my friend. It is yours as well as my apologies for the…inconvenience," Ardin said, "and I will parley with the…leadership of the 6th Street of what had happened today and request them to avoid this place from now on and to offer proper restitution to the fallen." There was a strange echo in his friend's voice like it came from beneath the ground.

"This is their territory," Darrell immediately protested, knowing full well that the 6th Street wouldn't take kindly to any challenge of their authority in their territory, "and I totally doubt they'll listen to a…a private detective telling them to fuck off from this place. Please, just let it go."

"Worry not, my friend. I can be…very persuasive. After all, is not being persuasive a part of this vocation that I had chosen upon myself? All will be well."

"But why?" Darrell tried to get his friend to see reason as he would not have his death on his conscience.

"I was reminded of a question that was asked to me a long time ago. 'What is the value of a single mortal life?' I answered, spoken with the confidence of youth and the arrogance of righteousness but my words were false. I was false. I failed in my duty and innocents perished from my failures. No more. I will see to it that justice is done."

His friend began to walk away but Darrell felt that he ought to try one more time to dissuade–

"I will see you tomorrow, my friend and I expect my refreshment to be ready at the same time." His friend walked between the buildings and was soon lost in their shadows.

A decrepit desiccated corpse garbed in ancient tattered robes and bandages materialized into existence. Its dark eyes tracked the figure of 'Ardin', the gaze piercing through the buildings effortlessly. Satisfied, it nodded before turning its face to the light of the morning sun, savoring the warmth given by the life-giving rays on this alien world so far from the Realms. The golden filigrees on the dried leathery skin of its face gleamed brilliantly.

"'Tis strange that thou arrived on this world so far removed from the Realms, Exardrin Tav. Though the Nether Brain was vanquished by the sacrifice of thy companion and the machinations of the Dead Three foiled, much was lost. It was by thy hands, o death knight, that the Realms were endangered however briefly by thy misguided treachery. It was by thy hands that Zariel fell in disgrace and the one that claimed thee after thy fall, the Dragon Queen, now laughs upon the throne of Avernus."

The being paused in its monologue, its finger traced a pattern in the air and golden light trailed in its movement. The magic settled and the dimensional marker, much like a beacon, anchored itself to the fabric of reality. Now, the being could come and go as it wished, the marker allowing for travel between the planes without error and without the exorbitant expenditure of energy.

"But…it would seem that thy memories hast returned in full. Shall thou be true of the answer thou had given so long since or shall thou fall once again? There is so much wrong that thou must offer recompense. Shall thou be worthy of redemption at last or shall thou be damned for all eternity? We shall see. The time will come for thy return to the Realms if thou art worthy but until then, prove that thou hast returned to what thou once were…and we shall assuredly meet again."

The ancient avatar of Jergal the Final Scribe began to shimmer, fading into non-existence before it suddenly stopped and solidified again.

"Intriguing indeed. My senses did not deceive me. 'Tis curious indeed that there is yet another soul that doth not truly belong in this world. Now, how didst thou came to be…"

Its gaze pierced through the buildings yet again seeking the source of its interest.

"Motoko Kusanagi, thy face is known to me. One day, we shall meet and I shall have measure of thy worth."

The avatar nodded in satisfaction and it vanished, leaving no trace of its existence upon the world.

AN: This is basically the end result of a 'what if' scenario where Tav got the misguided idea of seizing the Crown of Karsus as his own (as his personal weapon against the 'forces of evil') during the climactic confrontation against the Nether Brain but failed with disastrous results resulting in the deaths of most of his party members and NPC companions including Dame Aylin forcing Gale to detonate the orb in his chest but the Nether Brain was still too close to the ground and the force of the detonation entirely leveled Baldur's Gate, killing all of its inhabitants and turned the city into a crater in the ground.

In her grief of the loss of her daughter, Selûne cursed Tav and he ended up in Avernus for his 'misguided treachery' where Tiamat corrupted him from a gold draconic bloodline sorceror (6) / paladin of Bahamut (5) into her personal enforcer. Yes, Tiamat delighted in the sheer irony. Afterwards, Tav was deployed to the frontlines of the Blood War and fought virtually non-stop against the Abyssal tanar'ri for nearly a 1000 years before Tiamat hatched her plot and wrested power from Zariel. The plot succeeded and Tiamat became the new Archduchess of Averus but the resulting cataclysmic battle threw Tav far away outside the Realms where he landed on Earth in the CP dimension which also severed him from Tiamat's influence.

The mods I used from BG3 Nexus that resulted in the shenanigans you see above are:

Death Knight (any one of them on BG3 Nexus will do)
Level 30 mod (specifically the multiclass addon max level which allows you to level up a multiclass character (anyone in the party) up to level 30 in each class! I further modded the version I used to stop at max level 90 only because that was already OP as hell because the party flattened any and all opposition like flamethrowers torching ant hills.)