Chapter Text

The man tried to corner Lena Cai near the bathrooms of the ferry out of San Francisco, holding a knife to her throat and whispered some bullshit about her being Chinese and stealing jobs from Real Americans, but she managed to grab his hand and extended her claws to sever the tendons holding the knife, then put a claw into his brain stem with her other hand. He’d have dropped like a sack of potatoes if she weren’t holding him up by the back of the neck to drag him to the back of ferry, pretending he was just pass-out drunk in case the cameras catch her. And it was a bit tricky to use one hand to hang onto the railing while dropping his scrawny, racist, full-human ass into the water as quietly as she could—there were already enough Cai family members in various prisons across the globe, and most of them treating it like graduate school.

Sure, as honey badger shifters, they could break out—they could burrow their way through the concrete and rebar of most prisons—but she didn’t want to hear her mother whinge about her getting caught on accident. All she wanted was to go back to her apartment in Oakland, have a glass of wine, and savor the fact that she managed to get a patronizing asshole at work fired.

He’d made some asinine comments about her code structure during a code review in an attempt to undermine her before the upcoming performance review, so she’d waited about two weeks before installing a remote keylogger onto his work laptop. She’d used the keylogger data to pinpoint where in his code he was skimming off the top of customer fees to add to his own salary. His clumsy attempt at embezzling threatened her plans to add backdoors to the customer-facing software as part of her money laundering network (she was very generous, only charging a modest thirty percent for family, forty percent for everyone else). With a few carefully-worded hints to the test engineers, and a few more weeks of whispered insinuations, her coworker had been fired, and she rewarded herself with his very expensive solar battery charger as he packed his belongings.

“Fucking asshole,” Lena muttered as she headed back to the bathrooms to wash off blood and bodily fluids from her exposed skin. She checked over her outfit for obvious signs of blood, checked that her two buns were still neat, and shrugged off a few bloody patches here and there on her black jacket and jeans—nothing a full human could be expected to notice in the dim lights of the ferry. She'd learned at her parents' knees that the best way to evade suspicion of wrong-doing was either to look as adorable and non-threatening as possible (which worked well with her round cheeks, but not so well with her muscular shoulders and thighs), or blend in with the crowd. She found her best strategy in tech was to not stand out, but look just cute enough to offset her resting bitch-face: hence the child-like double-buns.

As she emerged back on the deck, she looked up and saw that the clear night sky had gone cloudy—complete with lightning—when the weird tentacled spaceship flashed into view from a hole in the clouds. People started screaming and she saw flashes from people taking pictures with their phones.

“Nope,” she said to herself she watched a huge tentacle reach down, turning passengers to dust as it touched them. She turned to the nearest railing to jump from when the tentacle reached her and found herself shrouded in darkness.

When Lena woke up, she was trapped in a pod, unable to move, unable to scream, as she watched a squickier version of Captain Barbossa from “Pirates of the Caribbean” drop a very toothy maggot into her eye before everything in her vision went black.

---

Something jarred Lena awake and she found the cover of her pod open. She stumbled out, light-headed, with a faint sensation that there were hundreds of other voices in her head besides her own. Her first instinct was the crack open an energy drink in her bag that she'd swiped from work and chugged it down, clearing some of the fog from her mind. Then she looked around and wrinkled her nose. "Eww, it's like H. R. Geiger took ketamine and puked all over the place. Oh, please don't tell me that the giant sphincter is the only way out." She looked at the flames and the hole in the wall. "Oh, and the cherry on top of this steaming pile of shit is that it's been breached and on fire! Hooray for me!"

She approached the door and it opened on its own accord. "Thank fuck I don't have to touch it," she muttered as she stumbled through.

The doorway led to the outside of the ship, where the air was oven-hot and smelled of sulfur and pitch, and she gawked as a massive dragon flew past. Still unsteady, she started walking out when suddenly a green woman with brown braids and very short nose landed in a crouch front of her and readied a longsword to strike. "Abomination! This is your end!" the green woman snarled.

Lena gasped. "Rude! You've only just met me and you're calling me names and threatening to kill me!" she snapped back. Then they both winced as a headache throbbed in both their skulls. Lena saw visions of dragon wings and silver swords, and then her own face.

The green woman gasped. "My head! What is this ... ngh." She gasped and started to pant. "Tsk'va! You are no thrall! Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together we might survive!"

Lena shook the cobwebs from her head and stared at the strange woman. She was tempted to ask if the green skin was normal, but didn't want to seem racist. "Wha? Thralls? So ... we're not not slaves to Viking Jarls or something?"

"I know not of these 'Vikings' you speak of," the green woman spat, "but I saw a mind flayer tadpole enter your brain just as one did mine. If we do not escape, if we are not cleansed, our bodies and minds will become tainted and twisted."

"Oh! Those maggoty thingies!" Lena exclaimed. "No, tadpoles are cute. Those were definitely not."

The green woman stared incomprehensibly at Lena for a moment before shouting, "This is not the time to argue semantics! If we are not freed of these parasites, we will be ghaik, mind flayers! We must gain control of the ship and get back to the Material Plane. Then we can address finding a cure for this infection." She indicated to a group of little red-skinned devil-thingies with glowing eyes and leathery wings eating the corpse of a cut-rate Cthulhu.

Lena looked at the green woman, puzzled. "What's a mind flayer?"

The green woman rolled her eyes. "The tentacled monstrosities that infected us with their tadpoles. We must hurry if we we are to gain the element of surprise in our attack on the imps." She pointed her sword at the trio chowing down on calamari sashimi.

Lena squinted at them then shrugged. "Okie-dokie! Lead on!"

The green woman rushed the imps, hacking at a wing of the nearest one but missing as it fell back out of range. Another flew at the green woman and swiped its claws at her, which she parried with her sword before stabbing it through the gut, then rolled to dodge a swipe from the first imp.

Lena ran forward at the third imp as it flew at her with its claws stretched out to attack. Lena dropped to her knees and skidded below the imp's claws to grab its foot and dragged it to the floor. It flapped and clawed at her, but she got back up to her feet and used it like a flail to bash the first imp as it tried to attack the green woman, the sound of their skulls making contact reminding her of two coconuts hitting each other, knocking the first imp out of the air. The first imp rolled then got back to its feet in time for the green woman to decapitate it with her sword. The imp Lena held twitched in her hands, its face bashed in, so she made sure it was dead by dashing its head against a wall until the contents of its head added to the carnage.

The green woman nodded curtly in approval, and they continued to search for the ship's helm.

In one of the rooms, Lena heard a woman shouting for help, banging against the interior of the pod. "Get me out of this damn thing!"

Lena approached, but the green woman stopped her. "We have no time for stragglers."

Lena shrugged. "Won't take a moment," she said, looking at the pod. The woman inside kept banging and shouting, but Lena just raised a finger at her, then examined the pod. The woman in the pod quieted, surprised that anyone would dare shush her while Lena tried to release her claws to find purchase on a crack she noticed, but found that nothing emerged. She called back, "Can I borrow your sword for a minute?"

"We need to keep moving!" the green woman insisted.

"We can panic like a pair of headless chickens, or we can panic like trio of headless chickens! I say the more the merrier. Now hand over your oversized knife."

The green woman rolled her eyes and handed the blade to Lena, who carefully wedged it into the crack to lever it. The pod opened with a hiss, and a woman with dark hair in a single braid from the top of her head and a pale complexion met the floor face-first.

Lena handed the sword back to the green woman, who sneered as the pale woman struggled to stand. "See," Lena said with a satisfied grin, "It didn't take much time at all, thanks to the power of simple machines!"

"I thought the damn thing was going to be my coffin," the pale woman said. Then all three women winced. Lena sensed gratitude and trepidation from the pale woman directed at the green woman. The pale woman faced Lena and said, "You keep dangerous company."

Lena looked back at the green woman before looking back at the pale one and giving her a toothy and unsettling grin. "So does she. I'm Lena, by the way, and that's ... " she looked back at the green woman tapping her foot impatiently, "someone who didn't bother with names because she doesn't expect me to survive. Nice eyeshadow, by the way. I don't know what time it is, but I'm guessing it's always goth party time for you."

"Lae'zel," the green woman introduced herself curtly with an eyeroll. "We have no time for idle chatter. We must find the helm and get off this ship." They heard a dragon screech and the ship rattled.

"Fair point," the pale woman said, "I'm Shadowheart. Just a moment." She reached back into the pod and grabbed something. "Let's go."

Lena and the green woman nodded and they continued their way through the ship. They passed by what appeared to be experiments where the subjects expired, their craniums removed and brains extracted. One rather large pod contained an unconscious woman that Lena attempted to release, but couldn't find a way to open the pod by force. When she tried to use what appeared to be a control console, the woman exploded in a fountain of gore and tentacles sprouted where her mouth would be. As they continued, Lena found herself developing a tic under her right eye.

Finally, they reached the helm, only to be met by a mind flayer and what appeared to be a literal devil in a fight to the death. The mind flayer looked at them and psychically ordered them to connect the nerves of the transponder so they could escape. Lena looked questioningly at the green woman. "Do as it says. We will deal with it after we survive." More imps rushed at them, and they dodged, and parried as they sprinted to the transponder while the squidie-thingie fought the literal devil. Lena grabbed two 'nerves' and touched the ends together. The ship rocked and Lena was blinded by a bright light before being forcibly ejected through a hole in the wall and losing consciousness before landing.

Chapter Text

Lena woke on a beach with a face full of sand and a miserable headache. She groaned, swiping damp sand away from her face before standing to brush the sand from her jacket and jeans. She then checked the contents of her bag for ibuprofen and the last energy drink she had swiped before being kidnapped. While downing her pills, she saw a vaguely familiar form a little ways away. “Oh hey, it’s goth girl,” she said, and stumbled toward her. Lena bent down to check Shadowheart’s pulse, and gently shook her before shouting in the prone woman's ear, “WAKE UP SHINYLIVER!”

Shadowheart woke with a start and swung her fist at Lena’s head. Unfortunately for Lena, it was the fist with a metal polygon that smashed into Lena’s temple.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Lena shouted. She fell flat on her ass as she put her hand to her wound.

Shadowheart sat up looking chagrined. “I’m sorry!” she said as she reached for Lena. “Here, let me look at that for you.”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Lena winced when she looked at the blood on her hands. “Though that did nothing for my headache.”

“Let me heal you. I don’t want you to wander around with a concussion,” Shadowheart said.

“No, it’s stopped bleeding already,” Lena said, feeling the fracture from the blow already healing over. “Though I’m not sure I have anything clean to wipe away the blood.” Lena took her bag from she shoulders and rummaged around until she found a packet of travel towels and a bottle of water. She moistened the towel, then wiped away the blood to reveal a puckered pink scar where Shadowheart had struck her.

“How did you manage to heal so quickly?” Shadowheart asked suspiciously.

Lena sighed, then decided that keeping her abilities secret didn’t mean shit after being kidnapped by tentacle monsters on a tentacle ship, said, “I’m a shifter. I can shift between human and honey badger, and I can heal from things that most humans can’t survive.” She held up an arm and tried to shift her hand into a honey badger paw, but only managed to sprout a few dark hairs and extend her claws. “That’s weird.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with shifters, so what you’ve just demonstrated isn’t ‘weird’ at all,” Shadowheart said.

“No, I’m usually able to shift completely,” Lena replied. She began to strip off her clothes.

Shadowheart eyed Lena’s burly shoulders and thighs appreciatively. “I understand that being under duress can cause some to experience heightened arousal, but we’ve only just met,” Shadowheart said tartly.

Lena was already naked and had stacked her clothes on her bag. “No, that’s not what I’m doing. Watch my stuff.” She began running back and forth along the short stretch of beach, occasionally reaching down to touch the sand when black fur with a broad gray stripe grew from Lena’s body. Her muscular limbs ended in massive digging claws emerged from her fingers and toes. Her face elongated into a black weasel-like snout filled with sharp teeth and beady black eyes. Shadowheart’s mouth fell open as Lena trotted up her as a Lena-sized honey-badger, then Lena stood and transformed back to human. “How did you do that?” Shadowheart asked.

“I’m a shifter. I thought you said that you were familiar with shifters,” Lena said as she shook out her clothes and began to put them on.

“Not any that can shift completely to an animal form, other than druids. And druids have no need to take their clothes off before they shift,” Shadowheart replied.

“Then where do their clothes go when they shift? Are there tigers and bears wearing really stretchy clothes?” The sun was already starting to bake Lena’s black jacket and jeans, so she tied her jacket around her waist over her jeans and her blue company-issue corporate slave polo shirt.

“Some sort of pocket dimension granted to them by their nature gods,” Shadowheart said.

“Huh,” Lena said. She tilted her head to the side. “I thought druids were people who found excuses to wear antlers, wander around naked, and have orgies in the woods?”

Shadowheart gave her a puzzled look. “Yes, though they do wear antlers and have orgies, they also commune with their gods, which grants them powers over plants and animals. There should be druids of one persuasion or another everywhere up and down the wilds of Faerun.”

“What’s Faerun?” Lena asked.

“Where we are,” Shadowheart said slowly.

“Is it like a massive renfaire? Or a comic con? Is that why you’re dressed like you’re ready to engage in a medieval-style mock battle?” Lena asked.

“I don’t know what a ‘renfaire’ or ‘comic con’ are. And I always dress ready for a fight because there are always cutthroats and thieves one must defend against,” Shadowheart replied.

Lena nodded and strapped on a pair of wrist bracers with throwing knives that she’d retrieved from her bag when she stopped, and her face scrunched up for a few seconds. “Wait, so you’re wearing functional metal armor,” she began slowly as Shadowheart nodded, “so we’re not anywhere with firearms. And the corpses here are all dressed up like medieval peasants. And there’s no horde of emergency vehicles or personnel looking for survivors. We’re speaking English—”

“—Common,” Shadowheart corrected.

Lena frowned. “English is ‘Common?’ Seriously, where in the colonial fuck-all am I?”

Shadowheart huffed. “I just told you: we’re in Faerun, though where exactly I don’t know. And as for everything else that seems to baffle you, that matters less than removing our parasites.”

“Oh yeah. Those maggot things. I was hoping that was just a product of some sort of drug-induced hallucination…” Lena’s voice drifted as she stared at nothing.

Shadowheart grimaced. “I’d rather think of them as ‘tadpoles’ rather than ‘maggots': it’s slightly less stomach-churning, even if they are wriggling in our heads.” Shadowheart shuddered. "Come on, we should travel together to find a cure.”

“Yeah, a cure,” Lena said numbly. “I suppose this place doesn’t happen to have veterinary pharmacies with ivermectin, does it?”

“I don’t know what a pharmacy is, but we might be able to find a healer,” Shadowheart said.

Lena groaned. “‘Healers.’ Oh, we’re fucked.” They started walking to the closest path when Lena looked over as Shadowheart. “So are those ears are real?”

---

As they wandered through the wreckage of the nautiloid, looking for anything they could possibly scavenge, Lena stopped suddenly and cocked her head.

Shadowheart stopped and her brows wrinkled as she glanced at Lena. "What is it?"

"Something's up ahead," she whispered. They crouched low and crept up to some wreckage to see some quadrupedal brains wandering around. Lena's nose wrinkled. "What the fuck? Are those brains?"

"Intellect devourers," Shadowheart replied. "They were made from the brains of those those bodies we saw on the ship."

Lena gave Shadowheart a baffled look. "I don't get it. Why do that? Brains are so goddamn squishy."

"Don't underestimate them. They have psionic attacks that leave you doubled-over in pain, and if you manage to get close they can use their claws." she admonished.

Lena looked incredulous. "Claws. On a brain."

"If you don't believe me, you can try attacking them yourself."

Lena shrugged. "Alrighty, then." She unsheathed a knife and quickly sneaked her way to one that was separated from the rest and snatched it with a clawed hand. It let out a piercing shriek and ripped gashes along her arms. "OH, FUCK YOU!" she shouted at the sudden sharp pain from the shriek, blood dripping from her nose, then sank her own claws in deeper into the brain matter and stabbed it repeatedly with her other hand until it stopped wriggling.

Shadowheart had made a dash for another when the shriek hit her, and she screamed. The other intellect devourers became aware of her presence and trotted as fast as their stubby little legs could carry them, echoing the first one's shriek along the way. She just managed to strike one with her mace when the second one swiped her with its claws. Though they didn't manage to pierce her skin through her leather leggings, the blunt force nearly made her lose her balance.

Lena and heard the scream, and had made her way back to Shadowheart just when the intellect devourer attempted to maul her. Lena raised a foot and stomped it over and over until it was paste while Shadowheart bludgeoned hers to a pulp.

Both women were panting and Lena shook her leg in an attempt to fling off the worst of the gore with a grimace of disgust on her lips. "As satisfying as that was, my shoe's now full of brains." She wiped at the blood from her nose with the back of her hand and noticed the brain matter there. "I also regret doing that." She wiped her hands hopelessly on her jeans before she opened her bag and found a packet of tissues to try to clean off her hands a bit before before she offered Shadowheart an ibuprofen. Shadowheart refused and instead recited something that caused her to briefly glow. “Neat trick,” Lena said when the glow faded.

“A blessing of my goddess,” Shadowheart said as they started walking up a hill away from the wreckage.

“So the local deities are big on the ‘personal god’ thing?” Lena asked.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen anyone healed or blessed,” Shadowheart said.

“Nope,” Lena said, popping the ‘p.’ “I’m sure that my ancestors had a much closer relationship to whatever allowed them to shift, but I don’t have any relationship to the divine. And most people who claim that their god talked to or healed them are either frauds or delusional.”

Shadowheart looked surprised. “Really? You’re not from this world, are you?”

“I’m going to guess that I’m not, though I’m confused that you speak what I know to be English, and our dialects seem to be shifted by about a hundred years and an ocean,” Lena said.

“That is strange. If you don’t have any divine interference on your world, then how do you perform healing?” Shadowheart asked.

“Drugs, surgery, and sometimes psychotherapy,” Lena answered.

“But drugs are a form of alchemy –” Shadowheart started before she was interrupted by a voice near the top of the hill. Lena looked up to see the prettiest, fanciest, whitest man she had ever seen. His hair was silver and wavy and stood up like an eighteenth-century European aristocrat’s, but it was shiny. He was translucently pale with pointed ears, and his padded jacket had gold filigree embroidery.

“Hurry, I’ve got one of those brain things cornered,” he said while pointing away from him. “There, in the grass. You can kill it, can’t you? Like you killed the others?”

Lena cocked her head and looked at him and sniffed. She didn’t smell any intellect devourers, though she did smell corpse. And the smell came the man. She sighed and thought another pretty asshole. “Kill it yourself,” she told him. As she turned to walk away, she heard him say, “I was hoping for a kind soul. Not to worry,” before she found herself on the ground with a dagger pointed at her neck before she could pull her own knives.

“GODDAMN IT,” Lena shouted as she grabbed the knife-hand, pivoted her hips, twisted his arm, then straddled his back. She twisted his wrist until he dropped his dagger, then threw it away. Lena used her free hand to push the side of his head into the dirt. He grunted and tried to wriggle free before Lena pushed the arm higher up his back, threatening to dislocate his arm at the shoulder. She leaned down to the man’s ear and growled, “Now why would you try to set a trap for complete strangers? I know for a fact that there are no intellect devourers nearby because those fuckers have a very distinct funk.” She shoved a filthy hand in front of his nose to force him to take a sniff.

"Ugh!" He tried to pull his face away but failed. He huffed through his mouth, then ground out between clenched teeth, “I saw you on the ship, strutting about while I was trapped in that pod. What you and those tentacled freaks do to me?”

“What did I do to you? What the fuck do you mean, you entitled little shit-sucker? I was kidnapped and had a fucking angry maggot squirm into my –” Lena’s voice cut off as a sharp pain lanced through her skull, and she saw visions of dark alleyways and busy streets. As the visions faded, she heard the man hiss, “What was that? And why was everyone on that boat flashing lights at the nautiloid?”

Lena frowned. “I’m guessing we saw a little bit of each other’s memories. And as for the flashing lights, I’m going with ‘I’m not from around these parts.’”

“It’s those tentacled monsters. Whatever they did to use caused that link. They took you, too –”

“No, really?” Lena said sarcastically. She leaned down near his pointy ear and shouted, “DO I LOOK LIKE I’VE GOT TENTACLES AND A BUCKET OF MIND FLAYER LARVA THAT I CAN HAND OUT LIKE CANDY?”

The man winced. “Apologies. Now that that’s all cleared up, perhaps you can see about GETTING OFF OF ME?”

“How do I know you won’t try to kill me again?” she asked.

“I wasn’t planning on killing you,” he grunted. Lena glared at him. “Okay, fine, I would’ve killed you, except you convinced me you weren’t in league with those … things.”

She paused, then looked at Shadowheart, who was at the ready. Lena looked down at the prone man, then said, “I’m going to get up at the count of three. You try to stab me with any other knives you might have on your person, I will tear your pretty face off and wear it like a nighttime moisturizing mask. And my new friend over yonder will bash your naked skull into a meaty brain porridge and I will use it to bait crab traps. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Now … one … two…THREE.” They scrambled away from each other and stood staring each other down. After a tense moment, their postures relaxed, and the man brushed dirt from his face and jacket.

“Well, now that we’re friends,” Lena said, “I supposed introductions are in order. I’m Lena, and I was kidnapped from a ferry on my way home from work. The woman with the mace and the on-point daytime smoky eyeshadow is Shadowheart. I'd ask if her parents gave her that name, but that might be considered rude." She leaned toward him briefly and squinted. "You two can trade makeup tips. Anyways, and I don’t know where or when she was taken, and I didn’t ask.” Lena turned slightly to shout at Shadowheart. “Hey Shadowheart, where were you taken?”

“That’s none of your concern,” she replied. Lena shrugged.

“My name is Astarion. I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me.”

“I have no idea where Baldur’s Gate is,” Lena said. Astarion briefly looked offended. “And a part of me is amused that you’re annoyed I don’t know.”

“So, do you know anything about these worms?”

“You say you saw me running around on the ship?” Lena asked. Astarion nodded. “Well, do you recall seeing a green woman with a very short nose?”

“Yessss…”

“She said they’d turn us into mind flayers.”

Astarion barked a humorless laugh. “Of course it’ll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect? Although if we can find an expert, someone who can control these things, there might still be time.”

“‘We,’ dude?” Lena said. “You just tried to stab me in the neck, asshole.”

“I did apologize, but I’m afraid I’m all out of wine and flowers. And you did nearly take my arm off.”

Lena grinned. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? And it would’ve been like ripping a drumstick off a roast chicken! Now that we’re done trying to maim each other, we can be bestest friends!” Lena clapped her hands gave him her most winsome expression, which came off as unhinged. Shadowheart tried to muffle a snort in her shoulder when Astarion glared back.

“Let’s get going, new bestie, and let’s go find ourselves a cure!” Lena grabbed her backpack and started skipping along the trail. Both Shadowheart and Astarion followed.

“I don’t think she’s handling our current situation very well,” Astarion whispered.

“NO, I SURE AS SHIT AM NOT,” Lena yelled without turning back. “AND I’M PRETTY SURE YOU’RE NOT EITHER IF YOU’RE FOLLOWING ME.”

“She has a point,” Shadowheart replied.

Lena began to manically shout-sing.

“WE’RE ON A ROAD TO NOWHERE
COME ON INSIDE
TAKING THAT RIDE TO NOWHERE
WE’LL TAKE THAT RIDE….”

---

She stopped skipping as they approached the cliffside and saw a glowing purple circle. Lena looked over at her two companions and asked, “What the hell is that?”

“A teleporation sigil,” Astarion replied. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen one.”

“Seriously?” Lena raised her eyebrows. “Where does it go?”

Astarion sighed, polishing his fingernails against his gambeson. “To any other sigil, so long as you’ve been to it before.”

“That’s lame. So I first have to go somewhere I’ve never been before before I can teleport?” Lena asked.

“You must be able to visualize your destination or else you might get stuck,” Shadowheart explained. “And that one looks … unstable.”

Lena looked over at the swirling magic, then experimentally lobbed a pebble into the vortex. She heard an “OUCH” before an arm popped out, and a voice asked, “A hand? Anyone?”

Lena slapped the open palm and heard a pained "OW!" emerge from the portal before she declared, “There, I gave you a hand.”

“Perhaps I should’ve clarified. A helping hand? Anyone?” replied the voice. The hand gestures echoed the disembodied voice's irritation.

“Your fault for making a shitty dad joke,” Lena retorted before grabbing the hand pulling out yet another white guy—this time one with some melanin and a mullet and a purple robe—came crashing to the ground. As the new guy got up and brushed off the dust, Lena muttered, “Why does everyone here so far sound like extras in a British drama?”

The new guy straightened then gave her a confused look. “Pardon me?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“Well, then. I’m Gale of Waterdeep. Apologies, I’m usually better at this,” Gale said with a broad smile. He reminded her of a golden retriever.

“Better at what?” Lena asked.

“At introductions. A relief and a pleasure to make your acquaintance, friend,” Gale said.

Lena gawked. “I just pulled you from a glowing sphincter and you you just called me ‘friend.’” She gave a slightly unhinged giggle. “I don’t know why I’m losing it now of all times.”

“I’m sorry?” Gale asked. His smile fell.

Lena gave him a maniacal smile, then threw her hands in the air. “Fuck it. I give up. Fuck social niceties. It’s been a long day and I deserve a breakdown.”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Gale said and he looked nervously over at Lena’s two mostly silent companions. They only stared back nervously.

“I deserve to be my most unfiltered self after being kidnapped by mind flayers, crash-landing, and assaulted by Mr. Homicidal Pixie Dream Elf behind me.”

“I am not a pixie!” Astarion retorted.

Lena turned her head slightly to Astarion and shot back, “Yeah, but you’d sure as shit stab me while doing a lovely pirouette. And you’d look fucking fabulous doing it, too.” Astarion gave a slight shrug in acknowledgment.

Lena turned back to Gale and muttered, “He looks like an art deco sculpture but smells like he just finished embalming a floater. Maybe he’s some sort of undertaker or coroner and he had to deal with a decomposing body and didn’t manage to thoroughly wash all the corpse-funk out before he got kidnapped, because I know from personal experience how hard it is to get corpse-stink out if you don't wear a full body suit. I mean, it’s his choice of profession, but if I looked like that I’d spend all my time getting free drinks at bars and lifting wallets.” Astarion’s face went from pale to ashen and Shadowheart edged away from him.

Lena continued talking at Gale, her speech speeding up. “And I have to ask about your hair — has anyone ever said how much you look like white people Jesus? How much time do you spend each day to get your hair to swoop back like that? Did you just stop washing it so it naturally stays that way with scalp goo, or do you use product? And if you use product, how much do you need to use for it to stay that way? Do you need to buy it in bulk? Is it grease-based or is lacquer-based? What conditioner do you use?”

Gale reared back slightly and held up his hands. “Look, we’re getting side-tracked. I know I saw you on the nautiloid, so I’m assuming that you too were on the receiving end of a rather unwelcome ocular region.” He gestured to his eye.

“Yeah, and while I was on the ship I saw what happened when those thing hatch or give birth or whatever and it was this really gross explosion,” Lena’s eyes went wild and her arms pantomimed an explosion, “like someone took a hose and a lawn sprinkler, but instead of water it’s spraying blood and gore.” She then put her hands in front of her mouth and wiggled her fingers, “And then a squiggly mind flayer emerged from the red mist like a shitty magic trick, and it looked really angry that it was alive and it was somehow MY fault. But that doesn’t change that fact that I’m going to hyperfixate on your hair because it’s both the most normal and the weirdest thing to me right now, aside from your beard.”

Gale looked over at the Lena’s two companion in a silent plea for help. Both Shadowheart and Astarion shook their heads and shrugged, so Gale turned his focus back on Lena. “Under the circumstances, perhaps we set up camp together. I’m sure I can answer your questions about my hair.”

“Right, camping. Except no showers and no toilets so I’m going to have shit on the ground and wipe my ass with leaves and hope none of them give me a rash.” Lena’s speech became hysterical. “Oh fuck, what if there’s a plant like the gympie-gympie where that one solder in World War II shot himself after he used the leaves because he was in so much pain. Why are we camping? This isn’t a vacation! I hate camping! Nothing but bugs and shitty beds and smelling like an ash pit and B.O., and I don’t have any chocolate or marshmallows or graham crackers for s’mores, which are the only thing good about camping!” She took a deep breath and wailed, “I’M A SOFTWARE ENGINEER, FOR FUCK’S SAKE! I DON’T BELONG OUTSIDE!”

“Then it’ll only be a little rest instead of camping,” Gale said soothingly and gently took her shoulder, motioning to Shadowheart and Astarion to lead.

Lena looked at him owlishly. “Can I touch your hair?”

Chapter Text

Lena sat on a log and stared unseeing at the fire while her new companions had changed into their ‘camp’ clothes to set up tents and bedrolls. Shadowheart had managed to find some alcohol, and Lena took a pull from the bottle of vinegary wine before Gale sat down next to her on the log. “Feeling better?” he asked. Lena turned her head to him and stared.

He was starting to feel uncomfortable with her unsettling undivided attention. He could sense his two other new companions watching them, ready to react while pretending to continue setting up camp. Without breaking eye contact, she took an extra-long pull from the bottle. She continued to stare at Gale. After a tense minute, she said, “Not really.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know where to start,” she said.

“Let’s start at the beginning. I’m Gale of Waterdeep,” he said.

“Gale of Waterdeep,” Lena repeated carefully. “Is that a standard way to introduce yourself around here?”

“Excuse me?” Gale asked.

“The whole given name plus hometown. Like Catherine of Aragon, or Robin of Loxley? Do I say that I’m Lena of Oakland?” Lena asked.

Gale chuckled. “No, I’m a wizard of some renown from the city of Waterdeep. Perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

“No. Have you heard of me?” Lena asked.

“No…” Gale replied.

“Then why do the Gale of Waterdeep shit? Or are you trying to avoid talking to rest of us serfs?”

“Are you normally this abrasive?” Gale snapped. Shadowheart and Astarion stopped setting up tents to listen. Astarion let out a snort.

“No, but seeing as I’m stuck in a reality with elves, personal gods, magical healing, and brain maggots that can turn me into a tentacled mind flayer, I’d like to think that I earned the right to freak the fuck out over stupid shit like your fixation on calling yourself Gale of Waterdeep,” Lena bit out.

Gale took a cleansing breath, and asked, “So where are you from where none of things apparently exist?”

“Hmmm…How do I explain my corner of reality?” Lena fiddled with a strand of dark hair that had come loose while trying to think before her head perked up. “Oh yeah, nearly forgot about my phone,” she said as she reached into her bag.

“Phone?” he asked.

“The only magic I’ve seen is shifting, and as shifters we’re taught from a really young age to keep that under wraps, so I can’t say for certain that we don’t have elves or magical healing or whatever hiding in my little corner of reality. But my phone might still have a charge.” She pulled out her smartphone and managed to power it on. “Got it. And, nope, no network, so no, I’m truly far from civilization….”

Gale coughed politely. “I wouldn’t necessarily say we’re far from civilization….”

“Here,” Lena said as she pulled up her photo album and handed her phone to Gale, showing him how to swipe through the pictures.

“How curious,” he muttered, looking at images of food, cars, then suddenly saw a pair of breasts in a black lacy bra. Gale turned a bright red.

“Oops, forgot about that one,” she said. She grabbed her phone to delete it. “Uh, the perils of modern dating.”

Astarion approached. “What have we here?” he asked. Gale coughed while Lena blushed.

“Nothing,” Lena lied.

“It can’t be nothing if you and the wizard are both bright red. Come now, don’t be shy,” Astarion said, trying to look at the phone’s screen.

“Okay, sure,” Lena said, then handed her phone back to Gale with a photo album from her last Lunar New Year visit to her parents’ home.

“How are you able to make these pictures? They’re so lifelike,” Astarion said.

“Oh, let me show you.” Lena took her phone, then opened up the camera app and took a picture of Gale and Astarion with the flash on. Both men winced.

“What in the—” Astarion stopped and stared at the phone when he saw the unflattering picture of Gale and himself.

“How extraordinary,” Gale whispered. “How does this device work?”

Lena paused, trying to think of a concise explanation, when she noticed that Astarion’s eyes had a sheen to them. “I know I’m a lousy photographer, but I didn’t think the photo was so shitty that you’d start crying,” she said.

Astarion startled, then schooled his features and cleared his throat. “It’s nothing. I just never saw myself so lifelike before. Do I really look like that?” he asked.

“I admit that the camera flash seems to have washed out both your and Gale’s complexions and I can see up your nostrils — wow, they’re cavernous— but yeah, that’s pretty much how you look. Do you want me to take another?” Lena asked.

Shadowheart had now joined them. “Can you make a picture of me?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure. Though the battery’s running low, so this’ll be the last one,” Lena said. “Hold on, let’s take a selfie.” She switched to the front camera and pointed it so that she was in the shot. “Everyone crowd around until you can see yourself on the screen.”

When everyone had gathered, she took the picture and handed the phone over to her new companions to gawk over.

“Do I really have that many wrinkles?” Gale asked.

“Must we answer?” Shadowheart replied.

“Okay, before anyone has a personal crisis, I’ll take my phone back so I can charge it and we can play with it later,” Lena said.

She plugged her phone into the portable solar charger that she’d swiped.

“So which tent is mine?” Lena asked. Shadowheart pointed at a plain tent: the others were adorned with personal effects. “Are those decorative pillows? And a telescope? Where’d you guys manage to store all that stuff in your packs?” she asked.

“Magic.” Shadowheart gave her a smug smile.

Lena rolled her eyes and stowed her bag in her tent.

---

Later that night...

Between the simple dinner of bread and cheese and the bottle of wine that became two, then three, Lena had slurred her way into her companions’ bad graces. Gale had done his best to extract information about her home plane, but he grew increasingly frustrated by her antics when she compared his beard to a badly mown lawn. Then she called Astarion Bunnicula the rabbit and used her forefingers pointing down from her mouth to make fangs and made little “arrgh” sounds. When she started calling Shadowheart a goth She-Ra and nearly toppled into the fire while attempting to act out scenes from the latest cartoon reboot, Shadowheart led her to her new used bedroll.

Sometime after midnight, Lena woke to the sound of someone quietly rummaging through her bag. Her eyes shifted to black to adjust to the low light, flashing gold in the moonlight, then silently crept behind the thief before silencing him with her left hand and holding the claws of her right to his throat. “Now what exactly are you looking for, pretty boy? And no screaming or shouting because I promise I can slice your trachea before you can exhale. Besides, we don’t want to disturb our new friends’ sleep, now do we?” she whispered. She felt Astarion nod slightly, and she relaxed her hold over his mouth.

“I didn’t come here to hurt you,” he whispered.

“No, but you came here for something” Lena said.

“I just wanted to look at your ‘phone’ again,” he said.

“You could’ve just asked. Why is it so important that you were willing to steal something that you wouldn’t know how to use?” she asked.

“I could’ve figured it out. How hard can it be? I saw YOU use it, and you’re insane,” he bit out.

“Yeah, except I keep that thing locked to make it harder for sticky fingers and prying eyes to use it. And I can’t imagine why it’s that interesting to you.” She let a claw dig a little into his skin, and she could smell the blood as it welled out.

He tensed, and she could tell that he was struggling with himself to answer. She waited for his answer. “I wanted to see the pictures. Of me,” he said

Lena tilted her head. “I don’t get it. Why risk getting caught and potentially dismembered by yours truly instead of just looking in a mirror or a bucket of water?” she asked.

Astarion clearly didn’t want to answer, so she dug her claw in a little deeper. “Because I’m a vampire spawn!” he admitted.

Lena blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Don’t be dense. I’m sure you know what a vampire is,” Astarion snapped.

“For once, I do, but I don’t know if you caught on but my world is pretty hush-hush about magic. What I know about vampires is pretty fetishized,” Lena admitted. “Not to mention the use of the word ‘spawn’ makes me think of either frog orgies or ‘spawning’ monsters in a game. I take it a vampire ‘spawn’ doesn’t involve a vampire jizzing all over a gelatinous egg, or being imagined into existence?”

Astarion’s chin dropped as his mouth fell open. “What in the nine hells are you going on about?” he said. “I did not become a vampire spawn by having a vampire ejaculate all over me. And why would your people fetishize vampires?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t major in psychology or media analysis. All I know is that some versions of vampires have them turn into bats, others say that they’re mindless corpses, and the more recent versions that I’ve seen have them as sexually-repressed creeps that glitter in the sun and have a thing for seducing boring adolescents.” She let go of him and sat back on her heels.

He turned to face her. “Well, here we’re a load of undead leeches who burn in the sun and can’t see themselves in mirrors!” he whispered indignantly.

“Can’t see … oh.” Lena found her phone. She quickly pulled up the photos and handed it to Astarion.

Astarion he sat down as he took the device in his hands and stared at the image of the group selfie, and she helped him swipe the phone to look at the picture with him and Gale caught off-guard. He wiped the moisture from his eyes with the heel of his hand as tears began to form. Lena handed him a travel towel from her bag, and let him quietly weep as he stared at the phone, occasionally swiping between the two photos.

They sat like this for several minutes.

After his tears ebbed, she asked, “How long has it been?”

“What?”

“Since you’ve seen yourself?” she asked.

Astarion sighed and dabbed his eyes. “Two hundred years.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t want to become a vampire,” she said.

“No. I did not.” He looked up at her and returned her phone as he tried to compose himself. “I mean, I didn’t think about it when I was given a choice between bleeding to death and becoming undead.” He gave a small rueful smile. “Though it’s meant that I still look this good after two hundred years.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry you had to choose,” Lena said quietly. “And I’m sorry I don’t have a way for you keep a physical copy of the pictures.”

“Do me a favor, and keep this little incident — and my condition — from the others, would you?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure. Though I strongly suggest that you tell everyone else before they get all nasty about not knowing,” she said.

“Yes, I’m sure they’ll welcome a vampire with open arms and invite me to sup at their necks as soon as I tell them,” he snapped.

Lena looked at him thoughtfully. “For what little it’s worth I can vouch for you, especially given that your first instinct was to try to fill a mostly harmless impulse. But I also can’t control how Gale or Shadowheart might react,” she said.

“I don’t see why you trust me. For all you know I may have already killed the others.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Because you just asked me to not tell them?”

“True, I haven’t tried feeding from either of them. It seemed … imprudent to attempt anything when one of them or you could stake me. We only all just met today, after all.”

“So did you eat anything at dinner, or do you eat exclusively blood?” Lena asked.

“No, I need blood, but I’ve only ever fed from animals,” Astarion replied.

Lena frowned. “Technically, we’re all animals. Except for plants, bacteria, fungi, and archaea.”

Astarion sighed. “I meant non-sentient animals. Rats, kobolds —”

“Uh, sentience is a tricky. And I’ve known rats that are smarter and more self-aware than some humans I’ve worked with,” she said.

“Of course you have if you’ve only ever known humans,” Astarion scoffed.

Lena shrugged. “Let’s just stick to non-humanoids, though I’m sure there are plenty of dolphins and parrots that’d like to have a word with me.”

“I don’t care for the word ‘humanoid’ when I’m not human. As an elf, I personally don’t care for the idea of humans as the standard by measure everyone else by,” he said.

Lena rolled her eyes. “I’m working with the vocabulary I have. Do you have a better term?”

Astarion thought for a moment and admitted, “No.” He sighed and said, “Look, it’s hard to concentrate seeing as I didn’t actually eat anything today.”

“Oh, then let’s go hunting. Then we can bring the meat back then I don’t have to subsist on bread and cheese. And I’m lactose intolerant, so having a little buffer from the dairy is going to make my life a lot easier.”

“What’s ‘lactose intolerant’?” he asked.

“It means I can’t digest milk and cheese very well, so it makes me extra gassy. Which is a shame because I love cheese,” Lena said.

Astarion leaned away slightly. “Well, as useful as that information is, I think I need a proper meal.” He hesitated. “Would you like to go now?”

“Sure, let me get ready,” Lena said and began to strip.

Astarion looked stunned. “Do you often hunt in the nude?”

“Pfft, how am I supposed to get blood out my clothes? That shit gets crusty if I let it dry out, and I don’t have any spares or detergent,” she said. While she undressed she asked, “So you mentioned burning in the sun, but clearly you’re wandering around without needing to be covered head to toe. What’s up with that?”

“I’m not sure, but I suspect it has something to do with our parasites.” He pointed to his eye.

Lena nodded thoughtfully. “Huh, that’s why you don’t seem eager to get rid of the nasty fuckers. Hey, do me a favor and hold onto these for me. I’ll need them when I bring the carcass back.” She handed him a bundle of clothes and shoes before she shifted into her honey badger form. Astarion sat stunned as Lena nosing her way through the tent flaps. He sat unmoving and stared at the tent flaps until Lena’s badger head popped back in and jerked her head in a “let’s go” gesture before disappearing through the flaps. He stood then followed her into the treeline.

Chapter Text

Lena and Astarion walked back to camp as dawn broke over the treetops. They’d managed to take down a boar when Lena leaped on its back as it charged her and clamped her claws and teeth into the back of its neck, then Astarion drained it. She had shifted and dressed before draping the carcass over her shoulders like an oversized fur stole.

“Feeling better?” Lena asked.

“Immensely,” Astarion replied. “Though I still feel like I can eat more,” he admitted.

“At least you smell less corpse-like,” Lena said. After a beat, she said, “Blood drinking is so weird from a biological standpoint.”

He looked at her quizzically. “I don’t follow.”

“The majority of blood is water and is rich in proteins. So for anything to only consume blood, it’d need a way to excrete or process the excess water and proteins or organs like the kidneys shut down. Not to mention having to deal with blood-born diseases.”

Astarion frowned. “I’m not sure I like where this conversation is going.”

“Too late. Anyways, the vampire bats —”

“Your home has vampire bats?” he asked.

“Yeah, but there’s nothing magical about them. These feed primarily on ruminant blood in tropical jungles, and they’ll occasionally snack on people. They have special gut microbes —”

“Microbes?” he asked.

“Tiny units of life that include the stuff that can make food rot, ferment wine, or cause gangrene,” she explained. “As I was saying, the microbes in their intestines can help produce missing nutrients and break down excess protein and bind the iron so that the bats can safely excrete what they can’t use. They also urinate a lot.”

Astarion grimaced. “If you’re trying to ‘subtly’ ask if I have any need to perform such bodily functions, the answer is no: I’m undead. I don’t even need to breathe except to speak. Instead, the magic that animates me feeds on the life in blood.”

“Lots of things are alive, like plants and fungi, so why can’t you feed on the ‘life’ from those?” Lena asked.

“You are full of questions,” Astarion said testily.

Lena grinned. “It’s part of my charm,” she said brightly. “So have you ever tried feeding on non-animals? And what happens if you don’t get blood? Can you die of starvation?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he snapped.

Lena gave him a questioning glance, but kept her mouth shut.

They continued their trek back to camp in silence until Astarion asked, “Wouldn’t it have been better to have finished dressing the boar away from camp so no one wonders why it’s already drained?”

Lena shook her head. “Do you want to try to carry chunks of raw meat by hand? Because I don’t. Until we find a way of transporting the meat without it all getting covered in leaf litter or dirt, carrying a whole carcass is far too convenient. I’ll just say we drained it in the field, hence why I slashed the neck so no one sees your bite marks.”

Astarion frowned. “I hope no one suspects anything.”

Lena shrugged. “If they do, we can probably chalk it up to a being pair of urbanites not knowing how to do shit right.”

Astarion nodded. “I’m surprised you seem so comfortable hunting. You really don’t seem keen on sleeping outdoors.”

“The little corner of my world I call home has networks of roads and inns that, as long as you have the money, you can sleep in a bed in relative comfort the entire way to your destination. I’m not even going to get started on the faster means of travel. As for hunting, one of my uncles has property in the mountains, and he regularly invites the rest of the family to go hunt feral pigs because they keep digging up his fences and terrorizing his goats. Then we’d dig a big pit and slow-roast it.” Lena explained.

Astarion’s brows raised. “Why goats?”

“They smell bad, they’re loud, and they’re assholes, so my uncle says its like being with family without having to be with family. The goats also happen to be pretty good at clearing brush and produce wool.”

“Ah.”

At camp, Shadowheart had already stirred the fire and set up a cauldron of water to heat. “Did either of you get any sleep last night?” she asked.

“Eh, enough,” Lena said. She dropped the carcass. “Do you have any rope so I can start to process this thing? And is does anyone have any coffee or tea?” Astarion headed to the river to wash. “Hey!” she called after Astarion, “Can you bring back a bucket of water?” Astarion stopped walking and sighed, letting his shoulders droop. He turned around and grabbed a bucket before heading back to the water.

Shadowheart turned her attention back to Lena. “I have rope, but no tea or coffee. I think Gale is the only one who has any tea, but he’s still asleep.” Shadowheart handed Lena a length of rope from her pack, then started sharpening a curved knife.

Lena tied the boar’s hind legs, then hoisted it up from a nearby tree branch before tying the rope end to another branch. “Damn. Can someone wake him up or raid his pack? I need caffeine before I get a headache.”

Shadowheart handed Lena the knife she had just sharpened, then approached Gale’s tent. As Lena began skinning the carcass, she could pick up the tone of a tense conversation, but no words. When Astarion came back, Lena jerked her head to Gale’s tent and they watched Shadowheart and Gale approach. Shadowheart broke the silence: “I noticed that you brought the boar back to camp entirely bloodless, and neither of you are covered in blood. Would either of you care to explain?”

Lena stared at Shadowheart. “We bled it out in the woods,” she said flatly.

Shadowheart stared back. “How did you manage that?”

“Astarion opened an artery after I held it down with my claws,” Lena said.

Gale spoke up. “Except that you need to hang the carcass up to completely bleed it out. How did you hold it up if you didn’t bring a rope?”

Lena gave Astarion a speaking look. He gave a subtle shake to his head, and Lena glared and cocked her head at Shadowheart and Gale. He glared back. This continued for several moment when Shadowheart got impatient. “Gale and I both know that Astarion is a vampire, and we want to know why you’re helping him, Lena.”

Astarion looked panicked, and Lena rolled her eyes. “Yes, he’s a vampire and he’s been eating animals in the woods. Unless he attacked you two and you didn’t know, he hasn’t attacked anyone in camp. If you two have any issues, you can go on your merry way.”

“Then how did you find out?” Gale asked Lena.

“He came to my tent to look at my phone,” Lena replied.

“Why did he want to do that instead of attempting to feed from you?” Shadowheart asked.

“Because if he tried I would’ve ripped out his teeth and made them into a lovely bracelet,” Lena said. Astarion cringed.

Gale’s eyes hardened. “That didn’t answer Shadowheart’s question.”

Lena gave Astarion another speaking look. He sighed. “I wanted to see the pictures from last night because I haven’t seen myself in about two centuries.” Gale and Shadowheart’s expressions softened. Astarion groaned. “Yes, now you know one of my insecurities. Do you want us start braiding each other’s hair and tell each other all about our crushes like we’re adolescents again?”

Lena raised her hand. “I wouldn’t mind it if someone braided my hair,” she admitted. “I can’t never seem to get an even mermaid braid.”

Astarion glared at Lena. Shadowheart snorted. Lena looked at Gale and shrugged. Astarion turned his glare on Shadowheart. “I don’t see why you suddenly find this all so amusing. Just a moment ago you and Gale seemed ready to stake me, or at the very least cast me out.”

Shadowheart grinned. “The thought of you braiding Lena’s or anyone else’s hair. It’s so very nice and domestic, and you strike me as not.”

Astarion looked offended. “I did bring back a bucket of water. That was … useful.”

Lena narrowed her eyes. “But only after I asked you to.”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “At least I did it. What more do you want of me?”

Gale pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think we’ve established that Astarion is NOT an immediate threat to us, though the turn in this conversation suggests that we’ll need to make some sort of chore wheel so the issue of what each person should do in the camp is decided beforehand.”

Lena stared wide-eyed at Gale. “Chore wheels?”

Gale looked at Lena. “Yes, a chart that shows what each person’s chores are for a given day to —”

“Yes, yes, I know what they are,” Lena interrupted. “What I want to know is how you know about them. They’re a pretty recent cultural phenomenon in my world as far as I know.”

“We used them all the time while I was an apprentice wizard,” Gale explained.

Lena groaned. “Let me guess: you were the one who wrote most of these chore wheels.”

“Why, yes, I frequently took it upon myself to write the chore wheels to help my fellow students keep track of their responsibilities and to ensure equitable distribution. How did you guess?” he asked. All eyes turned on Gale. “Why are you all looking at me?”

---

At some overgrown ruins...

After lengthy negotiations over chores over breakfast, they managed to finish preserving the meat and break camp around midday. They wandered up-river hoping to find a settlement that wasn’t squashed by the nautiloid. Instead, what they happened across was an overgrown temple ruin where Lena smelled people. They all stashed their packs and carefully sneaked through some nearby brush until Shadowheart spotted some looters.

“I’m guessing they’re not archaeologists doing survey work,” Lena whispered, pointing at a large rock suspended from a rope over a cracked stone floor.

“Indeed, no,” Gale replied. “I would guess that they’re here to loot magical artifacts.”

“I’m also guessing there’s no powerful archaeological or heritage preservation society to police this sort of thing,” Lena said.

“There are too many of these sorts of places across Faerun,” Shadowheart interjected. “You’d have one half of the population protecting all the sites from the other half looting them.”

“Honestly, I fail to see why anyone would care about some dead god’s temple,” Astarion added. “If there’s anything of value, the living would make better use of it.” Lena, Gale, and Shadowheart all looked at Astarion. “Alright, the living and undead. I don’t understand why you need to be so pedantic.”

“I agree with Astarion’s point about the artifacts,” Gale said.

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “Huh, you come across as an academic. I wouldn’t have guessed you’d side with violating ruins.”

“No, it’s very common here. Lots of people go to ruins such as ancient temples, crypts, castles, and dungeons to collect legendary magical artifacts. I, myself, took part in a number of expeditions to collect items on behalf of the goddess of magic, Mystra,” Gale said.

Astarion grinned. “And to sell anything else not nailed down for coin.”

Lena frowned. “So you’re telling me that in Faerun looting your own heritage is a pastime.”

Gale nodded. “Yes.”

Lena shrugged. “Okay then.” She pointed to the looters. “How should we play this?”

Astarion pointed to the gnome standing on a crate. “We should be able to kill them without too much issue.”

Lena frowned at Astarion. “I don’t really have a problem with killing people, but I’m also not exactly wearing clothes meant for a knife fight, nor did I bring a sewing kit, soap, or a change of clothes. So let me look for an in to make the murder easier and far less messy. And if I can’t see anything, we’ll run in and ‘murder them all amid laughter and merriment,’” she said.

Astarion let out an impatient huff. “Fine.”

“I’ll shift and see if I can do a little reconnaissance. Just keep my clothes safe.” Lena quickly stripped and shifted into a honey badger. Shadowheart and Astarion had already seen Lena shift, though they still stared. However, Gale’s jaw dropped.

“I know she said she’s a shifter, but I never thought she would completely shift like a druid,” Gale whispered in wonder.

They watched as her badger butt with its long tail dragging on the ground disappeared into the brush. “Is it the fact that she shifts completely into an animal, or the fact that she disrobes before she shifts?” Shadowheart asked.

After a moment Gale admitted, “Both.”

“She does have lovely brawny shoulders,” Shadowheart mused.

Astarion raised an eyebrow. “And we did just see some rather interesting scars. Some look like she'd been mauled by a bear and survived.”

“Will you two stop it? We should focus on the task at hand—” Gale said.

“—Which depends on the intel from a surprisingly attractive human. Who can turn completely into a honey badger." Astarion paused. "And who threatened to peel my face from my skull. Did I ever mention to you that she disarmed me within seconds after I tried to ambush her?” Astarion asked.

Shadowheart nodded. “Or that after she crushed an intellect devourer underfoot as though it were an insect?”

Gale blushed furiously and looked skyward. “Mystra save me,” he muttered.

“I don’t think your goddess will mind you taking a peek. It’s not as though Lena seems especially shy when she shifts,” Shadowheart said.

Gale glared at his two companions. “This conversation is unseemly, especially given that we barely know each other or Lena.”

Astarion gave Gale a sly smile. “Oh, I suspect we’ll all get to know each other quite well. Especially Lena. She’s quite the open book.”

They heard a slight rustle in the brush behind them and Lena reappeared. She shifted and Gale carefully pretended not to see as she started putting her clothes back on. “I saw four of them up top,” she whispered, “and smelled maybe four or five more but didn’t see anyone, so I’m guessing they’re inside. There’s also a trap door under a cliff to the west of the temple.”

“We might still want to attack them in case they have anything interesting stowed in their packs,” Astarion argued.

Gale stroked his chin. “I wonder if it’s possible to scare them away.”

Lena looked at him. “Care to elaborate?”

“Would you care to play the role of a rabid honey badger?” Gale asked.

“Should I charge and froth at the little big man on the crate, or should I chase one of you?” Lena asked.

“I would think Astarion might make for a good victim,” Gale suggested.

Shadowheart and Lena snickered. Astarion frowned at them. “I’ll admit my little gambit with pretending to have cornered an intellect devourer wasn’t great, but you don't need to laugh at me. I’m sure you’ve had issues with performing under duress.” The women had to muffle their giggles. Gale raised an eyebrow. Astarion blew out a breath. “Not like that. I assure I never have those sorts of performance issues.”

“Shadowheart?” Gale suggested.

Shadowheart scoffed. “Absolutely not. I don’t believe I can credibly play someone in distress.”

Lena gave Gale a feral grin. “That leaves you, Gale. How good is your cardio?”

---

Gale ran screaming up the stairs to the half-elf and the gnome standing on a crate on a balcony overlooking the entrance of the ruins. “You need to leave. There’s a beast, and I think it’s rabid,” Gale shouted. He looked behind him as a hissing and spitting badger chased him into the woods. The gnome and half-elf stared wide-eyed as the massive badger disappeared into the leaves, then listened to Gale’s blood-curdling screams. After an agonizing moment, everything went silent.

The ground beneath gnome began to shift and suddenly a clawed arm broke through the crate he stood on grabbed an ankle. The half-elf screamed and ran as the arm dragged the gnome into the crate down into a hole below. The gnome’s screams went silent as the sound of rending and tearing accompanied sprays of gnome blood and gore. When the commotion ended, an elf and a rock gnome stared at the hole, until their leader's head shot out like a basketball. They screamed and headed in the direction of the half-elf.

After the looters left, both Shadowheart and Astarion stood and politely clapped from their hiding places. Lena dug her way out from under the crate, shaking off blood and dirt from her hands and arms. Gale emerged from the brush, still red-faced and heaving from the exertion and approached Lena with her clothes. She gave Gale a slap on the back, leaving a dirty bloody handprint. “Excellent performance,” she said. Gale sketched a quick bow and grinned.

Chapter Text

As Shadowheart and Astarion rummaged through the various packs and crates around the ruins, Gale helped Lena loot the gnome’s body — or rather, remains of a body. Lena held up a shovel. “How did he manage to keep this on him?”

Gale looked up from his task of extracting the armor from the gore. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said.

“I don’t remember seeing him carrying a shovel, yet here it is,” she said.

“I’m guess that fell out of his bag.” Gale held up a small pouch that attached to a belt. “Almost everyone has a bag like this that holds their belongings,” he replied.

“I’m guessing ‘magic’?” she asked.

“More or less. Otherwise everyone would be carrying a bag much like the one you brought with you from the nautiloid, and that would be rather inconvenient while adventuring,” he commented.

Lena sighed. “Damn it. I was hoping it was a magical kangaroo pouch or something.”

Gale stared at her. “Why would you want to find something like that? That sounds horrifying!” he exclaimed.

“A magical fanny pack just seems so prosaic. Like, I’m dragged into a world where’s there’s magic and mind flayers and walking brain monsters, but everyone’s carrying around what I consider a fashion faux pas. And why are you coughing?” she asked.

Gale gave himself a moment to recover. “I’m not normally one to object to a bit of vulgar language, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to draw a line with the word ….” He coughed a word under his breath.

Lena looked nonplussed. “Run that by me again?” she asked.

Gale coughed the word again.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Look, I can’t tell what’s got your undies in a bunch if I can’t hear what you just said.”

Gale took a deep breath. “Fanny,” he muttered.

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s a rather crude word.” he said.

“It’s just another word for ‘ass,’ and I say ‘fuck’ and ‘shit all the time,” Lena said.

Astarion and Shadowheart had finished their rummaging and approached Gale and Lena. “He means it’s another word for ‘vulva’ in the local parlance,” Shadowheart explained.

Lena looked up at Shadowheart and cocked an eyebrow. Lena took a bundle of fabric Astarion offered her with a shit-eating grin. “So is there an equivalent of ‘fanny’ for a penis that I should be aware of?” she asked.

Gale dropped his head into his free hand as Astarion began. “There’s ‘knob’.”

“‘Meat stick,’” Shadowheart added.

“‘Prick,’” Astarion countered.

Shadowheart nodded. “Always a classic. ‘Pizzle.’”

“‘Skin flute.’”

“‘Tool.’”

“‘Trouser snake.’”

“‘Love sausage.’”

“‘Widgie.’”

“‘Meat. Puppet,’” Shadowheart enunciated.

Lena interrupted them. “Okay, I get it,” she groused. “I’ll stop referring to a bag that ties around the waist as a ‘fanny pack.’” Shadowheart coughed and Astarion let out a snort. Gale kept his face firmly in his hand. “So what do you call these things?” She pointed to the bag hanging from Gale’s other hand.

“Oh, that’s a bawbag,” Shadowheart said with a straight face. Astarion giggled. Gale’s hand moved from his face over to his mouth and he snorted.

Lena looked at them and muttered, “Fucking Brits.” Then she asked out loud, “And what does that mean?”

“Scrotum,” Shadowheart said. The three Faerun natives broke out into laughter.

Lena looked at them and sighed. “Fine. Be that way. But I’m going to start calling those things ‘bawbags’ from now on, and if anyone asks I’m going to blame it on you dorks.”

“Oh, ‘dorks’! I nearly forgot that one!” Astarion wheezed. Lena rolled her eyes and walked away as they continued laughing.

---

After sobering, they approached a door at the depths of the ruins. Lena had already changed into the leather trousers and vest that Astarion found for her (except the underwear, which was a big NO for her), and then gave the area around the door a quick sniff. “There’s at least one person by the door,” she whispered and began picking the lock with her claws.

“Those are handy. Here I was having to make do with lockpicks.” Astarion remarked.

Lena grinned as the lock turned. She kept the door firmly shut, however. “I had to learn when I was twelve when my brother Tony padlocked me into a dog kennel.”

Shadowheart frowned. “Why would he do that?”

“I snuck into his room while he was with his girlfriend Grace and proceeded to pelt her with some old veggies,” Lena replied.

Gale sighed. “And dare we ask why you did that?”

“Because she was setting my brother up as a scapegoat for a hit on a jewelry store, and had started planting evidence. But he was mad at me because he already knew about her plans, and was actually using her as a scapegoat for a much bigger heist he and his buddies had planned to steal weapons from a drug cartel,” she explained. “So I managed to ruin two of plans: getting laid, and getting paid.”

“How old was your brother,” Gale asked.

“Seventeen,” Lena replied. “After I picked the lock and got out of the kennel, I told our parents, and they got mad at both of us: Him because not only did they have to clean up his mess on their date night by wiping out branches of two different gangs, but also because he was supposed to be studying for finals; and me, because I should’ve kept my mouth shut and told them instead of confronting Grace myself.”

“So what happened to Grace?” Shadowheart asked.

“She married Tony about eight years ago, and now they have two awesome kids: I get to teach them knife-fighting whenever we get together for family dinners,” Lena said.

Astarion raised an eyebrow. “Are they still stealing?”

Lena tilted her head side to side. “Sort of. She’s an accountant, and he’s a lawyer. Though they make it a policy to break into rich people’s homes and steal magazines, just to keep their skills sharp.”

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “We need to stop letting Lena digress, or we’ll never get anything done.”

Astarion gave Shadowheart a puzzled look. “Why? Her anecdotes are so amusing,” he said. Shadowheart glared. “Fine. Let’s proceed.”

Lena pulled the gnome’s head from her bawbag. The others looked at her in horror. “Why do you have that with you?” Gale asked.

Lena held up the head then began puppeting it with both hands. “‘Hi! I’m your leader, Mr. Gnome! Have you been good little looters today?’” she said in a funny voice.

“Gods, that is demented,” Astarion whispered. “And that impression isn’t going to fool anyone, least of all because it’s starting to droop.” He motioned to its ears and face.

“Wasn’t going to be my plan,” Lena said. “Astarion, you’ve got a bow. I take it you’re a decent shot?”

“Of course,” he replied. “No self-respecting elf goes without learning archery.” Shadowheart shot him a dirty look. “You’re a half-elf, darling, so you don’t count.” Shadowheart bared her teeth.

“That’s useful to know,” Lena said. “Astarion, I’ll need you and Gale to find cover. Shadowheart, I want you to open the door for me and bean the head of anyone coming out. And most importantly, don’t block it because I’m going to try to lure them out. I’ll signal when I’m starting,” she said, raising a hand in the air before making a fist. They all nodded and got into position.

Lena raised her hand and looked to Shadowheart. Shadowheart nodded and Lena closed her fist. Shadowheart threw open the door. Lena then raised the gnome head and shouted, “HEY KIDS, GUESS WHAT TIME IT IS!” She then rolled the head like a bowling ball through the open door and heard a loud bang. She flinched then hunched back down next to Shadowheart. “What the fuck was that?” she whispered urgently. She could hear someone inside shouting and running.

“I would guess you set off a trap with that head,” Shadowheart said.

Lena looked at her incredulously. “Are you serious? Traps? Next thing you’re going to tell me is that you can get cursed from looting.”

“Actually, you can,” Shadowheart replied.

“This is like some sort of Indiana Jones wet dream,” Lena muttered. She heard someone reach the doorway then reached in and grabbed them. Shadowheart neatly caved in the side of the man’s face as an arrow flew into the doorway, following by a gurgle. Lena dropped the dead man and hazarded a peek into the door. She spotted at least three more people, including an archer who had her bow drawn, and a mage holding a ball of fire. She pushed Shadowheart and shouted, “MOVE” as a fireball exploded next to her. Someone lobbed a bottle that shattered and left a greasy green stain.

“Acid,” Shadowheart said.

“Find cover until I give the signal, and wave for the boys to move into range,” Lena said.

“What’s the signal?” Shadowheart asked.

Lena grinned. “You’ll know when you see it. I’m going underground.” She extended her claws and began digging through the dirt and rock, listening to footsteps and faint muffled voices, until she was sure she was behind the mage. Lena reached for the mage’s leg with her claws. The mage gave a yelp as she was dragged into the tunnel where Lena slashed her throat before climbing out of the hole.

She grunted when an arrow pierced her leather vest and lodged itself in her shoulder. “I just got this,” she snarled as she tackled the offending archer in a rolling grapple, then used her legs to launch her out the doorway. The archer landed in the acid puddle and started to scream, but her cries went silent when three balls of light hit her followed by the thunk of an arrow.

Shadowheart managed to make her way in, using the dead archer as a stepping stone over the acid and stunned a looter with her shield. He attempted to stab Shadowheart, but got a mace to the chin for his trouble, and Lena had managed to draw a knife and slide on one knee to slash him from buttock to groin before he hit the ground.

Astarion ran up next to the doorway and gave a quick look inside when someone managed to graze his shoulder with their arrow. He flinched back against the wall before drawing his own bow and shot someone in the throat then made his way in.

Gale ran up to the door last, then stood on the corpse and cast fireball. The spell lit up the room as it ignited a straggler running from further within the ruin. The woman screamed, but then attempted to attack Lena with a dagger. Lena jumped back when arrow protruded from the burning woman’s eye and dropped to the ground.

“Do we know if there are any more?” Gale asked.

Lena wrinkled her nose at the smell of burning meat. “I don’t think so. All the smells I noticed outside are here.”

Shadowheart moved to Lena’s injured shoulder. “Here, let me help you wi—” The arrow clattered to the floor. Shadowheart winced. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to that.”

Lena shrugged, then pointed to Astarion. “You got a little something on your shoulder.”

Shadowheart moved to Astarion and cast a healing spell on him. “There, good as new,” she said.

Astarion picked at the frayed hole of his gambeson. “I guess now is as good as any time to loot these fools for better gear.”

They collected what they could from the bodies, both Lena and Astarion opting to equip leather armor, while Lena switched out her sneakers for leather boots. It all smelled of feet, but seemed far more durable. They then scavenged food from various crates and had a late lunch.

---

While eating, Lena wandered over to some of the bookshelves. She opened a book, then frowned. “Hey Gale?” she called out.

He finished swallowing, then walked over to her. “Yes? How can I help?” he asked.

She pointed at the text in the book. “Is your written language pictographic or phonetic?” she asked

“It’s phonetic,” he replied. “Why, is it not the same on your world?”

“No, and I can’t read this.” She sighed.

“Well, you’re in luck because it happens to be a copy of ‘A is for Azulth, and Other Gods’ — a children’s primer.” He grinned.

Lena rolled her eyes. “If I’m going to have learn to read a completely new alphabet, it may as well be something interesting. Is there anything else on these shelves you can see?”

They scanned through the titles together, looking for something that piqued Lena’s interest.

Shadowheart approached them. “What are you both looking for?”

“Lena apparently can’t read our alphabet, so we’re trying to find a book that she can learn from that isn’t a children’s primer,” Gale said.

“From little I know of Lena, I think I happen to have a book,” Shadowheart said and pulled out a thick volume from her bawbag.

Gale took the book. “‘Don’t Sniff the Specimen,’” he read.

“That sounds promising,” Lena said. “Thanks, Shadowheart!”

“Of course, Lena. Though I think that Gale might be more adept at teaching you to read our alphabet than I am, so I’ll leave that in his capable hands.” Shadowheart walked away. Behind Lena’s back, she smiled and winked at Gale.

Gale blushed. “I, uh, will give this over to you for safekeeping, seeing as you’ll be the one learning and practicing to read and write from it.”

Lena took the book from him. “Sounds good.” She looked at Gale. “Why are you red again?”

Chapter Text

After lunch, they wandered through the ruins to loot valuables before they approached an ornate door. It had neither handles nor locks, and refused to budge when Lena pushed against it. “I don’t get it,” she said. “What’s the point of a door you can’t open without breaking it down?”

“These sorts of buildings frequently have secret switches or buttons meant to keep out intruders so only those who’ve been inducted can pass freely,” Gale explained. He and the others had already turned their attentions from the door and were running their hands over the various surfaces along the walls.

Lena looked at him incredulously. “Seriously?” she said. “That seems like a lot of engineering for something that a handsy rando can probably fail into solving.”

Gale nodded. “Yet the looters we decimated didn’t manage to pass through this door.”

“So were they stupid or ignorant?” Lena asked.

“Very likely both,” Gale replied. His hand landed on a stone skull embedded in the wall and the ornate door groaned open.

Lena stared at the door, then looked over to where Gale was from clear across the room, then back at the door before sighing. “Lemme guess: magic?” she asked.

Gale looked at the door and nodded.

Lena rolled her eyes and was about to walk into the opened room when Astarion shouted. “STOP! There are traps in there!” He walked over and pointed at an engraved panel embedded in the floor.

Lena groaned. “Who the fuck designed this place?” she complained. ‘Can you imagine the number of accidents this place had because someone who was supposed to be here forgot one of the traps? This is prime OSHA violation material.”

“Osha?” Gale asked.

“Occupational Safety and Health Administration,” Lena answered. “They’re the bureaucrats in charge of making sure workplaces follow guidelines to limit on-the-job injuries and deaths by issuing fines and closing factories.” She glanced at her companions’ perplexed expressions. “I’m guessing that is yet another thing Faerun lacks.”

Gale and Shadowheart nodded.

“I’m going to guess there are no large scale manufacturers or assembly lines to mass-produce goods, either?” Lena asked.

“For the most part, no,” Astarion interjected. “I remember there were rumblings about some sort of factory being built in Baldur’s Gate, but I wasn’t in a place to pay it much attention.”

“Ah, so you’re all going to learn to hard way what happens when you find out that someone fell into a meat grinder,” Lena said. “‘Honest to god, officer,’” Lena said in a squeaky voice, “‘we couldn’t stop the machines when poor Mary fell in and by the time we figured it out all the sausages sold out!’”

Shadowheart grimaced. “Did that actually happen on your world?” She asked.

“Variations of it,” Lena replied. “Nothing changed until enough people got disgusted by ‘accidental cannibalism,’ ‘my bread has whole mouse turds in it,’ ‘I lost four babies because of tainted milk’ incidents that government agencies stepped in to prevent an entire section of the economy from collapsing.”

Astarion looked faintly green. “And that’s enough digression for me, thank you.”

“You don’t eat,” Lena said. “I don’t get why you’d get upset about tainted food.”

“It’s the thought of it that gets me.” He shuddered. “Imagine if someone doctored wine—” he pointed a finger at Lena before she could interject, “—and you don’t get to ruin that for me, so not another word.” He then pointed at the stone panel. “Now that discussion has closed, would you like to learn how to identify and disarm a trap?” he asked Lena.

Lena heaved yet another sigh. “I’m guessing these things are as common as ruins, so may as well.” She gave Astarion a shrewd look. “I’m also guessing you’re teaching me so that I can take the blame if we die?”

Astarion gave mock offense. “Never even crossed my mind. I was thinking that if you trigger a trap I might have a running start.” He gave a her a grin.

Lena gave Astarion a flat stare for a moment. “Okay, that seems on-brand for you. Lead on.”

For the next hour, Astarion taught Lena how to identify and disarm the various traps in what turned out to be a crypt. The two of them slowly and carefully swept the floors, walls, and sarcophagi for triggers, vents, and flame throwers. Whenever Astarion declared that an area was clear, Gale and Shadowheart would start their search for loot.

After they finished looting the crypt, Astarion and Lena entered what appeared to be a primary crypt that featured a large skeleton statue. This time, they split up and started sweeping for traps. When Shadowheart entered, she stood at a balustrade that served to mark the edge of their safe zone and stared at the statue, as if trying to dredge up buried memories.

Lena crouched down next to a skeleton near the door. “What’re the odds that this one got caught in one of those traps we disarmed?” she asked.

Gale approached her position and looked down. “Next to none.” He pointed at the scraps that once clothed the body with his quarterstaff. “As Astarion pointed out, those traps in the other crypt were designed to incinerate anyone who triggered them, yet what fabric and leather remains show no signs of fire.”

“Do you think they were attacked and left in situ?” Lena asked. She reached down to a bawbag she spotted among the bones to check if the body had been looted when she felt bones rattle and then move on their own. “FUCK!” she shouted. She grabbed a quarterstaff and wrenched it out of the reassembling skeletal hands, then used the end of it to crush the rotting skull as it started to move off the floor.

Shadowheart had already rushed to the closest skeleton and bashed it to pieces. “ASTARION!” she shouted, then tossed him a quarterstaff.

Astarion, who was already parrying and ducking scimitar blows from an armored skeleton, dived to catch the quarterstaff before the armored skeleton could knock it out of reach, and tucked himself into a roll before standing ready and jabbing the end at the skull. Colored lights struck the skeleton and Shadowheart knocked it back with her mace before a thick fog enveloped them. The scimitar sliced through the fog and nicked Shadowheart’s forehead before she could block the blow. Astarion’s quarterstaff struck its exposed humerus, shattering the bone and causing it to drop its scimitar before Shadowheart’s mace struck the back of its neck, severing the skull before the rest of it dropped.

Lena saw a skeleton casting at Gale as he shattered another with a thunderwave spell, so she threw her quarterstaff at it like a spear as a ray of freezing cold hit them both. Lena and Gale screamed while the skeleton was knocked off-balance. Despite the pain and numbness from the shock of cold, she tackled it to the ground, then tore into the bones of its face with her claw until there was nothing left but an empty cranium. She panted as she stood up, then stomped on its neck for good measure.

“Just to ask,” Lena said as she stumbled toward Gale, whose exposed skin was a patchwork of white and red, “was I the only one surprised by the reanimated skeletons, or did any of you expect something like this to happen?” She helped Gale sit down on some steps, then sat down next to him. She winced as the frozen patches of skin thawed and blood rushed to flood the tissue and lift patches of skin to slough off in a few minutes.

Shadowheart had already healed herself and was walking toward Gale while attempting to wipe away the blood from her face. She recited an incantation, which restored most of Gale’s skin to a healthier pink rather than bone white or red, then sat down with them. Astarion had wiped some of the sweat off his face, leaving behind dirty smears. He gave the helmeted skull a vicious kick before he sat down next to Shadowheart.

“I can’t say that I expected this to occur,” Gale said, “But I know that it requires powerful necromancy to reanimate this many dead all at once.”

Shadowheart stared at the statue for a moment. “I believe that’s Jergal.”

“Who’s Jergal?” Lena asked. She had peeled a flap of loose skin off her nose before dropping it on the floor. Her companions stared in disgust at the discard, then groaned and looked away in a different direction as Lena picked at a loose skin bubble on her hand.

“Nine hells, that’s revolting,” Astarion said. “Can’t that wait a few more minutes?”

Lena stopped. “Sorry. So who’s Jergal?”

“He was the god of death,” Shadowheart explained, “But I can’t quite seem to remember why he was replaced and who replaced him.”

“Hmm, I found this in the other room,” Astarion said, “though I didn’t expect any of us to get a good look at it until after we left this shithole.” He handed a book over to Shadowheart.

She examined the lock on its cover. “I can feel its divinity.” She then whispered an incantation under her breath, sending a small spark of light into the lock, which popped open and a page fell out. She picked it up, staring at the faded words until the parchment crumbled in her hands. “That’s curious,” she said. “I’ve been granted the ability to cast a ray of enfeeblement after reading the loose parchment.”

“That is odd,” Gale remarked.

“Why?” Lena asked.

Gale turned to reply, but instead swore and leaned away from Lena. “Oh Gods! I thought we asked you to leave it alone!”

Shadowheart and Astarion looked at Lena and cringed: She’d been scratching at her face and hidden that fact by leaning slightly back so that they couldn’t see her. Her face was now mostly pink skin, but was ringed with a few stray edges of dead skin.

She rolled her eyes. “Like you never picked at an old blister. At least you didn’t have to see the slow full-human version of frostbite healing.”

Shadowheart grimaced. “Yes, but we have healing for that so you needn't have peeled the skin from your entire face.”

“It’s done now, and you got to save the healing for Gale,” Lena replied before changing the subject. “So why is that spell so significant?”

“I’m a cleric,” Shadowheart explained, “and all my spells are granted by my goddess rather than learned directly from spells on parchment. Yet I can now cast a spell that did not come from my goddess because that parchment was infused with the divine.”

Lena mulled this information over. “Okay. Cool.” Her companions all looked at her. “What?”

“We’re all expecting you to start asking your usual rambling series of probing questions,” Astarion said.

Lena shrugged. “I’m tired, my hands are still itchy, and honestly my brain is still grappling with magic so I can’t be bothered to dig into theology and theory right now. So what’s in the book?”

Shadowheart looked back down at the book, flipping back and forth through pages of faded ink. “Near as I can tell it’s filled with the names of gods that died but were restored after the Second Sundering. Most of the names I can make out because I’m familiar with them, but there are three on the last page that are nothing more than smears.” She pointed at the page.

Gale and Astarion both leaned in to look when Gale felt a sudden weight against his arm, followed by a light snore. Gale looked over and found Lena asleep; she’d drooped against him with her arms across over her chest and her chin tucked into to her chest. Shadowheart and Astarion had looked over upon hearing the snore, then avidly watched as Lena sleepily slid until she was on her side then snuggled against Gale until she used his thigh as a pillow.

Shadowheart silently mouthed ‘Aww.’

Astarion smirked. “I think now is as good a time as any for a rest,” he whispered. “I don’t suggest waking her unless you like her claws removing important bits.”

Gale’s eyes went wide. “Then what am I supposed to do?” he whispered urgently.

Shadowheart shrugged. “Enjoy it, I guess.” She stowed the book then took out a bottle of wine and wheel of cheese. She handed the wine to Astarion, who took a slug before handing it off to Gale, while Shadowheart sliced wedges from a wheel of cheese and gave one to Gale.

“Should we save any for her?” Gale motioned to Lena, who was now leaving a trail of drool on his robes.

“Hells no,” Astarion whispered. “She mentioned something about not digesting cheese, and I refused to be gassed while we’re underground.”

Shadowheart edged away from Gale and Lena. Gale sighed and took a bite of cheese.

---

When Lena finally came-to, she first noticed her cheek had been sitting in a puddle of her own drool, then that her pillow flexed beneath her. She saw Gale stoically staring straight ahead while Astarion and Shadowheart grinned while watching them. "Not creepy at all," she said. "Nope." She sat up and Gale seemed to visibly relax. "Uh, thanks for letting me use you as a pillow," she said.

"Always happy to be of help," Gale said, continuing to stare away from her.

"Did you have a good nap?" Shadowheart asked.

"Good enough. My pillow was surprisingly hard," Lena replied. Astarion and Shadowheart snickered. Gale blushed. Lena rolled her eyes then stood up and stretched and cracked the joints in her neck. "How long was I out," she asked.

"About fifteen minutes, I'd wager," Astarion replied.

"Did you guys find anything interesting?” she asked.

“No, we decided we needed the rest as well,” Shadowheart said. She eyed Lena’s face and hands. “And it looks like you’ve finished healing. I can’t even find any trace of the frostbite on you.” She handed Lena a chunk of bread and some wine.

They completed their looting through the primary crypt when Astarion found a hidden switch that activated a door to a hidden chamber that held a sarcophagus. He and Lena checked for traps, then Gale and Shadowheart followed to search for valuables.

When Astarion touched the sarcophagus to check for traps, the nearby candles lit with green flames and the lid suddenly shifted as a hand pushed it aside. The corpse floated upright.

“That body is rather well preserved,” Lena remarked as they watched the body float down before them. Its eyes opened. “I stand correct: that body is extremely well preserved.” She named him 'Mr. Lich' in her head.

Mr. Lich strode toward them with an upright posture, then looked at Lena. “What a curious way to awaken,” the he said with a gravelly voice. “Thou art a long way from home.”

“Thou wouldst be right,” Lena said. Astarion elbowed her hard in the ribs. “Hey! What was that for?” she whispered.

“Don’t piss off the powerful magic corpse!” Astarion whispered back urgently.

Mr. Lich’s shoulders seemed to sag. “So He has spoken, and so thou standest before me. Right as always. A honey badger.”

Lena looked nonplussed. “What, did I do something?”

“Though it is fortold I shall regret this,” Mr. Lich said, “I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal life?”

Lena thought for a moment. “The last I remember reading, in the U.S. the Value of a Statistical Life according to the EPA comes out to around nine-million to eleven-million dollars, though if you die in a plane accident the FAA puts the number closer to six million. I don’t know what that number would be here in Faerun because I don’t have statistics on incomes, mortality rates, diseases, environmental factors, or workplace hazards.”

“So I ask again, from a moral standpoint what is the worth of a single mortal life?” Mr. Lich said.

Lena blinked. “Oh, well, why didn’t you ask that from the get go? And my answer is, uh, hmm, lemme think." She paused for a moment. "Well, if someone’s trying to harm me or mine, then I consider their lives worth less-than and they're on my shit-list until I've eliminated them or something's changed, because I'm glad the girl who ultimately became my sister-in-law when she tried to frame my brother didn't die or go to prison because they're disgustingly happy together. Though I have killed people I found REALLY annoying, and I'd like to justify those because they were just really terrible bullies. Though if I had to choose among a group of strangers who lives or dies, I’d like to know if any of them are actively seeking to or have a history of deliberately hurting others. And then there are the selfish or apathetic who don’t go out of their hurt others, but don’t try to mitigate harm, like Mary Malloy who carried typhoid and refused to quarantine or stop working as a cook despite warnings to stop or arrests and who ultimately killed between fifty to one-hundred twenty people. Now that's a moral quandary I'm not up for tackling because I can't truly know her intent given the upward mobility her job as a cook provided and her possible delusions with respect to the amount of harm she ultimately caused.”

Mr. Lich sighed. “So thou sayest, ‘it depends’?”

“Yeah, let’s go with that.”

“Very well. We have met and I know thy face. We shall meet again at the proper time and place. Farewell.” Mr. Lich walked away.

"Did I say something?" Lena asked.

Chapter Text

They set up their tents near the ruins that night, then Astarion and Lena went hunting to feed Astarion. When they made their way back to camp with a deer in tow, Gale approached them with the sort of hurried walk of someone panicking but trying to look calm. “Now I want you both to stay calm because what I’m going to tell you you might find alarming,” he said quietly.

Astarion and Lena groaned. “What is it this time?” Lena asked. “I’m tired, I’m filthy, I’m hungry, and I don’t think I can take much more new weird-to-me shit right now.” She dropped the deer to the ground. “I’m owed one freak-out a day.”

Gale grimaced. “I was hoping you’d at least try to keep a civil tongue in your head because we have a guest in our camp.”

“What guest?” Astarion asked.

“The corpse from the crypt from our little adventure today,” Gale said.

Astarion and Lena immediately started cursing, though Astarion tried to keep his voice down. “WHY?” Lena wailed. “Mr. Lich said that we’d meet again ‘at the proper time and place,.’ How is that supposed to mean ‘within the next two hours’?”

Astarion and Gale stared incredulously at Lena. “You’re calling the powerful magic corpse ‘Mr. Lich?’” Astarion asked.

“I don’t know his name. Or if he’s a ‘he.’ What else am I supposed to call him? ‘The Body’? ‘It’? ‘Fancy Dead Dude’? None of those seem to fit,” Lena retorted.

Both Astarion and Gale groaned. “Under the circumstances,” Gale said, “perhaps it would be best if you limit your interactions with our guest to avoid offending him.”

“But he invited himself here,” Lena whined. “That’s not in my book as being the socially aware thing to do. Or at least I was told repeatedly that it wasn’t when I used to dropped by a friend’s place unannounced and her parents threatened to call the relevant authorities because, and I quote, ‘a seven-year-old should not be given free reign to visit at three in the morning.’”

“Yes, I can see that as being a bit of faux pas,” Astarion drawled. He turned to Gale. “So why is our desiccated new friend making the rounds?”

“From what Shadowheart and I gathered from speaking with him, he can offer to resurrect any one of us in the event of death as long as we are willing to part with the coin,” Gale explained.

“Why?” Astarion asked.

Gale answered: “Near as we can gather from his rather cryptic—" Lena groaned and Astarion shot Gale a dirty look. Gale cleared his throat. “—speech mannerisms, he’s here to help ensure we are involved in some major event. Something about ‘fate spinning as it should’ as he put it.”

“Wait, back up a bit. What’s this about ‘resurrection’?” Lena asked. “Are we talking about reviving someone who’s heart recently stopped beating or just stopped breathing? Or is it more ‘we’re seeing skin slippage and bloat so we’re going to have to zombify your corpse’?”

“Your world can revive the recently dead?” Gale asked.

“Sort of,” Lena said. “Sometimes if someone’s heart stops functioning, we can use mechanical means to keep blood pumping and oxygen flowing to limit brain damage and bring the person’s function back if they can repair whatever caused the heart malfunction to begin with. And sometimes those mechanical means of keeping someone alive means that we can keep a body alive for a while without discernible brain function so then the definition of ‘life’ versus ‘death’ become a massive legal and ethical headache.”

Gale blinked. “Here we can use spell scrolls to resurrect someone up to several days after their demise, without the injuries that led directly to the death. Our new friend asks that we pay two hundred gold coins for each resurrection.”

“Huh.” Lena rifled through her bawbag for a coin, then examined it. “You have enough gold ore to actually circulate gold coins as currency?”

“What do your people use?” Astarion asked.

“Money units that used to be back by gold, but that got switched to a market-based system,” Lena said, “so a unit such a ‘dollar’ in the country of the United States where I come from can be worth about hundred ‘yen’ in the country of Japan because of different monetary policies, local and international economic factors such as food production and shipping routes, trade policies, and a few dozen other factors that I know nothing about because I didn’t study economics, but I doubt gold is a major factor.”

“That’s … confusing,” Astarion said.

“Yeah, I don’t pretend to understand it,” Lena admitted. “Though I do keep track of gold prices whenever I need to fence something.” She weighed the coin in her hand. “Are these things pure gold?”

“Yes, they should be,” Astarion answered.

“How much do these weigh?” she asked.

“About a gram,” Astarion replied.

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “Seriously, even Faerun uses metric?”

“What do you use?” Gale asked.

“Imperial for the consumer market, though the federal government uses metric,” she replied.

Gale cocked an eyebrow. Astarion looked faintly disgusted.

Lena shrugged. “I never said my home made sense. Give me a minute to estimate how much this coin would be worth at home.” She went silent, her mouth working as she calculated the coin’s worth in U.S. dollars. “This coin is worth about eighty dollars based on the numbers I looked up about a two weeks ago. So for Mr. Lich to bring one of us back, a life is worth about sixteen thousand dollars, which is still about five hundred times less than the U.S government estimates a life to be worth, so it’s not too bad by my standards.”

“I would like to point out,” Gale said, “that this suggests each of us may die multiple times for as long as we may need to travel with our new friend, who, by the way, seems to respond to being called ‘Withers.’”

“What do you mean by ‘seems’,” Astarion asked.

“It means that between Shadowheart and myself, neither of us know how we came to the name ‘Withers’ because he never expressly told us what to call him,” Gale replied.

The three were silent for a moment until Lena spoke up. “So where is Shadowheart?”

Gale sighed. “After our conversation with Withers, she said that she couldn’t ‘deal with this rubbish,’ and took a bottle of wine in each hand to her tent.”

“That sound like an excellent way to unwind,” Astarion said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll join her after I wash up.” He started walking toward the river.

Lena scowled. “Hey, at least bring me a bucket of water because I still need to dress this deer.”

Without breaking his stride, Astarion grabbed a bucket and gave Lena a one-finger salute with his free hand.

Lena gasped with false outrage, “Well I never!” and then flipped him off with both hands.

“You do realize he can’t see you?” Gale said.

“Yes, but it’s the principle of the thing that matters,” Lena replied.

---

The next morning they decided to leave their camp as-is, figuring that no one would likely try to disturb anything with Withers there. Lena went so far as to put out her stolen solar charger so she could keep her phone charged so she could read or listen to something familiar when she got a chance. As they explored the paths, Lena could hear two voices arguing and urged everyone to begin sneaking to the source of the noise.

Gale winced as the crouched, then whispered, “I don’t think my knees can withstand all this sneaking.”

Shadowheart cocked an eyebrow at him. “I can’t imagine why. Perhaps wizards need to include calisthenics with their studies instead of sitting at their tomes all day.”

“I’ll have you know that made sure I spent an hour a day prior to our kidnapping in rigorous exercise,” Gale replied.

“Was it lifting and reorganizing your books?” she asked.

“Partly, yes,” he admitted.

Lena held her hand behind her to shush them when she spotted the green woman from the nautiloid in a cage suspended off the ground, but was taken aback by the two people arguing about killing her. But it wasn’t the topic of their conversion that startled her—because if she were being honest, the green woman’s was a lot to take in—but rather because it was that they both had horns, glowing eyes, tails, and red skin like so many depictions of Judeo-Christian devils. She stared at them and nudged Astarion next to her.

“Hey, are the red people a normal part of Faerun’s landscape, or am I really going to have to suddenly worry about local theology?” she asked.

Astarion briefly looked baffled at Lena before he took on a slightly sly expression. “You’ll need to be careful dealing with them or they might steal your soul,” Astarion replied. Lena stared at him.

Shadowheart and Gale caught up. Shadowheart smacked Astarion’s arm.

“Ow! What was that for?” Astarion asked.

“They’re tieflings,” Shadowheart explained, “They’re pretty much ordinary people, like elves, humans, gnomes—”

“—chipmunks, moles, voles, and gophers?” Lena interrupted. They looked at Lena utterly baffled. “Sorry, force of habit. There’s someone who says this a lot and….” She coughed quietly. “Never mind. As you were saying?”

Shadowheart shot her a hard look, then continued. “Tieflings are frequently human, but either their bloodline included an infernal ancestor, or a human ancestor made a pact with an infernal and their appearance is the price, sometimes several generations after the pact was sealed.”

“So when you say infernal…” Lena began.

“Devils,” Gale said. “Natives of the Nine Hells. Devils are a highly organized and magically endowed race that seek to exploit the desperate and the deranged on our plane with intricate contracts and laws to extract souls, which they use as currency.”

“So the teethlings aren’t demonic?” Lena asked.

“Tieflings,” Gale corrected. “And demons are not the same as devils as they come from a plane called The Abyss. They are pure hate and chaos. Demons and devils are in fact at war with each other, and have been since time immemorial.”

“The infernal traits tieflings have inherited,” Shadowheart interjected, “are largely cosmetic, such as the tail and the horns. They have a few physical traits, such as enhanced night vision and resistance to hellish attacks, but their personalities and abilities are no different from any other oppressed or derided group facing discrimination over their appearance.”

Lena mulled over this information. “Fair enough. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they’ll release the green woman who’s name I’ve forgotten from the nautiloid.”

Shadowheart looked at her sharply. “Wait, why?”

Lena shrugged. “She did help the two of us get off the ship.”

“She told you to leave me behind!” Shadowheart shot back.

“And yet she waited while I dug you out,” Lena reasoned. “Besides, she seems to know about how to extract our mind flayer maggots, so unless you want to go bald and sprout a tentacle beard we might want options. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

“I’m inclined to agree with Lena. A githyanki could be a useful ally,” Gale said. “Besides, we can’t leave her to die in a cage.”

“And she looks like she can cut an ogre in half,” Astarion added.

Shadowheart gave an exasperated huff. “Fine. Though if she decapitates the rest of you while you sleep, you only have yourselves to blame.”

“Aw, cheer up,” Lena said with a grin and mussed Shadowheart’s hair. “I still got you out of that pod. And the boys here somehow survived without any help, so you can’t resent her forever.” She stood and carefully made as much noise as possible over to where the tieflings continued to argue.

“Hi there,” Lena said brightly.

“Oh, a guest,” one of the tieflings said.

Suddenly, Lena heard the green woman’s voice projected in her mind. “You again. Get rid of them.” Lena winced from the sudden pain.

“Are you alright, saer?” the other tiefling asked.

Lena waved her hand. “Just a mild headache. Hey, mind letting my friend in the cage down?”

The tieflings stared at her and Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “Why would we do that?” Tiefling 2 asked. “Gods, have you seen it? That thing’s dangerous and we should leave it to the goblins!”

“Yes she is,” Lena agreed. “But mostly because she’s up in that cage and she’s pissed off. Well, especially pissed off. I mean, wouldn’t you be if you were trapped and your captors were debating whether to kill you or let someone else kill you at some indeterminate time without food or water?”

“Yes but—” Tiefling 1 began.

“But what? Has she specifically harmed either of you or anyone you know?” Lena asked.

“No, but we were told that her kind are attacking travelers on the North Road not three days ago,” Tiefling 1 said.

“And I know my friend here was traveling with my friends and me up until the day before yesterday so she can’t be part of those attacks,” Lena said. She eyed both of the tieflings. “Are you telling me that you’re planning on either killing her or letting her die because of the way she looks?”

The two tieflings looked slightly shame-faced.

“Honestly, if she looks like she’s ready to kill you and it’s kinda on you.” Lena looked at them thoughtfully. “Look, why don’t you leave now and I’ll get her down and make sure she doesn’t turn you both into meat paste. Sound good?” she asked.

The tieflings looked at each other. “Let’s get back to camp,” Tiefling 2 said. “We need to report that we still haven’t found the source of the blast.” They started to hurry away

“By any chance, does your camp have a doc— healer?” Lena asked.

“Yes,” Tiefling 1 said. “Go north, and ask for Nettie.”

“Chk, you should have killed them,” the green woman projected.

“And you should know better than get trapped,” Shadowheart replied. She emerged from the brush and glared at the green woman. Astarion and Gale followed.

“Can we stop talking like this? It’s giving me a hell of a headache,” Lena said.

“Get me down and we can talk face-to-face, istik,” the green woman snapped.

“Promise you won’t kill the tieflings who trapped you?” Lena asked.

“No. It is my right to exterminate those who seek to harm me,” the green woman said.

“Okay then. I’m going to start to sing until you agree to not hurt them,” Lena replied. She took a deep breath and started to bellow Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts”:

“Why men great 'til they gotta be great?
Woo!

I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm 100% that bitch
Even when I'm crying crazy
Yeah, I got boy problems, that's the human in me
Bling bling, then I solve 'em, that's the goddess in me
You coulda had a bad bitch, non-commit—”

“YES, I AGREE!” the green woman shouted. “Now get me down.”

“Say ‘please,’” Lena said. The green woman rolled her eyes.

“No.”

“Okay then.” Lena took another deep breath.

“FINE, PLEASE. GET ME DOWN.”

Lena smiled. She took a running start and grabbed a hold of the edge of the cage before extending a claw and slicing the rope bindings to release the cage floor. The green woman dropped to the ground, then Lena followed, except her foot got caught on some of the ropes and she swung upside-down briefly before landing on her face in the dirt. The sudden tension caused the rope holding the cage to drop on top of her with a crash and fell apart.

Astarion let out a startled laugh. Gale turned white. The green woman rolled her eyes and shook her head. Shadowheart gasped. "Are you alright?" she asked as she made her way to Lena.

Lena's arm reached out of the pile of sticks with her thumb straight up. "I'm okay!" she yelled, then she stood up and started to brush off loose debris. One stick had managed to lodge itself into her shoulder where her armor stopped at the crook of her neck. Everyone else, with the exception of the green woman, cringed.

The green woman's eyebrows rose. "There appears to be a piece of wood in your neck."

"So there is," Lena replied. She nonchalantly grabbed the offending stick and yanked it out just as Shadowheart was about to warn her not to. A small spurt of blood erupted and then abruptly stopped as the puncture scabbed over.

Shadowheart sagged and stared at Lena. "I don't understand how I can still be amazed that you continue to live."

Lena threw the stick away and stood with her hands on her hips and faced Shadowheart. "Because I'm fucking amazing!" Then she turned to to the green woman. “Hey, what was your name again?"

“Was it the fall, or has the tadpole scrambled your brains?” the green woman asked.

Lena shrugged. “If you mean the maggot, I honestly can’t say it’s any worse than my normal: I’m not good with names I’m not familiar with, especially since we only met for ten minutes while trying to escape a mindflayer ship! And that was two days ago!”

“Tsk’va! Maybe you weren’t worth saving if you cannot remember a simple name,” the green woman snapped.

“Okay, then what’s my name?” Lena asked.

The green woman’s mouth opened to speak but stopped.

Lena nodded. “Uh-huh. Thought so. Let’s try again: I’m Lena, and I’m not from this plane of existence.”

“Lae’zel. I come from the Astral Plane,” Lae’zel replied.

“Nice to meet you again, Lae’zel,” Lena said.

“My people possess a cure for the tadpole,” Lae’zel said. “I must find a creche and you will join me.”

“Okay, cool,” Lena said. “Where is the nearest creche?”

“I know one is nearby. We will search together,” Lae’zel said.

“Sure. We can ask the tieflings camped nearby what they know and—" she leaned in close to shout in Lae'zel's ear, "YOU WILL NOT ATTACK THEM WITHOUT PROVOCATION!”

Lae'zel winced. “Chk. I am not without honor. You do not need to raise your voice to me like I am a youth holding a blade for the first time.”

“Okie-dokie!” Lena said cheerily. “I’ll let you introduce yourself to rest of my companions AND HOPEFULLY NONE OF YOU WILL TRY TO KILL EACH OTHER BECAUSE OF A PAST BEEF.” Lena pointed at Shadowheart.

Shadowheart rolled her eyes.

Lena started walking in the direction that the tieflings went, followed by Lae’zel and Shadowheart who eyed each other suspiciously.

Astarion and Gale followed, walking side-by-side. “This is shaping up to be a rather interesting day. Shall we place bets as to whether Lae’zel or Shadowheart draws blood first?” Astarion whispered.

“I’d put my coin on Lena,” Gale replied. “Worse comes to worst, she can stop their potential conflict by singing again.”

Astarion threw his head back and laughed.

Chapter Text

The group trekked along the path until they heard shouting. Lena signaled for them all to go quiet and sneak through the brush as they approached. They watched as a trio of humans begged entry from a group of tieflings at the top of a closed gate.

“Guess we found our tiefling camp,” Lena whispered.

“And it sounds like trouble’s found them,” Shadowheart whispered, and pointed to a cross between a Rodent of Unusual Size and an extremely mangy wolf.

Lena recoiled. “Damned ugliest dog I’ve ever seen.”

“Worg,” Shadowheart said. “That means goblins aren’t far behind.”

As soon as Shadowheart finished speaking, a group of little green people with sharp teeth dressed in scraps of leather and metal armor appeared and started shooting at the gate. One of the arrows struck a tiefling at the top of the gate.

“Looks like we’re going in,” Lena said quietly. “Astarion, Gale, go up high on this rock and take out archers. Shadowheart, stay back and bash anyone who approaches them. Lae’zel, follow my lead.” She drew her knives and sprinted into the fray before the goblins had a chance to react, followed closely by Lae’zel.

As Lena and Lae’zel approached, they saw a brown guy with a stone eye hop down from the top of the wall. “Damnable roach,” the man said. “Provoke the blade—” He disarmed a goblin with a rapier before running him through. “—and suffer its sting,” he said with a flourish.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Less talking, more stabbing,” she shouted at the new guy.

She stepped outside of a goblin’s slash before stabbing it through the temple. Unfortunately, she didn’t anticipate the thickness of a goblin’s skull, and as she replaced her stuck blade the worg knocked down flat on her back and attempted to bite her face. She reached into its open maw, ignoring the pain as the its jaws clamped down, then unleashed her claws into its throat. Blood poured out of the sides of its mouth around Lena’s arm and from a gash that opened up where her claws pierced the skin of its throat before it toppled on top of her.

She pulled out the tongue she severed and flung it into the face of a weird hairy guy that looked like a low-budget extra from “The Planet of the Apes” that was about ready to bash her face in. He was briefly stunned when Lae’zel’s blade emerged from his sternum. “Chk. Get back on your feet, istik,” she yelled. Lena stuck her tongue out at her then wriggled her way out from under the worg corpse and rejoined the fight.

Some sneaky goblin fucker had managed to rush past Shadowheart as she was engaged with two goblins at the base of the rocks. Gale blocked a slash with his quarterstaff, then smack their sword arm hard to force them to drop their blade, before he used the butt of his staff to knock them off the rock.

Astarion managed to continue shooting while dodging enemy arrows, careful to avoid allies. He managed to shoot a goblin shaman through the throat before an arrow hit him in the thigh, causing him to scream and drop. Shadowheart finally managed to bludgeon the second goblin before she made her way up to him.

“Hold still,” she said, examining the wound. “This going to hurt.” Astarion nodded and tensed. She broke the fletching off the arrow then pushed it all the way through, all while Astarion grunted from the pain. She cast a healing spell over the wound to staunch the bleeding. When she finished, the fighting had already ended and the gate had opened, so she and Gale helped Astarion down the rocks.

Lae’zel and Lena were picking over the bodies when Lena noticed Shadowheart and Gale supporting Astarion. “What happened?” she asked.

“Arrow through the thigh,” Shadowheart replied. “He won’t bleed out, but he’ll need to rest to finish healing.”

“Good thing it’s not an arrow to the knee. Go on inside,” Lena said. She watched the trio slowly make their way through the gate, then waved to get Lae’zel’s attention and motioned for her to follow them in.

---

Inside the gate, Lena heard an argument between a tiefling and one of the humans from the goblin fight and approached.

“We was running for our lives, Zevlor” the human argued.

“You led them straight to us,” Zevlor retorted. “And you let them take the druid, too. Unbelievable!”

Lena cocked an eyebrow at the curly-haired human. “Are you saying you left members of your crew behind?”

“The druid wasn’t a member of my crew. And you stay out of this, you slanty-eyed bitch,” he sneered.

Lena growled, grabbed the man’s breastplate to headbutt his nose, then threw him to the ground. Before he could get up, Lena had a knee on his chest and a knife to his throat. “One of my crew just took an arrow while helping to save your ass. One of the tieflings died while he was helping to open the gate for you. And you left people behind. That makes you an incompetent, a racist, and a coward.” The man’s eyes went wide.

“Aradin led the goblins right to us,” Zevlor said. “There are children here.”

Lena leaned her face down into Aradin’s face. She grinned and her fangs emerged. She let some spittle dribble out. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t just cut your throat and leave your head pinned to the walls as a warning?”

Sweat beaded on Aradin’s face and Lena suddenly smelled urine. Zevlor spoke: “I thank you for you help, but think Aradin may have learned a lesson. I also don’t think the druids of this grove will appreciate your murdering someone within their walls.”

Lena leaned back from Aradin then stood. Aradin lay stunned on the ground while his remaining companions rushed to him, shooting her angry glares as they helped him to his feet and led him further into the grove. Lena sheathed her knife then took a deep breath to calm herself before she turned to face the tiefling.

“You’re right,” Lena said. “You’ll have to excuse me: I’ve just had a long couple of days. My name’s Lena, by the way.” She held out a hand to Zevlor.

He hesitated when he looked down at a Lena's arm, which still bore dried worg blood and spit, before shaking it. “Well met. I’m Zevlor” he said. “I can understand given that your companion is injured, and if I’m not mistaken I saw your arm go down a worg’s mouth out there. Are you or any other members of your party in need of healing?”

Lena looked over the tooth marks that raked her armor down to the skin on her arm: The punctures from the worg’s teeth were already pink and puckered, and the bruising had faded to a slight green. “Nah, just for my friend. Can you direct me to the healer?”

“The druid Halsin is a renowned healer, but he didn’t make it back from Aradin’s expedition,” Zevlor explained. “But if it’s not too serious, you could try his apprentice, Nettie. She’s with the other druids, in the inner grove. You will need to see to it quickly – the druids are forcing everyone out. This attack will only strengthen their resolve.”

“Wait, so you’re not a druid?” Lena asked.

Zevlor looked at her nonplussed. “No, I am not. I’m a former Hellrider leading the tieflings expelled from the city of Elturel to Baldur’s Gate.”

“I don’t get it,” Lena said. “Why were the tieflings expelled?”

Zevlor looked perplexed. “Surely you know that the city fell into Avernus, and that the tieflings were blamed and forced out.”

Lena gave a questioning look at her companions. Astarion lay on the ground and Shadowheart sat next to him. Lae’zel stood at parade rest. Gale mouthed I’ll explain later.

Lena gave an embarrassed grin and said, “Uh, I’m not local. I’ll just, uh, go find Nettie for my friend and not take up any more of your time.” She gave a little wave to Zevlor, picked up a suddenly very annoyed Astarion in a firefighter’s carry, then trotted deeper into the grove.

Chapter Text

Astarion cursed and punched Lena’s shoulder blade with his free arm.

“Hey! What’s that for?” she asked.

“Put me down!” he demanded. “I’m not a sack of potatoes or whatever the hells your people carry that produce these beefy shoulders of yours!” He punched her shoulder blade again.

“Keep that up and I might decide to toss you like a sack of potatoes,” she retorted.

Astarion’s eyes went wide. “You wouldn’t dare,” Astarion hissed. Lena stopped. Lae’zel stared. Shadowheart snorted. Gale winced then pinched the bridge of his nose. “What in the—” Astarion started to thrash.

Lena had shifted her hold on Astarion and to grab him by the collar and back of his pants and lifted him over her head. The entire grove now stared at them.

“You wanna try me? ‘Cause you’re weirdly not heavy for your height. I can probably yeet you clear over to that old lady with the bottles.” Lena used her chin to point out a human woman a solid five yards away.

Astarion stilled. “Can you at least carry me in your arms instead of slung over your shoulders like a dead deer?”

“Fine, you big baby.” She put him feet-first on the ground before lifting him in a bridal carry. “Better?”

“Much,” Astarion replied. “Did I mention that the profile of your face is very flat? And that the hair at the top of your head appears to be growing in gray? Do you need to touch up your hair dye, darling?” He gave Lena a shit-eating grin.

Lena turned her head to face him then opened her mouth in a fang-filled grin. “Do you like your face the way it is? Because I can change it.”

Astarion reared back. “Gods, I keep forgetting that you can shift like that. Perhaps just put me down.”

“Say please.”

He frowned. After a beat, he huffed. “Fine. Please?”

She stood him upright. He winced as the put weight on the injured leg, and nearly fell over until Lena caught him by the shoulder and motioned for Gale to take the other side. “Let’s take him over to that potion seller,” Gale said. “She might have a healing potion he can use, and we should purchase more for later use.”

Shadowheart tapped Lena on the shoulder. “If you’ve got Astarion, I’m going to wander a bit and see if I can sell some of our extraneous items.”

“I shall watch to ensure that you do not fleece us,” Lae’zel interjected.

“I can manage our coin just fine, gith,” Shadowheart snapped.

“Then you would not mind if I observe, istik.”

Lena gave them both a flat stare. “For fuck’s sake, go away! And don’t start any fights with each other or anyone else here.” She shooed them away with her free hand. “I’m guessing having Withers resurrect us isn’t going to be pleasant?” Lena asked.

“It’s extremely disorientating, to say the least. And one can’t fight if they’re dead or unconscious so it's best to stay relatively healthy than rely on resurrections,” Gale replied.

“Fair enough.”

After a moment, Gale asked, “Why did you leave Zevlor like that?”

"For starters, I assumed he was a druid, which should've been obvious he was not, given the lack of antler-wearing. I also just asked an almost complete stranger to verbally relive probably the most horrifying and traumatic event of their life,” Lena confessed. “And after what you and Shadowheart explained to me about tieflings, it’d be like me asking a member of a repressed minority at home what it was like being beaten up by the cops after the cops shot their girlfriend. That Zevlor was able to stay so nice to me despite all the shit he’s probably dealt with in his lifetime makes me not want to make him feel bad by asking questions, and I’ll be honest that I don’t have the tools for that.”

“None of that stopped you when you threatened to bleed me out like a stuck pig until I confessed my condition,” Astarion complained.

“That was my bad,” Lena admitted. “You look like the group that does most of the oppressing on my world. Or defends the oppression. Or is indifferent to the oppression. I just sorta assumed you were just another entitled asshole." Lena paused for a moment "Though in my defense, you threatened me with a knife and broke into my tent so I wasn’t exactly inclined to cater to your ‘sensitive soul.’”

Astarion scowled. “Are you still sore about that?”

“A little.” she said. “So what happened to Elturel?” she asked Gale.

Gale filled Lena in on how the city of Elturel literally fell into one of the hells due to an infernal conspiracy, and how when the city reappeared in Faerun, all the tieflings were blamed for its fall and expelled.

As they neared the elderly human woman, the fine hairs on her arms started to rise and she caught a whiff of fetid water and putrification. “Do you start smelling more like the dead when you get injured?” she asked Astarion.

“Nothing I would notice. Why?” Astarion tried to sniff his armpits. “Do I smell rancid?”

“I can’t say that I notice anything particularly untoward, aside from your armor,” Gale remarked. “And the smell of bergamot. I take it that’s you?”

“I can’t do much about the armor, but the bergamot is certainly mine,” Astarion said.

Lena gave the air a few sniffs, then pointed her chin at the woman they were approaching. “I’m getting it from over there. It smells little like a liquifying corpse shoved into a compost heap.”

Both Astarion and Gale looked at her non-plussed. Astarion attempted to speak, but Gale beat him to it. “We can ask how you know what that smells like later.” Astarion looked crestfallen.

“Oh well, you know—” Lena began. Astarion brightened.

“No,” Gale interrupted. “We can all satisfy our curiosity tonight. After dinner.” Astarion’s face fell again.

“Ah, if it isn’t the talk of the camp?” the elderly woman said sweetly. “Thank goodness you came along when you did – oh! There isn’t a bit of color in your cheeks, petal! Are you hurt? Cold? Feverish? Tell Auntie Ethel all your troubles. I can promise you I’ve seen worse.”

Lena’s face scrunched up while Auntie Ethel spoke. “Do you have some sort of oral or esophageal cancer? Or maybe you’ve got oral myiasis, though I don’t see how since your teeth look really good and I can’t imagine you can talk with a mouth full of maggots.” she said. “Because I’m smelling something way off whenever you open your mouth.”

Animosity flickered across Auntie Ethel’s face before the beneficent mask went back on. “Never you mind, petal. I’m simply an old woman with a knack of healing, though I will admit that I don’t always take care of myself as I should.”

“Oh fuck, I just smelled it again. I don’t know how you manage cancer here, but if your healing potions are any good I strongly suggest using one right now,” Lena said.

Astarion looked back and forth between Lena and Auntie Ethel. “I don’t smell anything,” Astarion whispered.

“It’s faint until she talks, but extremely nasty,” Lena commented quietly. “The sort of funk that not even tooth brushing can fix because the rot’s inside seeping out.”

“That is odd” Gale muttered to himself. Addressing Auntie Ethel he said, “I’m afraid we don’t have sufficient coin on us at the moment, so we best be off. Thank you for your time, madam.”

As they attempted to turn away, they heard, “Still trying to find your way back up into Mystra’s skirts, wizard?”

Gale’s face turned ashen. Auntie Ethel’s wizened face broke into a cruel grin. “Have you told your new friends about your little souvenir? Or did you think you can get away with fucking that little honey badger without blowing everyone up?”

Lena and Astarion looked at Gale as he stood statue-still with an expression of horror on his face.

Auntie Ethel turned her attention to Lena. “You didn’t know, did you?” Auntie Ethel chuckled. “Clueless one, aren’t you? Still can’t tell when someone’s pining after you unless they’re asking you to spread your legs, and even then you need directions. And you can’t blame that tadpole in your head for being born daft.”

Lena stared at Auntie Ethel with a flat expression, but Auntie Ethel ignored her and moved on to Astarion.

“And you, leech. Tell me, what do you miss more? The taste of dead rats or whoring yourself out for your master’s meal—”

Before Auntie Ethel could finish talking, Lena had her claws around the fetid old woman’s neck.

“Lena, stop!” Gale shouted. "She's a hag!"

"I have no idea what that means!" Lena shouted back.

“Help! Please! I’m being attacked!” Auntie Ethel wailed. By then, a crowd had gathered. “You can’t win, petal,” Auntie Ethel whispered. “If you kill me, they’ll tear you apart.”

“Yes, but if I kill you, you'll be dead,” Lena whispered back and dug her claws into Auntie Ethel’s neck. Black ichor dribbled from the puncture wounds.

“If you kill me, I’ll just come back,” Auntie Ethel whispered urgently. “And these infernal puppets would have no problem tacking your stinking badger hide up to dry.”

Lena grinned. “That does sound like you’re worried, Auntie. I can fix that for you.” She pushed her thumbs into Auntie Ethel’s eyes. Auntie Ethel gave an unholy screech as Lena tore Auntie Ethel’s skull apart like she was splitting open an orange. The air filled with the stench of rotting corpse as Auntie Ethel’s body began to dissolve.

Lena wrinkled her nose then tried to shake the goo off her claws. “Ick. Anyone got some soap?” she asked. The crowd stared at her. "Uh, free potions?"

Chapter Text

The crowd that had gathered stepped back in revulsion as the black goo that used to be Auntie Ethel oozed outward. Some of tieflings had weapons drawn, while some of the druids pushed their way through the throng.

“Murderer!” someone shouted, which elicited the mob to echo the sentiment. Astarion and Gale both backed toward Lena, trying not to step in the puddle.

“Oh shit,” Lena muttered. She readied her claws to try to tunnel them out, but she wasn’t sure how well they would be able to follow her as she dug, especially with Astarion’s injury.

“SILENCE!” a man shouted. The crowd quieted as the brown guy from the goblin fight parted the mob. “Anyone accused of a crime should have a chance to defend themselves. Or have you forgotten what happened in Elturel?”

“But we saw her kill Auntie Ethel!” the voice shouted, and the mob’s voice started to rise. Lena began searching for the source of the voice. Astarion gave Lena a glance and she gave a slight nod.

“She was a hag!” Gale shouted. “Look at the puddle where her body should be!”

“The bitch must’ve cast a spell! Maybe she’s the hag and she killed Auntie Ethel!” the same voice shouted. Lena’s eyes found a rather short druid — a halfling? A gnome? Dwarf? — and attempted to share the image with the rest of her party. “Avenge usssss!” she broadcast in the most theatrical voice she could. Astarion and Gale turned to give Lena a look.

A tiefling man wearing robes pushed his way to the front. “I can attest to Ethel being a hag. She had been taunting and threatening me for days now, saying no one would believe me if I came forward.”

“Rolan!” a tiefling woman began, tugging at his sleeve.

“No, Lia, I can’t stand by and watch people die because that hag poisoned us against them. They did us all a favor,” Rolan said.

“It’s true.” A tiefling woman moved through the crowd supported by Lae’zel and Shadowheart. “I only became paralyzed after drinking one of Ethel’s potions that she promised would give me the strength to fight. It was only after this cleric cast restoration on me that I’m able to move again,” she said, motioning her head to Shadowheart.

The brown man moved closer to Astarion, Lena, and Gale when their minds filled with visions of molten fields and imps, and of a red woman with a broken horn, and then the nautiloid.

The brown man managed to keep his composure while Lena winced. “Et tu?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied before he addressed the crowd. “I am convinced, based on the testimony of two brave people, that they did indeed kill a hag. Who among you would naysay the Blade of Frontiers?”

The crowd murmured then began to disperse. The little pinch-faced druid glared at the Blade and then Lena, then slunk away with the rest of the crowd.

The Blade approached Astarion, Gale, and Lena. “My name is Wyll, by the way.”

“What's with this place and the fancy sobriquets? Honestly, 'The Blade of Frontiers?'” Lena asked.

“Haven't you heard of me?” Wyll asked.

“No, but in my defense I’m not local, so assume I know nothing unless I say so,” she said. Wyll gave Lena a puzzled look.

“It’s a long story,” Gale interjected. “Though I have heard stories all the way in Waterdeep of the Blade of Frontiers. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Gale, this is Astarion—” he tilted his head to Astarion.

“And the woman covered in gore is Lena,” Astarion interrupted as Lena briefly stopped trying to scrape the gore from her hands onto Auntie Ethel's table to give a quick wave. “And if it’s not any bother, can I finally get a healing potion? Preferably one that wasn’t made by the hag?”

“Well met,” Wyll said. “Unfortunately we only have the potions from Ethel, though I’ve had two or three without ill effect.”

“She was probably cautious about poisoning people in person," Gale said. "I'd wager that the potions she sold are all fine so as to lure the unsuspecting.” He reached over to a now-abandoned healing potion and handed it to Astarion.

Still leaning against Gale, Astarion gingerly took the bottle with a frown before uncorking it and giving it a sniff. “We do have the coin to resurrect me, right?” he asked.

“Now we do,” Shadowheart said as she and Lae’zel approached. “Go on” she urged Astarion with a sly smile. “Drink up.”

Astarion scowled, then drank the potion. Within moments he stood upright and sighed with relief. “I suppose we should claim the rest of these bottles for ourselves as payment for our service.”

“Okay, cool,” Lena said. Astarion and Shadowheart started examining potions and distributing them to the rest of the party. Wyll stared at Lena. “What?”

“That could be construed as stealing,” he said.

“And the shit-stain that was selling them is dead,” Lena replied. “I say it’s compensation for emotional damage. Besides, who else is going to be stupid enough to drink them other than us?” She flashed him a toothy grin.

Wyll could only stare at her.

As they started to leave, Lena turned to Wyll. “Oh hey, did you want to join the ‘we’ve all got worms in our brains’ club?”

Wyll continued to stare.

“Chk. We should leave him behind if he is so easily stunned,” Lae’zel said.

“Lena is a lot to take in, but she’s been surprisingly resourceful in a fight,” Shadowheart said.

“Aww, thanks!” Lena said, smiling.

“And completely insane,” Astarion added. Without turning or changing expression, Lena smacked the back of his head. “Hey!” he exclaimed as he clapped a hand to his head. “Now I need to rewash my hair!” He examined his hand for residual crud.

Lena addressed Wyll. “While you’re deciding on this exclusive invitation, I’m going to wash hag—” she looked down at her hands, “—gunk off of me. And can someone explain to me why the hell she didn’t have regular organs? I’m used to brains and gore, but that was like a decaying corpse exploding.” She started walking off in search of a stream or a pond to pollute.

Gale could only stand and watch her walk away, so Astarion gave him a quick shove and motioned for him to follow her. As he caught up with Lena, she leaned over and quietly said, “Don’t think I’m forgetting what the hag said about you. Any of it.” She raised an eyebrow at him. Gale swallowed hard.

Astarion watched the two of them walk away. “They grow up so fast.” He sighed, then turned and gave Wyll a charming smile. “So tell me, Wyll, will you be traveling with us?”

Chapter Text

Gale followed Lena in silence as they passed tieflings and druids searching for a decently-sized pool of water to wash the stinking goo off her hands. Instead they encountered three druids (wearing antlers!) preventing a group of tieflings arguing to be let into the inner grove with druids chanting around a pool of water that glowed. “Finally, water!” Lena said to herself and approached the druids.

“Let my daughter go – right now!,” a tiefling woman shouted.

“She’s a thief, hellspawn,” one of the druids sneered. Lena rolled her eyes at the slur. “And you will wait for Kagha’s judgement. Now go back.”

“Argh. Let me through, mragreshem, or I’ll rip your damn throat out!” she shouted.

One of the other druids growled then turned into a bear in a flash of light.

“Neat trick! Very shiny! I've got one of my own!” Lena exclaimed, then extended her fangs and hissed at the bear, saliva flying into the bear’s face.

The two druids stared at Lena, while the bear tried the wipe the spit from his face. “What?” Lena asked. Gale looked up and sighed. She turned to him. “Hey, if what the hag said was true, I don’t see why you want to fuck me while still getting annoyed every time I’m being me.”

Gale turned red and put a hand up to his face. “Perhaps we can discuss the matter at another time, please?”

“We’re standing in front of couple of druids. I’m sure they don’t mind. Aren’t they big on sex and orgies?” Lena turned back to the now uncomfortable druids looking to each other. “Am I right? Druids are big fans about sex as part of being one with nature or something? I mean, bear dude, I’m sure you’ve had sex as a bear because being a bear is natural, yeah? Though I assume that it would be with a druid-bear and not a bear-bear because that raises all sorts of ethical issues involving consent and compos mentis.”

The bear looked vaguely embarrassed, though to be fair, Lena thought bears always looked vaguely embarrassed when they weren’t actively trying to break into a car to eat burger wrappers or trying to maul her for breaking into their bee hives to steal honey. The other two druids seemed surprised at the bear’s possible proclivities and edged away from him. The tieflings all looked horrified except for one in the back who seemed intrigued with the mechanics of having sex with a bear.

“I’m just trying to argue with my friend here —who may or may not want to fuck me because I can’t be sure that what the hag I just killed was telling the truth— that you, as druids, are okay with frank and open discussions regarding sexual relations between consenting adults. And quite possibly having sex and orgies in public locations. Which, I personally don’t want to see because I don’t want to see everyone’s junk. Though I’m still deciding on yours, Gale.”

“I thank you for your consideration,” he mumbled through his hand.

“Wait, you were the one who killed the hag?” one of the druids asked.

“Yeah, and part of the group who killed off some goblins. Does that help me get to some water so I wash up?” Lena held up a gore-covered arm and waved it in front of the druids. The gore had started to dry and crack, though the smell was still intensely offensive. All three druids took a step back; the humanoid ones covering their noses with their hands, the bear covering his nose with his paws.

“Put that away!” the shouty druid shouted. The other druid whispered in her ear. “Kagha wants to see you. You’re free to pass.” The other druid whispered into her ear again. “But only after you get clean.”

“Yay!” Lena gave a little hop and clapped her hands, then walked forward and dipped an arm into the glowing pool and started scraping the drying cruft off. The glowing ceased and instead a miasma of brown and green floated from the pool, and the stench of decay wafted over the casters, who immediately started gagging.

“What the hells are you doing?” the shouty druid demanded.

Lena looked confused. “Getting cleaned up? What, is the pool radioactive? Is that why it’s glowing?”

“Get the hells away from there! Gods, we’ll have to cleanse the sacred pool and restart the ritual! Kagha will be furious! Go wash up at the river, you troglodyte!” The two humanoid druids shoved Lena and Gale away from the pool down a path that led to the river.

“Rude!” Lena yelled. She straightened up, then started walking down the river.

---

They were a ways down the path before Gale asked, “Did you intentionally start washing in that pool just to disrupt their ritual?”

Lena grinned. “I figured I may as well fuck with the druids after Zevlor mentioned that they were trying to force the tieflings out. Those ones back there were complete assholes.”

Gale smiled. After a pause, he spoke. “I supposed I should address what the hag said.”

“Which bit? The bit about Mystra, the bit about exploding, or the bit about fucking me?”

He blushed. “They are unfortunately rather tied to each other at the moment.” He explained his relationship with Mystra, starting with how she was his mentor before she was his lover, and how when Mystra ended things he sought to get back into her good graces by searching for a missing piece of her magic. How, unfortunately, the piece of magic ended up embedding itself as an orb in his chest, feeding on his magic and threatening to explode until his winged cat discovered he could delay the inevitable by consuming magical items. And how even when the orb seemed stable, strong emotions threatened to trigger it.

She pinched her lips. “Did Mystra say or do anything while your magic was consumed?”

Gale shook his head.

“Just to ask, how old were you when she started ‘mentoring’ you?”

“I was twenty-two,” he replied.

“If I may ask, how old are you now?”

“Thirty-four.”

Lena blew out a breath. “Really? You look rough for thirty-four. I thought you were closer to forty. Though I think it's the gray hair. And the wrinkles.”

Gale narrowed his eyes. "Well, how old are you?"

"The same: thirty-four. Though if I'm anything like my mother I'll get carded until I'm fifty."

His eyes went wide. "How?"

"Low stress, limited sunlight, and a genetic predisposition for a little extra subcutaneous fat around my face that seems to prevent wrinkles from forming," she replied. "Though if I don't dye my hair, I have a white streak that makes people think I'm sixty." She paused for a moment. "Has anyone ever said 'no' to your goddess?"

Gale looked surprised. "Not that I'm aware of. It's always been considered a great honor to be mentored by her. Even the great Elminster Aumar, a wizard of great renown who mentored me as a child, was himself mentored by Mystra's earlier incarnation, Mystral."

"What about becoming her 'lover'? Has anyone ever refused her there?"

He looked offended. "I don't like what you're implying."

"Well answer me this: Was your mentor ever Mystra's lover after she mentored him?"

"Yes."

"Was he still her lover when she took you in?"

Gale paused before answering, "No. Their affair ended centuries ago."

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Just how old is this El-whatever dude?"

"Elminster," Gale corrected. "And he's, what, about twelve-hundred and eighty? He's one of Mystra's chosen, so though human he remains in good health." he replied

"Doesn't serve to piss off a goddess if you want to stay alive, does it?" Lena remarked.

"Indeed. He is still in Mystra's good graces, despite my disappointing them both."

Lena let off a low growl from the back of her throat, but chose to stay silent for a moment. “So Mystra groomed you, fucked you, then left you when she got bored. AFTER she blew your mind with all the neat shit she could do as a goddess, knowing you couldn’t resist. And then couldn’t be bothered to help you, either to keep you alive or to at least mitigate the effects of your blowing up.” Gale stayed silent. “This makes me so glad there aren’t any personal gods at home, or at least I don’t worship any of them. Every story I’ve ever heard or read makes them sound like a load of narcissists and/or psychopaths. The worst part is knowing that give most regular people any sort of power and they start acting the same if they don’t have any checks or balances. Who the hell checks the gods?”

“Theoretically, all gods abide by the rules set by the god Ao,” Gale replied.

“And ‘who watches the watchmen?’ Who checks on Ao?” Lena asked.

They reached the bottom of the path to see a small tiefling child staring out at the water.

“Hey kid,” Lena said as she approached, “You seem kinda far from everyone else. Shouldn’t you be with the others at camp?”

The child turned to look at Lena. “Shh. Listen.”

Lena tilted her head, hearing a sweet song that tried to lull her into a state of drowsy calm. She shook her head and looked to Gale. He looked at her and said, “Harpies.”

Lena looked confused as she tried to remember what they were when three winged bird-women dropped down on them from above.

“Fuck! Move, kid!” Lena shoved the child back, but he seemed hypnotized by the singing. She screamed in frustration, then started shouting the refrain from “Let it Go” from the “Frozen” soundtrack as off-key as she could.

“Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore...”

The harpies stopped singing and started screeching, holding their hands to their ears as Lena's voice cracked and didn't quite hit the notes. The child seemed to snap out of of his daze and started to scream—though whether it was the harpies or Lena's singing was debatable. Lena pushed the boy to Gale who had started casting.

“Get him back up!” Lena shouted, and continued to bellow.

“Let it go, let it go...”

Two of harpies dived at Lena and attempted to lift her away, but she rolled between them and turned to stab a knife deep into a buttock, hoping to hit the femoral artery. A third harpy landed between them and the top of the cliff. Gale blasted the third harpy with a thunderwave, disorientating her as they tried to run past.

“Turn away and slam the door...”

The stabbed harpy screamed and tried to turn, but fell on her side when she lost partial control of her leg. Lena slashed the fallen harpy’s jugular. The third harpy grabbed Gale’s ankle, tripping him as the kid continued up the path.

“I don't care what they're going to sa—”

Gale used his quarterstaff to bash the third harpy in the eye, then stood and cast firebolt. The third harpy screamed and she rolled on the ground. The second harpy’s claws wrapped around Lena’s neck and lifted her off the ground, briefly cutting her off her air. Lena flexed her neck muscles until she could breathe again, digging her claws into the harpy’s wrists and severing tendons until the harpy dropped Lena. Lena’s voice took on a harsh rasp, but she continued ‘singing.’

“Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway”

Lena drew another knife, stabbing up through the second harpy’s abdomen into the heart. The third harpy’s scorched hands grabbed at Gale when he used the butt of his quarterstaff and smashed it through the harpy’s eye socket, breaking into the skull and silencing her forever.

Still breathing heavily from the fight, he made his way back down to where Lena gathered her knives. She looked up at him, and at the harpy at that had blocked the path. “Nice work,” she said. Her voice cracked as it began to return to normal. Her neck bore bruises and scratches from the harpy's claws. “You never finished addressing everything the hag said.”

“Do you still want to know why I find you attractive?” Gale asked. “You have quick mind with remarkable information recall. You put yourself in danger in an effort to spare the child and me. You're clever enough to throw the harpies off by singing so poorly that it seemed to pain them. You even managed to toy with the druids without getting us killed or thrown out. I would ask to kiss you if I didn’t worry that the orb would destroy us and decimate a solid kilometer radius around us if you agreed.”

Lena went silent and blushed. “How did you calculate that?” Lena asked.

“And I desperately want to understand how you can ask a question like that when I just bared my to emotions you.”

“Well, seeing as you managed to put a blunt quarterstaff through a skull, I’m now much more interested in seeing your junk,” Lena said. “Though as flattering as the thought of ‘sex that can level a city’ is, I’d like to live. Hopefully long enough to avoid becoming a mind flayer. And asking how you calculated the blast radius of a magic-eating orb helps to keep my libido in check so as to not incite your libido.”

Gale smiled wryly. “So to get your attention I need to commit acts of gruesome violence." He looked down at his blood-spattered robes. "I suppose we both need to wash up now.”

Lena looked down at her arms. “Ugh, now I have harpy and hag gore on me.” She crouched by the water and began scrubbing her hands with sand. Gale knelt down beside her and washed off his hands and face a little upstream of her.

Lena looked at his profile. “I’m curious; how do you manage to keep your hair out of your eyes?”

Gale turned to stare at her. "Still?”

“Yeah, still. I don’t remember seeing the top of you hair move. How do you do that?”

“I keep a small quantity of pomade with me. Does that answer your question?”

“But aren’t you supposed to wash it out every night?” Lena asked.

“Yes, but it’s surprisingly easy with cleaning spells.”

Lena scowled. “Goddamn it! I’ve been wracking my brain trying to find the time to wash my underwear and I could’ve asked you to clean them for me?”

Gale looked down toward Lena’s backside and grinned. He uttered a quick incantation and Lena jumped up and shrieked at the sudden sensation of cold around her nether regions.

She swatted at her backside to drive off the sensation. “I was asking for that, wasn’t I?”

His grin got wider. “Indeed you were.”

Chapter Text

After washing up and quick check over the harpies for loot, Gale and Lena made their way back up to the inner grove where they found a group of druids dredging the pool, as well as Astarion, Lae’zel, Shadowheart, and Wyll waiting for them.

Astarion raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Dare I ask where you disappeared to?”

“We encountered a trio of harpies while trying to find a place to wash up,” Gale replied. Astarion's face fell.

Lena held up a handful of handful of enormous flight feathers. “These are just so cool!"

Shadowheart’s eyes went wide. “You two took on harpies on your own?”

Lena shrugged. “There were three of them, and it turns out that being a terrible singer has more uses than just getting people to comply.”

Lae’zel shuddered. “I hope that I can avoid having to listen to you in the foreseeable future.”

Lena smiled maniacally. “Then do as I say.” She turned to address Wyll. “I see you decided to join us. Hoping to find a cure, or just want to go out with a bang?” Gale narrowed his eyes at her.

Wyll cocked an eyebrow at Lena. “I assumed that as the leader of your party you would take your role more seriously.”

“That’s your problem: You assume that I’m leading,” Lena replied. “I’m just wandering around and people follow me like ducklings so I can only guess that it’s a herding instinct. Or I’m just awesome.”

Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart all looked at each other and shrugged. “That is more or less true,” Gale admitted.

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “I am only following Lena because she has shown herself to be a competent warrior and has agreed to accompany me to seek a creche.”

“Which we haven’t found,” Lena said. “But the Kagha druid person wants to see me, us, something. I figure we should see what she wants, and if the creche doesn’t pan out we can try to find Halsin. So shall we?” She pointed at a stone door she guessed was where Kagha waited.

As they walked in, she turned to address the group. “By the way, Gale has something to say, so you get the disclaimer about traveling with me. And probably Astarion, too, though the gist of it both Gale and Shadowheart know. I want to say that will not force either of them to leave my side if they chose to stay. Though I think it can all wait until after we talk to Kagha.” She walked further into the druid’s sanctum while everyone else looked uneasily at each other.

---

As they walked into a sort of meeting room, they saw a woman with Disney villain hair and an aura of “I want to speak to your manager” (must be Kagha, she reasoned) arguing with a man wearing deer antlers she called Rath. Between them stood a terrified tiefling child. A few druids milling around glared at the child, so she assumed they were team Kagha.

Lena zoned out to the shouting, waiting to address Kagha and only catching bits and pieces about an ‘idol’ and a ‘theft’ and ‘devils’ and something about a disrupted ritual involving vines to ‘seal the grove,’ whatever that meant. Her interest perked up when she noticed a snake slithering toward the girl and quietly edged over to the snake’s tail to give it a good tweak. It hissed and turned to strike her, but she managed to snatch its head mid-strike. “Mmmmm, danger protein!”

Just as she was about to take a bite, Kagha shrieked, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO TEELA?”

“What?” Lena asked. “Did you want some, too?”

“NO, PUT HER DOWN IMMEDIATELY!”

“Why? The snake was ready to bite the kid, and I don’t think anyone wants that.” She paused. “Do tieflings have venom resistance?”

Gale answered, “No, not naturally.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose and then she frowned at Kagha. “Oh wait, were you going to let a Saharan horned viper bite a kid without any venom tolerance? Why the fuck were you going to do that?”

“SHE STOLE FROM THE GROVE. AND THAT’S A DEATH VIPER, NOT A SHARRAN HORNY VIPER!” Kagha’s voice pitched up half and octave.

Lena’s ears began to ring and she winced. “Jeez, keep it down. And it’s ‘Sa-ha-ran’ not ‘Sharon.’ Isn’t its name ‘Teela’ and not ‘Sharon?’” Kagha’s face turned red. Lena continued. “And if you didn’t want your pet snake to get eaten, you shouldn’t have let it out. Besides, you don’t have anything worth stealing, much less anything worth letting a kid die over.”

“HOW DARE YOU—”

“Hey! What’d I say about keeping it down? I didn’t know the snake was yours, otherwise I wouldn’t have tried to eat it. And doesn’t killing your guests’ offspring violate hospitality rules in a lot of cultures?”

“THEY’RE NOT—”

“Enough with the yelling,” Lena interrupted.

Kagha took a calming breath. “They’re not guests. They’re vermin, taking up valuable resources. And once we expel them, we will restart the ritual and seal ourselves from the outside filth forever.”

Lena stared. “What in the ever-loving-fuck is wrong with you? Assuming that this entire grove is prime farmland, you would need approximately one-point-five acres to sustain an active adult with about two-thousand calories a day on a vegan diet, and this place is barely two acres with about a third of it shaded by caves or non-fruiting trees. And you have, what, twenty druids living here, so even with magic to help grow food, I can’t imagine this place supporting the current number of druids — sans refugees — with existing stockpiles for more than a month without MORE food coming from OUTSIDE the grove. And if you’re planning on eating any livestock and not each other, you’ll need to feed those animals, so that’s more land that you don’t have that needs to be devoted pastures for the boars and squirrels and whatever the fuck else you guys eat around here.”

Lena took a huge breath. “And that’s not accounting for dry goods such as the woven fabrics and leathers I’ve seen a number of you wearing. I don’t smell a tannery around here, so unless you’re willing to wear rawhide underwear you’re all going to end up naked within five years as your sweat, sebum, other bodily fluids — in addition to mechanical wear and tear — break down the cellulose, keratin, and other proteins in your clothing into rags. And if any of you decide to reproduce, aside from the starvation thing, you’d have a serious problem with inbreeding within, oh, I’m guessing eight generations, because there just aren’t enough of you and you’ll end up looking like royalty and not in a good way.”

Rath looked taken aback. Even some of the other druids who initially seemed to uave sided with Kagha looked uneasy. “What?” Kagha asked.

Lena tsked Kagha and shook her head. “You really didn’t think through the logistics of isolationism, did you? And let’s say you get past the hurdles of starvation and genetic bottlenecks, what would happen if a wildfire swept through the region, but outsiders notice the fancy (and I assume fireproof) hedge? Someone’s going to start hacking away, thinking they’re going to find some treasure, but instead they find a bunch of inbred, naked, very likely hungry cannibalistic druids, and then they’ll bring back a whole bunch of other people to murder the inbred cannibalistic druid cult.”

Kagha’s face went from red to puce. She pointed a finger at Lena and shrieked, “GET OUT.”

“Can we take the kid with us?” Lena asked.

“YES! NOW LEAVE.”

“Can I have the snake?”

“NO!”

Lena gave the snake a baleful look before tossing it away. It hissed at her, but kept its distance. She put a hand to the tiefling child’s back and gently led her away. “C’mon, kiddo,” she stage-whispered, “Let’s get out of here. I don’t use the term ‘bitch’ to very often to describe people, but this bitch is nuts.” She then looked over her shoulder at Kagha and shot her a bright smile. “Oh, can we still see your healer?” Kagha screamed and stomped off. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. She grinned at Gale and gave him a thumbs-up as she walked past.

After Lena and the child walked out, Astarion leaned over and closed Gale’s mouth with his index finger. “You're drooling. Can you even walk?” he quietly asked.

Shadowheart coughed into her fist. Lae’zel rolled her eyes. Wyll stared baffled at the exit where Lena had left with the child.

Gale blushed then quietly admitted, “No.”

Chapter Text

After reuniting the child with her parents, the group found the dwarven druid Nettie in a healing ward speaking soothingly to an injured bird. “I see you. I’ll be right with you,” Nettie said to them. She uttered an incantation that flooded the bird with a bright light before it hopped upright. “There. It’s up to her now. Life or death.” Nettie turned to the group. “Now, what is it you needed?”

Lena spoke first. “You got anything for mind flayer wormy-dealies?” she asked brightly, pointing to her eye.

Lae’zel rolled her eyes at Lena’s choice of terminology. “Chk. Perhaps we should designate someone else to speak first. I do not care for her flippancy.”

Wyll nodded in agreement. “Shouldn’t she take our shared condition more seriously?”

Gale shook his head. “I would agree under other circumstances, but I find her attitude an effective distraction from the sense of direness and despair of our situation.”

“YES!” Lena exclaimed. “It’s hard to get depressed if you’re annoyed, isn’t it?”

“Or if you’re annoying,” Shadowheart murmured.

Lena grinned and made finger guns at Shadowheart. “Bingo! I don’t get the existential dread of death or turning into a mind flayer on an alien world because I can entertain myself by being the most ‘me’ I can be!”

Astarion stood at the back of the room and smirked. When Nettie looked at him, he pointed at Lena and said, “Oh, I’m here to observe the chaos. It’s been incredibly amusing.”

“All of you have mind flayer tadpoles?” Nettie asked. When she was greeted with a round of nods and ‘yeses’ she blew out a sigh. “I might be able to help. Follow me.” She opened a stone door to a druid’s version of a laboratory (lots of stone furniture) and pointed to a corpse on a stone slab. “This one had the same problem as you. Attacked us in the woods together with some goblins. Tadpole crawled out of his head soon after.”

“So the cure is death?” Wyll asked.

“Has anything unusual happened to you?” Nettie asked.

“What, aside from being kidnapped by mind flayers, having a maggot squirming behind my eye, and a weird propensity for telepathy, nothing I noticed. Except the headaches. The telepathy seems to trigger headaches so I try to avoid it,” Lena replied.

Nettie took a moment to absorb the information. “Look, you’ve been straight with me, so I’ll be straight with you. You’re dangerous. If you transform here, we’re all dead.”

“Correction: if I transform, then the rest of us will probably transform and everyone else dies,” Lena said.

Nettie and Wyll stared horrified at Lena. Gale put his face in his hand, while Astarion and Shadowheart rolled their eyes.

“The k’chakhi is not wrong,” Lae’zel interjected. “The nautiloid had machines that could trigger the transformation on command. It is likely that if one of us transforms all of us will.”

The druid looked through her collection of bottles until she found one she deemed suitable and offered it to Lena. “You seem like a decent-enough soul—" Lena giggled. "—A little odd, but you did help us against the goblins.”

“And a hag! And some harpies!” Lena added.

“Hag? Harpies?” Nettie asked.

“The hag was about two hours ago. She was pretending to be some sort of sweet old lady selling potions, but turns out if you rip open her skull she’s filled with a viscous goo, like a really wet corpse,” Lena explained. “Speaking of corpses, are you going to dispose of the one on the slab, or do you have some magic that keeps them fresh? Because it’s kinda warm in here and I know dead bodies tend to bloat and fall apart if you keep ‘em around for too long at these temperatures, and that makes moving them around a bit messy. Or do you have some sort of equivalent to a body bag around here to move corpses around so you don’t get spillage? Like a giant water-proofed basket? And how are you going to dispose of the corpse when you’re done with the post mortem? Are you going to bury it, or feed it to the boar we saw outside? Because I’ll tell you, if you want it gone, you need more than just one to dispose a body that size before it starts to reek.”

Astarion grinned. “I take it this is something you know from experience?”

“Not directly. But you know how I told you about how my parents had to—”

“Not now!” Shadowheart interrupted. “Can we please focus on what Nettie has to say?”

Astarion frowned. “Spoilsport.”

Nettie’s mouth gaped. “Is this some sort of symptom of ceremorphosis that I’m not aware of?”

“No,” Shadowheart replied. “Lena’s mind seems prone to digressions. So what’s in the bottle you gave her?”

“Wyvern poison. Swear to me that if you experience any symptoms you’ll drink it.” Nettie looked at Lena who’d already opened the bottle and had taken a swig. “I DIDN’T MEAN RIGHT NOW.”

Lena looked at Nettie and grinned. “Don’t worry.” She stoppered the bottle and handed it off to Shadowheart. “This shit is great. I’m a take a nap now,” she slurred before toppling over. Everyone crowded around her.

Shadowheart checked for a pulse at Lena’s throat. “I don’t feel anything.”

Nettie put her head to Lena’s chest. “No heartbeat.”

Gale knelt down next to Lena and took her hand. It was still warm. He could feel the orb start to throb as the shock settled in. “Why did she do such a thing?” he whispered.

“Sometimes the happiest-seeming among us are the best at hiding their despair,” Shadowheart said. “My goddess teaches that life is fleeting and—”

Lena twitched, then suddenly inhaled and sat up. “Wow, that was some good shit! How long as I out?” Shadowheart's shoulders drooped.

“How are you still alive?” Nettie asked.

“Honey badger,” Lena replied. “I’ve been exposed to venoms since I was old enough to gum my first scorpion, so I’ve built up a decent tolerance to bites, stings, and drinking the stuff down. Though I usually have snake venoms with booze. Like last month when I celebrated the Lunar New Year at my parents’ house one of my aunts brought out a bottle of rice whiskey infused with taipan venom; a few of my cousins and I were clinically dead for fifteen minutes.”

“And your people do this for fun?” Astarion asked.

“Regular booze doesn’t always cut it for honey badgers.” She giggled and leaned her head against Gale’s shoulder and looked up at him, then tilted to sniff his neck. He turned bright red. “Mmm, you smell like old books.” She grabbed his arm. “Wow, you’re surprisingly built. Do you lift?” She prodded a finger toward his chest.

“Wait—” he started and tried to grab her hand, but the orb lit up and she felt it try to tear her finger apart with what felt like a million mouths, sobering her immediately. She gasped and Gale yanked her hand away. “Holy shit,” she whispered. With shaky hands, she reached into her bawbag and took out an amulet that smelled faintly of ozone that she found on one of the goblins and handed it to him.

“Thank you,” he whispered as he stowed it.

“What in the nine hells was that?” Wyll whispered.

Lena looked up at Wyll. “That’s part of the disclaimer I mentioned earlier.” She turned to Nettie. “Got any more of the wyvern poison?”

---

At camp that night, Gale explained his condition to the party as they sat around the fire.

“You thrice damned rotten bastard!” Lae’zel spat. “You’re the greatest threat to our lives!”

Gale bowed his head. “I had hoped that I would find enough magical artifacts along our travels until I could find a cure, or even a miracle. Perhaps it would be best if I leave now and put as much distance between all of you and I before the orb erupts.”

Lena nudged him with her shoulder. “Naw. I figure that if we transform into mind flayers it’d probably be a quick end.” She grinned. “And if we ever decide to have sex, it’d probably be the best bang since the big one.” She waggled her eyebrows.

“Oh, I get it now!” Wyll exclaimed. Everyone stared at him. “Because she said something about ‘going out with a bang’ earlier … and … Gale’s orb ….” he trailed off.

“Under other circumstances, I would rather see you as nothing more than a blip on the horizon,” Astarion said. “But I will concede that teasing you about Lena these past few days has brought me joy, and that’s something I’ve scarcely had recently. And I suspect Lena would decide to travel with you and who else can I rely on to entertain me?”

“I agree,” Shadowheart said. “No offense, Gale, but having Lena as a companion has been equal parts amusing and revolting. I would probably be much more ambivalent about your staying if Lena didn’t seem to have such a knack for stirring up trouble.”

“I acknowledge my shortcomings as a source of your amusement,” Gale said wryly.

“Tsk’va! You have all lost your wits. I, at least, understand Lena’s prowess in battle is her greatest asset, and not her ability to irritate … everyone,” Lae’zel said.

Shadowheart gave Lae’zel a smirk. “Seems as though someone hasn’t had a good laugh.”

“Chk! I can and do find amusement, though not when I’m threatened to become my people’s worst enemy,” Lae’zel snapped.

“Perhaps we can all agree that levity is excellent for morale,” Wyll interjected. “When appropriate.”

“Dude, shit’s dire,” Lena said. “I’ve lived out most of my life having to hide myself as being sweet and biddable because I didn’t want to attract attention: first as a honey badger shifter, and second as a criminal wanted by several law enforcement agencies for setting up one of the most robust money laundering operations in North America.”

“What’s a ‘North America?’” Wyll asked.

“Continent on my home world,” Lena replied.

“Wait, you’re not from Toril?” he asked.

“No. and I’m going to leave someone else to answer Wyll’s questions because I’m tired of repeating myself.” She looked over at Astarion. “You hungry?”

“I could feed…” Astarion replied.

“Let’s go hunting.” Lena stood and started shedding her ‘camp’ clothes (just the stuff she arrived in).

Wyll blushed and looked away. “What are you doing?”

Lena sighed. “I’m going to leave someone else to answer. Astarion, can you grab my clothes?”

“There has to be a better way for you to stow your items,” he retorted.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Fine, bring me an extra bawbag—” Wyll snorted. “—and I’ll just keep that on me when I shift.”

“Here,” Shadowheart said, handing her a bawbag. Lena nodded her thanks, then shoved her clothes in the bawbag and tied it across her chest.

“By the way, Astarion’s a vampire,” she said over her shoulder before she shifted into her honey badger form and trotted into the woods.

Lae’zel and Wyll stared at Astarion. “Oh come on!” he exclaimed. “After Gale’s big reveal my being a vampire spawn doesn’t seem so bad, does it?”

Lena’s honey badger head came back into view and hissed, then jerked her head at Astarion to follow. He shrugged and followed her into the woods.

The rest of the party watched them disappear into the darkness. “So who wants an introduction to Withers, our resident resurrectionist?” Gale asked.

Chapter Text

Hunting was a little lean that night, and Astarion and Lena only managed to bag two rabbits and a squirrel for Astarion’s blood meal: everyone else managed on the meat from previous hunts and whatever else they foraged.

After dinner, Gale finally managed to coerce Lena to learn the written language, where they learned that there was a nearly one-to-one correlation between the Thorass alphabet and English. After some practice reading a page or two of “Don’t Sniff the Specimen,” Lena’s head felt full from mentally trying to correlate the written words into something she could understand so she decided that it was worth the power expenditure to read an ebook on her phone in her tent.

Lena heard a scratch at her tent flap and she put down her phone and sat up. ‘Yeah?” she said.

“Can I ask a favor of you?” Astarion asked.

“Sure. Come on in and have a seat.” Lena moved over and invited him to sit on her bedroll with her. “What’s up?” she asked.

He hesitated. “I wonder if I could impose on you to, ah, let me feed from you.”

“Huh, what changed? Why isn’t the ‘non-humanoid’ blood cutting it anymore?” she asked.

“Blood has life, vitality. I’ve noticed that feeding from boars is more filling than deer, which is more filling than rabbits, and so on. After tonight’s hunt, I feel foggy and sluggish,” he said.

Lena thought for a moment. “Yeah, okay.”

Astarion looked surprised. “Really? You’ll agree to my feeding on you just like that?”

“Blood loss isn’t a big deal for me: I can recover from pass-out blood loss in a matter of hours as long as I don’t sustain any additional major injuries like organ damage or a crushed bone: Compound fractures are no joke, and the last time I had one in my leg I couldn’t walk for a week.” She paused for a moment. “Now that I think of it, I’ve heard of a honey badger who got shot through the heart and survived, though she needed emergency surgery and a month to recover,” she said. “Anyways, I’ve donated blood a few times, and frankly I’ve probably lost a pint or two whenever I get into a fight when I visit family.”

“Why would anyone ‘donate’ blood?” he asked.

“In emergency situations when someone’s lost a lot of blood — like they lose an arm or a leg, or they get knifed, or something — injecting blood or blood products can increase blood pressure and prevent the brain and other organs from going hypoxic before the patient has a chance to recover.”

“Interesting. And dare I ask why family visits result in bleeding out?” Astarion asked. Lena held up the claws of one hand and extended her fangs. “Ah. Right. Makes sense. So should you get comfortable?” he indicated that Lena should lie down.

Lena stretched an arm out in front of him. “I am comfortable. What’re you waiting for?”

“Ah, I was thinking more of exposing your neck. It is traditional,” he said.

She frowned at him. “No, that’s stupid because even though I can heal much faster than a full human I’m not going risk bleeding out from my jugular or being dizzy for the entire day if we get into a tussle tomorrow. Plus, if you take the blood from my arm and it takes a while for you to get a decent meal, I can still read. I can’t read with your enormous head and poufy hair in my way or if I pass out and die.”

“Of course,” he replied, masking his disappointment. Just as he opened his mouth, Lena interrupted him.

“Just to ask, you can’t turn me into a vampire, can you? I probably should’ve asked about the animals we’ve hunted, but I figured they can’t turn if they’re skinned and butchered,” she said.

“No, only full vampires can turn people and I’m just a spawn,” he replied.

“What’s the difference?” she asked.

“I can’t turn anyone and I can’t turn into a cloud of bats or mist, among other things,” he said. “Instead I’m cursed with the sanguine hunger and I can’t go out into the sun without becoming a pile of ashes.”

Lena nodded. “Bats are neat. They also have really high metabolisms and elevated body temperatures compared to other mammals, so they’re vectors for some really gnarly diseases." Astarion raised an eyebrow. Lena returned to the original subject. "So how do you become a full vampire?”

“A full vampire has to willingly give me their blood. But they’re a paranoid lot: they don’t want to share power,” he said.

“Then why make spawn?” she asked.

“Look, are we going to talk, or am I going to get something to eat?” Astarion asked impatiently.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Oh, just answer the damn question. My blood’s not going anywhere.”

Astarion sighed. “Because spawn are compelled to obey their sires.”

They were silent for a moment before Lena asked, “Is your vampire sire still ‘alive’?” Astarion nodded. “Are they the ‘master’ Auntie Ethel mentioned?” He nodded again. “Did they compel you to do the things Auntie Ethel mentioned?” He went still and he stared blankly as though lost in thought. Lena’s mouth pinched and she rubbed her forehead and muttered, “Christ on a cracker.”

She allowed him a few moments of silence. “I’m not equipped to help you through some two-hundred years of abuse, but if you ever need to talk, I guess you can talk to me even though I’m not especially tactful—" Astarion snorted. Lena briefly narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, fine. I’m the emotional equivalent of removing a splinter with an axe.” She gave a small sigh. “Look, even though we barely know each other, I already think of you like a mix between a brother by another mother and a Friend For Life™.”

Astarion looked up at her baffled. “Are you serious?”

“What’s wrong with seeing you as a brother or a Friend For Life™?”

He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think I can recall the last time I had a friend. And to be honest, the thought of being a member of your family is both amusing and horrifying.”

“Fair enough; my family is known for being a bit unhinged. Though as an unofficial member of my family, I’ll do what I can to protect you. Even if it means taking down your master.”

He gawked at Lena. “Are you mad? Going after a full vampire is suicide! Why would you do such a thing?”

“From a purely practical point, it looks like our non-tax-deductible maggoty dependents not only allow you to walk in the sun but also appear to block your master from compelling you. Unless there’s some sort of distance limit that requires us to tie you up if we find ourselves anywhere close to the sack of shit, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there. And it sounds like your master can and would create an army of spawn, which screams chaos — great for short-term looting, but terrible for long-term staying alive, especially if I can’t find a way back home because I’d probably want stay in a city like your hometown of Baldur’s Gate. But on a personal level, I like you; you’re already my shit-stirrer-in-arms, my ride-or-die, my ‘help me dispose of a body at three in the morning because you’re probably still awake and you’ll do it for a bottle of wine.’ Because can I rely on Shadowheart for that sort of fuckery? Lae’zel? Wyll? Gale — okay, maybe, but it might take a few years to get him to your level of shit-stirring and he'd overthink it.”

Astarion leaned his head back and scrunched his nose. “You’re insane. You’ll get us both killed if you even try.”

Lena shrugged. “You’re not the first one to say so, but we’ve got an unknown amount of time left, either from the wormy-dealies, atomized by Gale’s orb, or whatever else we might encounter. So why not plan on living?” She then pointed to the crook of her elbow. “You gonna eat?”

“I suspect I will regret ever attacking you,” he muttered before gingerly holding her arm and biting down. He paused when he noticed that he didn’t pierce the skin and tried biting harder.

“Oh yeah, honey badger skin. You want me to start that for you?” Lena said, holding up a blade.

He glared at her, then tried again, finally piercing skin and hitting a vein. As he started to feed, Lena watched impassively. “I don’t get why there are so many books that describe vampire feeding as erotic. It sounds like someone blowing bubbles in a bowl of oatmeal.”

Astarion glared at her and he raised a one-finger salute. She grinned then picked up her phone with her free hand. She began reading out loud from her ebook about dragon riders fighting an army of sentient butts led by a T-rex who was their butt-king.

As she read, Astarion rolled his eyes at the descriptions. After a few minutes he would give the occasional snort. Then he started to giggle before giving up on feeding altogether, trying to muffle his laughter. Lena grinned as she applied a clean rag to the bite wound and bent her elbow.

After a few minutes he regained control and wiped a few tears from his eyes before he sighed. “That was a delight. Both the book and the blood, I mean. I feel stronger, and my mind feels clearer.” he said. “You’re not feeling woozy or anything?”

“A little, but that’ll pass in a few minutes and then I’ll get really hungry. Then I’ll go raid our supplies for a snack or something. Until then, want me to keep reading?” she asked.

“Sure, why not?” he replied and leaned back on the bedroll with an arm behind his head as Lena resumed reading.

Chapter Text

During breakfast, Lae’zel approached Lena. “Tas’ki. We have been diverted from my search for a creche for long enough.”

“We only just met again yesterday,” Lena replied. “I’m sorry if this weird shit keeps happening here, but as a non-native I refuse to be blamed.”

“Have you forgotten your tadpole, istik? Does the thought of transforming into a ghaik, a mind flayer, not fill you with fear and dread?”

“Yes, but so does filing income taxes. And like everything else that fills me with dread, I avoid thinking about it and hope circumstances will magically fix it for me until I’m forced to deal with it in a panic.”

“K’chakhi! We will go back to the druid grove and seek out the teethlings who know where a creche is, now!”

“It’s actually ‘tieflings,’” Lena corrected. She gave Lae’zel a sunny grin. “Don’t feel bad because I got it wrong, myself.” Lae’zel bared her teeth and snarled at Lena. Lena’s grin dropped and she sighed. “Fine, fine. We probably need to stop by the grove and annoy some of the more racist druids there because they’re racist and need to be saved from themselves.”

“I, too, need back to the grove,” Wyll interjected. “I want to at least give one last lesson in self defense to the little ones. Though I ask that as a group we destroy the goblins who’re attacking travelers and give the tieflings a fighting chance or else they’ll never reach Baldur’s Gate.”

Lena nodded. “Sounds good.”

Wyll looked taken aback. “That’s it? I didn’t even mention a plan or try to convince you of anything.”

“Goblins annoy me,” Lena admitted. “I know this might be racist of me, but from the few I’ve seen they smell bad, they look like halflings or gnomes dipped in sulfuric acid and followed by bath in horse piss, and they don’t take care of their gear. I don’t know about the rest of you, but anyone who doesn’t take care of their blades doesn’t deserve to keep ‘em.”

Astarion wrinkled his nose. “I don’t see why we need to concern ourselves with wiping out the goblins for the sake of the tieflings. Shouldn’t we be more concerned about our own well-being?”

Lena grinned at Astarion. “Ah, but you’re not seeing the potential of what amounts to a morally sanctioned mass murder. Pest control, if you were, because they’re really not hard to stomp.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulder and made a wide sweeping motion with the other. “Not only that, but if you recall, the curly-haired dipshit who wet himself lost the Halsin druid dude to the goblins. If he’s as good as Nettie says at healing, he might be key to getting rid of our not-tapeworms, and solving at least part of your problem.”

Astarion mulled over the idea. “I’m not sure….”

“Besides, this is a great opportunity to fill up on blood meals when hunting’s bad — sorta like being a mosquito at a picnic!” Lena added.

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, all right,” he acceded.

“Yay!” Lena cheered and gave his shoulders a last squeeze and mussed his hair before letting go. He swatted at her head but she ducked out of range.

“One more thing,” Wyll added. “I also must ask that we pursue the devil that you saw in my memories. I’ve been tasked by my patron to hunt down Karlach, the archdevil Zariel’s gladiator, before she burns down the Sword Coast.”

“Patron?” Lena asked.

“Yes. My patron.” Wyll repeated. He paused for a moment as they looked at each other. “Because I’m a warlock?”

“Not in my purview,” Lena admitted. “No magic where I’m from other than shifting. That I know of.”

“My patron provides me with the magic I wield.” Wyll explained.

“So every time you cast a spell, you’re asking your magical patron to give you magic?” Lena asked.

“More like directing the magic granted by the patron into the spells that the patron allows a warlock to wield,” Gale interjected.

Lena turned to Gale. “So how is that different from what you do?”

“I can pull and shape the Weave around me through incantations and gestures to cast spells,” Gale explained.

Lena looked at him, baffled. “But didn’t you tell me earlier that the goddess Mystra is the Weave?”

“Yes…”

“Hold on, so how is your doing wizard-y shit any different from Shadowheart asking her goddess to cast a spell?”

“Shadowheart needs to continue to pray to her goddess to maintain her connection to her goddess’s powers: I do not. Instead, I must concentrate on my intention through words, actions, or objects to invoke the Weave,” he explained.

Gale and Lena’s discussion started to drag on, touching on the nature of different magic casting while the rest of the camp got bored and started doing their own things: Astarion and Wyll had books and started reading at their tents, Lae’zel started sharpening her blades, and Shadowheart knelt in prayer.

Three hours later...

“But getting back to my point,” Gale said, “wielding magic as a wizard does not require either a pact with a powerful magical being or prayer and devotion to a diety. Perhaps a magic lesson would be in order, seeing as you don’t worship any particular diety like a cleric or a paladin, have no known patron or magical weapon like warlock or bladelock, and aside from shifting you have no inborn magic you can direct into spellwork.”

“Okay,” Lena said skeptically.

“Here, let me show you.” He stood next to Lena and held out his arms as though he loosely held a ball in front of him, then opened his arms and closed them to release a ball of purple light.

“Now you,” he said, and gestured to Lena to copy him.

“Oookay.” She copied the gesture, then was taken aback when her own efforts produced similar results. “I did not expect that to work,” she said.

“Excellent. Now repeat after me: Ah-Thran Mystra-Ryl Kantrach-Ao,” Gale said.

Lena squinted at him. “Run that by me again?”

“Ah-Thran …” Gale said.

“Ah-Thran …” she repeated.

“Mystra-Ryl …”

“Mystra-Ryl …”

“Kantrach-Ao.”

“Kantrach-Ao.”

“Good!” Gale said, “Now all together…”

“Ah-Thran Mystra-Ryl Kantrach-Ao,” Lena said. She scented rosewater and a sweetness on her tongue.

“Very good,” Gale said. “Now I want you to –”

“Wait, hold on,” Lena interrupted. “Can you explain what the parts of that spell does?”

“Oh yes, of course. The Ah-Thran is an invocation. Like a greeting,” he explained.

“Uh-huh…”

“And Mystra-Ryl invokes the Weave.”

“Got it…”

“And the Kantrach-Ao portion is a request for the god Ao’s sanctuary of balance and serenity.”

“So if Mystra is the Weave — wow, I still think of ‘weave’ as fake hair sewn onto people’s braids — and I just managed to cast magic, then why is this not a prayer to Mystra? Or does Mystra simply answer anyone asking to touch her?” Lena asked.

“It’s a little complicated to explain because the Weave can exist without Mystra: About a century ago Mystra’s previous incarnation was assassinated, so for the period of a decade when there was no Mystra to maintain the Weave but the Weave still existed. However, the it had no direction or order: many spellcasters died, went insane, or were warped by raw or corrupted magic, spellcasting became extremely difficult and erratic, and existing portals or magically-infused items destabilized. She brings order to the Weave.”

Lena groaned. “You really can’t get away from Mystra, can you?”

“Not without relinquishing all magic, which has been a part of me since I was eight when I cast my first fireball,” Gale said sadly.

She sighed. “I want to give you a hug, but I don’t know if that orb will try to eat me again,” she admitted.

“I consumed that amulet you gave me, so I think I can control it.” Gale held out his arms. Lena embraced him and breathed in the smell of old books, sighing. After a moment Gale broke the hug. “I don’t want to risk my emotions getting the better of me,” he admitted.
She gave him a sly grin. “Afraid of getting a woody?”

He smiled sadly. “No, I’m afraid of falling in love.”

“Aww." She gave him a sweet smile then booped his nose. "I guess I’ll have to do my best to annoy the shit out of you until you’re cured.”

Gale sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

Chapter Text

They made it back to the grove around noon, where Wyll promptly excused himself to return to the training grounds to give the tieflings children one last self-defense lesson.

“Remind them to aim for the crotch!” Lena called out as Wyll walked away. Everyone stopped to stare at her. “What?” She looked around her. “No matter what the goblins are packing, it hurts to get smacked downstairs. It’s not like they have full armor with codpieces, and it’s pretty instinctive to at least flinch.”

“Let’s move on,” Shadowheart said, gently urging Lena forward.

They wandered through the grove, asking the tieflings if any of them knew about the githyanki creche until they happened across the tiefling wizard from yesterday.

“Hey, I think I recognize you,” Lena said. “I didn’t thank you for speaking up yesterday before anyone tried to murder us with mob violence. I’m Lena, by the way.”

“I’m Rolan. Well met.” He gave a slight bow. “And I should be grateful to you for removing the hag. I don’t know how much longer I would have withstood her taunts.”

“Yeah, she knew things about me that I didn’t think anyone else could know if they hadn’t met me before.”

“Yes, I experienced the same thing, but no one else would believe me when I suggested that she was anything other than a sweet elderly woman. I was afraid she would poison all of us, or would conjure a curse before I had a chance to take up my apprenticeship in Baldur’s Gate.”

“Oh, who are you apprenticing with? I might know who it is,” Gale interjected.

“The Wizard Lorroakan of Ramazith’s Tower,” Rolan replied.

Gale looked at Rolan thoughtfully. “Word in Waterdeep has it he's a bit of a cad. But you say he's an accomplished wizard?”

“Rumors spread by those jealous of him, no doubt,” Rolan said.

Lena looked over at Gale. “What sort of rumors are we talking about?”

“Not much, just that he’s eccentric — which, by the way, is considered the norm among wizards — but taken to an extreme. I’ve also heard that his apprentices usually leave within days after starting,” Gale replied.

“Well, he is the greatest wizard of the Sword Coast, so I doubt that his previous apprentices have my fortitude—” Rolan said.

“Or they’re so badly abused that they feel the need to flee,” Shadowheart muttered.

“—but I am eager to make haste to start. I’ve been held up here, unable to make my way because I can’t leave without my brother or sister, and they refuse to leave the rest of the tieflings.”

“That’s because we can’t just leave everyone else to die!” a tiefling woman interjected. “We have to stay and help them fight against the goblins!”

“Lia, we’ve talked about this. I’m sure they’ll be fine with Zevlor leading them and I really cannot afford to be late to my apprenticeship. We should be able to sneak past the goblins on our own,” Rolan said.

Lena interrupted the siblings. “Hey, Rolan.” The two tieflings turned to her. “You might sneak past one or two patrols, but it only takes one to catch you to turn you into dog food or whatever the hell they do. There’s a reason why people travel in groups.”

“We should just leave them to make their own decisions,” Astarion huffed impatiently. “If they chose to die I don’t see why it should matter to us.”

“Just some friendly advice, is all,” Lena shrugged. “It’s not like I do big jobs alone: I usually have a few friends and relatives I trust with me to go after bigger and riskier jobs.”

“Wyll mentioned earlier that these goblins are lead by actual leaders,” Shadowheart added, “Meaning they’re organized in an unprecedented way, and the odds that their patrols manage to capture and kill you are much higher with just the three of you than if you stayed to fight together.”

“Listen to them,” Lia said. “We should stay and defend our people.”

Rolan sighed and looked up for a moment before looking back to Lia. “Oh, alright — we’ll stay. But as soon as we reach the Gate we’re heading straight to Ramazith’s Tower.”

“Thank you, Rolan!” Lia hugged her brother.

“Chk, why are we wasting time talking? We should be asking after the githyanki creche that the tieflings encountered,” Lae’zel spat.

“Oh yeah…” Lena said. “So either you happened to know anyone who knows where to find the githyanki?”

“You might want to try finding Zorru,” Lia said. “He’s somewhere along the eastern caverns the last I saw.”

“Thanks!” Lena said.

“Best of luck,” Gale said. “Perhaps if we meet again, you could introduce us to Lorroakan.”

“I’ll keep you in mind. Farewell,” Rolan said.

“I’ll bet that Lorroakan’s going to be a complete ass to him,” Lena whispered to Gale as they walked side by side.

“I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It rarely pays to listen to rumors,” Gale replied.

“I’ve come very close to tearing the throats out of a few employers, myself. And sometimes there’s a seed of truth to rumors.”

“If so, then what would you propose?” Gale asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, “but I wouldn’t mind checking on him if we all make it to Baldur’s Gate.”

“Fair enough.” He leaned his head toward her. “You really are much kinder than you like to let on.”

Lena scoffed. “Excuse me? I’m a fucking paragon of sweetness and gentle breeding! I’ll have you know I’m always a good person!”

“Ah, so headbutting Aradin, or as you called him, ‘the curly-haired dipshit’?”

“Totally justified.”

“Running away from Zevlor?”

“I wasn’t running, I was regrouping my dignity.”

“Contaminating the druid’s sacred pool?”

“I needed to get clean. Not my fault they didn’t say ‘No Bathing.’”

“Comparing my beard to a ‘badly mown lawn?’”

“I did you a favor letting you know you need to either shave or you need to groom your beard better.”

Gale looked up and sighed. “I concede. You have the generosity and social graces of a saint.”

Lena grinned at him. “Damn straight.”

---

They wandered around the grove, past where Wyll conducted his self-defense lessons, to where Zorru sat, rebinding some wounds. He looked up at Lae’zel and started to panic.

“B-by Mordai’s eyes, another one,” he stuttered. “My f-friend’s blood not enough? Come to rip me open, too?”

Lae’zel crossed her arms. “In Creche K’liir, a formal greeting begins with a bow.”

“Hold up, before you start swinging your gonads around I've got a question,” Lena interrupted. She turned to Zorru. “What happened to your friend?”

“I will conduct this interrogation,” Lae’zel hissed at Lena.

“Yeah, sure, but I want to know what happened to his friend first—” Lae’zel opened her mouth but Lena cut her off. “—before you cause him to piss himself. Because if he does I will make you clean it up.” She extended her fangs and hissed. Lae’zel backed away and wiped saliva from her face.

Lena retracted her fangs and turned to a quivering Zorru, seeing someone who not only barely made it out of adolescence but was also unused to seeing horror up close and personal. “Y-you’re not going to eat me, are you?” he asked.

“No, I’m not. I just want to ask you a few questions. Can you tell me what happened to your friend?”

Zorru took a deep breath. “We were scouting the north road to Baldur’s Gate, near the mountain pass when one of them,” he eyed Lae’zel, “jammed a b-b-blade through Yul’s belly, straight to the other side.”

“Did either of you incite the attack?” Lena asked.

“We didn’t even see it until it was too late. I ran before it could kill me.” He ducked his head down as tears began to fall.

“What were you scouting for?” Lena asked gently.

“We were just trying to see if there were g-goblins b-blocking the way so we can leave.”

“Can you show me on a map?”

Zorru pulled out a map of the area, and pointed at a road to the northeast. “That’s where we got attacked.”

“Thank you.” Lena looked at the rest of the party. “Any of you get that?”

“I did,” Shadowheart replied.

“Good.” Lena turned back to Zorru. “Thanks, kid. I’m sorry about your friend.” She gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“C-can I leave now?”

“Yeah, go on,” Lena said. Zorru ran off toward the training grounds.

Lena gave Lae’zel a questioning look. Lae’zel returned with a defiant stare. “Is it normal for githyanki to kill without provocation?” Lena asked.

Lae’zel turned away. “We defend our territory from interlopers.”

“It sounds to me like your kin have blocked a major road, which I believe would attract lots of 'interlopers.'”

Lae'zel glared at Lena. “They will still have a cure for our tadpoles, k’chackhi. I do not recommend angering them if you want to be cured.”

“Sounds like this creche will attack anyone and everything that isn't githyanki, so what makes you so sure they'll offer us a cure?”

"I am of warrior of creche K'liir. I have earned the right to purification, so they will offer us purification

Lena shrugged. "We’ll see."

Chapter Text

Wyll rejoined the group as they wandered past the training grounds. As they rounded a corner, Astarion tapped Lena on the shoulder. “Isn’t that our little halfling instigator?” he whispered.

Lena looked in the direction he was looking and snarled. “That little shit-stain!” she muttered. “Keep her distracted.”

Astarion grinned. “Of course.” He turned to Shadowheart. “So, Shadowheart, can you tell me why are you so very distrustful of our lovely Lae’zel?”

Shadowheart narrowed her eyes at Astarion. “I don’t understand why we trust a species steeped in violence in our party when we should’ve abandoned her to the tieflings to begin with.”

Lae’zel snarled. “Because everyone else sees my worth as a warrior and I have access to a cure that we should be pursuing instead of wasting our time chasing after a useless druid, shka’keth.”

Shadowheart stepped in to face Lae’zel, “At least we know the druid has studied the tadpole and doesn’t have a history of wandering around killing innocent bystanders!”

As their argument grew louder, Astarion’s grin grew wider. Lena gave him a quick poke. “Make sure they don’t kill each other — I don’t want to pay to have to revive them,” she whispered. Astarion nodded and continued to watch as Wyll and Gale tried to prevent the brewing fight.

Lena slunk off, keeping an eye on the druid to make sure her attention stayed on Lae’zel and Shadowheart. She crept quietly behind the druid before holding a hand over her mouth and a blade to her throat. “Hello. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Lena whispered.

Suddenly the druid was enveloped in a bright light as she shifted into a rat and slid out from Lena’s hand.

“MOTHERFUCKER!” Lena shouted. “GET BACK HERE!”

She scrambled after the rat as it ran through the grove, trying to find crevices to escape, but Lena tore through makeshift buildings and upended crates as she chased her quarry through to the inner grove into the druid’s sanctum.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?” Kagha shouted as they scampered through the chamber, knocking over scrolls and goblets. Rath, the druid who previously tried to reason with Kagha followed behind her.

Lena had finally managed to grab the rat with a clawed hand. “This little fucker tried to incite a mob to kill me and my companions yesterday,” she panted. She started to wring the little rat’s throat until it screeched and transformed back into a rather dirty halfling.

“STOP THAT!” Kagha shouted. “PUT HER DOWN.”

Lena shook her head. “What I want to know is why she wanted us dead after I killed a hag.” Lena held onto the back halfling’s neck, her claws digging in hard enough to draw blood. The halfling druid tried to draw her weapon, but Lena tightened her grip and gave her a shake before cutting the druid’s bawbag from her and taking her dagger from its sheath.

The rest of the party came rushing in, though some members were slightly worse for wear: Wyll had a bloody nose, Lae’zel sported a swollen eye, and Shadowheart had a fresh cut on her cheek.

Gale had bent over to catch his breath before he turned to Lena. “We saw you running.” He panted and squinted at the druid she held captive. “Is that the halfling who kept shouting about your killing the hag?”

Lena nodded, then looked at Kagha. “What I want know is who is she to you?”

Rath looked between Kagha and halfing. “Kagha, who is that?”

Suddenly two rats shifted into halflings. Lena looked at the older-looking one and her eyebrows rose. “Lady, you need to switch up your beauty regimen if your tits look that perky but your face and neck look like they’ve been partying in the desert for a decade.”

Astarion snorted.

The older druid sneered at Lena. “Tsk. That damned nose of yours has gone poking into our business.”

Lena growled. “I wouldn’t have had to if your lapdog here—” Lena shook the halfing. “—hadn’t decided to try to incite a mob to kill us.” She narrowed her eyes at the older druid. “Were you the one who brought the hag?”

“A necessity to pick off those untouchables Halsin brought into this sacred space,” the druid snapped.

Kagha blanched. “I wanted to cleanse the grove, but I never agreed to a hag, Olodan. What were you thinking?”

Olodan gave Kagha a sly grin. “You were too weak to exterminate the vermin outright, so we thought to seek help.” She turned to Lena. “Pity you had to interfere.”

“Wait, were you also the one who came up with that incredibly stupid idea to seal the grove? The one that leaves all the grove's inhabitants a horde of naked starved inbred cannibals?” Lena asked.

Olodan flicked a dismissive hand at Lena. “Bah, minor details.”

Lena stared at her. “’Minor details?’ Starvation, nudity, and inbreeding are just ‘minor details?’”

“Silvanus will provide for us as Shadow Druids are now the sole keepers of his sacred tenets,” Olodan intoned.

“Why the fuck would Silvanus want a load of freeloading fuckwits cadging food every day? Your god might be generous, but I can’t imagine they’re stupid,” Lena replied. She looked around the room. “Are any of you agreeing with this?”

Rath glared at Kagha, who now looked embarrassed. “Why would you risk dealing with the Shadow Druids?” he asked.

“You don’t understand!” She shouted. “I was trying to get rid of the tieflings. They are contaminating the grove with their infernal presence."

"They're people," Rath said. "They're people who've been forced to flee their homes. How could we turn them away? How could you turn to the shadows?"

"Their shadows are supposed to purify this grove!” Kagha pleaded.

Rath shook his head. His voice gentled. “Have you forgotten our grove’s teachings? ‘When the darkest hour fell, it was us that brought the light.’”

Kagha’s eyes glistened. “'Silvanus demands we illuminate the shadows, not hide within it,’” she recited in a whisper.

Olodan glared at Kagha. “Careful. The shadows don’t forgive.”

“I belong to the shadows no longer,” Kagha declared. “You have no power over me!”

“Huzzah for goodness and light and all that jazz!” Lena cheered. She forced her claws into the neck of the druid she was holding until they pierced through. A gout of blood gushed out of the druid’s mouth and neck. “My claws were getting itchy.” She dropped the dead druid.

“Mother Earth, hear me! Grant me your wrath!” Olodan screeched. She drew her bow and an arrow engulfed Kagha in briers. Rath shifted into a wolf and bore down on Olodan’s neck. Olodan screamed, then shifted into a badger, using its claws to rake the wolf’s face before digging underground.

The remaining shadow druid transformed into a bear. Lena launched herself at the bear’s back and held on with her claws. The bear roared, standing on its hind legs and failing to grab Lena. “Hey Astarion! Need an extra meal?”

Astarion already had his daggers out. “Why, thank you, darling!” He leaned into Lae’zel. “Mind keeping this one busy?”

“Just go, already,” she hissed as she attacked the bear. The bear turned its attention to Lae’zel while Lena stabbed into a nerve cluster in the bear’s armpit before leaping off.

Astarion stabbed the bear’s back, using his daggers as holds until he reached its neck and started to feed. The bear tried to reach for Astarion, but Lae’zel’s sword had lopped off part of one paw, and Lena had already disabled the other. As Astarion fed, the bear’s movements slowed until it slumped onto the chamber’s floor in a heap, shifting back into a dead halfing as the magic faded.

Olodan’s badger form popped up behind Kagha and tried to drag her down.

“HEY BITCH! BADGER FIGHT!” Lena shouted. She shifted and shook off her gear before launching herself at the oversized European badger, knocking Kagha out of the way before crawling into the tunnel.

Everyone in the chamber stopped to stare at the hole Lena disappeared into, listening to the hissing and snarling as the two different badger species fought underground. Suddenly, the sound of fighting stopped, replaced by the sound of something making its way out of the hole. They were tensed for a fight when Lena’s badger head popped up, hauling Olodan’s limp halfling body held in her jaws. Her head and shoulders were covered in deep gashes that remained as she shifted back to human and lay on her back on the floor.

Gale managed to reach her first, supporting her head with one hand while trying to wipe the blood and gore away from her face with the other. “Are you alright?” he asked.

Lena looked up at him with a slightly dazed expression, gave him a thumbs up, and grinned. “Never better,” she said before promptly passing out.

Chapter Text

Lae’zel carried Lena to the healing ward where Shadowheart and Nettie managed to close the deepest of Lena’s wounds.

“She’s healing so quickly on her own,” Nettie remarked as she watched Lena’s skin knit back together. “It almost makes me feel superfluous.”

Shadowheart nodded. “I know. It’s also strangely mesmerizing: it’s both revolting and satisfying.”

“Come on. Help me heal Kagha and Rath’s wounds, then I’ll get to everyone else’s bumps and bruises,” Nettie said and motioned for Shadowheart to follow. “By the way, did you get that cut on your cheek from the fight?”

Shadowheart shot Astarion — who was leaning against a wall with his arms crossed next to a visibly concerned Gale — a dark look. “In a manner of speaking.”

Astarion returned her look with a cheeky grin. He looked over to Gale and nudged him with an elbow. “Go on.”

Gale jolted out of his reverie. “Yes, of course,” he replied and moved a crate next to where Lena lay snoring and sat down. He then took Lena's hand in his own and waited.

Astarion watched Gale and Lena with a mix of unfamiliar emotions: on one hand, he felt none of the familiar urgency to seduce either of them, but at the same time he couldn’t tear his eyes away from Gale’s show of affection. For what felt like the first time he felt content to let them be, but also felt the stirrings of what almost felt like envy.

After a few minutes, Shadowheart and Nettie finished addressing the remaining minor wounds and Shadowheart went over to Astarion and punched his arm.

“Ow! What the hells was that for?” he said, rubbing his arm.

“For starting that little fight I had with Lae’zel.” Shadowheart stood leaning against the wall next to him.

He crossed his arms again. “Lena did ask me for a distraction — I can cut the tension between you two with a knife. So are you going to kill each other or sleep together?”

Shadowheart narrowed his eyes at him. “I noticed you were watching Gale with Lena. Are you perhaps having second thoughts about pushing Gale to act?”

“Honestly, no. I originally thought it would be just entertaining, especially given how besotted Gale is and Lena being utterly oblivious,” Astarion admitted.

Shadowheart looked at Gale quietly holding Lena’s hand. “I thought as much, too. Superficially, they seem so very different: Gale is the ‘Wizard of Waterdeep’ and scholar of the arcane, and Lena is a homicidal lunatic from another plane existence altogether.”

Astarion gave a wry smile. “Yes, but they can converse with each other in obscure trivia and minutiae.”

“I suppose to each their own,” Shadowheart said. “I noticed you and Lena seem to spend quite a lot of time together. You weren’t interested in her, were you? Or perhaps Gale?”

Astarion made a moue of disgust. “Gods no. Gale is far too—” he waved a hand “—Gale for me. As for Lena, she’s a … well … she’s a friend. In fact, she called me a ‘brother by another mother’ of all things. Though she’s wrong when she said that she could rely on me to help her dispose of a corpse at the wee hours of the morning for a bottle of wine — I would require two bottles.”

The corner of Shadowheart’s mouth kicked up. “Of course. Mustn’t sell oneself short. Though perhaps when you look at them you see beginnings of a connection that you want for yourself.”

He scoffed. “Hardly. I’ve never been one to tie myself to any one person, darling.” He looked over at Shadowheart. “What about you?”

“I’ve always been one to seek out a body for a night, but nothing more.” She thought for a moment. “I don’t recall ever wanting more. And I don’t expect that to change.”

Astarion gave her a grin. “Then all the more reason for you and Lae’zel to work whatever it is between you two out of your systems.” Shadowheart scowled at him. “Besides,” he continued, “sex might result in far fewer resurrections.”

---

Lena dreamed, which in itself wasn’t unusual, but this was a dream while she was healing from some serious wounds. She dreamed of lying on a rock looking over what appeared to be an asteroid field against a purple sky, and Chris Evans in Captain America shape wearing full plate armor kneeling next to her.

“I came just in time. You are transforming,” Not Chris Evans said.

Lena blinked at him and raised an eyebrow because the accent hit her wrong — like a British actor trying to do an American accent but can't quite flatten their vowels without growling. “Damn popular media for pushing attractive white people at me.” Not Chris Evans looked nonplussed as Lena sat up.

“Yes, you have seen me before. I saved you on the ship,” Not Chris Evans said.

Lena squinted at Not Chris Evans. “No, don’t recall that. But I’m a huge fan of staring at topless photos of Chris Evans from his promos for The Avengers movies. Doesn’t he have a big ol’ beard now?”

Not Chris Evan’s shoulders drooped. “This is not the reaction I was expecting.”

“You and me both, subconscious.”

“No, I was the one who saved you on the nautiloid, keeping you from falling to your death.”

Lena shook her head. “No memory.”

Not Chris Evans sighed. “Look, I’m here to promise you that I will never let you become a mind flayer.”

“Oookay. Cool. Though wouldn’t it be better to, I don’t know, remove the maggot instead of expending the effort to keep me from transforming?” Lena asked.

His lips pinched together in a straight line. “The tadpole has great power that you can and must learn to wield.” Not Chris Evans pointed to what appeared to be a massive skull embedded in a rock surrounded by explosions. “We are in a fight. A fight we are losing. For now. You can change that, but only if you embrace your potential.”

“So I’m dreaming I’m the hero of a Star Wars movie. Does it give me the ability to choke people with my mind?”

“No, but you can influence other people who are infected with the parasite, and eventually so much more.”

“Are there any side effects? Increased dizziness, nausea, vomiting, hypertension, thrombosis, kidney failure, memory loss, auditory or visual hallucinations, adverse liver function, decreased lung capacity, spotty vision, acne, hemorrhoids, hernias, edema, endometriosis, abnormal heart beat—”

“NO!” Not Chris Evans shouted. He took a breath to calm himself before starting again. “No. I already said that I would protect you.”

“But only from transforming. This thing is living in my brain. How is it not giving me brain damage?”

“Who can tell the difference?” Not Chris Evans muttered under his breath.

“I HEARD THAT!”

“Look, I must leave. The enemy is closing in. Just trust me,” he said.

“But the last time I heard someone tell me that I ended up naked in a Floridian swamp cuddled up to a dead Burmese python,” Lena said, but it was too late and she awoke.

Chapter Text

Lena sat up with a start and immediately felt light-headed. She listed heavily until Gale put an arm around her shoulders. “Easy,” he said, “you’ve been unconscious for the past several hours.” They were alone in the healing ward, with Nettie tinkering in the druid laboratory nearby.

Lena closed her eyes and put her face up against the crook of Gale’s neck, breathing in his scent of books. “How long was I out?”

“About three hours.” He gently pulled the covers over her breasts.

She looked down. “You have a problem with my tits?”

He blushed. “They are rather distracting. And recall I have an orb lodged in my chest that seems to respond to my emotions, so best not tempt fate.”

Lena looked up at him and leaned in close to his face with half-lidded eyes, her lips close to his. His blush deepened, his breathing stuttered, and tendrils from the orb started to glow. “Then how do you handle morning wood?” she asked breathily.

His glow faded and he tilted his head up to stare exasperatedly at the ceiling. she started to laugh and leaned her face into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shaking shoulders and sighed. “You might be the death of me, yet,” he muttered.

“Oh, but what a way to go,” she chortled. After a while, her mirth faded and she tilted her head until she nestled her face back into the crook of his neck, wrapped her arms around his waist, and sighed contentedly.

After a few moments, Lena sat up next to Gale on the stone slab that served as a bed and leaned against him with the covers wrapped around her. “I had the weirdest dream,” she said. “I dreamt that I was in an asteroid field and space was purple instead of black and some dude who looked like a younger buffer version of a celebrity from home was dressed in armor and telling me that he was protecting me from turning into a mind flayer, but that I need to use the maggots in a fight so he won’t remove the fucking things outright.”

He looked nonplussed. “That’s very specific, especially that you were instructed in your dream to use the tadpole’s powers. Did he specify anything about what this fight is about?”

“Not a fucking word. And I’m pretty sure this wasn’t my subconscious because using the maggot always gives me a headache, so I really don't like using it.” After a beat, she asked him, “What’re your thoughts?”

“I suspect not only do the tadpoles allow us to communicate with each other, but that someone is using the tadpoles to communicate with us. Do you believe that this dream persona is telling the truth?”

“Hrm, I believe that they crafted a persona to appeal to me. I do love me some pictures of topless Chris Evans,” she said.

He raised an eyebrow. “Should I feel jealous?”

“No. For one thing, Chris Evans is an actor from my reality, and the dream persona used a version of him from about ten years ago from a role he made famous. Plus that,” she picked at the front of his robe and peered down the neck, “okay, wow, you have nothing to worry about.” She squinted. "I think they're bigger than mine."

Gale’s face flushed as Wyll and Shadowheart walked in.

“See, I told you nothing would happen,” Wyll said.

“Fine.” Shadowheart scowled and handed him a few coins, which Wyll pocketed. “Maybe now you can buy new camp clothes.” Wyll grinned. Shadowheart looked at Lena. “How’re you feeling now?”

“Hungry. We got any food?”

“I can get you a bowl of gruel from one of the tieflings,” Wyll said. Lena scrunched up her nose. “Though you two may find the latest developments in the grove of interest: Kagha has stepped down as interim head druid after saying the tieflings are welcome to stay for as long as they need. We still need to neutralize the goblins and their patrols, though, because they’ll eventually launch an attack.”

Lena sighed. “Fine. Though can we start tomorrow? And where’s my gear?”

Shadowheart gave Gale a sly smile, “Oh, Gale didn’t give your clothing back to you yet?”

Gale’s face flushed redder as he reached into his bawbag and handed Lena her armor and her clothes. “A mere oversight, I assure you.”

Lena gave Gale a good-natured swat to the arm and dropped the cover to start dressing.

“Oh gods!” Wyll exclaimed as he blushed and looked away.

Lena rolled her eyes. “Ugh, they’re just tits. I’d have guessed you’ve seen a pair before, right?”

Wyll blushed harder as Shadowheart began to snicker.

Gale blinked a few times as he looked at Lena's naked form before he gave her a pat on the shoulder. “We’ll just give you some privacy, shall we?”

Lena looked at him before understanding dawned on her face. "Oh, right. No kaboom." She turned around and as she bent over to pull on her underwear she heard Shadowheart call out, "Gale! Now!"

Chapter Text

The next morning they headed west of the grove in search of the source of the goblins: a quest that could be compared to the search for source of the river Nile, only far, far, far more disappointing. Lena could smell a whiff of something foul in the air, similar to the funk she noticed when they helped take down that little goblin party near the grove.

When Lena stopped them at a crossroad to sniff at the air, Astarion gave her a puzzled glance. “Just how sensitive is your nose?”

Lena kept her nose lifted until she faced southwest. “Pretty good. It’s not as powerful as a wolf’s or a dog’s, but I can usually sniff out honey about a mile—” Astarion raised an eyebrow, Lena rolled her eyes, “—a little over kilometer away when it’s warm out. My mom likes to remind me that when I was three and couldn’t shift yet, I sniffed out a mouse and proceeded to tear a hole into a wall with just my fingernails and caught it. She freaked out because I had managed to eat half of it before she wrangled the carcass away from my grubby toddler mitts and took me to get an extra round of vaccinations in case it had the plague or something.”

Gale whispered, “My tower.” Wyll gave Gale an sympathetic pat on the shoulder, while Lae’zel and Shadowheart smirked.

Astarion grinned. “If you and Gale have offspring, can I come by and visit?”

“It’s a bit early to be thinking about kids given that we can’t even have sex without the whole blowing up thing, but I’m fine if Gale’s fine; though you are required as an honorary uncle to change a diaper or twelve. And as my honorary brother, you will be required to visit or I will hunt you down and slap you with a loaded diaper. And I will make sure it's been sitting someplace warm and damp for a while before I do.”

Astarion’s face fell. “If that’s the case, I hope you two never have children.”

“Too late. GALE, WE’RE GOING TO HAVE A DOZEN,” Lena barked.

Gale blanched. Astarion looked horrified. Shadowheart leaned in to Lena and asked, “You’re willing to go through that many pregnancies out of spite?”

Lena grinned. “At the moment, yes!”

---

They neared the walls of a village when Lena caught the scent of a canid. “Hold up, are there any wolves around here?”

Shadowheart froze and paled.

“Nothing I’ve seen outside of the grove,” Wyll said.

Lena followed the scent until she saw a white dog hovering around the corpse of a man, though thankfully dog hadn’t succumbed to the cycle of nipping at their master’s face to try to wake him, tasting blood and taking a bite, and feeling bad and licking the face, rinse, repeat. Well, yet. From what she’d read it’s as traumatizing for the dog as it was for the rescuers trying to decipher if the dog was protecting their master or protecting their kill.

The dog growled at her, but she squatted down to make herself look smaller and put her fist out for the dog to smell. “Aww, poor pupper lost their human.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Astarion asked. “They do bite.”

“So do you, but you’re still here,” Shadowheart said. Astarion stuck his tongue out at her. Shadowheart withdrew a bottle from her bawbag and handed it to Lena. “Here, try this. It’s a potion of speaking with animals.”

Lena looked up at Shadowheart as she took the bottle. “Something about that weirds me out, and I think it’s the idea that my next potential meal might talk to me before I slaughter it. I know that pigs tend to be smart, but I don’t want to hear their tragic life stories before I fry up some bacon.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Gale said. “Most animals focus on their immediate needs, such as food or shelter. I would also note that many won’t speak with you unless you speak with them first. The potion translates motion and sounds into a language you can interpret.”

“So can this be used to talk to people who speak a language I don’t understand, or to someone with severe disabilities who can’t communicate with traditional language?” Lena asked.

“Ah, no,” Gale replied. “The issue at hand is that for most people, the potion lacks the sophistication to interpret culturally-specific nuances— such as idioms, axioms, epithets, hand gestures, and so on —which increases the probability of a mistranslation. There are recipes for such potions, but they tend to be much more difficult to source because of the dearth of available ingredients.”

Lae’zel growled in irritation. “Just drink the damn potion before you two get into another discussion and we lose the rest of the day.”

“Fine, fine,” Lena said. “Though if I get too disturbed by animals talking, you’ll have to take Astarion hunting.”

Astarion glared at Lena. “I don’t see why I need someone to accompany me when I hunt.”

Lena gave him sweet smile. “Because if you manage to bag something big, I doubt you’d be able to drag it back to camp on your own. Remember the boar?”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “Yes, and I won’t thank you for reminding me how much stronger you are than me for looking like a full human.”

“Damn straight.” Lena said.

“Are you going to talk to the dog, or shall I?” Wyll asked impatiently.

“Well, if you’re offering, go right on ahead.” Lena handed Wyll the potion and stepped back away from the dog, who was now pacing back and forth in front of the corpse.

Wyll spoke to the dog for several minutes, offering his hand and a piece from a sausage he had in his bawbag. The dog lay down and proceeded to eat, but refused to leave the corpse.

“I've learned his name is Scratch and he’s an extremely loyal dog,” Wyll began. “If you haven’t already guessed it, he’s guarding his master’s corpse. Looks like the man was a courier before he was cut down. The poor dog hasn’t come to terms with the fact that his master’s dead.”

“He’s not going to accompany us at camp?” Shadowheart asked.

“It’s up to him. He says he'll be able to find us by our scent if he chooses to,” Wyll said. They began walking back to the village entrance.

Shadowheart kept turning her head back to look at Scratch as they continued walking.

Chapter Text

Lena caught a whiff of carrion and something VERY big as they walked toward the village gate. She paused. “I smell bear nearby. And … bird?”

“Is this some sort of istik riddle?” Lae’zel asked.

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “I suspect she sniffed out an owlbear den.”

“What’s an owlbear?” Lena asked.

“A very large and very hungry predator that can probably tear even you from limb to limb,” Astarion said.

Lena shucked her boots and extended her claws on her hands and feet to scrabble up the village wall to peek around.

Astarion sighed. Gale looked at him quizzically. Astarion glanced at him and explained, “The tadpoles seem to block my ability to climb walls like a spider. It was one of the few things I actually enjoyed about being a vampire spawn.”

“If we’re ever rid of these tadpoles I would ask if I could examine your hands to see how you manage that particular feat.”

Astarion raised an eyebrow. “If you want, I could introduce you to my ‘siblings’ if we make it to Baldur’s Gate.”

“Would they be amenable, or would they try to drain me dry at first sight?” Gale asked.

Astarion grinned. “More likely the latter, so I’m more than happy to let you conduct any experiments on them. I might even be convinced to help you hold them down.”

Gale raised his eyebrows. “I can’t tell if you want me to die or if you not like your ‘siblings.’”

Astarion shrugged. “More the latter. I’ve grown very fond of Lena and would hate to see her unhappy if anything unfortunate fell upon you.”

Gale blinked. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Lena hopped down from the top of the wall. “Definitely goblins in that village. They seem scattered throughout. I smell something else, but nothing that suggest living humanoids I’ve encountered so far,” she said as she put her boots back on.

“What are your thoughts on how to approach this?” Wyll asked.

Lena tilted her head in thought. “Just how big are these owlbear things?”

---

“I don’t get why we’re expected to wait here instead of accompanying the ladies to find the owlbear den,” Wyll complained quietly.

“Because we have the weakest constitutions of our companions,” Gale whispered. “She didn’t want us exhausted or out of breath when they come back.”

“Aren’t you offended that you were asked to stay at the village gate?”

“Not especially. It gives my knees a break from hiking,” Gale replied.

Wyll smirked. “You really are an old man, aren’t you?”

Gale narrowed his eyes at him. “I’ll have you know that I used to play Mage Tower while I was still a student at Blackstaff Academy until I took a nasty fall. My knees were never the same, even after several months of healing and treatments.”

Wyll held up his hands and gave Gale a contrite look. “I apologize. I didn’t realize that you had sustained any injuries. I usually associate knee pain with my dearly departed Nana who claimed she could use hers to predict storms.”

“Quiet. I think I hear them,” Astarion whispered urgently. He listened for a moment. “We need to be ready.”

The three men hid themselves in the shrubs on either side of the village gate as the sounds of roaring and thundering steps approached. Lena was perched between the owlbear’s shoulder blades, laughing and whooping maniacally while using her claws on her hands and feet to hold on as the enraged owlbear barreled through the village gate. The goblins panicked, screaming for reinforcements, firing off arrows and spells at the owlbear. The owlbear gave an extra-loud roar.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart had followed on foot, trailed by an owlbear cub. Upon hearing the first owlbear’s call, they started to sprint.

“Quick, cast sleep on the cub,” Shadowheart shouted to Gale. Gale uttered a quick incantation and the cub fell unconscious mid-stride before sliding to a stop on the path. Shadowheart and Lae’zel grabbed the cub and dragged it over to the shrubs to hide.

They were barely out of sight when another adult owlbear barreled through, following the first owlbear through the village gate. As the owlbears ripped through the goblins, Lena had managed to slip through the chaos with her boots in hand and made it back to the rest of her companions hiding in the bushes.

“Now that was a rush!” she whispered, wiping blood from a healing cut on her forehead before putting her boots back on. “We ready to pick off stragglers?”

Astarion grinned. “This is going to be fun.”

They began sneaking their way through, finding and killing archers, spellcasters, stragglers, or deserters on the periphery of the fight. The two owlbears were still holding strong, but the first one had a missing eye and was slowly being porcupined with arrows on its blind side. The second owlbear raked its massive paws through the throng of goblins, bugbears, and the occasional worg. The two owlbears continued to rampage through the village before charging across a bridge where more goblins poured across when the group lost sight of the pair.

Astarion wiped the sweat from his forehead. “That was invigorating,” he said.

Wyll nodded. “I have to agree, though that was an incredibly risky gambit.” He turned to face Lena. “How did you manage to steer the owlbear to the village?”

“I had to guess where some nerves might be and dug my claws in to get it to turn its head,” Lena explained.

“Did you anticipate the owlbear would have a mate?” Gale asked.

“Nope,” she replied. “I think we got lucky. Looks like together they can cause a lot of damage to the source of the goblins before they either get killed, or eat their way into a goblin-flavored food coma.”

They heard a scratching sound and looked over at the owlbear cub that had just woken up and had begun to feed. “Aww, poor thing. It looks like it lost its parents,” Shadowheart said.

“It appears to be eating the goblins,” Lae’zel said.

"Well, what's left of them. You have to admit that the adult owlbears did a pretty good job of tenderizing their kills," Lena commented, pointing to the pulverized goblin parts strewn around them. "And the owlbear cub is pretty handy — corpse cleanup I don't have to pay for," Lena commented.

“Let me speak with it,” Wyll said. “The speak with animals potion hasn’t worn off yet.” He slowly approached the owlbear cub with the remains of the sausage he used to feed Scratch.

“We should finish looting corpses before it eats anything we can otherwise use, or else we'll have to wait for it to shit out the shinier bits,” Lena said. “Should I feel bad that I might have sent its parents off to their deaths?"

“I wouldn’t,” Astarion replied. “They’re rather cannibalistic, so there’s a good chance that the cub would’ve been eaten by its parents.” Everyone except Wyll looked at him. “I do read, you know.”

“Huh, do you have the book in question with you?” Lena asked.

“Yes. I ‘borrowed’ a copy of ‘A Primer of Mythical Beasts’ from the grove, but I’m not done with it yet,” he said. “We can trade when I'm done if you’d like.”

Lena grinned and nodded. “Awesome.”

Wyll walked back. “The little one didn’t want to talk, so I left him the remaining sausage. I suspect that he might find his way to our camp much like Scratch could.”

“So now we will have a menagerie for a campsite?” Lae’zel scoffed.

“Feeling jealous that they might get better scraps than you?” Shadowheart quipped. Lae’zel snarled.

“Fuck that, you two,” Lena interjected. “I’ve said it before, NO FIGHTING. Or do you want me to start singing?”

Everyone else winced. “We’ll behave,” Shadowheart and Lae’zel said sulkily in unison.

Lena gave them a curt nod. “Good. Let’s start looting.”

Chapter Text

As they began their looting spree, Lena made sure that they all knew to set aside the magical items to divvy up and ensure Gale had something to feed his orb. For his part, Gale would assess the items and pick out those that had the least utility for the group.

The owlbear cub scampered into the brush as they began looting from the dead goblins, which made Lena just a little sad because it was really fucking adorable — even the dour Lae’zel looked a little down when she looked up from her search through the mush of goblin gore to see the little cub had disappeared.

Most of what the goblins owned were worthless, but Wyll had pointed out that there was a blacksmith among the tieflings who might be amenable to making a few items, so they saved some of the cleaner-looking blades for scrap: If anything, they could be forged into extra daggers, arrowheads, or the stiletto blades Lena favored.

After finishing scavenging from the nearby goblins, they began their rummage of the dilapidated buildings where they encountered more hidden rooms, including one that required passing through a magic mirror that Lena snarled at and threatened to break unless it let them pass. “I would’ve figured that secret doors and traps would’ve been reserved for places like those ruins where we found Withers and not in some tiny village in the middle of fuck-all,” Lena commented as she and Astarion made their way through some traps in a cellar.

“Never underestimate the paranoid,” Astarion remarked. He opened a gate to a small room that held a book that appeared to bound in some sort of humanoid’s tanned face. He motioned for Lena to come over and pointed at it. “Case in point — what do you think that book contains?” He moved over to a gargoyle next to the book and disabled a trap.

“I’m going to guess it’s cursed in some way or another, but what do I know?” Lena remarked. She looked at the remaining gargoyle and disabled its trap.

“Would you mind if took it?” he asked.

Lena thought for a moment, then began to snicker. “Actually, I’m tempted to take the book and have you and Gale fight over it.”

“What? Why?” Astarion said loudly. Gale looked up from his own search and gave the two of them a confused look.

Lena started to giggle. “Because if neither of you had weapons or were allowed magic, I can totally see you resorting to slap-fighting like a couple of kids on a playground.” She snorted and started laughing.

Gale walked over. “What’s so humorous?”

Lena had already doubled-over and could barely breathe, so Astarion sighed and said, “She thinks it’d be amusing that if we were to enter into fisticuffs over that book—” pointing to its silently screaming maw, “—because she thinks we’d resort to slapping at each other like small children.”

Gale looked at the ceiling and sighed. “In the interest of avoiding having to demonstrate my lack of pugilistic prowess, and given that I have already set aside a few magical items for the orb, I freely forswear any claim on the,” he squinted, “‘Necromancy of Thay.’” He blinked. "Given your condition, I don't wonder at your interest. But do let me know what you discover, or perhaps allow me to peruse it when you've finished reading."

Lena had finally stopped laughing and pouted at Gale. “Spoilsport.”

Astarion gave Gale a nonplussed look. “Sometimes I can’t understand why you’ve taken any romantic interest in Lena.”

“Hey!” Lena objected.

Gale smiled. “Despite the teasing, I find her intelligent and fascinating.”

Astarion grinned. “So in other words, you found someone who can out-lecture you?”

Gale and Lena glared at Astarion. He kept grinning.

Gale continued. “I also find that she possesses a callipygian beauty.” Astarion’s grin fell and he shuddered.

“And that means?” Lena asked.

“It mean he likes your—” Astarion coughed, “—ass.”

Gale grinned as Astarion’s face scrunched up in disgust.

She looked at Astarion. “What, are you saying my ass is ugly?”

“No, my honorary sister, I don’t want to think about your ass.”

Lena nodded. “Fair point.” She nodded over at the cursed book. “You gonna read that?”

Astarion picked it up and attempted to open it. “It’s locked.”

“Huh. Mind if I try?” she asked. He handed the tome to her; she failed to pry it open, even after she carefully ran a claw along the edges of the pages to see if they were somehow simply stuck together.

Gale looked at the tome. “May I examine it?” Lena handed him the book. Gale flipped it over a few times, uttered a few incantations that caused the book to glow briefly, but nothing opened it. “It’s magicked shut, which aligns with what I know of Thayan necromancers and their predilection for secrecy. I suspect that it’s missing a key of some sort,” he said as he handed the book back to Astarion, “Perhaps a stone for the mouth that matches the eyes.”

Astarion tucked the book into his bawbag. “In that case I’ll hold onto it in case we find it. Otherwise, we can probably sell it for a decent amount of coin.”

Lena nodded. “Let’s move on.”

---

They entered what used to be a smithy and found a hole in the floor large enough to drop a truck through, except covered in an extremely thick layer of spider webbing covered in a thick layer of dust. Lena plucked at the silk with a single claw with an audible twang and sending a cloud of dust into the air.

“Why did you do that, k’chakhi?” Lae’zel demanded. She coughed and waved the dust away from her face.

Lena coughed and backed away from the dust. “Checking to see how strong that silk is. You might want to loot elsewhere or take a rest because I’m going to collect some.” Her companions moved further away and began searching the rest of the smithy as she dampened a clean rag with a jug of water from her bawbag then tied the rag over her nose and mouth as she carefully began severing several strands with a knife and gathering them into careful balls. After she collected a number of balls, she carefully stowed them in her bawbag, except for one that she fidgeted with.

“What will you going to do with those?” Gale asked as he approached her.

“I’m not sure yet. I also don’t know what made that massive web: we get something similar at home, but it’s spiderlings ballooning, landing en mass, and covering everything in very fine and relatively weak silk. This stuff, though, is a lot thicker and stronger that I’m used to seeing.”

“Faerun is home to a number of large spiders, such as giant wolf spiders, phase spiders, and mammoth spiders, though those tend to be rare because of the availability of prey.”

“When you say ‘large,’ how large is ‘large?’” Lena asked.

“Oh, giant wolf spiders grow up to about two meters from fang to spinnerets. Phase spiders, if I recall, can grow up to three meters, while mammoth spiders reach six, easily.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose up. “Any thoughts on which of those could’ve made the webbing here?”

Gale shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. There might be some differing alchemical properties to the silk, but I lack the knowledge to use those to identify a specific species.”

“Do you think the spiders wiped out the village?” she asked.

He rubbed his chin. “I think the odds are rather high. Though we haven’t found an egress point where they can emerge. I suggest we wipe out the nest or we stay very far away when it gets dark. Especially now that we've more or less wiped out what would have been a steady food source from the goblins.”

“Pity they didn’t seem to pick off many of them,” Lena remarked.

“They are probably intelligent enough to only snatch one or two at a time or risk getting overwhelmed,” Gale surmised. "We shouldn't underestimate them."

---

They joined the others in a forge that lay underneath the webbing, though the room itself was oddly free of webs.

Shadowheart approached Lena with a few journals and notes. “We’ve found what appear to be plans describing how to forge a ‘legendary weapon’ using sussar bark.”

Lena blinked. “What’s sussar bark, and do any of us have blacksmithing experience?”

Gale shook his head, and Shadowheart said “no.”

“Okay, we’ll just keep this around and if we head back to the grove maybe we can get the blacksmith there to make it for us,” Lena said.

Shadowheart nodded and stowed the items. They continued sifting the smithy for goods until Wyll called Lena over. “I think I feel air flowing from between the stone,” he said as he pointed to a wall that shouldn’t have an adjacent room.”

Lena sniffed the wall. “You’re right. This smells different.” She extended her claws and began digging at the stones until a portion of the wall collapsed leading to a cave. She sniffed the air. “I think we found our spider’s nest.”

The rest of the group gathered around the hole. “Should we enter now?” Lae’zel asked.

“Not yet; these spiders are at least intelligent enough to avoid letting goblins overrun them,” Gale said. “We need a strategy unless we want to be picked off and eaten.”

---

Wyll picked up a goblin arm and stowed it in a sack. “In all my years wandering through the frontiers, I never thought I’d be collecting goblin parts.”

“I can’t say I expecting anything of the sort, either,” Gale replied. He hoisted the sack over his shoulder and headed over to where Lae’zel, Lena, and Shadowheart hoisted bawbags full of mostly-whole goblin corpses onto their backs. “I think we’re at capacity,” he said.

“I do not care for subterfuge,” Lae’zel spat. “We should be rushing into battle, not playing games.”

Shadowheart gave her a grim smile. “Then I shall enjoy lording your death by giant spiders over you when we ask Withers to resurrect you.”

“Chk. It would be a noble death over this sneaking like cowardly prey animals.”

Lena audibly inhaled and everyone winced. Satisfied that the bickering had been put on pause for a little while longer, she started heading back to the entrance to the spiders’ lair.

Astarion waited for them, having scoped out parts of the cave system. He drew a crude map on smithy floor with a bit of charcoal. “The cave has a number of spires connected by spider webs,” he said, sketching out bridge-like webs. “I found at least one ettercap keeping watch over a nest of phase spiders, including a matriarch with a clutch of eggs here and here.” He marked out the locations with X’s.

“What’s an ettercap?” Lena asked.

Shadowheart shuddered. “Think of a person, except they have spider-like eyes and fangs, and can shoot webbing and poison from their mouths.”

Lena scrunched up her face in disgust. “But spiders don’t shoot webbing from their mouths…”

“There’s a theory that they are descendants of the drow spider goddess Lolth’s most fervent worshipers,” Gale interjected. “Another has it that they were druids who went mad and chose to permanently transform into these monstrosities. Either way, the poison causes paralysis that can last up to an hour — long enough for one to cocoon a still-living victim.”

Lena scrunched her nose. “I think I saw a movie along those lines, but it was about some dude accidentally turning into a humanoid fly who vomited acid that could dissolve hands and feet.”

“What’s a ‘movie?’” Wyll asked.

“It’s like a play, only it’s a recording that you could watch over and over,” she replied. “If we all survive, I might still have one on my phone that I can show you.” She looked over at entrance. “We ready?” Everyone else nodded.

She stepped through the hole in the wall followed by the rest of the party. They first encountered the ettercap on a spire with two web bridges leading to and from. Lena pointed to a location on the ledges the clambered on, and pointed for each to take position, with Lae’zel and Shadowheart closest to the bridge between them and the spire. Then each of them started tossing body parts onto the bridge and the spire, distracting the ettercap while Lena tunneled to the bridge entrance. As the ettercap took an interest in the bloody goblin pieces and ventured onto the bridge, Lena threw a whole-ish goblin within grabbing distance onto the web bridge with a piece of spider silk tied to its neck and started strumming at the silk. The ettercap hissed and rushed to the goblin corpse, where Lena grabbed it by its ankle and dragged it into her tunnel to dispatch with a knife between its eyes.

They all stayed still as they heard skittering through the cavern. When the skittering stopped, Lena dragged the ettercap out of the hole where they collected the poison sac, and Lena carefully removed sacs that she suspected were for the webbing, which she carefully tied off and placed in an empty bottle.

They repeated this for the two adult phase spiders they discovered deeper in the cavern, though this time Lena also collected the legs, an oddly shaped glowing chitinous organ that seemed to spin on its own, and portions of the chitin exoskeletons, scraping as much of the meat from them before stowing them. She also instructed them to coat their boots in the saliva as a way to keep them from sticking to the stray webbing they encountered.

“How did you learn to do this?” Gale asked.

“Scientists back home asked the question ‘how do spiders not get caught in their own webs?’ and licking their little claws was how,” Lena replied.

He gave her a puzzled look. “And why did you learn this?”

“Ooo, this is going to be tricky to explain.” She pondered it for a few moments. “It’s like having a librarian living in a box in your home who has access to a vast collection of things like books, magazines, and newspapers, but collects information on your interests and reading habits and hands you books or newspapers on subjects that they think you might want to know, even if you don't ask for it. But the librarian isn’t a person but a series of algorithms designed to pique your interest and make you see ads in the middle of the book you’re trying to read.”

Gale frowned. “I like the idea of readily available information catered to me, but I don’t like the idea that it’s solely for the purpose of selling me something.”

Lena made a wry expression. “It’s home.”

They made their way to the phase spider matriarch and her egg clutches and tried repeating their trap, only this time the matriarch was far too large for Lena to stab it through deep enough to reach its ganglion and it phased away while she tried to push her knife in deeper. “Fuck!” she muttered as she climbed out of her tunnel and heard it hiss at a clutch of eggs that suddenly hatched a half-dozen little spiderlings.

Astarion immediately started volleying arrows at the matriarch until it spat poison in a stream of poison at him, which he only narrowly dodged. Wyll blasted the matriarch with a beam of energy while Gale threw balls of light at it before both were enveloped in webbing. Lae’zel dashed across the silk bridge and stabbed it through with her sword while it was distracted, but was soon overrun by skittering bite-happy spiderlings.

“Lae’zel!” Shadowheart cried as she saw Lae’zel drop, then rushed across the bridge, followed by Lena, both of them bashing and squishing spiderlings until they finally stopped moving.

Shadowheart knelt down by Lae’zel and cast a restoration spell. Lae’zel gasped as the effects of the venom wore off, and Shadowheart helped her sit up. “Are you alright?” Shadowheart asked.

“I am well, istik,” Lae’zel snapped, though her tone slightly less caustic than before.

Shadowheart hovered over her. “Let me heal your wounds.”

Lae’zel waved her away. “Without venom these wounds are mere scratches. I have no need for your healing.” She stood and walked off.

Astarion, Gale, and Wyll joined Lena and Shadowheart, passing Lae’zel as they walked across the bridge. Astarion had a cheery smile on his face as he looked at Shadowheart. “I daresay that you two are getting along fabulously. Have you decided on a date for the wedding?”

Shadowheart glared at him and gave him the finger.

Chapter Text

Gale helped Lena as she dissected the phase spider monarch’s corpse; removing legs, tying off the web sacs and the poison sacks, extracting a third larger glowing chitinous organ from within its abdomen, the ‘roe,’ as well as a robe somehow tucked in between the cephalothorax and the abdomen.

“How did this get here?” Lena asked, handing the crusty yet otherwise interact robe over the Gale to examine.

“From my experience dungeon delving, you can find many strange things mostly in the creatures because they’ve eaten another adventurer; most magical items will remain intact but lodged in the stomach for quite a long time before showing signs of deterioration.” Gale muttered a short incantation that cleaned the robe, revealing a spider web pattern.

Lena shot him a puzzled look. “So how long is ‘long?’” She had managed to slice the chitin covering the abdomen into segments about two yards long and a yard wide and started scraping the gore off of the interior, flicking the gunk away from them.

“I would guess up to a century, depending on the creatures’ lifespan. Most creatures large enough to consume the adventurer whole can ‘stow’ large magical items in their stomachs without suffering ill effects.” He cast a few more incantations over the robe, causing it to glow briefly each time. “I do believe we have a poisoner’s robe.”

“What’s it do?”

“Magic users who wear it are immune to poisonings, and should they cast spells intending to poison their targets will find them more potent.” He looked over at the flensed translucent chitin panels Lena began stowing. “What do you intend to do with those?”

“Chitin is supposed to pretty strong for its weight, so I figure we can take these panels and the webbing sacs over to that tiefling blacksmith Wyll mentioned and see if they can make armor out of it.” Lena began looked over the spider’s eyes and picked one off to reveal a clear magnifying lens. She handed the lens over and began removing another. “What do think? Useful?”

Gale cast a few more spells over it. “I do believe these can see through invisibility.”

"I suppose I should go back to the other carcasses and collect their lenses, though how do you manage to see if you're invisible?" Lena asked.

Before Gale could answer, Wyll called them over to an alcove where he held up a small tome. “I found something interesting about our spider matriarch,” he said as Gale and Lena approached. “Looks like she was a high elf who was enslaved by some drow followers of Lolth and became a follower, then a fanatic.” He pointed to a smeared diagram in the book he held open. “From what I can read, these are for a ritual to turn herself into a spider.”

“Fascinating. We found a robe that may have belonged to her,” Gale said as Wyll handed him the book.

Lena looked into her bawbag and took out a spider leg. “Should I feel bad that I’m planning on cooking these up with dinner tonight?”

Wyll looked at the spider leg and started to turn a little green, while Gale pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand and sighed. “No, I don’t imagine our former high elf managed to retain enough intelligence after her transformation for you to suffer any undue moral distress about eating parts of her, or her brood.” He looked down at the page. “It looks like the ritual was meant to be permanent.”

Lena nodded and stowed the leg again.

“You’re really planning on eating those?” Wyll asked.

“Yeah.” Lena pointed at her chest. “Honey badger, remember? We eat pretty much everything that crawls, flies, slithers, runs, or swims. And that includes arachnids like spiders and scorpions. And spiders taste like crab.” She gave Wyll a fang-filled grin.

Wyll ran out the alcove and began to retch when Astarion appeared. “What’s wrong with Wyll?”

“Lena gave him a short primer on the dietary limits of honey badgers; or rather, the lack thereof,” Gale explained.

“Ah." Astarion's eyes darkened and his lips flattened. "I’m guessing that those spider legs you’ve been gathering aren’t merely for some sort of bizarre crafting project,” he said in a clipped voice.

“No, they’re dinner for anyone willing to eat ‘em,” Lena replied.

“I think I shall pass,” Astarion said.

Lena and Gale looked at him with mild surprise. “I wasn't expecting you to because I didn’t think you could eat solids,” Lena remarked. "I suppose you could suck out the hemolymph, but you mentioned that 'higher' animals seem to sustain you more.

“No, I might have to stay in my tent if you eat those anywhere near me. I neither want to see nor hear you when you eat those." Astarion saw the questions and concerns in his companions' eyes and felt the need to explain. He gave himself a moment to compose himself before speaking again. "My master would only occasionally allow me to feed, but only from the things he would allow me and nothing else. He would play games, asking if I wanted to feed from the people I brought him, and if I said yes, he would have me flogged or I would be compelled to flog myself. And if I said no, he would fling a putrid rat toward me, and I would have to bow and scrape in gratitude before I was allowed to eat. The burning need for blood would get so strong that I would resort to insects I could scavenge when he wasn't looking.”

"Do you want me to not eat them?” she asked.

"No." He sighed. "I know it's not fair to you, but it's very stomach-churning to me."

Gale and Lena went silent, and Lena gave him a tentative pat on the shoulder. “Need a hug?” she asked.

Astarion looked taken aback. ‘What? No! I don’t need a hug!” He looked at Lena’s concerned expression and debated with himself before he finally relented. “Okay, fine.”

She gave him a bear hug, holding him until she felt him relax and return her embrace. After a while, he sighed. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“You remember my promise: I will fight that shit stain who calls himself your master. Even if I die, I will make him hurt,” she said quietly. She felt him nod and let go.

Astarion straightened himself and cleared his throat before noticing Gale looking at them curiously. “I’ll leave Lena to explain,” he said and he walked away.

He approached Lena. “May I inquire what that was about?”

Lena’s lips pinched. “Remember what the hag was saying to Astarion about his master before I cracked her skull open like a coconut?”

“I admit that I only vaguely remember: she took me off guard with her revelations about me. But I have a sense it was crude and terrible,” Gale said.

“His master had been compelling him into a sort of prostitution to lure victims into becoming meals. I refuse to ask him for details until he’s ready to tell me—if ever—but I won’t allow his master to continue abusing him or anyone else,” she said, her voice tinged with determination. Gale gathered her into a tight embrace, which she returned. “You aren’t jealous, are you?”

“Not really, though I wonder if you would fight for me as fiercely as you would for Astarion,” Gale admitted.

“Vampires seem doable because I've read or heard so many stories at home about how to kill them that I figured a few of them might be true, but how do you fight a goddess? How do you make a goddess feel any remorse or stop them from hurting her own followers?”

"I don't quite understand why you feel such animosity toward my goddess, given this predicament was my own doing; pushing her into allowing me to explore the Outer Plane, and then trying to get back into her good graces with what turned out to be the orb."

"But why did she show you the Outer Plane to begin with? Or for that matter, why go from teacher to lover? Can't she find another god, or better yet a mystic dildo to fill those needs?" Lena asked.

Gale choked a bit. "That was a visual I wasn't sure I wanted."

Lena held him tighter. "If I could put her on a 'sexual offenders' list and have her pay reparations I would. Or beat the shit out of her. Beating the shit out of her would be so satisfying, but she's a fucking deity and I don't know what to do."

Gale gave the side of Lena’s head a kiss as she breathed in his library scent. She turned to look into his warm brown eyes and she felt her lips part when—

“Has anyone seen Lae’zel?” Shadowheart called from outside the alcove.

Gale and Lena’s shoulders drooped. “And the moment has passed,” Lena said.

Shadowheart popped her head in. “Oh good, you haven’t caused Gale to explode.”

“Not yet,” Gale muttered. Lena buried her head into the crook of his neck and giggled.

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. And this isn’t the time or place to engage in sex.” She looked around the filthy alcove and frowned. “Though I would seriously question your tastes if you tried in here. One of you is bound to catch something.”

Gale cleared his throat. “So you were saying about Lae’zel?”

“I will assume that neither of you have seen her since she nearly got herself killed with those spiderlings.”

Lena sighed and moved away from Gale. “We’ll help look for her. She’s probably annoyed that she didn’t nearly get herself killed earlier on those other spiders.” She and Gale headed toward Shadowheart and joined in the search.

---

Shadowheart climbed a rope that connected to a well in the center of the village and found Lae’zel sitting on a log nearby.

“Where were you?” Shadowheart demanded. “You disappeared on us after killing the spider matriarch.”

“Are you here to gloat over how I nearly died from those mere spiderlings?” Lae’zel spat.

“No, I’m here to scold you for leaving us, especially because you refused to let me heal your wounds.”

Lae’zel opened her arms and gestured to herself. “As you can see, I am fine, istik.”

“But you still shouldn’t have left and for so long.”

“Worried that I wasn’t looting enough for your tastes?” Lae’zel sneered.

She sat down next Lae’zel. “Are you upset that you nearly got killed by doing exactly what I warned you not to do?”

“I am a warrior of Creche K’liir.” Lae’zel snarled. “I should not have been so injured by such small prey.”

“There were so very many of them. And they crawled all over you before you could strike. There’s no shame to being overwhelmed, especially since you were the one who dealt the death-blow to the matriarch,” Shadowheart said softly.

Lae’zel stared out in front of her. “I do not like feeling weak,” she admitted.

“No one said you were.” She sat quietly with Lae’zel until they heard Wyll call for them.

“Oh good, you found her,” he said slightly out of breath.

“As you can see I am well,” Lae’zel replied.

Wyll turned back to where he came and shouted, “FOUND THEM!”

In the distance, they could hear Astarion shout, “WYLL’S FOUND THEM!”

From even further away, they heard Lena bellow, “GOOD!”

Shadowheart groaned and stood. “Come on, Lae’zel. Let’s get back or we’ll never hear the end of it.”

Chapter Text

They after they finished searching the spider’s lair, they continued searching out dead goblins to loot while there was still daylight. As they probed deeper into the village, Shadowheart approached Lena. “I heard someone, but they sound injured. Shall we investigate?”

Lena nodded. “Let’s go. Are goblins known for feints or cons?” They started walking toward the sound of pained moaning.

“Not unless they’re directed by someone much smarter, and their performances would make Astarion’s ‘there’s a brain-thing over there, kill it’ act look like Fencas Brenturim’s.”

Lena looked puzzled. “Who?”

“Famous human actor in Baldur’s Gate. She really makes her roles come alive, especially when she performs as Oberon in ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream.’” Shadowheart had a slightly dreamy look on her face.

“Wait, but that’s a play from my world, my reality. Who’s credited as the author here?” Lena asked.

Shadowheart looked alarmed. “Vilamie Snakebeard. And on your world?”

“William Shakespeare.” The two women gave each other baffled looks, then said “Huh” in unison.

---

They reached a rotating windmill where a small unconscious bald man with blueish-black skin had been strapped to one of the rotating blades.

“Quick, we need to get that deep gnome down so I can heal him,” Shadowheart urged Lena.

Lena nodded. “On it.” She shucked her boots and leapt onto the windmill blade with the gnome and clung on with a knee and an arm wrapped around the blade’s supporting frame. “Remind me to find or commission a pair of boots like Lae’zels so I don’t have to keep taking them off when I need to use my claws.”

“You could always steal Lae’zel’s,” Shadowheart suggested.

“Hell no,” Lena said. “She seems a little down right now, so I’d rather not aggravate her.” She sawed through the rope holding the little man to the windmill blade, then carefully lowered him down by his arm to Shadowheart as the windmill blade reached its nadir before hopping down.

Shadowheart laid him on the ground to assess his injuries, then cast a healing spell. “He was dehydrated and had some swelling on his brain from the rotations that I managed to treat, but I want to take him to Nettie so we can complete his healing somewhere relatively safe.”

“Do you have him, or shall I carry him?” Lena asked as she pulled her boots back on.

“He’s not especially heavy, so I’ll do it.” Shadowheart lifted the gnome in a bridal carry and they walked back to the others.

Astarion raised an eyebrow when he spotted Shadowheart carrying the gnome as they approached and then asked, “Are we to be graced with yet another camp pet?”

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “He needs additional healing, so we should head to the grove.”

Astarion frowned, so Lena poked him in the arm. “Ow! That hurt!” He swatted at the offending digit.

Lena jerked her head toward the closest portal. “We’re going. Besides, we have shitty goblin gear we can either sell for scrap or use to make more extra blades or arrows.” Then she added in a sing-song voice, “I bet some of the spider parts I found can also be used to make some semi-decent equipment that I might be willing to share with a certain Mr. Grumpy Elf.”

He glared at Lena, unamused. “Fine. Just never use that voice on me again. And never call me that again.”

“I promise nothing,” she hissed.

---

The gathered party used the portal to travel to the grove where Lae’zel accompanied Shadowheart to take the gnome to Nettie.

Lena looked around. “So where’s this blacksmith?” she asked Wyll.

“Next to the enormous pit of hot coals and the anvil?” Wyll replied, pointing to a blond tiefling in a leather apron right in front of her.

Lena blinked. “I don’t know how I missed that.”

“I don’t know, either,” Wyll replied. He approached the blacksmith. “Greetings, Dammon.”

“Wyll, well met. Come to give the young ones another lesson?” Dammon asked Wyll.

“I’m afraid it’s a little late in the day to teach them anything. Instead, I would like to introduce you to my new companions: we have a few items that we would like either sell or barter as well as a few materials that we would like for you to assess.” Wyll introduced the remaining party, and they disgorged some of their looted items as well as some of the spider parts that Lena had collected onto a tarp on the ground.

“The goblin-made pieces aren’t worth much, though I can probably rework them into smaller daggers and knives. And the plans for this 'masterwork weapon' shouldn't be a problem for me if you can source a suitably large piece of sussar bark,” Dammon said. “Though I haven’t worked much with spider parts. What were you thinking of doing with them?”

Lena looked over the chitin pieces. “I was thinking of making some of the larger pieces could be made into a lightweight armor; a bit like leather armor, only with the chitin replacing the leather. And I’ve seen people soak chitin in water to soften it before working it into shape.”

The smith rubbed his chin. “That might be doable. Though from looking at the individual pieces, they are rather flimsy.”

Lena pointed at some of the tied webbing sacs. ‘I know that most spider species have a separate sac to add glue droplets to their silk to make it sticky, so some of these will hopefully contain a glue that can be used to laminate pieces together.”

“That might just work,” Dammon conceded.

“Just don’t get it on your hands,” Lena held up a reddened hand with dirty brown patches with two of the fingers still partially stuck together. “I don’t have any more spider spit after I cleaned the glue off my fingers from a leaky sac.”

Astarion snorted.

Dammon blinked. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“What about these?” Gale asked, lifting the lenses for the eyes. “Could you craft these into some sort of spectacles?”

Dammon looked examined the lens. “These are interesting. What kind of spider did you get these from?”

“Phase spiders,” Gale replied.

Dammon searched through the items until he found the three glowing chinitous organs Lena had harvested. “These should be what allowed the spiders the phase between the material and the ethereal plane. I can incorporate these two into a pair of boots that can allow the wearer to walk through the ethereal plane for a few seconds twice a day.” He then held up the third from the matriarch’s carcass. “This one is a little bit too damaged and is unpaired, but I might try to incorporate it into a blade so the wielder can phase for a few seconds once a day.”

Lena’s face turned thoughtful. “What would happen if someone were to phase into someone else?”

Gale looked at her. “How do you mean?”

“If I were to step into someone’s position so that we’re occupying the same space, but then I phase back into the material plane, what would happen?” she asked, her face hopeful.

Gale shook his head. “You can’t. You can move through objects as though they aren’t there in the ethereal plane, but you won’t be able to rematerialize.”

Lena’s face fell. “Damn it! I was hoping I could phase into a person and make them explode.”

Astarion’s eyebrows rose. “It’s a shame that’s not possible, I would’ve been so entertained by that ability. Can you imagine all the blood and viscera?” A vicious grin stretched across his face.

Lena looked at him. “I know! Right? It’d be like shoving a firecracker into a watermelon! Though cleanup would be a pain in the ass.”

“You are romantically involved with a wizard: he could potentially magic it away,” Astarion said. He and Lena looked at Gale with unsettling grins.

Gale sighed. “No, I am not you personal cleaning service. And it’s not possible, so stop imagining it.”

“But whhhyyyy?” Lena whined. “Why won’t you let us have our gory fantasies?”

“Because they’re not possible. Wouldn’t you two rather focus on feasible means of butchering your enemies?” Gale asked.

“Because this is more fun!” Astarion answered.

As the three bickered, Dammon leaned over to Wyll. “Are you sure you want to travel with them? You’re more than welcome to stay with us on our way to Baldur’s Gate.”

“They agreed to help me clear the roads of the goblins, and I feel they offer the best chance of success.”

Dammon looked over as Astarion and Lena peppered Gale with increasingly impractical and improbable scenarios of gruesomely killing people..

“What about shooting them with a highly-directed wind spell to inflate them?” Astarion asked.

“Ooo, and if you add bees to the wind spell, you can shoot people with bees! Or better still, giant killer wasps!” Lena added.

"Could you make a spell that inflates someone and fills them with bees?" Astarion asked.

Lena pointed at Astarion with her mouth agape. "Yes! And the bees could sting them from the inside!"

Gale sighed and dropped his face into his hands. “No, I refuse to craft new evocation spells because without a proper testing environment they can cause untold side effects without magical buffering. Also, all your suggestions thus far have been ridiculous.”

Dammon looked back at Wyll. “Are you sure?”

---

Wyll managed to secure a commission with Dammon for a pair of phase-walking boots, two sets of goggles, some new light armor made from spider chitin, a number of new arrows, and extra daggers before Lena noticed that Dammon was about to start work and shouted that she wanted new boots with open toes, which involved her shedding a boot and raising her foot to head-height to show Dammon her claws. Dammon, to his credit, only winced when he saw claws extending from her toes a meter from his face. He also agreed to do the commission at the price of their remaining goblin blades and spider chitin, saying that he could complete everything within three days.

“That was generous,” Gale remarked.

“He frequently has trouble sleeping, so it works for him to keep busy,” Wyll replied.

“Speaking of sleep,” Lena interjected, “Did any of you get any weird dreams about someone in armor telling you to use the magical maggot powers for an upcoming fight?”

“As a matter of fact, I did have one last night, only it was a beautiful human woman,” Gale said. Lena raised an eyebrow. “Nothing compared to you, of course,” he added hastily.

Lena shrugged. “I got Chris Evans, so I’m not one to talk.”

“I dreamt of a very tall and handsome tiefling man,” Astarion added.

“I had a similar dream, only it was a lovely gnomish woman,” Wyll said with a wistful expression. They all looked at Wyll. “What?” They continued to stare. Wyll began to blush. “I like their ears.”

“I don't want to 'yuck' on your 'yum' and I don’t know how interbreeding worked between the different humanoid species here, but I do NOT envy that gnome,” Lena said.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart joined them. “How goes our patient?” Gale asked.

“He’s conscious,” Shadowheart said. “His name is Barcus Wroot, recently of Baldur’s Gate. Apparently he’s looking for a friend of his who disappeared. He also said that he would restart his search in the Underdark as soon as Nettie clears him to leave.”

Wyll whistled. “That’s a very loyal friend to have come all this way, and to search the Underdark.”

“How far away are we from the Gate?” Astarion asked.

“About two ten-days by foot, by my reckoning,” Wyll replied.

Astarion sighed. Lena gave him a pat on the shoulder. “There, there,” she said. “Just remember that unlike the rest of us, you’re no longer a target for mosquitoes because you’re the wrong body temperature and you don’t need to breathe. Though the gnats probably still love you.” He gave her the side-eye when she grinned.

Shadowheart snorted. “Come on, let’s go to camp. Maybe Scratch and that little owlbear cub are there.”

Chapter Text

When they reached camp, Shadowheart rushed forward. “Scratch!” she said, and crouched down to let him sniff her hand then proceeded to give him a scrap of food. He ate the scrap, then sat up to receive pets and scratches from Shadowheart, Lena, and Wyll.

In mid-pet, Shadowheart blanched and hissed, standing before looking down at a scar on her hand.

“Are you okay?” Lena asked.

“It’s nothing,” Shadowheart replied.

Wyll looked up from rubbing the dog’s face. “Are you sure? You’ve gone pale.”

“Well, pale-r,” Lena remarked. “I take it you can’t heal that scar?”

“No. It’s a burden from my goddess. I can feel her influence when it flares and the pain rips through me,” Shadowheart said.

“What sort of goddess would force her followers to endure such a thing? And why?” Wyll asked.

Shadowheart shook her head. “It is not for me to question my goddess’s decision. And I cannot say as I cannot recall; many of my memories have been erased in her service.”

Lena and Wyll looked at each other before turning back to Shadowheart. “I don’t think your goddess is any better than Gale’s,” Lena said.

Shadowheart narrowed her eyes at Lena. “And I would advise you to neither compare nor judge deities. My goddess is nothing like Gale’s.”

Lena blinked. “Uh, okay. I guess I’m glad your goddess lets you heal us?”

Shadowheart crossed her arms. “I’m sure my goddess appreciates your gratitude.” Scratch whined, then sat facing her and looked up at her face.

“He says he doesn’t like that you’re in pain,” Wyll said.

Shadowheart’s expression softened, then she knelt next to the dog and hugged him. “Thank you, Scratch. That’s very kind of you to worry.” She looked over at Lena and Wyll. “The pain passes quickly. And I can tolerate it because it has meaning: the pain gives way to loss and that loss leads to peace, as taught by my goddess.”

Lena hesitated. “So what causes your goddess to inflict pain?”

Shadowheart began to absently give Scratch scratches behind his ears. “I really don’t know. But I’m sure that my Lady will reveal it when the time is right. For now, all I can do is endure.”

Lena gave Shadowheart an awkward smile. “I’ll go and see about setting up a movie so we can all watch if we want to.” Shadowheart nodded as she returned to petting and hugging Scratch. As Lena walked away, she let her eyes go wide and mouthed the word crazy.

---

“Gale, you seem like someone who’s at least kind to animals: Why aren’t you joining them in getting your face licked by something that cleans its anus with its tongue?” Astarion asked.

“I’m afraid I’m not one for rambunctious play. Also, my tressym, Tara, would be most displeased if she smelled dog on me. What about you, Lae’zel?”

“I see no purpose in keeping such a creature,” Lae’zel said. “It will only serve as rations in an emergency.”

Astarion and Gale stared at Lae’zel.

Lena ducked into her tent and then approached Gale with her phone tethered to her charger. “Oh hey, I was thinking that I could play a movie tonight from my phone, but the screen’s tiny and the sound won’t carry. Do you have any spells that could magnify both the image and the audio?” She powered on her phone and had it play some music she’d downloaded before being kidnapped so Gale could hear the audio quality—or rather, the lack thereof. Astarion and Gale both winced.

“Is this the sort of thing you listen to regularly on your world?” Gale asked.

Lena raised an eyebrow. “What, you don’t like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs?”

“I like it,” Lae’zel said. “I find the beat compelling.”

Astarion looked at Lae’zel. “Of course you do.”

“Gale, do you think you can magic this to look bigger and sound louder?” Lena asked.

“Yes,” he said, “but I don’t think I can concentrate with such….” He trailed off at trying to describe what he heard.

“Rhythmic?” Lena asked.

“I was thinking more ‘primal,’” Gale replied.

“Oh, I got some Primus. It’s older and my one of my uncles introduced them to me.” She played “Tommy the Cat.” Gale looked like he was about to cry in pain. Astarion started to laugh. Lae’zel nodded.

Lena patted Gale on the shoulder. “Okay, I think I’ve fucked with you enough. I have Bach’s Goldberg Variations; that should be calming enough for you.” She played with the interface and piano music started to play.

Gale sighed. “Much better. Thank you.” She handed her phone and the charger over to him. “It shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. I think I can have something working well before nightfall.”

“Thank you!” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and he turned bright red. She turned to Astarion. “Let’s get the hunting out of the way and feed you so we can all enjoy the movie tonight.”

“You really like the idea of this ‘movie,’ don’t you?” Astarion asked.

Lena hopped from one foot to the other, clapping. “It’s showing all of you something new, and I get to lord it over you that I have—no, had—access to technology that you don’t because I don’t normally have access to the type of magic that you do.”

Astarion cocked a wry smile at her and tousled her hair. “I’ll take your word for it.” She swatted at his hand.

Lae’zel looked at them. “Then who shall prepare tonight’s meal?”

“We have some preserved meat. If you can cut it up while I attempt to magnify this ‘phone’ I can prepare a stew for tonight,” Gale said.

Lae’zel frowned. “Why can I not hunt with Astarion and Lena help with the preparation?”

“Oh, I also give Astarion about a pint of my own blood,” Lena said, “just to make sure he’s topped off for tomorrow. Did you want to do that?”

“YOU WHAT?” Gale shouted.

Lena raised an eyebrow. “I do have accelerated healing, including from blood loss. And unlike the myths, it’s about as erotic as listening to a wet fart.” After a moment, she added, "For the record, I am NOT into farts, wet or otherwise."

Astarion frowned at Lena. "A 'wet fart?' Seriously?" Gale glared at Astarion. Astarion leaned back and held his hands up. “It’s purely platonic, I assure you.”

“Would you like to watch?” She rolled up a sleeve on a linen shirt she wore under her armor.

Gale gawked. “Are you saying he’s feeding from your arm, and not your neck?”

Lena nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’m not stupid enough to risk bleeding out from my jugular, or worse my carotid.”

Gale sighed and put his his head into his hands. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Astarion puffed up slightly and motioned to himself. “I’m such a beautiful man that it’s only natural to be jealous when your not-quite-lover spends any time with me.”

Gale glared at Astarion from between his fingers. Lena pinched the bridge of her nose. “Ugh. I love you like a brother, Astarion, so please stop. And if Gale not-quite-breaks up with me, teasing him would just be awkward instead of fun.”

Astarion deflated. “Fine.”

Lena looked over at Gale. “Are we good?” she asked softly.

Gale rubbed his hands over his face and hung his head. “I’m sorry for my outburst. That was uncalled for.”

Lena tentatively wrapped her arms around him, and after a beat he hugged her back.

“Chk. Is this normal for istik matings?” Lae’zel asked. “This seems like a great deal of drama for just sex.

Astarion looked at her. “I really don’t know.”

---

After dishing out stew and circulating a few bottles of wine, Lena started up an English dub of “My Neighbor Totoro.” She sat leaning against Gale and she started bobbing her head along to the theme song.

Shadowheart sat with Scratch’s head on her lap, Lae’zel sat near her, but not quite next to her. Wyll sat on a log, and Astarion lounged on a bedroll he pulled from his tent, swigging wine.

“How does this ‘movie’ get the drawings to move?” Gale whispered.

“Shh! I’ll explain later. Just enjoy it for now,” Lena whispered back.

Further behind the party and deeper in the shadows, Withers watched along with a faintly bemused smile on his face.

Chapter Text

By the closing credits, Lena had snuggled up to Gale with his arm wrapped around her shoulders, Wyll had an enormous grin on his face, and Lae’zel seemed slightly confused. Lena looked toward Astarion and Shadowheart and noticed they both seemed somewhat troubled and contemplative: Astarion picked at the label on his now-empty bottle of wine, while Shadowheart absently stroked Scratch’s chin.

“Is this a typical ‘movie’ for istiks?” Lae’zel asked.

“No,” Lena answered, “This one is considered a classic of the anime genre and I think it was mostly meant for children when it was released about … thirty, thirty-five years ago.”

“Do most children on your world live like that?” Wyll asked.

Lena shook her head. “No. This is a romanticized version of agrarian life, and was based very loosely on the director’s own experience of being sent to the countryside while his mother recovered from tuberculosis. I believe his own father was an academic so the family didn’t need to rely on farming to make a living.”

“That’s a shame,” Wyll said. “I wish more children could have a life like that in Baldur’s Gate.”

“It’s very much idealized, so I doubt many people have had childhoods like that at all,” Lena said.

“Why were the young not engaged in combat training?” Lae’zel asked. “The githyanki are trained to become warriors for our immortal queen, Vlaakith, from a young age. Those who fail in their training are culled as they cannot contribute to our species’ honor or survival.” Everyone stared at her.

“That seems a bit harsh,” Gale remarked. “Wouldn’t their parents object to having their children sentenced to death?”

“We do not have ‘parents’ as you do,” Lae’zel replied. “Rather, Vlaakith decides who among us, a shu’kyani, to lay eggs that are then hatched in the material plane and raised by a varsh within a creche.”

Lena looked at Lae’zel, confused. “So your queen tells a gith with ovaries to fuck a gith with testicles to produce eggs?”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “No, k’chakhi, Vlaakith can decide that any among us will lay eggs. It means I can engage in carnal activities without the possibility of becoming gravid.”

Lena remained confused. “So you are all genetically clones of each other? Or are you all hermaphroditic and store sperm from each other when you have sex and then Vlaakith decides that the one with the most sperm needs to lay eggs? Or do you, like, lay eggs and someone else shoots their load over them like fish or frogs?”

Lae’zel glared at her, and low growl emanating from her. Everyone else stared at Lena.

“What?” Lena looked around. “I don’t have a handle of how reproduction works in a reality with magic. I have to go with what I’ve heard or read about.”

Gale gave her shoulder a squeeze. “That’s all very fascinating, Lae’zel. Lena, could you explain how the pictures move?”

Lena looked at Gale’s expression of please don’t ask any more questions because you’ll piss off the homicidal githyanki even more. She blinked. “Oh, right.” She got up and gave a quick explanation of how the movie consisted of a series of individual pictures that flashed quickly to trick the brain into interpreting it as movement, though all the digital artifacts from file compression made it harder to understand. She pulled up a video from the last Lunar New Year celebration and flipped through it frame by frame: the video showed her niece and nephew wrestling and punching each other over the last egg tart, not realizing that one of their baby cousins had taken it not long after their fight started.

Lae’zel nodded in approval. “I approve. This is the type of behavior that produces strong warriors: young ones fighting each other for supremacy.”

Gale blanched. “Were they okay after their tussle?”

Lena shrugged. “Shifters. It’s a good day when no one has to see a doctor to reattach a finger.”

Astarion snorted. Lena looked over at him. “You and Shadowheart have been awfully quiet. No commentary on the movie or on childhood and parenting?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it with a confused expression. “Honestly, I’ve been wracking my brains because watching that ‘movie’ felt both alien and familiar, but I can’t quite remember what it was like to be that small.”

“What do you remember?” Wyll asked.

Astarion thought for a moment. “Nothing. Just fleeting sensations. The only memories I have are from after I was turned, and even those seem to be a blur.” He winced.

“I have a similar issue, but I am sure I chose to forget in the service of my Lady,” Shadowheart said. “Perhaps it is best to be freed of the pain of reliving those memories.”

Gale looked thoughtful. “May I ask who you worship?”

Shadowheart looked at Gale. “I suppose I can tell you, but I worship Shar, the Lady of Loss.” She hissed and looked at her scar. Scratch whined and licked her face. Lae’zel's normally stoic expression took on a faintly concerned note.

Astarion, Gale, and Wyll looked at Shadowheart in surprise. Lena looked at them in confusion. “I don’t get it. What’s the matter?”

Gale cleared his throat. “My understanding is that Shar worship is largely hidden as some of the rituals and actions can be seen as somewhat less than … savory.”

Shadowheart straightened and gave Gale an imperious stare. “We tear down the lies the world is drunk on: the institutions they trust, the so-called gods they worship. The lives they cling to. We destroy false idols, topple corrupt organizations, fight heretics wherever they're found.”

“Yes, but Shar’s followers have a history of doing so by deliberately tearing apart families, corrupting politicians, and resorting to murder to gain followers,” Gale replied evenly. “Though you have not sowed distrust or discord among our party.”

“It’s a matter of practicality,” Shadowheart said. “I cannot fulfill my mission to Shar if I cannot survive, and I cannot survive if we do nothing but squabble amongst ourselves.”

Lena raised an eyebrow and opened her mouth, but Gale gave her shoulder a light squeeze to quiet her. “Then we shall continue to be excellent traveling companions. Shall we clean up and get ready for tomorrow?”

Wyll gave Gale a measured look and nodded. “We still need to defeat the goblins if we want to see if Halsin still lives,” he gave a quick look to Lae’zel, “as backup, of course, in case your creche isn’t willing to help non-githyankis.”

Lae’zel nodded. “Yes, let that be our course of action.” With that they all began tidying up their campsite and went to bed.

---

The next morning, they wandered through the village for a bit when Lena smelled the remains of some meat that had roasted over a fire until it had gone out, leaving a charred and overcooked chunk of gristle that had a gilded dagger stabbed into it. She grabbed the dagger and managed to slowly work it out of the oddly concrete-like meat before holding it up and shouting, “Whoso pulleth this knife from this mystery meat shall be monarch of this … small … hill!”

Astarion gave her a wry look. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘hillock,’ darling.”

“Or a hummock,” Gale added.

“Knoll,” Wyll suggested.

“Plateau,” Shadowheart said.

“Bluff.”

“Tor.”

“Foothill.”

“Upland—”

“Alright, fine!” Lena interrupted. “I get it, my vocabulary tends to be a bit limited. But in my defense I studied engineering so everything I use regularly tends to be technical jargon.” She cleaned the dagger, and smelled a bit of ozone beneath the funk of meat going bad.

“What sort of engineering did you study?” Gale asked. “Road building? Metallurgy? Mechanics?”

“Electrical engineering and computer science,” she replied, and handed the blade to Gale before she started to find a path down the small hill.

Gale examined the blade before handing it off to Astarion. “I have a few other items we don’t need so you should be able to make better use of it.”

“Thank you, darling.” Astarion examined the edge before replacing one of his daggers with the enchanted one.

“So what is ‘electrical engineering and computer science?’” Gale asked, following her lead down.

Lena had to pause. “Fuck, how the hell am I supposed to explain over two hundred years of technological and scientific advancement to a largely pre-industrial society?” Then she heard shouts coming from a barn nearby. “Oh good, a diversion! Let’s investigate so I can explain later.”

“Perhaps you can give me some rough idea,” Gale said as they walked.

“Uh, quick version: remember my phone?” Lena asked.

“Yes?”

“To play back a movie you have to have a set of instructions to take the data and play it back on the screen: the point at X and Y displays a color, say, a shade of blue at time, oh, three hundred seconds. Then at time three hundred seconds and forty milliseconds it displays a shade of green. Now you can take the same set of data for a movie and you can look at it and reinterpret it as just text: letters, numbers, symbols, and it would be unreadable garbage. Or you can try to reinterpret that data as a different set of instructions and parse it out as a series of points on a map, and it would be meaningless. So as a software engineer I make the instructions to interpret data.”

Gale thought about it for a second. “So a parallel might be for me casting a spell using the Weave, but depending on my intent, my gestures, or my incantations I can use the Weave to perform different tasks, and modifying any of those factors will produce different results.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “I guess they could be analogous.”

Gale gave her grin. “Perhaps I can teach you to wield magic, and you can show me more of your technology.”

Lena shook her head. “Unless I have a full computer it’ll be next to impossible for me to show you much with just my phone.”

Gale sighed. “But would you be amenable to more magic lessons?”

Lena bumped her shoulder against him and smiled at him. “I’d like that.”

“And that has to be the dullest pillowtalk I’ve ever overheard,” Astarion interrupted. Lena punched him in the arm. “Ow!" He rubbed his arms, then pointed at the barn door in front of them. "And I do believe there are occupants in this barn.”

Lena leaned close to the door to confirm it was what she heard earlier. Instead of shouts, there were now Suspicious Noises. Low, guttural, moaning noises. Lena winced. “Oooo, it sounds like only side is actually enjoying themselves,” she whispered.

“Wait,” Astarion said with a sly grin. “Don’t interrupt them. Let me do it. They sound disgusting.” Lena shrugged and motioned for him to open the doors. Astarion slammed the doors open. Lena’s jaw dropped as the bugbear backed away from his ogre paramour and covered his exposed crotch. Astarion started giggling maniacally.

“What the hells are you doing!” demanded the bugbear.

Lena looked at the bugbear’s covered crotch, then gave the ogre a sympathetic look. “Oh honey,” she said, “you can do so much better than him.”

“What?” bugbear yelled. “I am strong! I am virile! I am —”

“Enough!” the ogre shouted.

“No, he’s not!” Lena shouted. "How did you even know he was in?"

“Moment ruined. Passion squished like slow goat underfoot,” the ogre continued, then turned to the bugbear. “We leave.”

"You can do better!" Lena shouted after them. "Just believe in yourself!"

The bugbear turned around with a hand still over his crotch and flipped Lena the bird.

"Rude!" she said to herself before shouting, "Dump the motherfucker already!"

Astarion bent over, howling with laughter.

The party watched the pair walk away, apparently indifferent to the occasional dead goblin that hadn't been picked over and dragged off by scavengers.

“Is their genitalia normal for individuals in Faerun?” Lae'zel asked.

“The shape is, but not the size,” Astarion wheezed and began to giggle.

“I honestly don’t know why I expected anything normal,” Shadowheart said.

Lena looked at Shadowheart. “I’m not sure what ‘normal’ means in this case.”

“That we should’ve been in a fight for our lives from committing coitus interruptus on an ogre,” Shadowheart said.

Gale looked to the heavens before he sighed. “It seems adventuring with Lena is an exercise in incredulity.”

Lena looked askance at Gale. “What? How can you not feel bad for that poor ogre. The bugbear was clearly the only one having any fun.”

Wyll’s face twitched and he let out a thin whimper. Lena turned to Wyll. “Ugh, don’t tell me one of us has to explain the birds and the bugbears.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t, but I don’t think he ever considered that he’d see this sort of pairing,” Shadowheart replied. “And honestly, I feel like my eyes have been violated.”

“But I’m not traumatized,” Lena replied.

“No,” Shadowheart said, “But you’re not normal.”

“Pfft, ‘normal’ —or whatever passes as ‘normal’ here—is overrated,” Lena replied.

Gale gave her a puzzled look. “You come from a plane that by and large lacks magic.”

“Yes, but my plane doesn’t have bugbears or ogres, or bugbears fucking ogres,” Lena replied.

Astarion wiped tears away as his giggling finally ebbed and he began to compose himself. “Ugh, that sounds boring,” Astarion said.

Lena cocked an eye at Astarion. “I’m so glad that this place doesn’t have internet because I never want to see your hypothetical browser history.”

Astarion grinned. “I have no idea what that means, but I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Chapter Text

After leaving the barn, Lena smelled smoke. “Hey Wyll, are there any other habitations nearby?”

Wyll thought about it for a moment. “Waukeen’s Rest lies to the north, I believe. Why do you ask?”

Lena lifted her nose and sniffed. “I smell smoke. Like a lot of it.”

“We should look into it,” Shadowheart said.

“Tsk’va!” Lae’zel spat. “We should focus on a cure instead of wasting time helping others!”

“Did you get any weird dreams about someone wearing armor saying they’re keeping you from transforming?” Lena asked.

“Yes, but—”

“Given that we’ve all had similar dreams, I think we can trust that this someone is doing something to prevent us from growing tentacle facial hair,” Lena replied. “And knowing my luck, I’d get like weird short tentacles or something because my family just cannot grow facial hair unless we shift. So let’s just go with the flow, and if it’s just a big bonfire maybe we can trade for more supplies.”

“But what about the goblins?” Wyll asked.

“Aside from that ogre and bugbear we encountered, I get a feeling our owlbears might’ve done a decent bit of damage to their numbers or else they probably would’ve sent out scouts by now to retake the village,” Lena answered. She started following the smell of smoke.

The rest of the party followed Lena. As Astarion passed Lae’zel, he shrugged his shoulders. Lae’zel rolled her eyes.

Lena started following the smell to a failed bridge when she suddenly smelled sulfur. She stopped. “Who farted?”

Behind them, a middle-aged white dude with brown hair and wearing a ruff (a fucking ruff!) and a black doublet with gold trim approached them. “My, my, what manner of place is this? A path to redemption or a road to damnation? Hard to say for your journey is just beginning.”

“Wait! I know this trope!” Lena said, snapping fingers. “Do we need to answer some sort of riddle to pass or else you’ll throw us into the chasm? Like the bridge keeper from Monty Python and the Holy Grail?”

Everyone, including the stranger, stared at Lena.

The stranger narrowed his eyes slightly and tried to recover from having his clearly rehearsed speech thrown off. “Well met. I am Raphael. Very much at your service.” He gave a theatrical bow.

“What service?” Lena asked. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but if you’re some sort prostitute, I’m not interested: I’m hoping for my sorta-boyfriend to get cured from a rather fatal condition so I can fuck him.” Gale coughed and flushed while the rest party made small noises of surprise and amusement. She looked back at the rest of her party. “Did any of you want to spend time with this Raphael guy? Do we even have enough money to afford this dude? He looks like he might be expensive. Also, did one of you fart or did he? I didn’t think we had any eggs for any of ours to smell this bad.”

Shadowheart snorted, and a laugh escaped Astarion. Wyll looked at Raphael with wide panicked eyes, while Lae’zel grunted stoically. Gale covered his mouth with a hand to muffle a mortified giggle.

“I am NOT a prostitute!” Raphael hissed, baring his teeth.

Lena turned back to Raphael “Hey! Sex! Work! Is! Work!” Lena punctuated each word with a clap. “As long as the prostitute entered the profession freely and is justly compensated for their time and effort like any other worker. But you’re in the middle of fuck-all, you’re dressed up, you don’t have an entourage so I’m guessing you’re not like politically important, and you’re offering ‘services’ so ….” She trailed off.

Raphael narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps we should go somewhere a bit more private.”

“Are you sure you’re not a prostitute—” but Lena was cut off when they were all transported into a large dining hall covered in gilt and red velvet with a fire blazing in a massive fireplace and a table covered in food and wine. “It’s a bit warm for a fire, isn’t it? And who does your décor? It’s all a bit heavy and ostentatious, like someone just bought a McMansion and wanted it done up with a vampy Palace of Versailles style. And did you just fart? Because I smell a LOT of sulfur now.”

A snarl flickered across Raphael’s face, but then he tugged at his doublet and composed his expression back into something more genteel and welcoming. “We’re in my House of hope. Where the tired come to rest and the famished come to feed—lavishly.” They all stood and stared at him. “Go on. Partake. Enjoy your supper. After all … it might be your last.”

“Is this the sort of thing where if any of us eats they can’t leave here alive?” Lena asked. “Like the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone where she was sentenced to stay in the underworld because she ate pomegranate seeds?”

“I assure you it is not,” Raphael said.

Lena frowned. “So am I supposed to take your word for it? I just met you, and you’re being annoyingly cryptic.”

Raphael glowered at her. “What’s better than a devil you don’t know?” Suddenly he was enveloped in a curtain of flames and stood in front of her with red skin, horns, wings, and a belt adorned with metal horned skulls. “A devil you do.”

Lena looked at him nonplussed and shook her head. “No, that doesn’t answer my question of whether the food’s a trap. And nice belt—do you have lower back problems? Or are you going to lift later and need the support?”

Raphael snapped his fingers at Lena. “Focus! I’m here to be your savior!”

“What, can you get rid of the parasites?” Lena asked, then narrowed her eyes. “And what do you want for this service which has nothing to do with sex?”

“Go ahead. Try to cure yourself. Shop around—beg, borrow, steal. Exhaust every possibility until none are left. And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair—that’s when you’ll come knocking on my door.”

Lena stared at Raphael. “You never answered me: What do you want?”

Raphael ignored her and continued. “Hope! Hahaha! Such a tease!”

“It’s like talking to an automated answering service,” Lena muttered to herself. “What. Do. You. Want?” she enunciated.

“I’ll be around. Watching you squirm like a tadpole through a nice juicy brain. All those pretty symptoms—sundering skin, dissolving guts—they haven’t manifested yet, have they? One might say you’re a paragon of luck. I’ll be there when it runs out.” Raphael snapped his fingers and they were back on the bridge again.

“Was it me or did that dude love hearing himself talk?” Lena asked.

Wyll shook his head. “That was a devil. I would strongly advise against making any deals with him.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, especially when he wouldn’t answer any of my questions,” Lena replied.

“I suspect he was working off of a script. He didn’t seem to like any answer that deviated from his expectations,” Gale remarked.

“It almost sounded as though he was talking more to himself towards the end,” Astarion said.

Shadowheart nodded. “It was an incredibly hammy performance.”

“I’m disappointed I didn’t get a chance to grab all that food, even if it is cursed,” Lena admitted, then paused to slap her forehead. “I also should’ve maneuvered him so I could pick his pockets! Shit, I’m out of practice!”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “Shall we proceed, or will we discover this fire Lena smelled has burned the entire forest to cinders?”

Lena shook the cobwebs from her head. “Oh. Right. Let’s go.”

---

They managed to jump across the broken bridge and Lena’s nose found the smoke did, in fact, come from Waukeen’s Rest. Men and women in armor had set up a bucket brigade to put out a fire, but one of the buildings was barred from the inside, with people trying to push their way through.

“Come on, everyone! Put your backs into it! Duke Ravengard could be inside!” shouted one of the people pushing against the door.

“Duke Ravengard?” Wyll went pale. He turned to the rest of the party. “We must help!” He rallied everyone to help him push through the door.

Lena looked around at the building, took off her boots, and began to scale the walls with her extended claws. She reached the roof when they managed to break through the door, and then she heard a man coughing and shouting for help. She headed toward the shouting, feeling hot spots under her feet from the fire before she found the source of the shouting and ripped out several tiles to peer in to see a blond white guy with a leg trapped underneath some collapsed roof timbers.

“Please help!” he shouted.

Lena hopped down. “You wouldn’t happen to be the Duke, would you?”

“No,” the man said. “Please help me! I can’t get free!” He coughed.

Lena used the back of one of her knives to finish removing the glass from a broken window to help clear the air and she slipped shoulder under the beams and pushed them up. “Move!” she shouted.

The man crawled out from underneath and tried to stand before stumbling. “Now where?”

Lena looked around and felt the door to the main building was hot, but noticed another partially broken door was cool to the touch. “Rest a bit,” she told him, then used the claws on her hand to rip the door apart. She came back and helped him stand. “Can you walk?”

“I-I think so.” He staggered and Lena supported him with her shoulder as they walked through the broken door to a wing where most of the fire had already been put out.

“Miri!” he suddenly shouted and pulled toward a woman lying on the floor. He fell to his knees and started crying. “Miri, please wake up!”

Lena put her fingers to the prone woman’s throat and felt a faint pulse, but she wasn’t breathing. “Can I have your permission to try something?” she asked.

“Yes,” the man nodded.

Lena tilted the woman’s chin up, checked her mouth for foreign objects, then pinched her nose and breathed into the woman’s mouth. For a full minute, she breathed into the woman’s mouth until she started coughing and breathing on her own. The man started crying and hugged Miri while Lena reached into her bawbag and fished out a healing potion, forcing some into Miri’s mouth until she could drink it on her own.

“Benryn!” Miri gasped between coughs. Her coughing subsided as the potion did its work healing the smoke-damaged tissue in her lungs.

Benryn looked up at Lena. “Thank you for helping to save my Miri. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had lost her.”

Lena nodded. “You should find her someone to keep and eye on her lungs, just in case.”

“I don’t know if I can ever repay you.”

“No worries. I gotta run because I was supposed to help find this Duke guy who seems really important to one of my companions.”

Benryn nodded and turned his attention back to Miri while Lena ran down a flight of stairs to see Wyll talking to a woman gray hair and olive-green skin.

“Counselor Florrick, what do you mean my father’s been taken?” Wyll demanded.

“Wyll, I know relations between you haven’t been the most cordial, but you must find him. Drow have taken the Duke west. The only place I can think of is Moonrise Towers.”

Wyll hung his head. “Who knows what they can do with a Grand Duke in their possession.” He turned to face the rest of the party. “Please, you must help me find him.”

“We’ll do all we can to help you,” Gale said, putting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.

Counselor Florrick nodded and began ordering the armored individuals to begin burying the dead and sending for reinforcements.

Astarion stared at Wyll. “Wait, so you’re the Grand Duke’s son? The one who suddenly disappeared?”

Wyll sighed. “My father banished me some ten years ago, though I am not allowed to say why. But know that I understand why he did so, even if it still causes me pain to remember.”

“So we have royalty in our midst,” Shadowheart said. “Who knew?”

“Who would’ve been able to tell with those camp clothes?” Astarion remarked.

Wyll narrowed his eyes at Astarion. “It’s difficult finding new clothing when out on the frontier, especially when there always seem to be others who need it more.”

Lae’zel leveled her eyes at Lena. “K’chakhi! Where have you been while we were searching though that scorching dung heap for the Duke?”

Lena opened her mouth to speak when Benryn’s voice called out from behind her. He helped support Miri as they walked toward her. “Saer! I wanted to thank you again for saving both my wife and I’s lives. We wanted to give you this.” In one hand was a small ornate chest.

“It was supposed to be for my sister’s dowry,” Miri said, “But I know of no other way to show our gratitude.”

Lena looked back at her companions. “Give me a sec.” She led the couple a little ways away and quietly said, “If it’s for you sister, keep it.”

“But saer!” Benryn said out loud until Lena shushed him. “But saer,” he said quietly, “we have no other way to thank you.”

Lena thought about it. “How much is in there?”

“One hundred gold,” Miri said quietly.

“Give me five and we’ll call it good. That way no one’s going to give me shit about being nice for free, okay?”

The couple gave Lena a puzzled look. “But saer, this doesn’t seem right,” Miri said, handing over five coins.

“I’m guessing your family needs it more than I do. Now go and rest!” Lena said and shooed them away before turning back to find her companions had snuck up on her to listen in.

Gale had a smug look on his face. “I always knew you had a heart of gold.”

“I’m surprised,” Wyll admitted. “You always struck me as someone who was committed solely to chaos and did good only by accident. Why do you hide it?”

Lena’s shoulders sagged and she groaned. “Ugh, I’m so embarrassed. Can we not talk about this?”

“You should be,” Astarion said. “You only asked for five percent. I would’ve at least asked for fifty.” Everyone looked at Astarion. Shadowheart punched him in the arm. “Ow! Why do you people keep hitting me?”

“We hit you when you’re being an ass,” Shadowheart replied.

“Do you all need to hit so hard?” Astarion asked, rubbing his arm.

“Yes,” Shadowheart said.

Lena had started to sneak off when Gale caught her wrist and stopped her. “Why do you feel embarrassed about being kind to others?”

She worried her lip and stared at the tattoo at his neck, idly wondering what it was and how far it extended. “Because it doesn’t feel right.”

Gale tilted her chin up and looked into her eyes. “Why not?” he asked softly.

“Because I’m a honey badger. I kill, I steal, I fuck shit up because I’m supposed to be good at it, and I didn’t even remember to pickpocket that Raphael asshole. I feel like I’m losing my edge,” Lena whispered.

Gale smiled. “From what I can tell, you’ve been doing an excellent job of, as you described it, ‘fucking shit up.’ And you just ‘happen’ to be doing so while being kind to others. Is that so bad?”

“Yes!” Lena said.

Gale’s shoulders sagged and he sighed as he pulled Lena into a hug. She hugged him back.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we really need to find my father,” Wyll said. “And my patron has tasked me with finding the devil Karlach, and the consequences will likely be rather dire if I don’t.”

Lae’zel was bent over removing some armor from a fallen drow raider. “There appears to be goblins among the dead drow.”

Lena sighed. “More reasons to wipe out the goblins. And it looks like our task list just keeps getting longer.” She gave Gale a squeeze and then let go.

“We should find this ‘Karlach’ before Wyll’s patron does something nasty to him,” Gale said.

"Is that a thing patrons do?" Lena asked.

"Unfortunately, yes."

Chapter Text

As they walked away from Waukeen’s Rest, Gale approached Wyll. “Any ideas as to where to find this devil?” Gale asked.

“I’ve heard rumors from talking to the tieflings when they come back from scouting that there was a flaming devil with a single horn who would wander along the river. I would have pursued her on my own if I didn’t feel the need to keep the refugees safe from the goblins.”

“Then we shall follow your lead.”

As they hiked along the banks of the river, Lena caught of whiff of sulfur and blood on the breeze then spotted the source: a very large red-skinned devil with a single horn cloaked in flames on an outcropping above the river, looking just as Wyll had shown them in his shared memory. However, she was doubled-over and breathing heavily as though in pain.

Wyll approached her with his rapier drawn. “One horn. The stink of Avernus. Advocatus diaboli.”

Lena rolled her eyes, and Shadowheart elbowed her without even looking. Lena shot her a disgruntled frown to say what was that for? and Shadowheart gave her a side-eye that said I know you just rolled your eyes, so stay quiet.

Karlach looked up from her crouch to look at Wyll. “Well I’ll be godsdamned—the Blade of Frontiers. Thought I’d shaken you for good. That’ll teach me to underestimate you.” She stood to face Wyll.

Lena looked at her companions then looked at Karlach. “Wait, if she’s a devil, and that Raphael dude’s a devil, then why can’t she just hide herself to not look like devil?”

“She probably takes great pleasure in terrorizing her victims rather than trying to hide her true nature,” Wyll said.

“Or I could just be a tiefling with the honor of being hunted down by the Blade of Frontiers,” Karlach said, then everyone felt the pain as Karlach’s memories of fighting through demonic armies in a flaming landscape flooded their minds. “What was that?” Karlach asked.

“Evidence. Proof that you’re a devil, a gladiator in the archdevil Zariel’s army,” Wyll snarled and prepared to attack.

Karlach held out her hands in supplication. “I can explain,” she said. “It’s a whole situation. If you’d just hear me out.” She sent out another memory, this one filled with rage and desperation of Karlach slicing through Zariel’s servants, searching for escape.

“I don’t entirely approve of using the tadpoles to share memories,” Astarion remarked as rubbed his forehead.

“I quite agree,” Gale said as he blinked the stars from his eyes, “Though I’m inclined to be more forgiving given that Wyll’s threatening to kill her, and she doesn’t appear to be armed.”

“She’s a devil,” Wyll retorted. “She’s trying to trick us.”

“You saw the truth,” Karlach said. “I never wanted to serve Zariel. I was enlisted in her army against my will. Forced to fight, and fight I did. When I saw an opportunity to get away, I took it. I’m finally home—or near it, anyway.”

“You served her,” Wyll spat. “That’s enough to damn you.”

“I don’t think she’s lying: she didn’t join that Zari-whatever devil-thingie willingly,” Lena interjected.

“Zariel,” Wyll and Karlach corrected. They looked at each other and everyone else looked at them.

"Yeah, whatever," Lena continued. "Point is, If sincerity were a smell, she’d stink of it. Kinda like you, Wyll.”

Wyll looked at Lena. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re asking me to trust a devil.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, we just got visited by that adamantly-not-a-prostitute-but-actually-a-devil, Raphael, and that dude stank of rotten eggs—like sulfur oozed from his pores.” She pointed at Karlach. “She smells like sulfur, but it’s superficial, like how if you had to move a rotting corpse to hide it but you forget to bring a disposable full-body hazmat suit again and you end up smelling like said rotting corpse, but you’re still alive and so the smell wears off. Though I prefer to douse myself in vinegar or lemon juice to neutralize the smell faster.”

Everyone stared at Lena. Karlach leaned in to Wyll and whispered, “Are you sure you’re safe traveling with her?”

Shadowheart snorted. Astarion started giggling. Lae’zel rolled her eyes. Gale put his head in his hands.

Lena gestured to Karlach. “See! She cares! If she’s a devil, she’s one with a conscience!”

Wyll sheathed his rapier, then sighed and massaged the temple next to his stone eye. “Ugh, you’re right. How is it you’re right?”

Lena gave him a predatory grin. “Instinct: predators know other predators. Though some members of our party are just too sweet to listen to theirs.” She cuddled up to Gale, who sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“And I find myself reminding you that you sell yourself short.” He gave Lena a quick kiss on her forehead. Astarion gagged and Lena flipped him off without looking. Shadowheart started laughing.

Karlach stared at the tableau in front of her then shrugged. “I guess the whole ‘am I a devil’ question has been sorted out, can I get some help? Zariel’s right pissed that I managed to get away and killed a few of her loyal entourage along the way, so she sent along a bunch of goons who’re calling themselves ‘Paladins of Tyr’ to drag me back, but I refuse to go.”

Lena perked up. “‘Tyr’? Why is that name familiar?”

“He’s also known as the maimed god who sacrificed his right hand in a bid to bind the chaos hound, Kezef,” Shadowheart said. “He is also not originally of our realm, but came from another plane.”

“‘Kezef’ and not ‘Fenrir,’ the wolf of Norse myth who would herald the end of the Aesir and the destruction of my world in an event also known as Ragnarok?” Lena asked.

Everyone now stared at Lena, though Karlach looked extremely confused. “Am I missing something?”

“The k'chakhi , Lena, is not from this plane,” Lae’zel explained.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, but what does k'chakhi mean?” Lena asked.

Lae’zel looked Lena dead in the eye. “It means ‘idiot.’”

Lena gave her a genial smile. “And ‘fuck you’ to you, too!” she said sweetly.

Shadowheart blinked. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say after she’s been insulting you for the past three days?”

Lena grinned at Shadowheart. “Unlike you, I’ve got no pent up sexual tension with her that I need to vent. Now, given that I can’t fuck Gale—” Gale tipped his head back and stared at the sky, “—I’ve been venting my frustration with either violence against people who actually make me angry, or annoying them like that delusional Raphael ass-wipe.”

“Then why do you irritate me?” Lae’zel asked.

“Not sure,” Lena shrugged. “Maybe you’re just not funny.”

Astarion barked a laugh before he schooled his features back into mild disinterest. Shadowheart tried to stiffle a giggle. Gale leaned his face in Lena’s shoulder to muffle a snort, while Wyll pursed his lips trying to keep a straight face. Lae’zel snarled at Lena.

Karlach stared at them with wide eyes. “Uh, if you need to vent, I still have those fake paladins if you’d like to help me fuck them over. They’ve taken over a tollhouse just north of here, up the hill.”

“I’m all for it,” Lena said, rubbing her hands together. “Anyone else?”

“I could do with my own release,” Lae’zel said. Everyone now stared at her. Shadowheart blushed. Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “Tsk’va, you know what I mean.”

Wyll sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then I suppose we should go.” He looked at Karlach. “Lead on.”

Chapter Text

Gale and Wyll approached the tollhouse entryway, which still had a few random body parts scattered about.

Wyll approached a blond white human man. “Good day, saer. Might I inquire if you are in need of assistance?”

The blond man looked at him. “Be at peace, my good saer. The gnolls hit us hard, but we still stand. This place is under Tyr’s protection.”

Wyll’s eyebrows rose. “Servants of Tyr, you say?”

“Yes,” the man said, “Paladins in his service, sworn to bring justice to those who need it. To be honest we have need for aid, for a devil has ravaged this land, and we have endured three battles in as many days.”

“A devil? Really?” Gale asked. “Surely this area is too sparsely populated to be worthwhile for a devil to collect souls.”

As Gale and Wyll continued to converse with the false paladin, Astarion, Lena, and Shadowheart snuck up a side entrance to the toll house and waited outside the door while Lena flicked a pebble in front of it to draw a human woman out. Lena quickly threw a garrote she’d made from some spider silk around the woman’s throat and dragged her away, while Astarion covered her mouth and began to drain her.

Shadowheart walked through the door, past the woman who was now weakly trying to push Astarion away, followed by Lae’zel and Karlach. Karlach gave Lena a vicious grin as she passed and whispered, “Sneak, sneak.” Lena snorted and returned her own grin with a nod.

Shadowheart quietly snuck behind a halfing woman and wrapped a hand around her mouth and twisted her ear until she wrenched her head to the side, while Lae’zel jammed her sword into the crook of the halfing’s neck until it emerged below her ribs. They nodded to Karlach, who quietly maneuvered her way behind the blond paladin and raised her axe while Wyll and Gale continued to talk.

“And look who we have now, but the woman of the hour?” Wyll said, gesturing to Karlach.

The false paladin turned suddenly and tried to draw his sword as Karlach screamed and cleaved his head from temple to chin. He slid to the floor in a heap as his brains slipped loose from his broken skull, his eyes staring up at nothing.

Karlach panted. “Fuck them. Fuck Zariel.” Tears started forming in Karlach’s eyes, which began to steam as soon as they fell. “I won’t go back. I’m never going back. And if mummy’s little friends want to pick up where the others left off … they’ll find nothing but a pile of ash.”

Wyll held out his hands. “Easy, Karlach. I promise you that I will never let Zariel near you again.”

Flames began to pour out of vent holes along Karlach’s chest and arms as her emotions boiled over. “That’s right, she won’t. She can’t. She couldn’t even lay a finger on me.” She started laughing hysterically as flames engulfed her.

Gale took a step back and yanked a stunned Wyll away as Karlach ran past and started to tear the building apart with her axe, with every strike lighting the place on fire.

“Perhaps we should give her some time to cool down,” Gale said to Wyll as they ran out the door, narrowly avoiding getting burned as Karlach charged past into the adjoining room, which both Lae’zel and Shadowheart had wisely evacuated from. They heard Lena shout, “HEY, WATCH IT!” from outside as they all scrambled to a safe-ish distance away from the now burning toll house.

Lena examined an already-healing burn mark from where Karlach had brushed up against her arm. “Holy fuck! How is she still alive?”

“I suppose we can ask her after she’s done destroying everything in that building,” Shadowheart said while watching the building burn.

“I can’t believe that I was ready to kill an innocent person,” Wyll whispered.

“I don’t believe you can quite blame yourself,” Gale said, putting a supporting hand on Wyll’s shoulder. “You were ordered by your patron to kill her.”

Shadowheart nodded at Wyll. “You can take some comfort that you did the right thing.”

Lae’zel nodded. “It would have been a waste to have killed a warrior such as she.”

“She looks like she can throw me over her shoulder and carry me to safety,” Shadowheart said, slightly dreamily. Lae’zel scowled.

“Indeed," Astarion said as he stared sightlessly at Karlach’s waning wrath. "Though I imagine that to be cold comfort for whatever punishment they have in store for failure,” he murmured to himself.

Karlach approached, the flames having died down. “Felt good letting off a little steam after facing off with this ignots. Granted the fire lasted longer than it should.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “I’d say that was less ‘steam’ and more ‘conflagration.’ How the fuck aren’t you cooked?”

Karlach rapped a knuckle against her chest, which clanged instead of thumped. “Hear that? Infernal engine for a heart. Lets me burn as hot as the hells. Seems to be running in overdrive since I left Avernus.” Everyone stared at her. “Won’t be seeing my mechanic any time soon, so I’ll just make the most of the extra heat. Just don’t get too close ‘til I’ve found a way to calm it down.”

“There’s a smith that I know of who might help,” Wyll said. “A tiefling I know who worked in the hells for a time after Elturel fell.”

Karlach’s eyes widened. “Yeah? I heard something about that when I faced off against those ‘paladins’ the first time. They let slip that there was one nearby. If he’s the one and the same, then maybe he can give this rusty heart a tune-up.”

---

After looting the toll house and its deceased occupants—which included a rather nice sword for Lae’zel and a great axe and armor upgrade for Karlach—they portaled to the grove to meet with Dammon. “Just in time,” Dammon said, removing a some newly-annealed stiletto blades from a barrel of sand adjacent to the main forge. “I couldn’t sleep so I finished early your commission early. These should be good to go. Just make sure to give them a little linseed oil after you clean them because they’re not the same material as the blades you showed me so they’re liable to rust.”

Lena grinned and hopped up and down with glee, replacing missing blades in her wrist sheath. “Thanks!” she exclaimed. Gale cleared his throat and put a hand on Lena’s shoulder. Lena stopped bouncing then turned to Dammon and smiled awkwardly. “My memory’s shit, and I choose to blame the not-tapeworm in my brain instead of being easily distracted by shiny new weapons like a magpie. Can you help our new friend?”

Karlach looked nonplussed at Lena. “And I though I was easily distracted by the shinies.”

“But it’s not just that they’re shiny, they’re sharp!” Lena grinned.

“Yeah! I get it! Though I prefer a good axe over smaller blades, myself.”

“I noticed! Though it’s a pity I didn’t get to watch when you pretty much chopped that one dude’s head in half. I mean, that tends to be pretty tough to do, but you made such a clean cut with that axe it’s like you had a saw—I hardly saw any bone shards or chips!”

Wyll interrupted them. “Ladies….”

Karlach and Lena both looked at Wyll. “Oh, right,” Karlach said.

Dammon looked at Karlach. “Thought I sensed an infernal engine. But you aren’t from Elturel. What’s your story?”

“I spent a good bit of time in the Hells,” Karlach said. “Enlisted against my will by the archdevil Zariel. Same as you, I suppose, if you’re from Elturel. The devils were delighted when your city got swallowed up. I thought they had you for keeps. Glad you got out.”

Dammon nodded. “I got lucky. Looks like you did, too. And … it looks like you brought some infernal machinery with you.”

“A little gift from Zariel. Keeps me burning hot.”

Dammon’s eyebrows rose. “Very hot, by the smell of it. Might be burning out a piston ring—or leaking oil. Mind if I take a listen?”

Karlach spread her arms. “Be my guest. But don’t get too close, or your eyes’ll melt shut.”

Dammon bent down with his ear near Karlach’s chest to listen for a moment before yanking away, rubbing his ear. “Phew! You really are burning up. Whoever put that engine together tried to house metalurgised demono-valves inside a ra-gnax alloy casement. Very risky. I might be able to help, but I’d need some infernal iron. And a prayer that my hammer’ll survive the work. That thing isn’t meant to operate outside of Avernus. I’m not sure how much longer it’ll keep running, the way it’s going.”

“Will you be able to turn down the temperature just a little? Worried that I’m gonna go in for a handshake and singe someone’s arm off one of these days.”

“I’d worry about surviving the night first,” Dammon said. “But help one, help both: if we can cool you off, it’ll stabilize your engine and allow you to touch whomever you please.”

“So how do we find infernal iron?” Wyll asked.

“I’ve sensed some during our travels. It has a pull to it—absolutely magnetic, once you know what you’re looking for. I can show you where I’d look,” Dammon said.

Wyll started searching through his bawbag. “I thought I noticed something strange when my companions and I found ourselves in a smithy over in a village overrun with goblins.” He pulled out a chunk of metal with odd red streaks running through it.

“Huh,” Lena commented. “Handy. Did you happen to find a chunk of amethyst there, too?”

“Odd you should mention it.” Wyll pulled out a fist-sized purple gemstone. “I forgot about it in the bottom of my carry-all.”

Lena looked over to where Astarion and Shadowheart stood snickering. Gale tried to keep a straight face. She leaned in toward Astarion and Shadowheart and glared. “I’m still going to call it a ‘bawbag,’ you assholes.”

Astarion and Shadowheart started to laugh, and Gale tried to muffle his with a hand over his mouth. Dammon and Wyll coughed. Lae’zel sighed. Karlach guffawed.“You honestly thought these were called ‘bawbags?’”

Lena looked over at Karlach. “No, but I never got a straight answer from these chucklefucks,” pointing a thumb at Astarion and Shadowheart, “so I’m just going to keep calling them ‘bawbags’ in mixed company. Because I'm just that kind of bitchy.”

Karlach grinned. “I think I’m going to like traveling with you.”

Chapter Text

While Dammon worked to provide a minor fix to Karlach’s engine with the chunk of infernal iron Wyll found, Lena tried on the spider chitin armor and the toeless boots she had commissioned.

The chitin had been a deep blue with a red pattern swirled across the top of the matriarch’s cephalothorax and abdomen, but was now a pearlescent light blue and pink breast plate that seemed almost comically whimsical except that the wearer was capable tearing through a person’s ribcage in the same way she could dig through rock and clay: very easily. The dichotomy had Gale speechless and a little hard.

Astarion looked up after putting on his new phase-shifting boots and a pair of gauntlets that used the fine hairs from the spiders’ claws to let him climb walls, then nudged Shadowheart. Shadowheart looked over and snorted as Lena approached Gale with a flirtatious smile and asked, “Whaddya think?” before twirling around.

Gale blushed, then cleared his throat. “It looks lovely on you.”

“The best part is that there are a series of quick-release buckles and the neck area is a little wider so when I shift I don’t run the risk of getting tangled!” She shifted and shook off her new armor and clothing.

“What the hells?” Karlach exclaimed. She had just finished installing the upgrade to her engine when she spotted Lena’s honey badger form. Both she and Dammon stared as Lena briefly trotted around as honey badger, then shifted back to human to put her clothes back on. Gale froze, trying to decide whether he should intercede and provide some modicum of cover, or enjoy the show because it was obvious Lena did not give two shits who saw her naked.

“Lena’s a shifter,” Shadowheart said, watching impassively as Lena put her clothes back on. “But not like shifters here who can’t completely shift into an animal form.”

“So is she like a were-badger or something?” Karlach asked.

“No, because she can also shift body parts at will.”

Astarion shuddered. “There is something incredibly unsettling to see her human mouth fill up with fangs. She also tends to drool quite a bit when she does so.”

Karlach stared as Lena gave Gale a predatory grin, and he returned it with a rather smitten expression. “Yeah, but her and Gale? No offense to Lena, but I would’ve guessed Gale would be attracted to someone more ….”

“Refined?” Astarion asked.

"Academic?" Shadowheart suggested.

“I’d have said ‘nice’ because she looks like she could literally eat him, but yeah, let's go with what you two said,” Karlach said.

“I suspect that he likes ‘burly’ and ‘terrifying’ lovers,” Astarion remarked.

“I would also add that she is a fount of unusual knowledge, and seems capable of holding her own whenever Gale decides to start a lecture on the obscure and the esoteric,” Shadowheart added.

“What, like that bit about the smell of corpses?” Karlach asked. “How does she even know that? And why?”

Astarion shrugged. “I’ve gathered that her family on her home plane tends to be involved in less-than-savory activities.”

Karlach’s eyebrows rose. “I was a little concerned when I first met her, but she doesn’t seem inclined to murder any of us.”

“She seems to have a gentle soul underneath that brutal fang-filled exterior,” Shadowheart commented. “At the very least, she likes dogs.”

They watched as Lena looked down at her carry-all with some confusion, then opened it to see a phase spiderling skitter out and perch on the top of her shoulder, as if it were a parrot or a cat. Gale shouted in alarm then fell over on his ass while Lena stared at the spiderling chittering and waving its forelegs at her as though it were cooing. Lena slowly reached into her carry-all and pulled out a goblin hand, giving it to the spiderling, which immediately snatched it and began to feed on it. Lena looked at Gale. “I think I’m now its mother.” Then she grinned. “You’re a daddy!” Gale’s eye twitched.

“What the hells did I just watch?” Karlach asked. “Why the hells is she feeding that thing? And where did it come from?”

Shadowheart’s jaw dropped. “I think Lena picked up some extra souvenirs from our encounter with some phase spiders, including some eggs.”

The spiderling finished its meal, dropping the now-desiccated goblin hand before making a bed on the top of Lena’s head and falling asleep.

Astarion frowned in disgust and shook his head. “At least she didn’t eat it.”

Karlach coughed. “Seriously?”

“Apparently it’s a standard part of a honey badger’s diet, according to Lena,” Shadowheart said. She looked over at Astarion and pointed at the spiderling. “As you’re Lena’s honorary brother, then wouldn’t that make you that thing’s honorary uncle?”

Astarion’s face pinched in disgust. “Shit.”

---

After they went back to camp and ate dinner, a black oily pool formed in the middle of camp. Scratch growled and Shadowheart held him by the collar to keep him from attacking. Lena walked over to the oily pool with a lit stick and dropped it in, but it failed to catch on fire. Instead a devil emerged from the oil, holding on to the stick and glaring at Lena.

“What is this?” the blue-gray devil snapped, brandishing the now smoldering stick.

Karlach sneered. “Gods damn it. Anyone but her.”

Lena, with the spiderling still sleeping on her head, looked at the stick, then the devil. “Well, shit. I was hoping that it was just a crude oil seep, but instead I meet a second devil today. How many of you are planning on getting into our business?”

“Wait, what other devil?” the devil asked. She looked at Lena's head and reared back. "And what is that thing on the top of your head?"

“That thing is my new baby. I've named it 'Bitey.' I suggest that you keep your voice down so you don't wake it. As for the other devil, we encountered some middle-aged looking asswipe who goes by Raphael,” Lena replied.

“That idiot,” the devil seethed. “What did he offer you?”

“He said something about removing the mind flayer babies from our skulls, but never said what he wanted in return—only that he wanted us to ‘shop around’ for a cure and we’d come crawling back to him.” Lena sniffed the air then scrunched up her nose. “What do you people eat? Are you all giant fans of eating egg-white omelets or is this some other weird dietary thing?”

Karlach snorted. “I’ve taken more pleasant and pleasant-smelling shits than Mizora over there,” Karlach said, pointing at the devil, “and at least those can be buried after.”

“Quiet, you,” the devil snapped. “That’s no kind of talk for a lady.”

“Whoever said anything about being a lady?” Lena retorted. “Politesse is just another form of gate keeping by the upper classes to discriminate against the working classes. And how do you keep wardrobe malfunctions from happening with that neckline reaching your belly button? Is there an equivalent to Fashion Tape here that you have to rip off your nipples, or is it magic? I mean, it seems easier to just wear something that's made to cover the offensive bits. And why the fuck are you even here?”

“I’m here because I’m Wyll’s patron, the fount of his power. My pet’s been unruly—” she mimed pulling on a rope, “—and his leash needs a yank.”

Wyll stumbled from the invisible leash.

“We had a deal, Wyll,” Mizora sneered, “But Karlach’s still breathing.”

“So if Karlach dies, you’ll leave Wyll alone?” Lena asked.

“Wait, what the fuck?” Karlach shouted at Lena.

“But can we arrange it so that Withers brings her back if we temporarily kill her?” Lena asked. “Like with a heavy sedative so that she’s functionally ‘dead’ but can be revived or resurrected. Would that count in your ‘deal’ with Wyll?”

Karlach blinked.

Mizora glared at her. “Of course not.”

“Well, where’s it written down in his contract?” Lena asked. “If Wyll’s your ‘pet’ then you must be able to point to the clause that says that if he kills someone on command, it doesn’t count if said someone can be resurrected.”

Mizora opened her mouth, but then closed it. “It doesn’t matter because the contract is written in Infernal.”

“Surely you supplied Wyll with a version in Thorass, then,” Astarion interjected. “Even if he signed a version he couldn’t read, he must have had a representative at the time of signing who could read and interpret the details in good faith on his behalf.”

“Can you point to where the contract states that any of his victims cannot count if they could be resurrected? Or what constitutes ‘dead’ in the contract?” Lena asked.

“None of that matters because his contract states that he kills who I order him to, and he failed to kill Karlach,” Mizora sputtered.

“But she’s a person, not a devil or a demon,” Wyll said.

Mizora grinned. “Ah, but she is heartless, as stipulated in the contract.”

“No she’s not,” Lena said. “She has an infernal engine that acts as a heart and keeps her alive. Therefore, she has a heart, albeit an infernal-mechanical thingie (I really need to ask how that thing works). Did you explicitly stipulate in the contract that artificial hearts weren’t ‘hearts?’”

Mizora’s face fell.

“Can we call Withers over and see if Karlach counts as a party member and is therefore eligible for resurrection services?” Lena asked. “Or should we consider taking the issue up with Raphael and see if he’s got better terms?”

Mizora stamped her foot and screamed. “Wyll is my pet and I can punish him as I wish.”

“Yes,” Astarion said, “But what are the implications if you’re in violation of the contract? Perhaps a review might be in order before committing to any hasty actions?”

The devil hissed. “I’ll be back.” She disappeared into a puddle of ooze.

Astarion looked over at Lena. “Am I to guess that your world is very litigious?”

Lena tilted her head and gave Astarion a thoughtful look. “Where I’m from you can’t even read a book without seeing legal language about fair use and copyrights.”

Gale came up behind Lena and hugged her around the waist, carefully avoiding the side of her head with the spider still attached. “Sounds awful.”

Lena leaned against him and nodded. “It kinda is. But I’m used to it.”

"What just happened?" Wyll asked, stunned.

"I believe we just bought you time with your infernal patron," Astarion replied. "May I see a copy of your contract?"

Chapter Text

Gale conjured a table and Wyll pulled out a copy of his contract—this version used Thorass instead of Infernal—and Astarion started asking Wyll questions about the circumstances that led to his signing. Shadowheart and Karlach sat next to the fire: Karlach would toss a wet stick to Scratch that she regularly doused in water before throwing it again, while Shadowheart would pray fervently to Shar. Lae’zel had started sharpening her sword on a whetstone until everyone glared at her and she switched to a smaller hand-held whetstone to hone some of the nicks from her blade.

Lena sat near Karlach, staring at Gale’s profile and listening to him as he occasionally asked for clarification as he and Astarion wrote notes and examined the contract.

Karlach looked over at Lena. “So you and Gale, huh?”

Lena gave a Karlach a sheepish grin. “Yeah. Except for the bit where ….” She gestured with a finger going through a hole she made with her other hand.

Karlach nodded. “I heard from the others about that. Sorry about that, mate.”

Lena nodded.

Karlach hesitated, then asked, “I can’t help it; I’m not sure how you two got together if you only just met like five days ago.”

Lena gave Karlach a confused look. “Has it really only been five days? It feels like it’s been over a month.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the tadpole’s been fucking with our brains and everything feels longer. But you and Gale seem nothing alike. I would’ve figured you would’ve gone for someone a bit more … violent.”

Lena thought about it for a moment. “Well, for starters I find him physically attractive. He’s sweet, he hasn’t tried to steal my identity to fraudulently open multiple bank accounts in my name or destroyed my credit, but he also has a ruthless side that gratifies my black little honey badger heart. And he’s so adorable when he’s flustered that I want to sit on his face just so I can feel that blush with my thighs.”

Astarion and Wyll looked up from the table to stare at Lena: Astarion looked horrified while Wyll smirked. Gale flushed a deep red and put his head down on the conjured table and covered the back of his head with his hands. Shadowheart tried hard not to burst out laughing, and Lae’zel scrunched up her face and shook her head.

Karlach guffawed. “Oh gods, I did not expect to hear that! And poor Gale! Look at him! He looks like he’d bury himself in that table if he could!”

Lena looked at Gale and grinned. “Oh, there’s a different place where I want him to bury himself, but that’ll have to wait.”

Astarion stood. “That’s it!” he announced. “Let’s take a break! Where’s the wine so I can wipe that image from my head?” He snatched a full bottle and muttered to Gale, "I would never have encouraged you to pursue Lena if I knew if have to listen to this sickening drivel."

Wyll looked up from his goblet at Astarion. "Really? You encouraged Gale? Did you expect her to murder Gale?"

Astarion threw up his arms. "I don't know! Something strange or chaotic? Or both? This is the same woman who transforms into an oversized weasel and regularly eviscerates her enemies with her teeth and eats spiders!" He stomped away into the treeline.

“I’ll join you,” Wyll said. “What about you?” he asked Gale.

“Give me a moment,” Gale replied, his head still on the table. Everyone watched as Gale composed himself, then walked away, albeit with a slightly awkward gait.

Karlach looked back at Lena. “I hear you, soldier. If I ever get a chance to get my engine fixed up enough to where I can touch someone willing without charring them to the bone, I’d have my tongue everywhere,” Karlach said.

Lena looked over quizzically. “So how long has it been? Because at least I get to cuddle with Gale as long as we don’t do anything that causes his emotions to trigger the orb.”

Karlach used a wet stick to gently stroke Scratch’s back, the end she was holding steaming at her touch. Scratch lay down, enjoying the attention with his tongue hanging out. “It’s been ten years. Ten years since I’ve been able to touch someone without burning them cinders. Not that I really had any opportunities for that because pretty much everyone I met in Avernus is a two-faced shit that needed incinerating. As much as I miss fucking, I miss the cuddles, and I really miss hugging my mates. And I envy you and Gale for that.”

Lena dipped her hand in the bucket and gave Karlach a quick pat on the shoulder. The heat from Karlach’s engine cause the water to hiss and steam on contact.

Karlach gave a small smile. “Thanks, mate.”

Lena returned it with a wry smile of her own. “Cheers.”

---

“So how does a vampire spawn become so familiar with law?” Wyll asked Astarion. They shared a bottle of cheap red table wine sitting on the opposite side of the campsite from the rest of their party.

Astarion played with his goblet for a moment. “I used to be a magistrate in Baldur’s Gate before I was turned."

“Truly?” Wyll asked. “Then how does a magistrate pick up skills like lock picking and trap disarmament?”

Astarion rubbed his forehead. “I really don’t recall.”

Wyll looked like he was going to ask more, but Gale subtly shook his head.

Astarion took a sip of wine and made a face. “I hope we manage to find better wine on our travels—I don’t know how much more of swill I can stand.”

“If it’s not up to your standards, we could always add it to our stews,” Gale suggested.

“Absolutely not.” Astarion took another sip of wine. “As much as I loathe the flavor of this cheap plonk, wine and spirits seem to be among the few things I can stomach besides blood. Though drinking it doesn’t assuage the constant burning in my throat like blood does, it lets me feel vaguely normal. And sometimes lets me forget.”

“I’m sorry if this seems too forward, but may I ask who your sire is?” Gale asked.

Astarion drained his goblet then winced from the burn of the cheap wine. “Cazador Szarr.”

Wyll’s eyes went wide. “Cazador? The one with the massive palace in the upper city?”

Astarion nodded. “The very one. None of the rich and powerful ever seem to care about a vampire lord picking off victims left and right as long as none of their scions go missing. Lena promised me that she’d help me remove Cazador and free me.”

Wyll raised and eyebrow and looked at Gale. “And you’re alright with your lady love going after a vampire lord for another man?”

Gale thought for a moment. “I’ll admit to sometimes being a bit jealous of their bond, but I trust her. And as much as she may appear to fling herself into situations, she does seem to have highly honed instincts when it comes to her well-being, as well as our own.”

Astarion grimaced and poured himself another cup of wine. “I've never thought of her in any way that can be construed as even vaguely sexual, and as far as I'm concerned she's my sister, for fuck’s sake. Frankly, she’s the first person who I’ve considered a friend in two centuries, so I believe her when she says she’ll do her damnedest to free me. After all I’d been compelled to do under Cazador, I’m rather grateful for the chance to find out who I am and what I want. And just to clarify, I don’t want anyone else here in and romantic way." He paused. "No offense meant.” He drained his goblet.

"None taken." Gale stopped Astarion as he reached for the bottle. “We still need to help Wyll,” he said gently.

Astarion nodded and looked into his empty goblet. “Right. From what I can tell, we might be able to prevent Mizora from punishing Wyll because the contract doesn’t specify what a heart is. However, if Zariel had Karlach installed with an infernal engine before Wyll signed his contract with Mizora, then the odds that the laws of Avernus clarified the definition of a heart goes down dramatically because Karlach’s the first person we know of to have had their heart replaced.”

Wyll’s expression lit up. “Then let’s talk to Karlach.”

The three men walked over to Karlach, who was still seated on the ground. Gale sat down next to Lena who leaned against him.

“Karlach,” Wyll said, “Do you have any memory of when you were taken to Avernus?”

Karlach looked at him, bewildered. “Ten years ago. Why?”

Wyll grabbed his head. “Arg, that’s around the time when I signed my contract. Do you remember if it was the beginning of the year, or the end of the year?”

She thought for a moment. “I think it was towards the end of the year, around the time of the winter solstice.”

Wyll pumped his fist. “I signed my contract in the spring, before you had your engine installed!”

“I don’t see what that has to do with Mizora,” Karlach admitted.

“I believe that the laws in the Hells would not have accounted for your engine as not a ‘heart’ yet,” Astarion clarified.

Karlach grinned. “Do you think it’ll spare Wyll?”

“I doubt there’s any harm in trying,” Astarion said. “Devils are known for being sticklers for their laws, and you were the first to have their heart replaced. And from what you’ve told me, Zariel’s impulsivity means she may not have changed the laws to account for it until well after you had it installed.”

Karlach breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, it feels good knowing that Wyll might have an out. You sure you couldn’t find a way for Wyll to get out of his contract?”

Astarion shook his head. “I don’t have any books pertaining to infernal laws, so I can’t say for sure whether I can argue that the contract was valid despite his lacking representation during the time when he signed it.”

Wyll hugged Astarion. “Thank you!”

Astarion scrunched up his nose and grimaced. “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to face Mizora and whatever ‘court’ they decide to drum up.”

Wyll let go. “Right. So all we do is wait.”

---

They waited.

Wyll paced back and forth until Lae’zel told him to spar with her, and they traded tips and techniques for attacks and counterattacks.

Lena had managed to move her sleeping spiderling, Bitey, to her tent, then fashioned a rope dart from some of the spidersilk and one of the heavier daggers and was slowly teaching herself to flick it at Lae’zel’s target dummy.

Gale and Astarion wrote up an argument.

Shadowheart took Karlach to confer with Withers to confirm that Karlach was indeed allowed to be resurrected even if they had to kill her, and Karlach helped Shadowheart prepare a sleeping potion that could potentially kill Karlach.

At nearly midnight, three oily pools appeared in camp and all action stopped: Mizora and two cambion arbiters appeared.

“Right, let’s get this over with,” Wyll said.

Mizora cleared her throat. “I have called my sisters, Cirrus and Feena, to arbitrate on whether I am allowed to punish Wyll for failing to kill the heartless tiefling, Karlach.”

Astarion stood. “Having examined Wyll contract, the question has arisen as the whether the definition of a heart at the time of signing was defined by the laws of Avernus. Do any of you ladies have a copy of the law from that time period, and the subsequent amendments to state that a heart cannot include any mechanical device that serves the same function?”

Cirrus pulled out a scroll. “Section fourteen, appendix eighty: ‘Heart: an organ that pumps blood in a living organism.’”

“I notice there is no mention that the heart must be composed of muscle tissue,” Astarion said. “Has this been amended.”

“No,” Cirrus replied.

Astarion nodded. “Given that Karlach’s infernal engine is an artificial heart as functions in much the same way as a heart made of muscle, I would argue that Karlach is not ‘heartless’ as specified in the contract as signed, and therefore Mizora’s order for Wyll to kill Karlach was unlawful.”

Cirrus and Feena looked at each other, then nodded. “We, the arbiters of Avernus, agree with your assessment, and Mizora was in violation of the terms of the contract she has with Wyll Ravengard. Her punishment shall be to have her wings removed.” Cirrus and Feena walked over to Mizora, who backed away from them.

“You can’t do this to me!” she screamed. “How could you side with mortals over your own sister?”

“We are here to judge and execute the law, sister,” Feena said. The arbiters pulled daggers from their waists. “We have found you in violation.”

“Sister, you have always overestimated yourself,” Cirrus said sweetly. They each grabbed a wing and started hacking them off with crude chopping motions, Mizora screaming with each strike. Everyone stared as her black blood sprayed the arbiters, and after several tense minutes the wings came loose and the sisters folded them and tucked them away.

Mizora lay on the ground, bloody, filthy, and sobbing. The arbiters then lifted Mizora by the elbows, then looked at Wyll. “She is still your patron, as stated in the contract, but we shall keep further watch to ensure that both parties stay within the bounds of our laws,” Feena said. Then the trio disappeared into an oily puddle.

“That struck me as bizarrely easy,” Astarion remarked.

“Devils will just as easily stab each other in the back as any of us,” Karlach said. “I bet those two have been waiting to find any excuse to lay Mizora low in Zariel’s eyes.”

Wyll blinked. “So I’m spared?”

Astarion shook his head. “For now. I should continue to review that contract to ensure that you avoid further issues with your patron.”

“Though another night,” Lae’zel said. “I was assured that we would be slaughtering the goblins: I crave blood.”

Astarion smirked. “Of course. Let's all have ourselves a good night's sleep then.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, they portaled to the village and started following the goblin remains that still hadn’t been picked off by scavengers, then exited the village. It looked like the owlbear couple had done quite a number on the goblins as they didn’t find any living as they passed by crows and ravens picking at carcasses under some smashed up crude defensive structures.

Bitey, Lena’s pet phase spiderling, would hop off of Lena’s shoulder where it liked to perch, and occasionally grab a goblin or worg scrap then skitter back up to Lena’s shoulder to eat. Lena would occasionally give it a pat on to top of its cephalothorax, and Gale would try not to cringe when it would wave its forelegs at him as he walked along side them. Lae’zel watched the spiderling with fascination, occasionally giving it a goblin hand or foot, while the rest of the party watched at a healthier distance.

They wandered until they approached a bridge that separated them from what appeared to be a large stone building. They could see that the courtyard was relatively free of rotting corpses, and the defensive structures showed signs of repair, so they halted and hid behind some low walls and foliage.

Shadowheart sneered at the broken statuary. “Selunites. It looks better now that the goblins have defaced it.” Everyone stared at Shadowheart.

“I don’t get it: why does your goddess hate this Selena goddess?” Lena asked.

Shadowheart smirked. “‘Selune,’” she corrected. “Shar came first, when the universe was dark and peaceful. Then her sister, Selune, brought light in the form of the moon, bringing to light conflict and casting off the shadows that are Shar’s domain.”

Lena looked baffled. “I don’t get why that’s a bad thing, and why Shar seems to have the bigger beef with the moon than with the sun, which theoretically should be the source of light the moon reflects, as is the case with pretty much all astronomical moons I can think of. But I’m not a theologian, I grew up without personal gods in a non-religious household, so I’m going to not touch this with a ten-foot pole.”

“It’s because Selune—” Shadowheart began.

“Nope,” Lena interrupted with a bright unhinged smile and put a finger on Shadowheart’s lips. “Let’s not ruin a perfectly good massacre with an ugly subject like religion.” She gave Shadowheart a pat on her shoulder. Shadowheart huffed. Lena sniffed the air. “I smell probably three or four goblins over the eau de corpse, and I think there's also an ogre.”

“Can you smell the owlbears?” Shadowheart asked.

Lena raised her face and closed her eyes. “Just a hint, so I think they’re dead.”

“An owlbear?” Karlach said, getting excited. “I love owlbears! I used to have a toy one when I was a kid, though I gave it to one of my friends because he didn’t have any toys, so my da made me Clive.” She fished out a toy bear with a few charred patches that smelled faintly of ozone.

Lena’s eyes went wide. “So cute…” she whispered. “Is that enchanted?”

Karlach looked at it. “Yeah...after Zariel had me get the infernal engine, I couldn’t hold him anymore without him burning. It took a while, but I managed to find someone who owed me a favor to enchant him against heat.” Karlach gave Clive a hug, then put him back in her carry-all.

“So is your father still around?” Wyll asked.

Karlach shook her head. “Naw. My mum died when I was teenager, and not long after my da followed.”

Wyll’s head dropped. “Gods, I’m sorry.”

Karlach gave Wyll a wry smile. “Easy, soldier. It’s all past now. All we can do is keep moving.”

“Speaking of moving, shall we proceed?” Astarion asked.

“Yes, my blade thirsts for blood,” Lae’zel said.

Lena peeked over the low wall leading up to the former Selunite sanctum. “I still suggest we sneak in. There’s something there I can’t quite place. Unless, Lae’zel, you want to run in first and find out the hard way.”

Lae’zel glared at Lena. “Chk, I shall avoid rushing in and avoid saving everyone else’s lives.”

Lena gave Lae’zel a bright smile. “Good!”

As she started sneaking across the bridge leading to the camp, a voice boomed in everyone’s head. “Hear my voice. Obey my command.”

Everyone stopped in their tracks; some fell to their knees, others crouched and held their heads as though they could keep their skulls from bursting, all trying to keep from uttering a sound as the pain flooded them. Suddenly, their vision went dark and featureless landscape appeared, with three figures: Lena saw a decrepit male elf in armor, and scruffy human man with an oily grin, and a creepy-looking pale veiny woman with even paler eyes.

“These are my Chosen. They speak for me. Aid their search for the weapon, and you will be worthy to stand beside them. In my presence.” the voice boomed.

Suddenly a bright light appeared from the polygon in Shadowheart’s carry-all, somehow pushing back against the disembodied voice and its attempt to compel them to join the figures in the vision.

“My power grows. My forces gather. The reckoning draws near...” the disembodied voice faded.

Suddenly, the polygon appeared in Wyll’s hands.

“The voice is quelled,” Lae’zel said. “The artifact’s doing…” Her eyes bulged, then glared at Shadowheart. “That is a githyanki artifact. How did you come to possess it?”

Surprised, Shadowheart stared at Lae’zel. “I was ordered by my matron to take it. I am supposed to take it back to her.”

“Why does your matron want a githyanki heirloom? It is my people’s, not yours,” Lae’zel spat.

Lena looked at the polygon in Wyll's hands. “Huh, last time I saw that thing Shadowheart nearly punched a hole in my temple with it." She looked over at Lae'zel and narrowed her eyes. "And it prevented us from joining the sad emo punk version of the Three Stooges, so one fuck with it, especially you.” She winced and then projected the image of the three she saw and then the Three Stooges, only with mohawks and piercings.

“Wait,” Karlach said. “That’s not what I saw. And you saw Gortash?”

“Who the hell is Gortash?” Lena asked.

“He was the one who sold me to Zariel,” Karlach seethed. “After my da died and I had no one else, Gortash, the greasy-looking fucker from your version of what I saw, hired me as his bodyguard. I thought he was my friend.” Karlach started getting hotter as she grew angrier and flames started to peek out from her vents.

“It’s strange. I saw a ‘handsome younger man with an easy smile’ in my vision, but I don’t recall a face,” Wyll said. “I definitely wouldn’t describe Lena’s version as ‘handsome.’”

Karlach pulled a face. “The fucker always thought himself better than he actually was. And somehow he’s behind that voice trying to dig holes in my head.”

“Why didn’t Lena see what the rest of us saw?” Lae’zel asked.

Gale tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I can only guess that it may have to do with the fact that physiologically she’s foreign to Toril: We certainly don’t have shifters such as she, and she doesn’t have any other shifted form so her magic’s not druidic. And unlike you, Lae’zel, her people had no known contact with mind flayers prior to the event of her kidnapping, so there may be additional structural differences despite being ostensibly human.”

Lena nodded. “Awesome. I’m an alien.” Then she made quiet beeping noises before she noticed Shadowheart and Lae’zel who glaring at each other. She narrowed her eyes. “You two know the score: I have something operatic in mind.”

The two women looked at each other before turning back to Lena. “We’ll behave,” they said in tandem.

Lena gave them a curt nod and continued to slowly approach the portcullis. Karlach and Wyll looked at Lena and then the suddenly subdued Lae’zel and Shadowheart, then looked at Gale.

“She’s a terrible singer,” he explained.

“Is it really that bad?” Karlach asked.

“She made harpies scream in agony with just her singing,” Gale said.

“Oh, now I absolutely must hear this one day,” Wyll said.

Gale opened his mouth, but Astarion interrupted. “Let him find out the hard way or the boy will never learn.” He then indicated that they were falling behind. Wyll shot Astarion a dirty look before he followed.

---

As they quietly entered the courtyard, they saw an ogre with fresh claw marks and a missing eye standing guard in front of the main entrance, as well as a handful of similarly-distressed goblins idling nearby—there was evidence of a massive fire in what was once a fountain and a few chunks of roasted meat that had been trampled into the ground, though no sign that the two owlbears remained other than the faint odor of fur and feathers.

They clustered behind the fountain wall. Lena elbowed Astarion. “Think I can kill that ogre with one blow?”

Astarion looked at her flatly. “Yes. Yes you can.”

Lena looked crestfallen. “Aw, I thought we could get a bet going.”

Astarion looked at her dead in the eye. “I’m not stupid enough to take that bet because I’ve seen you in battle enough times that I know you can do some strange thing that leaves the rest of us baffled and you mostly unscathed. And you know Lae’zel’s itching to draw blood.”

Lae’zel crept along side them. “I claim the ogre. I should have no trouble taking it down without additional aid.”

Lena sighed. “Fine. I’m going to burrow in first to take out that magic user, then you can all come in and take the rest of them out while they’re distracted,” Lena pointed to a scraped-up goblin with a bone-encrusted staff.

Lae’zel nodded. “Agreed.”

They quietly dispersed behind barrels, columns, and walls. Astarion, Karlach, and Lae’zel crept in closer, ready to strike. Lena handed Bitey to Gale, who reluctantly allowed the spiderling to sit on his head, then he and Wyll readied some spells, while Shadowheart stayed close enough to both to defend them.

Lena dug into the ground, going around the base of the fountain, before searching for the smell of ozone. Once she zeroed in the smell, she dug up and yanked a filthy goblin foot down into her tunnel before ripping their throat out with her fang-filled mouth, then spraying the blood and gore into the face of another goblin that looked into the hole she’d made. The goblin shied away and screamed, trying to wipe the blood from their eyes.

Lae’zel made a running leap and stabbed her sword into the orge’s ribcage while they bent bent over to try to look into the hole that the blinded goblin had turned from. She twisted her blade, but the ogre wheezed, spraying blood while turning to try and smash Lae’zel. She danced away from the weakening ogre’s club before stabbing her sword into the ogre’s abdomen and thrusting up to pierce the ogre’s heart before the ogre’s fist weakly struck at her head. She ducked, pulling her sword out with her as she darted away as the ogre swayed and collapsed

While Lae’zel kept the ogre busy, Astarion slit the bloodied goblin’s throat then ducked an oncoming slash from another goblin that Karlach then neatly decapitated before kicking another goblin in the crotch. Gale blasted the hunched-over goblin with fire, leaving a smoking husk.

Wyll’s spell blasted an oncoming goblin, causing them to halt and screech before Shadowheart finished it with a blow to the head.

Lena poked her head out of her tunnel and looked around at the smoking carnage, then at the huge double door. She couldn’t hear any movement on the other side. “I wonder just how much those two owlbears managed to do if no one’s coming outside to investigate the screaming.”

Astarion tilted his head to listen then raised an eyebrow. “You’re right: it’s quiet. Though I’d wager that the entryway may have a number of traps if they lack the goblins or ogres to defend it.”

Gale, Shadowheart, and Wyll approached. “I don’t like this.” Shadowheart said, “We should find another way in. They may have sequestered themselves into a more defensible position inside.”

Lena pulled herself out of the hole. “I’m going to scout around to look for other points of entry. You in?” she asked Astarion.

Astarion sheathed a freshly-cleaned dagger. “I may as well see how well these boots and gauntlets do on these walls.”

Lena nodded. “The rest of you okay with a little light looting and keeping an eye on this door?”

“I’m perfectly fine with not having to crouch with my knees as they are,” Gale said.

Shadowheart eyed him. “Tell me, how competent are you with your quarterstaff?”

Gale sighed. “I’m not sure I like what’s coming but I’ll admit that I’m not especially competent.”

Lae’zel eyed Shadowheart suspiciously. “What do you plan, istik?” Lae’zel asked.

Shadowheart grinned. “I do believe we may be able to help Gale with his martial competencies while Astarion and Lena scout.”

Lae’zel brightened then gave Gale a slightly sinister grin. “Excellent idea.”

Lena looked over at the two women and Gale's obvious dread. "Just don't kill or maim him, okay?"

Gale stared at her. "You're fine with either of them pummeling me into a fine mist?"

"Pfft, they won't because they know what's coming if they actually hurt you," Lena replied. Lae'zel and Shadorheart winced. Lena continued. "Besides, if being silenced can prevent you from casting, then you'd better have a backup." She plucked the quarterstaff from Gale's hands, then wheeled it around on either side of her with both hands at blinding speed before stopping a strike within a centimeter of his face. She then tossed the staff back to Gale, who stared at her and flushed.

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. "Wonderful. Now he won't be able to move for the next several minutes."

Lena gave Gale a peck on the cheek before she looked over a Shadowheart and smiled sweetly. "Your problem, not mine."

Chapter Text

Astarion and Lena walked along the walls: alongside the base when they could, or walking atop the walls when they couldn’t.

Astarion admired his new gauntlets and boots as they traversed the walls. “I must say, these almost feel like I have some of my former abilities back.”

Lena nodded as she pulled herself up to the top of a wall. “If it’s not too soon, can you tell me what a full vampire’s weaknesses are? Aside from sunlight.”

He looked at her and sighed. “I suppose I shouldn’t put this off.” He started rattling off a list of limitations, including entrances without invitation, wading through running water, holy water, and garlic.

She scrunched her nose. “Seriously? Holy water? Who’s blessing do you need for holy water? Because where I’m from, only one religion I can think of uses that stuff, and they’re monotheistic and I don’t think their version of god is here.”

He shrugged. “How the hells should I know? I only know that it burns when I come in contact with it.”

She looked at him. “Lemme guess: the master’s ‘meals’ caught on?”

He closed his eyes and faced the sun, then sighed. “The lucky ones managed to escape. The unlucky ones died instead of being enslaved by that sadist.”

She tilted her head. “Theoretically, could you have offed yourself before the not-tapeworm?” She pointed to her eye.

He looked down and paused for a moment. “I suppose I could have.”

She let him think it over for a few moments before she nudged him with her elbow. “Keep your chin up, okay? We’ll figure out how to make him into a skid mark on the road of your life.”

He nodded, and they continued.

---

At the base of a wall, they finally found another entryway hidden beneath some trees and bushes, with a fallen log that crossed a chasm to a nearby path. “Think you got the location?” she asked Astarion.

“I’m sure I can remember it,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“I'm sure I can smell our path, but scents can get muddled and shift with the wind. I also don’t have much a sense of direction without a map in front of me: I’m going to blame my world’s technology that lets me know where exactly I am rather than fully owning that I have a terrible sense of direction.” She paused for a moment. “Well, most of the time.” He raised an eyebrow but refrain from further comment.

They started to make their way into the hole. Lena found a few narrow spots that Karlach might have problems with and widened them before they reached a spot where they could see lit torches and heard two goblins ‘questioning’ what smelled like a human. She put a finger up to her lips, then quietly climbed the wall below the chamber then onto a small ledge on the other side. Then she drew a knife as Astarion drew himself up on the opposite side. He had his own dagger drawn and nodded. They both rushed in and slit the two goblins’ throats, letting them bleed out on the floor.

The man strapped on the rack nearly started to scream, but Lena put a hand to his mouth and put a bloody finger to her lips. “No screaming: I'm not here to hurt you."

Astarion softly scoffed. "I make no such promise."

Lena turned back to frown at him. "Dude, shut up!" she hissed. She looked at the man on the rack. "I promise that I won't allow the freaky lab rat to hurt you as long as you stay quiet." Astarion huffed irritably; Lena looked up at him. "My bad: that was insensitive of me." She looked back to the man on the rack. "I promise I won't let the freaky albino bunny man hurt you. Can you stay quiet?" Astarion glared at her.

Astarion glared at her, and she gave him a grin and flipped him the bird. She felt the man nod under her hand.

"Were you one of that curly-hair dipshit’s crew members?” she asked.

The man stared at her. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’ll let you out if you can keep your mouth shut,” Lena said, and pointed to the chasm where there was a way out. “So yes or no: Where you that curly-haired dipshit’s crew members?”

The man looked baffled. “Do you mean Aradin?”

She shrugged. Astarion looked impatiently at her. “Are you planning on wasting time on this man and letting him free?”

She raised an eyebrow at Astarion before looking back at the prisoner. “You get a choice, though I’d recommend avoiding that Ari-whatever-his-name-is, seeing as he abandoned you and the druid. Speaking of the druid, is he still alive?”

The man nodded. “Last I saw they took him to some cages for some ‘experiments.’”

“Good enough.” She extended her claws and undid the shackles chaining him to the table. “Go now, and head to the grove. And maybe ask the interim head druid for forgiveness for following a cowardly half-wit.”

The man stared at her claws, then staggered off as fast as he could.

Astarion stared as the man disappeared around the corner. “He could’ve made a decent meal.”

Lena quietly gasped in faux shock. “I’m offended! Are you saying my blood’s not good enough?”

He sniffed and tossed his head back. “No, of course not. But a little variety would be nice.”

“Can’t say I’ve noticed any difference whenever I’ve bitten someone. But that might just be because I’m not paying attention when I’m in the middle of a fight.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I concede that your palate has limitations.”

They doused the torches in the chamber then quietly opened the door a crack to survey the main hall: there were at least a dozen goblins milling around a crude throne, and others shuffling about. Then Lena smelled a familiar scent as well as a bear. She looked up and down the hall. “Shit,” she said under her breath.

“What now?”

“We need to go rescue a friend of mine on top of the Halsin dude.”

“A friend?” Astarion said. “The rest of our companions are at the front of the temple.”

“A friend from my home,” Lena said. She looked up and noticed the lack of ceilings. “Her sense of smell is probably twice as good as mine; If she smells me and I don’t rescue her right away she’ll give me hell. We’re going up.”

Astarion opened his mouth to speak, but decided against it when Lena climbed the walls into the rafters. They slowly moved along exposed beams, careful to avoid letting too much dust to float down, while Lena occasionally sniffed the air until they reached a chamber where some goblins stood guard in front of some cells. The guards all wore bandages, scratches, and bruises. What appeared to be a sulking goblin child sat in a corner sporting a black eye, several bumps on their head, and claw marks across their face. Lena saw a bear in the cell behind the guards, and behind the bear, a dark head of curly hair with gold highlights perked up and looked straight at her: Edie del Leone, liger shifter.

Edie nudged the bear and whispered quietly in its ear, and the bear gave a tiny nod. Then Edie looked at Lena before looking pointedly at a drum near the door. Lena nodded, then motioned for Astarion to stay put and close the door on her signal. He nodded, then Lena went off in search of another drum, picking bits of mortar and crumbing brick along the way. She found another drum near a bugbear trying to cast a scroll over a dead mind flayer, then used the pebbly bits to strike the drum four times in quick succession. Suddenly the bugbear stopped trying to cast to investigate, along with an entourage that included two drow and a goblin, and scores of other goblins gathered to the drums.

Lena melted back into the shadows and made her way back to the cells where Astarion had dispatched the sole guard that remained after everyone else left to investigate and had jammed the lock to the room. Lena climbed down to pick the lock to the cell when the bear rushed forward.

Edie immediately hopped on the bear’s back and put it in a choke hold. “Shush. She’s a friend, and you need to calm down or I’ll tell her not to let you out.” The bear growled, but relented.

Lena grinned. “Still the Disney princess?” she whispered.

Edie gave Lena a wry smile. “We’ll talk later. You got a way out?”

Lena pointed up at the rafters.

Astarion approached the cell. “What are we going to do about the bear?”

Edie’s eyes widened when she saw Astarion and she gave him a predatory grin as she slunk over as close as she could from behind the bars. “Why hello there,” she purred, the rumble low and deep, standing a good ten centimeters taller than him in bare feet. Astarion startled at the sound, then looked up and down Edie's boxer's physique before his eyes settled to stare at a pair of enormous breasts.

Lena raised eyes to the ceiling and sighed, shaking her head. “Flirt later. So are we bringing the bear?”

Edie shrugged. “I don’t see why not. He didn’t attack me so I figure it’s all good. Though I don’t think he can climb up the walls like you and I can.”

Suddenly the bear lit up and a two-meter—tall elf with shoulder-length brown hair and claw scars raked across his face stood next to Edie. He wore leather armor with oak leaf motifs on the shoulders and an acorn embossed in the chest plate. Edie gawked, not used to seeing someone shift in a nimbus of light and still wearing clothes. Lena rolled her eyes, muttering, “Fucking druids.” She unlocked the door.

“What are the odds we’ve found our missing Halsin?” Astarion asked.

“I must defend the eliminate the stain from the sanctum,” Halsin growled.

“Later,” Lena said. “We leave now”

“No, I must—”

Lena yanked the druid down to her face and extended her fangs. “We. Leave. Now,” she hissed, spraying saliva into his face. “Shadow druids nearly staged a coup in the grove, and we’ve got a crew to take these out, but I needed to get Edie out first before she throws a tantrum. Now follow or I will choke you out and drag you out of here over my shoulder. Got me?”

Halsin stared. “By the gods, what are you?”

“Leaving,” Lena replied curtly. She nodded to Edie and Astarion. Edie took a running leap in her bare feet and launched herself up the wall like a housecat climbing a fence. Astarion stared in Edie's wake before Lena had to nudge him with an elbow and he followed, helped up by Edie. Lena climbed the walls with her claws before she lowered the rope from her makeshift rope dart so Halsin could climb up. Just as Halsin reached the top of the wall, the goblins returned to the door to the cells, unable to get in. The four of them managed to make their way back to the torture chamber and through the secret entrance.

Chapter Text

As they exited the tunnel of the secret entrance, Lena gave Edie a hug. “How the hell did you end up here? And why are you barefoot?” she ask quietly. They could still faintly hear the commotion in the sanctum from the tunnel. She indicated to Astarion to lead them while she and Edie talked. He rolled his eyes and started to climb to the top of the wall, and the rest followed—though Halsin needed a rope lowered because the giant blond bear elf-man couldn’t simply extend his claws like Edie and Lena could because he was a druid and not a shifter.

Edie sighed. “Long story.”

Astarion extended a hand to help Edie over the top and she gave him a sultry smile and purred. Lena climbed up over the top on her own and looked over at her friend “Heel, girl.” Lena lowered a rope for Halsin and Edie grabbed it to help anchor it.

Edie looked over at Lena. “I'm not a canine," she muttered. Halsin started to climb.

Lena gave Edie a gentle smile. "Then stop acting like a bitch in heat."

Edie glared at Lena. "What, you fucking him?”

Lena stuck out her tongue and pretended to gag. “Hell no, but I’ve adopted him as my brother and you’re not allowed to ‘play’ with him without his express permission.” Lena gave Edie a significant look. Edie looked confused.

Astarion glared at Lena. “I’m. Right. Here,” he enunciated quietly. “I am perfectly capable of handling sexual advances on my own.”

Edie and Lena pulled Halsin to a stand at the top and Lena coiled her makeshift rope dart. “I’m sure, but you also went through some shit, so I just wanted you both to understand the ground rules. Namely you,” she pointed at Astarion, “can say ‘no’ at any time. And you,” she pointed at Edie, “need to follow the sexual harassment guidelines per the state of California.”

She snorted. “I know how to comport myself, which is more than I can say about all the profs and grad students I’ve put up with over the years. And your ‘brother’ is safe with me.” They started walking along the wall. Edie gracefully maneuvered over the jagged edges of the crumbling wall despite her bare feet.

Lena threw up her hands. “Fine. So explain to me how you go here. I was taken on the ferry from SF. I thought you were still working on your post-doc over in the Philippines.”

“I got a better offer from The Group: I work to track and stop animal and smuggling trafficking, including shifter parts, and they pay off my student loans. Well, was. I just arrived back to SF and was going to hit you up for some light Friday night B&E to relax after the flight when I got taken.”

Astarion looked back at them. “'B and E?'”

“‘Breaking and entering,'” Edie and Lena replied at the same time. “Best way to unwind is to break into a rich person’s home, disable all their alarms, and rearrange all their books. Lena and I used to do spend our college weekends doing that,” Edie explained. She turned back to Lena. “So why didn’t you noticed me on the boat?”

“I got a little distracted: some racist full-human shit-licker was planning on knifing me and I had to dispose of the body,” Lena replied.

Edie nodded. “Got it. So you’ve got a little group going?” She pointed at Astarion.

“The rest are waiting for us at the main entrance. By the way, did you happen to get some sort of wormy-dealie slowly lobotomizing you?” Lena asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Edie replied. “Though the poor-man’s cthulhus kept complaining that mine wasn’t working right. They were about to pop another one in when that ship-thing started flying funny.”

“So how’d you end up in that cell with a bear for a roommate?” Lena asked.

“I had the fever because I broke my hip and shoulder from the crash, so I was out. When I woke up, bear dude,” she pointed at Halsin who was walking behind Astarion, “was already my roommate, and one of those smelly goblin-y things had finished stealing my Doc Martens, saying he was going to give them to some bitch named Mindy.”

Lena looked down at Edie’s toes. “So what happened to your socks?”

Edie grimaced. “The creepy little asshole stole those, too. And he kept sniffing them.” She shuddered.

Lena frowned and shook her head. “I try not to shit on someone else’s kink, but no consent ?" She stuck her tongue out and gagged. "Gross.”

---

When they reached the front of the sanctum, they spotted Gale’s back while Lae’zel tapped her foot impatiently. He was hunched over and breathing heavily. Lena put a finger to her lips to everyone who saw them, then snuck up behind him, grabbed him by the waist, lifted him up, and spun him around. Gale screamed.

Everyone else snickered or giggled, except Edie and Halsin who simply seemed confused.

“Hi babe!” Lena said, then gave him a peck on the cheek. “I brought back some people.” She briefly let go of him so he could stand on his own, but he was too exhausted stay upright so she tucked herself under his arm to support him.

Gale placed a hand over his face and tried to get his breathing under control. “Please don’t do that to me. I don’t know if the orb can withstand these sorts of shocks. Or my heart.”

Edie gave them a confused look. “Wait, you’re with a white people Jesus impersonator?”

“His name’s Gale. He does magic. Gale, this is Edie, my best friend from home. And I don’t think they have Jesus here, so it’s unintentional,” Lena said.

“Well met, Edie. Who’s Jesus? And why would I want to impersonate him?” Gale asked.

“Primary figure of one of the largest religions from where Edie and are from,” Lena explained. “The depictions we normally see in our area is a dude with light-colored skin, light brown or blond flowy swept-back hair, robes, though he usually has blue eyes. And historically, the region he might’ve come from had people with mostly olive-brown skin, black hair, and brown eyes.”

Edie looked at Gale and Lena thoughtfully. “I should’ve taken more than the one psychology course so I can unpack how you two paired up. And he seems so nice, especially compared to most of the guys you’ve dated, as well as normal.”

Lena grinned. “Don’t let his sweet demeanor fool you: I saw him brain someone with a quarterstaff through an eye socket!”

Edie nodded. “Not bad.” She pointed at Gale’s head. “Maybe you should do a manbun or a half-bun or something so my brain doesn’t keep twitching from seeing the not-a-religious-figure-here hair.” She looked down at her feet. “Does anyone have an extra pair of shoes or boots, or am I going to have to make myself a pair of sandals?”

“What happened to your own footwear?” Gale asked.

"A goblin-y thing took them to give to his girlfriend,” Edie replied.

Wyll rushed over and offered a pair from his carry-all. “These might fit you.”

“Thank you!” Edie shot him a beatific smiled. Wyll returned her smile with a goofy and slightly smitten grin. Astarion’s expression briefly turned dark before he put his mask of insouciance back on.

“And the bear dude over there is our missing archdruid, Halsin, and he's a druid despite not wearing antlers.” Lena pointed over to Halsin, who frankly seemed to still be in shock.

Lae’zel sneered. “Why did you not introduce him first, k’chakhi? He is the sole reason why we are at this dung pit.”

“Something we can agree on,” Shadowheart muttered, looking up at the shattered Selunite sanctum.

Lena looked over at Halsin. “Bear dude!” she called out. “Do you have a cure for mind flayer brain maggots? Because all of us here can do with a little help.”

Halsin broke out of his stupor. “Oak father preserve you. You’re all infected?”

Everyone nodded, murmured ‘yes,’ or in the case of Lae’zel, rolled her eyes. “Have you a cure, shka’keth?” she spat.

Halsin ignored Lae’zel and looked closer at Astarion. Halsin lifted his hand and brought it up to Astarion’s face and a bright light burst from his palm. “But … something’s different. You’re aware of the monster inside you. You don’t bow to the Absolute like the True Souls do … How is this possible?”

Edie had crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes when when Halsin approached Astarion. Now she slapped the shoes she held against her palm, contemplating whether to throw one at his head. “Dude, we shared a cell for a few days and you didn’t noticed I had one of those things in me, too.”

Halsin turned back to Edie. “You never acted like any of them, so I never saw cause to examine you further. I also wanted to avoid giving away my identity: if the Absolutists thought I was merely a bear, they would have no cause to infect me or force me to go against the grove. As it is, the tadpoles you have have been modified with powerful magic to allow someone or something to control the infected. I’m sorry to say, I can’t undo the magic, which means I can’t cure you. I still have the pressing need to wipe out the scourge that remains in those walls.” He pointed to door to the sanctum. “Though somehow a mated pair of owlbears attacked and wiped out much of the camp before being poisoned by their giant spiders.”

A few members of the party smiled. Edie looked over at Lena’s shit-eating grin. “You’re going to have to explain to me why I spent the last three days eating roasted 'owlbear.' And what the fuck is an 'owlbear,' and why does it taste like a chicken soaked in beef tallow?”

Lena’s grin grew wider. "I could, but I think you already know the answer to the first bit." She paused. "Though the second bit I don't have a fucking answer."

Chapter Text

Lena had located Bitey in Gale’s carry-all and coaxed the spiderling back onto her shoulder.

Edie stared at Lena. “Who’s the fucking Disney princess, now?” Edie muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” Lena asked Edie.

Edie glared at Lena. “You know what I said.”

Lena grinned. “And who managed to get their Ph.D and was living out our six-year-old selves’ dream of being a paid marine biologist?”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Yes, and my lab was best known for publishing a paper on coral sperm motility that, thanks to my mother, still gets me called ‘Dr. Spunk’ whenever I visit family.”

Various members of the party coughed, sputtered, or guffawed.

"Why would your mother even call you that?" Wyll asked.

"She's still bitter I didn't become a surgeon like her and my brothers," Edie replied.

Karlach looked stunned. “What I don't get is why the hells do your people need to know about coral sperm? And how do you even collect the stuff?”

“For starters, you need to have warm hands ...” Lena began.

Edie hip-checked Lena and she tumbled about two meters away with a startled “Ack!” Bitey had managed to leap onto Gale when Lena went down and he sighed as the spiderling settled back onto his head.

“I was part of a research team that had to do a lot of diving in the middle of the night to collect samples when they spawn, as well as keep an eye on the tanks in the lab where we induced spawning with artificial sun and moon cycles. With all the swimming, my ass has never looked better.” Everyone—with the exception of an irritated Lena—looked at Edie’s leggings-clad butt.

“I never learned to swim,” Shadowheart said with a suggestive smile. “Do you think you could teach me?” Lae’zel gave Shadowheart the side-eye.

“I don’t see how,” Lena murmured. “With a butt like that she’s got a built-in flotation device.”

Gale held his hand out to help Lena up. “Never you mind,” he said as he gave her a quick peck on her temple. “I rather like your posterior.”

“Lena, keep him!” Edie laughed. “He likes your flat ass!”

Lena glared at her best friend. "Just because pigeons don't mistake my ass for a ledge to perch on doesn't mean it's flat!"

"Yes it does!" Edie shot back.

Lena flipped her the bird with both hands. Edie laughed harder, then started twerking at her. Lena rolled her eyes then rubbed a hand over her face before squinting at her friend. “Edie, do you have the zoomies?”

Edie switched from twerking to doing what amounted to an in-place dance routine from a C-pop music video and had started singing the lyrics on fast forward before pausing her singing to reply. “Maybe? Why do you ask?”

“Nothin’,” Lena replied. Edie shrugged, finishing the routine then switching to one from a K-pop music video.

Astarion was watching Edie with rapt attention when Lena crept behind him and screamed, “RUN!” He startled, and then Edie’s eyes flashed from brown to gold and her pupils blew wide as she fixed her eyes on Astarion’s sudden motion. Then she shifted, shaking off her clothing, into a four-hundred kilogram tawny-colored big cat that measured a solid three meters from booper-to-pooper with faint orange stripes along her back .

Astarion froze, his eyes wide when he saw Edie's body go low to the ground and her massive haunches wiggle. “Shit,” he muttered and began to sprint as Edie’s enormous liger form pounced, narrowly missing him as he dove and came up to run in a different direction. She pounced again, and he would evade her, switching directions as he tried to escape. This lasted for another minute until Edie managed to catch him by the nape of his armor and drag him up a tree.

“BY THE NINE HELLS, SOMEONE HELP ME!” he shouted from the canopy.

“YOU’RE FINE. JUST DON’T TRY TO ESCAPE OR YOU’LL TRIGGER HER PREY DRIVE,” Lena shouted back. “SHE’LL PROBABLY LET YOU GO IN ANOTHER TEN MINUTES WHEN SHE GETS BORED.”

From between the foliage, Lena could just make out Edie’s liger form grooming Astarion’s hair. Astarion looked like he would piss himself if he weren’t undead.

Halsin stared with his jaws open.

“Shifters aren’t supposed to fully transform,” Halsin muttered.

“It’s normal where Edie and I come from,” Lena explained. “Though one shifter hybrid—part wolf, part honey badger—who plays on a professional shifter sports team back home can’t shift: but she’s strong. Like, I saw a game with her in it and her only job was to keep one player from getting tackled, and she took on about a dozen of the biggest, strongest, and meanest players from the opposing team at the same time without breaking a sweat. And I'm taking about lions, tigers, and polar bears.” She pointed up to where Edie now had Astaraion trapped between her paws, and was now scent-marking him with her cheeks. “By comparison, Edie and I are like weak little kittens.”

"So what did you mean by 'zoomies'?" Shadowheart asked.

"Edie's a giant housecat in a lot of ways," Lena said. "She'd been cooped up in the cell for a bit without any exercise, and that leaves her with a LOT of energy that she needs to expend."

Gale nodded. "Tara gets like that sometimes when she hasn't had a chance to hunt. I'd wager that you deliberately triggered her hunting impulses to help her burn off that energy?"

"We've known each other since we were five, so yeah. And she seems to like Astarion, so I figured she'd be a lot nicer to Astarion than she would be with me. Even when we were kids and we'd play after her violin lessons and would get the zoomies, she would bat me around like some sort of dead mouse. Which, by the way, was really weird when we couldn't shift because I'd literally get slapped around."

“Shouldn’t we be more concerned with the enemies behind those doors?” Wyll asked.

“They didn’t try to leave, so I’m guessing that they did trap the entrance like Astarion mentioned—” Lena said. They heard a boom, followed by agonized screaming behind the massive oak doors. “I’d say we have enough time for Edie to work through her thing before anyone manages to make it through. Unless, of course, you want to be the one up the tree because she will attack you in her current state.”

Shadowheart looked at Astarion and Edie. Astarion looked resigned to being trapped under Edie's liger head on his lap and was gingerly stroking her head. Edie had closed her eyes, clearly content. “It honestly doesn’t seem so bad,” she said.

Chapter Text

Lena pulled out her phone from her carry-all, then wandered around the tree with Astarion and Edie, trying to take a pic that wasn't just a a game of 'find the sniper' because all the foliage and the branches obstructed her view. She resorted to climbing a different tree to get a decent picture, and when she got back down, she noticed her party staring at her.

"What's that you got there?" Karlach asked. Lena held up her phone. "Oh, this? Lemme show you." She proceeded to take a few pics of party members and the area, then showed them to Karlach, explaining to her the basics of her phone and all the functions. Everyone gathered around, looking at the photos.

"Oh, that thing's aces!" Karlach said as she looked at the photos that Lena flipped through while a song played. "Is this from your world?"

"Yeah. Where I'm from, just about everyone has one, and uses it almost all the time, including when they're taking a shit instead of bringing a book to read."

Karlach's eyes went wide. "What, do you people even use it while having sex?"

Lena had to think on it a bit. "Mostly to create and share smut. Because if you're on your phone during sex, your partner's probably doing it wrong."

Karlach nodded. "Makes sense."

Just then, they heard another 'click' and a 'boom' from within the sanctum. "I'll put this away," Lena said. "I can show you more later in camp." She slipped her phone back into carry-all.

After a while, nothing continued to happen within the sanctum. The party waited around, snacking and chatting aimlessly while they waited for the screaming to stop from behind the sanctum’s main entrance. Just when things went quiet and everyone would get into position for a battle, Lena would hear yet another 'click' and then motion for everyone to go back to waiting while the screaming began again.

“This seems like an excessive number of traps,” Shadowheart complained.

“Are goblins known for their brains?” Lena asked.

“No more than any other intelligent species,” Gale said. “Which would explain the seemingly endless number of traps we’ve heard triggered—an overreaction to the destruction caused by those owlbears.”

Lena tilted her head. “You know, how is it this place even has a species like owlbears?”

“I’m not sure I follow your meaning,” Gale replied.

“Where Edie and I come from, all birds evolved from bipedal avian reptiles some two-hundred-million years ago, and so none that I know of go walking around on all-fours the way an owlbear does. I mean, are they birds, or are they mammals?” she asked.

“‘Evolved?’” Gale asked.

“Basic gist: you have a population of living organisms that can interbreed, and in any given set of conditions, some of them live to have offspring and some of them don’t, and that drives changes that can potentially lead to new species,” Lena said. “So in human populations, you might see a group that evolved traits such as extra capillaries in hands and feet to prevent losing appendages to frostbite, a tendency to grow tall and lean to dissipate heat in hot and dry climates, or the ability to pack on fat in regions that tend to have lots of famines. And some cases, the differences become so pronounced that one group can’t interbreed with another, or their offspring are genetically incapable of reproducing. Edie’ll have better in-depth info because she studied population genetics for her dissertation on corals; I only picked up a little bit when I helped her with some of her mathematical simulations.” Gale’s expression went thoughtful as he mulled over the information.

Shadowheart sighed. “Speaking of Edie, how long will she hold Astarion hostage in that tree?” They all looked up to see that both Astarion and Edie had seemingly dozed off: Edie's head on Astarion's stomach while he leaned up against the trunk with with a hand on Edie’s liger head.

Lena gave Shadowheart a sympathetic look. “I hate to disappoint, but Edie’s into pretty boys, and with those tits and the way you present as female, you don’t qualify. Actually, I not sure that Astarion's okay with being with anyone female-presenting, so he's always free to say 'no.'”

Everyone stared at Lena. “That’s a strange criteria for choosing a lover,” Halsin said.

Lena looked around, confused. “So everyone here is bi?” she asked.

“Bi-what?” Wyll asked.

Lena’s blinked. “Bisexual? Uh, as in, someone who is attracted to people who present as either male or female or in between?”

“So you mean, someone who’s normal?" Karlach replied.

Lena went mute. Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “The k’chakhi has finally been rendered speechless. And over how anyone chooses to carnally enjoy another.”

Another blast came from the sanctum: this one caused the oak doors to bow outward slightly, and the screams were louder. Lena shook herself out of her stupor. “Looks like the show’s about to begin.” She turned her head to where Edie and Astarion were napping and cupped her hands around her mouth before shouting, “HEY EDIE! ASTARION! WAKE YOUR SORRY ASSES UP! WE GOT COMPANY!”

Edie opened an eye to peer at Lena before shaking herself awake. Astarion roused, then looked up and started to negotiate about not being dropped or dragged down like some sort of kitten before Edie rolled her eyes and permitted him to climb on her back as she hopped off the branch and ran down the trunk before trotting them over to the entrance.

“That was an awfully skinny tree for you to drag your giant liger ass up,” Lena commented. Edie bared her teeth and hissed, but there wasn’t any real heat behind it.

Astarion dismounted from Edie’s back and ran his ran his hands through his hair, which made a slight crunching noise as the strands separated. Shadowheart gave him an assessing look. “Did you enjoy your rest?” she asked.

“As well as one could when your legs have gone numb from having a massive cat’s head crush them,” he said, straightening his gear and tried to appear dignified. Edie was having none of that and immediately licked his head, giving an enormous cowlick, and bumped his shoulder with her cheek, causing him to nearly lose his balance. He glared at her, but she only gave a kitty smile. She suddenly perked her ears and stared at a parapet above the door, then leaped and clambered up the wall. Astarion cursed then ran after her, climbing up the wall.

At the same time, there was thump at the oak doors as a crossbar lifted.

“Shit,” Lena muttered. “Positions, everyone!” she yelled. She looked over at Halsin. “I suggest you take some cover in case they decide to throw all their spells at us.” Halsin snorted, then shifted into a bear, coming up close behind Lae’zel next to the door, Karlach on the other side. Shadowheart had her shield up. Wyll and Gale took cover behind the pediments of two statues of Selune that flanked the walkway.

Lena urged Bitey to go into her carry-all and moved out in the open next to where Gale took cover before pulling out her makeshift rope-dart and started spinning the dagger. “Let’s see if those years of wushu come in handy,” she murmured to herself. Gale’s eyes widened and he prudently stepped a little ways away as the dagger made an errant arc and whistled a little too close to his head, then cast a flaming sphere that floated in front of them.

The doors creaked open and a dozen arrows flew out, mostly aimed at Lena who was the only target out in the open. She managed to deflect a few of the arrows with her rope dart before she dove and launched it into a small mob of a half-dozen injured goblins that had poured out of the doors, startling them and striking one in the throat. Shadowheart blocked a number of arrows from a second volley before she smashed a hole into the face of a startled goblin, then Karlach stepped out from Shadowheart’s cover to cleave another goblin from shoulder to heart. Lae’zel decapitated another goblin, and Halsin’s paw bowled another goblin over before he stood on his hind limbs before dropping his weight down onto the goblin, collapsing her chest as a gout of blood poured out of her mouth and nose. Wyll cast a spell past the shadowed sanctum doors, causing a drow archer to drop. Gale’s flaming sphere launched itself into a goblin caster and archer, charring them.

At the same time the wall where Astarion and Edie had set up shop collapsed and a hobgoblin stepped out. Edie immediately pounced, her paws on his chest and jaws around his throat, then yanked hard, breaking his neck. She then tossed his broken corpse over the balustrade, crushing a goblin before Lena used the rope dart like a whip to wind around another goblin’s feet and yank them into the range of her claws.

Astarion plane shifted to appear behind another goblin and drained her. Edie blinked at Astarion before an arrow lodged itself into her shoulder. She used her jaws to roughly rip it out before roaring and pouncing on the archer, crushing their chest, then swiping at another archer and tossing them back into the sanctum where he fell with a thud.

Astarion dropped his goblin and gave Edie a vicious grin as he wiped a trail of blood from his chin. “Careful, darling. I bite,” he said. She lashed her tail irritably as she stalked past him, the tip of it smacking him in the mouth, and leaped into the sanctum. Astarion sputtered and spat, picking cat hair out of his mouth before he followed her in.

Edie sneaked behind a goblin spellcaster with an impressive feathered epaulet as she cast a fireball at Shadowheart, who screamed. She grabbed the goblin by the head, crushing it like a coconut, and tossed the corpse into another goblin spellcaster who had pissed themselves at the sight of a very bloody and very angry four-hundred kilogram cat using their priestess like a cat toy. Astarion shot the remaining goblin in the eye.

Suddenly a drow woman appeared behind Gale, smashing the back of his head with a mace. The flaming sphere disappeared as Gale fell forward, unconscious as blood flowed from his wound.

Lena screamed when she saw Gale drop, and she launched her rope dart into the woman’s face. The drow woman evaded the strike, but not before the dart managed to tangle itself with the mace that bludgeoned Gale, and Lena yanked the drow to her before grabbing the mace with one hand and punching drow’s face and breaking her nose with a satisfying crunch with her rope hand before she got backhanded, snapping her head to the side.

Lena snarled, then dropped onto her back and threw the drow. As the drow flew over her head, she saw a vision of a feast where a dozen seated drow had their throats slashed down to their vertebrae. The creepy veiny pale woman wearing a giant cooked lobster’s carapace leaped onto the banquet table and dropped a wriggling larva into the drow’s eye.The vision ended and Lena looked at the drow woman staring up at the sky, stunned. Lena shook her head to clear the pain and the fog, then made to bash the woman’s face with the mace when Not Chris Evan’s American accent with Weirdly Rounded Vowels suddenly echoed in her head, “Stop! She is as much a victim as you. She could be a valuable ally against the Absolute.”

Lena looked down at the frightened and confused drow woman with blood oozing from her swelling nose, then she looked over to Gale, still unconscious with his hair now sodden with blood and healing potion, being tended to by a slightly crispy Shadowheart. Lena scowled and leaned into the woman’s face with her fangs out. “You’re very lucky you didn’t kill him or I would enjoy ripping you to shreds.” The woman’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the fangs. Lena stood. Edie approached in her liger form alongside Lena, then lowered her head and roared in the woman’s face. The woman winced and tears began leaking from her closed eyes. Edie nudged Lena to move, and Lena walked over to Gale, throwing the mace away, then sat heavily next to him and held his hand while Shadowheart continued to try to heal him.

Chapter Text

Halsin approached Gale and gently moved Lena aside to aid Shadowheart in healing Gale. “You’re welcome to observe, but this will take a while,” he said.

Lena could only sit back and stare with glassy-eyed shock: Shadowheart’s healing potion had closed the gaping wound and bone shards from the mace’s impact, but the deeper brain damage required a much more hands-on approach.

Lae’zel approached Lena and crouched down next to her, and began, hesitantly. “We should let him die and have Withers resurrect him,” she said. “It will be as though nothing had happened to him.” Lena turned her head to Lae’zel and stared. Lae'zel kept digging herself in deeper. "His body is healing, but we can still slit his throat. Or if you're too soft, we can smother him as he remains unconscious."

Lena extended her fangs and hissed for a solid twenty seconds, coating Lae'zel's face in a fine layer of saliva.

Edie shifted back to human and gently urged a spit-covered Lae’zel to stand and walk away.

Lae'zel wiped drops of saliva off of her face with the back of her hand and flicked it away. "I do not understand how the k'chakhi can produce so much saliva without succumbing to dehydration."

“I'm guessing it's a honey badger thing, though I never looked into that, nor wondered too deeply about genus Mellivora's overall kidney function. Though in Lena's defense, it was a bit impolitic to talk about the Jesus-lookalike dying or mercy-killing him in front of her, yeah?” she whispered.

“It is the most logical path to regain a valuable ra’stil, or ally, when the services are readily available,” Lae’zel explained. Then she looked down at Edie’s chest. “Your mammary protrusions are most impressive. Do they hinder you when you engage in battle?”

Edie looked down at her own chest. “I usually have a sports bra to keep my girls in check if I expect a fight, which, laughs on me, I wasn’t expecting when a massive tentacle came down and zapped me into H. R. Geiger’s wet dream. Now can you do me a favor and go somewhere else? Maybe do whatever people around here do after massacring a whole bunch of … little … green … goblins.” She tilted her head to look at a goblin corpse on the ground. “By any chance are they distant relatives of yours?”

Lae’zel bared her teeth and thumped her chestplate. “Chk. I am no goblin, istik. I am Githyanki, a warrior from the Astral Plane. I am not related to some tsk’va-eating toad.” She spat on the corpse.

Edie blinked. “Okay, Kermit.”

“My name is Lae’zel,” she spat. “You best remember that, shka’keth.” Lae’zel stalked off.

“You and Lena are quite alike,” Astarion said behind her, startling her. Edie turned her head 180° like an owl and roared. Astarion jumped. “Nine hells, how did you do that?”

Everyone else, except Gale, Halsin, Lena, and Shadowheart stared at Edie. From a distance, Wyll could be heard retching, while the drow woman, Minthara, he kept watch over gaped at the sight. Lae'zel shuddered.

“Do what?” Edie asked, keeping her head still while turning her body to face him.

“Gods, I thought Lena was terrifying enough,” he muttered. Then he shouted, “THAT THING WITH YOUR NECK? HOW CAN YOU DO THAT AND NOT BE DEAD?”

Edie gave Astarion a dead-eyed look. “Hybrid.”

Astarion frowned. “That is not an explanation.”

She sighed. “So in my case, when a mommy tiger and a daddy lion decide to get busy …”

He glared. “I know what ‘hybrids’ are. What I don’t know is what that has to do with that thing you just did with your neck!”

“It’s just a shifter-hybrid thing. There’s not much formal study on the ‘why’ because there just aren’t that many of us hybrids to begin with, and a lot of us went into hiding after two groups of genocidal shitheads thought that we were a ‘stain’ on either human or shifter kind, going to far as to kidnap us for experimentation or selling us for pit fights. Or possibly both.” Edie shuddered at the thought and crossed her arms under her breasts, lifting them a little. Astarion blinked at the motion. “My parents hid me and my brothers with the full-humans for a decade until they got the news that the main perpetrators left the land of the living.”

Karlach walked over to them. “I have your clothes, Edie.” She handed Edie a bundle on a stick to keep her hands from scorching the material.

Edie beamed at her. “Aw, thanks! What was your name again?”

“Karlach,” she said. “Always happy to help those in need.”

“Well, thank you, Karlach! Sorry about the rather rude lack of introduction earlier,” Edie said.

Karlach waved away Edie’s apology. “No worries, mate. Though I wonder why you dragged Fangs here into a tree.” She wiggled her eyebrows theatrically.

“Honestly, because he’s hot. And that he managed to evade me while I was shifted was a huge bonus because I like guys who play hard to get.” Edie winked at Astarion. “Though I don’t get the whole neck-biting thing I saw earlier.”

“Oh, that’s because he’s a vampire spawn,” Karlach said.

Astarion grunted in exasperation. “I don’t understand why you people are talking as though I’m not right here.”

Edie gave a little mock scream and held up her fingers in a cross shape, letting her breasts drop, shouting, “The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!”

Astarion and Karlach stared at her. “What in the hells are you doing?” Astarion asked.

“Oh, I guess that doesn’t work here. And I forgot that letting my boobs drop like that hurts.” Edie found her bra and put it on. “The vampire lore at home says that the symbol of the cross can drive vampires away.” She continued to dress.

“A cross?” Karlach asked.

Edie put her shirt back on. She used the stick from the bundle Karlach made to draw a crude Christian cross on the ground. “It's a symbol for one of the largest religions in Earth, and it looks like this.”

Astarion scoffed. “That has to be the saddest excuse for a religious symbol I’ve ever seen. Why pick something so simple?”

“Something about Jesus Christ being nailed up on a big old wooden one for humanities’ collective sin … I really didn’t pay attention when I attended church as a kid,” Edie admitted. She squinted as she dredged through her memories. “I think my mom was using it as cover for when she needed to negotiate prices for stolen goods: if anyone asked her to pray or something she would recite the lyrics to a song called ‘Gangsta’s Paradise.’”

They stopped talking when Lena walked over, looking care-worn. “They’ve stabilized Gale so he’s safe to move, though Shadowheart wants to work with the healer Nettie at the grove to speed up his brain's healing. Halsin wants to question that drow bitch about what the hell was going on here,” she pointed at the sanctum. “I’m going with Gale. Karlach, could you and Wyll keep our ‘guest’ under watch when we bring her to the grove?"

“No problem, soldier!” Karlach replied.

Lena gave Karlach a weary smile, then looked at Astarion and Edie. “I’ll leave the looting to you two and Lae’zel. Did you have any stuff that the goblins might’ve picked up, Edie?”

Edie thought for a moment. “I had a messenger bag with my phone and my laptop and a few other things when I got picked up. Maybe some of it survived.”

“Awesome.” Lena sighed.

Edie wrapped her in a hug. “Hey, your not-Jesus’ll be alright. This place has fucking magic that doesn’t involve us growing fangs and fur.”

Tears started leaking from Lena’s eyes. “Can you not call him that? The weirdness is starting to get to me, and if I ever get to fuck him it’ll be so awkward.”

“With someone like Gale, how can it be anything but awkward?” Astarion murmured under his breath. Karlach smacked him on the back of his head, causing smoke to briefly appear from a handprint-shaped patch of singed hair.

“Oh wonderful,” Astarion exclaimed as he clapped his hand to the back of his head. “Have you any idea how long it takes for undead hair to grow out?”

Edie held at Lena at arms’ length with a quizzical expression. “You really haven’t fucked him? And you’re going to do a bedside vigil?”

“What?” Lena asked defensively.

“Sweetie, the last guy you dated you dropped because he wouldn’t put out.”

“No, it was because he lived with his parents and they were always at home. Would you have sex in a house with other shifters in earshot?” Lena explained.

“And the guy before that, on the first date you suggesting that he fuck other women because you were honestly not into him.” Karlach and Astarion snorted. Edie continued. “And the guy before that, who you dumped after dropping him off at the emergency room?”

“He shot himself in the ass when the gun he kept in his waistband went off in the back of his pants. I just wish he shot his junk off and saved us from the possibility of siring a new generation of morons,” Lena replied.

“You’ve known not-Jesus—” Edie began.

“His name is Gale,” Lena interupted.

Edie continued. “—you’ve known not-Jesus Gale for a few days now and you actually care enough to stay with him while he’s injured. And he's not usual loser-asshole who you can casually fuck and/or potentially dispose of out on a pig farm in the middle of the woods because he's double-crossed you or your family. Who are you? And what have you done with my serial-dating commitment-phobe best friend?”

Lena opened her mouth, then closed it. “I’m going to go take Gale to the grove now. And I will not think about what you just said.” She walked over to where Gale lay and picked him up in a firefighter’s carry. Then she turned around to look at Edie. “I HOPE YOU FIND THAT A GOBLIN JIZZED IN YOUR BOOTS. AND I CAN STILL SEE YOUR COOTER.”

Astarion, Edie, and Karlach looked down at Edie's bare legs; Edie had forgotten to put her leggings back on. “Shit; knew I forgot something.”

Chapter Text

Lena gently laid Gale down on the stone slab that the druids called 'beds' and stepped back as Nettie and Shadowheart began casting spells in tandem, causing Gale’s head to glow slightly as a haze of blue light engulfed it. Lena watched for several minutes before she started pacing, then noticed that the dead naked drow man that was still in the nearby ‘laboratory.’ It was also surprisingly intact for a corpse left out for several days in temperate weather; neither shriveled, bloated, leaking, nor covered in maggots, he looked like he'd died only moments ago. She briefly contemplated asking if Nettie had somehow taxidermied the man and why, but decided against it because her warped and filthy little brain kept wandering to places where angels feared to tread, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for all the possible answers.

Nettie and Shadowheart stopped their chanting, and the nimbus of light disappeared. The two women exhaled.

“There! We put him into a magically-induced sleep while his brain finishes healing, so he should be right as rain by dawn,” Nettie said. Lena sagged with relief.

“That was an interesting technique, combining those two spells,” Shadowheart said. “Perhaps we can discuss it elsewhere, and let Lena sit with Gale in private?” She gave Nettie an arch look.

Nettie looked at Shadowheart appraisingly. “Normally, I don’t like to leave patients with brain injuries for too long …” She looked at the laboratory and then back to Lena. “I trust you’ll keep on eye on him while he heals.”

Lena looked at the two women and raised an eyebrow. “So … Lae’zel …”

Shadowheart gave her a confused look. “What about her?”

“Uh, I thought you two had a thing going …” Lena trailed off when Shadowheart rolled her eyes.

“No, we do not have a ‘thing,’” she replied tartly. “I don’t see how it’s any of your business who I spend my time with.”

"I'm a druid," Nettie said, "and as such, we do not believe that we should covet our partner's bodies. I see no reason for Lae'zel to feel like she has any claim over Shadowheart's attention."

Lena thought on this for a moment, then shrugged. “As long as everyone’s alive in the morning.” She paused. “And preferably by the end of day as well.” Then she pointed to the laboratory. “Except that dead dude. Why is he still on a slab? Can he be moved? I’m not normally squeamish about the dead, but I’m pretty sure he’s been in there for days and I get a feeling you two are going to have sex in there and it just seems weird. And I'll be honest, my imagination is fertile and the rest of my brain doesn't want me to go there.”

Nettie looked over to where Lena pointed. “Oh, him. No, he won’t disturb us.”

Lena's eye twitched and she gave Nettie a suspicious look. “Wait, are you saying that corpse is going to reanimate itself or something?”

Nettie thought about it. “I guess I can put him away.” She motioned to Shadowheart. “Mind helping me move him?”

“Of course not.” The two of them lugged the corpse over to where Nettie indicated to a large round wicker basket, which she knocked the lid off with a foot, the they dumped the corpse in, ass-first. His head and limbs flopped over the basket's rim before the two women roughly shoved the errant parts in before replacing the lid.

Nettie then dusted off her hands. “Better?”

Lena’s face went blank and she blinked. Then she shrugged and said, “Eh. Good enough.”

“Wonderful!” Nettie took Shadowheart’s arm and they walked to laboratory door. “Just shout if he stops breathing.”

Lena looked up in alarm. “What?” But they already shut the stone door.

Lena sighed, then pulled up a crate similar to one that Gale himself sat at while holding his own bedside vigil, back when that old badger bitch did a number on her. The shadow druid wasn’t quite as dogged as vigorous in her attacks as Lena, but she had a few tricks that Lena hadn’t seen before, so Lena resorted to crushing the older badger’s trachea and slowly suffocating her as the European badger’s claws ripped at her head and neck.

She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do at a bedside vigil given that few shifters in her life have died in hospitals (most died in violent turf wars with other shifters), but she did remember seeing a lot of TV shows and movies where concerned friends, lovers, and family members held onto the patient’s hands, so she did.

She looked at the warm hand she held, examining the surprisingly clean nailbeds and blunt fingertips, then wondered how he accumulated the plethora of small scars: whether they were from injuries from spellcasting gone wrong, battles, or from cooking, given that he made the majority of their meals on the road. She looked at his face, the wrinkles and lines smoothed in slumber, making him seem closer to what she expected a thirty-four-year-old Caucasian male to look like, noting the single wheel-shaped dangling earring. “Huh, I guess he DOES swing both ways,” she said to herself, “if this were America in the nineties.” She mentally shrugged.

She got a good look at the what appeared to be faint lines from a tattoo that seemed to extend from his face down to his chest that she never noticed before. She reached over to touch his face, smoothing back a few fly-away strands of hair and wiping off some dirt from when he fell forward.

She felt a wriggling at her hip, so she opened her carry-all to let Bitey out, who immediately made for the top of her head and perched there. While she rummaged around for a snack, she noticed that a few snacks she'd packed for herself were now oddly mushy and shriveled, including two sausages, a portion of roasted pork, surprisingly enough, an apple. Her eyebrows rose. "Omnivore, are you?" she said, and gave the spiderling a pat on the top of their abdomen.

Bitey chittered and did a happy little waggle dance with their forelimbs, then climbed down her arm to sleep on Gale's face like a facehugger straight out of the Alien movies. Lena grimaced. "Oh, maybe not do that. I don't think daddy really wants you there when he wakes up." She stood and reached for Bitey to move them, but the spiderling gave an agitated chitter and clung onto Gale's face and hair with their little hooked toes. She tried again, cajoling the spiderling to leave and not block Gale's airways, but Bitey stayed put, going so far as to move their leg to latch back onto Gale whenever she managed to dislodge one. After a few minutes, she huffed in frustration, stood back and looked thoughtfully at the tableau before her, then reached for her phone and took a picture before putting it away and sitting back down to hold Gale's hand.

Not long after she sat back down, she got bored. One thing no one ever seemed to mention about these sorts of vigils was how boring they could be, especially without crushing anxiety of an unclear prognosis to occupy her. Uncertain of whether this magically-induced sleep allowed him to listen or if he was fully under, she slipped off her armor, grabbed her phone again, then lay down next to him on the slab and began to read aloud:

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral Arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this sun at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

Chapter Text

Edie joined Astarion and Lae’zel to loot from dead bodies for trinkets, extra weapons, or anything else that might be of value, though it took a while for her to figure out what was ‘valuable.’ For example, the grungy staff that smelled of charred meat found near the goblin priestess was valuable, but the shiny charm from the neck of drow was nearly worthless. The worn leather boots worn by one goblin were worth more than the nearly identical-looked worn leather boots worn by another dead goblin. The crudely stitched leather armor was worth more than the shiny metal armor. It was only when a frustrated Lae’zel shoved the two different items into Edie’s face that she finally detected ozone coming from the shitty-looking leather armor, indicating that it was ‘magic.’

“Why didn’t you just say that it’s the stuff that smells like ozone?” Edie asked.

Lae’zel and Astarion gawked at her. “Smells of what?” Astarion asked.

Edie had to think for a bit. “The smell after lightning hits, other than the burning and the occasional roasty-toasty dead animal.”

“I smell nothing of the sort, shka’keth,” Lae’zel said. “You do not feel the power emanating from these items?”

“The boots we’ve collected certainly have a power of sorts, but more of a ‘I can give you toenail fungus and gangrene’ vibe than ‘I can grant you the power to piss on someone’s head from ten meters away’—or whatever the hell they’re supposed to do for the wearer,” Edie replied.

“Kainyank,” Lae’zel muttered as she rolled her eyes before she stalked off.

“Oh, this will such fun to watch when the gith challenges you to a duel,” Astarion purred.

Edie casually tossed the armor she held aside and sauntered up to him, hips swaying. She leaned into his space until he was up against a wall, blocking his head one side with her arm and her chest grazing his. She whispered, “What, does the idea of licking my wounds get you hard?”

Astarion’s pupils dilated, but he kept his demeanor cool and raised an eyebrow. “My, you certainly seem full of yourself. What makes you think that I would be interested in someone like you?”

Edie immediately stepped away and her demeanor changed. Gone was the seductress who purred and threatened to make even his undead face flush, instead, she was now the amiable and practical companion who would never dream of seducing a colleague. She gave him a cheerful smile. “Okay!” Then she walked away and began to collect the more valuable items to put into the carry-all they’d found for her.

Astarion remained stunned, leaned up against the wall where Edie left him. “That’s it?” he sputtered. “Is this some sort of game, or are you really going to walk away, just like that?”

She turned to give him a puzzled look. “No, not a game. And yes, I'm walking away. From your wording, ‘What makes you think that I would be interested in someone like you?’ you aren’t interested in having sex with me, so end of story.”

He gaped. “But aren’t you angry? Or frustrated that I rebuffed your advances?”

“Not really,” Edie replied. “A little disappointed, a little hurt, but it’s nothing new. I tend to hit on a lot of beautiful men who aren’t interested in me or aren’t interested in women, and I was also in academia for over ten years—I’ve had a lot of experience with rejections. But I keep trying, because like grant applications, once in a while I get lucky. Then there were all the times I was the object of unrequited affection, so unwanted affection gets gross and creepy, fast. And I don't want to be gross and creepy.” She paused. "Well, not in THAT way." She approached a locked door and sniffed. “Smells like my stuff might be in here. You have a lockpick set?”

His eyebrows rose as he handed her a kit from his carry-all. “Is your nose so sensitive that you can smell your own belongings from out here? And why can’t you pick the lock with your claws like Lena?”

Edie examined the kit and took out a pick and the tension bar and began working the lock. “For the first question, I grabbed some dried fish snacks for the trip home so all my stuff smells like fish. As for the second, my claws tend to be thinner and more brittle at the tips than Lena’s, so they snap off like I’m sharpening them on a tree trunk. And at home, the locks are usually much smaller than what I’m seeing here, so I never saw the point in trying to use my claws, and stuck to pick sets.” The lock turned, and she packed up the pick set before handing it back.

“No, you can keep those. I have others,” Astarion replied. “And is it desirable among your people to smell like dead fish?”

Edie tensed, then turned her head and glared. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He looked nonplussed. “Shifters. What else?”

She sighed and her shoulders sagged. “Sorry, I’ve been stuck with full-humans for months on end, and they get all antsy about my apparent human heritage of being Caucasian and Asian. And older shifters give me dirty looks when they can't quite figure out if I smell like lion or tiger.” She gave her head a shake and sniffed around for her stuff in what was apparently the bedroom for the goblin priestess.

“I don’t see how they should care: all humans look alike to me,” Astarion replied, leaning up against the wall next to the door.

Edie turned her to face him and narrowed her eyes. “Okay, so now what’s that supposed to mean?” she asked testily.

Astarion began examining his nails nonchalantly. “Honestly, the only species that really matters in Faerun are the elves, and other than some very pretty tieflings, the rest I can only tell apart if they’re taller or shorter than me. Aside from your rather, shall I say, robust features,” he indicated Edie’s breasts with a flick of his fingers, “I can hardly tell you apart from Gale or Wyll.”

“Ah,” Edie nodded. “So you’re face blind.”

He stopped polishing his nails and glared at her. “What?”

“You just said that you have problems telling people apart, aside from body proportions, so you must be face blind.”

“I can tell elves apart just fine,” he sputtered. “It’s you humans who all look alike.”

“Uh-huh.” Edie walked back over and leaned in conspiratorially, whispering, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell the others.” She smiled and gave him a patronizing pat on the cheek before she continued her rummage through the room.

Astarion fumed. “I am not defective.”

“Your words, not mine.” Edie found her phone with the waterproof case cracked but her phone still visibly intact, though it refused to start up. She shoved it in her carry-all and continued her search. “Lots of people have some degree of face-blindness, and they just deal by being much more perceptive about other things, like clothing, hairstyles, mannerisms, and voices. That’s probably what you’ve been doing, and if it works, it works.” She continued her rummage: pulling out a pair of leggings here, a sock there, and a pair of underwear that bore new and unidentifiable stains that she refused to touch. She found her laptop with a fresh crack in the case, a roll of duct tape that bore tooth marks, as well as a now-empty package of edibles, an untouched travel package of tissues, and the crumpled plastic bag that used to contain dried fish.

Astarion found himself stewing at the possibility that he was somehow incapable of something, and it especially rankled that is was in front of Edie for some inexplicable reason. He had only just met her, and she threw him off-balance. Her calm and condescending acceptance of his ‘defect’ stung his pride, and after several minutes he finally spoke. “I don't to remember faces because they don’t matter.”

Edie stopped her search and looked at him. “What?”

Astarion took a breath and composed himself into some semblance of insouciance, pretending to examine his nails. “I’m a vampire spawn, and I lure—have lured—victims back to my master for him to feed. I used to let myself remember their faces, but after leading so many to their death, it was better to regard them as mere cattle.” He paused, trying very hard to keep his voice light. “Which is what they were. Cattle.”

She stood and regarded him with a steady gaze. After a while, she asked calmly, “Lena sees you as family, and other than some sketchy dating choices, she's pretty good about picking her friends. Is she ‘cattle?’”

“Of course not!” he scoffed.

“Are the rest of us ‘cattle?’ Am I ‘cattle?’” she asked gently.

He stood as still as a statue. “If I were under my master’s compulsion, you all would have been,” he whispered in a low seductive purr and he gave her a brittle smile. “I would have seduced each and every one of you to lure you to become my master's meal and I would have forgotten about all of you the moment the door closed behind me as he fed. I wouldn't even have heard your screams or pleas for mercy.”

“Did you ever fight the compulsion?”

“I did.” Astarion gave an unhinged little giggle, then his smile dropped and his eyes went unfocused at the memory. “I tried to save a dear sweet friend, back when I was a fresh spawn, when Cazador ordered me to bring him by any means. When I refused, he had invited him to a soiree at the palace, then he tore my friend to pieces in front of me, compelling me to watch, with a smile on his face, and then had me locked in a tomb.” He focused on her face, finally letting himself see her catlike hazel eyes, her snub of a nose, and the distinct pout of her lower lip, recognizing that she would have been a prize to Cazador, who only wanted the most beautiful and accomplished to torture and feed from. He gave her a chilling empty smile. “I screamed until my throat bled. I clawed and beat at the stone until I broke each and every bone in my hands and feet. I lay in the fetid dark for over a year with nothing but my nightmares to keep me company. I stopped fighting after he finally let me out. And from then on my victims were always just faceless shapes. Just bodies, like pigs or cows to slaughter.”

Edie slowly reached out a hand to touch his but he yanked it away. “Don’t. Touch me,” he said.

She reached into her carry-all and took out the tissues, handing one to him. He numbly took the proffered paper and stared at it. “You can use it to dry you face,” she said.

He touched his face with his free hand and found his gloves were wet, then began using the tissue to wipe away the tears he didn’t even know had fallen. But they wouldn’t stop, and he found himself crying in earnest, letting himself slide against the wall into a crouch, silently weeping. Edie crouched down next to him, not touching him, not saying anything to him, and handed him tissue after tissue.

When his crying abated a bit, Edie spoke quietly. “My dad's grandfather is some sort of shifter supremacist, and so's my dad's sperm donor, but worse. He tried to teach his kids—including my dad—that full humans are 'product' for shifters to be bought, sold, tortured, enslaved, or sacrificed to the occult. When beating this into my dad and his siblings didn't work, he would catch any full-human who they got 'too friendly' with and force them to torture and kill them. That ghastly shit and his brothers ran a trafficking ring to sell full humans, and before he met my mom, my dad and his brothers had to 'do their part.' When one of my younger uncles tried to leave, and my dad and his other brothers were ordered to find him and tear him to shreds. That was my dad's wake-up call that he had to leave. I only learned about this about a year ago before I had to go overseas for my post-doc: because even though it's been over forty years, they're still looking for my dad and uncle, and they're on order to capture any cubs they've sired.” She shivered. "They really don't like hybrids, and I hear they don't 'respect' females."

Astarion stared straight ahead in a daze. "Why are you telling me this?"

Edie picked at some dirt between the floor tiles and shrugged. "Just saying I can relate. My dad's been hiding for more than half his life. Even though he's alive, sometime he's not 'living' because he has to always be on alert, so my siblings and I never really went anywhere in case my dad's family caught our scent. Sometimes, when the fear overwhelms him he drinks until he passes out. Before I left I had to contact my mom's scary-as-fuck relatives in the area to help keep me safe. You only just got away from someone who had total control over you, but like Lena I'm going to help keep you safe."

He glanced at her with bloodshot eyes. "Why would you put yourself in danger? What do you have to gain?"

She looked up at him. "I was always going to help because you're important to Lena. But now this feels more personal, because I always wished I could've helped my dad and uncle. And something tells me that Cazador's too paranoid of betrayal to keep a lot of people around to protect him, unlike my dad's massive and massively deranged family."

"So you're looking to ... avenge me ... as a way to avenge your father?"

The corner of Edie's mouth kicked up a bit. "Yeah, it's stupid. I'm sure there's something more, but I only took one semester of psychology as an undergrad so I'm going to guess this would be a way to sublimate my need to protect my father by helping others in similar situations. But more importantly—" her lips curled in a grin as she let her fangs drop, "—I'm looking forward to the killing because that sort of shit is very satisfying."

Chapter Text

“Astarion!” Lae’zel shouted. “There is a door here that is locked.”

Astarion looked up from his crouch: his tears had run their course a while ago, but his eyes were still red-rimmed when he heard Lae’zel.

Edie had tilted her head in the direction of Lae’zel’s voice. “I’ll go and pick the lock if you want to stay here a little longer.”

Astarion waved her suggestion away. “No,” he sighed, “we’d best continue our looting.” He stood then straightened his armor and back, then combed his fingers through his hair. “How do I look?”

Edie stood and eyed him. “Like you’ve been crying.”

“Fuck,” Astarion muttered and he swiped a hand over his face.

“And like a cat groomed your hair.” Astarion gave her a side-eyed look and Edie gave him a sweet smile. He rolled his eyes before taking off a glove to rub them. She nudged him with her elbow. “Hey, it’s just me and Lae’zel—”

Astarion snorted. “Oh, so you do recall her name.”

“Just because I know someone’s name doesn’t mean I can’t play dumb to annoy them.” Edie looked over at the doorway. “And speaking of being annoying, I’m going to guess that she’ll be shouting for us in three … two … one ….”

“Astarion! Shka’keth!” Lae’zel shouted.

“We’ll be right there!” Edie roared. She leaned against a wall and casually sorted through her carry-all.

Astarion winced. “Are you sure you’re not related to Lena? Both of you have lungs that rival an opera singer’s.”

“Very sure,” Edie replied. “Who do you think taught Lena how to be extra loud? I’m half tiger, and we’ve got the best roars of all the big cats.”

Astarion looked at her, nonplussed. “We have larger cats than lions and tigers here on Toril. Don’t you mean lions have the best roar among non-magical cats?”

Edie looked over at him and roared for a solid twenty seconds. He closed his eyes as spit flew in his face. When it was over, he wiped some of the flecks away with his bare hand.

Lae’zel suddenly appeared in the doorway, out of breath. “I called for you, and yet neither of you answered.” She looked over at Edie. “And why was there a roar? Was this your attempt at seducing the leech?”

Edie waved a dismissive hand at Lae’zel. “No, nothing of the sort. He just didn’t believe that tigers have better roars than lions. Though now that I think about it, I’m probably not the best example because I’m both.”

Lae’zel looked Astarion trying to restyle his hair despite the addition of new spit, then she raised an eyebrow at Edie. “You did that on purpose to irritate him.”

Edie nodded nonchalantly. “Yeah. Well, he questioned the validity of a claim I made, so I corrected him.”

Astarion glared at Edie. “You could have just said as much.”

Edie shrugged. “Why say when I can show?”

Lae’zel’s face lit up with a slight uptick to a corner of her mouth. “I already like you so much more than Lena.”

Edie grinned. “Aw, thanks! I’m guessing that means very little coming from you!”

Lae’zel nodded. “You are correct.”

---

Astarion and Edie followed Lae’zel to the locked door.

“I heard nothing to indicate any immediate danger, but I smelled something … sulfurous,” Lae’zel said. "I didn't dare open the door with other means as a precaution."

Edie sniffed at the air around the door, then her whole face lit up and she started bounced on the balls of her feet. “Oh hell yes!” she cheered. She got out the lockpick kit and set to work, quickly unlocking the door and walking in with her eyes filled with wonder. “It looks like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one! And I don’t even have to go to Mass first!”

Astarion and Lae’zel looked around the storage chamber. They both looked alarmed. “This is a great deal of smokepowder,” Astarion remarked.

Edie was already hugging a barrel, stroking the top of it when she looked at him. “You mean ‘black gunpowder.’”

“I don’t care what you call it on that magicless backwater world you and Lena came from, but here we call it ‘smokepowder,'” Astarion said.

Edie already looked back down at the barrel, and whispered, “Don’t worry, my precious, you’re all coming with me. I’ll make sure you reach for full potential, whether its propelling bits of lead to punch holes into people, or blowing up buildings or bodies.”

Lae’zel raised an eyebrow. “Why are you talking to an inanimate object? And how do you propose we move some twelve barrels of smokepowder? Has the mindflayer tadpole rendered you as witless as Lena?”

Edie somehow managed to shove one barrel into her carry-all before she moved on to another. “Did you say something?” Astarion and Lae’zel watched as Edie managed to stuff a total of six barrels of smokepowder before she started showing any signs of encumbrance. “A little help with the rest?” she asked and she hoisted another barrel onto her shoulder.

Lae’zel sighed then proceeded to take four, while Astarion managed two. Then they took a portal to the camp and placed them into a trunk of holding that Withers had somehow provided for them.

Edie looked over at Withers then approached him. “I like the gold thingies,” she said, indicating the gold foil on his head and neck. “The yellow shininess really highlights your post-mortem pallidity.” Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose and Lae’zel rolled her eyes.

Withers looked at Edie with an inscrutable expression. “Thou art an impertinent shifter, like thine honey badger companion. Tell me, what is the worth of a single mortal life?”

“Depends on whether I’m annoyed enough to take the trouble kill someone and dispose of the body,” Edie replied. “Why do you ask?”

Withers’s impassive face gave the slightest twitch of a tic. “Curiosity. Why dost it seem that shifters are very literal when it comes to matters of life?”

Edie tilted her head. “Because unlike full humans, we typically acknowledge that deep down, beneath that veneer of civilization, we’re all just animals.”

---

Meanwhile, back at the grove...

Gale’s dreams were strange. He dreamt he and his house were being threatened by little men in furry hats with a dozing bull. Then he was in a pub with an alien that somehow resembled Lena, trying to drink several pints of beer before the end of the world before hitchhiking their way onto a ship that sailed in space. In his dream, they were caught by a different alien that somehow nightmarishly rivaled mindflayers, though with bureaucracy rather than soulless body horror. The aliens then tortured them with the universe’s third worst poetry (which he couldn't recount, but somehow knew was painfully awful) before they were being ejected into space and incredibly improbably rescued by yet another space sailing vessel with little white mice and a two-headed man and a woman with a degree in something called ‘astrophysics.’

The dream then morphed from the strange to more familiar: of him holding hands with Lena, of cuddling with her in bed, of her crawling atop of him and having her way with his body. Only this time, the dreams of caressing her breasts and her buttocks felt more substantial, more real as he imagined the muscles in her backside shifting beneath his hand, and her hand on his chest working its way down his body—

The orb flared and he tensed at the sensation of clawing, gnawing hunger and pain ripped through his body. He opened his eyes, wiping away a few inexplicable stands of spider silk from his face, and found Lena snuggled against him with her head on his chest and a puddle of drool seeping into the glowing scar where the orb lay in his chest, the faint magic that infused her being seemingly feeding it. He looked down at his body and tried to wrest her hand away before it could reach his very erect penis and potentially cause a new set of problems.

“Fifteen minutes,” she mumbled. She threw a leg over him, and proceeded to rub up against him, molding her body against his and pinning one of his arms against the stone slab they had slept on.

He stifled a groan and a curse before gently jostling her shoulder. “As much as I would enjoy a tumble, I don’t want to risk the orb destabilizing and turning all of us and the surrounding environs into smoke and mist.”

Her head rose and she regarded him groggily with her chin resting uncomfortably on his sternum. “Are you threatening me with a good time or are you just bragging?”

He slapped his free hand over his face as she started to laugh, then she stopped suddenly and sat up. She tilted her head slightly as though listening to something far away. “Holy shit, are Shadowheart and Nettie still at it?”

Gale sat and held his aching head. “Pardon?” he asked.

Lena continued to listen to sounds he couldn’t quite hear. “Shadowheart and that druid healer Nettie went off to have sex a while ago.” She sniffed the air. “I’m guessing it’s around three or four in the morning from the smell, so they must’ve left about six or seven hours ago.”

He looked up. “Really? It’s not Lae’zel in there with Shadowheart?”

“No. Doesn’t sound like Lae’zel, so she didn’t join them for a menage a trois.”

Gale heard a muffled voice rang out from behind the stone door screaming “YES! YES! YES!” and he looked over at Lena with alarm.

Lena sighed. She gave Gale a grumpy look. “I resent that we’re not getting any action, but now I have a fuckload more sympathy of Karlach.” She handed him another amulet looted from the goblins. He nodded, then held it up to the orb on his chest where it dissolved in a flash of light.

Instead of the relief he usually felt after consuming the item, the hunger remained. He felt his eyes grow wide with panic and he sifted through his carry-all for another magic item to absorb, then fed the orb a pair of boots. He gasped and looked at Lena’s, her alarm a mirror to his panic. “The orb. It can no longer be satisfied.”

Lena stared at Gale, her heart sinking as the implications of his words made themes clear. “What do we do?” she whispered urgently.

“I don’t know,” he replied softly. He leaned forward and cupped her cheek. “I hoped I would have time. I hoped we would have time.” Tears started to fall and his breath hitched. “I don’t want to die alone,” he admitted. Lena clutched Gale to her chest while he clung to her and started to sob in earnest, her own tears soaking into his hair. He clung to her until he fell into an exhausted sleep. Lena curled herself over him with her cheek pressed to his back, and listened to his steady heartbeat to remind herself that he was still alive until she fell back asleep.

Chapter Text

The light of dawn managed to pierce through the cave that made up the Emerald Grove’s infirmary, and Karlach and Wyll approached Gale and Lena.

“Aww, that’s sweet,” she quietly said to herself, seeing Gale’s head snuggled in Lena’s lap and Lena curled up over his back with her cheek squished up against it.

“My back hurts just looking at them,” Wyll said quietly.

Karlach looked over at Wyll. “You’ve been the Blade of Frontiers for ten years, and I imagine that majority of that time you were sleeping rough. Yet you look at those two and think to yourself, ‘My back hurts’?”

Wyll tilted his head. “I admit that I’m used to sleeping on the ground, but I almost always had the opportunity to stretch out rather than being hunched over like that. And I would bet good money that Gale will soon regret this choice.”

Karlach nodded. “True. I don’t think I’ve never met a human under the age of fifty who complains about his knees as much as he does.”

“And now we can add his back to his list of complaints.” Wyll approached the pair on the ‘bed’ and tapped Lena on the shoulder. Her head snapped up and she hissed at Wyll with a mouth full of fangs. Wyll shrieked and fell on his ass, while Karlach snickered.

Gale groaned. “My back …” Wyll stood and gave Karlach a pointed look, which she ignored.

“Not a morning person, are you?” Karlach asked Lena. Then she looked at the tracks of dried tears running down her and Gale’s faces. “Hold up. Did something happen?”

“Nothing happened, and that’s whole problem,” Lena replied.

“I don’t get it,” Karlach admitted. “Are you saying that you two didn’t fuck? Because that much seems obvious seeing as you’re both still dressed. And that’s not enough reason for you both to have been crying.”

Gale looked up at Karlach and Wyll. “She means that when I tried to feed the orb a magical artifact—two, as a matter of fact—nothing happened: the arcane hunger remains unsatiated.” He rubbed his face and looked at Lena. “I’m afraid I must leave everyone before the orb becomes dangerously unstable.”

Lena’s sleep-heavy eyes suddenly focused on Gale. “Oh fuck no,” she said in a low and menacing voice. She grabbed a fistful of his robes and pulled his face close to hers. “I’m not letting you go off alone to die like some martyr because your bitch of a goddess won’t do fuck-all to save the life of one of her ‘Chosen’ after she discarded you. We’re going together into the middle of fucking nowhere and we’re going to have the best goddamn sex of our lives so that way when you meet your shit-stain of a goddess in the afterlife (or wherever the hell your souls go to) you can look her in the eye and say that I was the best fucking lay of your life AND. NOT. HER.” A slight spray of spit flew into Gale’s face as it turned red. His scar started to glow and his pupils dilated.

Wyll started to panic as Gale glowed. “Perhaps we should all talk this over first with the rest of our companions before either of you make any hasty decisions that might lead to premature detonation.”

Karlach smirked and murmured to Wyll, “I’d guess that a different detonation might’ve already occurred.”

Lena looked down at Gale’s crotch. “Oh, hello there—”

“Yes, perhaps that would be wisest,” Gale interrupted. He cleared his throat. “Was there something you two needed either Lena or I’s attentions when you came in?”

Karlach lit up. “Astarion managed to find another piece of infernal iron and Dammon fixed me up!” She reached for both Gale and Lena and caught them both in a crushing bear hug, squeezing the air out of Lena with an ‘oof’ while Gale’s back cracked with a series of audible pops. Karlach stepped back. “Oops! Sorry about that,” she said. “I just get so excited…”

Gale waved away Karlach’s apology. “Pish posh! I should be thanking you for alleviating my back ache.”

Lena raised an eyebrow at Gale. “‘Pish posh?’ Do people around here normally say that?”

Wyll covered his grin with a fist while Karlach snickered. Gale looked at the rest of the companions in the room, slightly confused. “Is there something the matter with that expression?”

Wyll accidentally let a snort escape until he schooled his features into something vaguely neutral. “I think I’ve only ever heard it said by my elderly great aunt, and even she uses it ironically.”

Gale frowned. “I don’t see why you find the term so amusing. Elminster uses it all the time.”

“Oooh, that explains things!” Lena replied. “He mentored you, didn’t he? Isn’t he like a thousand years old?”

“Twelve hundred and eighty, actually,” Gale replied. “Are you saying that Elminster is perhaps out of touch? And that I might be out of touch?” Everyone gave Gale a look. He blinked. “Ah. Right.”

Wyll cleared his throat. “There is another matter that’s arisen: the drow whose life Lena spared wants to talk to you both,” he said.

“Wait, who?” Gale asked. “I must admit there are gaps in my memory, and I don’t recall Lena sparing any drow.”

Karlach looked at Lena. “Why didn’t you tell him about how a drow woman knocked him out and he nearly died from it?”

Gale’s eyes widened. “I what?”

“Oh yeah, we kinda got distracted by overhearing Shadowheart and Nettie having sex in that other room, and then the discovery that the orb’s not responding to magic artifacts anymore,” Lena replied.

Karlach and Wyll looked at each other before Wyll groaned and face-palmed. “Why must people be so complicated?”

“We could choke out Lae’zel when she finds out, just in case,” Karlach suggested.

Wyll gave her a side-eyed look while Karlach grinned. He sighed. “Back to the main subject. The drow woman who nearly killed Gale seems contrite and has already provided invaluable information on what those goblins were up to in that Selunite sanctum. The goblins suddenly organizing is part of something much bigger and more sinister than just a concerted effort at blocking the roads and murdering and looting from travelers. It’s linked with my father’s kidnapping by the drow, and there’s a cult behind it with a god they call the ‘Absolute.’ And do you recall those shadow druids who infiltrated the grove and incited Kagha to try to isolate it with the ‘rite of thorns’?” Gale and Lena nodded. “That’s also links back to this ‘Absolute,’ as well as our parasites.” Wyll pointed to his intact eye where the parasite infected him.

Lena’s eye twitched. “And is there any evidence that backs her claims?”

Karlach nodded. “Lae’zel brought back some disks with gith writing on it from the sanctum, as well a lot of other notes and maps that say the same thing that this drow woman said. And honestly, she seems alright to me, despite the goblins and the kidnappings and the ‘almost killing Gale’ bit.”

Lena groaned and dropped her head into the crook of Gale’s neck. Karlach gave her a sympathetic ‘pat’ on the back that knocked the wind out of Lena and caused Gale to fall back onto the ‘bed.’ “Oops. Sorry. Still not used to touching people without trying to kill them.”

“No worries,” Lena replied. She helped hoist Gale upright again. “Shall we meet with the drow cow?”

“Perhaps it’s best that you not think of this woman in derogatory terms,” Gale said. “Especially given that she’s a potential ally.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Right. So does she have a name?”

“Minthara Baenre of the underground drow city Menzoberranzan,” Wyll explained. “Though I would warn you that she can be rather blunt with her opinions and views.”

“And that’s a problem … how?” Lena asked.

Karlach grinned. “You two might end up at odds like you and Lae’zel. Or might become best mates. I honestly can’t wait to see.”

“I don’t have a problem with Lae’zel, per se,” Lena scoffed.

“Ah, yes. Um, there’s a bet among a few of us as to who’ll win in duel,” Wyll said.

“You’ll probably be glad to know Astarion’s got his money on you besting her,” Karlach said.

“What about you two?” Lena asked.

Wyll coughed, and Karlach slapped his back. “Own it, soldier,” she whispered to him. Then to Lena, “I bet on you, of course. Ten gold.”

“Five on Lae’zel,” Wyll muttered. Lena narrowed her eyes at him and low growl emanated from her. Wyll’s eyes went wide. “Uh, I think you should probably hurry and meet with Minthara before the sun rises higher. Then we can discuss the issue of Gale’s orb.”

Lena stood and walked toward the doorway followed by Gale. As she passed Wyll, she extended a single claw at him. “I know where you sleep,” she hissed and stalked off. Gale shrugged as he walked past. Wyll audibly swallowed.

Karlach smirked. “I did tell you that it was a bad idea to bet against Lena.”

“But Lae’zel is just so much more disciplined she just radiates command…” Wyll’s voice trailed.

Karlach nudged him with her elbow. “Yeah, but Lena isn’t quite right in the head. But in a fun way, you know? And I avoid betting against nutters.”

A few moments later. Lena walked back in. “I never did ask: where is Minthara?”

---

Gale and Lena navigated over to the chambers where they had previously encountered the shadow druids to find Halsin sitting with Minthara, who was now sat in a loose linen undershirt and leather leggings with her hands still tied behind her back.

“Greetings,” Halsin said. “I’m glad that Karlach and Wyll relayed our ‘guest’s’ request to meet with her.” He gestured for the two humans to sit.

Gale and Lena took seats across the table from Minthara. Gale looked at Minthara with curiosity while Lena openly glared.

Minthara kept her posture straight, despite the disheveled hair and dark circles beneath her bloodshot eyes betraying her exhaustion. There was still blood on her face from when Lena had broken her nose, though someone had clearly healed her based on the lack of swelling. She looked to Gale. “Gale,” she said with patrician tones, “I want to apologize to for grievously injuring you during the course of battle. I was under the control of the Absolute.”

“Yet you remained cognizant of your actions,” Gale said. “I’ve yet to hear of a power that can control a person’s action while they remain conscious.”

Minthara nodded. “That’s because I was not under the direct control of the Absolute: I was ‘encouraged’ to dwell on my desire for power, and Absolute fed that desire with visions that it could fulfill my dreams of bringing glory to the House of Baenre and glory to me. I became seduced by its whispers, despite how I came to be captured and infected with the mindflayer tadpole.”

Once again Lena saw the table seated with the dead drow, and of the creepy cooked lobster lady dropping the parasite into her eye. Only this time, she knew that Gale saw the same thing. Gale blanched.

Minthara looked at Lena with a hint of amusement in her eyes. “I find it amusing that you think of Orin as looking like a ‘cooked lobster.’” Her expression grew cold. “I initially loathed her, but with the influence of the tadpole I grew to admire her and wanted to please her in all ways. She wanted me to attack the grove to search for an artifact rumored to be hiding here, and salivated at the prospect of murdering all those within, including the refugees. I am grateful that you spared me my life, and somehow freed me from the Absolute’s influence. On my honor, I pledge to you my life. Your fight is mine, and I am your sword to be used to your will. And I will gladly fight against the Absolute.”

Lena’s eyes widened in alarm and she leaned away from the table. “Oh, I did not sign up for that last bit about pledging your life to me. And honestly, there’s this thingie that occasionally speaks to all of my companions and me that looks and sounds different for each of us, and it told me to not smash your face into hamburger meat so you can thank him. Her. It.”

Minthara nodded. “Yet I could see in your eyes that at that moment the choice was still yours: this voice told you not to kill me, but you hesitated and then chose to spare my life. You could have had your revenge for nearly killing who I now know to be your lover. You could chose to leave me here, but I know that I am not welcome; especially after I named all the druids in the grove who gladly agreed to turn a blind eye to my machinations with the shadow druids.”

Halsin growled. “I had been so blind to their true feelings and beliefs. I can still hardly believe so many could be so cruel as to sacrifice innocents for the sake of ‘purity.’”

“So what will be done with them and Kagha?” Gale asked.

“They have all be stripped of their status and are now novices,” Halsin explained. “I cannot cast them out for fear they would join the shadow druids, but I will leave them in better hands now that I’ve decided to step down as archdruid and have already called for my replacement to come here.”

“I hope your replacement’s better than Kagha was,” Lena muttered.

Halsin’s head dropped. “Yes, that was a grave misjudgement on my part. I had been so obsessed with understanding the modified tadpoles that I neglected to lead and it nearly led to the downfall of the entire grove. I would ask to travel with you to seek out the source of this ‘Absolute.’”

“Aw, that’s sweet, but I'm not the one you should be asking: I’m already planning on going off with Gale to the middle of nowhere in case his orb goes explode-y,” Lena replied. “Speaking of which, can you point us to some relatively nearby locales that would suffer minimal impact if a bomb with a one kilometer blast radius detonates?” She pointed a thumb at Gale. “I’m planning on fucking him until his orb explodes so when he goes to his goddess he can honestly say that I was the best bang he ever had.”

Halsin and Minthara stared at Lena, while Gale covered his face with his hands. “You’re a strange one,” Minthara said.

Lena shrugged. “Only by your standards. And by the majority of people’s here that I’ve met. And most of the people who knew me at home. But I am considered normal-ish for a honey badger.”

Chapter Text

Everyone met at the grove by noon with the promise of a lunch provided by Halsin, and their group included both Halsin and Minthara. They all gathered at the stone table to discuss the new developments; namely Gale’s orb, and his plans to leave them for their safety.

Upon hearing the news, Lae’zel narrowed her eyes at Gale. “Chk. It was a mistake to let you stay with us and let ourselves become familiar with you. Though if Lena leaves with you, I would see it as a boon to our goal of getting rid of the tadpoles if she does not distract us.”

Lena gave Lae’zel an utterly insincere smile. “Aw! I’ll miss you, too while I’m having loud and wild sex with Gale before we’re atomized by the orb!”

Astarion glared at Lena. “You’re not seriously thinking of going off with him, are you? You promised me that you would help me obliterate Cazador and free me, and you can’t do that if you’re a crater in the middle of nowhere.”

Lena’s smile dropped and her eyes went wide. “Oh shit. I actually managed to forget. In my defense, I’ve had a lot on my mind.” She paused. “And in it.”

Everyone groaned. Lae'zel, Karlach, and Shadowheart threw bits of food at her. “If you’re going to make awful jokes like that, you and Gale deserve to go off and blow yourselves up in a frenzy of lust,” Astarion replied.

Lena smiled cheerfully. “I’m going to take that as a compliment!” Then, more soberly, "I'm sorry I managed to forget my promise to help you turn Cazador into meaty fingerpaint. At the same time, I want to be able to have sex with Gale so Mystra knows I was the better lay than her. This adulting business and making decisions is really kinda hard."

Karlach and Shadowheart started to snicker. Lae'zel stared at Lena like she grew a tail out of her nose. Halsin, Minthara, and Wyll rolled their eyes.

Astarion was about to verbally lay into Lena when Edie rapped the table with the back of a dagger she’d been playing with. “Hey, I’m new to all this, but I’m not up for losing my best friend within a day after our serendipitous reunion just so she could have sex with a guy with a bomb in his chest. For starters, how close is this thing to exploding?”

“It’s difficult for me to judge,” Gale replied. “It was weeks after the orb embedded itself in me before Tara managed to discern that feeding the orb magical items could quell its hunger. Though the ache and the pain from the orb would leave me incapacitated, it only ever felt like it would explode whenever I allowed myself to succumb to strong emotions, such as deep despair and anger.” Lena touched his hand and he brought it to his mouth to kiss it.

Astarion, Lae’zel, and Minthara grimaced, Halsin watched bemused, while Karlach, Wyll, and Shadowheart looked like their hearts melted a little. Edie looked on confused. “Who’s Tara?”

“Oh,” Gale said. “She’s my tressym.” He quickly conjured a glowing projection of a fluffy calico with feathered wings.

Edie squinted at the image. “So, a cat with wings?”

“No!” Gale objected. “She’s more than just a cat. She’s a treasured companion, a fine scholar of the arcane, and a powerful wizard in her own right. It was she who researched the orb while I wallowed in self-pity, and she who encouraged me to live when all I sought was oblivion.”

“Aww!” Karlach cooed. “Does she stand on her back legs when she casts? I love seeing cats and their little pantaloons when they stand!”

Edie nodded sagely. "Very valid question that we must know the answer to. Please answer before continuing."

Shadowheart snickered. “If she’s anywhere as skilled as Gale was before the orb, I would imagine she might take offense and cast a fireball at you.”

Karlach pouted. Wyll gave her a pat on the back. Gale gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sure she’ll forgive you if you give her extra scratches around the ears.” Karlach perked up.

Edie stared intently at Gale. "You never answered the question: Does she stand on her hind legs when she casts?"

Gale sighed. "Yes." The projection changed and now featured an animated Tara casting fireball. Edie and Karlach cheered. Shadowheart gasped at the cuteness.

Lena tilted her head as she looked at the projection. “I wonder if you can combine that hologram-spell thingie with an electricity spell so it can zap bugs like mosquitoes and gnats.”

Gale blinked. “I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about combining spells like that. I wonder…” His voice trailed off while he began rummaging through his carry-all and hauled out a tome. He flipped through its pages before pointing to a spell. “I think that this might work.”

Lena slowly and carefully read through the passage, silently reading out loud to herself. “Seems overkill if it’s meant to kill someone wearing metal armor; like it's less electrocuting someone as it is searing them to death as the metal heats up. Is there a way to dial down the amperage?”

Shadowheart rolled her eyes and cleared her throat before Gale could reply. “It appears that the orb is not an immediate threat to us so long as Gale remains calm. And under the circumstances, I say we should continue to travel together.”

Halsin spoke up. “I would request that Minthara and I travel with you as you seek the source of the tadpoles. Minthara has valuable information regarding this ‘Absolute,’ and it points to Moonrise Tower in Reithwin.”

Lae’zel gave Minthara a sharp look. “How do we know that you will not turn against us, hshar'lak?”

Minthara lifted her chin slightly. “I owe Lena my life, and whatever sentience that the artifact carries for freeing me from the Absolute’s influence. I hope that with time you will trust in my honor and my desire for vengeance against Orin, for infecting me with a tadpole and for using it to manipulate me.”

“Chk,” Lae’zel spat. “I will keep my eye on you. If you betray us, I will enjoy spilling your viscera.”

Minthara nodded. “As would be your right. But while I remain at your side, I will be as a sword to lay waste to your enemies.” The two women stared each other down, daring the other to blink. The room went silent as the tension rose.

Lena leaned toward Gale and stage whispered, "My money's on Minthara." Lae'zel immediately turned her glare on Lena—who grinned and gave a little wave—while Minthara's mouth twitched. Edie grabbed her phone and took a photo

Astarion started to laugh. "I think I can forgive your lapse just for that! Oh, the expression on Lae'zel face is priceless!”

Halsin coughed then clapped his hands together. “Now that that’s settled, the refugees have planned a party tonight in your honor to celebrate that the roads are now clear, and have asked if they could hold in your campsite.”

“I have no objections to a party, but why not here in the grove?” Wyll asked.

Halsin sighed and let his head drop. “Though the druids who sympathized or sided with the shadow druids have been chastised, I wouldn’t put it past some of the bitterest to be tempted to commit some heinous deed, such as poisoning the food or drink.”

“Ah,” Wyll said. “Then we look forward to meeting with them at camp.”

---

That evening ...

The tiefling refugees had decorated the campsite and shared what little food they had for the party: all of which was supplemented by copious food and drink looted from the sanctum. Most everyone was enjoying their evening.

Karlach and Wyll regaled the children with stories of their adventures as either the Blade of Frontiers or as the Fury of Avernus. The children sat on bedrolls, jockeying with each other to get close to pet Scratch, rapt at the tales told of honor and retribution. They booed when a villain appeared, and cheered whenever the villain was vanquished in gory detail. The tales got more violent as the pair continued to drink, and children only cheered louder until Halsin decided put a halt to the stories, citing that the children might end up with nightmares. The children objected vociferously, though in the end, gruesome storytime had disbanded when Halsin offered them rides on his back in his bear form. A very drunk Karlach and Wyll went off to a secluded spot to make out like horny teenagers.

Gale and Lena were holed up in front of his tent, flipping through tomes and drinking copious amounts of wine. They both were fixated on making the spell 'perfect.' Or at least non-lethal to anything larger than a wasp. One version had a frog with an electrified tongue that would dart out and zap passing insects (and the occasional bystander). Another version had started smoldering when the detritus beneath it caught on fire. Still another was a projection of a massive dragonfly that would swoop through the campsite and only somewhat rarely dive bombed someone. Their giggling and the lights attracted the attention of soon-to-be-apprenticed wizard Rolan, who decided he wanted in, then all three of them sat casting variations of the spell. As the night wore on, the projections became sloppier and more deranged, including a circus clown that emitted sparks, a xenomorph from the movie franchise that spat a stream of electricity, and a gull that shot gobs of plasma out of its cloaca. Eventually, Rolan's siblings dragged him away, citing that he'd be insufferable from the inevitable hangover, and Gale and Lena settled down in front of the tent, staring at the stars and talking idly until they fell asleep.

However, not all were enjoying themselves. Minthara sat away from the revelers with an expression that read "do not engage," and most took pains to walk around her.

Edie noticed that Astarion sat alone, away from the revels. “Hey, why aren’t you hanging out with everyone else?” she asked.

He took a slug from a bottle of wine. “Those refugees kept coming up to me, thanking me." He grimaced. "I never saw myself as a hero, to be honest. I never imagined I’d be recognized for saving so many lives. And now that I’ve arrived… I hate it. This is a disaster,” he said before taking another swig. “I would’ve liked a little something more than a pat on the head and vinegar for wine.”

She cocked her eyebrow at him and snatched the bottle from him and started to drink.

Astarion cursed. “Get your own bottle!”

Edie kept eye contact with him as she drank, raising a single finger to stop him. She finished half the bottle by the time she offered it back to him. “I’m guessing you’re a dessert wine aficionado, because that was a perfectly fine bottle: a hint of cherry and boysenberry with chocolate notes, a little acidic, but I’d chalk it up to being stored improperly after the goblins took over that temple.”

He scowled at her. “And you would know?”

She huffed a laugh. “I grew up next to one of the great wine producing regions on Earth, and my dad loves to play oenophile. He always let my brothers and me have a sip of watered-down wine on special occasions when we were kids so we would develop a palate. He even shelled out for a bottle of fancy wine from his home country of Italy when I got my doctorate. So I know at least something about wines: I can usually tell what region the grapes came from for single-origin wines. And I know what I like, and this isn't half bad.”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “Fine, you know something about wine.” He continued to drink.

Edie gave him thoughtful look. “I wonder if part of your aversion to playing hero is because you see yourself as a monster.”

He choked on the wine and did a spit take. He managed to hit Edie full on in the face and her chest. She wiped the wine away from her eyes with her fingertips before opening them. “I really should’ve expected that,” she muttered under her breath.

“What?” he sputtered. He wiped away a dribble of wine from his chin them looked at the mess he sprayed all over Edie. He stared at the wine now soaking through the Edie's newly-scrounged linen shirt, rendering it transparent as her nipples visibly hardened from the sudden chill. "I swear that's never happened before," he said under his breath.

She used a sleeve to begin wiping the remaining wine from her face. “Uh-huh," she said dryly. "I'm sure you've never unintentionally squirted anyone in the face."

Astarion blinked then began again. "Back to my point; I don't see myself as a monster, so don’t be absurd.”

She looked over at him from around her sleeves and lowered her arms. "No, I'm sure a part of you does because I did take that semester of psychology as an undergrad. And the pop-culture I consumed on Earth is filled with people turning into the thing that they hate. And it makes sense: Your master’s a monster, and he coerced and compelled you to do truly awful things. And if you resisted, he punished you heinously. So to survive that mental disconnect between how you probably viewed yourself versus what you did, you began to view that part of yourself as a monster. Now that you’re no longer under your master’s compulsions, you think of yourself as a bad person because of the things you did and suddenly being hailed as a hero when you led so many people to their doom is fucking you up really good right now.”

He fumed. “What a load of complete shit. Is this some sort of game to you? Am I a project you’ve decided to take on because I don’t want to sleep with you?”

Edie shook her head. "You're drinking a lot—How does your body processes it if you're undead? Because it looks like you can get sloshed, which I find weird because it means that your brain maintains some biological function—and you don't like the idea that you might've done 'good' because you've got a mental tally of all the things you've done that make you feel guilty, which probably also includes 'surviving,' I bet that deep down you don't think you deserve any praise for helping others so you try to repress those impulses, and that's where you become the monster you fear. And though she won't admit it, Lena has a surprisingly squishy heart for a homicidal honey badger, so she'd be hurt if her new little brother goes off and does something truly egregious and becomes Cazador because you can't handle the guilt."

Astarion reared back. “Wait, how am I the 'little brother?' I'm well over two hundred years old!"

Edie gave him a smug little smile. "Because she's felt the need to protect you. From me! She's never done that with any of her other male friends, she's never had to do that with her older brother, and she's not interested in sleeping with you. So you're the little brother." She gave his cheek a pinch, like a demented elderly relative.

He swatted her hand away and let out a huff. "Well, neither of you should be concerned,” he retorted. “I’m perfectly fine with who and what I am! And what I am is NOT CAZADOR!” He paused to regain some composure. Then he more calmly said, “Though I will still need help defeating him. And furthermore—”

Astarion gave a little 'hurk' as Edie suddenly grabbed him by the back of his shirt and his pants and lifted him up over her head, just before Lae’zel and Shadowheart crashed through where they were just standing. The two women wrestled with each other, yanking hair and scratching. Edie put Astarion down on his feet a little ways away from the action on the ground.

"I feel like I have a moral obligation to stop them, but I don't really want to for some reason,". Edie said as the watched the two women fight, each wholly focused on the other.

Astarion nodded. "Yes, that does seem to be the safer option."

“Whorish kainyank!” Lae’zel shouted as she punched Shadowheart's nose, bloodying it.

Edie tilted he head. "Nah, not about safety for me: this seems like something they need to work out. I'll stop them if they pull a knife or something."

“Frigid amphibian!” Shadowheart screamed as she grabbed Lae'zel's ear and brought her face close. Suddenly the two of them locked lips and started groping each other.

Astarion and Edie stared in shock as the pair started to strip each other’s clothes off. “Perhaps let’s leave,” Edie suggested.

Astarion looked at Edie. “Why? They seem perfectly fine with us here.” The two looked over as Lae’zel's hand slid down the front of Shadowheart’s pants while Shadowheart's mouth closed around Lae’zel’s nipple, causing a grunt to escape.

Edie rolled her eyes and grabbed Astarion by the tip of an ear.

“Ow! Ouch! Stop that!” he said as he tried to bat her away.

“C’mon, pervert. Let’s get some more wine before I can't tell what's worse: the moaning or the sounds of someone stirring two pots of mac 'n cheese.” He gave her a confused look as she dragged him away by his ear. Lae'zel and Shadowheart began moaning in earnest. Edie sighed. "Much. More. Wine."

Chapter Text

Lena woke when a shriek tore through the air, and she winced when she opened her eyes to see the dawn. Gale’s face, once comfortably tucked into the crook of her neck lifted at the sound, as did the hand on her breast.

“What was that?” he asked, alarmed but not quite alert.

“That sounded like Shadowheart,” Lena replied and then stood before helping Gale to his feet. They rushed over to the source of the sound where they found a very naked Shadowheart kneeling to heal an owlbear cub’s paw, and an equally naked Lae’zel trying to put her clothes back on.

Lena blinked. “If this is your kink, I want you gone because there’s no way that owlbear cub’s capable of consent.”

Shadowheart looked up at Lena, both embarrassed and annoyed. “He woke me in a rather, uh, startling manner,” she admitted.

Lae’zel rolled her eyes as she finished strapping her tits into their leather harness. “The owlbear cub licked her buttock as we slept.” She tossed Shadowheart her rumpled camp clothes, and Shadowheart rushed to put them on.

Karlach and Wyll arrived. “Is that an owlbear cub?” Karlach gasped. She bent down and offered the cub a piece of smoked meat from her carry-all and made ‘pspspspspspspspspspspsps’ sounds. The cub cautiously looked at the offered treat before snatching it from her hand and swallowing it down whole. Scratch approached the cub and the two sniffed at each other before touching noses.

Halsin approached, then kneeled down and spoke to the cub. After a brief conversation, he stood. “It seems that we have a new camp follower.” He looked over at Shadowheart. “He remembered your smell and found you after getting into a bit of a tussle with a boar.”

Edie ran over and skidded to a stop when she saw the cub. “What the fuck is this adorable abomination of nature?” Edie asked when she saw the owlbear cub.

“That,” Astarion said as he strolled up from behind her, pointing to the cub, “is an owlbear.”

Edie clutched fistfuls of her hair as she stared in disbelief at the cub. “But birds are descendants of bipedal theropod dinosaurs. How is it quadrupedal? Why does it have paws instead of bird-like feet? It’s been about one hundred to one hundred and fifty million years since the first toothless birds started to appear in the fossil record on Earth and I’ve never heard of any specimens walking on all fours!”

Lena nodded. “You know, I asked about that yesterday while you were napping, but I never got an answer. I think it was because I found out everyone in Faerun’s bisexual or pansexual or something and I got really distracted. And then the fighting started, and Gale nearly got killed. And you know. Stuff.”

Edie’s jaw dropped. “Seriously? I’ve known you since we were in kindergarten and Chinese school together and I’m still amazed at how every conversation you have just meanders into the strangest corners of plausibility! And you never even got an answer to the most important question,” she pointed at the owlbear, “How the fuck does that thing exist?”

Gale cleared his throat. “If I may, there are three schools of thought on the appearance of owlbears on Toril. One claim is that a lich mage by the name of Thessalar created owlbears as a literal cross between giant owls and brown bear to become his guardians, though that’s been dismissed at hearsay given that the lich’s sanity was questionable at best, and the historical record suggests that owlbears appeared on Toril long before Thessalar’s known existence. Another theory is that they’re actually a creation by the aearee, an ancient and extinct race of humanoid with scales and feathers that gave rise to species such as wyverns, the aarakocra, and the kenku, and were quite possibly used as weapons during the god wars. Final theory, and the one most scholars of the archane such as myself agree with, is that they are predators that hail from the Feywilds, a plane filled with wild magic where new species might emerge at random, and owlbears managed to find their way to the material plane of Toril. This seems especially plausible because we have written records from both elves and the fey.” Halsin nodded in agreement.

Edie stared at Gale, a tic forming in her cheek, and looked to be on the verge of screaming. “So you’re saying that owlbears are magic and are possibly an actual case of spontaneous generation?” she asked between clenched teeth.

Gale tilted his head back on forth as he contemplated how to answer. “I wouldn’t quite put it in those terms, but—”

“Chk,” Lae’zel spat. “Enough, wizard! We should find our way to the creche and have the tadpoles removed by my people before the ‘guardian’ in the artifact falters and we become ghaik.”

Edie leaned toward Lena and whispered, “What’s a ‘ghaik’?”

“The dollar-store squidward things we saw on the squid ship,” Lena said quietly.

“Ah,” Edie replied. “I take back what I said earlier about you getting distracted and letting the conversation meander: this cub scout troop of randos can’t stay on topic.” Lena nodded.

Lae’zel turned her focus on Edie. “Unlike Lena and the rest of you istiks, I know that our first priority is to remove the tadpoles.”

“Then there’s saving my father,” Wyll said.

“I would very much like to remove this orb,” Gale added.

“I’m meant to deliver the artifact to Baldur’s Gate,” Shadowheart chimed in.

“I want to be free of my master,” Astarion replied.

“I’m intent on eliminating the shadow curse,” Halsin said.

“I have pledged myself in service of Lena, and intend to have my vengeance on Orin,” Minthara said.

“I just want to go home,” Karlach sighed. Everyone nodded.

Lena thought for a moment and then nudged Edie with her elbow. “Hey, did you hear the voice that told me to stop when I was about pulp Minthara’s face?”

“Voice? What voice?” Edie asked.

“I heard it,” Astarion replied.

“As did I,” Wyll said.

“Nope. Was I supposed to?” Edie asked.

“Weird.” Lena tilted her head. “The guardian in the artifact claims to be preventing us from turning into mind flayers, but you don’t hear it.”

Edie paused. “My larva was possibly defective.” She massaged around the bridge of her nose and her right eye where the tadpole went in, then suddenly sneezed out a gray and green blob that landed with a splat. Scratch whined at the sight, though the owlbear dove for it: Shadowheart and Halsin had to tackle it before he could reach the gelatinous mess. Wyll ran to a shrub and started to dry heave. Everyone else except Edie and Lena were taken aback or gagged at the sight of a deteriorating mind flayer tadpole.

Edie reached into her carry-all and pulled out a clean-ish rag, vigorously shaking her head while blowing her nose. "Shit, I can taste it now. Nasty." She gave an extra blow.

Lena pinched her eyebrows and looked at the oozing blob. “At least your mind flayer problem’s solved. How do you think that could've happened?”

Edie shrugged, then took a swig of booze from a bottle, gargled, then spat it out. “Might be hybrid vigor.”

---

After they finished packing up camp, with Withers stating he would handle their items wherever they chose to set up, they headed out toward the location of the creche. As they hiked, Edie stopped in her tracks when her phone started to vibrate. Lena approached from behind then bumped her shoulder against Edie’s. “Forgot a timer or alert or something?”

“No, nothing of the sort.” Edie pulled out her phone and unlocked it. “I’ve got signal here. And a ton of texts and missed calls from my parents. And there’s an alert on a dating app saying that I’ve matched with someone by the name of Ellias nearby.”

Lena unlocked her own phone and turned off airplane mode. Her mouth made a silent ‘O’ as alert after alert popped up on her screen.

Gale approached and asked, “Is something the matter?”

Up ahead, a quavering voice called out. “Ho there, wanderer. Stay thy course a while to indulge an old man.” The trio looked up to see an elderly man wearing a rust-colored wizard’s hat and robes approach Lae’zel at the head of their party.

“We want nothing that you’re selling, istik,” Lae’zel replied.

The old man ignored Lae’zel and continued. “May I inquire if perchance you retain among your traveling companions a man who adheres to the given name of Gale?”

"Oh, are you his granddad?" Karlach asked.

Gale’s eyes went round. “Elminster?” He began walking briskly toward the elderly wizard, then Edie and Lena followed.

As they approached Elminster, both Edie and Lena sniffed the air, then looked at each other. “What the fuck is this?” Lena asked, pointing at Elminster.

Elminster bristled while Gale looked at her in surprise. “This is my old mentor, Elminster.”

“Is Elminster not really alive or something?” Lena asked. “Because I’m not getting a real smell from this guy.” Edie nodded in agreement while staring at her phone.

Not-Elminster frowned at Lena. “I’ll have you know that I’ve been forced to expose my very best boots to so many miles of country road on your behalf, Gale.”

Lena shook her head. “No, you haven’t! You should at least smell like something: sweat, cologne, leather, dust, cow shit, or whatever else you might encounter around here. You smell like a running shower. What the hell are you?”

Edie smacked Lena’s arm. “Hey! Show some respect! I’ve managed to download all of season two of The Imperial Coroner. This guy’s got open WiFi and it’s fast. Ooo! And my mom texted me that my shitty racist paternal great-grandfather’s been found dead and the family mansion’s been raided by Italian police!” She pumped her fist then leaned toward Lena. “You should probably call your parents.” Then she walked a little ways away and proceeded to call her mom, switching to an animated mix of English and Hokkien and Mandarin, then to pidgin Italian when her father got on the call.

Gale leaned toward Lena. “Elminster himself might be prevented from traveling: sending a simulcrum such as this would still require a great deal of effort on his part to reach us here in the wilds of Faerun.”

“In that you are correct, Gale,” not-Elminster said. “Though I am not quite here in body, I can still enjoy a bit of wine and cheese. Might you and your companions spare an old man some victuals while I relay a very important message from she who sent me me? You know of whom I speak.”

“Ugh, why must we share our wine with you when you’re not even here?” Shadowheart asked.

Not-Elminster gave Shadowheart a level look. “Young lady, I am still here in spirit, and I can call upon the Weave and give you a sound thrashing for that tart tongue of yours.”

Lena let out a little cheer. “For once I’m not the one being threatened for being tone-deaf and rude!”

Shadowheart rolled her eyes. “I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

Lena grinned and made finger-guns at Shadowheart. “Yes there is!” Astarion and Karlach snorted.

Gale sighed and covered his face with his hands.

Lae’zel glared at Gale. “Chk. The sooner you feed this shka’keth, the sooner we can reach the creche and be rid of the tadpoles, istik.”

Lena nodded. “I agree with Lae’zel.”

Shadowheart snorted and muttered, “There’s another first,” under her breath.

Lena flipped Shadowheart the bird without taking her eyes off not-Elminster. “Do we really need to feed you feed you, or can we just sorta give you a token quantity, like someone making food offerings at a shrine or a grave?”

Not-Elminster gave her a withering glare. “This form may be but a simulcrum, a bit of bread would no go amiss in quelling the rumblings of its stomach. Are your food stores so meager than you cannot spare a bite?”

Lena stared at him. “Yeah. Edie and I are shifters, and between us and Karlach, and Astarion’s need for blood, we need a LOT of calories, and we can go through the local wildlife at a pretty astonishing rate.”

Not-Elminster sighed. “Then I shall endeavor to accept whatever you feel you can afford to give. Lead on, and let us go to your camp so I can properly relay my mistress’s message.”

“We’re in the process of moving camp, so you’ll have to wait while we set up,” Lena said.

“Then I shall endeavor to wait to sate this form’s needs whilst you raise your tents,” he replied.

Lena shrugged, then shouted next to not-Elminster’s ear. “HEY EDIE! WE’RE SETTING UP CAMP SOON SO THIS NOT-A-DUDE CAN FINALLY TELL GALE WHAT HIS BITCH GODDESS HAS TO SAY! WRAP UP YOUR PHONE CALL SO WE CAN HAUL ASS!”

Everyone else, including not-Elminster winced and covered their ears.

Edie looked over and gave Lena a thumbs-up, then Lena gave Gale a peck on the cheek. “I’ll scout ahead for a campsite.” Gale wore a slightly dazed smile as he watched Lena walk off.

Not-Elminster looked askance at Gale. “This is who you now choose to spend your time with? A shifter from Earth with the manners and vocabulary better suited to a Baldurian fish monger?”

Gale looked at not-Elminster and gave him a broad grin. “Yes.”

---

After they set up camp, not-Elminster sat at a conjured table and managed to consume a not-inconsequential amount of food. Then he finally revealed to Gale that the orb was of Netherese origin, a magic that was not part of Mystra’s domain.

“You know where you went wrong, Gale,” not-Elminster said while wiping his mouth with a handkerchief from his pocket. “We needn’t dwell on that here and now. But even so, you’re to be given a chance of redemption.”

Lena glowered at not-Elminster and crossed her arms. “As far as I’m concerned the only thing he did wrong was thinking that Mystra was worth impressing after she dumped him. You know he only opened that book to try to return a bit of magic to her, right?”

“It is not for us to judge the decisions of the gods for they cannot afford to see the world as we mortals do,” not-Elminster snapped. He resumed addressing Gale. “Mystra has sent me to stabilize the orb—”

“THEN GET TO IT!” Lena shouted.

Not-Elminster narrowed his eyes at Lena. “Young … shifter … female. You cannot compel me to rush a message of such grave weight and importance—”

Lena rolled her eyes and inhaled. Edie, without looking up from her phone, covered her ears. Lae’zel, and Shadowheart immediately followed suit, while Astarion and Gale looked on in horror. Everyone else looked confused. Then Lena began to bellow.

I don't care if Monday's blue
Tuesday's grey and Wednesday too
Thursday, I don't care about you
It's Friday, I'm in love

Monday, you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday, break my heart
Oh, Thursday doesn't even start
It's Friday, I'm in l—

“YES, YES, YES, I WILL STABILIZE THE ORB NOW,” not-Elminster screamed. Lena stopped. Not-Elminster stood from the table and a faint purple lighted limned Gale, centering on the orb. When he finished, he glared at Lena. “There. It is done.”

“So you’re saying that Gale’s orb is now stable?”

“Yes, for the moment. Mystra is feeding it—”

Lena cut him off by standing and lifting Gale to his feet before slinging him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She then tossed her carry-all to Edie. "Watch Bitey for me. They're in my bawbag." Edie nodded absently and caught the bag one-handed while continuing to text on her phone.

“Sit back down! I have not yet had the chance to explain why Mystra has stabilized the orb—”

“She owes him! It’s overdue!” Lena shouted over her shoulder. “The most important thing is that it’s safe-ish for Gale and me to have sex!” Edie raised her phone and took a pic of her friend’s retreating form, just as Lena gave Gale’s ass a quick pat. “Ooo! Firm!” Lena exclaimed. She rubbed Gale’s buttcheek and he blushed furiously. Then she called over her shoulder, “This could get loud, so I suggest the rest of you cover your ears.”

Kalrach cheered, Edie looked bemused, while other members of the party groaned and gagged. “You’re one to complain, Shadowheart. Your fucking is LOUD,” Lena shouted.

Edie shouted, “Have fun!” before she looked back down to where she’d been texting on her phone and noticed the battery was low. “Hey, not-an-actual-person dude. If you’ve got signal, do you also happen to have a battery pack?”

Not-Elminster sighed and pulled several items from his carry-all, including a battery pack and a phone. “Yes, you may borrow this until Gale and his … paramour … return so I can finish my mission for my goddess.”

Edie nodded, then noticed that the screen on not-Elminster’s phone showed a familiar alert. She nonchalantly plugged the battery pack into her phone before she leaned back in her conjured chair and crossed her arms. “So tell me, ‘Ellias,’ how often are you on Earth, pretending to be a Caucasian male between the ages of thirty and forty on dating apps?” Not-Elminster’s eyes widened at Edie’s glare.

Astarion poured not-Elminster another glass of wine before refilling his own goblet. “Normally I wouldn’t bother with niceties, but I have a strong suspicion that you’ll need this.”

Chapter Text

“We, ah, really should let Elminster finish delivering his message,” Gale stammered as Lena continued to trot them into a more secluded part of the woods.

“Your bitch goddess took her fucking time and Elminster never contacted you until now, so not-Elminster can wait around while we get our groove on.” She patted his butt again. “I still can’t get over how firm it is! I'm guessing someone doesn't skip leg day!” Gale flushed.

“Despite the minor discomfort, I can’t say that I can complain about the view, either,” he murmured.

“Oh, if you’re uncomfortable I guess I should put you down.” She stood him upright, then faced him. “Should we continue to look for a clearing?"

Gale glanced at the forest around them, then stepped closer to her and lifted her chin with a finger tip. He leaned down to whisper in her ear, “I think this will be fine.” He kissed her behind her ear.

She shivered and leaned into him as he slowly trailed his mouth along her jaw, his beard gently scraping her skin, before capturing her mouth with his and unfastening her armor, letting it drop to the ground. She moaned when his tongue slipped between her lips and she speared one hand into his hair, pushing him up against a massive oak tree while deepening the kiss. She leaned her knee against the trunk and began to grind against him as her other hand tugged at the fastenings at his robes to expose his chest.

She teased a nipple that tightened from the sudden exposure with a finger tip and hummed with approval as her mouth traced the tattoo-like scar from the orb from his neck down to his chest with her tongue. Gale stopped her before she could descend further and touched his forehead to hers. “I wanted our first time to be perfect,” he panted. “I don’t want some mindless and meaningless coupling.”

Lena gave him a gentle kiss to reassure him. “It’s only mindless if we do it right—” Gale snorted when she waggled her eyebrows, “—and meaningless if neither of us cared for each other.” She ran her hands over his chest then held his face in her hands to look into his eyes. “And I find that I care about you more than I ever thought I could.”

Gale looked at her quizzically. “I’m not certain that statement can necessarily be interpreted positively.”

“it's been kinda hard to care about dating because I’ve been burned before. Once, quite literally.” She pointed a faintly shiny patch of skin that started where her neck met her shoulder and disappeared into the front neckline of her shirt. Gale looked stunned. “Yeah, a guy I went out with once poisoned me so he could fake his actual girlfriend’s death because she was a wanted arms smuggler, but I woke up as they doused me in an accelerant and lit me on fire. I managed to shift and shake off my burning clothes, and then I sorta skinned them alive. Then I had to pay extra to have their bodies disposed quickly and quietly because I didn’t feel like dealing with the people who wanted to kill that heifer in case it was personal. I mean, it makes me really glad that Edie’s mom has connections at a veterinary school with an aquamator because they managed to dissolve the bodies with the remains from their large animals dissections with no one the wiser, but those guys were not cheap.” She took in Gale’s horror and her shoulder’s drooped. “Oh. I just killed your boner, didn’t I?”

Gale sighed and drew Lena into an embrace. She molded herself to his body and tucked her face into the crook of his neck as he tilted his head up against the tree trunk and stared at the fluffy clouds drifting across sky through the foliage. “I find it … distressing that this was your life on Earth. Were all your relationships equally disturbing?”

“I had an ex who only stole my identity to open bank accounts and credit lines. I let him live because he was such a sad sack and it wasn't like he tried to kill, imprison, or maim me. And he had a few ins with ‘clients’ who needed money laundered. Though I did track him down to break his kneecaps when I found out he tried that on someone else.”

Gale held her tighter and kissed the side of her head. “I can’t say I blame you for your actions. I don’t see how anyone could look at you and be so foolish as to dare injure you, bodily or otherwise.”

“My brother, Tony, thinks I’ve masked my true nature so well that I’ve managed to come off as ‘easy prey’ to full-humans,” Lena replied.

“And other shifters?” Gale asked.

“Rarely dated any: one sniff and most figure it out, and the rest get creeped out when they don't recognize the scent. Most shifters who aren't honey badgers won’t fuck or fuck with a honey badger, no matter how 'sweet' or ‘cute.’ Mostly because we have a reputation for being ‘unstable’ and ‘dangerous.’” She felt Gale’s cock twitch against her thigh and looked at his flushed face. She gave him a surprised smile. “And you’re into that, aren’t you?” She extended a claw and gently used its tip to stroke his erection through his trousers.

He inhaled sharply and his pupils dilated. He snapped his fingers and conjured a bed. “I need to be in you, now,” he whispered hoarsely into Lena’s ear, pulling her linen shirt over her head and pushed her backwards onto the bed. Her knees hit the side and she fell onto the mattress before Gale started stripping her bare. He worked to free his cock and notched it at her entrance. Lena’s legs wrapped around his waist and she pulled him into her to the hilt: they both moaned when he bottomed out. “I—I can’t hold back,” he stuttered.

“Then don’t.” She grabbed fistfuls of his hair and drew him down into a passionate kiss while using her legs to urge him to go faster and harder. She started making a keening sound as she started to peak. He reached between their bodies to find her clit and started circling it. She screamed as her core spasmed around him and he shouted her name when he came.

They were both panting as he collapsed against her. Lena wrapped her arms and legs around him tightly, relishing his weight on her, and kissed him behind the ear. “I will never let you go,” Lena whispered.

Gale propped himself up onto his elbows and gazed down at her with a gentle smile. “Is that a promise or a threat?”

She returned his smile with a cheeky one of her. “Both.” She squeezed him with her inner muscles as she lightly trailed her clawed fingers beneath his robe down his back and over an exposed buttock. He found himself hardening inside her. Her eyes lit up. “Again?”

He smirked. “I don’t see why not.”

Chapter Text

“How the hell are you able to go back and forth to Earth? That must take massive amounts of energy, and where’s that energy coming from?” Edie was obviously angry with not-Elminster, though she never raised her voice because she didn’t need to. The sheer weight of her undivided disapproval and fury bore down on the wizard’s simulcrum, oblitering not-Elminster’s will to live and ego for the last hour. At no point did she let him get more than a word in edgewise: Each time not-Elminster interrupted her near-constant diatrabe, she would simply continue to speak over him all while raising a finger and staring even more intently at him with her cold predator’s gaze, punctuating her phrases a low growl that all and sundry could all feel in the pit of their stomachs.

Everyone else in the party had grown uncomfortable with her intensity and guilt she induced and made their excuses. Even the patrician Minthara, who was used to either giving or receiving thorough verbal lashings as a noblewoman, made her excuses and left the conjured table. But not Astarion and Shadowheart; both of them thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle of one of the most powerful (and verbose) wizards on Toril getting dressed down like a child caught stealing sweets. The two would occasionally refill their goblets with wine and while they watched the drama unfold, though Astarion noticed he had to “adjust” himself while watching Edie, which provoked the tiniest of smirks from Shadowheart.

Edie pointed at the phone that she’d browbeaten not-Elminster to unlock. “And what the hell do you do while you’re there? Are you there to explore and understand Earth and all its many cultures? Look into the ecology? Examine the sociopolitical ramifications if you introduced pathogenic microbes from one world to the other? Maybe take it upon yourself to save a climate orphan or two? No, you don’t even have iNaturalist or the NPR news app on your phone. Instead, you’re out there fucking anyone who consents.” Not-Elminster’s phone was apparently full of dating apps. “And how did you manage to pretend to be a bisexual African American woman in Michigan? Or a gay middle-aged Korean man? Or just about anyone who isn't an elderly white dude with a long-ass facial hair that probably collects enough food daily to feed a family of sparrows? You just got at least fifteen messages from one poor chick looking to hook up again and and an invite to participate in an orgy with a group that calls itself 'The Silver Bears' over in Kentucky, among so many others.”

Not-Elminster covered his face with his hands and sighed. Nothing was going as planned, and even worse for him, there was no more cheese. Suddenly, everyone looked up when they heard Gale and Lena shouting their release. Not-Elminster tilted his head back and looked to the heavens, as though in silent prayer of thanks. Then he tried to interrupt Edie again. “It appears that Gale and his … inamorata have now achieved carnal bliss, I should take pains to prepare myself to deliver to him the rest of Mystra’s message so I can be on my way.”

Edie finally fell silent for a moment before she began to snort-laugh for a solid minute. Astarion and Shadowheart gave each other confused glances before continuing to watch not-Elminster’s reaction. Not-Elminster narrowed his eyes. “I fail to see what amuses you so, seeing as by all rights they should both be exhausted from their … efforts. Or I imagine the shifter would be.”

Edie stifled her laugh with one hand, then raised a single finger with the other. As if on cue, the pair audibly restarted and not-Elminster visibly deflated.

Astarion scrunched his face in disgust. “How much longer will those two be? Honestly, I might go insane listening to that.”

Shadowheart snickered. “Are you jealous that Gale might be outperforming you?”

Astarion rolled his eyes. “Gods no! It feels more like overhearing one’s parents in the act. I simply don’t want to think about any of it. If I must, I’ll jam a poignard into my ears and hope I can temporarily render myself deaf.”

Edie’s laughter faded with a short. “Ooo, you’re in for a nasty time if you heal up too soon, because I can tell you that this could be a while.”

Astarion frowned. “How long might this ‘while’ be, thereabouts?”

Edie hummed. “Anywhere from another three to five hours. Longer if they take breaks. Especially since it's been a about a year since Lena last dated anyone so she's pretty pent-up.” She could hear Karlach snort derisively from a distance, ranting to herself, "'Pretty pent up.' It's been ten years ... Ten years!"

Astarion, as much as he could, blanched. Shadowheart choked on her wine. “How is that possible?” she sputtered. “Gale’s human. He can’t possibly withstand that level of intense sexual activity without a refractory period between orgasms.”

Edie shrugged. "Damned if I know how she does it and I've always been afraid to ask, but I know she managed it with full humans on Earth, soooo...."

Not-Elminster suddenly cleared his throat. The trio looked over at him expectantly as they waited several moments for him to gather his thoughts over the sounds of vigorous coitus. Astarion became even more visibly agitated as the distant sounds intensified. “Out with it!” Astarion shouted.

Not-Elminster startled, spilling some of the wine on his robes. “Oh, dratted leach! I’ve now lost my thoughts thanks to your ill-tempered outburst! I hope you will regret making me spill my drink!” He wiped at the red stain with a hand and it disappeared.

Shadowheart scowled at not-Elminster, then muttered, “More likely we’ll regret that all of our wine will have been drunk by a man who’s not even here.” She took another drink from her goblet.

“Oh come now!” not-Elminster replied. “I am doing you all a favor by ensuring your health against the deleterious effects of too much drink!”

Edie looked at the conjured table in front of her and all of the empty wine bottles. “Yes, by drinking almost all of it yourself. Very magnanimous. Especially since we still have beer and whiskey to get wasted on. Or did you want to save us from those?”

“No, I trust you all to be of stout constitutions and to retain the clear-headedness of the wise and knowledgeable alchemist Yzira Brightscale to meter such drink out as to avoid the precipitous horrors of over-indulging in such libations as those,” not-Elminster replied.

Edie nodded. “Ah, so you’re a snob and you’re saying that the only thing us plebs can truly enjoy is beer and liquor while you get shit-faced on our wine. Gotcha.” Then she began to silently glare at him.

Gale and Lena’s pleasure crescendo’ed and Astarion clamped his hands over his ears. Shadowheart’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “I’m honestly concerned for Gale. Shouldn’t we put a stop to this before he manages to permanently injure himself?”

Not-Elminster jolted as he recalled what he was about to say. “Oh, yes. I had earlier meant to mention that Mystra’s blessings upon her Chosen also included, er *ahem* improvements to her mortal lovers’ stamina.”

Everyone in camp stared at him. Lae’zel stomped up to not-Elminster with her blade at the ready. “Do you mean to tell me, istik, that we could be subject to their mating—” she pointed toward the woods where the two disappeared into, “—for the entirety of this day until morning?”

Halsin’s jaw dropped. Minthara's eyebrows rose before she nodded in approval. Wyll looked a bit wan, like his balls had started to shrivel from the thought of endless orgasms. Karlach gave a low whistle of appreciation. “I have to say that I respect Lena even more! And lucky Gale!” She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, “GOOD ON YOU, YOU TWO!” toward the trees.

From the distance, Lena shouted back, “THANKS, KARLACH!” Nearly everyone could hear Gale’s blush, and Edie’s liger ears could just barely pick up Lena saying, “Oh, just see it as permission to keep going!”

Edie clucked her tongue and shook her head. Then she looked at not-Elminster. “Looks like your goddess shot you in the foot. Or at least gave Gale’s penis and testicles a hell of a boost.” She looked at not-Elminster thoughtfully. "I'm also going to guess she did the same to you and never bothered to 'lift' this blessing if you're fucking your way across Earth. I'm starting to wonder how you managed to get anything done."

Astarion’s hands were still clamped to his ears, but now he was rocking back and forth, repeating a litany of “I’m not listening” over and over. Edie looked and gave him a comforting pat on the head, then resumed addressing not-Elminster. “Were you expecting to return to wherever the fuck you came from soon? Because it sounds like you’re not going to be able to leave unless you want to be the one interrupting them. And I only know of two ways to get Lena to stop before she's done without getting my throat torn out.”

A tic developed beneath one of not-Elminster’s eyes. “Young shifter, are you suggesting that you would withhold such vital information and stymie my quest to delivery unto Gale a message that comes from a goddess herself?”

Edie shrugged. “I mean, it’s your choice. I mean, she could've come here herself to deliver this 'Very Important Message,' but she sent you. And do you want to see your protege possibly balls-deep in a honey badger shifter? Do you really want to know what kinks he has? I'm sure you can begin to imagine.” She gave not-Elminster a sweet smile. “I thought I heard somewhere that you mentored him since he was a child. He must've been such an adorable, sweet, innocent little boy—”

“MYSTRA’S TITS!” not-Elminster stood and roared at Edie. “DO NOT FINISH THAT SENTENCE! TELL ME WHAT IT IS THAT YOU WANT, AND I WILL DO WHATEVER IS IN MY POWER TO GRANT IT! IF YOU WOULD JUST HELP ME COMPLETE THIS GODS-FORSAKEN QUEST WITHOUT HAVING TO SEE GALE IN FLAGRANTE DELICTO WITH THAT SHIFTER!”

In the distance, the moaning restarted. Edie gave not-Elminster a satisfied smile. “Let’s start with Gale’s orb.” Then she gave Astarion’s shoulder a gentle nudge. “I understand that you have some familiarity with contracts,” she whispered quietly. Astarion briefly moved his hands from his ears, then clapped them back. “Oh no,” Edie said, and she lifted the hand away and tilted his chin up with a fingertip so he could see her grin. “You’ll going to want in on this.”

---

Lena collapsed on Gale’s chest. Their voices had gone hoarse about an hour earlier, but neither were tired until now, close to midnight. The headboard of the conjured bed bore deep scrapes and scratches from where Lena clung to it with her claws to avoid injuring Gale, as did parts of the mattress. Gale and Lena had moved to dry-ish spots on the bed so they could take a short nap when suddenly Lena heard Edie call for her. “Hey Lena! We found some honeycomb! With extra grubs and pupae! Just the way you like it!”

Lena immediately perked up. “Honey?” she whispered. She gave Gale a nudge. “There’s honeycomb! Let's go!”

Gale groaned. “You would interrupt much needed rest for honey?”

Lena stared at him. “YES. It’s all in the name: honey badger. Or scientifically, genus name Mellivora. Honey. Eater. Let’s get dressed so I can get fed and you can get hydrated.”

Gale smirked and looked down at the drying mess covering the conjured bed. “You may have a point …”

“I do! C’mon!” She threw his clothes at him as he conjured a light to dress himself by. After they dressed and Gale dismissed the bed before they walked, hand-in-hand, back to camp to an extremely impatient and frustrated not-Elminster being subjected to a Baby Metal playlist being amplified from Edie's phone. Both Karlach and Wyll now wore giants grins. Lae'zel just barely nodded to the music, while Shadowheart sat cuddled up next to her, clearly drunk, bobbing her head to the bass. Minthara looked faintly bemused with a beer in her hand, and Halsin stood from brewing a tea, clearly chewing on something.

Edie had Bitey hanging out on her shoulder eating a sausage while she held out a plate with a large chunk of honeycomb to Lena. Lena took it like she was being given a sacred offering. Her eyes went wide and she took a bite with glee. “This is the best! Thanks, Edie!” She gave Edie a hug, where Bitey skittered onto her head, and she started to pick out grubs one-by-one with a claw and dropping them in her mouth, and occasionally offering one to the phase spiderling.

Halsin offered Gale a cup of tea with a substantial dollop of honey in it. “I’ve added a few herbs with restorative properties, given your recent exertions.” Gale took the proffered much with an embarrassed smile while Halsin gave Gale a hearty slap on the shoulder and a wink. Gale's smile froze and he heat suffused his face. He backed away from the much larger man until he was safely back at Lena’s side.

Not-Elminster approached Gale. “Gale, m’boy, you have fallen in amongst a band of utter scoundrels, though they seem to have your well-being in mind. So I can now finally give you Mystra’s message, though it may be somewhat moot given the caveats that these hooligans have forced upon me.”

Gale sipped his tea and found his throat restored. “And what was this message?”

Not-Elminster’s shoulder’s stooped. “I had originally been tasked to reveal to you that your orb was not of Mystra’s Weave.”

Gale sputtered. “Pardon?”

Not-Elminster shook his head. “It was part of the Karsite Weave. What you have in you is pure Netherese magic, and Mystra has stabilized it by feeding it part of the Weave, and at no small cost to herself. Instead, she would ask of you to use it against a greater foe than we have yet to imagine: the Absolute.”

Lena paused with a bee pupa skewered on a claw and shot a cold glare at not-Elminster. “How does she suggest Gale ‘use’ the orb as a weapon?”

Gale’s eyes went wide. “You’re suggesting—”

“—That the orb detonate and destroy the Absolute at the source,” not-Elminster said. “Yes, though I found that my hand has been forced, and you may yet be granted greater grace from this task.” He looked over nervously between Edie and Lena. “I have agreed, in writing and witnessed by your companions, bound by both honor and oath, to aid you in finding a way to expel the orb prior to detonation.” Edie gave a him a nod to continue. “So that you may yet survive its blast.”

Lena's eyes reflected yellow in the light of the fire. “And what if you fail?” she asked not-Elminster.

Astarion emerged from the shadows. “Then he must use his influence to return Gale, body and soul, whole and hale, to his tower in Waterdeep.” He pointed to a piece of parchment with filled with tightly written text with seven distinct signatures on it. The script glowed in the dark.

Not-Elminster narrowed his eyes at Astarion. “Yes. Among other requirements that I refuse to delve into. The priority is that you and your companions must destroy the Absolute: it threatens the very fabric of reality on Toril, and letting it run rampant would allow it to destroys worlds beyond this one, as evidenced by the presence of two individuals from Earth. If you destroy the Absolute, then Mystra may grant you her forgiveness.”

Lena continued to stare unblinkingat not-Elminster, but tilted her head and cracking her neck. “So the original message from your goddess was that she wanted Gale to blow himself up? With no chance of survival? And a 'maybe' on the forgiveness (which seems pointless if you're dead) and not even a ‘thank you?’”

Gale looked between Lena and not-Elminster, then settled on the simulcrum of his former mentor, looking hurt and betrayed. “You would condone such a request?”

Not-Elminster looked just a tiny bit ashamed. “It brings me no pleasure to bring such miserable tidings, but I am obliged as one of Mystra’s Chosen. Though I am now contractually obliged to offer aid to your party in ways that may anger the gods, including Mystra.”

"Not like he has anything better to do than boning half the willing adults across Earth." Edie muttered into her wine.

Gale continued to address not-Elminster. “Could you explain?”

“Not only would I aid your survival or resurrection, as need be, but I…” Not-Elminster hesitated.

Astarion finished the sentence. “He will now aid me in finding a cure for my vampirism, as well as find a permanent lifesaving solution to Karlach’s engine, share all known research on the shadow curse with Halsin, and provide Wyll with leverage to break his infernal contract.” He gave a Edie a smirk.

Lena gave not-Elminster a plastic smile. “Will that mean that you’ll travel with us?”

Not-Elminster’s expression dropped. “Mystra's mantle, no! For starters, your party barely managed to scavenge enough cheese to keep this simulcrum sated!”

Now Lena’s expression dropped. “We had cheese?” She looked at Astarion and grabbed him by the front of his shirt with her free hand. “DID YOU TELL THEM TO HIDE THE CHEESE FROM ME?” He winced as Lena's shout and spit caught him full in the face.

Edie rolled her eyes. “Calm your tits. No one, and I mean no one needs your cheese farts.” She plunked another large chunk of honeycomb onto Lena’s plate. “You’ll feel better after you have more honey and bee grubs.” Then she waggled her eyebrows. “Keeps your strength up.”

Lena wrinkled her nose at Edie. “I don’t know why, but your saying that is weirding me out.”

Edie gave Lena a pat on the shoulder. “Just do us all a favor and either get some sleep or get some soundproofing. Because ain’t no one wanna hear you two in close quarters.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, Lena woke up bright and early and quietly dressed in the tent she now shared with Gale, before giving his sleeping form a quick kiss on the cheek. It had been a good night, especially after Gale took the time to add a few silencing wards to their tent: nothing killed the mood faster than someone annoyed enough to actually try to kill you. As she stood and stretched, she noticed a bird singing in a nearby tree and decided to try to see it more clearly with Gale’s telescope. While she peered down and attempted to adjust the focus, a dark blur suddenly obscured her vision and she yelped before looking up to see Edie frowning at her.

“What the fuck was that for?” Lena asked.

“Your mom keeps calling me, asking me why you’re not picking up. There are only so many messages I can ignore on my phone when I’m in the middle of rewatching Adventure Time.”

Lena eyeballed Edie and noticed the dark circles under her eyes. “Did you binge-watch it instead of sleeping?” Then she looked at their surprisingly quiet camp: no Lae'zel incessantly sharpening her blade (Why? Was she trying to make her sword into a paring knife?), no Shadowheart in endless prayer or tussling with Scratch or the owlbear cub who she named Owlbert, no Karlach smashing a training dummy, or Wyll practicing forms with his rapier, or Halsin whittling, or Minthara glowering or tending to her mushrooms. It was all silent, except for Astarion groggily examining his armor. "Did you get the whole camp hooked?"

Edie looked briefly embarrassed. “Yeah. But it’s hard not to ever since simulcrum Elminster gave us these jewel thingies that trickle-charge our phones AND connect us to the internet so he can send us whatever info he manages to scrounge up. And now that we have internet again, it's hard not to overindulge.”

Lena tilted her head and paused to looked toward Minthara's now-quiet tent. "I gotta admit that I'm surprised that Minthara watched along with the rest of you. She doesn't seem like she'd be keen on the bright and cheery Candy Kingdom."

"Oh, I pointed out Princess Bubblegum's dungeon with the skeletons still chained to the walls, and she immediately took an interest. Seems she might be a secret 'pink goth' as well as a fascist."

Lena nodded. “Makes sense. Pity we can't power your laptop for longer,” Lena remarked. “Otherwise we’d have a full keyboard and screen at our disposal.”

Edie frowned. “You’re not installing Stardew Valley on that machine just because you want to do another one of your weird min-maxing things to see how fast you can earn in-game money: it's still cracked so I don't feel comfortable using it. Besides, the crystals let us toggle a sort of large-screen projection that you would've known about if you hadn't dragged Gale off again like some sort of Neanderthal. And given that these these crystals supposedly include miniature portals to connect us to whatever ISP that Elminster guy has on Earth, and they’re even more prone to exploding than LiPos should make even you pause, little-miss ‘I Have a Degree in Electrical Engineering.’”

Lena shrugged. “So I didn’t take any of the power classes. I was focused on the computer science side of things because I was setting up my money laundering network. That you also use..”

“That never stopped you from mentioning the EE side of your degree whenever a power issue comes up.”

“True," Lena conceded, "But that’s because I want see other people to explode their shit. Or at least complain to me how badly it's ruined. Why do you think I told your last boyfriend before you left for your post-doc that he should use a metal scrub brush and salt water to clean his phone’s USB port?”

Edie snorted. “He was such an idiot for someone with a Ph.D. It’s like Oxford was handing them out one day and he just happened to be line. The best part was when he called me from his mom’s phone demanding I get you to pay for it.”

Lena laughed. “Yeah, and after you left for the Philippines he came up my apartment and threatened me, so I pushed him over the balcony when he tried to stab me. Sadly, he landed in some landscaping and survived.”

Edie barked a laugh. “What a dumb fuck! And I’m always amazed at what you get away with. I figured the cops would catch on to how ‘accident-adjacent’ you are.”

Lena grinned. “Pretty privilege for the win! Who’d want to arrest this face?” She put on a 'winsome' smile. Edie grimaced and stuck her tongue out and pretended to gag.

Astarion, still a bit bleary-eyed, dropped his armor and shuddered. “Ugh! Put that away before you make someone ill! Namely, me.”

Lena’s face fell while Edie hooted, “I keep telling you that expression is fucking terrifying! You probably scared the shit out of the police!”

“Hey! Gale!” Lena called out when Gale emerged from their tent.

He looked a bit hollowed out and dehydrated, but otherwise visibly contented and relaxed. “Yes, my love?”

“What does this expression make you think?” She pasted on the winsome expression again and Gale started and shied away.

“GODS, PLEASE STOP!” he shouted.

Edie cackled and Astarion snorted. Lena dropped the fake smile and scowled.

Gale sighed in relief. “Much better. I was worried that you might have developed some sort of seizure from the tadpole.” He kissed her forehead.

“Seriously?” Lena exclaimed. “You think I look like I'm having a seizure when I play ‘naive waif’?”

Astarion pointedly looked at Lena’s shoulders. “‘Waif’ is not a word that should ever describe you. I’ve seen circus strong-person acts with less muscle than you. And despite Gale's opinion, that ‘seizure’ is more an open declaration of ‘I’m here commit mass eviscerations and dance on the viscera’ than ‘I’m here to pet kittens and bunnies.’”

“I like bunnies,” Edie declared.

Lena's expression dropped. “Oh. Shit.” She turned her head and shouted out, “RABBIT’S OFF THE MENU, EVERYONE. UNLESS YOU WANT EDIE TO MAUL YOU!”

A few groggy campers groaned their disapproval at being disturbed, though Shadowheart shouted back, “I’M FINE WITH THAT.” They could all hear Lae’zel curse from the tent they now shared, muttering about reduced rations.

Edie frowned. “You guys ate a bunny, didn’t you?”

“Two. But you weren’t there, so they don't count. But you can be comforted to know they died valiantly to provide Astarion with the blood he needed to ‘fight the good fight’ or whatever.”

Astarion looked at Edie agog. “You? Refuse to eat rabbit? With their monstrously long ears, strange teeth, and huge eyes?”

Edie lifted a finger for him to wait, then took a picture of him before shoving the screen in his face before toggling to projection mode. “Remind you of someone?” She switched between a picture of Astarion and a picture of a white lionhead bunny with red eyes.

Astarion’s jaw dropped and his face took on an actual tinge of color as he grew offended. Gale looked at the projection from over Astarion’s shoulder and nodded. “I daresay that the resemblance is uncanny. Especially with how the fur around the head is so very fluffy. Though it doesn’t appear to have a natural curl, so you do have the advantage in that department.” Astarion hissed at Gale and Gale edged away behind Lena.

Lena stepped up next to Astarion and grinned. “He’ll fit right in with the rest of family! Ma’s gonna love you!” She gave Astarion a solid slap on the shoulder, which caused him to stumble briefly. “Though she’ll probably ask why you’re so skinny and weak, and then find a way to blame me for not taking better care of you like a good sibling should.”

An alert appeared on Edie’s phone. “Speaking of your mother, CALL HER SO SHE STOPS NAGGING ME. I’M NOT EVEN BLOOD.” She shouted the last bit into Lena’s ear.

Lena winced and wiped the spittle from the side of her face. “Fine, fine…” Lena pulled out her phone, toggled the projection mode, and started a video chat with her mother who answered on the first ring.

A burly Asian woman who evidently gave Lena her massive shoulders and sported a gray bob appeared on Lena’s screen and greeted her with melodramatic wailing, complete with tears. “I AM YOUR MOTHER. WHY DON’T YOU PICK UP? WHY DO I HAVE TO GET EDIE TO GET YOU TO CALL ME? WHY COULDN'T I HAVE A CHILD LIKE EDIE? SHE CALLS HER MOTHER INSTEAD ACTING LIKE I DON'T EXIST. WHY CAN'T YOU BE A GOOD DAUGHTER?”

Lena gave her mother, Lulu, a cheery smile. “I missed you, too! And I didn’t call last night because I’ve been busy fucking a guy! I think he’s the ‘One.’” She pulled Gale into frame before he could discretely sneak away. “Say ‘hi’ to my mother, Gale!”

Gale blushed a deep red and gave an awkward wave. “Um, yes. Hello, I’m Gale of Waterdeep!”

Lulu's tears and caterwauling stopped immediately. “Oh, I guess it's okay that you didn't call, Lena." Then she addressed Gale. "So 'Gale of Waterdeep'? Do you have a surname or did your family disown you?” Before Gale could stammer out an answer she shouted for Lena’s father. “CARL! YOUR INGRATE OF A DAUGHTER HAS FINALLY CALLED. AND SHE’S FUCKING SOME GUY WHO DOESN’T HAVE A LAST NAME. AND YOU GOTTA CHECK HIM OUT.” She disappeared from frame as the camera traversed the house past darkened windows, though they could hear her occasionally call out for her husband.

Lena glanced at Gale. “Do you even have a last name?”

Gale hesitated for a moment. “It’s Dekarios. I don’t believe I ever caught yours.”

“Cai,” Lena replied. “I don’t know how that detail slipped by us.”

Gale looked chagrined. “I believe that was in part my fault. When we first met I was apprehensive of you and everyone in our party. And the subject never came back up.”

Finally, the camera stopped and Lulu came back in frame, this time with a muscular barrel-chested Asian man with graying hair and a white streak that cut through the right side of his hair eyebrow sitting next to her at a table. “Sweetie!” Carl bellowed cheerfully. “You’re looking well enough. Have you gained weight? And is that the man who defiled you last night and kept you from calling your mother and me? Why does he look like George Michael? Why don’t you know his last name? Do I need to find a way over to wherever the hell you are and dispose of him in case he tries to defraud you like your last boyfriend?”

“Hi ba!” Lena grinned. “I missed you, too! This is Gale Dekarios and he's going to be the father of my babies!” Both Carl and Lulu nodded thoughtfully at Gale. Gale looked alarmed. Astarion and Edie snickered. Then Lena grabbed Astarion by the nape and pulled him into frame. “And this one is going to be their honorary uncle who will help change diapers!” Astarion grimaced and Gale snorted. Edie started laughing. “Say 'hi,' Astarion! By the way, do you have a last name? Because if not we can adopt you!”

Her parents glanced at each other, and then Lulu sucked in a fortifying breath. “You’re stuck in who-knows-where and you’re sleeping with—” She leaned into the camera and squinted. “—a Jesus lookalike (I mean wow, that's weird, and please tell me you're not pregnant because that's just makes for a theological nightmare in my head)? And you’ve ‘adopted’ a man who looks like the poster child for Victorian tuberculosis chic. Sweetie, is this some sort of pity thing, like fulfilling someone’s dying wish?”

Lena gasped in mock outrage. "How dare you accuse me of being reckless with my reproductive health! I have an implant!" She raised the arm not holding the phone and shoved the camera to show the raised skin at the crook of her elbow before moving the camera away.

Astarion stared slack-jawed at Lena’s mother. “For your information, I’m perfectly healthy! There’s nothing wrong with me!” He paused with his mouth open as though he just remembered something then pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Just remembered you're undead and the mindflayer grubs, didn’t you?” Lena asked and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

Astarion gave Lena a side-eyed look. “No, I did not forget that I'm a vampire because I CAN ONLY CONSUME BLOOD. But as for the tadpoles, being in your company is like having my mind wiped daily.” Edie began to cackle.

“I can’t tell: is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Lena asked.

Carl raised his eyebrow. "He's a vampire? So can he turn into a bat, or is he one of those sparkly ones that got popular a while ago with the kids?"

Lena turned to Astarion. "I don't remember what you told me: Can you turn into a bat? Because that'd be kinda awesome."

Astarion's body sagged and rolled his eyes. "No, I'm a spawn," he explained in a patronizing tone, "not a full-fledged vampire. So I can't turn into anything!"

Edie stopped laughing and gasped dramatically. "NOOOOOO! THIS IS A LAND OF MAGIC WHERE ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE! YOU JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF THAT YOU CAN TURN INTO A BAT!" she shouted. Then she clasped her hands in front of her and started to bounce on her toes. "Oh my god, maybe Halsin can teach you to shift into a bat because that'd be so cute! Then I can make you little capes and dress you up with a tiny bow-tie, and swaddle you like those baby bats in bat rescues who get teeny-tiny teddy bears to hug!" She gave a little squeal. Astarion forgot about his growing headache as he openly gawked as Edie's breasts jiggled.

Lena raised an eyebrow at Astarion's fascination with Edie's anatomy, then shrugged, muttering to herself, "Oh yeah, I keep forgetting everyone here's bi or demi or something." Gale leaned his forehead against Lena’s shoulder and tried to stifle a laugh. She kissed the top of his head. "I will never let you leave me for another man. Or woman. Or a sentient being anywhere in between. That is, of course, assuming we live long enough for you to meet anyone else."

“Aww," Lulu cooed. "Carl, we gotta keep ‘em both! The George Michael/Jesus one seems to really tolerate Lena, she's not ignoring him, and the translucent one is extremely annoyed with her like the rest of the family! Besides, I feel the urge to feed him because he looks like a stiff breeze can knock him down!" Lulu exclaimed. Then she suddenly paused and narrowed her eyes at her mate. "I always wanted pretty cubs. Why couldn't you have given me pretty cubs?” Lena's gaped at her parents while Edie laughed harder. Astarion and Gale both looked supremely uncomfortable at what appeared to be the start of a nasty awkward fight.

Carl returned her accusatory look with exasperation. "As I've told you before, you're half the reason why our kids are sixes out of tens. And I sure as hell didn't pick you as a mate because of your looks. I picked you because you're a cunning, devious, ruthless she-demon who can embezzle, blackmail, and murder your way to the top of any criminal operation, but you gave that all up for me and our cubs. And to avoid prison time."

Lulu's expression softened and she kissed her husband's cheek. "You sweet-talker, you. We're still adopting the scrawny one because he's pretty. We should have at least one pretty child to claim as ours."

Carl crossed his arms and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Yes, the pasty one does need a solid fattening. Think we can feed him the Andersons down the street? I bet those assholes have really high cholesterol levels that might help bulk him up. Plus if they're dead they'd stop encouraging their dog shit in our yard. And if he's functionally immortal he could potentially sweep our graves forever, unlike our own flesh and blood."

"Hey!" Lena objected. "Neither of you believe in that shit! And when nai-nai dropped your dad's ashes off with you, you left his cremains to collect dust in a closet next to the vacuum cleaner!"

"Yes. But I'm honoring him in my own way because he really liked napping in closets. Like how your mother loved sleeping in kitchen cabinets and I liked crawl spaces before we dug out the den in the backyard," Carl replied. Then he pointed back at Astarion. "But I bet he would be a better child to us than you. Take care of us in our old age and filial piety and whatnot."

Astarion looked alarmed and Lena deflated. Edie had stopped laughing and was bent over and wheezing. Gale started to shake harder from trying to suppress his mirth. Lena's parents grinned before bursting out laughing.

Lena rolled her eyes and sneered. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'll make sure that when the time comes you're both stuck in a rest home with all the complaints."

Lulu wiped a tear from her eye with a tissue from her sleeve and snorted derisively. "As if we couldn't handle that shit in our nineties. If you're nai-nai's any indication, the owners and investors would 'mysteriously' die if they so much as served either of us the cheap banana pudding. And I don't even like banana pudding, or your nai-nai."

Gale's shaking stopped and he sobered, looking alarmed. "Your people put your elderly into 'homes' instead of taking care of them yourselves?"

"Eh," Carl shrugged, "my mother got tired of living alone and didn't want to live with any of her ten kids. That, and most of my siblings are in and out of prisons around the world so it's not like she can move in with any of them. And apparently I'm too 'boring' for her, which is just a well because she's a nightmare and I told her in no uncertain terms that Lulu would strangle her with her own intestines if she tried to stay with us." He looked from Gale to Lena. "He's a keeper if he thinks family should take care of their elderly. However misguided. Is he full-human? He kinda gives me dog vibes."

"No, ba, he doesn't smell like dog, and this place doesn't seem to have shifters like us. They have druids who can shapeshift into different animals," Lena replied.

"Druids?" Lulu asked. "So antler-wearing hippies soaked in patchouli to cover up that they don't bathe?"

Edie lay curled up on the ground, continuing to wheeze. "Oh, I'm going to break a rib at this rate. I need to tell Halsin just to see his reaction!"

"Is that Edie?" Lulu asked. "Turn the camera so I can say 'hello' like a normal person." Lena turned the camera at Edie. "Hi Edie!," Lulu cheerfully shouted. "Has your ass gotten bigger? I warned your ma that her having cubs with that big-headed Italian lion meant that you'd end up with hips like a '57 Chevy, and I WAS RIGHT." Edie flipped off Lulu, though there wasn't any heat behind it.

"Also, Halsin smells like wet bear even after he washes up with soap and everything. You can smell him clear across camp," Lena said. She turned the camera back to herself. "Okay, this has been nice and all, but we should probably get ready for our day."

"What can you possibly be doing over there that keeps you busy?" Carl asked. "Isn't your first priority finding a way to get home? Or should we go ahead and have you declared dead and clear out your apartment? I remember you always kept a nice little colony of bark scorpions to snack on. Shame to let them go to waste."

Lulu nodded in agreement with her husband. "And your niece and nephew are asking for you. Andi wants your advice on how best to plant evidence on other people (because mine apparently isn't good enough), and Cole wants more of those knife-fighting lessons so he can take on his sister. Also, I want to meet the guy you're having sex with and feed the flimsy one and give him a hug because he looks like he really needs one."

Lena screwed up her face and thought for a moment. “Yeah, that’s complicated. I mean, if I get declared dead then the paperwork to have me officially back in the land of the living is my idea of hell (by the way, we actually briefly went through a hell before getting here). So can you just empty out my apartment and sell my car, assuming it's not already stolen?”

Carl and Lulu both looked quizzically at Lena. "So you've been to hell?" Carl asked.

Gale managed to stifle his laughter to answer. "There are actually nine of them that regularly connect to this plane of existence, each one ruled by a different archdevil. And all of the hells are ruled by their supreme master, Asmodeus."

"Huh, is he kinda like a North Korean supreme leader?" Lulu asked. Lena shook her head and mouthed the word 'no.' "Oh. So what's the weather like in the hell you were in?"

"It's hot, but it's a dry heat." Lena replied. "Kinda like Palm Springs in the summer, though without all the white people. And it smells like asparagus piss and diesel exhaust."

"Sounds like driving past the oil refineries in Richmond," Carl commented. "So about your getting home..."

"Oh, right!" Lena said. "We might have to blackmail some magic man who's, like, Gale's former mentor, to get us home. But unlike Edie I can't seem to dislodge a brain parasite that'll turn me into a cut-rate cthulhu without the protection of something that likes to pretend they're a very annoyed Captain-America-era Chris Evans in my head with a bad American accent."

Lulu nodded. "Does he at least have a nice ass? Because Chris Evans's ass is 'America's ass.' The only reason why I bothered with any of those movies."

Lena grinned. "Gale's is better." She gave Gale's buttocks a quick pat and he jolted as he blushed a deep red.

"...And that's enough conversation for me," Carl announced. "We'll text you. Text us back as proof of life! Keep your new boyfriend and your new brother alive, like a good girl! Bye, sweetie!" He reached over and the projection stopped when he ended the call.

Edie still lay on the ground, occasionally wracked with giggles. Astarion stood like a statue of existential dread. Gale's face remained flushed from both arousal and embarrassment. Lena glanced over at her companions, then grabbed both Astarion and Gale by their necks into a chokehold/hug. "YOU'RE FAMILY NOW! LET'S CELEBRATE."

Chapter Text

Everyone decided that the day would be a rest day because no one in camp could rouse themselves before noon after a night of binge-watching cartoons. Party members switched from finding the creche to catching up on chores such as laundry, hunting, or bathing (which was mostly Karlach: she’d gotten used to not bathing because dirt, grime, and bodily fluids would char and flake off while her infernal engine had run amok). Wyll joined Karlach to help her get all the bits that had crusted onto her hair like burnt cheese, using a compact set of combs and brushes he needed to maintain his own locks.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart started to do their laundry downstream of Karlach and Wyll to take advantage of the hot water.

Minthara watched after Bitey, making chittering noises and feeding the spiderling some of the mushrooms she grew while collecting its silk onto a spindle.

And much to Halsin’s displeasure, he 'needed' to search for more honey after discovering that Lena had eaten all the remaining honey-comb.

"I got hungry because sex burns a lot of calories, and honey does the trick," she explained to a glowering Halsin.

He growled then grabbed Lena by her nape and literally began dragging her by the stretchy loose skin on the back of her neck so she could help him search for another hive to raid.

“If I get mauled to death by the grumpy bear man, tell my parents it’s all their fault!” she shouted to Edie as she was hauled into the treeline, her boot heels leaving tracks behind them.

Edie simply smiled and waved. “Yeah, sure. Just try to not kill him: He’s beefy and we might need to eat him in an emergency.”

Halsin paused to look down at Lena who gave him a grin and a thumbs-up, and then askance at Edie. “Surely neither of you can be serious.”

“No, we're not,” Lena said from the ground. Then her grin dropped as she thought for a moment. “Well, we sorta are. I mean, most shifters have lost their taste for ‘long pork,’ and neither of us have actually sat down to eat a human. And I don't consider biting someone or accidentally swallowing a finger I've bitten off during a fight as eating because I'm not deliberately chewing or swallowing. Though I’ve had to hire from two different hyena clans for ‘cleaning’ services at home on Earth. They're expensive because they’re really thorough about getting rid of evidence, but I also have to make sure that everything’s fresh because, you know.” She shrugged.

Edie nodded. “My dad left the lion pride he was born into because they had this racket of kidnapping and selling full-humans to other shifters, including for demonic rituals and for hunting and meat. Though hopefully that’s finally stopped now that the family mansion’s been raided and no one can keep pretending like it wasn’t happening.”

Halsin looked to the sky. “Oak Father protect me,” he muttered.

“I dunno. Your god kinda did a shit job of protecting you from those goblins,” Lena said. Halsin chuffed, and Lena gave a 'hurk' as he resumed dragging her into the forest.

“Gale, if I never see you again, know that I love you!” she cried melodramatically and waved.

Gale looked up from his potion brewing and waved. “I love you, too!” He walked over to Edie with a mug of tea in his hand. “Should I be at all concerned?” he asked.

“For who? Halsin or Lena?” Edie asked.

Gale had to pause to think, sipping his tea. “I’m no longer certain. Sometimes I get this sense of unease in the pit of my stomach when I suspect Lena’s going to do something, but I don’t know if she’ll be in danger or will be the danger.”

Edie tried to give Gale a reassuring pat on the back but instead caused him to slosh his tea. She looked down at the spill. “Man, you really need to build up your core and improve your stance or Lena's family might 'accidentally' mow you down. As I was about to say, I'm glad you seem to understand and care about Lena. I respect you for that. But like the rest of us in her sphere of influence, you’ll just have to get used to the fact that shit that just seems to happen when she's around.”

---

Astarion had slipped his dirty laundry into the pile that Lae’zel and Shadowheart were going to wash before slinking into the forest. Edie had noticed and quietly followed downwind of him. He had spotted a rabbit and readied himself to pounce when Edie tapped his shoulder and asked in a sing-song voice, “Whatcha doin’?”

Astarion audibly startled and the rabbit scampered off. “Shit,” he cursed quietly as he stood and turned to her.

Edie leaned against a tree and crossed her arms. “Hungry?”

His eyes drifted to her tits being propped up for moment before quickly looking back up to her face and giving her a fake smile. “I was just, ah, keeping my stalking skills sharp. I wasn’t actually going to hurt the little bunny.” He gave a nervous titter.

Edie had seen his perusal and raised an eyebrow. She gave him a smug smile. “Great, aren’t they? I’ve found that no matter who you are or what you’re attracted to, breasts like mine are excellent diversions.”

Astarion put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes. “What is it that you want?”

She dropped her arms and held her hands behind her back as she thought for a moment. “I have a problem: I still have a massive lady boner for you, but you’re not into me and you’ve suffered some chronic and horrific trauma related to sex, so I'm hazarding a guess that you find that uncomfortable. So I have an idea that might resolve the issue: I spend more time with you. When I discover you’re a massive douche-canoe, my libido disappears faster than a male mallard when the female is ready to lay eggs.”

His face scrunched up in bafflement. “Douche-canoe?”

“A fun variant of ‘asshole,’” she explained. “Going back to my idea: For your sake, I won’t flirt with you, I’ll avoid innuendo, but we pair up to fight or hunt or whatever else, otherwise.”

Astarion pressed his lips together. “I don’t know how well this suits me if your being in my presence can cause you to fall out of lust with me.” He smirked. “I’m very sensitive, you know.”

“But, understandably, you’re not comfortable with being pursued for a sexual relationship,” Edie countered. “We can expect to travel together for however long it takes for Lena and the rest of you to be parasite-free, and odds are that the more time I spend with you, the more likely I’ll find your personality repellent or I’d rather be just friends, and that I’d rather fuck a pufferfish before I fuck you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I gather this sort of thing happens to you frequently?”.

Edie waved a hand. “Infatuations come and go as soon as I learn someone’s got an issue that annoys me. Things like, ‘You should stop putting doctor on your resume just because you got your doctorate,’ or, ‘You’re pretty cute, but big muscles aren’t feminine,’ or my favorite, ‘If you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?’ Which is why I think this’ll work: you'll inevitably say or do something I find awful or mean or just plain stupid, and I’ll get annoyed and my sex drive gets squashed. Then you get what you want, which is the knowledge that deep down I will have no interest in getting dicked down by you.”

Astarion thought about the idea for moment. “As appealing as the thought of your comfort is to me—which, by the way, is next to none—being given carte blanche to find ways to irritate you is too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Edie nodded. “See? You're already annoying me. And I figured that you’d find this amenable. Shall we shake on it?” She held out her hand.

He grasped the proffered hand with his own. “You have yourself a deal.”

The hand that held his suddenly tightened. It wasn't a crushing grip, but when tried to tug it free he couldn't. Edie leaned in close, her eyes shifted from hazel to gold. Those unsettling big-cat eyes bore into his own and he instinctively froze like a prey animal. In a low growl, she said, “By the way, Lena wasn’t joking when she said that I’d maul anyone who deliberately hurts bunnies. And I’ll be able to smell if you do.” She stood back and smiled brightly before letting go of his hand. “Now that that’s all cleared up, let’s get you fed.” She gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder and started to hike through the brush. Astarion stood stock still for several moment before he managed to shake himself out of his stupor and follow.

---

Astarion and Edie failed to find any suitable prey, but returned to camp after encountering Lady Esther, an elderly human adventurer looking for a githyanki egg for the Society of Brilliance. After a lengthy spirited discussion (which consisted of Edie browbeating her, much like she did with not-Elminster) that touched on the history of 'residential schools' as a tool of cultural genocide, of the psychological violence perpetrated against a child kidnapped to deliberately raise them outside of their birth culture and community, and some additional persuasion in the form of Edie's fangs and the threat to eat Lady Esther’s face, Lady Esther agreed to drop the matter of the githyanki egg entirety. Astarion found the whole exchange mesmerizing. So much so he barely remembered to steal Lady Esther’s entire inventory of armor and weapons while said woman was chastised into packing up and leaving in a shocked daze.

When they made it back to camp, the two began to take stock of the haul. Astarion picked out new robes for himself—“The Graceful Cloth” (there was a tag with it's name!)—and tried them on. While he looked over how the robes fit, Edie gave him an unsettling grin. She stared at the cutout panels along his obliques and pointed at them. "Those have to be the dumbest design element I can think of for 'armor.'"

Astarion looked back at her and frowned. "I'll admit that they aren't quite to my tastes, but the robes are infused with magic so I can better dodge attacks so they shouldn't matter."

Her pupils dilated and her body tensed. “My instincts tell me that I must tickle you,” she said.

He glared at her. “You wouldn’t dare. Besides, you’d be hard-pressed to catch me while I’m wearing—” Edie's eyes shifted and she waggled her haunches for a split second before she pounced and tackled him to the ground. He let out an ‘oof’ before her fingers wormed along his sides. He attempted to roll away and shrieked at her to get off of him while she cackled. When he finally managed to stand up, Edie held onto his waist with her arms, her fingers still dancing along his exposed sides. He batted ineffectually at her hands, staggering while Edie’s feet dragged behind him in the dirt.

Lae’zel and Shadowheart looked up from laying their laundry on some boulders to dry. “Chk. What new foolishness does Edie engage in now?” Lae’zel asked.

Karlach walked over after Wyll finished helping her put some of her hair into braids. “i think it's sort of sweet in a demented way, especially because Astarion always seems a little down. Though is it me or is Fangs getting squeakier?”

Astarion’s yells had risen an octave when Edie climbed onto his back like a bear climbing a tree and continued her tickle assault around his head and neck. He staggered and nearly dropped to the ground. “Stop touching my hair!” he shouted.

Shadowheart sighed. “Children, please refrain from further torturing each other,” she called out. Both paused to look up at Shadowheart. “I won’t waste the effort to heal either of you if Edie shifts and tries to drag you up a tree again or if Astarion draws a blade.”

Edie climbed off Astarion and pretended to be abashed while Astarion coughed. “Sorry ma’am,” she said before slinking off to her tent. Astarion made a show of straightening his attire and hair before he headed back to his own and pretending nothing had happened.

“I love our Edie, but she and Lena are right nutters,” Karlach said. She paused before asking, “Speaking of, where is Lena?”

“Halsin mentioned something about looking for honey and he dragged Lena into the woods to help search for some,” Shadowheart replied.

“She is a honey badger—right there in the name. I don't understand why he needed to drag her,” Karlach said.

“Apparently she wasn't inclined to find more for Halsin after she helped herself to the remainder from last night," Shadowheart replied. "Do you think Halsin might actually get any before she eats it all?”.

“I very much doubt it,” Lae’zel replied. “She can eat it at a speed that matches a mind flayer consuming brains. And when she savors it, she does so it in a most peculiar way.”

“I still find it hard to believe that she enjoys the grubs.” Shadowheart shuddered. “Even Halsin finds them revolting.”

“Oh, they’re not so bad. There were these giant wasps I used to eat over in Avernus whenever I found a hive,” Karlach said. “They just sort of squirt into your mouth and taste a little like walnuts. Unless you roast them first. Then they're a little chewy.”

Lae’zel and Shadowheart stared at Karlach.

“What?” Karlach asked.

Minthara approached them with her own laundry and with Bitey perched on her shoulder. Bitey skittered over to Lae'zel, waving its arms at her until she picked up the spiderling and fed it an apple from her carry-all. "The spiderling will become bloated if you overfeed it, making it prone to injury if it falls," Minthara remarked. "Have any of you any soap to spare? I have need to wash my clothing."

Karlach tossed Minthara a sliver of soap. "Here you go, mate." Minthara caught the soap with her free hand and placed it on top of her laundry before she began soaking a shirt.

"I'm a little surprised that you would be willing to do anything as menial as washing your own clothing. I would think that a noblewoman from Menzobarranzan wouldn't stoop to such menial tasks," Shadowheart remarked.

"True, but as a younger daughter I was often left without slaves or servants to wait on me before I managed to arrange for my older sisters' deaths. So I often found that I needed to cultivate such skills or face punishments whenever I needed to present myself to the Matron," Minthara replied. "Why were you just discussing the whereabouts of Lena?"

“She is currently not here to sow chaos. And it had suddenly become very quiet in the camp while both she and Edie were gone," Lae'zel admitted. "I find that I have grown used to the havoc that they cause. It is most … compelling.”

They stopped and watched as Lena burst out of the woods and run through the camp followed by an angry bear sow and her two cubs. “Halsin, tell your girlfriend I wasn't really going to eat her cubs!” she shouted. Gale looked up from the stew he was tending to watch the ensuing chaos, then calmly sipped from a fresh mug of tea.

“I didn’t think there were any bears that weren't Halsin nearby,” Shadowheart remarked. Wyll walked over and began helping them lay out the clothes. Notably, Astarion's laundry remained in a pile on the ground, untouched. "You're not bothered by any of this, Wyll? No instinct to rush in and save her?" Shadowheart asked.

He shook his head as he watched. "For anyone else I would, but I know what she's capable of. And I worry that she might accidentally eat one of my fingers if I attempted to engage."

Minthara nodded. "Her teeth when she shifts aren't especially long compared to Edie's, but they are plentiful." She shivered when she recalled seeing them up close when they initially met.

They watched Lena shake off her gear and shift into her black and white honey badger form before turning to snarl at the bear sow.

“It’s a bit like watching a building collapse or a wildfire from afar: you really can’t look away,” Shadowheart said.

“It’s good to know that if I die, I’m going to die knowing I saw some really funny shit thanks to those two. And I thought I saw some weird shit in Avernus,” Karlach said. The bear sow roared then swiped at Lena, the blow tossing her into the river. They heard Astarion bark a laugh from his tent. Halsin ran over to the bear sow and began speaking to her in calming tones while throwing a dirty look in Lena’s direction as he attempted to reason with the irate ursine.

“Shouldn't a bear protecting her young attempt to kill by biting or crushing instead of a swipe of its paws?” Lae’zel asked. Lena’s honey badger head popped out of the water and gave the bear a fang-and-spit filled hiss. The bear roared back before lumbering back into the woods, followed by her cubs. Halsin's shoulders sagged in relief and he pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Dunno,” Karlach replied. “Maybe Lena managed to really annoy the bear. She does seem to have a knack for that, but without being killed.” Lena shifted back to human and started swimming back to shore when she something suddenly yanked her under the surface with a ‘blop’ sound. “Should we help now?” Karlach asked.

Lae’zel, Minthara, Shadowheart, and Wyll looked at Karlach then back to the river to watch Lena's head broke the surface of the water and swam to shore with one arm. As she climbed onto shore she dragged behind her a catfish that was as big as her with a fist-sized hole in its head. “I found dinner!” Lena shouted. She heaved the massive fish over a shoulder and made her way to the campfire where Gale was standing. He gazed at her with a small smitten smile, before remembering to hand her a drying cloth. She wrapped the cloth around her before pulling Gale into a kiss. After several moments he regained his senses and shooed her away to gather her tossed clothing and get dressed while he started to process the fish. She walked over to Edie's tent, where the two women exchanged high-fives and Lena began to dress while Edie showed her the weapons she and Astarion brought back.

Wyll shook his head. Minthara stared in disbelief. Lae'zel and Shadowheart turned to Karlach, who looked back and said, "Forget I asked."

Chapter Text

The next morning the party milled around a crusty and ancient-looking gondola near where Lady Esther had camped down to Rosymorn Monastary after Lae’zel pointed out that the path was clearly littered with githyanki traps. Edie and Lena looked at the gondola and the mechanism, then each other, and announced that they would check it out before anyone rode on it.

“I don’t see why I can’t just force it,” Karlach said.

Edie, now wearing some light leather armor she could easily shed when she shifted, began examining the jammed mechanism. “I’m sure you and Lena would be fine if anything goes wrong, and I would survive, but with some pretty severe injuries that’ll take a day or two to heal as long as nothing tries to scavenge me while I’m unconscious, but I’m not sure everyone else will survive the drop.”

Shadowheart looked down at the ravine, aghast. “Please continue.”

Lena climbed the gondola. “This gondola looks like it’s seen better decades. How the fuck are the people at the creche able to get around and attack travelers if this thing’s a rust bucket and there’s a trap they have to side-step every three feet just to get to the main road?” When Lae’zel gave her a baffled look, Gale cleared his throat. She sighed. “‘Meter.’ I meant ‘meter.’” She tapped the cable with the butt of one of her knives and leaned her head in to listen.

Lae’zel sneered in disgust. "What is wrong with your people, k’chakhi? Do they all use their fingers and toes to count, too?”

“To be fair,” Edie interjected as she used a hammer she’d scavenged to tap at the gears and loosen any rusted together, “it’s mostly just America where Lena and I come from, and I think that a lot of the political and business leaders are pretty intent on making sure that as many of us as possible are ignorant fodder for wars and prison labor.”

Lena nodded. “Though I hear it’s weirder in Canada where a lot of road maps and signs are in metric, but people tend to mix in a lot of imperial units—like feet, miles, gallons—in with the metric units into daily use. At least in America we’re consistently dumb.” She tapped the cable again.

Lae’zel closed her eyes and breathed through her nose like she was trying to contain an outburst, then muttered what sounded like a string of curse words.

“If you’re not feeling well, maybe we should go to the creche another day,” Lena said. She looked up toward Halsin. “Hey, didn’t you mention there was a way to Moonrise through the Underneath? Undercarriage? Under-something?”

Halsin’s eyebrows pinched together. “The ‘Underdark,’” he corrected. “And yes, there should be a path to Moonrise there.”

Lena looked back at Lae’zel and grinned. “See! Problem potentially solved!”

A low growl emanated from the back of Lae’zel’s throat. “Except we have not been cleansed of our ghaik tadpoles!” she snapped.

“Except for me,” Edie pointed out. “And Halsin, but he was never infected to begin with. I’m good with whatever.” She tapped a rusted gear a few times, letting off a shower of rust. “I think this was the problem.” She gave it a few more solid whacks until she felt it shift slightly then put away her hammer and wiped her hands on a rag before she looked up at Lena. “How’s the line?”

“Astonishingly solid,” Lena replied. She hopped down. “Shall we?”

They all loaded up. After a few moments as the gondola made its leisurely way down, Edie asked Astarion, “How’re you holding up?”

He looked at her nonplussed. “Hmm?”

“I don’t think you got a blood meal yesterday. You okay?”

“Aw, fuck!” Lena exclaimed as she slapped her forehead. “I forgot to feed you!” She rolled up a sleeve on her linen shirt to expose her elbow. Gale frowned and wrapped an arm around a her shoulders. She gave him a baffled look. “What?”

Gale sighed. “We have a whole party of individuals who could potentially help feed him. I don’t understand why that onus falls squarely on you.”

"Are you offering?" Astarion asked, giving Gale an arch look.

Gale blushed and coughed. "I'm afraid that my blood would taste horrible with the presence of the orb."

Lena narrowed her eyes at Astarion. "Are you coming on to my boyfriend? Because that's just not cool, especially given that you're prettier than me."

Edie looked Gale over and tapped her chin. "You can probably do with some bulking up before donating. You don't look like you can afford to lose any blood without passing out." Gale glared at Edie and Minthara snorted. "I'm just saying you need to build up some more muscle if you want to survive being around Lena's family.

Lena nodded. "True. My immediate family might be the more civilized branch of the Cai clan, but we're barely a step up from being a ravening horde of irate and unhinged weasels. If we can't build muscle, we'll need to start you on agility training to avoid potentially fatal 'accidents.'" Gale blanched and Lena gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

"Is anyone else willing to donate to the blood bank of Astarion?" Edie asked.

“If he came near enough to bite me, I’d leave him lighter of his ears. And perhaps his nose,” Lae’zel chimed in.

The gondola stopped near the ruins of what was once an impressive monastery and they all disembarked.

Astarion rolled his eyes. “Normally I wouldn't pass up a free meal, but I'm sure I’ll be fine for now. I’ve gotten by on far less, as you’ll recall. Besides," he gave Lena a pointed look, "you and Gale were ‘busy’ and I refuse to sully my eyes with whatever horrors you two engage in.”

Shadowheart smirked. “Edie, why don’t you feed our resident leech?” Astarion glared at her and willed her to shut up. She just tilted her head and gave him a smug smile. “Oh come on now! It seems perfectly reasonable to me: she’s a shifter in the same way Lena is so she’ll recover quickly. And I’m sure she’s willing. Aren’t you, Edie?”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Fine, I guess.” She pulled up a sleeve and shoved the crook of her elbow in front of him. “Just remember to be a complete asswipe so I stop wanting to climb you like a tree.”

“I have a feeling he wouldn’t mind that so much, though I doubt he can handle the weight,” Shadowheart said under her breath.

Edie thought for a moment. "I can't tell if that's a commentary on my weight or Astarion's general flimsiness.”

"Definitely the latter," Shadowheart replied.

Astarion pushed Edie’s arm away and bared his teeth at Shadowheart. Lae’zel unsheathed a sword and held the tip below his chin. “Don’t tempt me, leech.”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Calm down, assholes. And Lae’zel, put that away before someone loses an eye.” She shoved her arm back in from of Astarion and he reared he head back in surprise. “Oh come on! Do I have to start making airplane noises so you’ll eat?”

“What? What in the hells is an airplane?” Astarion asked.

“Big metal tube with wings that flies with the power of poorly-understood fluid dynamics,” Lena chimed in. She pulled up a video of a plane taking off.

“Your people can fly?” Karlach exclaimed. “I wanna try it!”

“It’s more like being stuck in a tiny noisy room breathing the same air with rude people who may or may not have bathed for anywhere between one and twenty hours,” Lena remarked. “Oh, and if someone tries to cop a feel, you might get banned from flying for any sort of physical retaliation.” Then she pulled up a video of someone having a tantrum on a plane.

Karlach wrinkled her nose. “Eugh,” she said. “On second thoughts, I’d rather walk.”

Edie started making plane noises while attempting to swoop the crook of her arm in front of Astarion. She looked like she was being tased. “Here comes the blood plane! Ready to make a landing in your tum-tum!”

"I thought cats were supposed to be graceful," Shadowheart commented.

Edie froze. "Okay then, you try being graceful while making your elbow look tasty! It's not my fault he's being fussy!"

Astarion gawked at her. “I fail to see how treating me like an infant is supposed to make me more inclined to feed from you.”

“What, did you want a tit instead?” Edie pointed at her chest. “It’s not like these things are producing milk.” Minthara barked a laugh before stifling it.

Lena had a faraway look as she had a thought. “Milk’s weird. In a sense, it’s bit like a European medieval myth that it’s whitened blood because it does contain antibodies, but then again, so do gastric juices—”

“No!” Lae’zel interrupted Lena. “We will not endure another one of your lengthy and absurd musing, k’chackhi!” She glared at Astarion. “You feed from the shka'keth NOW.” Shadowheart had to stifle a giggle.

Astarion’s shoulder’s sagged. “Fine.” He took hold of Edie’s arm and pierced it with his fangs before he started feeding. Everyone watched.

"Doesn't he have the most adorable tiny widdle fangs?" Lena whispered, the corners of her eyes crinkled. "It's a wonder he can even find a vein! Ma will love fussing over him!” Astarion glared at her.

Edie nodded in agreement. “They're really adorable. On a different note, wow, the books are wrong. This is NOT erotic,” Edie commented. Astarion started to growl.

Lena nodded emphatically “I think it sounds like someone who just got their butthole waxed farting. Or a squeaky toy being squeezed slowly over and over.”

Edie scrunched her nose. “This feels like that time when I was twelve and I used a vacuum cleaner to try to see how hickies would feel with real boys.” Wyll had to bite his fist to keep from laughing at Astarion’s murderous expression and buried his face into Karlach’s shoulder. Gale covered his mouth with his hands and giggled. Shadowheart laughed and leaned against a smirking Lae’zel. Minthara started to silently shake and leaned against a surprisingly stoic Halsin.

“What’s a vacuum cleaner,” Halsin asked.

“Mechanical pump that sucks in air so it can suck up dirt,” Lena replied. She pulled up a video of a vacuum cleaner inhaling steel ball bearings. Astarion made a muffled sound of annoyance around his mouthful of Edie’s arm.

“What was that? I can’t understand you,” Edie said.

Astarion released Edie’s arm and a trickle of blood dribbled down his chin. Edie immediately bent her elbow to apply pressure to her arm. “Gods, will you ever let me feed in peace? With all of you staring, it puts me right off of eating!”

“What? We’re in a hurry,” Lena replied. “Or Lae’zel’s in a hurry, and she's the one insisting that you eat. I’m a little more chill because I can’t control ceremorphosis and the guardian thingie may or may not be lying about protecting us, but she thinks her people have a cure, so that’s why we’re here.”

Astarion pinched bridge of his nose. “Even though my mood should have improved after feeding, I’m rather put out.”

“I found this all rather fascinating,” Gale commented. “I could write a whole monograph on potentially non-lethal means of feeding vampires.”

“Oh. Should I have recorded this for you so you can watch it later?” Lena asked.

Gale visibly brightened. “Your device can do such a thing? Are you sure that wouldn’t be too much to ask?” Astarion growled and Gale subtly moved closer to Lena.

“Consent,” Edie said. “First thing when studying sentient beings is to find a way to get consent. Though it gets tricky with dolphins and whales seeing as humans on Earth haven’t figured out how to interpret their languages yet.” She shuddered. "Ugh, dolphins."

Lae’zel frowned. “We must go! NOW!”

“But I just lost blood and I still need to finish my snack!” Edie complained. She had a hardened club-like dried sausage in her fist. All the men in the party winced to different degrees as she used her shifted liger molars to rip off a sizable chunk of the tip and began masticating the wood-like meat substance with gusto.

Minthara nodded in approval. “I always found eating sausages a surprisingly effective method of keeping unruly males in check.” Lena nodded in agreement. Karlach, Lae'zel, and Shadowheart looked horrified with the implications, as though they never had to intimidate a portion of the male population.

Edie looked around at the now-nervous men and swallowed. “What?” she asked before she viciously tore off another bite.

---

After Edie finished her dry and leathery sausage/cudgel (“I didn’t think they could be eaten like that,” Shadowheart had commented, "I don't think they should," Halsin had replied, covering his crotch), she raised her upper lip and started breathing through her mouth. “Someone’s been by recently,” she said. “I’d guess at least two people like Lae’zel here, and a maybe two or three others. I can’t tell what species, though I smell blood.”

“Halfling, darling,” Astarion drawled from further ahead.

“How were you able to ascertain that information?” Gale asked. “Is it some sort of vampiric sense of smell?”

Astarion smirked. “No, there’s a dead one right in front of me near the main gate.” They approached the sheltered entryway and looked at an older halfling’s corpse with an arrow in her back. “Lae’zel, your people certainly know how to make visitors feel welcome.”

“Huh, I can’t tell if they’re trying to keep solicitors away or attract wildlife,” Lena said.

“I was always taught not to leave food lying around, for just that reason” Edie replied.

Halsin threw Edie and Lena a suspicious look. “Didn't you say that you and Lena don’t eat people?”

“We don’t,” Lena replied, “But unless you bury a body, it’s pretty much just meat for something.” She nudged Edie with her elbow. “Remember that time we visited my uncle’s goat farm and he had that massive boar that even he wouldn’t eat because he took it down during rutting season? And he tried to bury it in his compost pile and the entire thing was just crawling with maggots because he didn't bury it deep enough?”

Edie rubbed her face. “Don’t remind me. I still can’t eat Rice Krispies.”

“Heh! 'Disco rice!' It was like a river of them when the guts exploded, and the whole pile made like a weird burp when it happened!” Lena made an exploding gesture with her hands. Everyone stared at her with varying degrees of horror and revulsion. Gale put his face in his hands. Edie rubbed her temples.

Wyll started to look a little green. “Please, stop.”

Lena stopped gesturing and looked over at Wyll. “Oops, sorry.”

“So, should we knock?” Shadowheart asked, motioning to the doors.

Lena approached the doors and put her ear up to it. “I don’t think anyone’s close enough to hear. Maybe if I started singing—”

“—That won’t be necessary, my love,” Gale interrupted tried unsuccessfully to guide her away from the doors.

“No, k’chakhi, we don’t want to give the creche cause to attack us,” Lae’zel said.

“Hey! I’ve been paid for my singing!” Lena retorted.

“Yeah, to stop,” Edie replied. “Multiple times. You got us banned from several bars. Most of them didn’t even have karaoke. You just stood on the bar and started ‘singing’ after one or two drinks. I couldn’t even pretend that you were drunk.”

Lena shrugged. “Po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh. They gave me money. It’s not my fault that you’re always trying to check out some snobby cat-owned place.”

Edie blinked at Lena. “Because if we went to places owned by full-humans there’d be body count if they tried to toss out your sorry honey badger ass instead of paying you to leave.”

Lena nodded. “True.” She extended a claw and scratched at the door without any effect. “Huh.” She gave the door a quick sniff. “Magic.”

Gale glanced at Lena then cast a detect magic spell. “It seems that door has enchantments against multiple types of damage.”

Shadowheart looked up at the holes in the roof and walls. “Pity they didn’t enchant the stones. It looks at though it was attacked from above.”

“Githyanki have techniques to harness our psychic powers to allow us to attack from the air.” Lae’zel explained. “When the creche conquered this building several kith’rak, or high-ranking warriors, would have stormed the roof when the doors proved impenetrable.”

“So can you demonstrate these powers?” Shadowheart asked.

Lae’zel sighed then tapped her forehead above her left eye. “The tadpole has disrupted many of my abilities. We should make haste and have the creche’s ghustil purge us.”

“But how are going to get in?” Karlach asked.

Lena scraped at the stones in front of the door. “On it.” She started digging and quickly found herself on the other side of the door, where she pushed the iron draw bar out of the way and opened the door before shaking off dirt and dust.

“A useful skill,” Minthara commented as she passed Lena, who gave her a sweeping bow.

---

They split up as they wandered the mostly abandoned and ruined monastery—the creche obviously didn't use the buildings—and they began looking for the creche’s entrance. Astarion and Edie found there way into a small circular room with a stained glass floor. Edie sniffed the air and noticed a whiff of ozone.

“Did you find something?” Astarion asked as he removed a longsword from a glowing altar. The glow immediately ceased. “Interesting.” He replaced the longsword and the glowing resumed.

Edie tapped a wall toward the back of the room. “There’s something behind here.”

“I think it’s a puzzle,” Astarion said. “It looks as though it has something to do with these weapons depicted in the floor.”

Edie blinked at him. “Are these sorts of things common here?”

“Common enough. I think …” he pointed to a figure holding a warhammer, “that if we found the warhammer depicted here, and—”

Before he could finish his thought, Edie walked over to the door. “LENA! GET OVER HERE!” Astarion winced and covered his ears and glared at Edie.

After a moment, they heard Lena shout back. “WHAT IS IT?” Edie could hear the faint sounds of flapping and the whistle of air currents.

“THERE’S SOMETHING HERE. I NEED TO BORROW YOUR CLAWS. CAN YOU GET OVER HERE?”

“IN A MINUTE. JUST KILLING SOME GIANT EAGLES. WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE ASSHOLES EATING TO GROW SO HUGE?”

“NEED ANY HELP?” Edie shouted. Astarion kept his ears covered and raised an eyebrow at Edie as they heard an eagle screech.

“NAH. WE’RE DONE. WE’LL BE THERE IN A FEW.”

Astarion rubbed at his ears, trying to dispel the ringing. “Was that really necessary?”

Edie gave him confused look. “What was?”

“The shouting? I thought you had those communication devices from your home world.”

“Lena usually leaves hers on silent, so she tends to miss calls.”

Astarion put his hands on his hips and tilted his head back and sighed. “Then what’s the bloody point of carrying around a device that’s supposed to let you communicate if you’re just going to shout at each other like that?”

“Oh, for this.” Edie pulled out her phone and started playing a video of someone getting a cyst extracted.

Astarion began to turn green. “WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR PEOPLE? WHY ARE YOU WATCHING THIS?”

Edie stopped the video as the contents of the cyst oozed out of the incision. “I find it surprisingly satisfying. Like, ‘here’s a thing that can be fixed being fixed.’ And Lena and I both live with a constant barrage of information of things we can't fix directly that someone getting a wart or a cyst removed is pretty relaxing.”

Suddenly there was a thud outside the doorway and Lena walked in, followed by Karlach, Gale, and Wyll. All of them had scratches and a few down feathers sticking to them, and their hair was all in varying degrees of disarray.

“Watching pimple popping again?” Lena asked as she looked at Edie's phone. Gale and Wyll cringed while Karlach perked up.

“Yeah. Though he complained that it was gross when I showed him a pilar cyst getting extracted.” Edie pointed at Astarion. “We regularly dismember people and he doesn’t raise an eyebrow, but show him a minor medical procedure and he looks like he’ll hork up his breakfast.”

Lena shrugged. “Everyone’s got their hang-ups. I still can’t stand bananas.”

“What have you got against bananas?” Karlach asked.

“They’re weirdly shaped, I don't care for the smell, and they’ve got that banana anus that if you accidentally eat it, it ruins your day,” Lena explained. She gagged. “Anyways, what’s up?”

Edie pointed to the back wall. “There’s something back there behind the stonework. Figured you could give it a go instead of spending all day trying to solve some sort of stupid puzzle.” She then pointed to the glowing altar.

Lena nodded. “Got it.” She approached the back wall, gave it a sniff, then used a claw to tap the stone. A small wisp of stone dust drifted to the floor. “Man, if only all of our heists were this easy,” she said before she unleashed claws on both hands and dug away at the stone until chips and dust fell to the floor. She spotted something wrapped in a sackcloth stashed inside of the cubbyhole. She wrinkled her nose when she was inundated with the smell of ozone. “Definitely enchanted.”

Gale stepped forward. “Allow me.” He took the bundle and unwrapped it. Inside was what appeared to be an emblem made of filigreed gold and silver inlaid with a sizable amethyst. He then cast detect magic. “Hmm, it’s imbued with magic, but it feels like it’s a fragment of a whole. It lacks any enchantment that has a clearly defined purpose.”

“What, like it’s broken off of something else?” Karlach asked.

“I would guess it’s a key of some sort,” Astarion replied. He took the emblem and looked it over. “I see no evidence that it was ever part of something else. Even the most masterful of artisans can’t erase all evidence that something like this was taken from a larger piece.”

Wyll held his hand and Astarion handed the emblem to him. Wyll looked over the emblem. “Well I’ll be. You’re right that this was never meant to be part of a large piece. Shall I hold on to this until we learn what it opens?”

“As long as it’s not too heavy!” Lena replied cheerfully.

Wyll’s expression dropped and he reared back slightly. “What compels you to say such a thing?”

Karlach gave Wyll a slap on the shoulder. “Because you’re always asking me to carry items from your pack, soldier.”

“And clearly struggle when you bring water back to camp,” Edie pointed out.

“And there’s the time you tried Lae’zel’s sword and you had trouble with holding your stances with it,” Lena added.

“Don’t worry! I’ll carry you to safety!” Karlach exclaimed and wrapped him in a hug. Wyll visibly softened in Karlach’s embrace.

Edie looked over at Lena. “You ever wonder if the people here are hooking up because of proximity? Like, there’s no one else around and we're in a stressful situation so we're releasing some of that tension by starting relationships doomed to fail when this hero’s journey ends?”

Astarion gaped at Edie, while Gale looked horrified. Lena looked back at Edie and shrugged. “No.”

Chapter Text

Lae’zel managed to find the entrance to the creche in a basement structure deep in the heart of the monastery and had to round up the party.

Astarion looked at the door suspiciously. “Are we supposed to knock, or can we just waltz in?”

Karlach looked at Lae’zel. “Yeah, how is this supposed to work? Is there a special knock to keep them from shooting us?”

“I could just burrow in and start murdering—” Lena began.

Lae’zel cut her off. “Chk! That won’t be necessary. We are here to be purified by a ghustil.” She squared her shoulders and somehow managed to stand straighter before she opened the door.

Edie looked over to Lena and raised an eyebrow. Lena looked back and shrugged and followed Lae’zel inside.

“Sentries to arms! Istik. State your purpose, quickly,” a githyanki guarding the entryway barked to four of five others.

“Stand down, gish,” Lae’zel commanded. “Is it not Vlaakith’s command to welcome her faithful?”

“I expected no visitors, faithful or otherwise. Why have you come?”

“We seek the zaith’isk. Show me the way.”

The guard reared back. “You are infected? A ghaik thrall is something to eradicate, not reason with.”

“The faithful may be purified. That is Vlaakith’s protocol,” Lae’zel retorted.

“Chk. Let the ghustil carry out your fate. Report to the infirmary at once. And step carefully. Creche Y’llek watches you.”

Lena looked back and forth between the two githyanki. “Sooo, no tour?” Both Lae’zel and guard glared at Lena. “What? I’d like to not have to find a corner to take a shit because no one told me where to find a latrine!”

Astarion covered his mouth to stop from giggling. Shadowheart had to pinch her lips into a line to keep from laughing. Gale and Wyll stood frozen, trying to hold in their laughter. Halsin pinched the bridge of his nose. Minthara had a massive grin on her face. Edie rolled her eyes and shook her head.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Karlach said. “It’s really important to know where you can take a piss or a shit or it goes all over place.”

All of the githyanki narrowed their eyes at Lena as she gave them a cheerful grin and waved. “So where’s your shitter?”

“Find it yourself, istik. Or are you so covered in filth that you can’t tell where it is by smell?” one of the other guards retorted.

Edie scrunched her nose. “That says nothing good about your hygiene if you expect us to be able to find the latrines by smell.” The githyanki sneered at her.

“Do I smell like shit?” Lena asked. Then she bent over and pointed her ass at the guard. “Maybe you should give it a sniff and see if I shat myself.” She wiggled her butt. A bark of laughter escaped from Astarion.

Edie shook her head sadly. “That’s a pathetic twerk.”

Lena looked up at Edie. “That’s because it’s not: I’m just showing them where my ass is and asking them to take a whiff if they think I smell like shit in case I'm suffering from smell fatigue.”

The guards began drawing their weapons and Lae’zel grabbed Lena by the arm and began dragging her into deeper into the creche. “We will be off to find the ghustil.” The rest of their party followed.

“Keep control over that slave, kainyank, or I may be tempted to punish her myself,” the first guard spat.

Lena snarled. “Slave? Hey! Who’are you call—*hurk*”

Lae’zel continued walking but quickly cut off Lena by grabbing the stretchy skin the on the nape of her neck and giving it a vicious twist. “Quiet, k’chakhi!” she hissed quietly. “You will not risk our purification!”

Lena’s skin stretched as she turned around and swatted Lae’zel’s hand. “Hey!”

Lae’zel gave Lena a little shake. “Behave!”

“Yes, yes, fine!”

Lae’zel stopped walking and let go. Lena stood straight and then rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck. “Sheesh, it’s like none of your people have a sense of humor!”

“Among the githyanki I am considered extremely humorous,” Lae’zel replied.

Lena squinted at her. “Really?”

“No.”

---

They wandered around the halls to look for the infirmary when they heard the sounds of someone being kicked hard. There was a certain bone-crunching quality to the sounds that made Edie wrinkle her nose and she found her way into a room full of githyanki youths and an older instructor with a surprisingly luxurious mustache and pointy beard.

“Perhaps a tadpole has already addled your brains? Is that it?” In the middle of a sunken portion of the floor, an older githyanki gave an adolescent a savage kick to the shins.

The younger grunted at the contact. “My brain is fine!”

“Pa’vrylk! Stop this insufferable whining!” the instructor shouted, and kicked the youth again.“K’chakhi! We are training to fight ghaik! Do you think they will hesitate?”

“They won’t need to if we keep killing each other for them! It’s – it’s stupid! Orph—” the young tried to argue, but he was cut off by his instructor.

“Silence! It seems your childish prattling has attracted an audience. You fight again. This time, daggers only. And to the death as instructed.” The instructor turned to face the rest of his students. “Who wants to challenge this sniveling is’tark?”

Edie pinched her lips into a line and pushed her way to the front of the party and stood in front of the instructor. A low growl rumbled from the back of her throat. “I’ll fight,” she announced. “But not cubs barely old enough to grow pubes.” She looked around the room to each of the watching students. “I’d think it’s much more instructive for the adults to show you all how to fight.” Her eyes had shifted gold and she returned her gaze to the instructor.

As the instructor sized Edie up, Gale whispered to Lena, “What’s Edie doing?”

“Her thing,” Lena whispered back. “She had something of a shit time with one of her advisors from grad school, and doesn’t care for bullying” Lena heard Astarion take a sharp intake of air through his nose, but he continued to pretend to be nonchalant.

“What is your name, istik?”

Edie gave him a faint smile. “I’m Edie. With whom do I have the pleasure to fight?”

“I am Kethk,” the instructor said, “the sa’varsh, or in your language, teacher, of Creche Y’llek.”

Edie gave Kethk a feral grin. “So tell me: why have your students fight to the death? Brain death puts a real damper on learning.”

Kethk sneered, then looked over at Lae’zel. “Your pet istik has strange ideas as to what the young need to learn how to survive.”

Lae’zel narrowed her eyes. “I rather agree with her. It is a waste to force the young to kill each other.”

Kethk looked incredulously at Lae’zel. “Did your creche not train you how to deliver a killing blow?”

“No, I was challenged multiple times by my creche mates and took the heads of each of them,” Lae’zel retorted. “Unlike you, my sa’varsh did not order us to kill each other as part of our education. There are plenty of ghaik to practice on.”

“C’mon, Kethk.” Edie’s voice went low and taunting. “Let’s dance. Maybe your students will manage to learn something.”

Kethk glanced around the room. His students eyed each other, not daring to whisper to each other, but he recognized that he was losing face. “Fine!” he snarled. “Long swords. To the death.” He looked over to a student near the whetstone. “I want my blade to be so sharp that a ghaik can cut its eyes from looking at it.”

Edie snorted. “Pfft! You can keep your sword, I’ll go barehanded.”

Kethk snarled. “Clear the floor!” he ordered and roughly shoved the student he’d berated out of the makeshift arena. Other students hurried to remove training dummies from the makeshift arena and one handed him a longsword.

Edie and Kethk took their beginning stances. A student slapped a drum and Kethk swung his sword at Edie’s neck. She easily ducked it. He thrust the point at her abdomen and she danced out of the way, tapping his elbow or his shoulder to indicate where she broke past his defenses. His attacks sped up, but she managed to avoid them, tumbling and dodging, deflecting the blade with her a foot or a finger, though not completely and Edie started to accumulate a handful of shallow cuts and scratches. All the while, Lena would shout, “Jia you!” whenever an attack made contact.

"I don't understand. Why doesn't she go on the offensive? Or even shift?" Astarion asked as Kethk's blade nicked Edie's ear.

"Pride, mostly," Lena whispered. "And a bit of habit. We both learned that if we fight full-humans, to always let them try to hit first so that we don't get arrested for starting a fight or for assault. We also stay human unless absolutely necessary to keep our abilities under wraps. Though Edie's threshold for what's "necessary" tends to be much higher than mine because she likes to avoid having to kill witnesses because it adds up if you miss one out in public." They watched Edie do a flashy backflip to dodge a strike. "And she likes to show off some twenty years of shifter wushu competitions with live weapons by playing with her prey."

After several minutes, Kethk grew frustrated that he couldn’t land a killing blow and he cast misty step to behind Edie and thrust the point at her heart. She turned around and blocked with her forearm as she twisted the rest of the body out of the way. The blade went through her forearm between her radius and ulna. Lena winced. "Ooo, she's going to be pissed," she muttered. Then she shouted, "Jia you!" again. Astarion looked at Lena, alarmed, then continued to watch.

Edie screamed, then used her other hand to twist the wrist of her injured arm to lock the blade in place before kicking Kethk in the crotch hard, sending him reeling backwards. He grunted and just barely managed to stay upright, but lost his grip on the sword.

Edie hissed as she pulled the sword from her arm and threw it out of the arena, impaling a training dummy through the head. She roared as she rushed Kethk.

He started to stagger backwards, but realized that that his only chance at survival was to fight so he began a barrage of kicks and punches. Some of the landed on her face and broke her nose. Others landed on her injured arm, but she ignored them all as she tackled him to the floor. Then she wrapped her legs around his shoulder and wrenched his arm backward against her body to break it at the elbow. Kethk howled, but abruptly stopped when Edie's heel slammed down to crush his throat. As he suffocated, she straddled his torso and pushed her thumbs into his eyes until they reached the back of his head.

The room was silent except for the sound of Edie panting. She stood at looked back at her companions. Lena grinned and gave her a thumbs-up then offered her a rag to wipe her hands. “Make sure you scrape beneath your nails. I find brains can get stuck there.” Edie grinned and took the rag. After she wiped some of the gore from her hands she set her broken nose with a sickening crack.

That seemed to push everyone out of their shock. The students slowly circled Kethk’s corpse. One spat on it, and another kicked its head. Soon, all the students began to take out their ire and anger and grief for all their lost creche mates to the brutal sa’varsh that the body was soon unrecognizable.

Halsin and Shadowheart hurried over to examine the now scabbed-over wound on Edie’s arm and the bruises. Lae’zel put a hand on Edie’s shoulder. “You are a fine warrior, istik. I am honored to fight with you.”

“Hey! You’ve seen me kill people before! How come you never said shit like that to me?” Lena complained.

Lae’zel looked at Lena and snarled, “Because you annoy me, k’chakhi”

Lena shrugged. “Okay. Fair enough.”

Chapter Text

While Halsin and Shadowheart sped up the healing of Edie’s stab wound to mitigate nerve damage, Minthara leaned her head to Lae’zel’s. “Tell me,” she said in a low voice, “Do we have need for concern that the creche will retaliate for the loss of its instructor?”

Lae’zel shook her head. “It was an honorable duel. By losing to an istik he proved that he was unworthy to teach the young.”

“I’m glad to hear. I feared that we would soon face the condemnation of the entire creche.”

The youth Kethk had previously abused approached Edie and Lae'zel. “I wanted to thank you both. For showing compassion.” He looked to Edie, “You for challenging the sa’varsh,” then to Lae’zel, “And to you for speaking out against his methods.”

Edie waved him off. “Think nothing of it. That rancid pustule needed to be lanced, though I think he’s a symptom of something worse going on here.”

The youth seemed giddy. “It was so amazing that you faced him that it reminds me of—” He suddenly stopped as though he remembered he shouldn’t say anything more.

“Of whom?” Lae’zel asked.

“Hey, your asshole teacher’s dead (he kinda reminds me of the sadistic PE teachers from when Edie and I were in high school). I won’t tell, and I’m sure no one else in earshot will tell, either. Right?” Lena looked around, making eye contact with Lae’zel. “Right?” Lae’zel growled. Lena grinned, then turned her attention back to the youth. “Who’re we going to tell? We don’t even know your name, kid.”

“It’s Va—” the youth began and Lena raised her hand to shush him.

“Nope,” Lena said, popping the 'p.' “Plausible. Deniability. The less we know about you, personally, the easier it is for us to avoid naming you, either accidentally or under duress. Understand?”

The youth nodded, then he leaned in conspiratorially. “I speak of Orpheus. The true prince.”

Lae’zel hissed. “His name is a heresy!”

The rest of the party quickly shushed her. When they were sure that Lae’zel would keep her outrage contained, Lena said “And here I am thinking he was a Greek demigod who tried to bring his wife back from the land of the dead and failed as a cautionary tale against defying the natural order of death.”

Edie shook her head at Lena. “Why do you always know this shit?” Lena shrugged.

“Well, I find her rather illuminating,” Gale said and gave Lena a kiss to the temple and she leaned into it with a contented smile.

“At least someone appreciates my brain,” Lena retorted and then stuck her tongue out at Edie. Then she turned back to the youth. “So go on about your Orpheus. What’s his deal?”

The youth hesitated. “Uh, we’re forbidden from speaking of him. They say that Vlaakith knows if you even think his name.”

Both Edie and Lena looked at Lae’zel, and Lena mouthed the word “cult.” Lae’zel bared her teeth.

Edie turned her attention back to the youth. “I’m sure no one here—” she side-eyed Lae’zel “—is going to tattle on you.”

Edie stared Lae’zel down until Lae’zel said, “Fine!”

Edie gave the youth a brilliant smile. “Excellent! So what can you tell us about your Orpheus?”

The youth gawked and blushed at Edie’s smile until Astarion cleared his throat next to him. The youth noticed Astarion narrow his eyes at him and the youth’s Adam’s apple bobbed and he quickly started to speak again. “I — I read about him in a book. Or at least part of a book.” He looked nervously between Astarion’s glare and Edie’s encouraging expression. “I’ve read it over and over. He’s brave. And kind. And compassionate.” The youth began to warm to his subject. “And he rides a comet! A comet! He’s incredible!”

Shadowheart tilted her head. “If even talking about him is forbidden, then how did you find a book about him?”

The youth looked at Shadowheart. “Oh, a group from outside the creche came. Warriors on a mission for Vlaakith! Our sa’varsh made us clean their armor and I found it in one of the breastplates. I never learned who the breastplate belonged to. I have so many questions!”

“This may be forward to ask, but may we see this book?” Gale asked.

The youth hesitated. “Oh, um ….”

“It might be to your benefit,” Gale added. “So that if anyone searches your belongings there’d be no evidence that you harbored such heretical material.”

Lena nodded. “Really, it’s safer to have no hard evidence. It’s even safer to leave no eyewitnesses, either!” She gave the youth an unsettlingly happy grin. She looked around the room to see if the other students paid them any attention, and at least two looked ready to piss themselves at her sudden focus on them.

The youth hesitated. “I—I guess so…” He handed a disk over to Edie.

Edie’s smile grew brighter. “Thank you!”

The youth stood gazing at Edie for several moments until Astarion abruptly told him to go away. The youth scampered away from Astarion’s vaguely threatening aura.

“Aww, he was such a sweet kid!” Edie complained.

Astarion grumbled something under his breath in Elvish.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“He said, ‘Presumptuous little shit,’” Shadowheart translated. Astarion glared at her and she smiled back.

Edie looked between Astarion and Shadowheart and sighed. “I’m getting mixed signals and I’m still not getting laid by the hot vampire elf.”

“What about grumpy bear druid? He seems to be single. Unless I'm wrong about that and there's someone waiting for him,” Lena said.

Edie wrinkled her nose. “No offense, Halsin, but I know you’ve watched me take a shit in that prison cell, and at no point did you ever indicate that you were anything other than a bear. I sense a multitude of kinks I want nothing to do with.”

“Fair enough,” Halsin conceded. “Though you’re always welcome to my bedroll if you ever want to experience the wonders of nature—”

Edie grimaced and held up her hand. “No.”

---

As they continued to wander the creche through a secluded hallway, Edie walked alongside Lae’zel and held out the disc. “I can’t read this thing. Can you translate?”

Lae’zel wrinkled her nose at the disc. “It is a heresy to even consider the story of Orpheus.”

Lena walked alongside them. “Wow, your god-queen sounds kinda insecure.”

“What do you mean?” Lae’zel stopped to snap.

The whole party stopped. “Oh, what is it this time?” Astarion complained. “Aren’t we supposed to seek this mighty healer of the creche and then get the hells out of here?”

Lena shrugged. “I just mentioned that Lae’zel’s god-queen sounds like she doesn’t like the idea of any competition, and that makes her look weak and petty to me. If she can’t convince her own subjects without banning outside ideas, then her ideas are probably shit.”

Gale nodded. “I rather agree with your assessment. Ideas and beliefs should be able to withstand debate and scrutiny. Otherwise, how can any culture or society ever hope to advance?”

Lae’zel stared at Gale. “I have doubts about your judgment given that you have chosen to mate with the k’chakhi.”

Lena just grinned at Lae’zel. “Or maybe you’re just chickenshit that your god-queen’s a cult leader and your brain can’t handle the possibility.”

Lae’zel looked at Lena nonplussed. “What’s a ‘chickenshit’?”

“A coward,” Edie explained.

Lae’zel snarled and threw a punch at Lena, which she ducked. Lena popped up beside Lae’zel and whispered, “Bok, bok, bok, bok, bok!” before stepping out of range of another punch and giving her a cheerful wave before dodging another blow.

Karlach leaned toward Wyll and stage-whispered, "This is why I never bet against crazy." Wyll tilted his head back and sighed.

Lena had popped up behind Lae'zel and resumed making chicken noises when Lae'zel managed to land a punch squarely on Lena's nose with a crunch. "Ow!" Lena exclaimed, then blew out her nose, spraying blood onto Lae'zel's legs. Lae’zel grimaced at the mess covering her legs then readied herself to tackle Lena when Shadowheart put a hand on her shoulder. “Perhaps this isn’t the best time to engage in fisticuffs.” Then she leaned in to whisper in Lae’zel’s ear. “I’d much rather save healing you for after we have our fun tonight.”

Lena managed to set her broken nose then looked over to Edie. “Oh, I wish I didn’t hear that.” Lae’zel and Shadowheart stared at Lena and blushed.

Edie sighed. “One of the downsides of being a shifter.”

Astarion gave Lena a shit-eating grin. “So tell me, are there any rodents nearby?”

“Ah,” Edie said. “So she told you about the mouse when she was a toddler?”

Karlach perked up. “What’s this?”

Wyll swiped a hand over his face, massaged his stone eye, and sighed. “Perhaps we can learn the contents of the disc before day is done?”

“Yeah, Lae’zel,” Lena taunted. “Tell us what it says! Or are you scared?” Gale handed her a handkerchief and she started wiping blood from her face.

“I fear nothing!” Lae’zel spat, then snatched the disc Edie held out to her and began examining it. “These tir’su marking are ancient. I recognize them, but can’t make sense of … no, wait.” She looked at the disc more closely. “The texts are enciphered, but there’s a Commonspeech translation beneath carved in a different hand.” She wrinkled her nose and read aloud: “‘The Prince of the Comet, Part Two. The Prince of the Comet, Orpheus himself, led his honor guard into battle. Their red dragons bellowed with righteous anger, and the heavens erupted. The glorious prince cried to all who could hear him: Praise be to my mother Gith, the Queen of the One Sky, sacrificed to the Hells by the renegade Vlaakith! But the True Heir, the Prince of the Comet, could not overcome Vlaakith’s knights and their ill-gotten wyrms. Mighty Voss, Jhe’stil Kith’rak, lit the astral sky aflame. When the ash had cleared, beloved Orpheus was gone.’”

Edie scrunched up her face. “Isn’t your species called the githyanki?”

“It means ‘children of Gith,’” Lae’zel explained. “Gith freed us from slavery to the ghaik, and the first Vlaakith was her chosen successor.”

“Just how many Vlaakith’s were there?” Karlach asked.

“The Undying Queen is the one-hundred fifty-seventh,” Lae’zel replied.

“‘Undying’?” Halsin asked.

“She has been queen for over a thousand years.” Lae’zel brusquely handed the disc back to Edie then continued her search of a healer, clearly in no mood to continue the discussion.

"But the gith have a lifespan of approximately a hundred years," Gale muttered to himself when he was sure Lae'zel was out of earshot. He looked like he was about to say something else, but decided against it.

“What is it?” Lena whispered to him, wetting the handkerchief with some water to finish wiping the dried blood that her earlier attempts missed.

“I’ll explain later, when I’m not at risk of being run-through by an enraged Lae’zel.”

Lena grinned. “I’ll protect you.”

Gale smiled back. “I know, but I’d rather avoid fracturing our diverse party until I have evidence to back my suspicions.” He touched his forehead to Lena’s. “Promise me you won’t allude to this conversation just to get under Lae’zel’s skin.”

Lena held a hand to his cheek. “I promise. Until we’re back at camp. Then all bets are off.” She handed him back his now-bloodied handkerchief.

Gale kissed her forehead. “That’s the most I hoped for.” Then he grimaced as he gingerly picked up the fabric scrap from a clean-ish corner. "I really must instruct you on how to cast cleaning cantrips." He quickly cast and the blood and grime quickly dissipated in a brief flash of light before he put the now-pristine cloth back into a pocket.

Lena grinned wider. "Why? I've got you?" She laughed at his aghast expression before kissing him. "You can teach me before we turn in tonight."

Gale wrapped his arms around her waist. "Sounds ideal, lest we forget entirely." She wrapped her arms around his neck and started kissing him, and he hummed in approval.

"OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU TWO. STOP MAKING OUT AND KEEP UP!" Edie shouted from ahead of them. Gale and Lena looked over to see Edie tapping her foot with Astarion beside her with his hands clapped over his ears.

"I suppose she has a point," Lena remarked before they broke apart. She grabbed his hand and sighed. "Let's go."

Chapter Text

Lae’zel’s irritation impelled her to make swift progress through the creche, but she slowed when she smelled the acrid odor of the creche’s birthing pools and overheard the creche’s varsh pleading for an egg to hatch. She wandered in and greeted the warrior guarding the hatchery.

“Step carefully, kin. Our hatchery is protected by lethal safeguards. I would hate to see you fall afoul of them,” the guard said. Then he leaned over to look at her companions. “These are strange time if istiks are allowed to view the hatching pools.”

“Where are all the eggs?” Lae’zel asked. “At Creche K’liir there would be at least three dozen and I have heard of others with hundreds, yet these pools appear empty.”

“Hatched, mostly,” the guard replied. “Only one remains unbroken, watched over by Varsh Ko’kuu. You may approach him if you wish, but do not approach the egg. Lest you run foul of me.”

“Duly noted.” Lae’zel looked over at the pool, then at her companions. “Stay vigilant—there are traps here. And you should avoid touching the waters.”

Edie looked at the greenish water and made a moue of distaste. “Any particular reason why?”

“It is a caustic mix to ensure the health and well-being of the eggs until they hatch.”

Edie looked down at the pool and pulled out a strip of eagle meat from the carcass Lena had handed her and dropped it into the pool. It started to foam and smoke when it came in contact with the water. “I think I’ll stay here, thanks.”

Astarion made a face. “I don’t feel the need to ruin my boots.”

Shadowheart looked a little panicky. “I don’t know if I have enough magic to heal all the burns this can cause.”

“Perhaps it would be wisest if the rest of us remained here while you conduct your business,” Gale remarked.

“I’ll go with you!” Lena chimed in. "I don't know what you're planning, but I'll help!”

“G’lyck,” Lae’zel exhaled. “I would rather that you not.”

“I’ll be fine! I was really good at playing ‘the floor is lava’ as a kid!” Lena smiled.

“I’m not concerned with your well-being, k’chakhi” Lae’zel snapped.

Lena’s smile dropped. “Okay, fine! Then I won’t disarm the half-dozen traps on those rocks up ahead.”

Lae’zel looked up at the rocks and sighed. “They are likely to be repulsion mines, a favorite of my people. They will be nearly impossible to avoid.” She grimaced. “Fine. You may accompany me. But only to disarm the traps. You do not speak unless spoken to, is that understood?”

Lena nodded. “Crystal clear!” Astarion snorted. “Lead the way, frog friend!” The party broke out in a fit of snorts and giggles.

Lae’zel glared at Shadowheart. “Why do you always find her antics amusing?”

Shadowheart attempted to school her face into a more sober expression. Which lasted about five seconds before she began to snort-giggle. Lae’zel’s shoulders sagged and she rolled her eyes. “Istiks,” she muttered under her breath. Addressing Lena, she growled out, “That way,” pointing to a rocky outcropping in the pool.

Lena gave her a little impish grin and a mock salute before she hopped across the stepping stones to the main outcropping. Lae’zel exhaled a “g’lyck” and followed, waiting for Lena to disarm two separate traps before they reached the varsh.

As Lae’zel approached him from behind, Varsh Ko’kuu sighed before speaking, “You can tell Kith’rak Therezzyn that my position has not changed: the egg needs more time. Furthermore—” he turned around and noticed Lae’zel. “Oh.” He looked deflated.

Lena looked from behind Lae’zel. “I’m pretty sure she thinks the same thing every time I come into view.”

Lae’zel growled. “I thought you agreed to not to speak unless spoken to.”

“Oh, I thought you just wanted me to acknowledge that I understood what you said,” Lena replied. “You said, ‘You do not speak unless spoken to, is that understood?’ And I understood what you were saying, I just didn't explicitly agree. What’s the issue?” Lae’zel snarled.

Varsh Ko’kuu raised an eyebrow and looked to Lae’zel. “You really must find a better slave.”

Lena looked over to Lae’zel with an expression of insincere shock and offense. “Is that all we are to you? Slaves? After all we’ve been through together!” She started cackling at Lae’zel’s obvious irritation.

Lae’zel took a deep cleansing breath through her nose before addressing the varsh. “I am curious about the egg you guard. I could not help but overhear your pleas for it to hatch.”

The varsh sighed. “The egg is just a little slow. Most caretakers would not give the child a fair chance, but I shall. There could be greatness in that shell.”

“And what of Kith’rak Therezzyn?” Lae’zel asked. “It seems that not all share your optimism. And eggs have been known to fail.”

Lena’s cackle abruptly stopped. “Wait, so the egg is viable and no one is willing to wait?”

Varsh Ko’kuu looked over to the egg. “Not all who arrive late are weak. I created this entire hatchery, despite being the last of my clutch to hatch. They almost drowned me in the hatching pool. If it wasn’t for the varsh of my clutch—” He paused then looked at Lae’zel. “This one deserves the same chance.”

“But not if this ‘kissarack’ disagrees?” Lena suggested.

“Kith’rak,” the varsh corrected. “If she orders that the egg must be—” he sighed “—destroyed, then I am to obey.”

Lae’zel eyes softened. “Let me take the egg. I will keep it safe.”

Varsh Ko’kuu gave Lae’zel a surprised look. “You? You’ve no varsh instincts about you at all.”

Lena nodded. “Oh, I agree that she looks like she’d make an omelet out of that egg—” Lae’zel glared at Lena, willing her to shut up to no avail. “—Well, more like balut at this stage of development, but that I can assure you that she’s got a soft and squishy center somewhere in that prickly and aggressive amphibious shell—she just needs to break out of it. And there's a dog and an owlbear cub at camp that she hasn't tried to eat at all. And she seems to really like my pet spiderling, Bitey." As if on cue, the spiderling poked its legs out of Lena's carry-all and then skittered up to Lena's shoulder before jumping onto Lae'zel's head. Lae'zel automatically reached into her own carry-all to offer the spiderling a piece of eagle meat. The spiderling chittered happily as Lae'zel rubbed it between its eyes. Lena pointed at Lae'zel. "See? Prime mommy material! Plus, there’s like a whole bunch of us who can take turns making sure the kiddo gets plenty of attention and weapons training after they hatch.”

The varsh hesitated. “The captain is due for an inspection, and if she sees it here….”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Lena assured him. “The kid will be surrounded by bloodthirsty weirdos who’ll happily teach them to murder their enemies with utmost glee!”

He grimaced uncomfortably. “Yes … I suppose you—” he glanced over at Lena, who gave him one of her signature unsettlingly toothy grins, “—and your slave, have a spirit about you that is … not quite laudable, but at least acceptable. And probably preferable to destruction." He watched with distaste as Lena began to picked at her teeth with an extended claw as the spiderling jumped off of Lae'zel and made its way across Lena's torso back into her carry-all and closed the flap behind it. "And if your tolerance of your slave is any indication, a deep well of patience.” He seemed to struggle to reach a decision before he reached into his own carry-all to pull out a pair of boots. “These will help you reach the egg safely: they'll protect you from the caustic waters and prevent the traps from triggering.” He handed them to Lae’zel.

“I thank you for your trust,” Lae’zel replied. She quickly took off her own boots and donned the proffered pair, then climbed down from the rocky outcrop and waded through the hatching pool to reach the egg. As she reached for it, she noticed movement in the egg. “I will protect you, little one,” she said softly as she carefully picked up the egg then stroked the shell before stowing it in her pack. She motioned for Lena to return to the others while she waded back.

As she reached shore, Shadowheart approached her. “What was that about?”

“The kith’rak, or captain, of this creche has deemed the last egg to be weak for hatching late, and would require its destruction if it fails to hatch before her inspection. I … I could not bear to let it die,” Lae’zel said.

Wyll hissed through his teeth. “That seems unnecessarily cruel.”

“But not uncommon in nature,” Halsin interjected. “Many a bird of prey will allow their largest chick to kill its younger siblings to ensure that at least one survives harsh conditions.”

“Yes, though it sounds like this one wouldn’t even have been given the chance to hatch,” Wyll replied. “And I imagine there are plenty here to care for and feed the hatchling.”

Halsin looked thoughtful. “I suppose that is true.”

"Culling newborns is not at all uncommon," Minthara mused. "At Menzoberranzan, a third son would be immediately disposed of as they useless, even for breeding purposes." She gave Gale a sly smile. "You have the aura of a third child." Gale blanched slightly and edged closer to Lena.

Lena wrapped an arm around Gale's waist and narrowed her eyes at Minthara. “Yeah, and I had a full-human great-grandmother who remembered watching at least two of her newborn sisters get smothered in a bucket of ashes because her family wouldn't or couldn't pony up for another girl's dowry—" Minthara's eyes widened and her nostrils flared in horror and disgust. "— because girls are 'weak' and 'useless.' So I say sex-based biases are complete bullshit. Besides, you’re all missing the most important bit.” Lena turned to grin a Lae'zel. “We’re all going to be aunties and uncles!”

Edie and Karlach both cheered. Shadowheart looked shocked at the her impending co-parenthood with Lae'zel. Astarion wore a shit-eating grin as though anticipating the chaos. The rest of the party looked a little concerned.

Lae’zel wrinkled her nose and shook her head in disgust at Lena. “No. Not you.” She started walking out of the hatchery and away from Lena.

Lena let go of Gale and followed her. “Aw, c’mon! At least let me name them when they hatch! How ‘bout ‘Tiny’?”

“No.”

“‘Lae’zel-lite?’”

“No.”

“‘Frenchie?’”

“‘Frenchie?’ What does that even mean?” Lae’zel asked.

“It refers to a nation of humans stereotyped as frog-eaters!”

The rest of the party followed. Shadowheart walked alongside Gale. “Do you have any misgivings in Lena’s proximity to a child? Any child?”

Gale sighed. “Some," he admitted. "I know she wouldn’t deliberately harm one, but I doubt that Lae’zel would appreciate Lena's, er, artlessness given her own seemingly strict and regimented upbringing.”

“I’m frankly looking forward to it,” Astarion interrupted. “This could be incredibly entertaining to watch as Lena undermines mummy Lae’zel’s attempts at raising a 'proper' gith.”

Shadowheart gave Gale a thoughtful look. “Speaking of children, what’s to prevent you and Lena from producing one of your own?” she asked. “I’m grateful you’ve warded your tent against sound given how often the two of your engage in coitus, but a pregnant Lena could be a liability.” Halsin coughed. "An even greater liability," Shadowheart amended.

Astarion shuddered. “I’m going to leave this conversation now. Let me know when I get to be an uncle.” He sauntered over to walk behind Edie, appreciating her assets.

Gale blushed. “Uh, I’ve been assured that Lena has a preventative that should last a number of years without interference.”

“Aw, don’t you want kids, Gale?” Karlach asked.

“I, um….” Gale’s voice trailed off as he watched an irritable Lae’zel half-heartedly attempt to behead Lena, who simply dodged and laughed. “I think children can wait.”

Chapter Text

Lae’zel continued making half-hearted attempts to kill Lena when the party managed to reach the infirmary. “You’re not even trying!” Lena complained plaintively. “Why aren’t you really trying to kill me any more? Has your love for me withered? Like cherry blossoms after a late frost?” she said melodramatically, touching the back of her hand to her forehead like distressed damsel ready to faint.

A gith woman, presumably the ghustil, who had been hunched over some equipment examining a mindflayer tadpole, turned from her work to glare at them. “Either state your business or be quiet!” she admonished. “Some of us have important work to do instead of blathering about one’s failing love affair.” She looked between Lae’zel and Lena. “And I would assume you would have better tastes that to take up with an insolent istik.”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “I am not sexually involved with her.”

“No, she’s with me,” Shadowheart interjected, then crossed her arms and glared at Lena.

Lena pretended to take offense and stood next to Gale and grabbed his arm. “Fine, be that way! But don’t come crying to me when I’m balls-deep in Gale’s ass and you’re wishing that was you.”

Gale blushed bright red and coughed. “My love, you don’t have a penis. Or testicles,” he said quietly.

“Shhh! They don’t need to know that!” Lena stage whispered. Gale covered his face with his hands. Astarion barked a laugh and tried to pretend it was a cough. Edie, while trying to suppress her own laughter, slapped him on the back a few times to "help" him clear his redundant lungs and nearly sent him flat on his face. Meanwhile, Lena whispered into Gale's ear, "You're so cute when you blush! I'm so going to ride your face tonight!" His flush almost incandescent when Lena gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m pretty sure we all know you don't have a cock or balls,” Karlach said to Lena, looking confused at the party's tittering. “You walked out of the river naked with that giant catfish yesterday and I sure as hells didn't see anything dangling between your legs.”

"I'm a grower, not a show-er!" Lena shot back. Wyll leaned his face against Karlach’s shoulder, shaking while trying to smother a laugh.

"You're not a spotted hyena!” Edie exclaimed while stifling a laugh. "Stop fucking with everyone over honey badger anatomy!"

Minthara gave Edie a confused look. "Hyena females have penises?" Both Edie and Lena nodded. "Then how do they give birth?"

Halsin and the two shifters winced, with Edie and Lena both vigorously shaking their heads. "We can explain later over some appropriate libations," Halsin replied.

Gale suddenly lifted his head from his hands and blanched as realization dawned on him. "Mystra's tits ..." he whispered.

Lena patted his shoulder. "Yeah. No, it ain't pretty."

The ghustil crossed her arms and frowned. “Do you need something from me or are you here to distract me with your inane chatter?”

Lae’zel narrowed her eyes at the ghustil. “I am I child of Gith, not discarded rat-flesh. Am I not due your respect?”

The ghustil skeptically looked around at the party members then returned her focus on Lae’zel. “Perhaps not. Let the istik who bragged about her imaginary penis speak, and then I will decide what respect you are owed.”

“Why must you judge me based on her?” Lae’zel asked through gritted teeth.

“I want to understand why you have not yet killed her,” the ghustil replied.

“Because I’m pretty hard to kill,” Lena replied. “Does that answer your question?”

The ghustil gave Lae’zel a questioning look. “She is, indeed, extremely difficult to kill," Lae'zel grudgingly admitted. Shadowheart nudged her with an elbow. Lae’zel shot her a dirty look before continuing. “And she has saved my life on occasion.”

“Aww,” Lena simpered, “That’s because we’re friends!” Lae’zel snarled at her.

“Hey,” Edie interrupted, “unless that mindflayer tadpole came direct from the source, is that thing's host still alive?”

“A very specific question,” the ghustil remarked, “one that speaks of a more personal motivation. I can only deduce … you have a parasite of your own.”

“Bzzt! Wrong!” Edie replied. “I used to have a parasite. But you never answered the question: is the host of that tadpole still alive?”

The ghustil looked at Edie avariciously. “Fascinating … you managed to remove the tadpole on your own?”

Edie narrowed her eyes and looked at the ghustil suspiciously. “I asked first.”

Lae’zel looked between Edie and the ghustil. “What is this about?”

“The host survived the procedure,” the ghustil said.

“Okay, but for how long? And with what side effects?” Edie demanded.

“I answered your question. Now you must answer mine,” the ghustil shot back. “How did you remove your parasite?”

“You’re evading,” Edie replied in a sing-song voice. “If the patient survived with mild to no side effects you’d be bragging about it. I’m guessing that your patient is either dead or in a vegetal state. All thanks to your procedure.”

Lae’zel turned to glare at the ghustil. “Is what she’s saying the truth?” she demanded.

“What does it matter?” the ghustil spat. “This istik is special if her body managed to rid itself of a tadpole without her showing signs of severe intellectual impairment. You must give her to me so I may study her.”

Astarion and drew his blades. “I would rethink your demands,” he said, pointing a dagger at the ghustil.

The ghustil raised her hands to start casting when arms pulled her off-balance from behind and a blade touched her neck. “I suggest you start answering my friend's questions,” Lena said silkily, “or I start removing body parts.” While keeping the blade at the ghustil’s neck, Lena’s other hand reached up to the ghustil’s exposed eye and extended her claws. "I know for a fact that you can remove the maggots alive from a dead host, so there's really no need for fancy procedures if you can just kill patients to collect the nasty little things. So we really want to know what else you're doing." The ghustil swallowed hard while Minthara moved to disarm her.

“What are you?” the ghustil asked, staring at the long claws that emerged from otherwise completely human hands.

Edie stalked up to the ghustil before glancing at Lena, who gave her a grim smile and an almost imperceptible shrug. Lena gave Gale a speaking glance and he cast knock, sealing the door to the room.

“My friend with the claws and I aren't from this plane of existence,” Edie said quietly. The ghustil shuddered at Edie’s impassive calm, sensing a painful doom. “Seeing as you’ve just forfeited your life because you're conducting morally questionable ‘research,' and especially as it would've included me as a test subject, I don’t think we have anything to lose from a little information exchange. I’m sure you’re dying to know how I managed to remove my tadpole.”

Astarion rolled his eyes at the pun.

The ghustil’s eyes lit up. “Yes! I need to know!”

Edie tilted her head slightly and the corner of her mouth ticked up a bit. “I sneezed the fucker out. My immune system had managed to kill it and it came out in a blob of mucus.”

The ghustil’s eyes went wide with frustration and she tried to thrash her way free, but a claw pierced her sclera. She howled in pain as bloody vitreous fluid seeped out from her damaged eye from beneath her eyelid. The blade at her throat was now coated with her blood from where it had dug in while she struggled. “Shh,” Lena whispered in her ear. The ghustil stilled shuddered at the menace in that single syllable. “I promise to make this so much worse if you resist.” The ghustil suddenly realized that she was in the presence of two very dangerous predators. The other members of the party gathered and circled her, all wearing expressions ranging from glee to fury to pity. However, no one was willing to interfere.

Lae’zel growled and Edie moved away to let her confront the ghustil. “The zaith’isk. Tell me, what does it actually do?” she demanded.

The ghustil licked her lips and hesitated when the blade dug deeper into her neck. “Answer her question, or I may finish the job and pluck out your eyeball to start. Or maybe I'll go after your good eye, or rip off an ear or your nose,” Lena said, waving her claws in front of her good eye.

The ghustil hesitated, breathing hard. “It, it extracts the tadpoles without obvious damage to the host,” the ghustil stuttered. The claws stopped waving, but instead reached for her good eye. “It also extracts memories!” she hurriedly added.

“Why?” Lae’zel demanded.

“Our queen demanded that the memories of the infected be delivered to the Astral Sea. What she does with them I don’t know.”

Gale's eyes went wide and he whispered, ”Lich," to himself. "She must be collecting them as part of her phylactery." The others looked at him with alarm while Lena gave him a curious look.

“Has anyone survived the zaith’isk?” Lae'zel asked.

The ghustil sucked in a long breath as claws touched the lower lid of her remaining eye. “Yes, but never for long: any who do are little more than empty husks before they expire within an hour.”

Lae’zel stepped back and nodded to Lena. Lena slit the ghustil’s throat to the bone, sending a gush of blood spewing out. The ghustil gurgled and then went limp before Lena wiped her claws and blade on the dead gith's robes then dropped her to the floor.

Shadowheart reached for Lae’zel, who shook her head. “This must be the ghustil’s doing. V’laakith would not allow her faithful to be destroyed to save the tadpoles. I must speak to the kith’rak and warn her that the rot goes deep.” Edie and Lena looked at each other, and Edie shook her head as if to say keep your trap shut, asshole.

Minthara snorted. “I would not put it past royalty or gods to manipulate their followers in an effort to achieve their aims.” She pointed at the massive device in the apse with its mix of organic and metallic elements. “Do you think your kith’rak would allow such a machine to be made without the permission of your queen? Especially if it destroys the minds of those while extracting the tadpoles alive?”

“I’m afraid she’s right,” Shadowheart said. “Look at it: it’s made with parts that are clearly of Illthid origin. There's something deeply amiss if the kith’rak can't recognize that much.” Lae’zel bared her teeth in frustration then stalked over to the zaith’isk, staring at it.

“I don’t think she’s ready to hear it yet,” Halsin said to Shadowheart as he stood beside her. “Her entire world has just been upturned.”

“Uh, I think we have a more urgent problem seeing as Lena’s just murdered their healer,” Karlach pointed out. “The rest of the creche is going to know we did something if there’s a puddle of blood and a dead body that isn’t one of us.”

“Pity Owlbert isn’t here to simply eat the body,” Lena said, . “We’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way.” She motioned for Edie to grab the feet while she took the arms and they carried the body over to the foot of the zaith’isk.

Lae’zel looked at them, disgusted. “What are you two doing?”

“Staging an ‘accident,’” Edie replied. "Hey, can someone wash away some of the blood?" Then she and Lena began pulling the zaith’isk apart as others began pouring water over the blood to wash it away. Sparks flew and whisps of smoke began to emerge as the two shifters began to rip into the machine, scattering some of the sharper pieces onto the body and around the zaith’isk.

Karlach look on with giddily. “Ooo! Can I join in?” she asked.

“Sure! Here’s a warhammer," Lena said, handing her the weapon from her carry-all. "Try to smack it from the inside out so it looks like it exploded!”

Lae’zel watched numbly as the three women continued to tear the machine apart. After a minute, she shook her head and pulled out her own sword and joined the destruction. Soon there was nothing but a smoking wreck of meat and metal.

“And now for the final touch, a bit of fire.” Edie pulled out a flask of whiskey and a glass bottle filled with smokepowder and poured them both over the body and part of the zaith’isk. She opened a second bottle and left it nestled in the remains of the zaith’isk. “Anyone got a light?”

“Allow me,” Astarion offered. He cast firebolt at body and machine. The loose smokepowder provided a small explosion and a suitable amount of smoke while the whiskey sustained the flames, helping to obfuscate the cause of death. The bottled smokepowder caught fire and produced a more substantial and satisfying 'boom' that broke the device into smaller charred chunks.

“Not one of our better cover-ups, but we just need to cause enough confusion to escape. Someone needs to be our ‘patient,’” Lena commented. “Make it look like a mishap during a 'procedure.'”

“I volunteer to act the part,” Lae’zel said quietly. “I will say that someone must have tampered with the zaith’isk and the explosion killed the ghustil.” She held her blade for the flames to collect some soot, then gathered the soot onto her hands before wiping her face and armor. When she was done, she looked to the rest of her party. “We must leave and tell this to the kith’rak or risk arousing suspicion." She looked to Gale. “Unlock the door. We must hurry.”

Gale nodded. "Agreed," he said and cast knock to unlock the door. Then they all followed Lae’zel out of the infirmary.

---

“The zaith’isk exploded and killed the ghustil!” Lae'zel shouted. Some of the githyanki rushed to the door to see the fiery wreckage and the burning body lying nearby, while others approached Lae’zel as she searched for the kith’rak.

“What has happened?” asked a sarth trying to stop her.

“I was in the zaith’isk when it exploded, and I only narrowly escaped because of my minions. The ghustil was not as fortunate as the shrapnel fatally wounded her.”

The sarth gave Lae’zel a sharp suspicious look. “How do we know that you and your istik companions didn’t sabotage the zaith’isk yourselves?”

Lae’zel bristled. “I came here to be purified of a ghaik tadpole, as per Vlaakith’s protocol! Why should I destroy the very source of my salvation?”

“As an infected thrall, you could be here to sabotage the creche! Now the zaith’isk is destroyed and our ghustil is dead!” the sarth retorted.

“Quick question,” Lena interrupted. Wyll had tried and failed to stop her and awkwardly dropped his arm. Gale gave Wyll a knowing glance and a subtle shake of the head. Lae’zel gave Lena a speaking look of “shut the fuck up,” which Lena disregarded. “If you’re saying that all the infected should die, then why do you have the zai-thingie that’s supposed to remove the tentacled maggots to begin with? Or are you saying that thing was only for show?”

The sarth opened her mouth, then shut it with a clack when she couldn’t come up with an answer.

Edie came to stand beside Lena. “For that matter, have you ever seen it used?”

“If it’s been used, how many ‘patients’ survived?”

“What was the state of those who survived?”

“When was the last time you recall it being used?”

“Do you know anyone who's used it?"

The sarth could only stare at the two shifters as their barrage of questions came at her faster and her eyes began to go blank.

“How long has it been here?”

“How do you source the parts?”

“How long has the good healer been working at this creche?”

“Did she do all the design and assembly, or did others help?”

“Did you know that she has a shitload of living wormie-dealies in her lab?”

“Have you ever encountered any of the infected? Did you direct them to the zaith’isk or did you kill them on sight?”

“Did you know you can pull those wormie-dealies out of corpses alive?”

“Is the design similar to those in other creches? If not, do you know what sort of changes have been made to the design?”

“Have there been any major repairs or changes to the zai-thingie since it’s initial completion?”

“Where did the ghustil come from before she came here?”

“What’s the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

“Would you like to take a survey?”

“Do you like beans?”

“Enough!” Lae’zel snarled. Both shifters stopped to regard her calmly, then looked at the sarth. The sarth stood still with her eyes wide and an open mouth. Lae’zel sighed and rubbed her forehead with the back of a hand, smearing the soot on her face. She closed the sarth’s mouth, but when she released her hand the sarth’s jaw dropped again. “Tsk’va!” she swore.

Astarion stood in front of the sarth and slowly waved a hand before her blank eyes and saw no reaction. "I think she’s broken,” he remarked. He looked over to Edie and Lena. “I’m impressed. You two managed to incapacitate someone with just questions.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “I’m surprised she didn’t double-down and just repeat everything she’d been told.”

Edie tilted her head to look at the catatonic sarth. “The cognitive load of trying to maintain the direct contradictions might’ve broken her.”

Karlach looked around at the panicked githyanki rushing past them. “Uh, maybe we should figure out what to do with her.”

“Maybe she’d like a little lie-down,” Lena suggested.

“Probably,” Edie agreed. The shifters gently directed her to a nearby infirmary bed and had her lie down before pulling the covers up to her chin.

“There, all better!” Lena proclaimed.

As they walked out the door, Astarion approached Lena. “So what did you manage to grab from our stunned gith?” he asked in a low voice. Lena showed him the boots, a dagger and a greatsword she’d snagged as she tucked the sarth into bed. There were also a few food items, such as sausages and a pig’s head, but also some sort of covered bowl with what looked like bird feet.

Astarion’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “What in the hells is that?”

Lena shrugged. “Look like chicken feet to me, though the proportions are all wrong. And I'm used to the claws getting trimmed before cooking.”

Edie looked into the carry-all. “I don’t think that’s avian. The phlangeal numbers and lengths don’t correspond to any birds I can think of.”

Gale looked into the bag. “I am normally of a culinary adventurous nature, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to attempt those.”

“Ooo! I will!” Karlach reached into the covered bowl and crunched down on a bony limb. "Tastes like dwarf," she commented. Wyll looked a little green.

As Karlach chewed, Lae’zel impatiently stomped back to them. “Why have all of you stopped to watch Karlach eat neogi claws?”

“What’s a neogi?” Lena asked.

“It is a being of the Astral Plane that use their psionic abilities to enslave others,” Lae’zel explained. “They have spider-like limbs and a snake-like head and neck and their bodies are covered in fur.”

Edie sighed. “I hate how batshit the biology is here.”

Lena raised an eyebrow with a wry expression. “We’re shifters. You can shift into a half-ton lion-tiger hybrid, but you don’t weigh more one-fifty when you’re human.”

Edie glared at Lena and snapped, “Quiet, you!”

Chapter Text

Shadowheart looked around at the gith swarming past them. “Should we consider not speaking to the kith’rak and make our escape?” she whispered to Lae’zel.

Lae’zel subtly shook her head. “Vlaakith’s inquisitors are dogged in pursuing those even suspected of being hshar’lak. If we are even to have a chance of escaping pursuit then I must continue to play at loyalty.”

Lena’s head popped up next them. “I gotta say, Lae’zel, your acting ability is sooooo much better than Astarion’s,” she said, startling the two women. She held the end of a neogi claw from the side of her mouth like a cigar, though it rapidly shrank from view as she chewed through sinew and bone like a rabbit eating hay. "Maybe you can give him a lesson or something."

“Stop doing that!” Lae’zel hissed.

“What, the interrupting or the eating?” Lena asked, continuing to chew the bones.

“Both!” Lae’zel snapped. She looked for Gale in the party. “Gale! Control your mate!”

Gale blinked. “I wouldn't to even think to attempt such a feat. To begin with, Lena is fully independent and capable of making her own decisions. Unless she turns to me for advice, I’m afraid I have no say in directing her actions other than a suggestion thereabouts.” Lena smiled brightly at Lae’zel and nodded vigorously.

Shadowheart arched an eyebrow. “Can we also assume that you don’t want to risk your nightly intimacies, either?”

Gale cleared his throat and blushed. “That, and I would very much like to keep all my appendages attached to my person and intact.” Lena’s smile dropped and she glanced at Gale. Then she shrugged and nodded.

“Hey, look alive,” Karlach whispered. Astarion narrowed his eyes at her. “Or as close to alive as you can act.” Astarion growled. Lena and Shadowheart snorted.

Lae’zel looked at Lena and Shadowheart and rolled her eyes before turning her attention to Karlach. “What is it?”

Karlach tipped her chin in the direction of a group of serious-looking gith making their way to them. “We’ve got company incoming.”

“Tsk’va,” Lae’zel muttered under her breath.

“You there!” The sarth (not the one the party left in an infirmary bed) addressed Lae’zel. “Kith’rak Therezzyn wants to speak to you.”

“And I to her,” Lae’zel replied coolly. “There is something deeply amiss if the zaith’isk exploded during use.”

The sarth nodded curtly. “Follow us. We will take you to her.” He started walking and the party followed. The squadron brought up the rear.

Lena glares at the back of the sarth's head. “Oh, now we’re getting a tour guide!” she huffed irritably.

Edie nodded. “And a whole security outfit. I feel fancy. Like we’re high-profile suspects being arraigned.”

Wyll looked at the two shifters and raised an eyebrow. “Do you two have much experienced with your world’s law enforcement?” The two shifters looked at each other and began to snort and giggle. The gith squadron narrowed their eyes at them. Wyll looked around nervously. “Perhaps you two should stop,” he whispered urgently.

Lena wiped a tear from her eye. “Sorry ‘bout that. Despite both of our ‘hobbies’ we’ve managed to avoid arrests.”

Edie raised an eyebrow. “Except that time you got caught while planting drugs in the principle’s office when we were fifteen.”

Lena groaned. “Ugh, don’t remind me. The stupid part was that he was pretty sloppy about covering up his own coke habit and I nearly became that asshole’s scapegoat. After my parents got me out of it I had to milk and muck out my uncle’s goats for the entirety of my summer vacation that year.”

“You picked up some handy knife skills from him,” Edie pointed out.

Lena nodded thoughtfully. “True. He also taught me how to hunt and dress feral pigs. Nasty fuckers.”

“Still better than most people.”

“Also true.”

Wyll stopped to stare at the two in stunned shock, and Karlach picked him up in a bridal carry without breaking her stride. “Can’t have you falling behind, soldier.” Wyll blushed. Then in a low voice, she said, “I don’t trust the ones bringing up the rear to keep their hands to themselves. They seem kinda antsy to me.”

“Why can’t I get carried?” Astarion complained.

“Don’t want Wyll to get jealous, now do we? He might blast you into a rock wall and we’d never finish picking all the bits of you out,” Karlach replied.

Lena grinned with a mouth full of fangs. “Tired? Want me to carry you like a good big sister?”

Astarion reared back. “No thank you. I like my face the way it is.”

“Aww, I think everyone can be improved with a little unlicensed and impromptu plastic surgery,” Lena replied brightly before shouting, "MAYBE THEN YOU'LL THINK TWICE ABOUT HITTING ON MY BOYFRIEND," covering one side of his head in a fine spray of spit.

Astarion wiped the saliva off his face and tugged at his ear. "Why am I constantly deluged in saliva?

Edie smirked ar him. "Because you're an ass who deserves it?"

One of the gith guarding them snorted and her fellow guard elbowed her hard. They could almost hear Lae’zel’s eyes roll.

The sarth opened a plain wooden door and led the way into a room where a bald githyanki man with a horse-like face (or maybe it looked longer because he was bald) dressed down the kith’rak. “Find the Astral Prism, Therazzyn—my patience falters.”

Kith’rak Therazzyn closed her eyes and sighed. “Yes, ch’r’ai …” She turned to some other githyanki in the room. “You heard him! GO.” They looked to the inquisitor.

“Do as she says. She remains your kith’rak” the inquisitor said. “For now,” he added with a note of menace. The other githyanki walked through the open door that the sarth had opened. The inquisitor walked through a shimmery open doorway before the kith’rak grabbed a gem from an ornate holder and then doorway glowed but was now opaque.

Edie stared at the doorway. “That is some sci-fi shit,” she whispered to Lena, who nodded. From the corner of her eye, Edie noticed Shadowheart trembling. She gave Karlach and Wyll a speaking glance and motioned to Shadowheart. Karlach nodded, put Wyll down, and they stood with Shadowheart and started speaking to her quietly. Halsin knelt and started speaking quietly to two massive wolves that remained in the room.

Therazzyn addressed the sarth and his squadron. “You heard the ch’r’ai. Go and find the artifact.” They turned to leave the room. Therazzyn then approached Lae’zel. “I’ve been told that the zaith’isk has exploded and that the creche’s ghustil is now dead. Can you tell me how this occurred?”

“I do not know how it happened,” Lae’zel said. “The zaith’isk had started to purify me—"

“You’re a thrall?” Therazzyn interrupted. “Yet I see no sign of ceremorphosis, nor do you act like the infected.”

“You’d think that these people would have better things to do than comment on that,” Lena remarked quietly to no one in particular. “Like, most of us came off of a giant squid ship that kidnapped us and crashed on a riverbank not too far from here, and you’d think they’d investigate that. Instead, they’re looking for some ‘prism’ like there’s not an invasion of cut-rate Captain Barbossas.”

Edie nodded. “Could be a case of hyperfixation with whoever’s in charge. You know, like who when you’re coding and you hiss at anyone who interrupts you.”

“Hey! It’s an improvement from I used to bite people!” Lena retorted.

“I’m not complaining,” Edie explained. “I’m just drawing parallels.”

“Are you done?” Therazzyn interrupted testily.

“No,” the two shifters replied in unison. “As I was saying—” Lena continued.

“SHUT UP!” Therazzyn shouted. Lae’zel’s head dropped forward in embarrassment and fatigue. Shadowheart recovered enough from her panic to give Lae’zel a partial embrace around her shoulders in comfort and Lae’zel leaned in to her.

“But why is everyone so fixated on the fact that we’re not currently growing tentacle beards?” Lena asked. “Or for that matter, looking for an item of uncertain importance? I would’ve thought that an enemy of yours crashing their ship nearby would take precedence.”

“And I’m trying to explain that it’s probably a sort of tunnel vision with upper-ups,” Edie replied. “You know, like how you complain about having your manager's manager micromanaging you and your manager and getting in the way of actual stuff getting done? This poor woman clearly has had her autonomy to prioritize tasks yanked out from beneath her.”

“Though that didn’t stop her from suggesting that guy in charge of that hatchery kill that egg that Lae’zel saved,” Lena said.

Therazzyn sneered at Lae’zel. “You? You’re a she’lak? I would ever have guessed that a warrior would even attempt to save such a weakling.”

Lena looked confused and muttered to herself, “Shellac? Like the bug-based wood and food coating?” while Lae’zel stiffened and addressed the kith’rak. “I fail to see how taking an egg that you were ready to smash is a burden to you. I have spared the varsh the agony.”

“The infection must be addling your decision-making if you willingly choose to keep a clearly defective egg,” Therazzyn shot back. “You’re too soft-hearted, and now the zaith’ilk is destroyed and the ghustil dead. You must be infiltrating the creche as part of a ghaik plot!”

Edie’s eyebrows shot up and she blinked in surprise. “Wow, paranoid much?” she whispered to Lena.

Lena snorted and the Therazzyn turned her attention to her. “You! You’re clearly a negative influence on your jhe’stil. No true githyanki would bother to spare a defective egg, and no true githyanki would willingly suffer your insolence—”

Lena happened to see Lae’zel roll her eyes. “Do you eyes hurt form doing that all the time?” Lena asked Lae’zel. Lae’zel let out a low growl.

“SILENCE!” Therazzyn shouted. She drew a sword and stalked toward Lena. “I will do what your jhe’stil should have done upon encountering you.” She lunged to stab the sword into Lena’s heart, but she stepped to the side and avoided it completely.

“Hey! You just met me and now you’re trying to kill me? Rude!”

“You do seem to have effect on people,” Astarion remarked.

Lena released her claws to get ready for a fight, but took the time to raise a middle finger at him without her taking in her eyes off of Therazzyn.

Before either could draw blood, Karlach raised a warhammer behind Therazzyn and smashed the back of her head into soup. The kith'rak slumped forward and fell face-down onto the floor.

“Thanks, Karlach!”

Karlach raised her gore-smeared warhammer in a sort of salute. "Anytime, mate!"

"Funny how few people here wear helmets," Lena remarked. "There's a dearth of firearms that negate their utility, but you'd think a helmet to prevent getting your head caved in would be kinda useful."

"Maybe no one wants to mess up their hair," Edie suggested. "A lot of people here seem to have really elaborate hairstyles."

“That was anticlimactic,” Astarion commented, then watched impassively as the two massive wolves rushed to the body and started tearing into it.

“Hey, can those two stop long enough for us to loot the body?” Edie asked. "No one needs the vet bill to have anything surgically removed."

Halsin knelt and spoke to the wolves. They stopped and then approached him and sat. “They’ll wait, though they request that you don’t take too long. They’ve been fed mostly bones and skins rather than meat from kills.”

Shadowheart’s face softened. “Oh, the poor things ….” She pulled a pair oversized eagle drumsticks out of her carry-all and tossed them to the wolves. They leapt on the meat and began eating.

“A moment ago you were terrified of them, and now you’re feeding them?” Karlach said.

“Just because I find them terrifying doesn’t mean I can’t feel for the suffering,” Shadowheart retorted.

Edie sniffed Shadowheart. “Weird. You smell like canine.”

“Scratch,” Shadowheart replied by way of explanation.

Edie shook her head. “Nope, not Scratch. It’s you. You’re a dog of some kind. Care to explain?”

Shadowheart’s eyes widened in surprised. “I don’t understand. I was attacked by a wolf as a child. I can’t be one.”

“Odd that your goddess chose to let you keep that memory,” Lae’zel commented. "You would think that a fear of wolves would be a liability."

Shadowheart narrowed her eyes. “And I suggest that if you wish to continue to enjoy my favors you keep those observations to yourself,” she snapped.

“Oh please don’t break up!” Karlach complained. “It’ll just get so awkward at camp!”

Astarion grinned. “Oh, please do! It’ll be ever so entertaining. Things have been too quiet without an attempted murder to liven things up. And what’s better than one from a failed love affair?” Karlach frowned then smacked Astarion on the back of the head in the exact spot she smacked him before, with a little extra heat this time. He felt the back of his head with his hand. “Sweet hells! There’s a bald spot now!”

Lena finished looting the kith’rak’s corpse and held up a greatsword and the gem Therazzyn had removed from the ornate holder. “Hey, this thing’s magic!” She gave it a sniff then reared back. “Oof, that’s potent.” The wolves took their cue and continued to feast on the corpse.

"What about the tiara?" Edie asked.

Lena shook her head. "Still just some gold and a few garnets. Might be worth melting down."

She handed the blade off to Gale. “It does psychic damage,” he announced after casting a few detection spells. He handed the weapon to Lae’zel. “I imagine this weapon would best suit your fighting style.” Lae’zel took the weapon and nodded.

“Anything else interesting?” Edie asked.

“Just the gem-thingie she took from the door,” Lena replied. “You still itching for a fight? We probably should eliminate that inquisitor guy because he might become a witness against us,” she said to Astarion.

“Mostly to watch. I don’t particularly want my new robes to get soiled.”

Lena shook her head disapprovingly, tsking. “Lazy. If you want a murder, you’re going to have to participate.”

Edie snorted derisively. "You're the laziest person I know. I've seen you leave dishes in the sink until there're fruit flies hatching from them."

"Hush!" Lena snapped. "I'm trying to make a point about team building and participation!"

“But my robes!” Astarion whined and gestured at his robes.

“They look kinda dumb! They'd improve with a bit of gore!” she replied in the same whiny tone. “Now if you want stay you have to join in! At least shoot some fuckers if you're so picky about keeping your clothes blood-free! Or you can go back to camp and drain some animals for dinner and keep Scratch and Owbert company! Maybe you can enjoy a chat with Withers!”

Astarion’s face fell. “You’re mean.”

“I’m trying to be a good big sister, like my parents, who are now your parents, said to. And this part of your personal growth. So you either help us kill whatever’s on the other side of that door, or you don’t get to watch any of the other murdering!”

Astarion screwed up his face then threw up his hands. “Fine!”

Lena nodded, then put the gem into the empty slot on the holder and walked through.

"Channeling your mother?" Edie asked as she followed.

"No, I was channeling your mother," Lena replied. "Your mother's ability to induce guilt is befitting for a literal Asian tiger mother."

"An excellent, if albeit, a very traumatizing skill," Edie commented.

Minthara leaned toward Halsin as they brought up the rear of the party. “Is this typical behavior?” she whispered.

Halsin sucked in a deep breath, then shrugged. “I haven’t a clue.”

Chapter Text

The party passed quietly through some more ruined portions of the monastery’s ‘basement’—despite being underground, sunlight filtered into the high-ceiling cavern through cracks, and hardy vegetation sprouted in the deeper fissures where dirt could accumulate. As they crossed a bridge across a deep chasm and approached a set of metal double doors, Edie and Lena sniffed the air.

“What’s your estimate?” Lena asked in a whisper.

“I’d say at least five—including that bald overbearing horse-faced inquisitor—and at least one magic user,” Edie answered.

“I would’ve estimated three, but I’m also getting a lot of ozone and that’s throwing me off.”

Edie nodded. “I think if you tunnel in and target whoever’s farthest from the door. While your prey’s screaming, I can rush in, shifted, and start picking off the ones closest to the door. Then we play it by ear from there.”

“Ladies …” Wyll whispered chidingly.

The two shifters eyed him from over their shoulders. “Wyll …” Lena replied in the same tone.

Wyll narrowed his eyes. “You two are not the only ones here.”

Edie and Lena looked at each other, then stared at Wyll. After several seconds Lena said, “And …?”

Wyll’s shoulders sagged. “I think that whatever it is you two are planning should include the rest of us.”

“Why?” Lena asked. “We don’t have enough information on the exact positions of everyone in that room, or what might serve as cover.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “You know what? I should just tunnel in and release the contents of my anal gland. That should gas ‘em pretty good.”

Halsin gave Lena a look of horror. Edie gaped and shook her head vigorously. “Fuck no,” she whispered urgently. “That stuff’s worse than your Parmesan cheese farts! And almost impossible to wash off!”

Gale looked at Lena with a confused expression. “I feel like I’m missing some vital information that might be pertinent to my and every else’s well-being,” he whispered. “What’s this about an ‘anal gland?’”

Lena looked chagrinned. “You know how dogs and cats spend a lot of their time sniffing each other’s butts?”

“Yes …”

“Do you know it's because they have anal glands that help advertise info like sex and health to other dogs and cats?"

"Now I do ..."

"And do you have skunks here?”

“Not here in Faerun. I’ve read of them in a travelogue about the temperate biomes of Maztica to the west …”

“Well, they’re mustelids, like honey badgers. And they’ve evolved to squirt the contents of their scent glands as a sort of defensive measure against predators. And so have honey badgers. Though we don’t squirt it out so much as we sort ‘release’ everything that accumulates.” Gale remained silent and motioned for her to continue. “It’s bad, but not lethal with full honey badgers, but with honey badger shifters …”

Astarion covered his mouth to muffle a giggle.

Karlach looked confused. “So it smells bad,” she whispered. “So what? A lot of monsters can make a stink cloud to distract you or make you gag. Some of it’s so bad you can spend a day or two laid up wishing you can scrape it out of your nose.”

Edie frowned and shook her head slowly. “Noooo, it can kill full humans on Earth. And it can knock out a lot of shifters, especially in an enclosed space. Except canids.” She gave Shadowheart a thoughtful look. “If you’re really somehow a dog, you might just like it.” Shadowheart narrowed her eyes at Edie, while Lae’zel exhaled a g’lyck.

Astarion was now curled up on the floor with a hand over his stomach and another over his mouth to muffle his laughter.

Several party members stared at Lena. She leaned over to Gale and whispered, “Just so you know, I’m not into butt stuff. In case the issue ever comes up.”

He gave her a haunted look. “Never.”

---

Gale cast knock on the door, effectively locking its occupants in while Lena prepped for her mission: a few bottles of water, a bottle of whiskey, and a bar of soap on a drying cloth placed to the side of the doors. Then she stripped, carefully putting her gear away and handing her carry-all to Edie, before she shifted. Minthara gawked at what was now a one-hundred fifty pound honey badger digging her way into the enclosed room, disappearing into a hole in the floor within seconds.

“You’ll catch flies if you keep leaving your mouth open like that,” Shadowheart commented quietly. Minthara growled and glared at her.

“Why does she need to disrobe before she wildshapes?" Halsin whispered. "Don't your gods or your magics allow you to keep your clothing with you?"

Edie raised an eyebrow at the massive elf. “‘Wildshape?’” she asked.

“Yes, it’s how I can become a cave bear; through the magic granted to me by the Oak Father, Silvanus.”

Edie considered this.“On Earth, Lena and I are descendants of people granted the ability to shift into animal forms by some long-forgotten gods. It’s pretty much baked into us from the get-go, and I didn't think anyone's left who knows the magic to begins with. So we either get naked or get tangled up in clothes when we shift. Though the whole thing’s pretty calorie-intensive, and it’s one reason why shifters aren’t the majority of the population, despite being faster and stronger than the full humans. The other reason is interspecies beef.” She tilted her head and looked at Halsin thoughtfully. “So none of your ancestors fucked a bear or a local equivalent of a bear shifter? I only have Astarion to compare you against for male elf physiology, and you’re relatively hairy.” She pointed at his chest, recalling the hair left exposed by his camp clothes.

“No werebears that I’m aware of. There was some talk of an orc in my family tree to explain our height. Though once when I had wandered as a cave bear through the woods, a bear sow became rather displeased with me when I refused her advances.” He pointed to the scars on his face where the bear evidently raked her claws.

Edie nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s been my experience, too.” She pulled up a sleeve showing very old bite scars on her upper arm. “Not the mating bit, but definitely don’t get in the way of one when there’s a discount on honey.”

After several minutes of waiting, Astarion blew out an impatient hiss. "I don't see the point of my being here if Lena's going to rush in and leave us behind. I thought she wanted me to participate in the killing."

"I think she wanted you to stay put so you couldn't pretend that you're not one of the group,' Edie whispered back. "She didn't want you to isolate yourself like somehow you weren't wanted or needed or anything."

Astarion scoffed. "Ridiculous. Like any of you could ever manage without me."

Minthara gave him a once-over and raised an eyebrow. "Half the men of Menzoberranzan are pleasure-servants. Weaklings, whose beauty is their only redeeming quality. You would fit right in with them, Astarion."

He fluttered his lashes and touched his hair. "You think I'm beautiful? Oh, Minthara." Edie let out a snort and covered her mouth with a hand to stifle a giggle.

Minthara narrowed her eyes at him and let out an unimpressed 'harrumph' and crossed her arms over her chest.

Suddenly Edie lifted her head and cocked an ear in the direction of the door. The rest of the party turned their attention and heard the muffled noises of panicked shouts, followed by gagging and coughing. They heard someone clawing weakly at the door before the thud of them collapsing.

“She wasn’t kidding when she said her anal glands were deadly,” Karlach whispered. They all backed away from the doors.

Then an overwhelming presence emanated from the door, followed by a booming voice that sounded like it came from up high. “Inquisistor W’wargaz was potent. We are most—WHAT IN THE HELLS IS THAT STENCH?”

Lae’zel blanched. “It is the God Queen herself, Vlaakith,” she whispered.

Astarion’s eyebrows rose. “I didn’t think that liches needed to breathe.”

“Doesn’t stop the stink from dissipating into the nose when she talks,” Edie replied.

His eyebrows rose a hair, the only indication that he was worried for his new sister. "Do you think she can remain hidden?" he asked, nonchalantly, though his voice was tight.

Edie shook her head. "Dunno. Though she has the devil's own luck."

They heard the sound of wind whistling past the crack between the doors. “T’SKVA! THAT ONLY MADE THINGS WORSE! WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?”

Panic-stricken, Gale readied to cast knock to unlock the doors when Edie stopped him. “Lena obviously hasn’t been found. Wait.”

Gale could only stare at Edie. “She’s in there with an extremely powerful lich! We can’t just leave her in there alone!” he whispered.

“And if we rush in, we might end up giving her away!” Edie snapped back. They turned their attention to the door when Vlaakith started to cough.

“THIS IS VILE!” she shouted. “WHAT THE HELLS CAUSED THIS? IT’S EVERYWHERE! AND I CAN FEEL THE PRISM NEARBY.” Heavy ponderous footsteps pounded on the other side of the door. “WHERE IS IT? IT HAS TO BE SOMEWHERE HERE, BUT *cough* … UGH!”

They could hear the sounds of furniture and getting knocked over, and the wet thud of a body getting kicked and slamming against the door.

“Lena…” Gale whispered. He raised his arms again and Edie and Minthara restrained him, clutching his arms and covering his mouth as he attempted to thrash and scream.

A boom sounded at the door as a massive first slammed into it. Everything startled as it echoed through the cavern. “SOMEONE HAS CAST KNOCK ON THE DOORS. WHOEVER THIS IS, KNOW THAT I WILL HAVE THE ASTRAL PRISM. I WILL NOT BE THWARTED. EVEN IF I NEED TO BRING THIS WHOLE CRECHE INTO THE HELLS TO DO SO!” Vlaakith screamed. Vlaakith began an incantation when there was a sudden series of crashes and Vlaakith’s voice sputtered out before everything went silent.

A sudden eerie stillness blanketed the party. Edie and Minthara loosened their grips on Gale, who fell to his hands and knees, breathing hard for a moment before standing and continuing to stare at the doors. He silently prayed that Lena was still alive, though he was no longer sure who he prayed to. The rest of the party stood stock still for several minutes, uncertain of what to do, their ears straining, listening for any noise or sign that Vlaakith has returned. They looked to each other, waiting for someone to do something. Anything.

All, except Edie. She stared intently at the doors, concentrating on listening for the familiar sound of her friend crawling through tunnels, then cocked her head before motioning for everyone to back far away from the doors when Lena’s honey badger head popped up and the cavern filled with a stench reminiscent of rotting meat and onions with a soupcon of vomit.

“Oh gods, that’s terrible!” Minthara tried to cover her nose, but the taste was even worse and she gagged as bile burned its way to the back of her throat. Gale began to vomit over the bridge railing. Lae’zel and Wyll passed out.

Karlach coughed while trying to wave the smell away as she backed away from Lena. "Color me impressed. That is truly awful!"

Astarion wrinkled his nose when it hit and covered his nose and mouth to prevent the stink from making its way into his sinuses, though his eyes burned. Halsin wrinkled his nose and huffed before he shrugged his shoulders and began to drag both Lae'zel and Wyll farther away from the source of the stink before rolling them onto their sides so neither risked choking on vomit.

Edie had a rag soaked in beer over her nose and mouth, though tears streamed down her face. "Jesus Christ on a riding lawnmower! For fuck's sake, start with the whiskey!" she shouted.

Lena shifted and hauled herself out of the hole while cackling. "It's not that bad!" she replied. "I've been eating a lot more veggies lately!”

"Your 'not that bad' is still god-awful! Get to scrubbing, foul weasel!" Edie shouted back. She gagged then pulled her make-shift mask away from her face to spit out a glob of bile-infused saliva.

Lena noticed Gale gasping and dry-heaving. "Sorry, babe!" She called out. Gale weakly waved an arm at her as though vomiting and dry-heaving for several minutes were only a minor inconvenience.

Shadowheart, stunned, looked over to the rest of her companions, then watched as the two wolves that had been eating the kith’rak’s corpse suddenly run over to Lena. The pair of canids eagerly sniffed and licked her as she attempted to calm them down while she doused herself in whiskey and soaped up, though it looked more like the wolves managed to interfere enough to lick off most of the smell. Shadowheart’s eyebrows rose as the truth dawned on her: she wasn't affected at all. “Oh. Shit.”

Chapter Text

Lena continued to scrub the stench off of herself from her little foray into the inquisitor’s chambers, though Halsin managed to discourage the wolves from distracting her before managing to revive Lae’zel and Wyll. Wyll offered to cast darkness around her for modesty’s sake: not that she cared who saw her naked, but he insisted.

“Just let him,” Edie said. “He’s obviously uncomfortable with casual nudity.”

Wyll gave Edie a shallow dip of his head. “Thank you, Edie.”

Edie dipped her own head in acknowledgment. “For all we know he’s a virgin and hasn’t seen anyone but himself naked in real life since someone shot him out of their womb.”

"He may as well have been when I got a hold of him," Karlach muttered to herself.

Wyll's brows narrowed at Edie, but she ignored him and polished her claws against her armor. “I had hoped you would be the more courteous and less abrasive of the two of you.”

Edie looked up from her claws and raised an eyebrow at both of them. “That was more info than I was mining for, but thanks for the heads-up! And Wyll, my point is that hopes and dreams only get you so far when reality has an especially nasty way of intruding. Like taxes. Take me, for example of reality fucking up your expectations: I'm a cat, and I like to act cute and sweet to get into your hypothetical home. And now that I'm here I don’t see the need to ingratiate myself to anyone because I've claimed you as part of my territory, I will protect you as part of my territory, and you will never get rid of me." She paused a moment. "And I’m here for the killing and I’m fucking great at it. Though I'm not here for shitting in a literal hole in the ground.”

Wyll rolled his eyes and cast the spell. Lena disappeared from view in an inky fog.

They could hear the sound of Lena continuing to scrub herself. “Speaking of wombs, aside from the githyanki, do the usual rules apply here for childbirth?” Lena called out. “Like, do you still need a uterus, or are there magical artificial wombs in Faerun?”

A tic developed beneath Lae’zel’s eye. “Don’t tell me you’re planning on producing offspring. There’s enough of you already.”

“Are you talking about me or Edie? Or Earth shifters in general?” Lena called out.

“You,” Lae’zel answered. “The combination of you and the wizard guarantees that your children will be extremely destructive and annoying.”

“What was that?” Lena asked. “I didn’t hear you.”

Lae’zel let out an annoyed grunt before speaking a little louder. “I said that any progeny you and Gale would produce would be nightmares upon this plane.”

“Nope, didn’t catch that. Why don’t you come in closer. I’ve got water in my ears,” Lena yelled. They could hear her continue to scrub herself.

Lae’zel took few steps closer. “You and Gale should not have children!” she shouted. There was a pause. The could hear water splashing. “What, no quip or insult? No barb aimed at me?” Lae’zel asked.

Edie immediately backed a few meters away from the black cloud. Gale took notice, and deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, followed suit. Then everyone heard the sound of an animal shaking its coat and soapy water rained down on Lae’zel, drenching her, while dampening almost everyone else. “FUCK!” she roared as rivulets of water dribbled down her front.

“Oops!” Lena called out insincerely.

Karlach rev'ed her engine and soon steam rose off of her, as well as a cloud of Lena-stink. "Hey, you're catching on to more swear words in Common! I think you're going to be just like a native Faerun-ite in no time!" She gave Lae'zel a hearty back slap even as Lae'zel sighed.

Lena emerged from the black, wearing a clean linen shirt and leather pants, though she was still barefoot and her hair was wrapped in a drying cloth.

Lae’zel wrinkled her nose and covered her face with an elbow. “You failed to clean yourself thoroughly.”

Lena gave her a winsome smile. “Failed to clean? Or succeeded to retaining a hint of my natural funk?” She waggled her eyebrows at Lae’zel and pointed fingerguns at her. Everyone else who got caught in the sudden shower narrowed or rolled their eyes at her.

“Goddamn it! Wash yourself again!” Edie shouted, holding the re-dampened rag to her nose. This time it smelled of wine. She flung another sliver of soap at Lena. “I can still smell it from here!”

Lena looked to Gale. “Can you smell me from there?”

“No, can’t say that I currently have that displeasure,” he replied.

Lena looked to Astarion while pointing to Edie. “See? What’d I tell you about her feline sense of smell?”

Astarion continued to wipe his face. “Yes, you were right,” he deadpanned. “Now can I please spend the remainder of my day without getting sprayed with various fluids, bodily or otherwise? I'm clearly fine with blood, but the rest of it I can do without.”

Lena shrugged. “Eh, probably not. And you know it’s mostly your own fault.”

“How is it you managed to survive with your own kind?” he asked. “Some days I have half a mind to drain you dry, our ‘familial’ connection not withstanding.”

“Though if you tried I'd probably rip your ears off and make myself a fun statement necklace." Lena gave him a fang-filled unhinged grin, and he slouched dejectedly. "Though honey badgers may not be the fastest or strongest among shifters, or have the best sense of smell or vision, we’re persistent, we have tough loose skin and extremely hard skulls, we’re hard to poison, we hold onto grudges, we'll steal everything you own just because, and we have no problem biting down on someone’s genitals and just hanging from them because we’re just that petty when we're annoyed.”

Almost everyone winced except Edie and Karlach. Karlach stared at Lena in awe. “I wanna be like you when I grow up.”

Lena grinned brightly at Karlach. “Me, too!”

Edie checked the blinking light on her phone, which she had switched to silent mode for sneaking. “Hey, I got a text from Elminster.”

“Would it be the actual Elminster or not-Elminster?” Lena asked.

“What difference would it make?” Edie asked.

Lena shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know why I asked."

“What does Elminster have to say?” Gale asked.

“‘Beware of gith. Surge of magic at Rosymorn Monastery. Now a creche. LOL.’” Edie and Lena looked at each other and cringed.

“‘El-Oh-El’?” Gale puzzled. “I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard Elminster say anything like that. What does it mean? Is it some sort of code in case our enemies are trying to find us?”

“‘Laugh-Out-Loud,’” Edie explained. “I usually see it from texts from one of my elderly relatives, whether they’re saying something funny or not. ‘I found this funny video of a cat getting bathed. LOL.’ ‘Read that a fire took out a city block near you. Stay safe. LOL.’ ‘One of the cousins just died in a gang fight with hyenas. We’re launching a retaliatory attack next week before the funeral. LOL.’ That sort of thing.”

“Gale unironically said ‘pish-posh’ earlier because he picked it up from Elminster,” Lena said. “We need to set the bar lower. That, and they all probably think it stands for 'Lots-Of-Love,' which is still weird coming from Elminster.” She looked at Gale. "Babe, which do you think it is? 'Laugh-Out-Loud' or 'Lots-Of-Love'?"

Gale coughed, "Uh, I'd, er, rather not speculate. Nor incriminate myself further after the whole 'pish-posh' incident."

Karlach and Wyll snickered. Astarion, Halsin, and Minthara looked at them slightly baffled. “I fail to see the humor,” Minthara said. “I've overheard 'pish-posh' often enough from the house slaves captured from the surface in my youth.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. “And just how long ago was that?”

“Not that long ago: only some one-hundred years since I was a young elf,” Minthara replied. Halsin nodded.

Lena looked over to Edie. “No wonder everything here looks like a renfaire gone wrong: it’s like how old people cling on to the fashion and slang from their teen years, except it’s like from a thousand years ago.”

The party’s elves glared at her. “Hang on! I’m not that old!” Astarion objected.

“You. Wear. A. Frilly. Shirt! Unironically!” Lena retorted.

“He makes it work, though,” Edie mused. “It's not like you're a fashion plate. What’re you wearing at camp? A corporate polo or tee shirt from all those places you’ve worked at and jeans.”

“Shush. I work in tech. It’s as close to a work uniform as it gets. It’s not like I sleep in it. Anymore.”

“Wait …” Wyll started. “I know you and Gale bunk together …” Gale blushed a deeper red. Lena grinned. Everyone else gazed at Wyll with pity or disbelief until understanding dawned on him. “Oh. Right.”

Lena leaned her head toward Karlach and stage-whispered from about two meters away, “If you haven't broken him in, be gentle.”

“Of course, I’ve gotta be gentle with him!” Karlach scoffed. “If I’m not, I might break him. Literally.” Wyll blushed.

“Speaking of being gentle,” Halsin said, changing the subject, “How are you faring, Shadowheart? I noticed that you don’t have any trouble with Lena’s odor.”

Shadowheart looked a little broken, and Lae’zel hesitantly put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’m not sure,” Shadowheart admitted. “I remember when I was a little girl. I was wandering through the woods at night, and there was a wolf. It was how I got this scar.” She pointed to a faint line that ran across the bridge of her nose and part of her cheek. “And I remember the wolf snarled and fought, but he was surrounded by a group of Sharrans who saved me from him and took me in.”

“Is the 'he' bit just a normal thing around here when gendering animals, or did you know the wolf was a ‘he’?” Lena asked. “I mean, I usually note what someone’s packing because it’s a great bit of info so I know how wide I need to open my badger jaw to tear off a chunk of their junk. But something tells me that’s not what non-shifters teach their kids.”

“No, that’s something only honey badgers teach their cubs,” Edie said. “You guys are the exception, even among shifters. But that’s getting beside the point.” She turned to Shadowheart. “Why are you certain that the wolf you saw was male?”

“I—I don’t know, but I'm sure of it,” Shadowheart stammered. “That’s what I remember of that night.”

“Doesn’t your religion also erase memories?” Lena asked. “Last I read on Earth, memories in human brains usually activates several parts of the brain at once, so if your goddess can erase specific memories without leaving you a vegetable or brainwashing techniques like sensory deprivation and starvation, then odds are that she’d also be able to change them. We do it to ourselves all the time just with every recollection, only your goddess seems to do it a lot faster.”

Edie gave Lena a quizzical look. “Seriously? Erasing specific memories?”

Lena nodded. "Sorta like beta blockers, but this seems to work on short, medium, and long-term memories because she seems to barely remember her childhood and up until she grabbed that polyhedral thing that Wyll's currently holding. But she clearly knows what city she calls home and her whole 'mission' from her goddess, even if all the details elude her."

Lae’zel growled. “I do not like how your goddess has treated you. Manipulating your memories? Forcing you to endure pain at her discretion? Forcing you to fear something that is no longer a threat to you?” She cupped Shadowheart’s face. “You are worth so much more than what she has put you through.”

Shadowheart looked Lae’zel, teary-eyed, and pressed her hand over Lae’zel’s. “I could say the same of you and Vlaakith.”

Lae’zel growled. “Vlaakith has sinned against me. Sinned against all of the githyanki. I will fight with those who oppose her and free all the githyanki from her tyranny. I hope you, too, will resist the pull of your goddess.”

“All I’ve ever hoped for was to become one of Shar’s dark justiciars. They were my family when I had none. I don't know who I am without them. I’ll have to think upon it.”

Lae'zel tilted her head until her forehead touched Shadowheart's. "That's all I can ask for. I cannot ask for more than what I required for my belief to shatter." The two women stayed that way several moments. Everyone gave them their silence.

Edie gave Lena a wide-eyed look of ‘what the fuck?” and Lena shrugged, making a swirly motion next to her temple, and mouthing the word “dieties.” She noticed Edie’s phone light up. “New alert,” she pointed out.

Edie looked down at her phone. “Oh, another text from Elminster. He strongly suggests that if we’re in the area we try to find a relic called the ‘Blood of Lathander’ at or around Rosymorn. It's supposed to be powerful and possibly useful in our quest." She looked around the cavern. "Well, we’re here. I don’t remember smelling anything especially magical other than the walking-talking ozone generator. That bitch seems to need to stomp everywhere like a marching band.”

Minthara gave Lena a curious look. “How did you manage to not only survive but also dismiss Vlaakith?”

“Oh, right.” Lena took a deep breath. “So I while I was digging, I noticed one spot where there was a lot of ozone. Or at least that’s what magic here smells like to me. But when I dug to it, I didn’t hear or smell anyone above me, so I dug straight for the inquisitor because I wanted to make sure horsey died. So I did my usual thing of digging beneath someone, pulling them down so they couldn’t move their arms to cast or anything and released my anal glands onto his face before anyone could start screaming. When he died, I tossed his body out of the hole I’d made, and that’s when the rest of the room started to puke and die off. Then I smelled a shitload of ozone and I saw a really bright golden light and heard someone really big above me. While Vlaakith stomped around up top like some sort of deranged toddler having a hissy fit, I was trying to stay very quiet and backtracking my way through the tunnel back under the doors when I heard her threaten to take the entire building into the Hells, and I though ‘fuck that,’ figured she was around because of that really magical-smelling thingie (which, by the way, wasn’t where Vlaakith was because she didn’t have any smell), so I figured that was my best bet to get rid of her, so I took a rock and whaled on this round metal sphincter thing above me until she went away.”

Gale tapped his chin. “It sounds to me like you destroyed the anchor that allowed her projection and her powers to manifest in this plane. Your intuition is a marvel!” He walked over to Lena to kiss her, but stopped himself within a meter with his eyes watering. “Mystra’s mantle!”

Edie rolled her eyes. “I told you it wasn’t enough scrubbing.” She tossed a bottle to Lena. “Pour that stuff over yourself. It’s like turpentine. Unless you’re going to quarantine yourself in a different tent.”

Lena looked at the label. “Arborean firewine,” she read, then uncorked it and gave it a whiff. “This stuff reminds me of both embalming fluid and nail polish remover.”

“Even if it were, it probably wouldn’t kill you if you drank it,” Edie replied. “Get to cleaning. Unless you want to go without nookie with Gale tonight.”

Gale buried his face in his hands. “Can we please stop talking about Lena and I’s intimacies?”

“Okay!" Lena said cheerfully. "Changing the subject, I’m pretty sure that this ‘Blood of Lathander’ thingie is somewhere hidden back there if we haven't encountered anything overtly magical yet.” She pointed her thumb at doors to the inquisitor's chambers. “And I don’t think we want to hang around for the funk to dissipate because that could take days, so I’ll just pop in and look for the damn thing on my own.”

Astarion’s nose wrinkled as he made a moue of disgust. “Meaning you’re going to end up re-contaminating yourself with your own stink.” He thought about it and his expression brightened. “Though if it means one night that I don’t have to think about what you and Gale get up to, I’m all for it. Go on.”

Lena shrugged. “Hey, Wyll. Toss me that thing we found in the wall from up top.”

Wyll reached into his carry-all and threw it. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Lena stepped back into the darkness, then left her clothes in a neat pile on the ground just outside of it. “Gale, can I another cleaning cantrip for these while I’m gone, please? I promise you can teach it to me tonight so I don’t need to keep bugging you.”

“Certainly, my love.”

“Thanks. Alright. See all of you whenever. And if a giant stone boulder come crashing through like an Indiana Jones movie, you should probably run.”

“Will do,” Edie called back. She listened to the sound of Lena descend into her tunnel then turned back to her companions. “I don’t know how long this’ll take, so I vote we watch a movie.”

“This is the second time I’ve heard her referenced this ‘Indiana Jones.’ Might we watch that?” Shadowheart asked.

Edie tapped at her phone and toggled the projector. “Got it. Let’s get comfy.”

---

They’d sat around, using spare armor and clothes as cushions as they watched the movie. They managed to get to the scene where a Nazi gets his head chopped up with a propeller blade when Lena’s stench filled the cavern again; much fainter this time, but now with a hint of burned fur. She shifted, with a burn mark running along the top of her head. The skin had already healed, leaving a line of pink in her otherwise faded dyed hair.

Gale’s eyes went wide. “Are you alright?”

“Ran into a little trouble when I burrowed my way past a door and this metal thing shot at me with what I’d describe as a magic laser when I popped up to look around,” Lena replied. She felt the bald patch with her fingers. "Ugh, now I need to change my hairstyle to cover this up " She started to pour the firewine over her head and began lather up again. “Holy shit, this stuff burns! I’d rather take that shitty whiskey any day over this.”

“It truly lives up to its name in more ways than one," Astarion said. "Just be glad you aren’t drinking it; it burns on the way down, and it burns when it comes back up. Though it makes for an excellent accelerant when you want to commit a little arson." He paused and squinted at Lena. Then he started to chortle. "Your hair's gone orange!" Gale looked aghast while the rest of the party snickered and chortled.

Lena looked at a hank of dyed hair. It was distinctly pumpkin-colored. "FUCK! Do we have hair dye?"

“I think I found some fabric dyes that can do the job, so you needn't worry," Shadowheart offered. "But did you find this ‘Blood of Lathander’ that Elminster mentioned?”

Lena finished pouring water over herself to wash off the soap, then reached into the hole she’d emerged from and pulled out a carry-all. She took out a glowing mace before tossing it to Shadowheart. “Seems like something you or Minthara would use. Stinks of ozone. I also took some time to loot the bodies for food, money, and magical items.”

Edie frowned. "I think I'll pass on anything that might be contaminated with your funk."

"Oh boy! More for me!" Lena cheered. She pulled out a dried sausage and held it in her mouth, gnawing at it while she scrubbed.

Shadowheart handed the weapon over to Gale to examine. “It appears to have several enchantments, though most prominently it can cast sunbeam, which can blind and burn anyone and anything in the beam’s path. I would surmise that it works best against those sensitive to sunlight, such fiends and the undead.” He paused. “Present company notwithstanding.”

Astarion glowered at him. “Yes, yes, it’s not as though all of here weren’t aware of my condition.”

Gale handed the weapon back to Shadowheart. “I just thought that it would be polite to point out that we should remain aware in case we were to accidentally injure you with it if the power of the tadpoles somehow changes. We still aren’t fully aware of their true nature, nor the how and why we were spared the agony of ceremorphosis.”

Shadowheart offered the weapon to Minthara, who shook her head while squinting from the light. “Sunlight already burns my eyes, and this matches its intensity. I would not be able to use it effectively.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Edie asked. She reached into her carry-all and handed her a pair of sunglasses. “I bought these on a whim while I was waiting around the airport in the Philippines, but I don’t really need them. And clearly those goblins didn't care for them.”

Minthara put them on and then looked at the mace. “These are excellent. Might I keep these spectacles?”

“Go for it.” Edie replied with a straight face, while the rest of the party tried to hide giggles and snorts.

Minthara eyed her suspiciously. “What do you all find so amusing?”

Edie grinned. “Nothing,” she replied tightly, turning red from trying hard not to crack.

Minthara took the sunglasses off and turned away so that the light didn’t blind her while she examined them. Then she turned her head to glare at Edie. “These have antennae much like the bees on the surface.”

“But they looked so regal on you. Like a queen bee. Because you’re very queen-like,” Edie said in a reasonable tone. The rest of the party started to crack, snorting and snickering.

Minthara’s lips pinched. Then she broke the plastic antennae off. “I shall require dye so these aren’t so obviously ugly. I left some at camp.” She glowered at Edie. “We shall go immediately.”

“Give me a minute to finish getting dressed,” Lena said. She pulled her boots on. Very slowly. While grinning at Minthara.

“I am beset by idiots,” Minthara muttered to herself.

“I know that feeling full-well,” Lae’zel said.

“Yet you laughed with the rest of them when I wore those ridiculous ‘sunglasses.’”

“Because this time it happened to someone else. And so it amused me.”

Chapter Text

Lena climbed up the walls of the cavern and widened one of the cracks that led out into open air. Then she tossed down the end of a rope for Edie to climb so the two women could anchor the rope and the rest of the party could haul themselves out. Astarion started to climb.

The two wolves, D’hak and Ur’uth, whined.

“They want to join us,” Halsin said.

“I’m cool with that,” Lena shouted down. “As long as they stop sticking their muzzles into my nether regions. Anyone else?”

“I guess they should come with us,” Shadowheart shouted back. “Especially given that the creche’s leaders refused to let them eat a proper meal.”

“Having them around should also let you get over your fear of wolves,” Edie added. “Exposure therapy, that sort of thing. Really common way of dealing with irrational fears in the regions of Earth with actual mental health care.”

Lena turned to look at Edie with a wry expression on her face before shouting “Clowns!”

Edie panicked and released her claws, looking for clowns among the vegetation and rocks. “WHERE?” Then she saw Lena’s shit-eating. “You asshole.” She took a half-hearted swipe at Lena with her free hand, who dodged it.

Astarion crested to the top of the rope and Edie and Lena helped haul him up the rest of the way.

“What’s this about clowns?” he asked.

Lena waggled her eyebrows and Edie narrowed her eyes at her. “Don’t you dare say another goddamn thing.”

“Hey, you said something about exposure thera—” Lena began.

“Shut up!” Edie whispered urgently, blushing. Both women felt the rope tension change as Gale started his ascent and braced themselves.

Astarion looked between the two women, waiting for one to break, but they continued to stare unblinkingly at each other, with only the sounds of Gale’s grunts while climbing and the faraway chatter of the group waiting below. Finally, Astarion broke the silence. “You can’t just leave me hanging! What is this thing about clowns that Edie doesn’t want told?”

Lena’s grin grew wider and toothier and more unsettling. “I’m not going to risk anything happen while my boo’s climbing, so I’m going to keep quiet.”

After several minutes, Gale reached the top and Lena grabbed a hold of his hand and helped him out of the hole. He breathed heavily and sat down on a nearby rock. “I couldn’t help overhear something about clowns,” he panted out. “I loathe them, too.”

“Edie’s got a fear of clowns despite years of therapy,” Lena said in a rush.

Edie gasped. “Fuck you! It’s perfectly reasonable to be afraid of clowns. I have permission from my therapist to kill them on sight because she agrees.”

Lena nodded, then frowned. “Though I’m not a fan of clowns, I’m pretty sure that advice violates so many legal and ethical codes that I don’t feel like thinking too hard about it. I sincerely question your therapist's credentials and licensing.”

“I see nothing to be embarrassed of, darling,” Astarion admitted, “I’m not fond of them myself. Maybe not to the point of murder.” He thought for a bit. "Actually, I take that back: I'd rather they all died. Though I'd prefer if someone else did the killing: greasepaint is so hard to remove from clothing."

Minthara climbed on, then nimbly made her way to the top. “I agree with Edie: clowns are abominations and should be killed upon discovery” She wore the bee sunglasses, despite previously objecting to their yellow and black color scheme, and then grabbed the rope as Karlach climbed.

“That’s a bit harsh, given that most of them are just people trying to make a living,” Gale argued.

“I’m not so sure that it’s a living worth making,” Minthara countered. “Simple magic tricks, terrible jokes, childish playacting: one might argue that they could all be replaced with wizards with none the wiser. At least wizards can draw fire in a fight so the rest of us can focus on attacking until they’re ultimately killed.”

Gale gave Minthara a stricken look, while Lena squinted at her. “I can’t tell if you’re saying that he’s little more than a distraction or if I need to protect him better.”

“More the former, but I will suggest that you brush up on your defensive maneuvers.” Minthara replied.

Karlach reached the top and energetically hopped out and stretched. “Hoooo, I need that little warm up. And Minthara’s right: you drop your left arm and leave you flank open to attack.” She took hold of the rope as Wyll climbed.

Lena’s face fell. “I thought I was doing so well.”

Astarion smirked. “Darling, you can’t possibly be as perfect as me.”

“And Astarion, you’re a bit slow: you need to work on your speed getting in and out of range because you like to get behind someone’s defenses but then you linger and that opens you up for counterattacks,” Karlach said.

“Ooo! Roast me!” Edie begged. “Not literally,” she amended at seeing the horror on Karlach’s face. “I mean, tell me what I can improve!”

“You’re very showy, but you tense up. The only reason why you beat that psychotic teacher was because you were faster than him. Loosen up and bring you limbs in closer to your body when you’re defending, and for fuck’s sake stop doing those fucking backflips!” Karlach said.

Edie shrugged. “Oh, I already knew that. I was just showing off to Astarion.” She looked to him and smiled seductively. “Did it work?”

Everyone turned to look at Astarion and he turned sightly pink. Karlach laughed and pointed. “Oh, he’s blushing! I never thought our resident leech could even manage that!”

Astarion tittered nervously. “Oh no, I’m not blushing,” his words rushed out. “I’m just, ah, warm from the sun! It’s very bright out, and we’ve been standing out here for a while now, so I must be getting sunstroke!”

Lena reached over with her bare fingers and attempted to pinch his cheeks, but couldn't get a hold of the taut skin. So she squished his face between her palms, distorting his features. “No, barely warm. But this I find this weirdly satisfying.”

He slapped her hands away. “Stop that!” he snapped as he backed away from Lena’s grabby hands.

“But won’t you let your sister do this to show her love and respect for you?” Lena asked.

“Get away from me!” he shouted.

“Only if you admit you’ve got a crush on Edie!” Lena ‘sang.’

Everyone within earshot winced. “Oh gods, please don't start singing!" he begged. Then he noticed the maniacal gleam in her eyes. "Yes, fine! I find her attractive! There, better?” Astarion admitted in a panic.

Lena grinned. “Much!” She gave him a familial pat on the cheek. He huffed and glared as she turned to lower another rope down into the hole.

Edie gave her a quizzical look as she grabbed hold of the rope. “I’m not sure what that accomplished. We both know that he’s had something of a shit time with sex and intimacy thanks to that master of his.”

Lena shrugged and both women braced themselves as Halsin climbed up. “It’s a risk, but I don’t feel like watching you two dance around each other like some sort of fucked up historical romance.” She shuddered. “The pining …” She pretended to gag.

“Yeah, and not all of us are horny honey badgers who lucked out and found someone who could keep up in bed and doesn’t associate all forms of touch with horror and guilt.”

Halsin grunted as he reached the top and the two women had to haul him the rest of the way. “I couldn’t help overhear you discussing Edie potentially romantically involving herself with Astarion. Might I suggest that you wildshape into your liger form when you approach him?”

Edie raised her eyebrows in surprise. “That’s actually not a bad idea. Have him get familiar with consensual physical contact in a form that won’t elicit a sexual response.”

Halsin shook his head. “No, I meant that you should seduce him in your liger form.”

Edie stared at him in horror. Lena grimaced. “Ugh, I KNEW IT! Fucking druids!”

Edie gave Lena a disgusted look. “Was that intentional?”

Lena looked at her in surprise. “What?”

Edie sighed. “The thing with the druids and the fucki—" She looked at Lena's baffled expression. "Never mind.” She shouted down into the hole. “Lae’zel! Shadowheart! Both you and the wolves secure?” The two women each held a wolf in their arms.

“Ready!” Shadowheart shouted. Then Edie, Karlach, Lena, and Minthara began to bring their remaining companions out. The wolves whined, though neither struggled on the way up. As soon as they reached the top, they were untied and the wolves released. They scampered around, letting off some pent-up energy before racing to Lena and trying to shove their muzzles up her butt.

“Stop that!” Lena shouted, trying to push them away and covering her ass with a hand. “A little help?” Gale attempted to help push them away. Astarion and Edie pointed and laughed.

Shadowheart winced. “I may be a werewolf, but I still find that disgusting.”

“I would not think highly of you if you followed suit,” Lae’zel remarked.

Halsin knelt down and called to them. After a short discussion, both yipped in assent. “They’ve agreed to try to surpress their desire to search for your anal gland, but no offer no guarantees that they can overcome their instincts.”

“Goddamnit! Can they at least agree to stay away from our tent?” Lena shouted.

Halsin started to speak with the wolves again. They whined a bit. Halsin spoke more firmly, then they yipped again. “I suggested a compromise: you scent-mark something they can grab and they’ll leave you be.”

Gale cringed. “Must it? Would they perhaps be better compensated with an extra ration or meat?”

Lena shrugged. “There’s pretty much nothing left in my anal gland except residue, so odds are you won’t smell it, but they would.”

Edie glared at her. “And me.”

“You’re not the one with dogs sticking their noses up your butt,” Lena retorted.

“Can we at least wait until after we reach camp? And then we can just leave you in the river if you stink up the place?” Edie whined.

“Yeah, yeah.” Lena’s voice trailed off. “I never thought that this was where I would get an all-over body exfoliation treatment: In the middle of nowhere, with cold water, lye soap, and varnish remover. Can I at least get cucumber slices for my eyes so I can pretend that this is some sort of exotic over-priced spa treatment?”

“No, but you can delude yourself that wolf slobber would have the same effect,” Edie replied. “Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll find some snails and have them crawl all over your face and possibly give you some Faerunite parasite that’ll control you mind.” Everyone except Halsin and Lena turned to give Edie a look. Realization dawned on Edie’s face. “Oh, right! Almost everyone here already has one! Well, what’s one more, then? Right?”

“I have three,” Minthara announced suddenly.

“Well, good on you! You must be very proud of yourself!” Edie plowed ahead. “Though variety is the spice of life. So if you want something different, say, something intestinal or pulmonary, I’m sure we’ll find something for you!”

---

At camp, Lena and Shadowheart managed to craft a rag ball wound around a rag with a dab from Lena’s anal gland. Even that was enough to keep most of the camp from coming near them until it was all sewn into a raw deer hide. The wolves, Owlbert, and Scratch immediately took to it and chased each other around camp, nearly running into the fire where Gale had started cooking, knocking Wyll over, toppling Gale’s telescope and Lae’zel’s training dummy, and nearly nudging Withers slightly to his right.

“Well, looks like everyone’s happy!” Lena announced, hands on her hips, clearly satisfied with their work and the ensuing chaos. “Let’s wash up before our respective significant others refuse to fuck us!”

Shadowheart tossed her a wry look before rolling her eyes, then headed over to the river bank. After both women washed up, Shadowheart pulled out some bottles to help Lena redye her hair.

“I managed to scrounge together a few for you to chose from. I’m not sure how well these will work with hair since they’re all magic and meant for armor and clothing,” Shadowheart said.

Lena gave her a suspicious look. “I get a feeling there are a lot of details that escape me because I’m not familiar with the ‘magic’ bit in this case. How are these ‘meant for armor and clothing?’ Will it dye my shirt and not my skin? Will it cause my toenails to fall off? Will I sprout spines?”

“No,” Shadowheart started in her bedside voice she reserved for especially difficult patients, “these will dye fabrics, leathers, and even metal armor, but it shouldn’t dye your skin. But I’m uncertain if hair could be counted as such if it’s still attached to your person.”

“Well, no time like the present. I guess we can start with a hank and see.” Lena separated out a damp clump of orange hair.

Shadowheart held out a bottle. “This is should be a black dye.”

Lena dipped her hair into the bottle and pulled it out. It was still violently orange. She shook the bottle and heard its contents slosh before she dipped her hair into the bottle again. Still no change. “Well, that’s a pain in the ass.” She took a dagger and cut a few pumpkin-colored strands and dipped those into the bottle. The hairs turned charcoal gray. “Well, shit sticks. Now what?”

“I suppose we could put you in makeup and add a clown nose and the rest of us will get to see just how afraid Edie is of clowns,” Shadowheart suggested.

Lena’s lip curled in a sneer of disgust. “Or I’ll ask my boyfriend if his cleaning spells might remove the original dye that turned orange on contact with something that can double as a paint thinner.”

“That certainly lacks a certain panache.”

“Yeah, and I’d like my organs to stay inside me instead of having them ripped out by a hysterical liger.”

As they walked back to camp, they noticed the smell of ozone and two new people. “Why have I never noticed odors like this before?” Shadowheart whispered as they crouched low and slunk in closer.

“Fuck if I know. Denial? I always knew I was a honey badger, even before I could shift,” Lena whispered back.

“When did you start being able to shift, then?”

“Puberty. Made things especially awkward when I wasn’t sure I was shifting or I was just especially hairy because hormones. Like, once I had partially shifted my legs without realizing it then shaved them, so when I went on a heist with my family I was the honey badger with naked hind legs.”

They came in close enough to see who the new-comers next to the campfire: an older male githyanki with grayish-lavender Jimmy Neutron/Syndrome from “The Incredibles” hair, and a female gith with pink hair and a bandana covering her nose and mouth who was clearly his subordinate. The rest of their companions had already circled the pair, who eyed them warily.

Lae’zel confronted the intruders. “T’l’a Vlaakith—has our queen sent a knight to slay me with his own blade?”

“Such informality, child,” the older githyanki said. “Does the Jhe’stil Kith’rak, the commander of Vlaakith’s knights, not command your respect?”

Shadowheart gave a low snarl and the wolves by Halsin’s side whined in response. Lena put an arm on her shoulder to stay her.

Lae’zel narrowed her eyes. “Your blade speaks for you, Kith’rak Voss. You’ve come for blood.”

Voss smiled. “Child of Gith. I’ve not come to kill you. I’ve come to aid you.” He drew his sword then carefully knelt to place it on the ground at Lae’zel’s feet.

“Don’t trust him,” a voice rang in the heads of the infected.

Voss and his subordinate looked around as the majority of the camp winced with sudden pain. “What just happened?” he asked.

Edie stood to the side and shrugged. “They’re infected with mind flayer parasites and they hear voices. I don’t.” She gave a smug little smile.

Lae’zel frowned at Edie. “Ignore her. How do intend to aid us? And why?”

“I have come to learn that your party has in its possession the Astral Prism,” Voss said. “Within it lies the seed of Vlaakith’s destruction. And I intend to bring it to fruition.”

Wyll pulled the artifact from his carry-all. “There’s someone in here?” he asked.

“Yes, it contains a portion of the astral plane, keeping its prisoner alive and locked away for eternity,” Voss explained. “If they have not revealed themselves, they must have good reason. And I won’t be the one to betray them. But the one inside’s chosen you as an ally, protects you with their power. That very power will be the end of Vlaakith’s tyranny. The Prism’s tenant must be let loose. I’ve sought their freedom for aeons. When the Prism went missing, I feared the worst. Instead, you’ve granted the opportunity I’ve so long awaited. All that remains is the key that unchains them—and I’ve found someone who I believe can provide it.”

“Wait, who’s got the key?” Lena asked from her hiding spot. Lae’zel pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Who was that?” Voss demanded. “Why are you hiding? Show yourself!”

“Chk! Ignore her,” Lae’zel said.

Lena stood up. “I’m asking a perfectly reasonable question: Who has the key? And if you’re this prisoner’s loyal ally, why are we—the infected—hearing voices and you’re not? Is this ally against Vlaakith a mind flayer? Is this why we can hear them and you can't? And how did you figure out that we have the Prism?”

“The individual in the Astral Prism is not a ghaik!” Voss retorted. “And your party has been watched ever since you escaped the nautiloid. And your movements tracked by Vlaakith’s agents ever more closely after the Prism protected you from whatever forces are behind the Absolute cult.”

“Bit of a stretch,” Karlach commented. “I’m pretty sure it only popped out to say ‘hello’ for about minute.”

Lae’zel’s expression dropped. “So we have already been identified as we will continue to be pursued by Vlaakith’s inquisitors? Despite having killed the inquisitor and the kith’rak at Creche Yllek? I thought that the point of killing them was to erase as many witnesses as possible.”

“Hey, if I didn’t kill the inquisitor, I wouldn’t have gotten that shiny circlet you’ve got on your head!” Lena pointed out.

Voss blinked then shook his head clear. “That moment with the Prism was enough for Vlaakith’s dragon riders. And I have already heard you named a possible hshar’lak before today,” Voss replied. “Bring the Prism to Baldur’s Gate. I’ll be waiting at a taproom called Sharess’ Caress. That’s where we decide the fate of our people.”

“I will meet you in Baldur’s Gate,” Lae’zel said. “Do not make me regret it.”

“Lae’zel,” Voss said, standing and resheathing his sword, “I see T’lak’ma Ghir in you—Sister in Freedom. Together, we will be our people’s light.” He handed an amulet to Lae’zel. “Take this. It is a qua’nith—a psionic detector. As the queen’s warrior’s hunt you, the qua’nith will sound out when you come near their portals. Hear its cry, and prepare for battle—or slip away.” Lae’zel slipped it over her head and nodded. “I should go. Vlaakith’s gaze pierces the seas and the skies. She believes me loyal—I can’t afford her mistrust. Keep the Astral Prism close. Let no one take it from you. Slay any who try.” Then he turned, opened a portal, and the two githyanki left.

Shadowheart rushed to Lae’zel to discuss the repercussions of her decision to meet with Voss.

Lena approached Gale. “I guess this isn’t the most appropriate time to ask, but can you teach me those cleaning spells and see if they’ll strip the dye from my hair?”

Gale stared at her blankly for a moment then looked at the orange hair that topped her skull. He cringed, then cast a cleaning cantrip that not only left her dyed hair a silvery gray, but also gave her a bit of brain freeze. Lena yelped. "Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold!" she shook herself like a dog. "A little warning?" she asked reproachfully.

Gale shook his head. "I really couldn't stand the color any more."

Chapter Text

The next morning they broke camp and sat around the campfire to discuss their next destination.

“We’ve delayed for long enough. We need to head to Moonrise Tower,” Wyll insisted, while seated on Karlach’s lap. “My father is there. Who knows what they might have done to him.” Lena stared at him blankly. Wyll paused to stare at her in puzzlement before realization hit. “You forgot that my father was taken by Drow raiders and goblins, didn’t you?”

“Well, I was a little distracted. It’s not like the names to any of these places mean anything to me BECAUSE I’M NOT FROM HERE,” she shouted.

Gale wrapped an arm around Lena’s waist. “You saved a woman at Waukeen’s Rest who otherwise would’ve died from smoke inhalation,” he said, and gave her a kiss to her temple.

Edie smirked. “I always knew you were a softy.”

Lena hissed. “My body count is probably still higher than yours.”

“Only because you can gas your victims,” Edie replied.

Lena pointed a finger at Edie. “You decapitate a fair number of yours! And you can squash yours with your giant liger ass!”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “Tsk’va,” she cursed. “Enough discussion! We will go to Moonrise through the Underdark!”

“I’m with Lae’zel,” Shadowheart said. “Besides, I hear that the Underdark is beautiful.”

“And extremely dangerous,” Minthara pointed out. “I have my own enemies that I prefer not to cross paths with. I also hate dealing with the Duergar who control the entry and exit closest to Moonrise. Revolting little pustules.” She spat on the ground. “I can get us safely through the Shadow Curse to the tower by way of the mountain pass.”

Lena tilted her head and gave her a puzzled look. “How?” she asked. Minthara pulled out a lyre with a stylized spider inlaid in silver. Lena’s mouth gaped. “Seriously? Are you saying that this curse can be lifted with the power of music, like this is some sort shitty kids’ musical?”

Minthara gave her an impatient huff. “No,” she said, “This lyre is strung with spider silk and summons a drider carrying a moon lantern that keeps the curse at bay. Otherwise the deep shadows can sap the life from you and leave you nothing more than a zombie-like husk controlled by the curse to attack the living.”

Edie, sitting on the ground with her legs stretched out in front of her and her shoulders leaned up against a log Astarion sat on, raised her hand. Minthara narrowed her eyes with thinly-veiled irritation. “Yes, Edie, what is it?”

“What’s a drider?” Edie asked.

“They’re drow that Lolth punished with the body of a spider from the waist down,” Minthara explained. “How is this new to you?”

Edie pointed a finger down at the top of her head. “Not from Toril, either, remember? I don’t know who Lolth is and why they punish people with becoming half-spider or how that's even a punishment.”

Minthara sighed and rolled her eyes. “Lolth is a goddess. She is known as the spider queen, a cruel and capricious goddess of the drow who craves control and domination over all of her followers and wants her worship to spread to surface-dwelling elves. She enjoys setting her followers against each other for her own amusements and punishes any those who dare disobey her ever-changing and frequently contradictory dictates. I was once a paladin in her name, and now I loathe her as much as I now loathe the Absolute.”

Edie nodded. Then her eyebrows pinched in thought. "Contradiction seems consistent with every religion I’ve ever encountered or read about, though I always figured it had more to do with the followers rewriting everything to fit an agenda. Good to know that some dieties are contradictory right off the bat.”

Lena raised her hand and waved it about wildly. Minthara grunted at her. “Teacher,” Lena began, pitching her voice higher to sound younger, “if Lolth’s the spider queen, then how is becoming a half-spider a punishment?”

“The transformation is incredibly painful. Those who undergo it can never bear children, which is a punishment all of its own, and come out half-mad with self-loathing and a thirst for blood that must be sated every few days or die,” Minthara answered.

Everyone then looked at Astarion. Astarion looked back at them, confused and disturbed. “Why are you all staring at me?”

Lena gave him wide-eyed look then pointed at her face right below her eye. “You’ve suddenly grown like this giant mole on your face right below your eye, and it’s got these hairs sticking out. I’m amazed you never noticed it because it’s fucking huge.”

Astarion started to panic and felt around his face. “Really? Oh gods, what’s happening? Quick, Edie, can I borrow your phone and see?”

A few party members started to snicker and Edie gave him a wry look as she pulled out her phone and set it to selfie mode before handing it to him. He examined his face carefully, and seeing no mysterious mole looked up to glare at Lena.

Lena maintained a straight expression. “Oh, it’s gone now! Must be magic!” Next to her, Gale kept a hand clamped over his mouth to muffle a snort.

Edie casually tapped the side of Astarion’s thigh with the back of a hand. “Ignore her. She does this shit all the time. Kinda like how she fucks with Lae’zel. Because it’s a game for her to get under your skins. And you've already caught on by giving as good as her”

Lena gave a cheerful wave. Astarion gave her a one-finger salute. Lae’zel narrowed her eyes. “I would prefer if she stopped,” Lae’zel snapped.

Lena shrugged. “Then stop being so easy to annoy!”

Wyll dragged a hand over his face before spoke up. “Getting back on track, despite differing opinions, I say we travel to Moonrise through the Underdark.” He raised a placating hand as Minthara rose to object. “We will rely on you to help us avoid your enemies should we encounter them. Will that help allay any of your misgivings?”

Minthara sighed. “You seem very set on this path, and I swore I would serve to protect Lena.” Lena perked up in alarm. Minthara looked at her. “What say you? Will you travel through the mountains into the Shadow Curse or will you go through the Underdark?”

Lena’s mouth gaped. “Uhh …”

Edie rolled her eyes and grabbed a coin, flipping it. “Heads or tails?”

“Heads,” Lena answered automatically.

“Underdark it is.” Edie tucked the coin back in her carry-all.

“Wait, what was the result of the coin flip?” Lena asked.

“Doesn’t matter. Never said if heads was mountains or Underdark.”

Lena blinked. “Oh. Alright then.”

---

The navigated through the Selunite sanctum until the reached what used to be Priestess Gut’s quarters ("Oh, the one with the fancy feather capelet I decapitated!" Edie recalled) and traversed down a really long ladder into a long-forgotten Selunite outpost in the Underdark.

Lena pointed at a statue of a woman that had a beams of light focused on the statue's staff. “What’s up with that?”

Karlach looked at it, then tossed an apple core from her carry-all into one of the beams. It immediately fizzled and disappeared in a puff of smoke. “It does that,” she said.

Lena pursed lips. “I see.”

Then they heard heavy footsteps and a roar as a minotaur approached the portcullis that was the outpost’s only exit. A beam of light shot out of the statue’s staff, frying the minotaur into a charred crisp.

Lena sniffed the air then leaned toward Karlach. “Think that thing would taste like beef or people?”

“What kind of people are we talking about?” Karlach asked. “Lots of species taste different. Like dwarves tend to be kinda gamey and metallic, but elves are like lean beef, and humans are—”

“Porky?” Lena asked.

Karlach shook her head. “Not especially. I’d say humans taste more like rat.” Astarion let out an awkward laugh.

Wyll gave Karlach a stricken look. “Why would you know what different peoples taste like?”

“Oh, food’s scarce in Avernus, and everything tastes like sewage or rot, even if you get something fresh or it’s just water. Whenever you find anything just have to choke it down really fast or else you might puke it all back up. But sometimes Zariel would ‘reward’ us by letting us eat in a pocket dimension where everything tasted like it … should. So, um, yeah.”

Wyll’s face took on a determined expression. “I will do whatever is in my power to fix your heart so you need never go back.”

Karlach’s gave him a slightly morose smile and cupped his face, touching her nose to his. “Aw, that’s sweet. Even if I never get my heart fixed, just know that I’m going to try to enjoy every moment that I can with you.”

Gale leaned his head against Lena's shoulder, who wrapped her arms around his waist. Lae’zel gave Shadowheart’s hand a squeeze. Edie typed away at her phone and wiped her eyes. Lena looked over her shoulder and asked, “Who’re you texting?”

“Elminster,” Edie replied. “I told him he better have a solution for Karlach soon or I’ll have his testicles nailed to his tower.” Lena nodded.

“So what will we do about that?” Astarion asked, pointing to the statue’s staff. “I don’t imagine that it can identify friend from foe as soon as anyone leaves.”

Gale approached the statue and squinted at the top of the staff. “Oh, simple,” Gale replied then cast magic missiles, causing a stone at the top to shatter. The two beams powering the stone vanished. “It’s just a piece of moonstone used to focus the beams: really a very elementary, albeit destructive means of defense when all else has failed. And judging by the skeletons just beyond the portcullis everything had. We should be free to wander beyond the confines of this outpost without fear of being turned into a roast.” He then pulled a lever and the portcullis opened.

As they began to wander past the dead minotaur, the ground began to shake beneath them, and suddenly an animal in the shape of a streamlined rhino on steroids popped out of the ground near them, sending rocks and dirt flying everywhere and knocking a few party members down. “Climb onto the rocks!” Halsin shouted. They all scrambled, pulling fallen comrades to their feet, and rushing to some rocky outcroppings nearby. The creature, frustrated at its lack of prey, burrowed back underground and the tremors moved away from them.

“What the hell was that?” Lena asked, breathing hard. She pulled out a bottle of beer and took a swig, then watched as the crispy minotaur sink beneath the dirt like an ant in an antlion trap.

Edie looked over as a small fountain of blood and dirt erupted where the fresh body used to be. "Huh, I'd like to study that."

“Bulette,” Halsin replied. “I’ve heard them occasionally described as ‘land sharks’ for their ability to tunnel through earth like a shark cuts through water.”

Gale, doubled-over from panting, managed to add further details. “They’ve also been known. To change. Their skin armor. To. Diamond.”

Lena’s eyes perked up. “Really? Hold my beer.” She handed her beer to Gale, who took a gulp himself, and then she startled to rifle through her carry-all.

“You’ve been waiting to say that, haven’t you,” Edie asked.

“Hell yes! This is my time to shine!” She looked around the eerily uplit caverns. “So to speak.” She shed her gear and handed everything except two pieces of wood to Gale for safe-keeping.

“My love?” Gale started, alarmed, “What are you planning?”

“You know I love my phase spider armor, right? Those lovely swirly pastels?” Lena said.

Gale looked down at the neat pile of gear on the rocks next to him. “Which you’ve just shed.” His eyes grew wide. “Oh no … “

She gave him a kiss then hopped down onto the dirt. Then she turned to waggle her eyebrows at him. “Oh yes! I'm sure that someone would like some really neat armor!” Then she addressed the rest of the party. “Do me a favor and keep it distracted. Preferably without anything hitting me because I promise I will come back and hit you with it.”

Most of the party members looked at each other confused. Gale looked on nervously and took another swig of beer. Edie grabbed the bottle out of his hands then replaced it with whiskey. “I’m guessing you’re still adjusting to the whole 'honey badger fighting everything,' so you might need something stronger to steady your nerves.” Gale looked at the bottle and began drinking in earnest.

Lena unleashed her claws to very cautiously dig a starter hole and pushed one piece of wood in. Then she took the other piece of wood and began drawing it against the end of the embedded piece, creating strange moaning sounds that echoed around them.

“Jeebus, don’t tell me you think you can grunt for that thing,” Edie called down.

Lena tilted her head to listen then grinned. The tremors became stronger as the bulette approached. “Incoming in five … four … three … two … NOW!”

The bulette’s head broke from the earth beneath Lena and tossed her in the air. She shifted to honey badger and then rolled when she hit the ground before leaping back onto her feet and stalking her prey to look for an opening. The rest of her companions began throwing bits and bobs they’d collected at the creature—empty bottles, candle stubs, wooden spoons, tongs, hammers, etc. Gale continued to chug from the bottle while tossing junk. Astarion, Lae’zel, and Minthara, on the other hand, drew their bows and crossbows and fired arrows and bolts at it with seemingly little effect on the bulette and even less regard for Lena's safety. A few arrows and bolts embedded themselves in the ground near Lena and she would spare a rather irritated glance at the offenders.

The bulette circled around, confused, then jumped, causing a shockwave through the ground that jolted the rock they stood on, causing some party members to stumble and fall.

While it was distracted, Lena managed to rush up behind it and punched her claws around where she guessed its anus would be until a paw found purchase and then she began to climb into the now-bloodied orifice. The bulette roared as it felt something crawl into where things normally went out. It kept turning, trying to nip at Lena’s hind feet and tail before they disappeared completely, its own sphincter muscles betraying it by sucking Lena all the way into its colon. The bulette belly-flopped hard on the ground, trying crush the intruder clawing through its abdomen. Blood and tissue and feces gushed out of its … anus … cloaca … hole before the bulette suddenly twitched the stopped and dropped. Seconds later, Lena’s badger head emerged from where her claws found a chink between bulette’s armor and she ripped a hole that she slithered out of. She lay on the ground, gasping for air before shifting back to human.

Everyone except Karlach gagged from watching her emerge like some sort of demented home birth. “Nicely done, soldier! Is that how honey badgers normally kill prey?”

Lena stood up, still panting. “Naw. Edie sent me a video about Tasmanian devils popping out of carcasses. I nearly got lost in there.” She used her fingers to squeegee off the worst of the mess from her face. Wyll tossed her a skin of water and she started to douse herself. “Pity it didn’t change its scales into diamond. That would’ve been kinda neat!”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, interesting thermal properties, blah, blah, blah. I’m going to stop sending you nature videos if you’re going to do that ever again.” She started making her way down to Lena, and the rest of the party began to follow.

Lena looked up. “Why? All predators do it! Why make a hole when there’s a ready-made one?”

“And we’re both still human enough that we’d probably need antibiotics for a month to clear the literal shit from our systems. Can you imagine the sort of parasites that thing has?” Edie gagged

Lena flicked filthy gore water at Edie when she reached her. “Bah! Part of the thrill of the hunt! Will I be okay or will I have explosive diarrhea for a month! Who can say!”

Gale tipsily narrowed his eyes at Lena, then took a swig from the bottle. “We share a tent!” His words slurred. He looked over to Halsin. “Could you please look her over to ensure that she won’t suffer intestinal distress? So I won’t have to suffer olfactory distress? Because it’s bad enough that someone’s been feeding her cheese. I might have to kick her out if it somehow gets worse! And then I’ll have to sleep without the love of my life at my side because she keeps passing wind awful enough to kill an adult owlbear! Though you stopped snoring after Lae'zel broke your nose yesterday, so that's been one improvement!”

Astarion started to snicker. Lena looked a little guilty. “I promise I’ll stop eating cheese, babe.”

“No, no, how can I deny you something you love soooo much?” He sat down heavily and started to cry. “I just want you to be happy! I want us to be happy! But it’s so hard when you can be so awfully smelly! Or when you put yourself into incredibly dangerous situations. Gods! I just want to cast hold and sanctuary on you just so I don’t feel like I’m watching you die every time you decide to do anything.” He lay down and started to snore. Shadowheart quickly rolled him onto his side.

Edie tilted her head and regarded Gale. "In hindsight I shouldn't have given him that whiskey."

"Eh, don't beat yourself up," Lena said. "He was upset and who knew he'd be such a lightweight? Though I don't get why he got so worked up."

“Bulette’s are some of the Underdark’s most fearsome creatures,” Minthara pointed out. “What you just did was clearly the act of a madwoman who has managed to drive our wizard to drink himself insensible during a battle. Though if you hadn’t taken it as you did and it managed to either transform its scales to diamond or expel its scales at us, we might not have managed to survive the encounter.”

Lena beamed at Minthara. “Aw! So you're saying I did a good thing? From a tactical standpoint? That’s so sweet!” She held her filthy arms open. “Hug?”

Minthara reared back. “Gods no!” Lena tried to close in on Minthara, who kept backing away.

Halsin sighed and stepped in front of Lena and stopped her with a massive palm on her forehead. “I suppose removing infections is far preferable to trying to heal multiple dire wounds.” He cast a spell that caused her to briefly glow.

“Hey, can you see my organs and stuff when he does this?” Lena asked.

“Sadly, no,” Shadowheart replied as she stood using a leg to keep Gale propped up on his side. “Otherwise we’d perhaps understand what’s wrong with you.”

"You really should try to do something nice for Gale," Karlach said. "The poor fucker was really worried for you."

Lena glanced at Gale and hummed in agreement. "He does get a woody when I verbally or physically eviscerate someone ..." She looked at Astarion.

Astarion frowned. "You're not doing that to me! I haven't done anything. Today."

"He strikes me as a romantic," Shadowheart said. "Flowers and wine and grand gestures of love."

Lena looked around at the landscape of mushrooms and sighed. "Maybe I'll get lucky and find some obscure esoteric book or artifact that he can pore over."

The glow stopped. “I’ve detected a few parasites that are not of the mind flayer variety,” Halsin announced. “Those are simple enough to eliminate. And I’ve found no sign of irritation to suggest that you’ve caught something else.” He added another hand and cast a different spell the briefly illuminated his hands and the glow seeped into Lena. “Now please bathe.” He looked down at his hands and made a moue of disgust. “I need to wash my hands.”

Chapter Text

Gale slowly came-to feeling like something was trying to claw its way out of his eyes. He opened his eyes to his the interior of his tent; now shared with Lena, and found that he only wore his trousers. She sat not far from him, wearing only an oversized linen shirt with a tome on her lap. The tent was lit up with only a glowing mushroom. She whispered ‘fiat lux,’ and to his surprise a single glowing orb floated above her hand. He closed his eyes to the light and the brightness faded with the spell.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered and closed the book and scooted closer to him.

“Nicely done,” he whispered, his tongue sticky and fuzzy. He saw a glint of gold reflect off her eyes, in much the same Tara's does in low light, as she turned to look at him and gave him a wry smile.

“I was aiming for longer than a few seconds. It’s somehow harder to cast when you’re not around or awake.”

Gale gave a slightly abashed look, wincing and holding his aching head as he sat up. “I should confess that all your previous attempts at spellcasting have all relied on me as the conduit for you to access and control the Weave.”

Lena cocked an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

“I was acting as a conduit for the Weave so that you could shape it to your will more easily. But it looks as though you’ve the potential to not only access it on your own but to also become a credible spellcaster.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose and she gave him a little frown. "Aw, all those 'fuck yous' I adding to my spells didn't go through!” Then she gave him a small feral grin. The light reappeared and slowly took on the shape of a hand with a single finger extended. “Ya hear that Mystra! Straight from the source!” she called out into the air, raising her own middle fingers to join the one made of light.

Gale cleared his throat slightly. “Yes, though perhaps that should be less of your focus, especially if you manage to control the magic during the heat of battle.” He massaged his temples. “How long was I out for?”

Lena handed him a carafe of water and some odd-colored pills that she shook from a bottle from her carry-all. “I’d guess about two hours. I’m surprised that you’re even up after drinking as much of that swill as you did,” she said, her voice still quiet. “I’ve got some bread and cheese for you. Those pills should dull your headache, but they can do a number on you if you take them on an empty stomach.”

He looked down. “What are these, even?”

“They’re analgesics I had with me when I got kidnapped. Because I can’t just ‘disappear’ someone for being a corporate management dickhead in my little corner of Earth without people asking questions and I start getting accused of being a murderer or a serial killer, I have to grit my teeth a lot and smile and ended up getting a lot of tension headaches. I asked Shadowheart and Halsin for a potion to ease your hangover, but both of them said that it was a waste because it was my fault that you downed a whole bottle of whiskey and I needed to take care of you while they go off with the rest of the party to slaughter locals and local fauna.”

Gale swallowed the pills with a gulp of water and ate a piece of bread and cheese before easing back down onto the sleeping roll. He looked out of the tent through a crack between the flaps to see a multitude of glowing mushrooms and heard the faint strains of singing. “Where are we?”

“We’re in a colony of sapient mushrooms,” Lena replied, placing a damp cloth on his forehead. “I think they’re called ‘microlids’ or something.”

“Myconids,” Gale corrected. He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’ve read about them. They’re telepathic beings where each colony is controlled by a single ‘sovereign’ through song. If I were up to exploring I’d be cataloging everything.”

Lena grimaced and cringed. “Yeah, good thing Wyll was around because he managed to sweet-talk their ‘sovereign’ into not attacking us.”

Gale opened an eye in alarm. “Why would they even be tempted to killing us? Everything I’ve read about them suggests that they’re by and large peaceful beings. Did you do something?”

Lena narrowed her eyes and pinched her lips. “On one hand, I’d like to think that I’m a patient and considerate person because you drank a bottle of whiskey while you were worried about me doing something ‘stupid’ by taking on a bulette. On the other hand, I’m a bit miffed that you think I’d go around murdering everything in sight and offend our hosts, so I’m tempted to start screaming the lyrics to ‘Born This Way’ into your ears while you’re hungover. Also, you horked all over both of us, hence why you’re topless and all my clothes need to be washed again, so I feel like I'm allowed to be crabby about that.” He turned his head to fully stare at her. She paused for a moment. “Okay, it would’ve been reasonable to assume that the colony would’ve wanted to kill me for doing something stupid, like panicking and trying to kill the resident mind flayer and requiring Edie to restrain me. But I didn’t kill 'it' (I'm having so many problems with using that pronoun on a sentient being) after its hobgoblin fuck-buddy explained that it wants nothing to do with the rest of the mind flayers, so I think I deserve credit for that.”

Gale massaged a tic developing in his brow. He groaned and closed his eyes. “Please don’t talk for the next hour. I don’t think my brain can handle the twists and turns of your frequently baffling and indecipherable logic that improbably works.”

They stayed silent for several moments. “Are you mad at me?” she asked tentatively.

“Absolutely furious,” he replied. “Words can’t even begin to describe how terrified I was when you were engulfed by the bulette’s anus. I’m not even certain as to why you decided to take it on largely by yourself when you had the rest of us to help.”

“You mentioned it could transform its armor into diamonds. But you know what’s never armored? A butthole,” she pointed out.

“And I have never had to worry so much for your well-being as I did them, especially when the rest of us were forced into supporting roles throwing rubbish.”

“Not even when that shadow druid did a number on me and I needed a nap to heal?” she asked.

“Honestly, a bulette is so much more frightening,” he said. “Did you know that some of the more mature ones are capable of shooting diamond scales at their enemies in a spray pattern to maximize damage?”

Lena nodded. “Yeah. After you passed out Minthara told me that little factoid.” She settled to lie down, facing him. She could feel the tension rolling of his body. “Hey, I’m sorry that I scared you.”

He turned his head to her. “Can you promise me that you’ll never do something so reckless again?”

Lena frowned. “I think we’re looking at dramatically different opinions on risk assessment. Because to me a bigger risk is taking on a megalomaniac corpse who thinks herself a god—which I will remind you I had no idea was going to pop in and say ‘hello’ and have a tantrum—than an over-armored rhino-shark.” She paused to think. “How much do you know about honey badgers?”

“I might have read about them in passing, but until we met I never had cause to search out any details,” he admitted.

Lena sat up and pulled out her phone from her carry-all. Then she pulled up a video on honey badgers, with the brightness and the volume set to low to account for Gale’s hangover. Gale slowly sat up and resumed eating and drinking occasionally from a flask of water as he watched.

After the video ended, he stared incredulously at Lena. “Really?” She nodded. “Going to far as to attack a predator ten times their weight?” She nodded again. “And even managing to survive encounters against whole lion prides? And even deliberately provoking them?”

“Yup,” she said, while nodding.

Gale frowned. “I think I’m beginning to understand how you thought to take on that bulette.” She nodded. “Your whole species is insane.”

She stopped nodding and frowned at him. “Sometimes it’s more important that something works over it making sense. And digging out its poop-chute until it shat its guts out worked, no one got hurt, and we have a relatively intact bulette hide for armor. Though we didn’t get any usable meat because everything got contaminated with shit, but hey, can’t win ‘em all.”

He covered his face with his hands. “What am I going to do with you?”

She knelt behind him and massaged his shoulders. “Honestly, probably very little. The reality is that I come from a long line of vicious nutjobs with what I’ve heard described as ‘plot armor’ because more often than not we not only survive but thrive where you might not expect us to.”

Gale sighed again and dropped his hands. “My ask is that you at least try to explain your thought process before you do something that normal people might consider bizarre or outright insane so that I have at least some opportunity to steel myself for whatever is to come. I won’t claim that I’ll understand your reasoning completely, or that I won’t push back when I think that you’re taking undue risks, but for now the most I can do is try to trust your judgment. Though I have this urge to wrap you in cotton wool and trundle you away someplace safe.”

Lena raised an eyebrow. “I have to admit that’s a kink I’ve never thought about. And it sounds unpleasantly sweaty when the weather’s hot. Would you settle for a little light bondage instead?”

Gale blushed and Lena grinned. “Veni et iuva me,” Gale whispered and an invisible hand pushed Lena onto the bedroll and then held her hands down above her head.

She gasped and briefly struggled, testing the restraints. Then she let her knees fall open to let him know that she was naked under the shirt and smirked. “You’re eager.”

He knelt between legs, stroking a finger lightly from the back of her knee to the apex of her thighs. “You’re wet.” He mirrored her smirk and teased the folds of her cunt before he slid two fingers into her hot channel and stroked her. His grin grew when her smirk fell as she moaned and bucked against his hand. “And I would guess you’re just as eager.” He took his fingers out to suck on them before lowering his mouth to her mons, switching between laving and sucking on her clit as she continued to moan and writhe.

“Get in me!” she demanded. He looked up from between her thighs and smiled before continuing his ministrations until he felt her clench her thighs around his head. When she released him, he loosened the ties to his trousers and pulled out his penis, giving it a good stroke before lining himself up and thrusting into her, his tongue stroking the inside of her mouth.

“I see London, I see France, I see Gale fucking Lena while wearing pants!” Edie’s voice sang from outside the tent. Both stopped to notice that neither had remembered to close the gap between the tent flaps. They looked out to see Edie, covered in blood and dirt, carrying what appeared to be an extremely large vulture head in one hand while waving at them with the other. Astarion stood bent double next to her with his hands covering his eyes, screaming, “My eyes! My eyes!”

“Next time remember to close your tent flaps so we don't get a show, yeah?” Karlach’s voice came from right outside the tent and she tied the flaps closed. Everything inside went silent.

Lena felt Gale soften in her and the mage hand loosen its grip on her wrists. She put a hand on his face and nudged his face back to look at her. “Focus, Gale!” she said.

He hissed as her pelvic muscles tightened around him and he felt himself hardening. “But …” he began, indicating to the tent flaps.

“A little late to close the barn door!” She wrapped a hand around the nape of his neck and pulled him down into a hard kiss. With her other hand, she reached beneath his trousers and grabbed an asscheek and urged him to keep going, and he complied without thought until she essentially milked him dry.

He fell against her neck while she stroked his back, both of them panting. He rolled himself off of her as she snuggled up next to him. “That was … unexpected,” he admitted.

“What? That you might have a kink for light bondage or that you managed to finish despite Edie interrupting?” Lena mumbled into the crook of his neck.

“More the latter.” He turned to lay on his side, facing her. “I don’t recall any time being interrupted so consistently. Mind you, most of my experiences prior to meeting you were conducted in buildings in a bed without a whole host of others in close proximity.”

Lena gently placed a hand on his cheek. “Babe, we’re having sex in a tent surrounded by almost a dozen other people. If you hadn’t warded the tent against sound Edie would probably set it and us on fire.”

Gale’s eyebrows pinched. “She does seem inclined toward pyromania. Quite frankly, she terrifies me.”

Lena smiled. “And the fact that she hasn't tried to incinerate me is a testament to how much she loves me. It’s why she’s been my best friend for nearly thirty years.”

Chapter Text

The adventuring party had finished cleaning up from the day’s events, and both Lena and Gale emerged from their shared tent to prepare the evening meal of stew, stew, and more stew. Because there’s not much else to cook when the pickings are all dried and salted to hell and back.

Edie sat at her tent after washing up and took photos of the body parts she had collected from a hook horror, the bulette, and Sovereign Glut after the duplicitous fungus turned on them for refusing to stage a coup against Sovereign Spaw for control of the colony: heads, paws and/or claws and feet, and organs that weren’t completely shredded or seemingly non-existent for the case of the fungus. She would’ve carried the corpses back to camp, but no one wanted to help carry one-hundred eighty-plus kilos of dead weight, so she did quick sketches out in the field instead. Then she pulled out a sketchbook and started drawing the body parts she'd collected. Various animals came over to steal her samples as food, and she bared her liger fangs and roared: all scampered off to seek refuge with Shadowheart except Lena, who just laughed and tossed back the hook horror head she had snatched after she was done using it like a puppet to startle other members of the camp.

While dissecting the hook horror’s head (chitinous shell surrounding lots of gelatinous tissue), she began to notice Astarion’s scent: not just the perfume of bergamot and rosemary he wore, but smell under that: the subtle funk of aged meat. She couldn’t quite understand how any of his victims ever went with him smelling like that, especially when Lena had explained to her that she first met him he smelled like he’d only just bathed after handling a decaying corpse, but then again most full-humans she’d encountered were more or less smell-blind to everything but the strongest of odors.

Astarion stood still, trying for a relaxed pose but coming off as tense. “You're very good with a pencil," he remarked, looking at her open sketchbook with a detailed drawing of the hook horror's head in front of her before she started cutting, as well as a detail from a flayed bulette paw. "A little macabre, but I rather like that."

She put down the sharpened dinner knife she’d fashioned into a scalpel and looked at him standing in front of her. “You’ve never approached me before. I’m going to guess that you haven’t miraculously gotten over your aversion to sex and you’re here about something else.”

He cleared his throat. "I wanted to ask you a favor.”

Edie raised an eyebrow. “Something you don’t feel comfortable sharing with Lena first?”

They both looked back at the fire and watched as Lena gave them a goofy grin and two thumbs up, then they turned their attention back to each other. “You seem like the more, ah, sensitive one of the two of you,” Astarion said. “And I’ve already revealed details about my time with Cazador that I haven’t yet with my Lena.”

Edie raised an eyebrow. “Any reason why?”

“I’m not entirely certain. I think I have an aversion to disturbing her while she and Gale were occupied, as it were. " He sighed, then shuddered. "I would have thought I’d be inured to the thought of those two ‘at it.' It still seems different with her.”

Edie tilted her head questioningly. “Maybe because you’re starting to really think of her as family.”

He grimaced. “Ugh! Gods, no! I have 'siblings' in the form of the other spawn that Cazador made, and the fact that all of them were forced to seduce victims for his meals never made me anywhere near as uncomfortable. Besides, just from that one conversation with her parents has me reconsidering any ties with her!”

She gave him a sly smile. “But did you care about your fellow spawn in the same way? Because for all your squabbling I doubt that you don't care about her. And though her parents are clearly insane, they also clearly love and care for each other without smothering each other’s individuality,” she said. Then she frowned and continued talking, only faster and with more urgency. “Which really makes me wonder what the fuck is wrong with my mother because she’s been really controlling all my life and while I love her I really wish she would understand that I’m my own person and that shouldn’t be seen as an attempt to fix her own fuck-ups.” Then she stared fixedly on a point over his shoulder, breathing heavily.

Astarion stared at her in alarm. “I gather that your mother was rather demanding?”

She looked back at him and blinked and seemed to relax back into her usual cat-like languid self. “Oh, yeah. She grew up where there’s a really narrow and rigid definition of success. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it’s not my fault she mated with a charming but troubled Italian lion, produced five cubs with him, and can’t figure out why none of us think her advice is worth two shits.” She looked away and frowned to herself, then her eyebrows rose. “My mom and I are more alike than I thought because you’re at least one of the two. I guess the females on my mom’s side have an ‘I can fix them’ mentality with their mates."

He looked confused for a moment before he looked offended. “Hang on! Are you saying that I’m not charming?”

She tilted her head back and forth as she thought about how to answer. “I’d say you’re ‘practiced:’ You’re very pretty and charm doesn't come naturally to you.”

He fumed for a moment, then tried to relax with his shoulders with a hand on his hip, his eyes heavy-lidded and his mouth forming a subtle smirk. He tipped his waist to her until he face-to-face with her and used a finger to gently tilt her face up to his. “What about now, darling?” he whispered in a seductive purr.

She mirrored his smirk, then tilted her face up to expose tje long column of her throat and leaned back on her hands and thrust her chest out and crossed her legs. They both stared at each other for a moment. Edie asked, “Does your back hurt?”

“A bit.”

“My hips do not like this at all. This mushroom is very woody.” She rapped it with her knuckles and it gave a hollow sound.

They both started to giggle, finally relaxing. Astarion sat heavily down beside her with his shoulders hunched and she bumped him with her shoulder. “Much better,” she said.

He looked surprised. “You really think so? But it’s so inelegant and exactly the opposite of what I’ve noticed attracts people than if I sat down gracefully.”

Edie thought for a little bit. “Maybe it’s because I’ve seen how you and Lena give each other shit that I know that it’s an act. You pretend to act like you’re some sort of decadent and refined aristocrat, but deep down you’re really a crass peasant like the rest of us.” Then she looked over at Gale, who seemed to be regaling Lena with a story that left her doubled-over with laughter. “Okay, except Gale, but he’s seriously slumming it with Lena and seems to enjoy it.”

Astarion’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You really find me more attractive slouched over than when I have my back straight?”

“I prefer seeing you relaxed than looking like you’re perpetually at parade rest,” Edie remarked. “For me, it’s a bit too much like seeing prey tensed up before fleeing.”

He gave her an alarmed look. “I don’t like being equated to prey when I’ve been a predator for nearly two hundred years.”

“It’s really a matter of perspective. House cats are predators to lots of animals, but they’re prey to larger predators like dogs, lynxes, and coyotes. And no matter how big or strong you are, living or dead, you’re always food to something else.”

He curled his lip in chagrin. “Is this some sort of nature analogy related to your doctorate?”

“Pfft! No, this is the sort of shit you teach toddlers!” she scoffed. “The bigger you are, the bigger the parasites. And just to let you know, those parasites have their own parasites all the way down. Ever seen whale lice up close?”

“No, because I couldn’t leave Cazador of my own volition.” He sighed. “Which leads me to a favor I’d like to ask of you: would you examine my back and show me what my former master carved into me?”

Edie’s lips pinched into a straight line and she breathed through nose. “I’m going to enjoy biting his fingers off before moving on to other bits.”

He gave her a wry quirk of his lips. “Are all shifters so violent?”

“Not all of us. But by and large we tend to be more feral.”

He gave her a feral grin of his own. “I think I could get used to that.

“Uh-huh. Just turn around and untuck your shirt so you don’t need to take it off.” He faced away from Edie and pulled his shirt from his trousers, then she raised it to expose his back. “Holy shitballs,” she hissed when she saw the concentric circles of unfamiliar script that covered his back. “I’ve seen you heal without scars. How did he do this?”

“Not long after I turned, he used what he called his ‘needle’ and carved this ‘poem’ into me over the course of a night,” he seethed. “Any time I moved or made a sound he’d punish me and start all over again.”

Edie lifted her phone and turned on the flash and took a dozen photos. Then she let his shirt fall and switched her phone to project the photos. He looked at the photos, swiping back and forth between them, whispering, “What did he do to me?”

“Any idea what language this is?”

He shook his head. “Not a clue.”

“Someone in camp might know,” Edie suggested.

Astarion grimaced. “I don’t want the others to know.”

She gave him an unimpressed look. “Knowledge is power. HEY GALE! CAN I BORROW YOUR MASSIVE HEAD FOR A MINUTE?” Astarion winced as his ears rang.

Everyone looked at Edie sitting next to Astarion, and Astarion cringed slightly. Edie put a hand on his shoulder as Gale walked over from the campfire with Lena and pretty much everyone else following behind him. “What am I? A sideshow at a circus?” Astarion demanded of the party.

“Naw, you’re too normal-looking for that. You need a couple of moles and maybe an extra hand growing out of your neck,” Lena replied with a grin. Edie gave her a chastising look. Lena’s grin dropped. “Oh shit. Did something happen?”

“Apparently this happened a long time ago.” Edie pointed to the photos. Lena hissed when she recognized Astarion’s deathly-pale skin tone covered in scars “Anyone here able to read this?” Edie asked.

“Oh gods,” Wyll whispered in horror. “Who did this to you?”

“Who else but his shitty master,” Karlach replied. “It’s in Infernal, I can tell you that much. Same as the shit Zariel wrote on me, only hers was to mark me as her property.” She pointed to her intact horn where similar marks were etched into her, and then to a tattoo on her arm.

Gale shook his head as he looked between the script on Karlach’s body and on the screen. “I’m afraid I’m limited to tomes translated from Infernal as I’ve no knowledge of how to read it. But I’d bet good money that’s part of some sort of contract that Cazador made with a devil.”

“Pact or no pact,” Minthara said to Astarion, “you now have a steady supply of strong blood to help you ready yourself to go against your master.”

“Too bad we don’t have a humidifier or a fogger and fuck-ton of holy water to fumigate his palace like we do for roaches,” Lena mused.

“’If wishes were horses,’” Edie sighed. Then she muttered “Fuck it” and she picked up her phone and shut off the projection. She started typing furiously.

“Elminster?” Lena asked.

“Yep,” Edie answered. “He better have a translation. What’s the fucking point of living for over a millennium and being a ‘scholar of the archane’ if you didn’t learn this shit?”

Gale managed to hold back from compulsively defending Elminster. Lena noticed his grimace after he stopped himself and held his hand. “It's normal to want to defend him because he was your mentor. But you also have a right to be mad at him,” she reminded him. “He never warned you what you were in for with Mystra.”

“It still feels so very unnatural to go and badger him like this,” he admitted. He looked over at Lena’s pinched expression. “I meant no offense,” he backpedaled.

“No, no. It’s an accurate description of what we do,” Lena admitted.

Edie held up a finger. “And we’ve got an answer from Elminster, and it’s in fucking Latin.” She recited the text:

Hoc inferius iurare per ignis / Haec verba loquor / Et hoc mundo mutat

Gale translated. “This I swear by the fires below / I speak these words / And this changes the world.

“Huh,” Lena said. “Even in Toril Latin’s the language of evil.”

“Here it’s actually old Chondathan,” Gale replied. “Which is also the language used in a lot of spellwork because it’s no longer spoken regularly.”

“So if I used Old English or Tang-era court Chinese it’d do the same thing?” Lena asked.

Gale nodded. “When spellcasting, you can’t actually use the language you think in because you need a barrier between your spells and the rest of your mind or your subconsious would begin to cast spells and—”

“No one wants a lecture right now, wizard,” Minthara snapped.

“Rude, but Minthara has a point,” Edie said. “This shit is pretty ominous-sounding. What the fuck has Cazador gotten up to?” She gave Astarion a concerned look.

He looked back at her, his own expression echoed her worry. “I really don’t know.”

---

Later that night, as Edie resumed her dissection, (now on the bulette head) Astarion approached her again. "I wanted to thank you. For helping me with my scars," he said hesitantly.

She nodded. "Just to be clear, I would've helped even if I weren't horny for you."

"Nevertheless, not many people would have helped."

She shook her head. "People can't help what they can't see. Or if they don't know how to fix it. How many other people have you told about what's going on in Szarr's palace?"

"No one. We were taught never to reveal ourselves unless we're being paraded around at one of Cazador's parties as 'favors' to his guests. I prayed to every god I could think of for the pain and the torture to stop, and none of them answered." He frowned at the memories.

"I have never known of a truly substantiated case of divine intervention on Earth, even with all the people praying for their favorite sports team to win a game. It's still a real shock to me that the dieties here do something other than jack-shit."

Astarion shook himself and gave her a confused look. "Then why pray at all?"

Edie shrugged. "Something to do when you've lost hope you can fix the problem yourself? Or to kill time? Absolve yourself of the moral imperative to help others because you asked something that may not exist to do it for you?"

Astarion sighed. "Well, anyways, I have something for you." He held out a book. "I noticed you took an interest in some of the local wildlife, and thought this would give you some context."

"'A Primer of Mythical Beasts,'" Edie read haltingly. She paged through it. "Thanks. Though I'm going to ask you for a favor." Astarion steeled himself. "I'm still transliterating from the local alphabet to the one I'm used to, but it's giving me headaches, especially because all my notes are in my preferred alphabet. Could you help me look up 'bulette' and read the description aloud? I'd like to compare my notes to what's in the literature."

He relaxed then sat down next to her. "Certainly, darling." He flipped through the pages until he found the section on bulettes. "'A bulette's body is covered in thick, layered plates. Its head is similar to that of a shark, with a massive mouth ...'"

Chapter Text

Minthara woke everyone the next ‘morning,’ smacking tent walls for those warded against sound. “We cannot idle,” she barked as the party dragged themselves out from their tents.

Shadowheart squinted groggily from between the flaps from the tent she shared with Lae’zel. “How can you possibly tell what time it is? There’s no daylight in the Underdark,” she complained. Scratch emerged from a pile of sleeping animals to lick her face while she absently scratched his ears.

Minthara put her hands on her hips. “Can you not feel the difference in the air? The smell of bats as they make their way back from the sunlit lands? The spark of life from surface prey getting lost underground?”

Lena crawled out of the tent she shared with Gale wearing Gale's purple velvet pullover. She sat cross-legged in front of it and yawned while scratching an armpit. “Not really. Never spent any time in caves, and I haven’t been here long enough to smell anything except mushrooms and dirt.”

Edie had started doing yoga, standing on one leg with her arms stretched above her in front of her tent when she chimed in. “I do smell a difference in the air, but I can’t pinpoint it.” She watched as a myconid lumbered past through their camp to a mushroom patch where it began tending to them. “I don’t understand how there’s enough organic detritus from the surface to sustain the amount of fungi here.”

“That’s because there’s not.” Gale grunted as he stood and stretched. His joints cracked before he stood behind Lena and put his hand on her shoulder and another on his lower back. “The majority of the life here is sustained by the faerzress, a sort of wild fey magic tha—”

“That’s enough, wizard,” Minthara interrupted. “I would rather not hear a human give a lecture on a subject that a drow infant would be infinitely more knowledgeable of.”

“Yes, but—” Gale began.

Minthara glared at him and growled. “No.”

He went silent. Lena looked up at him and gave him a comforting pat on the hand. “You really shouldn’t start pontificating on a subject related to someone else’s culture in front of someone who came from said culture,” she chided gently. “It’s a big no-no from Edie and me’s little subcorner of Earth. But if it’ll make you feel better, you can lecture me on the subject tonight,” she offered.

Gale visibly brightened. “If it’s alright with you—”

Minthara growled again. When Gale went silent, she started talking. “We need to get to Grymforge if we mean to take the elevator to get to Moonrise. There are boats that will take us there, but we should set out soon to get away from the Underdark as soon as possible.”

“It’s a shame, really,” Shadowheart remarked. “It really is quite lovely here.”

Lae’zel stood beside her to wrap an arm around Shadowheart’s waist. “We should hurry. We agreed to bring Sovereign Spaw Nere’s head for orchestrating the attacks on the colony. And I would very much hate to disappoint Sovereign Spaw.” Her mouth stretched into a vicious smile.

Shadowheart gave Lae’zel a canny look. “You’re just looking for an excuse to kill something, aren’t you?”

“I was denied my fair share of opportunities to spill blood yesterday. I refuse to let this one slip from my fingers.”

“Who’s ‘Nere?’” Lena asked.

“Some drow True Soul cultist who ordered the duergar to attack the myconid’s grotto,” Edie explained. She had finished standing on one leg and moved on doing a handstand. Astarion had peeked his head out of his tent and stopped to stare at how how her breasts now threatened to escape from her tanktop. She winked at him, then did a sideways splits. “The Sovereign wants us to kill him and bring back his head as proof that we’ve removed the immediate threat to them.”

Lena gasped. “Oh boy! Sanctioned murder!” She clasped her hands together and wriggled with glee.

Wyll stood in front of the tent he shared with Karlach and squinted at Lena. He sighed then grabbed a bottle of wine and poured a mugful for himself.

“Little early to be drinking that, isn’t it?” Edie asked, now bent backwards with her head touching her heels.

Wyll raised his mug and downed the wine. “I need fortification. This promises to be a very long excursion.”

Edie nodded, though it was a looked a little awkward with her head upside-down. “Definitely seems like it’s going that way.”

---

They all gathered at a dock to what was once an underground village. Lena looked around at the carnage consisting of recently deceased dwarves and gnomes with blue-gray skin, as well as a number of bodies that further along in the decomposition process, though they lacked the usual insect activity Lena expected. “Lots of rotting corpses with the fresh. Do the duergar just leave bodies out instead of disposing of them?”

“The duergar had a necromancer among their ranks,” Minthara explained. “There’s no need to bury your dead when you might have use of them in battle.”

Lena wrinkled her nose. “Pity they don’t have morgue refrigerators and embalmers to keep the smell down.”

“They’re duergar,” Minthara replied. When Lena just stared at her uncomprehendingly, she explained. “They would sooner drink any alcohol that may preserve a body than use it to embalm one.”

“I’m pretty sure I smelled methanol on one of them,” Edie added.

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “So they naturally pickle themselves?”

Edie shook her head. “They seem to process it without producing formaldehyde, otherwise this wouldn’t already already show signs of skin slippage.” She lifted a fresh-ish disembodied duergar hand that had been laying on a damp spot of dirt—it looked as though the hand wore loose vinyl gloves.

Lena nodded. “Good to know.”

Astarion looked at Edie, baffled. “Why the hells do either of you know any of this? Do you sit around after a kill and watch it decompose?”

“That actually is a job,” Lena said. “This sort of thing helps determine approximate time and cause of death, and we keep up with the research so we can figure out how best to dispose of a body in case we can’t afford cleaners.”

Astarion looked back to Edie. She shrugged. “As long as I’m not the one who has to put up with the smell day-in and day-out, I’ll read the papers.”

“Speaking of light reading,” Lena began, “whatever happened to that book we found that has that taxidermied face on it? Did you ever crack it open?”

“I did, in fact,” Astarion replied. “Not that it’s done me any good. It just kept uttering gibberish at me, insisting I kill Karlach for some reason.”

Wyll narrowed his eyes at Astarion and moved defensively in front of Karlach. “Easy now, soldier,” Karlach said to Wyll. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. At least not by his hand.” She pointed a thumb at Astarion.

Lena nodded. “If he ever goes on a rampage we can probably truss him up like a turkey until he calms down.”

“Oh wonderful,” Astarion replied sarcastically. “It’s good to know that I’ll be afforded such dignity.”

“Not much dignity in death-death,” Edie replied. “Depending on conditions, eyes and tongues can protrude from built-up gasses, fluids leak from all orifices, and you’re all floppy and can be posed in all sorts of hilarious ways, and you may end up getting trussed up anyways depending on local funerary traditions.”

“Then there’s the indignity of cremation!” Lena cheered. "When everything gets hot enough, muscles contract and bodies tend to sit up and contort themselves into a fetal position. Sometimes you can hear bones break because the contractions are so strong!"

Wyll looked a little green. “Please stop.”

Lena looked around at the corpses. “Why be squeamish? It’s not like you haven’t helped kill at least some of these dwarves.” Edie jabbed her with an elbow. “What?”

Edie sighed. “Get on the boat, dummy.”

---

As they ‘sailed’ on the rickety little boat, another boat pulled alongside them and a bald little duergar called out. “You! What are you doing on Gekh’s raft?”

Lena gave Edie a questioning look and Edie shrugged. “Gekh’s dead,” Edie answered the duergar. “Wasn’t much left of him or anyone else by the time we got there. Might’ve been a bulette because they were pretty much torn to shreds.”

The duergar boarded their vessel and peered closely at Edie. “I don’t believe you,” he sneered.

“You don't need to believe her." Minthsra stood and approached the interloper. "Stand down, duergar,” she commanded.

The duergar’s eyes went wide with panic. “Commander Minthara! I wasn’t expecting you here!”

Minthara loomed over the duergar. “The Absolute has commanded my presence here. It seems that there are those who are not happy with progress at Grymforge and I must now clean up yet another mess.”

“It isn’t our fault that those gnome slaves caused a cave-in!” the duergar pleaded.

“SILENCE!” Minthara shouted, then kicked the duegar into the river. Apparently he couldn’t swim and sank beneath the black water with barely a bubble. Then she turned her attention back to the remaining duergar on the other boat. “The rest of you: escort us to Grymforge. I need a full account before I am to begin.” The duergar on the other boat scurried to take their positions and continued to sail alongside them, though at a distance.

Lena leaned toward Minthara. “You do know that we’re going to free anyone they’ve enslaved, right?” she asked in a low voice

Minthara growled, but kept her face neutral. “The deep gnomes are better off under the aegis of ownership. I see no need to free them if they’re only to be re-enslaved by either other drow or duergar if we may have use for them.”

“Would you have preferred to stay enslaved to the Absolute?” When Minthara didn’t answer, she gave the shorter woman a gentle nudge with an elbow. “Just something to think about. Besides, I’m not going to take the trouble of trying to manage slaves, and I don’t think you’re going to find anyone else here willing to do that job. Also, I always find I get better results paying willing people for their work than trying to scare it out of them.” Lena walked back to where Gale sat and sat down beside him.

“What did you and Minthara discuss?” he asked in a low whisper.

“Slavery.”

“Ah. That has been the practice among drow and duegar to enslave those captured in raids or war for centuries. I don’t imagine that your arguments had much effect.”

“I didn’t go for morals: I asked who’s going to manage them. You always need someone to keep 'em in line or you'll find your throat slit or they've all escaped, so you may as well have freed them and get a little goodwill out of it.”

Gale’s eyebrows rose. “Excellent tactic: appealing to self-interest.”

Lena smiled. “I thought so, myself.”

Chapter Text

They drifted on the underground river between massive broken statues until they reached a dock lit with torches and freely flowing magma. The heat and humidity caused everyone to break out in a sweat.

“Gods, it’s hot in here,” Karlach complained as a few of them sat on the deck.

Lena, sitting next to Gale, nodded. “I’m more of a ‘dry-heat’ person, myself. This reminds of the time Edie convinced me to go with her to a swamp to hunt invasive pythons as part of a summer internship.”

Edie smirked from where she sat on Lena’s other side. “You got into some of my stash of shelf-stable artificial blue ring octopus venom, added it to some rum, shifted, started foaming at the mouth, and were clinically dead for a half-hour. I had to haul your carcass out into the treeline to make sure no one saw you in case you were dead-dead.”

Lena smiled fondly. “Good times. I woke up at dawn cuddled up to a dead python missing half its body. I’m pretty sure I must’ve woken up, killed it, and ate it before I passed out again.” Gale sighed wearily and pulled Lena closer up against him.

Karlach blinked. Sitting next to her, Wyll looked a little green.

Astarion raised an eyebrow. “Why did you happen to have a powerful venom with you?” he asked Edie.

“To keep my family safe from my dad’s family,” Edie replied. “My mom’s paranoia turned out to be justified after a gang of my dad’s people attacked my brother Julian the year previous. One out of ten, would not recommend disposing of five shifter bodies with obvious bite and claw marks. At least with toxins we can sort leave the bodies ‘intact’ and we can usually come up with solid alibis if anyone asks.”

“And has anyone asked?” Karlach asked.

Edie thought for a moment. “No.”

Lena looked a little perplexed. “Not even that time in grad school that you told me about? Where you left your ‘cousin’s’ pants down next and beer bottle up his ass and another ‘cousin’ with his hands on his dick?”

Edie shook her head. “Nah. Police blotter chalked it up to a drug overdose because they didn’t want to bother with what looked like a cut-and-dried case. I heard that the Italian embassy wasn’t impressed that two of their nationals were found dead in the States, but they had rap sheets long enough to suffocate an elephant so they couldn’t really make a stink about it. Plus, my mom’s family was keeping tabs around the world, so those weren’t the only deaths of de Medici affiliates.”

Astarion blinked. “Posing dead bodies is a pastime, I take it? And I thought your family name is del Leone.”

Edie shrugged. “You saw what Lena and I did what that ghustil in the creche. We do what we must to evade detection. And sometimes we’re in a hurry. And my dad changed his name when he left the de Medici pride, though he’s not the most creative person when it comes to names.”

Gale groaned. “Because your surname means ‘of the lion’ in Chondathan!”

Edie gave him a wry expression. “I know it as Italian, but if English is ‘Common’ here, I guess I’ll allow it.”

They passed broken statues, including of Shar as they approached the docks. Shadowheart, looking up at the statue, whispered to Lae’zel, “I can still sense Shar’s presence here. It’s like she wants me here.”

Lae’zel looked at her with concern. “Do you still hold to your desire to become one of her Dark Justiciars?” she asked.

Shadowheart shook her head. “I still don’t know who I am without the Dark Lady.”

Lae’zel took her hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “Just remember that you are so much more than Shar’s pawn. She cannot possibly care for you if she manipulates your very fears and memories. Though I cannot make your decisions for you, you must take your fate into your own hands, as I now must.”

Shadowheart took a deep breath as the boat docked. “I’ll try.”

The escort boat slowed behind them. “Continue your patrols, duergar,” Minthara ordered before disembarking. The blue-gray dwarves on the boat grumbled among themselves about arrogant drow True Souls before managing to turn their boat around and setting off. Minthara watched them leave as two duergar approached her on the dock.

“Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing here?” a bald duergar on the dock asked Minthara.

The other duergar’s eyes went wide, looked at the massive and heavily-armed party that had arrived with Minthara, then elbowed the first one hard. “Shut up!” he muttered. “That’s Commander Minthara!”

“Oh, so she’s got our money, then, seeing as Twat-Soul Nere can’t pay us behind that cave-in.”

Minthara looked disdainfully down at the first duergar and frowned, then briefly addressed her companions. “I did mention that the duergar are unpleasant. I've found their mercenaries even more so.” She indicated to Lae’zel. “Dispose of her. I have no use for insubordinate rubbish.” She turned to walk away.

“You bitch!” the bald duergar yelled as she raised a hammer to strike Minthara, but Lae’zel raised her sword and brought it down on the duergar’s head, embedding the blade between her eyes and spattering Minthara and the other duergar in brain matter and blood.

Everyone watched as Lae’zel braced herself and kicked the body to dislodge the body from her sword then snarled at the cowering surviving duergar. “See that you dispose of this garbage at once or you may join her.”

The duegar ducked his head and began to hurriedly drag the body to the edge of the dock before shoving it in. He turned to look back at Minthara. “Anything else I can do for you, Commander?” he asked nervously.

“Yes,” Minthara said, then strode back to the dock before kicking him into the water. He thrashed briefly much like the duergar that briefly boarded their boat, but like that first duergar he sank quickly, barely leaving any bubbles to suggest he was ever there.

Wyll looked on with mild discomfort. “That was unnecessary,” he said quietly to Minthara.

“The fewer duergar we have to deal with, the better,” she replied. “Really, they’re not much use except as slavers and cannon fodder.”

“What of the enslaved gnomes?” Wyll whispered. “We can’t allow them to stay enslaved, nor can I allow them to be killed.”

“See, what’d I tell you?” Lena said over Minthara’s shoulder suddenly, causing the drow woman to startle. “No one here wants to keep slaves. And I’m with Wyll: I’m not letting anyone else keep ‘em, either.”

“Don’t do that!” Minthara whispered back, pinching the bridge of her nose and trying to compose herself.

“We free the slaves, we don’t kill ‘em,” Lena quietly reiterated with a steady and intensely bland expression.

Minthara returned Lena’s gaze. Then Edie joined Lena with her chin propped up on Lena’s shoulder. The two predators stared unblinkingly at Minthara for several uncomfortable moments until she finally broke eye contact. “Fine, I agree!” she hissed. “But in the meantime, I will continue to act as Commander so we can move freely among the True Souls and the mercenaries.”

Lena’s face broke into a cheerful grin. “Cool!” she replied. Edie’s remained disconcertingly bland before she nodded curtly and slunk away. Then Lena walked off alongside Gale.

“That is a most disturbing habit of theirs,” Minthara said to no one in particular.

“It’s why they’re leading us,” Karlach said.

Minthara and Wyll gave Karlach a slightly confused look. “I thought I was leading,” Wyll said.

Karlach gave a soft huff of a laugh. “Nah, they just let you think that because they don’t want to be seen as in charge. But really, I think they’re leading us pretty well.”

Wyll looked horrified. “Are you joking? All I’ve seen either of them do either find ways to irritate Lae’zel or go off on their own and leave the rest of us behind.”

Karlach nodded. “Yeah, but notice that it’s worse when Lae’zel’s having a crisis or there’s some tension. And I’ll be honest and admit that I was glad it was Lena alone in that room with Vlaakith’s projection instead of me because if I had to share a room with the lich queen I’d be pissing myself.”

Wyll rubbed at the scars around his stone eye and sighed. “Gods, you’re right. How did this happen?”

“They’re sneaky,” Karlach replied with a grin of her own. "And completely bonkers."

Minthara’s mouth pinched ruefully. “I may go insane if I keep finding myself being coerced into ‘helping’ others for the sake of helping them.”

Karlach shrugged. “At least they’ll do it in the weirdest way possible. Personally, I can’t wait to see what sort of shit they get up to next.”

---

As they began their wandering, Edie and Lena restarted their discussion as to whether helmets were worth their additional weight when dealing with a direct strike like the one Lae'zel dealt to the duergar at the dock when Edie's ears perked up. Lena looked and overheard two duergar bullying a gnome not far from the docks and stopped to observe. The three were at the top of a short flight of stairs in front of a metal grate.

“Hey Stickshit,” one of the duegar called out.

The gnome sighed. “It’s ‘Skickpit,’ you pisspot.”

The duegar just grinned and replied, “That’s what I said. ‘Stickshit.’” Then he held up a tankard toward the Skickpit. “Another round, Stickshit.”

Skickpit took the tankard and muttered, “Pisspot.”

The duergar smirked. “You flirt. Now jump to it or it’s up the lift and straight to the shadows.” He gave Skickpit a shove that nearly toppled the deep gnome down the stairs, but he managed to keep his footing and trudged down.

Lena gave Gale’s should a quick pat before she skipped toward the duergars and jogged up the steps. “Oh hello there!” she said in an upbeat tone used by people who work in customer service or human resources and subsequently lost their souls.

Minthara paused mid-step and sighed to herself. Gale looked alarmed. He did his best to school his face into a mask of nonchalance, though he was so tense he nearly started to vibrate like a very small and nervous dog. The edge of Edie’s mouth ticked up almost imperceptibly. Astarion's and Shadowheart's eyes widened in interest. Karlach smirked. Lae'zel' developed a tic under her eye. Wyll looked on in horror. Halsin sighed and wished he could have a drink.

“Who the fuck are you?” the other duegar asked.

“I’m Jenny! I’m part of the True Soul consulting team here to improve operational efficiency!” Lena chirped. “As part of our duties we’re here to get to know the people working for the Absolute to learn what sort of things would help you do your work better!”

The two duergar gave her a suspicious look. “I didn’t hear anything about this.”

“She’s one of my hand-picked auditors,” Minthara called out as she strode toward them. The two duergar stared with open mouths at Minthara. “Do you dare question me?”

“Never, Commander Minthara!” the second duergar sputtered. “It’s just that, well, moral’s been shit ever since that Nere’s been stuck in the cave-in and we can’t get paid.”

Lena gave a little gasp of concern and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, you poor things! You’ll have to tell me all about it so I can document it all and see if we can’t this all straightened out!”

Skickpit approached with the tankard. “Here you are, pisspot.”

The first duergar snatched the tankard. “Took you long enough!”

“Get one for me, too,” the second Duergar jeered, holding out her empty tankard. Skickpit sighed and grabbed the tankard.

Just as Skickpit was about to leave, Lena stopped him. “Could I trouble you for one of my own?” she asked sweetly.

“Fuck off,” Skickpit replied. “It’s bad enough dealing with these two.”

“Oh no,” Lena said, “I’m afraid I really must insist.” She gave him a small smile and lifted an eyebrow. “There’s really so much to discuss with these two fine … people … if we’re to ensure that everything runs perfectly for the Absolute,” she said meaningfully.

The gnome gave her a fearful look as the fine invisible hairs on his body rose. “Yes, ma’am,” he said and went back down the stairs.

Lena then turned her attention back to the duergar. “So can you tell me what changes you would make to make you jobs better … ?” She trailed off. “Oh darn! I forgot to ask you your names! I swear the tadpoles make me forget my manners!”

“Magmar,” the first duergar offered. “I’m the ward here.”

“I’m Pistil,” the second duergar said.

“Thank you both so much!” Lena cheered. At that moment, Skickpit came up the stairs with two tankards. Pistil grabbed hers, while Lena gave him a polite smile before taking hers. As the two duergar lifted their tankards to their lips, Lena stopped them. “Hold on! I nearly forgot!” She pulled a flask from her carry-all. “A little something-something to help get the ol’ brain working!” She winked as she poured a small quantity into each tankard. Magmar and Pistil looked at her suspiciously.

“Do you question the motives of one of my direct reports?” Minthara asked.

The duergar blinked and watched mutely as Lena lifted her tankard to tap against both of theirs. “Cheers!” and she downed the ale.

Hesitantly, both duergar drank their from their tankards. “This tastes funny,” Pistil remarked.

“Well, seeing as you’ve been real assholes to that gnome, I wouldn’t be surprised if he pissed in it,” Lena replied sweetly. Then her smile and tone turned sinister. “Though I’m pretty sure it’s the wyvern toxin I added and not piss you're tasting.”

Magmar’s eyes bulged and he grabbed at his neck as his throat closed up. Pistil watched in dismay as he slowly toppled over, then rolled down the stairs. Then Pistil clutched at her own neck and she fell over. “How?” she mouthed before her eyes went glassy.

“Holy shit!” Skickpit exclaimed. “You poisoned them!” He looked up at Lena. “I saw you add that stuff to your own tankard!”

Lena shrugged. “Eh, I’ve built up a tolerance. I used to pass out from the stuff, but now I barely get a buzz. Do yourself a favor and find a place to hide. We’re freeing all the slaves in this dump.” Skickpit stood there, gawking at her. Lena gawked back then started at him. “Shoo!” She watched him scurry into the shadows.

“Are you the reason why all my poisons have been going missing?” Minthara asked, frowning.

Lena looked back at Minthara. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t make them so damn tasty.”

Chapter Text

Minthara seethed about Lena's recreational use of poisons. She stomped over to a duergar with several spiderlings and began shouting at him while Lena walked over to a pair of duergar she noticed shoving gnome corpses into the water. Karlach seemed torn about who to accompany until Wyll followed Minthara as she lay into the duergar about how poorly he cared for the spiderlings. Halsin and Lae’zel followed them, while the rest drifted after Lena.

“Hey, what happened here?” Lena asked of the two duergar.

The two looked up; one pair of eyes sharp while the other pair were glazed-over. “Just disposing of dead deep gnomes. Can’t have ‘em stinking up the place,” the sharp-eyed duergar replied.

Lena looked down at the bodies. “Lots of blunt-force trauma,” she commented to Edie, who had walked over to stand beside her.

“Result of the cave-in,” the first duergar said, shaking his head. “Them gnomes are shit workers for letting it happen.”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Ugh, victim-blaming. What bullshit.”

Lena nodded. “I whole-heartedly agree.” The two shifters looked back at the duergar with predatory gazes.

“Oy, what’s this about?” the first duergar asked, backing away. The second duegar just stared blankly.

The two shifters launched themselves at the dwarfs, grabbing them by the collars of their armor and flinging them into the water where they sank with a gurgle of bubbles.

Lena shook her head and dusted off her hands. “Honestly!” she scoffed. “Complaining about how slaves died doing forced labor while dying on the job themselves.”

Edie nodded. “I agree. This is utterly hypocritical and unprofessional.” She sniffed the air. “You smell ozone?”

Astarion joined them and watched as Lena audibly sniffed the air. “Weirdos,” he commented.

They both looked at him. “It works,” Edie replied. She pointed at one of the bodies. “That one’s got something on her.”

Gale and Shadowheart arrived as Edie pulled out a gold ring with a starburst design. They both looked at Edie and Lena with distaste. “Shouldn’t we do more for them than loot their bodies?” Shadowheart asked.

Lena shrugged. “They’re dead. It’s not like they can object.”

“Actually, there is a way with a spell to speak to the dead,” Astarion mentioned. “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua,” he said, and a green glow emanated from both his eyes and from the eyes of the corpse as it levitated off the stone floor.

Edie’s eyes bulged as she gawked at the to floating corpse. “Fuuuck.”

Lena looked annoyed. “Goddamn it! That healer bitch we murdered could’ve identified us after death!”

“Not quite,” Gale interceded. “The corpse couldn’t have been reanimated after Edie set it on fire. You see, the corpse’s mouth needs to remain relatively intact in addition to its spirit remaining close-by for the spell to work. Also, the individual cannot have died due to injuries such as burns, electrocution, acid splash—”

Astarion rolled his eyes, which was rather off-putting because they were glowing green at the moment. “Just ask a damn question!” he snapped.

Gale blinked. “Oh, right." He cleared his throat and addressed the corpse. "What was your name?”

The corpse remained silent. It didn't seem to have anything to say. Astarion stopped concentrating on the spell and it floated back down. “It seems her soul has already gone. And I doubt that any of the others hung about.”

Lena spread her arms out and stared at Gale and Shadowheart. “Well, if they’re not here in any real form to object, why not use what they can’t take with them?”

Gale dropped his face into his hands. Shadowheart crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “It’s still highly disrespectful. We can at least say a prayer for them that their souls went to their gods.”

Lena raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. “Would’ve been better if their gods managed to help them before they got enslaved.”

Gale pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “That’s not how the gods work.” he groaned. “They are prevented by Ao himself from interfering directly in the lives of mortals!”

“Bullshit!” Lena said. “Mystra literally fucked you and then fucked you over, and Shadowheart’s got that weird scar on her hand that Shar gave her that causes her extreme pain without rhyme or reason! If that’s not direct interference, I don’t know what is! Whatever rules Ao put in place were neither clearly written in unambiguous language or enforced consistently! If I had my way, neither of you would have anything to do with your godesses! Even if you and Shadowheart never cast a spell again, I'd prefer that over either of you getting hurt!”

Edie snorted. Lena glanced in her direction. “What’s so funny?”

Edie stifled a giggle. “You’re pretty much the poster child of agnostic ignorance, and here you are arguing with two people who’ve had direct contact with the divine over what is or isn’t appropriate intervention. Though I’m with you on both counts.” She looked at Gale and Shadowheart. “What you two have put up with from your respective goddesses is complete and utter bullshit.”

Astarion shook his head, seething quietly. “I prayed to any and all the gods for two hundred years, and not one of them did a damn thing. As far as I’m concerned none of them are worthy of worship, and these gnomes are better off without them.” He stared at the dead bodies. Edie stood close to him, tentatively putting a hand on his shoulder. He startled and turned to look at her, then calmed down with a sigh.

Gale opened his mouth to speak, but Lena stopped him with a hand and a curt shake of her head. “No, babe. Not the time. Though if you or Shadowheart want to say a prayer for them to make yourselves feel better, go on ahead. Personally, I think the best way to honor them is to save the rest of the gnomes and murder the slavers.”

“Speaking of gnomes,” Edie interrupted, “I say we load these up on their spare boat, set it alight, and let it drift on the current like the Vikings did.”

Lena shook her head. “There’s no evidence that the Vikings did anything of the sort, especially since the timber needed to fully incinerate even a single body would’ve probably sunk the boat on the water, and the few written accounts of these funerals were that the highest-ranked individuals were buried in their boats on land. Most of the rest were either buried or burned on a pyre with the typical assortment of grave goods you'd find in a lot of societies of that age.”

Edie glared at her. “Why do you have to rain on my parade?”

“Because I can’t think it’s an especially great way to honor the dead by having their barely-crispy corpses bobbing on the water,” Lena replied. “Also, I know you, and you just want an excuse to burn stuff.”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Fine, I admit I want to burn something. Or blow something up. Can we blow them up like how Oregon blew up that dead whale they couldn’t bury? I’ve got three barrels of black gunpowder on me.”

“Smokepowder,” Astarion corrected. “I say, let’s. Deep gnomes are known for their predilection for explosives. We can put them behind that massive metal door and send them off to their gods as a fine mist.” He pointed at a pair of massive metal doors.

Edie grinned and started bouncing on the balls of her feet. Lena sighed. “I can’t say no to seeing you so happy.”

“This is so very wrong,” Shadowheart said, looking aghast.

“Would you prefer if we just let them decompose out in the open as-is, or dump them into the water after the duergar?” Edie asked. “Explosion means that they decompose a lot quicker.”

“They do seem to be getting a bit whiffy …” she hemmed.

“Oh good, Astarion’s got the door unlocked!” Lena called out. “Let’s start!”

Edie and Lena both grabbed two gnomes each, while Shadowheart grabbed one. Astarion and Gale carried one between them. As Edie walked through the doors into a partially-flooded chamber with what appeared to be a stone dining table, she sniffed the air. “I smell explosives, but it’s not black gunpowder. This smells more potent.”

Lena shook her head. “You and your cat senses." She spotted a grate where the stagnant water ran into an adjoining room. "There looks to be a smaller room to the side. Let’s put the bodies there.” She walked out, then picked the lock on an adjacent door and walked in, followed by the rest.

Edie put the bodies she carried down and started sniffing. “It’s stronger here,” she said, pointing to a small niche in the wall. Lena put her burden down and started digging the hole out until they could pass through into a partially flooded chamber. “There,” Edie said. She opened a small chest on some dry rubble and grinned, carefully lifting out two tiny burlap sacks to her chest. “Smokeless gunpowder.” She inhaled deeply. “The smell of home!”

“Think anyone’s got firearms here?” Lena asked.

“If they don’t, we can find whoever made this stuff and see if we can’t pull up schematics of some sort and finally have ourselves a ‘civilized’ war,” Edie grinned.

“Or we can can use it to go fishing,” Lena said.

Edie gave an outraged gasp. “Never! The right way to go fishing is to dive in as a cat and grab one with your teeth!”

Lena's brows creased. “That sounds like something leopards or jaguars would do, not tigers, and definitely not lions.”

“Tigers do dive for fish. My mom taught me how.”

“A little help?” Gale asked, trying to back into the hole Lena had dug into the wall.

Lena jogged over and helped Gale navigate the rubble. He and Astarion were panting from carrying the gnome corpse between them. After the two men set the corpse down, they sat down hard on a dry spot. Shadowheart came in with a corpse cradled like a child in her arms.

Lena pulled out her phone and took a photo. “Look! Pieta!” she said to Edie.

Edie shook her head. “That’s so sacrilegious.”

“But I think it’s more meaningful because Shadowheart never knew the gnome and she's treating the body very respectfully, despite the souls being gone.”

Shadowheart looked at Lena at the mention of her name. “Oh, what now?” she complained.

“Nothing,” Edie and Lena said in unison.

“Why don’t you two take a rest outside while we three move the remaining corpses?” Lena offered Astarion and Gale. Both groaned in relief and started making their way through the hole.

The three women managed to load all the gnomes into the tiny chamber, and Edie carefully set the two barrels of black gunpowder among the corpses. Then she took a rope soaked in firewine and coated in oil and fed it into a bunghole, then poured firewine over it all.

“Ready?” Lena asked.

Edie climbed out. “Ready.” She let the rope trail until they were in the dining room. “Light?” she asked of Astarion.

Astarion grinned. “Certainly. Ignis.” He watched as flame slowly licked along the rope and his expression fell. “Ugh, this will take forever.”

“You’re welcome to stick you head into the hole and ignite it directly,” Shadowheart suggested with a sly grin. Astarion stuck his tongue out at her.

“While we’re waiting, it looks as though we’re in a Sharran feast hall,” Gale commented. “We can look around and—”

The boom echoed into the dining chamber, rattling dishes and goblets on the table. A plume of sulphurous water mixed with smoke and dust blew in from the grate, along with the smell of charred hair and meat, sprayed Gale's lower half.

“—investigate.” Gale's shoulders sagged as he looked down at the mess covering his robes and boots.

Lena sniffed. "Oof! That stinks!” She cast a cleaning spell on his ass.

"Mystra's mantle!" he shouted as the cold seeped into his crotch.

"HAH!” Lena yelled. "Let's see how you like it!”

Gale swatted his behind and he cast his own spells to clean the worst of it off. "Yes, you've made your point! I promise to stop casting cleaning cantrips while you're still wearing said clothes!”

Edie raised an eyebrow. "Is this a kink thing between you two?”

Lena coughed. “Hey look!” she said, changing the subject and pointing at the dinnerware on the table. There were some bones from what was a roasted rothe, as well as evidence of grapes. “The silverware is actually silver!”

“Of course,” Shadowheart said. “This would have been for the Nightfall Feast. It’s an incredibly important rite. Sharrans would never use something as common as tin or iron for such an occasion.”

“And then the Sharrans sacrifice an innocent in Shar’s name,” Gale muttered.

“Yes …” Shadowheart said, her voice trailing off in thought.

Lena and Edie looked at each other. Edie shook her head. “I don't know what an "innocent" means in that context, but the more I learn, the more I think that Shar’s as bad as the Absolute,” she said under her breath. Lena could only nod.

Lena pulled out a spare carry-all, then she, Astarion, and Edie loaded filthy silverwear into it. Gale and Shadowheart looked on with faint disgust at the grime going into the bag. “At least scrape it off,” Gale implored.

“Why?” Lena asked. “This is an extra bawbag. Plus, I can do this.” She pulled a carafe of water out of her carry-all and poured it directly into the carry-all with the silverware. She shook it a few times then dumped out the now-filthy water onto the rubble under the table.

Gale cringed. Shadowheart looked unimpressed. She leaned toward Gale. “You understand you have choices, right?” she whispered.

Lena looked offended. “Hey! I heard that!”

“It doesn’t make it any less true,” Shadowheart retorted.

Karlach rushed into the room, covered in blood, though she appeared to be uninjured. “What the fuck just happened?” Karlach asked breathlessly, noticing that everyone appeared to be whole.

“Is everyone else coming, or is it just you?” Lena asked. “I don’t feel like repeating myself.”

Karlach looked through the doorway. “They’re coming, though Minthara looks to be taking her sweet time.”

Lae’zel ran in, nearly bowling Karlach over in her rush. “Shadowheart! Zhak vo'n'ash duj, source of my bruises, you’re alive!” She embraced Shadowheart.

Shadowheart looked a little flustered, then eventually relaxed in Lae’zel’s arms. “I’m perfectly fine,” she said returned the embrace.

“What did these k’chakhi do?” Lae’zel demanded. “We heard the explosion while we were questioning the duergar and had to eliminate him immediately before he grew suspicious.”

Wyll came in, panting and doubled-over. “What the hells was that? I was half-expecting something horrendous to have occurred but everyone seems to be okay.”

Lena shook her head. “Still ain’t telling this twice.” She raised her eyebrows at Karlach who looked out the doorway again.

“Looks like Halsin’s trying to talk Minthara down,” Karlach called out and she leaned Wyll against her. “I think she’s peeved because she was trying to talk those spiderlings into joining us, but they scarpered away to join Lolth after the explosion, and we had to hurry to keep their duergar handler from blabbing.” She pointed to the gore on her, indicating how they kept the handler 'quiet.'

Lena nodded, then paused as a thought occurred to her. “That reminds me, I should pick up some fresh meat for Bitey, like parts off a duergar. They seem to be off their meals lately.”

“They might be getting ready to molt,” Edie suggested. “One of my labmates was always going on about how he was never sure if his pet tarantula was going to molt or going to die whenever she stopped eating.”

Halsin and Minthara arrived with Halsin continuing to calm Minthara.

“Hey Halsin!” Lena interrupted. “Can you check to see if Bitey’s sick? They’re off their food.”

Halsin glanced up at Lena and sighed. “No, I will not check your pet spider right now. Though I see that despite the explosion you have all of your body parts. Now can you explain why there was an explosion?”

“Oh, we gave some dead gnomes a send-off to their gods,” Edie offered.

The newcomers all gave Edie puzzled looks when understanding dawned on Wyll’s face. “You didn’t …” His voice trailed off.

Edie spread her arms. “We don’t have the means to completely incinerate bodies and it seemed more respectful than throwing them into the water like we’re doing with the duergar, so we loaded them into a small side chamber and sent them off in style.”

Lena pulled out her phone, tapped it a few times, then left it on a clear spot on the table. The two shifters bowed their heads for a moment of silence as a tinny bugle played ‘Taps’ from the phone’s speakers. Astarion had to cough to cover a laugh. Gale tried to bury his face in his hands. Shadowheart looked defeated. Everyone else stared uncomfortably at the two shifters.

After the bugle stopped playing, Minthara spoke. “You exploded deep gnome bodies to dispose of them?”

Lena nodded. “Astarion mentioned that deep gnomes are very fond of explosives.”

Astarion started and glared at her. “Hang on! Edie suggested it first! I only seconded the idea! You’re not pinning this on me!”

“I’m not ‘pinning this’ on anyone,” Lena shot back. “The corpses were getting a bit ripe, we didn't have the fuel for cremations, and the explosives have a similar end-result of making dead people into small bits,. I mean, on Earth with a western-style oven, a cremation takes about three to four hours for a human adult, and this only took a few seconds with two barrels of gunpowder!”

“Smokepowder,” Astarion corrected.

“Whatever,” Lena waved him away. “When you agreed and Edie got all excited about blowing something up, I can’t say no—” Lena stopped suddenly as she noticed Minthara laughing. Not a giggle or a smirk, but a deep gut-busting laugh that included honking and snorts. She ended up leaning against Halsin’s bulk as she doubled-over, tears and snot dripping down her face and she continued to laugh. Halsin sighed and pulled a clean rag from his carry-all and offer it to her as she tried to stop.

Lena picked up her phone and started recording. “I don’t recall seeing her this amused before,” she remarked.

Minthara coughed a few times, then blew her nose as she tried to compose herself. “You … you’re telling me *hic* that you blew up … deep gnome corpses?” She started to giggle and barely managed to stop. “Spraying bits and pieces of … deep gnome *snort* all over the sides of a room like a particularly bad sneeze?” She wheezed and clung to Halsin’s arm to keep from falling over.

“I’d have to look into the room to see what the chunk size is for the configuration we arranged everything in,” Edie replied. She thought for a moment. “The pressure wave and the relatively small chamber size might’ve forced some debris out the hole Lena dug to get us in there.”

Lena’s head perked up and she walked over to the neighboring chamber, followed by Astarion and Karlach. They could hear Astarion start to laugh.

“Oh gods!” Karlach shouted. “It’s like someone with bloody diarrhea aimed their arse at the wall and just let it all go! And it stinks like a slaughterhouse!” Minthara started guffawing again.

“What’s the chunk size?” Edie shouted.

“Pretty big.” Lena shouted back. “I can see some identifiable pieces, like hands and toes. I think I see part of a scalp.”

Wyll looked green and ran out the door. Edie could just hear him retching into the water. Astarion, Karlach, and Lena came back.

“That was decidedly gruesome,” Astarion said with a grin. “Let’s do it again!”

Edie shook her head. “That used up way more black powder than I would’ve liked. I’d need to load it up with some sort of shrapnel to ensure everything’s a bit less chunky.”

“Or you could load each one up into a cannon and shoot it into a brick wall, like that Mythbusters episode with the chickens,” Lena suggested. “That should pretty much pulverize a body.”

Shadowheart leaned over to Gale, who kept his face in his hands, and stage whispered, “There are other people in Faerun. Sane people.” Astarion and Minthara started laughing. Lena glared

Lae'zel nodded. "I'm sure a wizard of your caliber could find a more suitable mate."

Lena looked at Lae'zel and Shadowheart, outraged. “Goddamn it! You know I can still hear you!”

Lae'zel raised an eyebrow. “It remains true whether or not you are within earshot.” She turned to Gale. "I'm sure that many among Voss's ranks would gladly take you on as a lover. Even as physically weak and soft-hearted as you are. I could perhaps speak with Voss and see if any would be interested."

Gale lowered his hands from his face and stared, then attempted to edge away. "As tempting as you make it sound, Lae'zel, I fear I really must decline your generous offer."

Lena shot Lae'zel a smug look. "Ha!"

Gale continued. "Lena is a good person who wants nothing more than what's best for me. For all of us, really. Even if her thoughts and judgement are a chaotic mixture of barely relevant tangents and bizarre leaps of logic—"

A few people snorted and snickered. Lena interjected with an offended "Hey!"

"—I hold firm in my love and faith in her and in us." Lena melted and crossed her hands over her heart.

Shadowhearts raised an eyebrow. "And the fact that you can probably bounce a coin off her posterior has nothing to do with it?”

Gale flushed and coughed. "She can pick me up like I weigh no more than my tressym. And before Mystra, I had only ever been involved with wizards and academics, so this has been truly an eye-opener."

Chapter Text

While Astarion and Minthara continued to giggle and snort, Halsin wandered over rubble and looked at what appeared to be a bricked-up doorway. “The duergar we were questioning mentioning earlier mentioned something about a looking for a deep gnome with explosives.” He poked around the area like any bear might, and a pushed a button hidden beneath layers of mold and grime that caused the wall to slide open to a hallway.

Edie perked up and her eyes lit up. “More smokeless gunpowder?” She began making her way to the revealed doorway.

Lena shook her head in disgust. “Honestly, why bother with hidden doors if someone can poke around long enough to open it with the fucking button next to it?”

“You failed to find it,” Shadowheart pointed out.

“I was a little distracted with shiny silverware, exploding corpses, and theological discussions,” Lena said. She paused. “Do Sharrans train up architects, or do you hire outsiders that you have to kill to keep these a secret?” She then looked over at Edie, who was now standing in the doorway with her mouth hanging open, her upper lip curled, and breathing loudly. “I hope you realize you look completely batshit when you do that.”

Edie turned and gave her a smug smile. “That’s because you’re jealous of my superior cat senses.” Lena flipped Edie the bird and Edie laughed.

Wyll sighed, annoyed with the two shifters, asked Edie, “Have you got a scent?”

Edie closed her eyes and inhaled a few times through her nose and mouth. “Nope. Nothing but mildew, lost dreams, and despair.”

Halsin’s brow wrinkled. “Can you really smell lost dreams?”

“Pfft, no,” Edie snorted. “But this place is a pretty thorough wreck. Also, this hallway is ridiculously short and has two massive doors like the one into this room. Were these guys expecting a ton of foot traffic to justify these doors? Because it’s all really bad feng shui with this weird itty-bitty doorway and the massive tripping hazard.” She kicked at the lip of the doorway, which stood a good twenty centimeters off the floor.

Lena walked though the doorway and looked around. “You’re right; even if it wasn’t completely decrepit and—” she looked up at what looked like igneous rock sealing one of the doors shut, “—looking like a volcano had a wet fart in its general direction, I can see this as being the locale for a trampling accident.”

Edie clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I guess Shar doesn’t really care about the safety of her followers if she allows something like this to be built. Can’t say I respect anyone who disregards those who have mobility issues, either. Unless Shar followers never make it to the ‘old enough to need a walker’ age.” She gave the doorway lip another kick.

Shadowheart groaned. “Can we please stop disparaging my goddess for a moment and focus?”

“No,” Lae’zel interrupted. “Do continue.”

Shadowheart gave Lae’zel an incredulous look. “Really? You’re siding with them?”

“I have no love for your goddess, especially as she unduly ‘tests’ you with your scar,” Lae’zel replied, gently cupping Shadowheart’s cheek. Astarion and Minthara stopped giggling to watch the drama. "I read one of your istik books that speaks of a faithful cleric to Shar who relinquishes her memories and her kin as your religion dictates. Upon death she is left in your City of Judgement, never to be claimed by your goddess as others were by theirs. If these is even a mote of truth to this story, Shar is no more worthy of you than Vlaakith was of me.”

“But I have given so much to the Lady of Loss. I have no memories, I have no family, I recall no friends …” Shadowheart began.

Lena bared her teeth in distaste. “Sounds like a sunken-cost fallacy to me,” she remarked. “What’s the worst she can do if you leave?”

“I would be cast out,” Shadowheart said. “Hunted by my cloister-mates. I would lose my connection to her blessings and magic. Who would I even be without the Dark Lady?”

“Someone who doesn’t participate in sacrificing ‘innocents’ during a bacchanal?” Lena offered, looking around the dining room. “Honestly, you're ... well, not nice because you say some delightfully mean things, but you're a good a person. And I don't think you're suited to worshiping a nihilistic narcissist with sibling issues. Though being hunted by your former comrades sounds like a shit deal. Wasn’t there another goddess Shar claimed eternal enmity with?”

“Selune, her sister” Gale offered. “Perhaps her clergy might offer you refuge.”

“Or they might kill me on sight,” Shadowheart replied. “No, I still need time to think, and I can’t if you’re all telling me what to think and what to do.”

Edie raised a hand, “I agree. We need to leave her to come to her own decision on this.”

Shadowheart nodded to Edie. “Thank you for respecting me.”

Edie nodded back. “Of course. Religion is often a very personal and integral part of one’s self, especially if you were recruited, isolated, and brainwashed from childhood to only want what your cult leader wants and you can’t come to terms with any of it because your memories were erased.” Shadowheart glared at Edie, who only held her hands out and pointed at the doorway. “What? Look at this! I’m personally offended your goddess allows this to exist!”

---

They wound their way through the rooms opened up by the secret door until they found themselves climbing steps to a ledge that opened up to the Underdark. Edie stopped in her tracks and smiled. “More smokeless gunpowder.” Everyone stopped, learning to trust the liger’s senses.

Lena nodded, then paused. “Isn’t that term a catch-all for a whole family of firearms accelerants?”

Edie rolled her eyes. “Trust you to be pedantic about it. It’s the same as the stuff we found earlier, which seems to be a granular mix of nitroglyerine and nitrocellulose mixed with charcoal powder with a rosin binder. Based on uneven grain size from the samples, it’s likely to be a primitive mix without any stabilizers, so hit it wrong and it might explode on its own.”

Everyone except Gale and Lena backed away from Edie. Gale looked around at the rest of the party and sighed. “Our carry-alls have protection enchantments to prevent damage due to external forces. We are perfectly safe while the explosives remain within the bags.”

Edie gave him a quizzical look. “How do you know that?”

“I examined the minor enchantments when I went on my first adventure as a student at Blackstaff Academy, and made sure to read the available descriptions on their features and limitations prior to purchasing my first,” Gale replied.

Edie raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to guess you’re the sort of person who would read through a contract and all the fine print before signing, too.”

“Of course! I wouldn’t dream of signing any legally or magically binding document before reading it!” he exclaimed.

Edie grinned and Lena. “I’m so looking forward to seeing him buy electronics because he’d read all of the manuals and warranties. And then the websites …”

Lena glared at her best friend. “Goddamn it! That means I can't buy anything around him! Ever!”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Wyll said. “Can we focus on finding the escaped deep gnome? If we are to retrieve Nere’s head, we need to actually get to him behind the cave-in.”

Edie waved him off. “I bet Lena can dig her way through. She’s developed a sixth sense for tunnels after that cave-in when she helped her dad dig a den behind their house. What I want is that powder. Do you know how hard it is to make nitroglycerin in quantity without blowing off a digit?” She held up a hand with an old ragged scar across her palm. “It took a whole fucking year for me to regain feeling after these two nearly blew off!”

Karlach gave a low whistle. “That’s a hell of a scar, though it looks kinda old. How old were you when it happened?”

“Twelve,” Edie replied. “My papi had a lab setup when I was a kid because he also does demolition and he let me play there. My mom was pissed about it because she and the wolf orthopedic surgeon at the hospital were professional rivals, but my surgery and recivery did get written up as a case study, which my mom co-wrote after she punched said wolf a few times.”

Wyll looked a little green. “Can we please keep going, and perhaps with less talking?”

“Sure.” Edie led the way, following the scent trail until they reached the top of an underground peak with a large outbuilding on top. They could smell the smoke from a brazier and a cooking pot from behind another massive pair of metal double doors. They crept up to the doors quietly.

Edie gave Lena hand signals indicating she would find another entrance. Lena nodded, then motioned for Astarion to go with Edie. The two crept off while Lena quietly picked the lock on the door, then she and Shadowheart sneaked in to survey the building.

The building appeared to consist of a single room with dais and a table opposite to the door. On the dais stood a deep gnome with bluish-gray skin with her white hair tied up in a pony tail, pacing back and forth. And next to her was a metal barrel.

Shadowheart nudged Lena, pointing to a gap in the walls where Astarion and Edie crouched. Edie motioned that she would steal the barrel while Lena distracted the gnome. Lena nodded, motioned for Shadowheart to stay hidden, then stood and suddenly shouted, “HELLO THERE!”

The deep gnome startled and faced Lena, her hand suddenly covered in flame. “Hold it! I swear to Ironhand, one more step and I’ll blow us to chunks!”

Lena shrugged. “You, maybe. Me, I’d probably be alright.”

The deep gnome gawked at her. “This isn’t ordinary smokepowder! This is runepowder, smokepowder’s bigger and uglier brother.”

Lena gave the gnome a cheerful smile. “Yeah, no, that’s less of a problem than you may think. Even with the shrapnel from that barrel, I’d probably survive with a few cuts and bruises. Maybe a concussion and a few broken ribs, but my people are very hard to kill.”

The gnome reared back. “You’re shitting me. There’s no way anyone short of a devil can survive an explosion with this much runepowder.” She looked down and saw Edie hugging then giving the barrel a kiss before it disappeared into her carry-all. “WHAT THE HELLS?” the gnome shouted.

“Thanks for the smokeless powder!” Edie said. “I promise to make the Absolutists extremely dead with this. Though I’d suggest adding a stabilizing agent, like about two percent diphenylamine or calcium carbonate to prevent nitrocellulose degradation and accidental nitroglycerine explosions.”

The gnome stared at her. “How do you know any of this? This is a formula that we Ironhands only just rediscovered!”

“Well, now you know how to make it better!” Edie replied.

The gnome sagged. “We were going to use this to stand up for ourselves in Baldur’s Gate, and make those patriars take us seriously.” She sighed. “Go on, drag me to Moonrise. I’ll make you cult-nutters suffer.”

“Uh, didn’t you hear what my buddy just said?” Lena interjected. “We’re going to use this shit on Absolute cultists. We’re not Absolutists.”

The gnome looked between the two shifters suspiciously. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

“Good question,” Lena replied. “Well, we just let some other gnome who kept getting call ‘Shitstick’ by some duergar go. Though, honestly, who named the poor fucker ‘Skickpit?’ That’s just asking for trouble where everyone else speaks English.”

Shadowheart quietly cleared her throat from her spot behind a low table.

“Common,” Lena corrected herself. She could hear Astarion snort from his hiding place in the shadows behind a wall.

“Oh, and we also helped a deep gnome named Thulla at the myconid colony where we camped,” Edie added. “We gave her a poison antidote because some duergar poisoned her for stealing some boots when she escaped.”

“How do I know that you didn’t just leave Thulla to die?” the gnome asked.

“Because you’re free to go and find her,” Lena replied impatiently. She clapped her hands. “Chop-chop! You probably should get away to the colony before we start slaughtering the rest of the duegar and freeing the rest of your kin. Clan. Posse. Whatever a group of gnomes is called.”

“That’s it?” the gnome asked. “You’re just letting me go?”

Edie gawped at the deep gnome next to her, a little annoyed. “Are you going to ask questions all day? She just said for you to go!” When the gnome hesitated, Edie roared "GO!”

Astarion entered through the hole in the wall and stood next to Edie to watch the gnome panick and grab her backpack before she scampered off through the open door. "That was surprisingly fun. Though I think you might have frightened her when you roared."

"She wasn't leaving," Edie replied. "If I hadn't, she might've just followed us and kept asking if we were going to kill her when we said we weren't. I don't know about you, but I find that extremely annoying."

While escaping, the gnome accidentally bumped into Minthara. “Shit!” the gnome shouted at seeing a drow. Before Minthara could react, the gnome sprinted off.

“What if the duergar recapture her and she reveals our plans?” Wyll asked, concerned.

Minthara watched as the gnome downed a potion of invisibility and disappear. She snorted. “The duergar are dumb footed; if they failed to detect her or her cookpot in the days since the cave-in, I doubt they’ll manage to do so now.”

Lae’zel gave Wyll a grim smile. “If they should attack as one, it means, we should kill them faster, does it not?”

Wyll groaned. Karlach gave him a comforting hug. “Cheer up! It just means we’ll kill them all once instead of hunting each of them down! And if we’re lucky we might just finish before supper!”

Chapter Text

The party headed back down to the docks and made their way down from the outbuilding to the main area of the former Sharran sanctum. As they walked, a duergar standing near an extremely large pile of rubble and ruined statues spotted them and motioned for them to come over.

“Sundwellers in these parts? And a drow? Look here,” the duergar said, pointing at the blocks. “I need a fresh pair of eyes, and I don’t imagine I can get any fresher than yours.”

Minthara was about to tell the duergar off when Wyll stopped her. “A friendly welcome? A rarity in the Underdark,” he replied.

The duergar smiled. “As rare as a smile in Sschindylryn, you might say. But I’ve no skill for slaving—I prefer chisel to cane.”

Lena raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’m curious: do you approve of the use of slavery?”

The duergar shook his head and leaned in, conspiratorially. “Between us, not especially. That cave-in the trapped that True Soul? I’d have argued that it wouldn’t have happened if the Flameshade clan hired duergar labor instead of using gnome slaves. You see, deep gnomes are excellent miners and artificers, but they don’t have the instinct for structure that we duergar have. Couple that with them slavers driving them to exhaustion then you get a lot of dead gnomes and more than a few dead duergar when the gnomes inevitably make a mistake.”

“So you’re not part of the Flameshade clan?” Gale asked.

The duergar shook his head. “Nah. I was brought on by Gergerann over there,” he pointed to another duergar who appeared to be examining stone samples. “He told me to bring my wares because he didn’t think his clan had quite enough of everything for this job.”

Gergerann looked over at the mention of his name. “Oy! If you aren’t here to inspect the stonework, then stop wasting Kith’s time and get lost!” he shouted.

Minthara stared at him with a cold expressions. “Leave it to a duergar to insult their employers,” she intoned.

Gergerann returned her glare with his own. “You can’t employ us if you can’t pay us, and we’re still waiting for Twat-Soul Nere to give us our money. So unless you have the money, I don’t take orders from a drow bitch like you.”

Minthara began to stalk over when Edie gently stopped her, patting her hand gently while turning them away from the duergar. “Now, now, auntie, we can’t let your blood pressure get the better of you! Let’s get your your medication and have you relax for a bit, okay?”

Gergerann snorted at the sight. “Figures that the likes of you’d be related to a sunslut. For all your kind’s talk of ‘purity,’ none of you can ever resist fucking ‘em.”

Edie’s head swiveled until she faced backward and glared at the duergar. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, her eyes shifting to cat gold.

Wyll’s eyes bulged. Lae’zel looked slightly greener than usual. She leaned over to Shadowheart and whispered, “Did I ever mention that I dislike owls and the way their necks move unnaturally?”

Gergerann’s mouth gaped. “I, uh … how are you able to do that with your neck?”

Edie released Minthara, who now watched with a smirk as Edie herself stalked over to Gergerann. “I did warn you,” Minthara said, “that the duergar can be most unpleasant.”

“Instead of asking about my physiology,” Edie hissed at Gergerann, “I strongly suggest you consider the integrity of your own.”

Gergerann looked sideways, as though he could find a way out. Just as he was about to shout for help, Edie pounced and knocked him onto his back and straddled his chest. She grabbed his throat as though to strangle him and then released her claws, letting them dig into into muscle and cartilage before she yanked and pulled out a solid chunk of trachea in a splash of blood. Edie dropped the chunk of tissue, stood, then began cleaning the gore from her hands with a clean rag while watching air bubble out from the duergar’s open neck.

Lena had grabbed Kith and covered his mouth with her hand when she saw Edie approach Gergerann, though Kith was surprisingly pliant. She clucked her tongue and sighed. “She gets really pissy whenever anyone gets slut-shamed, especially if it involves intermarriage. Now Mr. Kip—’

“Kith,” Shadowheart corrected.

“—Kith, you don’t seem to be a completely terrible person, despite the shitty company you’ve been keeping lately, so I’m inclined to give you a second chance: Leave now, and tell your friends that slavery is not cool. And quite possibly very bad for your health. Especially if I hear you’ve done something to encourage it.” She looked up at her companions. “Am I missing anything?”

“Yes,” Lae’zel replied, “Do not alert the rest of the duergar of our activities, or risk being flayed alive.”

“Oh, right!” Lena said, cheerfully. She paused for a moment. “Just to ask, why is it none of your … species seems capable of swimming? We’ve dumped four of you into the water and all of you sank like lead weights.” She lifted her hand away from Kith’s mouth so he could answer.

“Oh! That’s because dwarves in general have incredibly dense bones,” Kith answered. “There’s not much call for us to learn to swim, seeing as subterranean waters would cause hypothermia before we so much as learn to doggie-paddle.”

Lena gave him a quizzical look. "So a bit like how hippopotamuses can't swim?"

Kith nodded his head and and turned to look at Lena. "More or less. Unlike our cousins closer to the surface, we need much denser bones to handle the weight of cave-ins, which you can imagine can get heavier with all the weight above us the deeper we dig."

Wyll’s brows rose. “You’re taking your compatriot’s death surprisingly calmly.”

Kith waved away Wyll’s concerns. “I’m only here because Gergerann said there’d be something of a mystery here—I have a hard time resisting those—otherwise even the promise of coin wouldn’t have tempted me. I personally always found Clan Flameshade to be a load of nasty, foul-tempered ignoramuses, not as though my own clan’s much better. The Underdark’s better without him, and that could probably be said for most of his kin.”

Wyll blinked. “By any chance, are you a member of the Society of Brilliance? We happened upon a hobgoblin and his mindflayer ‘friend’ at a myconid colony.”

Kith shook his head. “Nah. Normally I’d be happy to discuss esoterica with the like-minded, but I’ve found most of them to be a load of do-nothing ponces who’re all-too happy to sit on their thumbs and pay others to do the real work out in the field. And if you’re working with the wrong society member and you submit findings that runs counter to their hypotheses, you might not even get paid.”

Edie’s lip curled in disgust and Lena gave her a grin and waggled her eyebrows. “Sounds like griping I’ve heard from a certain academic …”

Kith’s eyes lit up and he addressed Edie. “Oh, a fellow intellectual! Before I flee, would you mind sharing your thoughts on this pile of rubble?”

Edie’s eyebrow shot up. “I’m still really surprised at how sanguine you that I just killed a colleague.”

Kith waved his hand, dismissing it. “As I said before, I’ve no love for Gergerann or his kin. It’s no wonder that the only people willing to hire them are those Absolutist wankers, and though some of your number seem to have that same sort of magic as them, you certainly don't act like them so I think you're alright." He looked over at a skeptical Minthara, who glared at him, then turned back to Edie. "Well, most off you are alright. So tell me, what do you see?”

Edie looked at Lena, who only shrugged, then looked around. “I focused on biochemistry and biology, though I guess I can indulge you with what I can remember from physical chemistry and geology courses: those yellow sulfur crystals suggest localized volcanic activity, which isn’t too surprising seeing as we’re surrounded by magma, but it’s weird that it’s here instead of closer to where it flows, and there’s no vent here where it would naturally deposit, like a vent opened up suddenly and sealed itself.”

Kith stroked his beard. “Curious. What about the statues? Do any of you have any thoughts?”

Edie shook her head, then looked over to Shadowheart, who spoke up. “This used to be a Sharran sanctuary,” Shadowheart offered. “It’d evidenced by the statues, though there’s a definite change in iconography from those of Shar to a male figure I don’t recognize.”

"Clearly, from the evidence of erosion, the Sharrans established themselves here first," Gale added. "The statues of Shar are in styles that I would guess were mostly popular between a thousand and five hundred years past. The newer statuary uses a neo-classical style that favors sharper and more angular lines and stylized faces that became popular in Faerun a little over one hundred years ago. You can see here," he pointed at the bottom half of a statue, "all the the folds of the drapery are extremely precise and—"

Lae'zel gave a low and impatient growl, interrupting Gale's train of thought. "Are we still planning on slaughtering the other duergar, or are you going to lecture us to death?"

Gale looked a little exasperated, so Lena stood next to him and gave him a half-hug around the waist. "I was enjoying it, though Lae'zel does have a point: I'd like to wrap up the murdering before we go and eat dinner and have a little time left over for nookie," she whispered.

Gale blushed and whispered, "Would you mind if I share my thoughts with you tonight?"

Lena's eyes lit up. "A lecture during sex? Ooo! That's—"

"NO! NO! NO!" Astarion shouted. "NOT ANOTHER WORD OUT OF EITHER OF YOU WEIRDOS!" Everyone stared at him. He cleared his throat and straightened his gear. "What?" he asked innocently.

"Thorm," Minthara interjected. "The statues are of Ketheric Thorm."

Halsin's eyebrows rose. "So now he's trying to reclaim this secret sanctuary for this Absolute instead of Shar?"

"They planned to clear this area so they could move the Absolute's forces into Baldur's Gate through the Underdark," Minthara said.

Edie snorted. “Clearly he and Shar don't give a shit about the disabled" she said, "I noticed the builders weren’t too keen on catering to anyone who might have trouble moving around,” Edie added. Shadowheart rolled her eyes. Edie ignored her. “Looking at the remaining walls, I’d say something knocked this part down based on the debris field, though not by an explosion or we’d see scorch marks in a starburst pattern. It’s more like a wrecking ball barged its way out.”

Lena peered at some of the melted rocks and then squatted down to scratch at one with a claw, chipping off a piece and looking at it closely. “Whatever it was both hot and took some time getting through because some of the stone’s melted and formed a different type of stone.” She handed the piece to Kith.

Karlach perked up. “Oh! Like a maelephant! I encountered a few of those in Avernus! Those fuckers can get plenty hot.”

Kith’s eyes widened. “Fascinating. Now that you've managed to chip off a piece, I can clearly see small particles of grains of garnet, which lemme tell you doesn't like forming in granite unless it gets extremely hot. So if I've got this right, we're looking at what was a Sharran fortress, built centuries ago and then abandoned, then claimed by a different tribe, which then was destroyed by a hellish invasion.” He pulled out a chunk of infernal metal from his carry-all. “That explains how this infernal plate got here. Maybe you’ve got a purpose for it.” He handed the piece over to Karlach.

“Oh, thanks!” Karlach said.

Kith dipped his head. “I should be leaving. If you happen to leave any survivors, I wouldn’t want them confronting me about not stopping you (not that I could seeing as it's ten against one right now, and those Flameshade bastards wouldn't bother to lift a finger to defend me), or for not warning them.” He looked at them then at Gergerann's corpse. "Not that I think you'd have any real trouble."

“I strongly suggest avoiding the myconids,” Shadowheart said. “They’re none-too-happy that they’ve been attacked by duergar, and might attack you.”

Kith sighed. “Shame, really. Always wanted to study them. My thanks for the warning. I might have to find my way to Baldur’s Gate, even if I have to put up with those Society of Brilliance sods,” Kith said. He grabbed a backpack. “Best of luck, all of you. And thank you for the insights.” He walked down to a teleportation sigil near the docks and disappeared.

“Well, that was nice!” Lena cheered.

Wyll looked over the at the dead duergar. “I still find it highly disturbing how unconcerned he was with a fellow duergar being murdered in front of him.”

She gave him a slap on the back and grinned. “I'm guessing he was a bit disgruntled working with the Flamingshits, but that's not our problem. Let’s continue the slaughter because now I'm bored!” She walked deeper into the fortress and bellowed at the nearest duergar. “HI! I'M JENNY! I WANT TO KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS ON JOB SATISFACTION AS A MERCENARY FOR THE ABSOLUTE!”

Minthara sighed and pulled out a dagger, tucking the blade against her forearm to hide it from sight. “As much as it pains me, I can’t fault Lena for her focus when she bothers.”

“We best be off, then,” Lae’zel said. “Or else the k’chakhi will claim all the kills before I can satisfy my own bloodlust.”

They looked over and watched as Lena conversed with a duergar. It soon devolved to where the duergar tried to strike Lena with a mace when Lena released her claws and she somehow shoved an entire hand into the duergar's neck and jaw. The duergar twitched as Lena lifted the corpse off the ground so that their faces were level. "All I said was that slavery is bad," she said conversationally. "And you go and attack me when I suggested that you release them! I think that's rude! Wouldn't you agree?”

She put her ear up to the duergar's mouth. "Gee, Miss Jenny,” Lena said in a squeaky voice while flapping the corpse's mouth like a sock puppet's. "I guess I overreacted to a perfectly reasonable suggestion! I'm really glad you helped me understand that!"

"Great, Miss Duergar! Good talking to you!” Lena replied cheerily, then dropped the body to the floor, then flicked her hand to get the worst of the gore off of it.

Shadowheart's eyebrows rose. "That was more demented than I expected from her."

Edie shrugged. "Can't fault her for creativity."

“Tsk’va!” Lae’zel muttered. “SAVE SOME FOR THE REST OF US!” she shouted.

“WELL HURRY THE FUCK UP!” Lena shouted back while wiping her hand with a rag, then casting a cleaning cantrip on said rag before putting it away. "THESE ‘AUDITS’ WON’T DO THEMSELVES.”

Chapter Text

Lord Adonis Winklemeyer, third baron of Codsworth

A quick description of Lord Codsworth, AKA 'Dingus'.

Lady Bettina Winklemeyer

Lady Bettina Winklemeyer, AKA 'Bitey'

Ladies Hillaria and Estella Winklemeyer

Ladies Hillaria and Estella Winklemeyer, AKA 'Hissy' and 'Big Foot'

Lady Ranunculus Winklemeyer

Lady Ranunculus Winklemeyer, AKA 'Runt'

Chapter Text

Edie and Lena were both amazed by how unaware the duergar were, in general: Shortly after Lena had used one as literal meat puppet and she’d managed to clean her hands, another duergar came upon the corpse, put his hands on his hips, and started saying, “Who would do such a thing?” Lena—looking slightly chagrined—awkwardly edged away. Edie clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing while all of their companions gave her confused looks. All the while the duergar continued to asking variations of, “How could such a thing even happen?” After a tense moment, Gale sighed and motioned for someone to act. When no one stepped forward, Gale motioned to Astarion, and they silently argued for several seconds before Astarion rolled his eyes and unsheathed a dagger. When he had stalked over to the oblivious duergar, Gale cast silence and then Astarion neatly slash the duergar’s throat to the bone.

Lena blinked. “Man, that was not what I expected.”

Astarion was cleaning his dagger on the duergar’s sleeves when he looked up. “What were you expecting?”

“That that dude,” she pointed to the latest corpse, “would accuse me of murder. Especially seeing as I was right next to the body he was getting all worked-up over.”

Astarion raised an eyebrow. “I gather you never killed anyone in crowded places.”

Lena gave him a confused look. “Uh, yeah I have. But I usually lure them away, kill them discreetly, hide the bodies before anyone else notices, and then dispose of them when I’m sure no one’s looking.”

Astarion scoffed. “It’s surprisingly simple to kill someone in full view of a crowd and walk away with none the wiser. I’m astounded that you’ve never learned it with your propensity for casual murder.”

Lena paused and frowned. “Is it really murder if it’s not really premeditated? Because I don’t always plan these things. Besides, I still don’t get why I didn’t get immediately accused of murder even though he nearly caught me red-handed. Literally.”

Edie chimed in. “I have a thought—”

“Is this going to be one of your armchair psychology things?” Lena interrupted. “Because you only took the one class …”

“Hey, I've been reading and keeping up to date! Sure, they're magazines because journals are fucking expensive, but they have useful information!” Edie said defensively.

Lena crossed her arms over her chest and gave her best friend a wry look. "I don't know ... this still stinks of Dunning-Kruger to me ..."

Edie hissed at Lena. "How dare you! I'm very aware of my limitations and biases."

"Dunning-Kruger! Dunning-Kruger! Dunning-Kruger!" Lena chanted.

"Damn it! Shut up!" Edie hissed.

"Then stop with the psychoanalysis shit!" Lena begged. "You're brilliant, but you come off looking like you have a trust fund and that you spend all day on a podcast about how the poor are poor because they don't work hard enough!"

Edie gasped. "You take that back!"

"It's true!"

The two shifters faced off with bared fangs and unleashed claws. A mildly annoyed Karlach yanked the two shifters away from each other by their scruffs before they could start. "You two are best mates! You shouldn't be ready to claw each other to bits over whatever the fuck a donner-kugel is."

"Dunning-Kruger," Edie corrected. "It's a phenomenon where confidence is inversely proportional to expertise in a subject area." Lena snorted and Edie shot her a glare before continuing. “Anyhoo, I read through a few pop-psychology magazines one of my labmates brought with her because we'd have long stretches where we needed to be on the water, and there’s this whole thing about denial and how when people encounter something wholly unexpected they mentally edit out anything sinister or suspicious. Like, ‘That man in a puddle of blood is only sleeping,’ or, ‘No, the person standing next to that corpse with a bloody knife can’t possibly be a murderer,’ because then they can lie to themselves that they’re not in immediate danger.”

Astarion pointed to Edie and nodded. “That. Exactly that. I’ve had to kill a few people in a crowd and as long as you’re quick and quiet, no one has ever felt inclined to raise a fuss that someone’s slumped over a tankard or falls over in a crowd.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose and she nodded thoughtfully. “Good to know.”

Wyll looked around at the scattering of dead duergar within view, then over to the duergar milling around or shouting at some gnomes trying to clear rubble. “I don’t think we can pull that off any longer, seeing as those ones near the cave-in are closer together and far more likely to raise a hue and cry at seeing one of their number dead.” They looked over at the dozen or so duergar, arguing, milling about, or whipping gnomes near a flowing river of magma.

Minthara smirked. “Don’t be so sure. These are duergar we are dealing with.” She indicated that Karlach and Lae’zel follow her. “Watch and learn, young man.” She strode out toward the cave-in and called out, “You there!”

Several duergar heads looked toward Minthara. She pointed to the nearest duergar who wore what looked like a wrestler’s mask, but furry and with fangs pointing out from where the mouth should be like an orthodontist's nightmare. He startled then pointed to himself incredulously.

Minthara heaved a sigh of exasperation. “Yes, you! I want to speak with you. Now!”

The wrestler duergar trudged over as the other duergar watched. “Did I say that the rest of you were allowed to gawk?” Minthara barked. “Get back to work!” The remaining duergar retreated, while wrestler duergar continued to slowly make his way over. “Step lively!” Minthara ordered. “I can ensure you don’t get paid if you continue to dawdle.” Wrestler duergar grunted and started to trot, following Minthara as she led him back to the rest of the party.

“What’s you wanted to talk to me about?” wrestler duergar grumbled. Gale cast hold on him, and then suddenly wrestler duergar became a pincushion as five different weapons disappeared into his bare chest and neck. As the weapons withdrew, he fell down with a smack onto the stone floor.

Minthara gave Wyll a smug look. “Well?”

Wyll had been too stunned to do much more than look on. He turned to Minthara. “I stand corrected on my previous statement.”

Minthara nodded. “Good. I suggest that you participate should any one of us miss our mark. We still have several more to go.”

---

After a quick looting (Lena put on the mask and cheered, “Look, I’m a luchador!” before quickly gagging and ripping it off, complaining that it smelled like stale beer, halitosis, and unwashed jock straps), Edie hauled the body over to a cliff and threw over the edge. It rolled down an embankment then up against what looked like a chest. Then eyes and teeth and a massive purple tongue appeared, and the 'chest' swallowed the corpse whole.

Edie stood at the edge of the cliff, mouth gaping, staring at the now-innocuous–looking chest when Halsin approached her. "What troubles you?" he asked.

Edie pointed at the chest. "It slurped that body up like a pelican eating a pigeon."

Halsin squinted. "Ah, probably a mimic. It takes the shape of everyday objects so that the unwary approach it and then consumes its victims. As long as you don't get too close you needn't worry."

Astarion walked up, followed by Gale and Lena. "Why aren't you getting ready for our next duergar?"

"Our ever-astute Edie discovered a mimic," Halsin replied.

Astarion raised an eyebrow at the 'our' in Halsin's statement while Lena asked, "What's that?"

"An ambush predator that takes on the form of everyday inanimate objects," Gale explained. "They prefer dark and infrequently-trafficked places, such as underground ruins and dungeons, and often take the shape of wooden chests to entice treasure-seekers."

"The damn thing grew eyes and a mouth and engulfed a dead duergar," Edie mumbled, still in shock.

"Huh," Lena replied, looking around. She spotted another corpse nearby, picked it up, then tossed the corpse toward the mimic. It didn't react this time. "Must be full," Lena commented before she started making her way down the embankment.

Gale cleared his throat. Lena looked back up at him. "My love," he began, "I thought we recently converged on an agreement that you reveal your thoughts before you do something reckless."

Halsin snorted. "I would imagine she'd need to provide a running commentary."

Lena flipped Halsin the bird while she answered Gale. "Oh, right. I'm just going to stab the thing and see where it gets me."

"I wouldn't bother with those tiny knives you favor," Astarion remarked. "Those things can swallow you like that." He snapped his fingers.

Edie shook herself. "Lena, remember that one time I sent you a video on gulper eels?"

Lena's eyebrows creased in thought. "Gulper eels, gulper eels, gulper eels ... Oh! Deep-sea eels that can swallow prey like ten-times its size? So it looks like it's heavily-pregnant after each meal?"

Edie nodded. "That's it. You're better-off attacking this thing from a distance."

Lae'zel approached. "What's causing delays in our plans?"

"Edie discovered a mimic and Lena is readying to attack it," Halsin explained.

Lae'zel rolled her eyes and pulled out her crossbow to shoot the chest. The mimic opened its eyes and mouth and roared. They all watched as it tried to hop over to Lena, leaving a behind a trail of drool. Lena pulled something out of her carry-all though no one could see what it was. She launched the invisible weapon and then a spear appeared to stick out of the mimic's eye. When it roared, Lena made a running jump, grabbing hold of the spear to push it deep into the mimic until the blade scraped the stone below. It gave a muffled scream as the spear pinned its mouth closed and then went limp.

Gale flushed at seeing Lena dispatch the mimic. Astarion looked over at him while mild disgust. "I don't want to hear you say anything for the next—” he looked down toward Gales's crotch, "—ten minutes."

Halsin looked impressed. Lae'zel gave a tiny grunt of approval and Edie nodded. "Nice. Though where did that spear come from?"

Lena—still holding onto the spear but now standing on the dead mimic—grinned. "Stole it from some sort of quartermaster while we were in the creche."

Gale looked confused. "I don't recall you ever leaving our party."

"Because I'm just that good," she replied smugly before she gave the spear a yank to dislodge it. The mimic deflated suddenly and she lost her balance and fell over with an "Ooof." Astarion and Edie snorted a laugh and Lae'zel let out a chk. The mimic's flopped open and disgorged the now goo-covered wrestler duergar, along with a number of bone fragments and a few shiny bits and bobs that failed to dissolve in its digestive tract. Everyone shied away and made noises of disgust when the smell hit them.

"Oh, that's fucking awful!" Edie exclaimed, trying to wave the odor away.

Lena wrinkled her nose, but noticing the shiny bits she crawled over to rancid loot, then used her claws to gingerly pick up a silver necklace and drop it into the carry-all with all the filthy silverwear.

"Gross! Are you sure that's stuff's safe to touch that?" Edie called out.

"Not really," Lena answered. "But loot's loot, and my ma always said you don't leave anything pawnable behind."

---

While waiting between victims, Edie gave Lena a nudge with her elbow and said in a low voice, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask about that perky Human Resources shtick you had going earlier.”

“Yes, I do, too,” Gale chimed in. “That was so wholly out of character from what I’ve seen of you thus far.”

Lena looked a little nonplussed. “Oh, what about it?”

“Did you pull it straight out of ‘Office Space’ with the receptionist character?” Edie asked. “Or did you have actual interactions with HR like that?”

Lena thought for a moment. “Little bit of A, little bit of B. I’m a little surprised you never had to deal with that while you were complaining about the paperwork for you advanced degrees.”

Everyone winced or shuddered. Shadowheart grimaced. “Ugh, that saccharine voice? And the endless false cheeriness? Who can stand such people?”

Lena rocked her head from side to side. “Earlier in my career, a few might’ve ‘disappeared.' Though in my defense, they were all involved in some crazy shit, and I didn't kill all of them. Like, one of them was involved in enslaving nannies, and disappeared not long after one of the 'nannies' apparently killed the adults and disappeared. Though I did end up killing this one racist shitbag who had a side-gig of setting up 'hunts' with kidnapped homeless people for the ultra-wealthy. But too many dead or missing full humans in one place and you hear the words ‘serial killer’ being thrown around the office. Then the next thing you know you’re being questioned by a cranky wolf shifter from the Group telling you to keep it under wraps or get put down, especially if said wolf had been collecting evidence to take down a slavery operation and you just wiped out a whole branch of the network and she doesn't want to do the paperwork for it. So now I just mirror these chirpy assholes: most of them get really annoyed and offended, and some of them just can’t tell if I’m being sincere or mocking them so they lose their shit and it’s like the greatest thing to watch.”

Gale massaged his temples. “Please, please, please, never attempt that with me in earshot again. It’s like your attempts at ‘winsome’ and instead hitting ‘deranged.’”

“When isn’t she?” Astarion asked.

“Hey!” Lena objected, a little too loudly.

“Keep quiet!” Halsin hissed. “We’re still waiting for the next duergar to approach.”

Edie narrowed her eyes, then tilted her head slightly to the side. Everyone else watched as she listened to Minthara attempting to order one of the last four duergar to accompany her. But one of the remaining duergar had gotten suspicious and the others raised their guard. “Sounds like she’s hitting resistance.” She suddenly shifted, shaking her gear off as she ran toward Karlach, Lae’zel, and Minthara.

Wyll sighed as he started to run. “I suppose it was too much to ask for our luck to hold.”

Lena picked up Gale in a bridal carry and started to run. “Put me down!” he said.

“Nope! You can’t cast if you’re out of breath,” she puffed out.

They suddenly heard a roar not too far off, followed by screaming, and Lena could hear footsteps and metal clashing against metal. When they finally reached the cave-in, they were met with a battle: One of the duergar had claw marks raked across the back of her head and neck and was attempting to crawl away from a shifted Edie as she pounced, crushing the duergar’s chest; Karlach nearly dropped her ax as she staggered from pain, blood oozed from her nose while a duergar in a metal half-mask grinned maniacally and started casting another spell; Lae’zel battled against an invisible enemy that appeared briefly when a barbed crop struck her; Minthara had cast misty step behind a duerger, but missed when she attempted to strike the duergar. The duergar then blew Minthara back with a thunderwave. The gnomes had huddled up against the walls near the cave-in to escape the fighting, though two in particular threw rocks at the duergar they could see.

Lena put Gale down and threw three knives in quick succession at Karlach’s sadistic duergar. Two of blades had managed to embed themselves into the duergar’s upper arm, causing her to lose her focus. Karlach shook her head clear and raised her ax before cleaving her attacker’s head.

Gale slipped the phase spider goggles over his eyes and cast flying red lights from a magic missile spell at Lae’zel’s assailant, immediately dispelling the duergar’s invisibility. Lae’zel took the opportunity to lunge at the now-visible duergar, who managed to side-step the injured gith’s attack only to find himself tossed into the river of magma by an eldritch blast of green light from Wyll. Shadowheart moved in to cast a healing spell, closing up most of Lae’zel’s open wounds.

Halsin cast a spell that caused vines to shoot up and grasp Minthara’s assailant before an arrow from Astarion’s bow lodged itself in the duergar’s eye. While the duergar twitched, Minthara smashed the duergar’s face in, causing the twitching to stop.

When the fighting stopped, one of the gnomes frantically dug at the rubble of the cave-in. “Please let my Beldron still be alive!” he cried.

Lena, trying to catch her breath, looked over at the gnome and held up a finger. “Gimme a minute.” She hunched over with her hands on her knees and took a few deep breaths. Then she started picking her way to the top of the rubble and dug through the top layers before she disappeared from view. The other gnomes slowly wandered closer and stared at the hole, when there was a sudden shriek and a handful of panicked gnomes crawled through the opening Lena had made.

"There's a mad human in there!" one of the escaped gnomes shouted. "I think she's rabid!"

"Though it seems like it, she's really not," Shadowheart replied. "You'll notice that she can drink fluids just fine."

After a few moments Lena popped out of the hole. She held the head of a male drow by its hair with a surprisingly neat neck stump. “Boy, that was not the nicest-smelling room! I’m glad the rest of you little guys made it out,” she said as she picked her way back down.

Edie shifted back to human and stood at the bottom of the rubble with her hands on her hips. She looked at the head approvingly. “Nicely done. Very neat.”

Lena grinned. “Thanks! I’ve been practicing!”

Minthara harrumphed when she saw the head. “I’m disappointed. I had thought Nere was slightly more competent than the average drow male, and yet he clearly demonstrates why males should avoid positions of authority.”

Lena rolled her eyes. “Oh, again with the sexism! I’ll give him some slack because he was gagging and coughing from sort of gas coming out of the grates.” Then she raised the head to look at its face with its gaping mouth and glazed eyes. “Though he didn’t strike me as the sharpest knife in the corpse.”

The gnome that had been digging at the rubble stopped and embraced one of the freshly released gnomes. “Beldron! You’re alive!”

Beldron looked a little abashed as he tried to calm down the other gnome. “It’ll take more than a little cave-in to keep me from you, Lunkbug,” he said.

Lunkbug began fussing over Beldron, while the other gnomes cried and embraced the cave-in survivors.

Another gnome with a bald head squinted at Shadowheart before his eyes grew wide. “I remember you. You helped me to that druid’s grove when I was nearly dead from thirst after those pestilent goblin thugs tied me to that windmill.”

Shadowheart gave a start. “Yes, I remember. Barcus, wasn’t it? Did you ever find your friend?”

The gnome shook his head. “It seemed I was too late; by the time I got here, the cultists had already dragged Wulbren and a number of others to Moonrise Tower for ‘questioning.’” He shuddered. “I see little choice but to follow if I ever want to see my friend again.”

Beldron chimed in. “He’s mixed up in something that those Absolutists want in on.”

“You mean the stuff you guys call ‘runepowder?’” Edie chimed in. “Oh yeah, we already stole that off of another gnome, and told her to scoot over to the myconid colony.”

Beldron and Barcus did a double-take, finally taking notice of what appeared to be a statuesque naked human female and gawked. Lunkbug had to elbow Beldron, while Astarion cleared his throat and offered her a plain linen shirt. Edie looked down at herself. “Oh. Right. It’s pretty toasty down here so I didn’t notice a draft.” She pulled the shirt over herself. “If you want, I can find you a more stable formulation so that it’s less of a hazard.”

Now all the gnomes stared at her. Beldron’s mouth gaped. “You mean to tell me that you, a human, knew the recipe for runepowder?”

Edie nodded. “Except I know it as ‘smokeless gunpowder.’ The tricky part, as you probably already know, is making significant quantities of the nitroglycerine without losing a hand or your face. I’d already suggested to the gnome guarding the barrel that adding diphenylamine would help stabilize it.” She paused for a moment. “Though I remember one recipe uses camphor as the stabilizing agent, though it evaporates off rather quick—”

Beldron groaned. “Wulbren had us all worked up about this secret Ironhand recipe, dragging us down into this forsaken ruin, getting us all captured by cultists, and a full human has it in her head the entire time! Don’t let this recipe reach Absolute, I beg of you!”

“I can’t imagine it’d be all that easy for them,” Lena added. “From what I’ve heard, none of you have really managed mass production, so they’re in for a LOT of casualties if they try to ramp up production.”

“And the Absolute has all the cultists they could ask for to do just that!” Beldron snapped. “Someone will have to get him out.” He sighed, looking at Lunkbug’s bruises and then at his own swollen and scarred hands. “Just not us. We’re dead on our feet as it is.

Barcus ran a hand over his face. “I have to save him. But I’m not cut out for adventuring. I’ve been captured twice now by the Absolute, and I doubt that I’ll evade them at Moonrise.”

Shadowheart scrunched up her face as though wrestling with herself before she burst out in a rush, “Barcus, you should travel with us to Moonrise.”

Astarion, Lae’zel, and Minthara shot her a poisonous look. Lena shrugged. Most of the rest nodded that this seemed like the wisest course. Edie clapped her hands and squealed. “Oh boy! Are you familiar with making explosives and accelerants? Because if you do, we’re going to have so much fun together!”

Barcus coughed. “I suppose I must put aside my pride if I want to save Wulbren.” Then he addressed Edie. “I gather you’re an explosives enthusiast?”

Edie nodded eagerly. “I’ve got the scars to prove it!” She pointed at various burns on her arms and the scars on her hands from where she nearly lost fingers. Barcus leaned forward to look where she pointed when he heard a low growl emanating from Astarion as he stared daggers at Barcus.

Barcus stopped and blinked, then started to edge away from Astarion and Edie toward the relative safety of Shadowheart. He cleared his throat. “Well then, I suppose we should get going. Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

The party used the teleportation sigils to return to the myconid’s grotto, now accompanied by Barcus. He watched as two wolves, a shaggy white dog, and an owlbear cub played keep-away with what appeared to be a crude leather ball. Then he looked at Withers, standing at the periphery and writing in a massive tome he always had with him. Barcus coughed. “This is a, um, cozy setup.”

“Welcome to our humble campsite!” Karlach announced, and gave Barcus a pat on the shoulder that caused him to stumble.

Minthara smirked then looked toward Gale. “Finally, someone of an age who is weaker than you, wizard.”

Gale stopped in his tracks and his expression dampened. “That was uncalled for.”

“Yes,” Shadowheart agreed. “We have a guest who will travel with us. There’s no need to insult the poor gnome.”

Astarion coughed to cover up a laugh. Lena gave him a few quick slaps on the back as if helping to clear his lungs, nearly knocking him over. “I don’t know what sort of diseases vampires can get, but you might want to get that checked out. We can’t have you dying from some sort of vampire tuberculosis or else ma and ba will give me shit about letting you die.”

A few party members snorted and giggled, while Astarion glared at Lena. “You know, I’m not sure I want to be part of your family.”

Lena gave him a wide sunny grin. “Oh no, it’s not about what you or I want anymore; Ma chose you. You’re my brother now, and will be to the end of time!” She pulled him into a headlock and started giving him a noogie. He thrashed, cursing and slapping ineffectually at Lena in an attempt to escape, while Lena shouted, “I CAN’T HEAR YOU! WHAT DID YOU WANT? YOU WANTED MORE NOOGIES?”

Other members of the party snickered or giggled, with the exception of Halsin, who chuffed irritably. He reached over pulled Lena away by her scruff. “That’s enough, children,” he said and gave her a little shake. “We have a guest.”

Astarion stood and glared at Lena. “If I have another bald spot thanks to you, I’m going to shave your head the next time you pass out from drinking one of your poison-laced wines.”

Lena paused for a moment. “Even though I bet I would look great bald, I kinda like having hair: keeps my head insulated. And if my head gets too hot or cold I might not be able to share with you Chuck Tingle’s latest when it’s my turn to feed you.”

Astarion gasped. “You wouldn’t dare deprive me of his genius!”

Lena pulled out her phone. “Bisexual Mothman Mailman Makes A Special Delivery In Our Butts,” she read. “Drop the threat of shaving me bald and I’ll read it to you tomorrow.”

Astarion looked conflicted for a moment before shouting, “FINE!”

He started to head back to his tent when Lena called back, “Just remember, you’re still my favorite adopted brother!” He turned his head and gave her a dark look while she smiled and waved. He flipped her the bird and stomped over to his tent.

“I’m afraid I must change before I start our supper,” Gale said. He bussed Lena on the cheek. “Perhaps you should avoid doing anything that might enrage others tonight.”

Just as he turned away, she caught him by the back of his head and gave him a long kiss that caught him off guard. It lasted for an uncomfortably long time and a few of the others excused themselves to go to their tents, while Karlach watched with a bemused expression, Shadowheart sighed with exasperation, and Wyll crossed his arms tapped his foot. Barcus wasn’t sure what to do so he tried looking up at the cavernous ceiling above them. Finally, Lena let go of a breathless and flushed Gale and said, “I could try, but we know I won’t.”

Gale nodded. “I thought it best to at least ask.”

Then she drew his ear to her mouth and whispered, "I still want to hear your thoughts on the faerzress tonight."

He looked at her face with her sultry expression and swallowed hard. "I look forward to educating my lady." He looked tempted to kiss her again, but thought better of it. He turned to their shared tent to change, though now his stride was a bit stiff and awkward. Lena watched him leave with an appreciative grin.

Just then, the lumpy ball that the camp animals were playing with landed near Barcus and he found himself bowled over as the owlbear cub brushed past him.

“Careful, there,” Shadowheart said as she helped him up. “The animals aren’t normally this rambunctious. I think they might have accidentally inhaled some timmask spores.”

“My thanks,” he replied, brushing himself off. He looked at Shadowheart. “I gather this is typical?”

With her arms cross over her chest, she shrugged. “Sadly, yes.” Then Scratch approached her with a smaller ball, wagging his tail. She immediately forgot about Barcus and crouched down to start ruffling the dog’s muzzle and cheeks. “Oh! Is this for me! Do you want to play fetch?” she cooed at Scratch. He danced from side to side, then sprinted as soon as the ball left Shadowheart’s hand and she soon left Barcus to his own devices to play with the dog, soon to be joined by the wolves and the owlbear.

Wyll approached Barcus. “My apologies. I’m afraid we can’t be better hosts because, well …” He paused and looked around the camp: Lae’zel had finished changing and resumed grinding her sword into a paring knife; Shadowheart was now cuddled with the camp animals in a puddle; most of the rest had gone off to change into camp clothes. "Karlach and I need to attend to a final task before we leave for the Shadow Cursed Lands." Wyll turned to Lena. “Could you hand me Nere’s head so I can give it to Sovereign Spaw?”

“Oh, right!” She reached into her carry-all and handed the slightly-wilted head to him.

Wyll nodded. “My thanks.” Then he and Karlach went off deeper into the grotto.

Barcus blinked at the exchange. “This certainly is a dramatic change from what I’m used to,” he said lamely.

Lena grinned. “At least you can’t say we’re boring.” Then she paused as if remembering something. “I need to figure out why Bitey’s off their food.” she reached into her carry-all again and gingerly picked out a somewhat sluggish-looking phase spiderling, transferring them to her shoulder before puling out a severed duergar arm and trying to encourage them to bite. “Do you think they look sick?”

Barcus stared at the spiderling. “I, uh, really can’t say.”

Lena nodded. “Just as well. I’ll just bug Halsin and see if he has any suggestions.” She walked over to Halsin’s tent just as he emerged from changing and watched as the massive elf’s shoulder’s sagged at the sight of Lena and her spiderling.

Barcus sighed. “Maybe I would’ve been better off as a slave for the Absolute,” he muttered to himself and began setting up his tent.

---

The next day, after leaving Barcus with Withers and the animals, they set off for the elevator into the Shadow Cursed Lands after a Minthara provided them with a briefing of what to expect. Most of them lit torches, though Gale and Shadowheart had cast daylight on themselves to leave their hands free, and Minthara had the Light of Lathander glow at full blast.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, they were inundated with the smell of stale air. The darkness was palpable and alive. Everyone felt enervated, and not just from the gloom. All, except Shadowheart. She carefully approached one of the shadows, reaching out as though to touch it. “The shadows are hungry here. Doesn't seem to affect me though…” She brightened suddenly. “Do you know what this means? I must be blessed. Lady Shar is protecting me while others face her wrath. She loves me. She must do.”

Lae’zel walked next to her. “Chk. Even with the light of these spells and torches I can feel the shadows trying to snatch away my life. What does that mean for the rest of us? Are we to be damned by your mistress’s curse while you alone remain protected?”

Shadowheart looked over at Lae’zel. “Lady Shar wouldn’t bless me like this for no reason. There must be something she wants of me.”

“Let’s focus on your choice of words,” Lena interjected coming up from behind them, “‘something she wants of me.’ For a goddess that seems to thrive on her followers doing shit like sacrificing ‘innocents,’ that seems downright ominous.”

Shadowheart shook her head. “It could be as simple as my finding a place dedicated to Shar. A temple, perhaps.”

“And then what?” Lena asked. “Sacrifice one of us? I think the closest thing we have to an ‘innocent’ is Barcus. Though if she’s not picky about sentience, she might accept Scratch or Owlbert. Which do you think she’d prefer?”

“NONE OF THEM!” Shadowheart shouted, the noise deadened by the twisted trees. Then she cleared her throat and composed herself. “It needn’t be a sacrifice; she needs her followers to act as conduits for her will, and it might be a different task entirely.”

Lae’zel gently cupped Shadowheart’s cheek. “Zhak vo'n'fynh duj, source of my joy, I ask that you meditate on this before acting on Shar’s behalf. Your devotion does you no good if you regret you actions in service to your goddess. Though for now, we must push through to Moonrise.”

They continued south through land torn by deep fissures that emitted an eerie and ominous greenish glow. “What caused this?” Edie asked. “This landscape reminds me of some sort of haunted woods theme crossed with volcanic eruptions, though at least it doesn’t smells like an egg fart or rotting meat.”

“It’s said that when Ketheric Thorm died some hundred years ago,” Halsin replied, “the curse covered the land. I was among those who fought against him, but had been ordered to retreat and not a moment too soon: And I was among the lucky few who managed to escape. Most of my comrades died that day, consumed by the shadows.” He face became distant. “After the shadow curse, I became overly fond of honey mead and melancholy evenings by myself. Now I rarely imbibe—only on the most special of occasions.”

Wyll slapped Halsin on the back. “I say we put an end to your dry spell. Once Ketheric falls and we’ve dealt with the Shadow Curse, the first round's on me.”

Lena went wide-eyed, then leaned over to Edie and whispered, “I’m pretty sure that goes against prevailing thoughts on addiction.”

“Hmm,” Edie answered. “Not necessarily. My dad was a ‘functional’ alcoholic when I was younger until my mom convinced him to go to therapy for his PTSD and he started on naltrexone. He’ll still drink, but now only socially and he never gets drunk anymore. Though I don't get why he need to point out that it's 'honey mead.' I thought that 'mead' referred to any alcoholic beverage fermented from honey by definition.”

Lena nodded. "Maybe he wanted to distinguish it from anything adulterated with fruit or spices."

Gale leaned toward Lena. “Sometimes I swear you and Edie speak an entirely different language from the rest of us.”

She turned to Gale with a sweet smile. “Aw, babe, if you ever get to visit my home with me you’re going to be one talking funny.”

Gale seemed surprised. “Really? I never thought that my speech would warrant any particular notice.”

Lena shook her head. “Everything at my home is an initialism or an acronym because everyone likes giving their projects fancy important-sounding names that take too long to say out. Or because the name actually spells out an actual word and it makes the project leaders think they’re so clever for coming up with a name that acronymizes to an actual word (with double imaginary points if the word’s vague on-theme). So if you go around using everything’s long name instead of the initialism, then you’re the weirdo.”

Edie had walked to the front to lead with her superior senses. She lifted a fist for everyone to stop. “People ahead.” She tilted her head. “They’re calling themselves ‘Harpers.’ Maybe they all play the harp in a band.”

Minthara snorted. “Harpers. They are an organization that seeks ‘balance’ at the cost of maintaining mediocrity rather than face the risks and challenges that progress demands. They’ve tried to infiltrate the Absolute at the Sharran Sanctuary, though from the dead I found they didn’t get far.”

Astarion nodded to Minthara’s assessment, while Lena’s eyebrows shot up and she and Gale shared a look of “I don’t want to see what she thinks is ‘progress.’”

Karlach looked excited. “Oh man! Harpers! One of my childhood heroes was a Harper! I’ve always wanted to join them—" her face fell and her voice went quiet, "— but the whole Gortash thing.” Wyll rubbed a comforting hand up and down her arm and she leaned her face into the side of his head.

Edie, who’d kept her head cocked, shushed them. “Shit, one’s gone down, and he’s being dragged off.” She paused, tense. “Weird. Whatever attacked him’s completely silent. He’s not thrashing anymore. The others are looking him, and he’s calling back.”

“It’s an ambush,” Minthara said. “The shadows wait to consume their victims to draw others into the deepest shadows where they cannot escape. I’ve seen it many a time, thanks to the fools the Absolute keeps sending into this wasteland.”

Lena blinked in surprise. “Clever shadows.”

“We have to save them!” Karlach said. She rushed to Edie. “Which way?”

“They’re as good as dead,” Minthara replied. “I’ve rarely encounter a Harper who won’t follow their comrades into death to ‘save’ them.”

Edie gave Minthara a withering look before looking at Karlach. “This way. They’re still looking, so we might have a chance,” she said, pointing to go right at a fork in the path. “C’mon.”

The two women raced ahead with their torches, and soon the others followed, though some grudgingly. Not far away, three people approached the edge of some deep shadows hidden between the trees. “Yonas, follow my voice. Come back to the light.” one of them called out.

“Who’s there?” Yonas called out. “Meg? Is that—” He screamed.

Before Edie and Karlach could reach the Harpers, a figure shuffled toward them.

“There you are …” the figure said in a strained and distorted voice. “Come … join me.” As it stepped into the torchlight, they saw what used to be a human male, but now shadows encrusted parts of him like dried concrete, glowing green from his eyes and from cracks in his shadow. The Harpers were now surrounded by vaguely humanoid shadow figures from all sides that seemed to weave in and out of sight.

“Harpers! To arms!” one of them shouted, and they began slashing at stabbing what used to be Yonas.

“Oh, Yonas,” another Harpers whispered sadly, even as she raised her own sword to battle with his corpse.

“Shit,” Edie muttered. She drew a longsword, and with a flourish she slashed the shadow figure nearest her. It howled then dissolved into the ground and reformed behind Edie. She barely turned in time to block its claws with her torch when Wyll cast eldritch blast on it. The thing wailed and a glowing crystalline sphere dropped down to the ground as it dissolved.

Karlach gave a war cry and brought her hand ax down on another shadow figure just as Minthara threw a bottle into the midst of the deepest shadows, suddenly illuminating the shadow figure and a half-dozen more appeared. The shadows moaned, trying to block their eyes from the light as they edged away, blinded, and Karlach screamed and slammed her ax into her target again and again until it dissolved. Then she dashed to the Harpers struggling to fight off shadow-zombie Yonas, who was already full of bolts from a crossbow. Karlach threw her torch into zombie-Yonas’s face, then she used both hands to embed the ax in the shadow zombie’s head. He continued to flail his arms until Karlach kicked him to release her ax and the zombie fell backward. With a roar, she brought the little hand ax down on his neck and neatly severed his head from his body.

Minthara was wailing on a shadow figures with the Light of Lathander like it owed her money. Lena had dashed into the middle of three shadow figures with the blade of her make-shift rope dart lit up with alchemist’s fire. She spun and twisted the blade around her, keeping a trio shadow figures from getting close and letting loose the blade into a one, while Edie alternated between driving a her sword or a torch at them from behind.

Gale had read from a scroll just as the light from Minthara’s grenade faded to blind the shadows anew, and had been lighting them up with fire bolts and magic missiles. Astarion took advantage of the shadow figures’ blindness and had been picked them off with his bow and some fire arrows. Lae’zel slashed and parried with Shadowheart beside her, bashing any who came from behind with her mace.

Halsin raised his arms, and vines erupted from the ground to hold a shadow figure in place. His staff glowed and he smacked it until it dissolved.

Soon, the fight was over. The Harpers approached Karlach. One with long curly hair shook Karlach’s hand. “Well done—now we’ve got to move. I know a safe place—give me your map.” Karlach looked behind her and Minthara offered up the map she drew the previous night. The Harper’s eyebrows rose. “This is much more detailed and accurate than anything we’ve managed to find or make.” She looked at Minthara with suspicion and Minthara returned her look with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s because I was a follower of the Absolute,” she said in a challenging tone. “But my companions freed me and my mind is now my own.”

The Harper drew in a hissed breath while her remaining two companions drew their weapons. Karlach stepped between them with a placating hand raised toward the Harpers. “Settle down. She’s alright. She’s got as much hate for the Absolute as any of us.”

“How do you know that she’s not a spy for them?” one of the other Harpers demanded.

“Ooo!” Lena exclaimed. “That’s almost like a Buddhist koan! How can we truly know anything about the motivations of the people around us?”

Edie nodded sagely. “Though if you want evidence, you can try going down the elevator from the Underdark where we slaughtered a bunch duergar Absolutists and mercenaries.”

“I still have a few bits and pieces of them! Here’s a hand!” Lena held up a severed duergar hand with a scarred brand of the Absolute on its palm.

Karlach pointed at the hand. “We completely wiped them out!”

Edie pointed at the hand and nodded. “If you want, you can also ask the Sovereign of the myconid colony near the elevator and ask about ‘True Soul’ Nere’s head.”

Astarion giggled at the horror on the Harper’s faces. Gale looked at Lena with a faintly resigned expression. Halsin pinched the bridge of his nose. Lae’zel rolled her eyes. Minthara smirked. Shadowheart concealed a grin with her hand. Wyll sighed and looked up at the starless sky.

“Why do you even have those?” the lead Harper asked.

“In case my baby phase spider gets hungry!” Lena explained with a cheerful smile. “They've been off their food because they were molting, and now they're extra hungry!” She looked down where here carry-all hung at her hip and started calling, “Here, Bitey! Wanna say hi?” Much to the Harper’s surprise, a phase spiderling with pale blue and pink markings crawled out and slowly climbed up to Lena’s shoulder to look out at the Harpers before they waved one of their legs at them in greeting. Lena offered them the duergar hand, which they snatched with their fangs and mandibles, then Lena rubbed the spiderling gently between their eyes. They leaned into the contact like a cat with a contented chitter, before gingerly making their way back to the carry-all and closing the flap behind them. “Their exoskeleton’s still hardening, but they're eating again,” Lena explained.

The Harpers stared at her with expressions of surprise and disgust, with one of them looking closely at Lena's armor. Lena returned their gaze with confusion. “What?”

Chapter Text

As the Harpers led the party further south, Gale leaned over and whispered to Lena, “I once read a book that danger and near-death encounters stimulated heightened sensations of arousal. I wonder if you’ve experienced something similar.”

Lena bumped him playfully with her shoulder. “Why do you think we’re always busy fucking? Though tonight I thought I could give you a mini lecture on optical character recognition algorithms and their use in scanning ancient texts to make them more accessible to researchers.”

Gale stumbled on nothing as he recalled the 'lecture' he gave the previous night—all while Lena had her mouth around him, pausing only when he couldn't speak to ask insightful questions. He'd never come harder in his life. “That sounds … very … intriguing.” He cleared his throat. “I look forward to it.”

Lena grinned and waggled her eyebrows. “I thought you might.”

Edie rolled her eyes then shook her head. Astarion raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessing I don’t want to know what you heard.”

“No.”

Astarion wrinkled his nose, then looked around at the blackened trees and pale dead soil, searching for conversation topics in to keep his mind from speculating on what Gale and Lena were up to. After several seconds, he said, “I’ve been in darkness for centuries, but never found anything like this.”

Edie gave him a questioning look and raised an eyebrow. “After what we saw happen to poor Yonas, I’d say that a fear of the dark is extremely healthy.”

“A fear of the dark is always healthy,” he replied. “Too many creatures like me thrive in it, though this curse makes my kind seem tame.”

“I don’t look forward to sleeping alone in all this,” she confessed

They continued walking in silence for a while longer before he finally said, “I think I don’t either.”

After a moment, Edie said in a low voice, “Just to be clear, I have no expectations of you other than your physically sharing a tent with me.”

Astarion nodded. They continued following the Harpers.

---

An armed pair of Harpers stopped them before they could step off of the bridge where a pale bubble of moonlight encompassed an island and pushed back the shadow. “Lassandra, good to see you back from patrol. Where’s Yonas?” one of the guards asked.

The curly-haired Harper shook her head sadly. “Snatched and consumed by the shadows. We were nearly overrun by an ambush of them until they—” she pointed to the party behind her, “—showed up.”

The pair guarding the bridge eyed them suspiciously. “How do you know that they’re not spies sent by the Absolute?”

“You don’t,” Lena called from behind. “In my defense, I’ll admit that this cloak-and-dagger shit gives me a headache and I would make a terrible spy.”

Edie nodded. “It’s true. The woman can’t lie worth a damn.”

Lena gave Edie a slightly offended look. “I've lied all the time to full-human authorities and none of them called me out on it!”

Edie shook her head. “I don’t know how you maintain that delusion because you clearly unsettle full humans to the point where they instinctively know to stop asking questions. Except Gale. But let’s not talk about his kinks.”

Lena looked slightly offended. "I'm not a kink! I'm a whole-ass way of life! Isn't that right?" She turned to Gale for affirmation.

The party all turned to look at Gale standing next to Lena. Gale flushed bright red, which only deepened when he noticed the Harpers now eyed him, too. He cleared his throat and gave them all a little wave. “Hi, I’m Gale of Waterdeep.”

Lena sagged. “Oh babe, not that 'Gale of Waterdeep' thing again!” She gave him a half-hug around the waist. “He’s Gale Dekarios, who will eventually father my many, many, MANY babies!” She leaned against him and grinned up at him. “SOOOOO many babies!” His buried his face in his hands and she reached up to kiss his cheek.

“They certainly go at it like they’re planning on popping one out every nine months,” Karlach remarked. One of the Harpers choked on a laugh.

An older half-elf woman shoulder-length blond hair done up in small braids away from her face strode over to them. Karlach gasped and started bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Ohmygodsohmygods, it’s Jaheira!” she whispered excitedly to Wyll. Wyll did a double-take and stared at the older Harper. Jaheira gave them a glance and Karlach squealed with delight. One of the Harpers guarding the bridge tried to speak, but Jaheira silenced her with an imperious look.

Edie and Lena nodded approvingly, impressed. “Niiiiiice,” they drawled in unison.

Jaheira glared at them, and Lena smiled and gave a cheerful wave with her free hand. Then Jaheira’s hand glowed and she swept her arm as if grabbing and pulling up an invisible root. Vines erupted from the ground, trapping the entire party. Amid the sounds of struggle and curses, Lena calmly bent down and casually yanked one free and watched as another grew in its place. She held it out to Jaheira with a confused expression. “Is this some sort of a test? Like we’re supposed to prove ourselves by breaking free?” Gale stopped struggling and shot her an alarmed look. Jaheira gave a low growl.

Edie leaned over. “I don’t think she wants us to break them. It looks like she considers it rude.”

“Oh.” Lena put the vine fragment back down, giving it a quick pat before she straightened up and offered Jaheira a contrite smile. “Sorry.”

Halsin let out a grumble from behind them then walked across the vines to approach Jaheira. “Well met, Jaheira. I am Halsin Silverbough of the Emerald Grove.”

Jaheira eyed him suspiciously. “The archdruid?" She had a vaguely Eastern European accent. Because why not? "What are you doing here?”

Halsin shook his head. “I am archdruid no more. I came with this party to lift the Shadow Curse and offer what assistance I can along the way. These people were instrumental in foiling the Absolute’s plots to destroy the Emerald Grove, both from invading goblin forces, and from an attempt to subvert the leadership with Shadow Druids while I was the Absolute’s prisoner.”

“Except Minthara,” Lena added. “She used to be a commander of the Absolute.” Minthara gave a hiss and Edie elbowed Lena hard. “She got better!” Lena added.

Jaheira gave Halsin an astonished look. “You’ve been traveling with someone infected with an illithid tadpole?” she exclaimed.

“Actually, almost all of us are,” Lena said. Behind her, Shadowheart groaned. Edie elbowed her again. “Edie here and Halsin aren’t,” she amended. Edie nodded approvingly.

Astarion let out a gusty sigh. “Well, so much for a respite from everyone and everything trying to kill us. You don’t know when to stop, do you?”

Lena tried to turn to look at him and nearly fell over, wheeling her arms to regain her balance and nearly smacked Gale and Edie. She now stood at an extremely awkward angle held up by vines. “What do you mean? Stop what?”

“Being you!” he accused. “All you have to do once in a while is shut up and let the adults handle the situation!”

Lena threw up her arms. “Oh! Like you’re so mature!”

“As a matter of fact, I am!” he shot back. “In fact, I’m over two hundred years more mature than you!”

“And how would you have handled this, huh? Pretend that the majority of us aren’t carrying not-tapeworms?” she countered.

“Yes, I would’ve, but you opened that godsdamned mouth of yours and exposed us before we had a chance to prove that we’re not a merry band of fanatical cultists!” he shot back.

Lena paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. “How would we do that?”

Astarion's ire fizzled. "Do what?"

"Prove one way or another that we aren't cultists?"

He paused. “You know, I’m not sure.” They both looked to Jaheira.

Jaheira rolled her eyes and pulled a jar out of her carry-all. In it was a live illithid parasite, floating around like a dead carnival goldfish. “With this. These parasites are curious creatures that hide all manner of secrets. But if there’s one thing we know—” she held the jar up to Halsin’s face. When she noticed no reaction, she moved over to Lena. It started to thrash wildly in its jar as it attempted to connect to Lena’s parasite. “—they knows their own kind.”

Astarion frowned. "Well, now, I can't think of a way around that," he admitted.

Lena stared at it with crossed eyes. “Makes sense, and now you've verified that I'm infected. Just like I said. Good job!" She gave Jaheira a thumbs-up. Then she scrunched her nose a bit. "Though now I smell burnt toast. Can you move that thing away from me before My Little Lamprey gets too excited and gives me a stroke or an aneurysm?”

Jaheira put the jar away and shot Halsin a look while pointing at Lena. “You’re telling me that this one helped to save the Emerald Grove. Was this before she was infected?”

“Actually, she and the high elf she's been bickering with were the ones who freed me, in part to find a cure from their tadpoles. And as I learned later, they were among those who confronted the Shadow Druids while I was still imprisoned.”

“And helped kill them!” she cheered. “I took out this one who looked older, kinda like you age-wise but really really short and wore this weird leather halter-top thingie that exposed her from neck to naval so it was really obvious that her tits were super perky, like here,” she indicated rather high-up on her chest with both hands. “And I gotta know if this is a druid thing, or was this woman into hard drugs or something because, man, her face was all leathery like yours, but a lot more saggy, like the weight of a lifetime of regrets got stored in her cheeks like how a squirrel stores acorns, except the acorns are all rotten or soggy or something because her cheeks were all deflated at the top instead of lumpy, you know?”

The glow faded from Jaheira’s hand and the vines shrank back into the ground as her pose relaxed, and Lena immediately began wheeling her arms again until the barely manage to right herself again. Jaheira stepped back with a look of amazement. “True Souls with their own minds … how is that possible?” she wondered. Then the corner of her mouth ticked up and she looked toward Halsin. “And how is it possible that you got stuck with this one? I don’t know what you could have done to deserve this, but it seems the fates have a wicked sense of humor.”

Halsin sighed. “I really can’t say, though it feels as though I’m atoning for something I'm not aware of.”

"Maybe it's all the fucking you do when you're a bear," Lena suggested helpfully.

Halsin chuffed irritably. Some of the Harpers gave him vaguely distasteful looks while a few others were clearly intrigued. Jaheira raised a pencil-thin eyebrow at him and smirked. "I imagine that would do it. Come with me. We have much to discuss."

Chapter Text

They made their way to a rather dilapidated wooden building lit up with oil lamps and torches, passing a stable where Dammon the smith had set up shop. “HI DAMMON!” Karlach shouted as they passed. “WE’LL STOP BY AFTER WE’RE DONE TALKING TO JAHEIRA!” She waved, and Dammon waved back, watching the party head to the inn.

A passing Harper gave Dammon a curious look. “Are you sure they’re not True Souls?” the Harper asked.

“They helped us at the Emerald Grove,” Dammon replied. “Though I sometimes worry about them traveling with the one wearing the pink and blue armor.”

“That one? What’s wrong with her?” They watched as she approached the threshold and wrinkled her nose. A taller human woman came up from behind her suddenly gagged and backed away from the door. Their companions all turned to look at them, including Jaheira and another Harper who accompanied her. The one in pink held a finger up to her lips and quietly said something to Jaheira. Jaheira forced herself to remain calm before she looked to Halsin who looked at the rest of the party and who all nodded back at him, then he to Jaheira. Jaheira then gave the one in pink a curt nod and started speaking to the human male with the stone eye in a slightly louder-than-usual voice and walked into the inn. The two human females remained in the shadows and quietly sneaked inside after them.

The Harper watched, confused, as Dammon put down his hammer and shoved his current work into a bucket of sand and started putting his tools away. “It’s a little hard to explain, but I imagine you’ll get to see it first-hand soon enough. Because I’m not a fighter, I’m going to try to keep out of the way.”

The Harper looked alarmed. “Are you saying there’s going to be a fight? Is Jaheira in danger?”

“Not from her, but chaos does seem to follow the smaller one like a stray dog.”

---

Edie and Lena kept to the shadows while the rest of their party gathered at a table where Jaheira offered Wyll wine and some spiel about how it was laced with some sort of herbal concoction that she claimed was a truth serum. Wyll drank the laced wine in one go, and Karlach looked like she was ready to pee herself in excitement that one of her personal heroes was drugging her boyfriend. Edie rolled her eyes and shook her head while Lena gave her a commiserating look: neither thought much of ‘truth serums’ on Earth, which work about as well as getting someone drunk. Jaheira and Wyll continued to verbally spar, though the rest of the party was a bit tense, their hands keeping close to their sheathed weapons. After the adrenaline high of being accused of being a cultist by her personal hero, Karlach became especially nervous; she could barely keep the disgust off her face every time she glanced at over at the devil, who sat playing chess with a tiefling girl wearing a dirty rag over one eye.

“Your move, Mol,” Raphael said.

“You trapped me. I didn’t even want to take this one,” Mol complained. Then she stared in his direction, but not actually at him. Raphael turned his head and found himself nose-to-nose with a black-and-gray–haired human woman with her eyes opened disconcertingly wide who immediately opened her mouth and bellowed “GROOMER!” spraying his face with spittle.

Mol gave a little yelp and scrambled out of her chair before dashing to the bar where some other tiefling children served drinks. Raphael nearly fell backwards out of his chair, only to be caught by a second human woman—a taller one with curly brown hair—who somehow had the dagger-like claws of a large cat wrapped around his neck. “Now what's a smarmy-looking middle-aged man doing with a child? If this were Earth you'd be on accused of being a pedophile and after a stint in prison you'd get put on one of those lists of sexual predators and can't live within five miles of a school,” the brown-haired one said with silky menace. Her voice seemed soft, but it clearly carried through the entirety of the inn because suddenly everyone was staring at him. She gave a sniff and wrinkled her nose. "Though why anyone chooses to get within three meters of you baffles me: you smell like someone dumped a bottle of cherry cough syrup into an open pit toilet."

Jaheira sauntered over, followed by the rest of the party. “So a devil decides to visit. Tell me, what draws you to this little inn in the middle of the Shadow Curse? I don’t imagine even devils would enjoy a holiday here.”

Raphael held his hands up in surrender. “I mean no one here any harm, Jaheira,” he said calmly. “I just have some business in the area and thought I’d stop by. Though your hospitality could use a little work.” He eyed Edie significantly, but she smiled sweetly and tightened her claws around his neck until blood barely started to well from the pinpricks. A slight grimace of discomfort flashed across his face before he smoothed it back into bland insouciance.

Karlach scoffed. “Business. Hah! What’s your game? Promising the refugees from Elturel safe passage in exchange for their souls?”

Raphael smirked. “Now that would hardly be worth the stop for someone of my caliber. Why, this whole area has a rich history of abject tragedy. All one has to do is dig.”

Lena made a disgusted face and made a gagging sound. “If you were on social media at home, you’d be the worst vague-poster ever. Get to the fucking point, Mister I’m-Adamantly-Not-A-Prostitute.”

Raphael sneered, but couldn’t turn his head. “I would say that you’re my favorite client—” Lena snorted “—but that would be a lie.” He addressed the rest of the party. “So tell me, how have you all been? None of you have any gills to get green around, but you all do look a bit worse for wear in this light.”

“If you’re offering a solution, I’m all ears,” Astarion said.

“All thumbs, rather, the way you’ve been stumbling about the place. But at least I can’t say I’m not entertained. In fact, I’m quite confident you still have a few good days in you yet. Precious time to practice begging for my help with your bare knees in the dirt.” He leered at Astarion, raking his eyes up and down the elf’s body. “Or perhaps there’s something else you had on your mind. Or more accurately, on your back.” He snapped his fingers and suddenly Astarion’s clothes disappeared.

Astarion’s body jerked, and looked down at himself with a resigned expression. “Gods damn it.”

Edie’s eyes went wide with outrage as she looked at Astarion then glared at Raphael. She let out a snarl and her hands tightened around his neck, drawing a steady trickle of blood just as Raphael began to choke. Lena's eyes narrowed and she grabbed him by the collar of his doublet, tearing him from Edie’s claws and leaving deep and bloody gashes. “HOW DARE YOU!” she roared and headbutted him, bloodying his nose.

“Why you insolent bagga—” Raphael began, but Lena headbutted him again just as Edie grabbed the back of his head and a shoulder, sinking her claws in deep. His arms thrashed as he tried to get away.

“YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO DISRESPECT MY BROTHER!” Lena’s fangs dropped as she screamed into his face. He shifted into his infernal form with a gout of flame, and knocked Edie and Lena away with his enormous leathery wings, singeing them both. Then he tried to slash Lena with his claws, but she ducked his strike then launched herself in his guard to grab onto his face with her feet perched on his chest. Suddenly overset, Raphael lost his balance and fell backwards onto the floor with Lena's claws still digging into him. Then with her free hand, she ripped a hole into the floorboards and pulled him with her through the hole, which was deeper than anyone anticipated because it took a second for them to land in a cavern with a ‘thud.’ Raphael groaned, then started screaming and cursing as Lena shifted and started ripping into anything within reach with claws and fangs. Except now something else that lived in the dark took interest.

A half-dozen spiky crab-like creatures about the size of a large dog skittered out of the dark, barely visible from the faint torchlight from the inn. Gale’s eyes bulged when he spotted them from the edge of the hole. “Meenlocks,” Gale whispered. He looked up at Shadowheart. “Quickly, cast sunlight!” he ordered. Suddenly the light that radiated off of herself shone from a spot near Lena and Raphael. The meenlocks screeched and shied away from the light.

Edie jumped down, shifting as she dropped, and landed as a half-tonne liger on top of a meenlock, squashing it flat; its legs and claws literally popped off its body like champagne corks. She stood from her landing crouch only to shrink back and hiss as a paralytic fear coursed through her when another meenlock drew near. It took advantage of Edie's panic to rake her muzzle with its massive crab-like claws. Edie roared, the pain shaking her out of her fear as she swiped at it with a massive paw and knocked it back against the walls of the cavern. The smell of blood drew the other meenlocks to her; the fear so overwhelming that she could only manage frantic swipes when they slashed and stabbed.

Gale cast featherfall on the rest of the party, including Jaheira, and they all hopped in, with Astarion lagging behind, having barely managed to don a pair of spare trousers and boots before jumping in with his bow strung and ready.

The party landing in the middle of the light, surrounded by meenlocks. Halsin and Wyll started casting spells, entangling the meenlocks in vines before blasting them. Gale used a scroll of hold fiend on Raphael, keeping him in place while Lena ripped off bits. Astarion, Lae’zel, and Minthara, from the relative safety of the sphere of daylight, shot at the meenlocks with bow and crossbow. Jaheira drank an elixir of health to calm her emotions and splashed another on Edie before they both tore into the meenlocks; Jaheira wielding dual scimitars, Edie with her claws and fangs. Karlach had started hacking at Raphael's wings, but when Raphael broke free of the hold spell, she used the handle of her ax to put him a chokehold while Lena continued ripping into him with her fangs and claws; both ignored the burns whenever flames erupted from his palms. Shadowheart frantically healed the worst of their wounds as soon as they appeared, but the cavern soon stank of smoke and burning flesh and hair.

Just as the final meenlock died, Lena managed to get her jaws around Raphael’s face and bit down. Raphael screamed and backhanded her, his hands covering a hole where his nose used to be, then Karlach bore down harder with her chokehold and kicked his knees out beneath him until he was kneeling the floor of the cavern. Lena, covered in deep claw marks, burns, and blood, shifted back to human and spat the appendage into her still-clawed hand. She crouched down in front of Raphael and held it up to his face between two claws. “Got yer nose,” she said with a toothy feral grin.

“Give that back!” Raphael snarled. He sounded rather congested as blood ran into his sinuses.

“Apologize to Astarion and I’ll consider it,” she replied.

He stared up at her incredulously. “Apologize? Whyever for?”

She narrowed her eyes. “For disrespecting him.”

He scoffed. “You can’t be serious! Over a mere prank? I’m surprised that he hasn’t been strutting about your camp naked and seducing everything in sight. It’s not like he wouldn’t be used to it.” The armbar around his throat tightened and Karlach growled. Edie, still in her liger form, her head and shoulders clawed and bloody, prowled up to him with a vicious little kitty smile, then roared in his face. He shied back and a fine mist of spit coated his head.

Lena only grinned and wiggled the dying bit of tissue a little, causing it to make a little flapping sound. “I might just feed your nose to my phase spiderling. Or one of the wolves or our owlbear cub in camp. It’s surprisingly substantial, though I'm not sure that I want them to eat something that came from the hells: it might give them indigestion or make them sick. I don’t know if you have plastic surgery over in your corner of hell, but at home if reattachment fails surgeons would have to take bone and cartilage from a rib, and a flap of skin from your forehead or behind your ear to reconstruct a nose. But then again, I read that reattachment of such delicate tissue rarely fully succeeds—unlike fingers and toes—even with the application of leeches and blood thinners: you might be better off with the reconstruction route.”

“I remember hearing that devils can heal and regrow body parts,” Wyll added, “but only if they consume one or more souls in their possession.” Raphael glared at Wyll, but he only raised an eyebrow. “You could heal yourself at any time, so this means you’re a bit short on souls.”

Lena’s grin grew wider. “What’ll it be? Apologize and you get a chance to keep your current nose.” She paused for a moment. “Or better still, apologize and tell us what’s carved into Astarion’s back. We already know what it literally translates to, but we don’t know what else it means.” She held the nose in her fist as though she meant crush it.

Raphael made a gurgling noise as he panicked. “Wait! I will need to return to my House of Hope for any chance of discovering an answer.”

“Well then,” Astarion said brightly, “I guess I’ll have to draw up a contract to ensure that you give us the information. For now,” he now crouched down in front of Raphael, picking at his fingernails with a dagger, “I do so want that apology.”

Chapter Text

As Astarion finished putting the rest of his gear on, Gale conjured a table and a few chairs to sit at while Lae’zel, Minthara, and Wyll worked with a few Harpers on Jaheira’s orders to look for a way out of the cavern that didn’t involve climbing out of the hole Lena had made in the floor. Halsin and Shadowheart had Edie, Karlach, and Lena sit down so the worst of their wounds could be tended: even with a shifter’s accelerated healing, such deep burns would take weeks to heal, and they couldn’t afford to let Edie slip into the shifter’s healing ‘fever’ that could leave her unconscious for days.

Jaheira ‘encouraged’ Raphael sit with his hands flat on the table with one of her scimitars at his neck. Gale produced some ink and parchment—which he shared with Astarion—and both started working on the terms of the contract. Halsin would occasionally interject with questions about the events leading up to the Shadow Curse. Whenever Raphael made some sort of sound or expression of disagreement, either Edie would point out that the chances of successful reimplantation dropped with time, or Lena would take the his severed nose out of its wrappings of some clean damp rags and threaten to pound it into pate in front of him.

A half-dozen of the bolder tiefling children look in on the proceedings from the hole in the floor, gawking at a devil brought low by couple of mortals.

“You were going to make a deal with him?” one of the kids asked the one-eyed tiefling girl.

Mol scowled. “He seemed like he knew what he was about,” she said defensively.

“Yeah, but then those two human-looking ladies and Karlach took him out. Karlach, I get: remember when we watched her lay out a maw demon in two hits?” Then he jerked his chin at the two shifters. “But the smaller of those two freaks bit his nose off clean off like an apple.”

Lena looked up at the kids and her eyes flashed gold like a dog’s from the ambient torchlight. The six children froze and watched as she gave them a fang-filled grin and a thumbs-up. All of them screamed and shied away from the hole.

At the sound of screaming, everyone looked up from the table then over to Lena, who sat contentedly with a fist held over the severed nose. Astarion looked amused. “You certainly do have a way with children: you managed to scare children who survived the fall of Elturel with just a smile.”

Lena turned her head to him with the same smile she gave the children. Astarion frowned, disturbed by her smile. “Thanks!”

---

After Raphael signed the contract, Lena gave him back his nose in its nest of wet rags. “Make sure you’re real gentle with that! And remember the leeches if you can’t reattached the veins! Wouldn't want anything to die from congestion!” she reminded him with a cheerful smile and waved. He sneered and snapped his fingers, disappearing in a column of fire.

Edie nodded absentmindedly. “Very dramatic exit. If we put him him in a long skirt, do you think he’d flounce off before doing the fire thing?”

Lena looked at her. “I’m not sure. I think we should ask him when we see him again. He still needs to give us answers about Astarion’s scars.”

“I also added a clause to the contract that requires him to immediately answer any summons from Halsin for questions related to the Shadow Curse,” Astarion interjected. He and Lena grinned at each other, then looked at Halsin.

“Not-a-bear man,” Lena started. Jaheira barked a startled laugh “Do you have any new questions related to the Shadow Curse?”

Halsin sighed. “Unfortunately, I do. Though I don’t think it’s wise to prod a devil.”

“Think of this as a test,” Astarion said. “We wouldn’t want to find out later that any summons are answered weeks or even years after they’re made because the language in the contract wasn’t precise.”

“It’s a valid concern,” Gale added. “Though I’ve been more circumspect than most with my magical research, there have been more than a few mishaps due to a carelessly misspoken word or gesture that belies a limited understanding of how the spell intends to work. It reminds me of when I was still a new student in Blackstaff Academy and I was tasked with transmogrifying igneous rock into sedimentary. I let my attention drift to a rather comely student and suddenly the rock shattered and rained hundreds of miniature gelatinous cubes across the entire lecture hall.”

Everyone except Edie and Lena looked horrified. “I’m guessing you’re not talking about gelatin, like the stuff extracted from animal bones and hooves that's made into jiggly desserts and revolting aspics.” Edie said.

Jaheira eyed the two shifters warily as she sat down in the conjured chair Raphael recently vacated. “How can you not know what a gelatinous cube is? I can’t believe either of you could be so sheltered to never have even read or heard a story about those foul things.”

Lena held up a finger. “Not gonna answer that until we test the Raphel Summons Clause.”

Edie looked at her in surprise. “There’s a first: you’re not letting yourself get side-tracked.”

“Yeah, well, I really want to know if this works!” She looked over to Halsin. “Go on!” she urged.

He sighed again, then drew a symbol in the dirt with the end of his quarterstaff. The symbol glowed then flames erupted, and before them stood Raphael with his head tilted back and a hand on an invisible head in front of him, his nose now reattached (though looking a little pallid), his pants and trousers around his ankles, and sporting a decent-sized erection. “Tiamat’s tits!” he shouted and tried to yank his pants up, but only succeeded in tripping and falling over.

Lena tilted her head to the side as she regarded Raphael’s dishabille. “Gale’s is bigger,” she remarked blandly.

Gale blushed and Astarion grimaced. “I didn’t need to know that,” he said.

“Well, now you do!” Lena replied. “As Edie likes to say, ‘knowledge is power!’”

"I can't say I'm impressed, either," Shadowheart added, watching with disinterest as Raphael managed to stand and started to brush dirt off of his buttocks.

Edie looked at her in surprise. "I thought you only slept with women."

"Mostly," Shadowheart admitted. "Though that's not to say that I don't have any experience playing the skin flute." Edie nodded in understanding.

Lena turned to Halsin. “Well, ask your question!”

Halsin, pointedly looking away from Raphael as he yanked his clothing back on asked, “How have there been no new Dark Justiciars or other followers of Shar coming from the Shadow Curse? We’ve already observed that Shadowheart is capable of withstanding it to some extent, and there should have been some survivors after Ketheric’s death.”

Raphael finished securing the ties to his trousers and looked at Halsin, sneering. “You summoned me just to ask that?”

Lena smiled at him. “Actually, we’re also testing to ensure that you won’t find any ways to weasel out of that contractual clause,” she said brightly. “I must say, you’re prompt! Though I’m not sure that having all your blood go to your dick when your nose has just been reattached is a good idea. I’m also really impressed with your surgeons-slash-healers for reattaching that thing so fast!”

“I do believe you still need to answer the question,” Astarion prompted.

Raphael growled. “I have an orthon installed in a secret Sharran temple where Ketheric Thorm tested new Dark Justiciars. He is contracted to kill all Dark Justiciars to earn his freedom.” Shadowheart looked at Raphael in alarm.

Karlach let out a low whistled. “An orthon? Shit, those’ll do the job. Is it still there?”

“I have no obligation to answer your questions, tiefling,” Raphael spat.

“But you are obliged to answer mine,” Halsin rumbled. “Is this orthon there, still? How is it his task remains unfulfilled if no Dark Justiciars remain? How is he related to the Shadow Curse?”

“Yes, he is. Though he is only peripherally related to the Shadow Curse.” Raphael replied testily. “Do you have any more asinine questions, or can I go?”

"If you wore a long skirt and petticoats, can you do a dramatic flounce?" Edie asked in a deadpan voice. Lena let out a guffaw.

"No," Raphael snarled.

"'No' as in you won't wear a skirt, 'no' as in you can't flounce, or 'no' as in you won't?" Edie asked.

Little flames appeared to erupt from Raphael as he scowled. Lena eyed him thoughtfully. "You seem to have anger issues. Might want to have your blood pressure checked," Lena remarked. "I can't imagine that's good for reimplantations."

Raphael sneered and faced Halsin. "Am I free to leave?"

“You may leave,” Halsin nodded.

“How magnanimous,” Raphael sneered, then snapped his fingers and disappeared in another gout of flame.

“That worked better than I had hoped,” Astarion remarked. He sat back in his chair with his hands laced behind his head, looking smug and relaxed. “So long as Halsin has questions related to the Shadow Curse, we should be able to summon him at any time, indefinitely.”

Jaheira shook her head. “This is a dangerous game you’re playing.”

Lena shrugged. “If we play this right, he might get killed and we don't need to care. Though I wonder if we can summon him in a really deep shadow and ask a question,” she said.

“I wonder that, too,” Gale replied. “How well can a devil withstand the effects of the Shadow Curse? I’m sure that it’s worthy of academic study, at least until the Shadow Curse can be lifted.”

“Are you certain that now is the time to consider the rigors of academic publishing?” Shadowheart asked. “Especially while earning the ire of a powerful devil?”

“Of course!” Gale replied. “Sharing knowledge is as sacred to learning as teaching the fundamentals!”

“As well as the ego-stroking of publishing in big-name journals and getting grants,” Edie muttered.

Gale grinned. “Precisely!”

Chapter Text

While waiting for word from the others on a way out of the cavern, the other party members decided to explore what looked like a hidden Selunite shrine while Halsin and Jaheira filled in the shifters on what the plan proposed to Wyll and the others.

“Pick out something shiny for me to pawn!” Lena said to Gale with her arms hanging loosely around around his neck.

“Why do you want me to give you something if you’re just going to sell it—” he asked when Lena took the opportunity to grab a fistful of his hair and pulled him against her to into a full-on face-sucking session. Most of the others rolled their eyes at the excessive display and went about their looting. Halsin sighed wearily and pulled out a tome to read from his carry-all, while Edie took advantage of Elminster’s access to some very expensive scientific journals and started reading.

Jaheira could only stare with a baffled and slightly disgusted expression on her face. “Do they do that all the time?” she asked Edie.

“I’ve only ever seen her do this with him,” Edie admitted, not bothering to look up.

“Oh. Wonderful,” Jaheira answered in a dry sarcastic tone. “True love and illithid parasites. A romantic tale for the ages.”

After a few more moments, Jaheira finally interrupted them. “Are you two done, or are we going to witness the conception of your first child?” she asked testily. Lena let go of Gale’s hair to hold up a forefinger behind her in a ‘just a moment’ gesture before she clutched Gale’s hair again. Jaheira threw up her hands in exasperation. Halsin merely flipped a page in his book while Edie scrolled through a paper. Jaheira glared at them. “How is it that you can remain silent while those two are eating each other’s faces?”

With her eyes still on her screen, Edie stuck a thumb in Gale and Lena’s direction and simply said, “Honey badger. Don't bother her when she's with Gale unless you want her to rearrange your face.”

Jaheira scrunched her nose. “There’s always something wrong with a person when they chose a honey badger as their wildshape.”

Halsin merely looked up from his reading and shook his head slowly at Jaheira. “They're not druids.”

Jaheira startled. “What?”

“We’re not druids,” Edie said, finally looking up from her phone. “Not that our ancestors didn’t worship some nature god or another that granted us the ability to shift into different species, but as far as I know no one’s heard a peep from said gods in thousands of years, and most of us stopped worshiping them not long after. But we can still shift.” She lifted a hand and they watched as it shifted from a human hand into a sizable liger paw with its claws extended, then shift back and she resumed reading.

Deflated, Jaheira put her head in hands. “A real honey badger. Oak father, guide me,” she mumbled.

“I’ve made that same prayer over and over since I met Lena,” Halsin admitted. “I’m not even sure Silvanus would know what to do with her or Edie.” He gave Edie a stern look.

Edie calmly put her phone away, folded her arms in front of her on the table, then turned to look at Halsin and smiled placidly with a strong undercurrent of pure menace. The hairs on the backs of Halsin’s and Jaheira’s necks prickled in alarm. After allowing the tension to ratchet up, Edie said, “I’m sure that it’s because your weak and pathetic druid god knows better than to get in the way of Lena and I’s pure awesomeness. Just remember, we helped put a devil under our collective thumbs, and Lena took out a bulette on her own.”

Jaheira blinked. Then she nodded slowly. She turned to Halsin. “I think the cub has a point.”

Halsin returned her look and sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

At that moment, Gale and Lena finally broke apart, both of them with goofy grins of their faces. She pulled him close and whispered, “We should save this for when I give you my lecture tonight.” His cheeks turned bright red and he nodded that mutely before he straightened his robes and turned to leave. She gave him a pat on the butt as he turned away. “Damn! Even under a robe that man’s ass is fine!” she said to herself while she watched him walk away. Then she turned back to the table and sat down. “Surviving potentially life-threatening situations always makes us horny,” she said by way of a non-apology.

Jaheira grimaced. “I did not need to know that."

“Oh,” Lena said. “I just thought it was something you would’ve wanted to know. And now you do.”

Jaheira stared at her in disbelief. A tic developed under one eye and she sat there dumbfounded until she shook herself and started getting right down to business. “I need you to infiltrate and investigate Moonrise Tower. Your illithid tadpoles should secure your entrance as True Souls, but to get there we need something called a moon lantern, which would allow you safe passage through the deepest shadows that block our entry to into the town, which leads to the tower,” Jaheira explained. “We’ve discovered that each day a drider with a moon lantern leads a caravan of cultists to and from. We plan to ambush the caravan and take the moon lantern.”

“Wouldn’t torches make an ambush easy to spot?” Lena asked.

The corner of Jaheira’s mouth ticked up slightly. “Not to worry, insane cub. We have a Selunite cleric who can bespell you so you can withstand the shadows without torches to give you away. Sadly, her magic cannot penetrate the deepest shadows any more than a normal torch can, so hence the moon lantern.”

“Weird,” Edie commented. “I wonder why a lantern that I guess simulates moonlight can do what a spell that simulates daylight can’t. Or for that matter, why a spell can't, either.”

Lena snapped her fingers. “I think I know. I remember Shadowheart mentioning that Shar and Selune are rivals, and Selune is the moon goddess here, so that must be why moonlight does what daylight can’t, even though logic says that moonlight is just daylight reflected off the moon, which means that vampires should burn or tan or something when the moon’s really bright, but somehow that’s not the case. But I have no clue why this cleric can't do better than a torch, though at least we'll have our hands free.”

Edie’s eyes lit up in understanding. “Gotcha. The local deities are just as nonsensical and contradictory as the ones described at home.”

Jaheira sent a questioning look to Halsin. He sighed then said, “It’s a long story, best told over a calming cup of tea. And perhaps a sedative.”

“The point remains,” Jaheira said, “we need that lantern, and we need to infiltrate the Tower to understand how Ketheric Thorm is now immortal after he was killed over a century ago.”

“Immortal?” Edie asked.

“Not two moons ago I shot an arrow through his eye—” Jaheira began.

“You know that’s actually a pretty survivable injury,” Edie interrupted. “My mom’s a retired neurosurgeon and she once told me that after surgery to remove the foreign object and a round of antibiotics, the patient goes through therapy to help negate any impairments from the brain damage. Most patients go on to live fairly normal lives, though usually sans an eyeball unless the foreign object kinda went around it and squished it to one side.”

Jaheira stared at her. “What the hells are you talking about? I saw him pull the arrow out of his head and acting as though nothing had happened!”

Edie blinked. “Ah. I’m guessing he’s not a trained neurosurgeon.”

“No, he is a butcher of the innocent who has violated the balance of nature,” Halsin said. “And he is somehow key to the disappearance of the spirit of this land, and to the whole Shadow Curse. To heal this land, we must find how he is tied to the Curse to undo it.”

“‘Spirit of the land’?” Lena asked.

“Yes,” Halsin replied. “The literal personification of the health and vitality of this land. His name is Thaniel, and he appears as a young boy who used to be my playmate when I was a child. I remained in contact him even after growing into adulthood, but he disappeared at the same time as the Shadow Curse, and I can no longer reach him. Somehow his disappearance and Ketheric Thorm’s death over a century ago are tied together with the curse.”

Edie and Lena gave each other wry looks. “So when’s this attack on the caravan going to happen?” Edie asked.

Jaheira nodded approvingly. “I had hoped to catch them today, though I fear we have missed the daily caravans already.”

Both shifters groaned in relief. “Thank fuck!” Lena exhaled. “I thought this day’d never end!”

“I’m still recovering from those crab fuckers,” Edie said, scratching at a healing scar on her shoulder.

“Are there beds we can sleep in?” Lena asked.

Jaheira laughed. “No, the inn is full. But you can camp here in the safety of our cleric’s spells. Just try not to get in everyone’s way.”

---

After Minthara managed to find a way out of the caverns that passed through the inn’s cellar (Edie and Lena pointed at laughed at the cages that served as make-shift prison cells), the party made their way out and lo and behold, there was Withers with Barcus and the camp animals near the riverbank with all the tents and a cookfire set up. Barcus looked especially perturbed. Shadowheart approached him. “Is everything alright?”

“One moment I was in the Underdark, having a surprisingly pleasant chat with a hobgoblin and a miraculously non-threatening mindflayer, the next thing I knew I was here in the middle of the Shadow Curse surrounded by some very suspicious Harpers. Thank Ironhand that some of the tieflings from the Emerald grove could vouch for me, even though the Harpers ‘tested’ me with one of those mindflayer tadpoles.”

“Ah, yes,” Shadowheart responded. “We all of us endured that, even though someone—” she narrowed her eyes at Lena, who looked up from her seat next to Gale at the cookfire and gave her a cheerful wave, “—revealed most of us were already infected.”

“Ah.” Barcus replied. “I hope you don’t take offense, but I think I might be more comfortable staying in the confines of the inn rather than out here.” He looked out at the vast eerie expanse of darkness beyond the bubble of moonlight, watching the shadows writhe in their own and shuddered.

Shadowheart nodded. “I’m sure that there’s room enough for you, but with a party as big as ours we can’t all fit. Just let us know if you discover anything about your friend, Wulbren, and we’ll help as much as we can.”

“My thanks,” Barcus replied as he put his pack on. “I could kiss you, but neither of us deserve that.”

Shadowheart looked at him wryly. “Come on. We can both do with a drink at the bar.”

“Oooo! Bar?” Lena called out. She leaned down and conferred briefly with Gale before trotting toward them.

“How did she hear that?” Barcus asked.

“She’s not entirely human,” Shadowheart replied. They waited as Lena caught up with them. When Shadowheart turned around, she was suddenly face-to-face with Edie and let out a little shriek.

“DON’T DO THAT!” Shadowheart shouted with her hand over her heart.

Edie shook her head sadly and tsked. “You’d think with those long-ish ears she’d have better hearing.”

“YOU’RE A CAT! A MASSIVE CAT THAT CAN WALK VERY QUIETLY!”

“I’m telling ya,” Lena began, “those ears are for show. They may as well be full humans like the sad sacks we have at home.”

Edie nodded. “Very sad.” The two shifters shook their heads sadly for a moment before Edie said, “Let’s get booze!”

“I’m grabbing a bottle or two to-go,” Lena said. “Gale’s watching our stew, though we’re going to have to rely on dried or preserved meats when the fresh stuff runs out. A bit of shitty red on hand should help brighten it up.”

They headed in and found Karlach and Wyll already arguing with a tiefling in wizard’s robes with a mug of wine in his hand. “Cal and Lia were taken in by your crap. All of your group, especially that insane psycho human … thing who convinced me that staying with the rest of the refugees was safest, and they took it as permission to play hero. Now they’re gone.”

Edie leaned toward Lena. “What’re the odds that he’s talking about you?”

The wizard turned suddenly at the sound of a new voice and glared at Lena. “YOU!” he shouted.

Lena looked at him nonplussed for a few seconds before recognition dawned on her. “Oh yeah! I remember you! Rolaid! Roman! R-something!”

Wyll massaged his temples. “Rolan,” he corrected.

“Rolan! You’ve got an internship with some shitty stuck-up wizard in Baldur’s Gate! Gale and I got drunk with you at the party until your sibs … dragged … you … oh. That’s who you were just talking about.” Rolan glowered at her. She pointed awkwardly at the mug in his hand. “You’re going to have a really shitty hangover.”

“Not if I stay drunk,” he snapped. “They were my responsibility and I lost them.” He turned back to the bar and hunched over his mug. “Now they’re at Moonrise Tower where who knows what those cultists will do to them.” He finished off the dregs. “Another bottle of that Arabellan red,” he ordered from a pair of tiefling children.

“Jaheira said to serve drinks, not drunks,” one of them said tartly.

“Jaheira didn’t save your ragged little tails from the cultists—I did,” he snapped.

Lena slapped a clawed hand down on Rolan’s shoulder and roughly spun him around even though the bar stool didn’t swivel—he squeaked against the wood. Lena raised an eyebrow then glanced at the weathered wood of a neighboring stool. “You’ve been here for a while.”

“He even managed to drink through your fight with that devil,” the same tiefling child said while the other nodded.

“Ah, that explains the smell,” Edie commented, wrinkling her nose. "It's coming out of your pores, and not in a good way."

“Look,” Lena said, “my group’s going to head up to Moonrise anyways and we’ll look for your sibs—”

“THEY WERE MY RESPONSIBILITY!” Rolan roared in her face, spittle flying. “ITS MY RESPONSIBILITY TO SAVE THEM, AND MINE ALONE!”

Lena let go of Rolan to wipe the spittle off of her face with her sleeves while Karlach put a hand on Rolan’s shoulder and turned him to face her. His ass squeaked again and the tiefling children giggled. “Hey, mate,” Karlach said in a calm but firm voice that brooked no argument, “None of us do this alone, and none of us can. And you’re not alone in this—not any more.” He tried to shrug off Karlach’s hand but her hand held firm. “Not. Alone,” she enunciated.

Wyll pulled up a barstool and sat down next to him. “That also means no haring off on your own. What do you think would happen to you if the Absolute or the Shadow Curse gets you, but Cal and Lia survive? How would you think they’d feel if they lost you?”

“Yes, but I’m the one who’s supposed to take care of them.” His breath hitched and his eyes developed a sheen. “It’s my duty—”

“They won’t be happy and they’ll spend the rest of their lives blaming themselves for losing you,” Shadowheart interrupted. Rolan’s face remained stubborn and Shadowheart sighed. “Look, Barcus is looking for his friend, who we believe is still being held in Moonrise Tower. He trusts us to find him, and he’s gotten himself into some rather desperate scrapes attempting to find him on his own. You could elect to join us. And if your brother and sister are also there, we’ll bring them back with us.”

Rolan looked like he was ready to argue, so Lena leaned into his face, almost nose-to-nose, and stared at him with an unblinking gonad-withering stare. “You," she said in a low snarl. She poked his chest with a claw to punctuate her words. "You will stay with us in our camp. You will sleep next to the fire. I will ask Withers to make you part of our party so we can revive your moronic ass when you inevitably do something stupid and reckless and get yourself killed so I can gloat that we were right and you were not. And if you try to sneak off on your own and survive, I will personally find you, murder you, have you revived, and spend a whole fucking day berating you for acting like a whiny idiot. Do I make myself clear?”

Rolan’s normally reddish skin took on a slightly greenish hue and he started to pant a bit Lena took this as her cue to hop over to the other side of the bar. She ducked just in time as a fountain of red poured out of his mouth and spattered all over and in between the floorboards, splashing Karlach and Wyll's shoes. Someone below them in the cellar shouted obscenities.

One of the tiefling children peered over the bar. “We’re not cleaning that up.”

Chapter Text

Lena managed to use the cleaning cantrip a few times to clean up the worst of Rolan’s mess on the floor (“Not fair to the kids to clean this shit up,” she said when Shadowheart raised a skeptical eyebrow), though she advised against using it on Karlach and Wyll. “It’s like replacing whatever you’re wearing with snow mixed with peppermint oil, and I’m not into that. Though if you are, I’m game,” she explained. They both declined. Shadowheart and Wyll managed to get Rolan to drink some water, while Edie and Karlach gathered his belongings. Then they dragged him back to their camp.

“Oh hells, not another stray,” Astarion complained when he saw Edie and Karlach half-carrying an extremely put-out and unsteady Rolan into camp and settling him down on a log. Wyll laid out Rolan’s bedroll near the fire and Shadowheart dropped his pack next to it.

“Get over it,” Lena said while handing two bottles of red wine over to Gale before starting to make her way to Withers.

Everyone looked a little alarmed when they noticed Lena's direction. Wyll rushed over to block her path to the walking-talking mummified corpse. “Perhaps I should be the one to talk to Withers about Rolan instead of you.”

Lena looked at him for a few tense seconds and then said, “Okie-dokie.” She moved to sit back down near Gale and everyone else relaxed just a little. Wyll rushed off to Withers before Lena could potentially change her mind.

Gale uncorked one of the bottles and sniffed it. He made a face. “Oof! That’s little more than vinegar. Still, it’s something we can use.” He dribbled a little into the stew and stirred it.

“So why is he here?” Astarion asked, pointing at Rolan.

Rolan grimaced. “I’m not here because I want to be! That one—” he pointed at Lena, “—man-handled me and then threatened me, saying that if I tried to save my siblings from Moonrise Tower on my own she’d murder me herself if I survived and then have me revived so she could shout at me for, quote, ‘acting like a whiny idiot.’”

Understanding dawned on Astarion’s face. “Ah. I wouldn’t want that either.”

Wyll trotted back to the fire and sat down. "Withers agreed to allow Rolan into our party."

Rolan wrinkled his nose. “So now I’m stuck with all of you. If we had just left the Grove on our own we could have made it safely to Baldur’s Gate by now.”

Gale ladled out some soup and handed the bowl and a spoon to him. “I daresay that the odds were not in your favor if you had attempted such a trek with just the three of you. We’re a party of ten, not including you, with most of us being experienced adventurers. There’s something to be said about traveling in numbers.” Gale continued to dole out stew to the rest of the camp, with the exception of Astarion.

Karlach piped up. “Yeah, and if you weren’t there, you wouldn’t have been able to save those kids when those cultists attacked your caravan.”

“What happened?” Gale asked, looking concerned.

“Wyll and I talked to a few of the refugees at the inn before noticing Rolan,” Karlach said. “Seems that they had a run-in with the Absolute. From what I’ve heard, Zevlor completely lost his shit and ordered everyone to surrender and obey their commands, even after those cultist fucks started torturing some of them to death right there before someone else figured out that they needed fight or run.”

“Who’s Zevlor again?” Lena asked.

“The former Hellrider we met at the Grove,” Gale reminded her. She shook her head. “The one arguing with the ‘curly-haired dipshit’ before you caused said ‘dipshit’ to urinate in terror?” She still looked a little lost. “The tiefling you mistook for a druid?” he offered.

“Oh, him!” Lena said. Edie giggled. “Hey! He had horns,” Lena said defensively. “I just didn’t understand that the druids wore antlers on their heads, and he had horns growing out of his head. Because, you know, tieflings were really new to me when I met him a day after we crashlanded into a different reality!” Her expression turned thoughtful. “Though that whole surrender thing seems really out of character for him because he was really big on keeping the refugees safe.”

“Zevlor failed us,” Rolan snapped. “That’s all there is to know about it.”

“I wouldn’t be as quick to judge,” Minthara said. “I was once in the thrall of the Absolute, and in the presence of a True Soul you can be made to feel a terrible ecstasy that can drown your soul. Think of the thing that you want the most, and then imagine the elation of feeling its surety even if your mind screams of its very impossibility. I would guess that Zevlor experienced this bliss as the cultists bent him to their will.”

Rolan looked down into his bowl, unable to think of a response. “If I hadn’t helped the children, I wouldn’t have lost Cal and Lia,” he muttered to himself.

“They may not forgive if you had chosen them over the children,” Shadowheart said. “Any more than they would forgive themselves if you died trying to save them from Moonrise on your own.”

Edie nodded. “Listen to her,” she said. “You survived a traumatic event that lead to several deaths. It’s very normal to feel a sort of guilt when someone else dies instead of you. Unfortunately, it also increases the chances survivors die by suicide because it’s very overwhelming.” She tilted her head to the side and eyed him thoughtfully. “Astarion and I will join you next to the fire tonight.”

“Wait, what?” Astarion said. “No, no, no, no, no. I am not forgoing the comforts of sleeping in a tent just to babysit an idiot wallowing in self-pity!”

Everyone turned to look at Astarion, though most tried to keep their expressions neutral varying degrees of success: that despite the luxurious pillows and rugs he liked laid out in front of his tent, everyone had seen glimpses of the wooden board and filthy sheet he had in lieu of a bedroll in spite of the spares they used as extra insulation.

Minthara, on the other hand, felt no need for tact. She narrowed her eyes at him. “I have seen what you sleep on, leech, and a bedroll would be an improvement. Especially if you have an attractive companion who can turn into a large and ferocious feline to sleep alongside. If you cannot overcome your master’s conditioning when he is not present, then your master has won without lifting a finger.”

Astarion opened his mouth to issue a retort, but nothing came out. He looked down into his empty goblet, appearing deep in thought. Nearly everyone kept a respectful silence, eating their stew or drinking to give him time to come to a conclusion on his own. Except Lena. After about a minute of relative quiet she started humming tunelessly to herself, earning a number of annoyed looks from her companions. Edie punched Lena in the shoulder and she stopped and gave her a confused look.

“What the hell are you trying to hum?” Edie asked.

“The ‘Super Mario’ theme song,” Lena replied.

“Your brother is possibly experiencing a pivotal moment of personal growth and healing, and you’re trying to hum the theme to a video game?” Edie asked.

Rolan looked in confusion between Astarion and Lena. “Wait, how are the two of you are siblings?”

Lena leaned toward him and whisper-shouted, “Don’t tell him, but he’s adopted!” Astarion gave her a side-eyed look and began to chug his wine. Shadowheart snorted a laugh and tried to cover it with coughing.

Rolan looked at her in open-mouth horror. “You’re insane. You’re genuinely insane.” He looked around at the others in camp and asked, “I’m going to be led to my death by a madwoman, aren’t I?”

Shadowheart rocked her head from side to side. “Despite the inexplicable and ridiculous things she says and does, we’ve so far managed to avoid having to revive any of our party.”

Karlach gave Rolan a hearty slap on the back. “Cheer up!” she said. “Even if we do need to revive you, you’re going to see a whole lot of bonkers stuff! Like how in the Underdark she had her hand in an Absolutist’s throat and used it like a sock puppet!”

“She did that with a decapitated gnome’s head not long after we met,” Shadowheart murmured into her wine.

“Ooo!” Karlach turned to Lena. “Can you also do that thing where you throw your voice so it looks like the head’s talking and you’re not?”

Lena was just about to answer when Rolan turned his head to stare at Karlach in dawning horror. “Oh gods, you’re insane, too,” he whispered.

Karlach shrugged. “I spent ten years in Avernus as Zariel’s personal fight dog in the Blood Wars, and I’ve learned to take my shits and giggles whenever and wherever I can get them. Maybe you should get that stick out of your arse and try it yourself.”

---

Later that night, Lena dreamed she was on lying down an asteroid again on the same grassy knoll as the last time, only this time not-Chris Evans wore what looked like a very short purple toga or a chiton or whatever the hell classical western European statues wore. “The voice of the Absolute is strong here. And getting stronger. I don’t know how much longer I can resist it.”

Still lying on the grass, she rolled her eyes at the not-sky and made a face. “No, really?” she drawled sarcastically. “Next you’ll tell me that if I get too close to a fire I might burn myself!”

Not-Chris Evans gritted his teeth. “I’m trying to convey to you that I’m still protecting you, but it’s getting harder.”

“Then say that! Or better still, tell me what I’m supposed to do with this information! Does this mean that your protection might lapse and one or more of us’ll end up with a case of tentacle-mouth? Or that we should try to move camp away from the Tower so you can take a break? Or did you want me to pat you on the back and say ‘I’m so sorry’?” She turned her head to look at him and then did a double-take. She pointed at his crochetal region. “Is—is that a skort? I mean, I know that wearing anything that short means that either your undies show or your brown-eye does, but there are skorts in Faerun?”

Not-Chris Evans closed his mouth and pinched it into a thin line. “I don’t even know why I bother,” he said, all attempts at an American accent dropped.

“I don’t, either. Your American accent sucks.” She got comfortable on the grass, with her ankles crossed her and her hands behind her head. Then she closed her eyes as though preparing for a nap.

Not-Chris Evans crossed his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes at her. “The Absolute knows of my existence and is redoubling its efforts to retrieving me—”

Lena opened one eye. “Retrieving? What, were you in its possession?” she asked sharply.

He blinked. “I meant capture. It’s trying to capture me because I’m the only who can resist its powers. I need you to infiltrate Moonrise Towers—”

“Already on it,” Lena interrupted. She turned and looked at him. “I thought you were able to read our minds thanks to our intracranial implants: We already agreed to Jaheira’s plan to pretend to be True Souls to get into Moonrise and figure out how to kill Ketheric Thorm. And because he’s there he probably has something to do with the Absolutely-Not-A-Vodka-Brand as well as the Shadow Curse. Especially after Minthara told us as much.”

Not-Chris Evans was about to say something, but the sound of a low growl came from behind them. Lena looked over and saw Edie’s liger form padded out from what looked like an English countryside version of Greek ruins. “Oh hi Edie!” Lena called out, sounding not particularly surprised.

Not-Chris Evans looked taken aback. “How did that get in here?”

Edie shifted. She gave not-Chris Evans a once-over and sniffed. Then she looked at Lena and tsked. “You’re so basic,” she said to Lena. Not-Chris Evans glowered.

Lena shrugged. “So it goes. Chris Evans can be excellent eye candy. How’d you get here?”

Edie tapped her chin and thoughtfully. “Not sure. It seemed like Astarion was having a nightmare—”

"I should’ve taken off Raphael’s ears,” Lena muttered.

“Hindsight's twenty-twenty,” Edie said. “Anyways, he was whimpering in his sleep, so I shifted and sort of cuddled him because I didn’t want him to think that I was going to take advantage of him, and that seemed to calm him down. Then I fell asleep and BAM! Here I am! Watching you annoy a dream version of Chris Evans!” She peered at not-Chris Evans’s half-exposed chest. “Chris Evans in real life has chest hair, you know.”

Lena shook her head. “Not when he’s playing Captain America. I don’t remember if he shaved or waxed. Either way, I’m guessing the ingrown hairs were itchy as—”

---

The dream ended suddenly and Lena awoke with a start tucked up Gale. She gently disentangled herself from his sleeping form and peeked out of their tent to see that no one else was awake except a Harper on watch duty making her rounds. She could hear the faint whisper of wailing of the shadows beyond the moonlight bubble.

Looking over to the banked campfire to see Rolan sprawled across his bedroll and a naked Edie spooning Astarion. She put on a linen shirt and sneaked over to the top of Edie's head and then carefully reached over and tapped her on the back. Edie gave a quiet snarl and swiped claws at the empty space behind her before she lifted her head to look around. Her eyes found Lena’s, then Lena pointed with her chin at Edie. Edie looked down at herself and then nodded to Lena before shifting back into her liger form. She used her front paws to pull Astarion against her tighter. He let out a contented sigh.

Lena nodded and gave Edie a thumbs-up before wordlessly returning to her tent. She slipped off the shirt and curled back up against Gale.

“What was that about?” he mumbled drowsily.

“Just needed to check something,” she whispered, but he was already back asleep, mumbling something about oranges and courgettes. She raised an eyebrow then kissed his bare shoulder before settling back down to sleep.

Chapter Text

Astarion woke up by degrees. The first thing he noticed was the faint sounds of conversation and mirth. Then he was cocooned in warmth, which was a sensation he hadn’t realized he missed. He tried to burrow himself under the bedfurs when he noticed that the furs were attached to a rather substantial wall of muscle. And purred. Then a rough tongue rasped against the top of his head and he shrieked and scrambled upright, looking around to see Edie in her liger form get up from off the ground and shake herslef and the rest of the party assembled around him, snorting and giggling.

Lena had her phone aimed at him and a shit-eating grin on her face. “Good morning! Did you sleep well?”

Astarion pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hells, you’re recording this all on your phone, aren’t you?”

“Damn straight!” Lena exclaimed. “It was so cute seeing you get all cuddly! And the high-pitched screech was the chef’s kiss!” She kissed the tips of her fingers.

Edie shifted back into human and embraced Astarion from behind. He jolted slightly and then relaxed. “He’s surprisingly comfortable to sleep next to, despite the restlessness. Plus, the lack of bowel movements meant I didn’t have to put up with someone else farting next to me.” Then she quirked an eyebrow and looked to Rolan. “Unlike some people. Maybe you should lay off the booze because that stuff does nothing for your digestion—I could smell you from across the fire.”

Karlach and Wyll giggled, while Rolan stood looking mortified.

“I daresay Astarion found it the situation extremely comfortable,” Shadowheart remarked with a smirk. “He seemed very cozy in Edie’s paws.” She looked over to Lae’zel thoughtfully. “Perhaps you could learn to wildshape from the druids.”

Lae’zel raised an eyebrow at her. “I fail to see how you cannot keep warm after our nightly exertions. Especially with your luxurious padding.” She gave Shadowheart’s ass a grab, and she swatted Lae’zel’s hand as she blushed a deep red.

Gale blinked, and Wyll glanced over at him. “In case you were wondering,” Wyll said in a low voice, “yes, that is what you look like whenever Lena gooses you.”

Gale coughed and blushed. “Ah.” Then Lena reached behind him to grab a butt cheek and he gave a little yelp before he gave Lena an aggrieved look. She grinned back at him. “Just thought you were feeling left out.” Then she gave him a hug and kissed him on the cheek.

Baffled, Rolan looked around at the assembled party and then sighed and rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m wondering if death might be preferable to this,” he muttered to himself.

“You needn’t concern yourself with their antics,” Halsin remarked. “For now, we should go to the Selunite cleric for a blessing; the Harpers are waiting for us.”

---

After gearing up, they headed into the inn. “What’s the place called?” Lena asked to no one in particular as they mounted the stairs.

“Last Light Inn,” Halsin replied.

Lena stopped in the middle of the stairs and wrinkled her nose. “Seriously? Was it called this before or after the Shadow Curse?”

Wyll bounced off her back with an ‘oof’ and nearly fell down the stairs before Karlach caught him. “How is it that walking into you is like walking into a wall?” he asked, rubbing nose which made impact with her back.

Lena looked over her shoulder at him and shrugged. “Fuck if I know. Maybe you’re just really spindly and you need to build up some bulk.” Before he could react, she lifted him up from his armpits and tested his heft before putting him back down. “Okay, yeah, you need some bulk, though we’re a little short on protein around here. Unless we resort to ‘cannibalism.’” She looked at Halsin who stood a step below Wyll and shot him an unsettlingly cheerful grin. "I mean, is it really cannibalism if humans eat an elf?"

Halsin narrowed his eyes at her and low rumble emanated from the back of his throat. “Let’s keep moving. We need to ensure that we intercept the convoy.”

They entered a room where they could see a half-elf woman with shoulder-length white hair standing on the balcony. She rolled her hands around a floating glint of light that grew brighter as she continued casting. When she released the light, it rose up to the bubble that protected the inn and most of the island, where the bubble absorbed it before glowing just a tiny bit brighter. The woman gave a satisfied sigh, then coughed.

Edie leaned over to Lena and whispered, “If this were an opera she’d be dead of tuberculosis by the end of act three.”

Lena called out to the white-haired half-elf woman, “Hey, you might want that looked at!” The woman startled and turned suddenly. Both Edie and Lena reared back and cringed when they saw the black smears and streaks around her eyes. “You might also want to consider investing in some waterproof eyeliner and mascara. Or maybe change up your technique because that’s less ‘smokey eyes’ and more “meth-addicted raccoon.’”

Halsin growled and smacked Lena on the back of the head. “Hey!” she exclaimed, “What was that for?”

“You need to learn to watch your tongue. We're here for a blessing, not to insult the cleric,” Halsin chastened.

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about her cough?” Lena asked, pointing at Isobel. “If everyone’s relying on her to keep out the curse, then we can’t have her collapsing because her lungs are filled with fluid or collapsing or some shit!”

Isobel walked into the room with a raised eyebrow. “Trust me when I say I’ve been worse. Though I would guess that Jaheira has sent you to beg a protection spell off her favorite cleric.” She wound up her arm and lobbed light into the all members of the party.

Shadowheart’s scar glowed purple as the light hit her and she hissed in pain. “Selunite magic. Dark Lady forgive me.”

“Good nose!” Isobel remarked. “Like a nasty little terrier.”

Lena's jaw dropped as she looked giddily at Shadowheart. “Wow! Did she just call you a bitch?”

Edie shushed Lena and cocked her head. “I hear wings. Multiple incoming.”

“Wings? I don’t hear anything—” Isobel started, then paused and turned her head. “Something’s wrong …”

Edie shook off her clothes and shifted, keeping close to Isobel. Lena was already on the balcony and started to climb out onto the roof, followed by Astarion, both staying in the shadows. Karlach and Minthara stood at the ready beside the doorway to the balcony, while Wyll and Lae’zel stood at the railing just outside the room, looking up at a hole in the roof. Halsin wildshaped into a bear, and Shadowheart pulled out a mace. Rolan looked a little nonplussed, but then shrugged and stood in a ready stance.

Gale cast mirror image on Isobel and urged her away from the balcony. “We need to get you someplace safe,” Gale said. “If you fall then so does everyone here.”

“But—” Isobel looked behind her and jolted as she spotted a figure with tattered feathered wings land on the balcony in the Iron Man pose (on one knee with a fist on the floor). Edie rolled her eyes, but then shook her head violently and huffed as the smell of rot hit her nose. A human-looking man swept-back shoulder-length dark brown hair and a short beard rose from his pretentious pose, showing he wore full plate armor and a tabbard bearing the emblem of the Flaming Fists.

“Hello, Isobel,” the man said. “Ketheric is waiting for you.” He started to swagger to the doorway. Edie growled.

Isobel gasped and whispered, “Marcus—is that you? What hap—”

A voice intoned, “DEATH FROM ABOVE.” Marcus looked up and his eyes went wide before a pink and blue blur crashed on top of him, flattening him face-down on the floor. Karlach and Minthara rushed out of the doorway and stared at the abomination Lena sat on, struggling to keep his wings from throwing her off. "Quick, grab his wings and pull!" she shouted. Each grabbed a decaying wing and began to pull in opposite directions. Marcus screamed, then howled as Lena’s knives dug into fresh scar tissue where the wings met his back.

“NO!” Marcus shouted as Minthara pulled a wing off with a wet tearing sound. Blood and ichor arced across Lena’s face, causing her the wrinkle her nose in distaste. “Oh, that’s nasty!” Lena exclaimed, spitting out a gob of contaminated saliva. “You might want to consult your surgeon about these parts they’re sourcing.” She drove a knife deeper into the joint of the other wing until she felt the bone pop free. Karlach braced her foot against his ribs and yanked hard, tearing the second wing off with a snap. Holding his arms down at the elbows with her knees, she grabbed Marcus's neck on either side under the collar of his armor, cutting off blood to his brain until he went limp beneath her. Then she pulled out some spider silk rope and she and Minthara began hog-tying him.

From the roof, a bowstring twanged and something screeched overhead. A hue and cry went up as the Harpers and a previously unnoticed cache of Flaming Fists began to scramble into position against the threat. A vaguely humanoid figure with a rent in one of its batlike wings careened through the doorway to crashland in Isobel’s room. “Fucking wonderful,” Karlach groused. “The ghouls here have wings.” Gale cast hold on it before it had a chance to stand, then Karlach jumped over Lena and Minthara to bring her battle ax down onto its back. It screamed and thrashed before Halsin began mauling it until the thrashing stopped.

Another screech came from outside and a winged horror crashed through the roof to land at the bar with an arrow in its thigh. The tiefling children screamed and tried to escape. One ran for the entryway when another winged horror swooped through the hole in the room and grabbed her. Rolan, spotting the screaming child as arrows flew by, shouted, "Damn it, you're not taking a child I just saved!" before hit it with magic missiles. It screamed and slowed its flapping.

Edie raced the railing when she heard Rolan's shout just in time to see the winged horror clear the entryway. “Hold your fire!” Jaheira shouted. “You’ll hit the girl!” Edie raced onto the balcony and then onto the roof where Astarion continued to fire arrows at the winged horrors still in the air, while she watched the one holding the child struggle to gain lift. She wiggled her haunches then leaped when she saw it had gained about three meters off the ground. She managed to snag it by one of its feet, dragging it down with her as she twisted her body so that her body took the brunt of the impact when they all fell and rolled on the ground.

A few of the Harpers stationed near the bridge leading ran to the mass of bodies that landed near them. One managed to pick up the now-unconscious girl, while another three grabbed dragged the stunned winged horror off of Edie and began hacking and bludgeoning it to mush. Edie staggered back to her feet and snarled when she found she couldn't put weight on one of hind legs. She limped back to the fighting when a bottle crashed near her and splashed her with a potion. Her developing bruises faded and when she tested her sprained foot she found it could now bear weight painlessly. She looked up to see Astarion on the roof. She gave him a nod. His posture eased before returning her nod with one of his own and then jumped down a hole in the roof to rejoin the fight.

Lae’zel switched from her crossbow to her greatsword when she spotted a winged horror sprint in from an open doorway. With a dark grin, she rushed at it, ducking beneath its outstretched claws to stab it through the gut. It drew up an arm to slash at her when a blast of green light shoved it off her sword. She turned back and gave Wyll a curt nod before running over to the still-moving winged horror and slashing through its torso from shoulder to rib.

Jaheira was busy slashing and parrying a winged horror when she heard a crash behind her and saw in her peripheral vision that Karlach and jumped down from the upper floor onto a different winged horror, effectively flattening it before she grabbed a clawed hand on Jaheira’s before Jaheira drew one of her scimitars across its neck, slashing its throat to the bone.

Soon it was over. Shadowheart had finished healing the child's concussion with the combined sleep spell, and was now setting the girl's broken arm. Halsin and Isobel tended various other gashes and scratches. Lena and Minthara hauled a seething Marcus out of Isobel’s room.

"Let's just set him down here," Lena said, indicating the top of the stairs. Minthara raised an eyebrow but released him. Then Lena stepped on Marcus's back with one foot, then launched them like a skateboard. Lena let out a 'Whee!" while Marcus's head bobbed and smacked the occasional step as they juddered down the stairs. She jumped off to the side as he landed at Jaheira’s feet with a thump and a groan, his mouth thoroughly bloodied and his lips split.

Jaheira’s expression went flinty. “It appears that we have a traitor in our midst.” She turned her head and nodded at a nearby Harper who disappeared into a room on the ground floor. Marcus lifted his head and turned to sneer at her.

A vaguely familiar elven woman rushed out and stared at Marcus. “Counselor Florrick!” Wyll exclaimed.

“Wyll, it’s good to see you, though the circumstances are far from ideal,” Florrick replied. She turned her attention back to Marcus and shook her head slowly. “I had hoped for better from you,” she said.

Marcus spat out a gob of blood along with a tooth onto her shoe. Florrick grimaced at the mess and shook her foot. “I have nothing to say to you.”

Edie stalked up to him from behind Florrick. She slammed a paw into the side of his chest to flip him onto his side then roared into his face. Her hot breath blew back wayward strands of hair and coated him in spittle. When she stopped, the whole inn was silent except for the trickle of urine hitting the floor as Marcus wet himself.

Florrick and Jaheira cringed, not only at Marcus's obvious venality, but also the sight and smell of the growing puddle on the floor.

One of the tiefling children peeked out from over the top of the bar where some of them hid. “We’re not cleaning that, neither.”.

Chapter Text

“Are we still on for taking out that convoy?” Karlach asked Wyll as she started stretching her shoulders on the way back to the inn to burn off some nervous energy. They’d just finished negotiating with Dammon to turn the bulette hide into a new chestplate and boots for her while their party waited for Jaheira to finish questioning Marcus for any changes to the convoy setup since Minthara last used it to make her way to the Selunite sanctum and turned it into an Absolute stronghold.

“I imagine we should know fairly soon,” Wyll replied. “Jaheira and Florrick have Minthara and our shifters with them: if there’s information to be had, they’d manage to wrench it out of Marcus.” He shuddered, remembering the way Lena bit off Raphael’s nose and spat it out like a great gob of phlegm.

“Shame I couldn’t go watch,” Karlach mused, “But Edie said that my engine would warm up the wine and beer if I stayed and could ruin it all.” They sat down at the bar next to Lae’zel, Shadowheart and Rolan before ordering beer from the kids. Karlach noticed that the three were distracted by something near the back of the inn. “What’s everyone looking at?” she asked.

Rolan pointed toward and open door to the back of the inn to where Astarion was apparently teaching a few of the children the finer points of pickpocketing. “Honestly, I don’t know what to make of it. These brats are already a load of troublemakers without him helping.”

Wyll’s head dropped as he groaned into the his beer. “Gods, we don’t need to spend all of our time watching our backs and checking if anyone’s stolen our gear.”

“No, he extracted a promise from Mattis that they’d won’t steal from us, and avoid stealing anything other than coins from everyone else here,” Shadowheart replied distractedly.

“He told them that it would not benefit them if those who protect them lack the means to do so,” Lae’zel added.

Karlach smiled. “Aw, that’s sort of sweet. Oh look, he’s showing one of them the right way to stab someone taller than them in the heart with a dagger!” They watched him demonstrate an upward thrust before handing the blade to the child nearest to him.

Rolan blanched. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

“How is it any different to when Wyll was showing them how to fight while you were still all camped at the grove?” Shadowheart asked. She raised an eyebrow at Wyll. “It seems to me that this suits them much better than swinging shortswords and telling them to run.”

Wyll gave Shadowheart a pinched look. “That was because we were expecting a pitched battle in case the goblins overran their caravan. I didn’t want them to think they needed to be a part of the fighting, or to feel the weight of taking another’s life.”

Lae’zel grunted her disapproval. “Chk. You concern yourself with the wrong things. These children are already surrounded by death, and they should feel able to take any life that would take theirs.” She frowned. “Though these tiefling children are soft if they are expecting to attack their enemies from behind rather than face them as true warriors.”

“Not everyone grew up with the same training as you,” Karlach said. “I had to pick up my skills when I was a teenager. You’ve gotta admit that I’m pretty handy with a battle ax.”

Lae’zel nodded graciously. “I concede to your point.”

Karlach gave her a wry smile and lifted her mug. “Cheers, mate.”

After drinking in relative silence and observing Astarion with the children outside, they heard footsteps leading from the cellar. Edie, Lena, and Minthara joined them.

“What’s going on?” Lena asked, a tankard of beer sliding towards her.

Karlach pointed out the back door to where Astarion was now showing the kids where to best to stab someone wearing armor, adjusted for their relative heights.

“Oh. My. God,” Edie whispered, her eyes like saucers. “I feel like my ovaries are bursting,” she squeed softly.

Lena nodded then whipped out her phone and started recording. “That is really fucking adorable. Who knew he’d be good with kids?”

Rolan sipped his wine and gave both shifters the side-eye before shaking his head. “I’m surrounded by reprobates,” he sighed.

“Yeah, and we get shit done,” Lena replied, her eyes never leaving the screen. “Besides, this place seems sorta lax about laws and rules, including the laws of natural selection and physics with all the extra magic shit! Even with Mystra being a bitch!”

Rolan grimaced uneasily. “I would rather you showed a bit more respect for the Weave, seeing as you draw from it yourself.”

Lena stopped recording and put her phone away to give Rolan a flat look for a second before she said, “Nah. Mystra has a lot of atoning to do before I show her any respect.” She cast light that coalesced into a ghostly projected fist that echoed the fist she now made. Then with her free hand she made a winding motion and both hers and the projected fists’ middle fingers slowly extended with the gestures aimed at a hole in the roof. “Ya see that, Mystra? Fuck you!” she shouted. The other patrons in the inn looked on with a mix of curiosity and amusement. Edie and Karlach looked on impassively before they both shrugged and went back to drinking beer. Lae’zel smirked. Minthara chuckled into her wine. Shadowheart raised an amused eyebrow. Wyll frowned disapprovingly.

Rolan’s eyes went wide with panic as he reached over Edie to slap down Lena’s hands and the projected middle finger disappeared. “Are you mad?,” he whispered urgently. “Wait, who am I talking to; of course you are. You should show some respect for the Lady of Mysteries! Or at the very least, if you’re going to blaspheme, do so far from the rest of us so we’re not caught up in whatever punishment Mystra might impose on you!”

At the moment, Jaheira approached the bar with three Harpers in tow and they all sat down and made their orders. “Oddly, I agree with Lena,” Jaheira said. “I have heard told that many of Mystra’s Chosen become her lovers, and not all have come to good ends. And that in Rashamir male children who show an aptitude for spellcraft are hidden away to learn in secret and silence.” She gave Lena a wry look. “Though I would not think it wise to deliberately provoke a god: even though they are prevented from directly interfering with mortal matters, the same cannot be said of their worshipers. And by invoking the Weave, you invoke her. Though the worst that I heard that I’ve heard her do is revoke one’s access to the Weave.”

Lena shrugged. “It’s more of a convenience for me than a necessity. I’m more annoyed that I have to shift to take a shit or else I have to wipe my ass with sticks and leaves. Why hasn’t anyone here invented toilet paper?”

“Wait, you shift to shit?” Edie said. She smacked her forehead. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Lena nodded. “Not having butt cheeks and having an evertable anus means having a cleaner ass than hoping there’s—”

“That’s enough,” Jaheira cut in impatiently. She nodded at Rolan and Wyll as well as a male elf with short black hair, all of whom looked slightly queasy. “It seems some of us are not meant to learn more about certain bodily processes, and we need the moonlantern. I’m sending you accompany Harpers Branthos, Elindale, and Lassandra to an area where we know the convoy passes to and from Moonrise. Gather the rest of your party and head out within the hour.”

Both shifters suddenly stood at attention, their barstools screeching against the floor, and saluted Jaheira with their right hands just touching their right eyebrows. “Sir! Yes sir!” they barked in unison. Astarion looked up through the open back door and Gale peeked in from the room where the Flaming Fists boarded, apparently having been commandeered by Halsin to help examine an unconscious Flaming Fist.

The others giggled and snorted. Jaheira scowled. “What the hells is that?”

Both shifter’s postures relaxed and Edie began to giggle. Lena looked at Jaheira, pretending that she only just perceived the faux pas. “Aren’t we supposed to treat you like a military commander?”

Jaheira sighed. “A simple, ‘Yes sir,’ would suffice. Just prepare with whoever else you want to join you.” She noticed a slow smile start to stretch across Lena’s face. “From within your party,” she amended. “You may not take Marcus with you as bait.”

Lena pouted. “You’re no fun,” she complained.

Jaheira shook her head and looked between the two shifters. “I never though I’d feel bad for a traitor during an interrogation, but you two managed it.” She finished her wine and then got up and walked away to the table where she had laid out maps and plans.

Gale approached the bar and and sat down next to Lena, ordering some wine. “I would ask what you did, but I also recall your ‘singing.’” He shuddered at the memories.

“Who said anything about singing?” Lena said.

“Lena and I both grew up with mothers with the skills to lay on guilt like buttercream on a cake,” Edie said.

Lena nodded. “Though Edie’s mom always had a knack with shame. Hell, the woman even managed to shame me, and in general honey badger’s don’t feel shame.”

“I thought he was going to collapse from hyperventilating, he was sobbing so much.”

“I thought he was going to collapse from the weight of existential angst and dread.” Both shifters grinned happy grins.

Minthara nodded approvingly. “If I were head of House Baenre, I would proudly employ you as interrogators. You were both magnificent in tearing his psyche to shreds without the use of the tadpoles. And better still, the only fluids being spilled were tears. Blood stains are so difficult to remove without magical means.”

Edie nodded. “You need an enzymatic cleaner to really get that stuff out.”

A tic developed under Gale’s eye as he warily regarded Lena. Shadowheart caught his eye and raised her mug of wine to him with a wink and smirk.

Lena noticed the exchange and wrapped her arms around his waist. “If you’re worried I’m going to emotionally eviscerate you, ask yourself the following: ‘Do I enjoy kidnapping someone with the intent of having them brainwashed by the head of my cult (who, by the way, is also the vic’s dad because it’s just one of those things) because he gave me a pair of stinky wings from a dead demi-god? Do I enjoy torturing and killing refugees? Do I enjoy being a complete dick to people who have nothing to do with me regardless of whether they deserve it?’ If the answer’s ‘no’ then you’re fine!”

Gale considered her for a moment, and then relaxed and returned her embrace. “Fair enough.”

---

Not long after finishing their drinks, the party and the three Harpers headed out on the path toward the planned ambush point, though Halsin decided to stay behind to see if he could glean any other clues from the mumblings from the unconscious Flaming Fist.

“It’s curious,” Gale remarked quietly as they hiked. “He appeared at the inn not long after Isobel cleansed it of the Shadow Curse, then immediately fell unconscious. He's been repeating a song about being with Thaniel. From the sounds of things he’d been trapped with him in the Shadowfell since the Shadow Curse fell on the land.”

Lena blinked at him. “I have no idea what the Shadowfell is.”

“It’s a plane of shadows and is the Lady Shar’s domain,” Shadowheart supplied.

“Shiiiit,” Lena hissed. “What else did you and Halsin learn?”

“He had a letter from the Grand Duke Eltan, the founder of the Flaming Fists, to investigate the Thorm family, starting with the House of Healing. We might want to go there to glean for more clues, and possibly finding something that might break the Shadowfell’s hold on his mind. Then he might regain consciousness. And from there Halsin might be able to locate Thaniel to lift the curse.”

Lena rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Ugh, nothing’s ever easy, is it?”

Edie raised an eyebrow at gave her a wry look. “Beats filling out forms for taxes or the DMV.”

Lena shuddered. “Even online that shit sucks.”

Rolan gripped his quarterstaff tighter. “Are we going to delay finding my brother and sister in order to investigate this ‘House of Healing’?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” Lae’zel replied. “We will make our way directly to the prison if they are being held there.”

Shadowheart smirked. “You just want an excuse to kill someone.”

“That is true,” Lae’zel replied. “Those winged ghouls only gave me a mere taste of the violence I crave.”

“’Brawndo! It’s what plants crave!’” Lena said quietly to herself. Everyone turned to her, confused. Edie punched her arm hard. On anyone else the impact would’ve at least left a fractured humerus, but it merely bruised Lena.

“Ow!” Lena exclaimed quietly while rubbing her arm. “What was that for?”

“We were already starting to live that movie at home; I don’t need you to remind me while we’re effectively on vacation from reality!” Edie hissed.

Branthos, the wood elf with short black hair, glared at the shifters. “We’re here,” he said curtly. “Go make yourselves useful and hide until the convoy passes by. I’ll give the order to strike.”

“Why wait?” Minthara asked. The corner of her mouth ticked up. “When I can summon their conductor?” She pulled out her spider lyre and strode out onto the open path to sit on a fallen log before she started plucking out a tune. The rest of them found hiding places behind trees and on top of abandoned buildings.

A few minutes later, they heard a deep raspy voice muttering, “Yes, I hear them, you majesty. Calling us. Their god and their guide, together.” A pale glowing light emanated from the path to the south, accompanied by the sound of eight pointed legs tap-tap-tapping their way to them on the compacted dirt. Then the drider appeared, approaching Minthara.

Edie stared at the drider in revulsion. The drider looked like he used to be a male drow with shoulder-length white hair, but where his crotch and legs used to be he was now attached to a rather tumorous-looking spider cephalothorax where the spider's eyes would have been. Black chitin covered the drow portion of his body like massive patches of psoriasis. The sclera of his original eyes were entirely black, with extra eyes hovering above his left eye like someone couldn't be bothered to remember the number and position for a given spider species had and simply added a few extra and said, “Good enough.”

Lena, by contrast, looked on impassively and wondered aloud, “Would eating those legs count as cannibalism? I never got to those spider legs back in that abandoned village.” Astarion wrinkled his nose in disgust and was just close enough to swat her on the back of the head. She whipped her head around to glare at him with bared teeth, and he bared his back.

The drider held the moonlantern closer to Minthara to get a better look at her, then reared back and hissed, “You! You should not be here, apostate! You have abandoned our goddess and queen!”

“Kar’niss, who claimed that I abandoned the Absolute?” Minthara replied. “Am I not here before you, unharmed?”

Kar’niss stared at her, astonished. “You blessed her, my queen. Where is her lantern?”

Minthara looked at him and gave him a smile that was all teeth. “The Absolute told me I was to take yours.”

Kar’niss regarded the lantern in his hands. “Majesty? Is—is this true? Did I not serve you well?” He seemed to listen to a voice only he could hear. Then he sagged. “Very well. If it is your will, she can have it.” He tossed the lantern toward Minthara, who caught it before it could hit the ground.

Minthara examined the lantern, though her eyes widened slightly before she smoothed her expression back to its usual hauteur when she looked back at Kar’niss. “Very good. You may go.” She gave him an imperious wave to leave.

“But—but how am I to go?” Kar’niss asked, suddenly suspicious. “It cannot be the will of our queen.” He drew a sword from his back just as Minthara armed herself with the Blood of Lanthander when suddenly a vaguely striped tan and orange streak slammed into the drider’s side, knocking the sword out of his hands.

“Traitors!” he screamed. He lashed out at Edie’s liger form with clawed hands as she ducked and dodged them.

“Careful!” Minthara shouted. “His claws are venomous!”

Lena had scampered from her hiding spot and clambered up the drider’s legs to firmly straddle his abdomen. She grabbed a hold of his hair and yanked back. “Really? Venom?” she asked gleefully into the surprised drider's face. Kar’niss reached behind him with his claws and grabbed her wrist, but she wrenched herself free. Blood ran freely where his claws left gouges on her bare skin, though she hardly reacted to the pain.

“Ooo! Tingly!” she exclaimed as she started to feel the effects of the venom, and gave the gashes a quick lick. "And tasty, too!" The effects quickly faded and her expression fell to disappointment. "Aw, your venom's weak!"

Kar’niss stared at her, stunned. “They cannot be poisoned?” He roared and thrashed in attempt to grab and dislodge her, but she’d extended the claws on her feet to dig into the joints where his spindly spider legs met the spider cephalothorax and kept a hold on his hair. He screamed in pain and started bucking.

“Hoo doggy!” Lena shouted, like she was riding a mechanical bull, letting her legs act as shock absorbers and her free arm like a counterweight.

Edie had shifted back to human and looked at the scene with a small frown. With her fists on her hips, she shouted, “Stop fucking around already! We’re on a schedule!”

Kar’niss was starting cast a spell of some sort while continuing to buck when Lena shouted back, “Okay, fine!” With her free hand she punched the side of his neck silencing him mid-spell with a wheeze. Then she extended her claws on her hands and ripped off a patch of chitin from his neck before digging into muscles and tendons to reach where his carotid artery should be. She clamped her hand into a fist, crushing tissue through her fingers like ground beef. Blood gushed out of his wound and his motion slowed before he slumped down and collapsed.

“What the hells was that?” ask the halfling Harper, Elindale. His mouth gaped at the sight of a single person having taken down a drider in the unlikeliest way he could imagine.

“I thought you would have at least saved some of the bloodshed for me!” Lae’zel complained. When Lena raised an eyebrow at her, Lae'zel said, "Shadowheart stayed my hand when I raised my crossbow." Lena frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. Shadowheart nudged Lae'zel. "The drider. I intended to shoot the drider. Not you." Lena's expression lightened a bit, but remained skeptical.

“We have the moonlantern, at least, so we can go and find Rolan’s sibs,” Edie said. She cocked her head when she looked at it. “There’s something inside it.” She reached for a small catch when Minthara shouted, “Wait!” before the door was already open.

A very tiny purple-hued humanoid with gossamer wings flew out. “FINALLY! Been trapped in that coffin with no one but a mad drider and my own farts for company.” She stretched and let out a fart before she looked back at Edie. “Did me a good turn there, didn’t you? What do I owe you?”

Edie looked at the tiny pixie blank astonishment before Minthara rolled her eyes and addressed the winged pest herself. “We need to get through the Shadow Curse, except now we have no moonlantern.” She gave Edie a side-eyed glare.

“I can help with that!” the pixie said, then she looked at them speculatively. “But will I?”

Edie shook herself at that statement. “Hey!” she shouted indignantly.

The pixie shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why not.” She pulled out a silver jingle bell and handed it to Edie. “Here, give this bell a shake, speak the magic words, and you’ll get what you’ve earned.”

Edie examined the bell. It read, ‘Dolly Dolly Dolly’ on it. “Soooo …”

“Protection from the Shadow Curse—what more could a dingus want?” the pixie replied.

As pixie was about the flit away, Edie shook the bell and said, “Dolly Dolly Dolly, can you protect us from the Shadow Curse now?”

Dolly (thrice) turned and rolled her eyes. “Oh, alright.” She held her hand palm-up and blew a glittery powder that coated the entire party, including the three Harpers. As their skin absorbed the glow, Dolly (thrice) gave them a bow and said, “You’re welcome!” as she flitted off. Before she disappeared, she turned back to Edie. “By the way, you might want to cover up your bits if you’re going to keep wandering around here! Nothing worse than finding dirt and leaves in your fun holes!”

Astarion came up to her side and handed her clothes to her. “Honestly, darling, she has a point. Though I don’t really mind mind the view, I imagine you’ll catch a chill and a few odd looks.” He pointed back to the Harpers, who now gaped at her. Karlach cackled.

She narrowed her eyes at them. “Like you’ve never seen a pair of tits before!” she called out while holding her breasts up to point at them.

“Maybe not ones quite as splendid as yours,” Astarion murmured.

Edie gave him a flirty look and aimed her breasts at him. “If ever you’re ready, you know where I am,” she purred.

“Goddamn it Edie, not now!” Lena called out while in the process of tearing the chitin off the drider abdomen: it made a series of wet popping sound as the connective tissue snapped and released the carapace from soft tissues beneath. Minthara, meanwhile, methodically popped off the legs with a dagger to the joints. This time Rolan was the one who found a discrete bush to vomit onto while Wyll kept his lunch inside and just looked a little peaky.

"Pfft! You're one to talk," Edie shouted back. "You and Gale are both sickeningly cute and the horniest people I know!"

Karlach snorted. "She's got you there!" she called out to Lena.

"Yeah, but she's with my brother," Lena shouted and made a gagging sound. “Hey, you three!” she called out to the Harpers, finally drawing their attention away from Edie’s nudity. She held out a gory drider carapace piece. “Mind taking this and a few other pieces back to Dammon and let him know that we’ve got work for him if he’s up for it? We're in a bit of a hurry and don't really have time to clean these for him.”

They approached the drider corpse. Branthos queasily took the drider pieces, dropping them into the drider's carry-all. “But what are we supposed to take back to Jaheira?” Lasssandra asked. “We’re supposed to bring her the moonlantern.”

“Here,” Minthara said, holding up the now-empty moonlantern. “Explain that there was a pixie in there.” She before she handed the moonlantern over to Lassandra she pushed a small button and thin spikes shot out of its floor.

"Oh gods, there are needles in there!" Lassandra cried.

Everyone looked at the moonlantern in horror. Minthara grimaced and shook her head in dismay. “I’ve seen that used whenever a moonlantern’s light began fading.” Lassandra took the lantern gingerly before she and the other Harpers took their leave.

“Did you know that there was a pixie in those things?” Karlach asked Minthara.

“I never beheld one close enough to hear their cries until one was handed to me today,” she admitted. “They may be mischievous little pests, but even I consider this device to be unnecessarily cruel.” She shuddered. “Let us be off.”

Chapter Text

They wandered south toward Moonrise Towers, avoiding the bridges that lead directly into Reithwin. “This is a more discrete way into the prison cells than the front doors,” Minthara said softly as she lead them to a partially collapsed bridge. “Everyone should be able to manage the gap.” She gave both Gale and Wyll a speculative look. “‘Should’ being the operative word.” She jumped across.

Karlach shrugged. “Easy enough.” She picked up Wyll by the back of his collar and trousers, and before he could do more than struggle a bit and squeak out a ‘Hey!’ she tossed him across the gap, whisper-shouting, “Remember to roll like I showed you!”

Wyll did not roll, and instead belly-flopped onto the stonework on the other side with an ‘oof.’ He wheezed out a pained groan. Nearly everyone winced. Minthara pinched the bridge of her nose. “Sorry!” Karlach whisper-shouted before she leaped across and helped him up before handing him a healing potion from her carry-all.

He drained the bottle in one go. “A little warning next time?” Wyll asked, still sounding a little breathless.

“Maybe a little more spin when you toss,” Edie suggested. She picked up Lena and threw her. Lena gave a little yelp before she threw her arms in front of her face and tucked into a smooth roll back onto her feet. Lena looked back at Edie and flipped her the bird with both hands.

Gale and Rolan looked at each other with slightly pained expressions before Gale reached into his carry-all and pulled out two bottles, handing one to Rolan. They both uncorked the bottles, tapped the necks in a toast, then drained the potions before easily jumping across.

Astarion glared at the two men. “What, you don’t have one for me?” The two men grinned back at him and he turned suddenly to see Edie had come up from behind him. Before he could react, she hoisted him over one shoulder and took a short running leap across the gap. She put him down and he leaned unsteadily against her. “That’s new,” he said.

“Will you do that for me?” Shadowheart asked Lae’zel.

Lae’zel raised an eyebrow. “Zhak vo'n'ash duj, source of my bruises, no,” she replied dryly. When Shadowheart started to frown, Lae’zel explained, “You are not some weak k’chakhi; your thighs are strong enough to squeeze the sound from my ears even as I try to keep them spread, so I doubt you have need for me to carry you across.” Karlach guffawed. Rolan and Wyll coughed. Minthara rolled her eyes. Shadowheart blushed furiously even as she took Lae’zel’s hand and they easily crossed.

“Neither of you are allowed to complain about me and Gale again!” Lena whisper-shouted at both Edie and Shadowheart.

Shadowheart blushed a deeper red as Lae’zel gave her ass a pat. “Agreed,” Lae’zel said, gazing fondly at Shadowheart.

Minthara sighed with exasperation. “If we are all done, we need to keep moving. There are guards up ahead.”

Lae’zel’s mouth stretched into a vicious grin. “Perfect. How many?”

Edie sniffed the air. “At least one nearby. Smells human. There may be more, but there’s no wind so I can’t get a good read until I get closer.”

Lae’zel stepped forward. “Allow me.” She drew her sword and stalked toward the guard.

Lena looked up at Gale with a raised eyebrow. Gale looked back and sighed before he cast silence on the guard just as Lae’zel come into view from the shadows and sliced the top of guard’s head clean off. The remainder of the guard’s brains fell out while the top of her skull smacked the wall behind her.

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “That’s some tough steel,” she remarked.

Astarion frowned. “How long are we going to have to listen to her sharpen that thing when we get back to camp?” he whispered back.

Everyone watched Lae’zel examine her freshly-cleaned blade and wrinkle her nose at a few imperfections in the edge. “Tsk’va, this will require some time at the grindstone. Istik craniums are harder than I expected for creatures that are otherwise so soft.”

Everyone let out noises of dismay. Edie got right in Lae’zel’s face and loomed over her. “You should’ve thought of that before you took the top of someone’s head off,” she whispered urgently. “If I have to listen to the screech of metal on stone for more than five seconds, I’m going to literally bite your face off.” Lae’zel glared back at her, pretending not to be cowed.

Shadowheart stepped in between the two women. “Let’s just calm down. Lae’zel, perhaps you can talk to Dammon to see if he has any quieter means to hone the edge. None of us are especially fond of listening to you endlessly work your grindstone.”

Lae’zel frowned. “Fine. Though if my blade fails to protect you because I have not taken the time to care for it, then let that be on your head.”

“And if you grind your sword down into a paring knife, you can use it to peel a potato,” Lena whispered brightly. Lae’zel raised a fist with her ring finger pointed up. Lena stared at it even as Edie chortled and Shadowheart smothered a giggle behind her gloved hands. “Wrong finger. Anyways, there’s at least three more people at the docks down there.” She pointed the wooden platforms. “What’re the odds those nice newish shipping crates have food?”

Lae’zel’s eyes widened. “Disposing of Absolutists and possibly add to our stores of meat?” She started stalking toward the dock when Astarion stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and pointed at the parapets closest to them. They looked up to watch as a silhouetted figured move to the edge before going back.

“They don’t seem especially wary of attacks from the air, but it wouldn’t do to give them cause for alarm,” he said. He paused. “That, and I wouldn’t mind a little snack, seeing as the hunting here is otherwise rather slim-to-none.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Unless you’re willing to make a donation …” He gave her a fanged grin.

Lae’zel sneered at him. “More stalking in shadows. How loathsome.”

“Better than dealing with the full force of Ketheric’s coterie,” Minthara said. “The tadpoles can give them power over the mind and body of others. We should be well aware of that, and that we are woefully outnumbered.”

Lae’zel grimaced. “Then let us deal with the tadpoled fools at the docks quickly.” She looked at the dock. “We would do better with a small contingent in such constrained a space.”

“Want in?” Lena asked Gale.

Astarion and Lae’zel frowned at the suggestion and Gale held up his hands. “I think I shall refrain in this instance—I’m afraid that my knees already object to the very suggestion of crouching.”

Lena shrugged. “I’ll bring you something nice—”

“—No need, my love,” Gale interrupted. “You go have your fun!” he urged.

Astarion, Edie, and Lena used hand-signals to help Lae’zel navigate the well-lit dock unseen, timing their passage with when the guards had their heads turned away. Astarion picked out a human guard because he wore leather armor that lacked a gorget that would other otherwise get in the way of Astarion’s meal. Lae’zel and Lena sneaked further ahead, positioning themselves to hide near the other two guards while remaining in sight of Astarion and Edie.

As the human walked past, mumbling to himself about worms, Edie gave a countdown with her fingers before snatching him off-balance by his hood and shoving a balled-up rag in his mouth and throwing him prone onto the dock. His toes drummed the boards briefly as he struggled to get up, but Edie punched his lumbar to push him back down. Astarion fishhooked him with a gloved finger to expose his neck and tore it open with his fangs to begin feeding.

As Astarion ate, Lena had sneaked behind a dwarf to turn his helmet backwards before snatching his halberd and hip-checking him into the water where he sank like a rock in his full plate armor. Lae’zel stepped behind a half-elf guard just as he turned to see what had fallen on the dock and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around suddenly only to get a sword stabbed in his face. He slid limply off the blade and onto the dock.

Lae’zel regarded the body thoughtfully as Lena approached with the halberd slung across her shoulder. “I could get used to this,” she remarked.

Lena grinned back and nodded. “Fun, isn’t it? Especially when they get that ‘oh fuck!’ look right when you surprise them!” She quickly rifled through the dead half-elf’s belongings, and fished out a few coins and a potion. Then she shoved the entire corpse into her carry-all. When she noticed Lae’zel staring, she explained, “Pet food.” They headed back to where Edie and Astarion stood, him wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Can you grab that corpse for the camp critters?” Lena asked Edie.

“Oh, sure,” Edie replied, stuffing the dead man head-first into the carry-all. “Just remember to take off the armor or the wolves get annoyed.”

Lena sniffed the air. “You smell ozone?” she asked Edie.

Edie pointed at a metal barrel with a stylized dragon logo on it with yellow stains near the lid. “I also get a whiff of something sweet off of it, like nitrous oxide.”

Astarion wrinkled his nose. “I had a sense that it’s filled with living tadpoles, all sleeping. Possibly hundreds of the damned things, all being distributed by the Zhentarim by the looks of things.”

“Who?” Lena asked.

“One of the many, many criminal gangs prowling across Toril,” Astarion explained. “Seems they have a working relationship with the Absolute.”

Lae’zel sneered at the barrel. “Chk. Then we deal with the worms and we deal with the Zhentarim.” She raised her sword, ready the strike the barrel open when Edie stopped her hand.

“NOPE! Not a good idea,” Edie said urgently.

“Why not?” Lae’zel asked.

Edie grimaced. “By the stains and the presence of nitrous oxide that thing’s filled with nitrogylcerin, which is very explosive. But if you’re sure you want to do that, at least wait until the rest of us are a ways away, or at least behind a nice thick stone wall with good masonry.”

“Why would a barrel full of tadpoles need to be filled with explosives?” Astarion asked.

Lena waved her hand enthusiastically. “Ooo! Ooo! I think I know this one!” She dropped her hand and launched into an explanation in a nasally pedagogical tone. “Nitroglycerin is a vasodilator, meaning it causes blood vessels to expand for increased blood flow, so it might be used to counter whatever’s keeping the little fuckers asleep so they stay alive!”

Edie gave her a skeptical look. “No, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Lena shrugged. “Neither does much else out here, so why not a bunch of psychic magical roundworms in a barrel of explosives?”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “The brine pools where the tadpoles hatch are known to be unstable and prone to spontaneous explosions unless magically contained. This nullglyph—”

“Nitroglycerine,” Lena corrected.

Lae’zel narrowed her eyes at her before continuing. “This substance you speak of may act as a substitute for the brine in those pools. Either way, I do not want these to remain accessible to the Absolute.”

Edie grinned and rubbed her hands together in anticipation. “Oh boy! This is going to be a really neat explosion!” She placed the leaky barrel into a spare carry-all before tucking the whole thing into her own. “Can we use it in the prison break? I always wanted to explode something like straight out of a movie!”

Lena grinned at her. “It’s our patriotic duty to blow shit up because we’re not just shifters, we’re Americans!”

Lae’zel took a deep cleansing breath before saying, “Chk. Just avoid injuring or killing me.”

Chapter Text

“What’d you find?” Karlach asked as the Astarion, Edie, Lae’zel, and Lena returned to the main group. They all hovered near the door that led directly to the prison.

“A few dried sausages, a wheel of cheese, and some carrots,” Lena said.

“And this.” Edie lifted a carry-all out of her carry-all, then revealed a yellow-stained barrel with the Zhentarim symbol on it. “Filled to the brim with sleeping illithid parasites and macerating in enough nitroglycerin to probably blast the side of this wall clean through.”

Nearly everyone else stared at it in horror and disgust, though Minthara looked at it speculatively. “The worms do offer us great power if we so choose to use them,” she said.

Lena scrunched up her face and stuck her tongue out in disgust. “You’re free to do whatever, but personally those things give me a headache. Also, I forgot what I did for my last birthday and I think it’s from the last time I used one of those fuckers.”

Edie shook her head. “I don’t think you can blame that one on the worms; you got completely wasted during a shifter-run drag revue with a bottle of venom-laced vodka you sneaked in, then deliberately started a fight with the bartender by biting him because you had the ‘brilliant’ idea that if we get thrown out we wouldn’t have to pay the tab.”

Gale covered his face with his hands and sighed while Minthara and Wyll shook shook their heads in exasperation. Astarion and Karlach tried very hard not to audibly laugh, though the both of them wheezed and leaned against the stonework to stay upright. Lae’zel raised an eyebrow, while Rolan could only stare slack-jawed at Lena. Lena pursed her lips thoughtfully. “So you’re saying the memory loss was …”

“Very likely venom and alcohol-induced, yes,” Edie said.

Shadowheart gave a low growl of frustration. “Let’s stay focused: if the barrel is full of nitroglycerine, wouldn’t that mean that Barcus’s friend revealed Ironhand secrets to the Absolute?”

Now Edie pursed her lips. “I’d guess yes, though it looks like they’re not quite using it in the way we thought.”

Lena grimaced. “This might be less a rescue so much as a recovery.”

“They may have torn his psyche to shreds with their tadpoles while searching his mind for information,” Minthara added casually. “Though with deep gnomes I’ve found that it’s not difficult to destroy them with well-placed insults to their skills as miners and artificers.”

Lena nodded sagely. “As a software engineer, I wholly sympathize.”

“Can we go in now?” Rolan hissed impatiently. “Right now, I don’t care if the Absolute manages to explode the whole of this accursed land: I need to see my brother and sister safe!”

Lena gave him a sympathetic look. “I’d feel the same way if my brother were a similar situation, but he’s also a honey badger and could’ve dug his way out of here and probably taken out a half-dozen guards along the way before scampering off into the woods. Also, Lae’zel here wants more killing or else she might get crabby and break my nose again.”

“That is an accurate assessment,” Lae’zel agreed.

“So I say we go in and hit ‘em hard and fast like the barbarians we are!”

Karlach gave out a small cheer. “Now we’re talking!”

“Speak for yourselves,” Edie scoffed. “I’m only half barbarian; my lion ancestors had the blood of Roman emperors in them.”

Wyll blinked at her wording. “Don’t you mean that you have the blood of these emperors running in your veins?”

Edie gave a quick shake of her head. “No, I meant that my ancestors assassinated and ate at least four emperors and up to ten—according to family lore—and depending on how you count them. And once sold the throne to the highest bidder. So my ancestors had the blood of emperors. In their bellies. Besides, who'd want to be descended from a bunch of inbred dickwads?”

Wyll sighed to himself. Rolan’s eye started twitching.

“Getting back on point,” Minthara said. “They will use scrying eyes, which are constructs that can psychically alert the rest of the Tower to our presence. I’ve never seen any destroyed except through magical means; even then it requires a spell such as shatter.”

“Zurgan!” Rolan swore. “I don’t have that spell!”

Gale rifled through his carry-all then handed the younger man a scroll, who promptly began studying it to adding it to his spellbook. “I have extras as well.” Gale handed two more scrolls to Shadowheart and Wyll.

Lena gave Gale a slightly offended look. “Babe, why don’t I get a scroll?” she asked.

“My love, because you’re both brilliant and deranged I strongly suspect that you would manage to do what no one else I know has ever done, and that is to take creative liberties with the magic embedded in the scroll to cast a spell that does something other than inducing a shockwave to shatter the target,” Gale explained.

“Such as?” Lena asked innocently.

“I don’t know: with you? I would hazard you would send of tidal wave of urine. Or generate a deafening high-pitched noise. Or perhaps create a vacuum instead of a pressure wave.”

Lena’s eyes lit up and she grinned. “Ooo, that last one sounds promising! Because if it lasts long enough it can cause gases to bubble out of blood and tissue, and then the air rushes back in and slams the target! Everywhere! All at once!” She gazed adoringly at Gale. “Can I borrow some of your books tonight?”

Gale gave Lena a flat look. “I walked right into that, didn’t I?”

“Honeybuns, you are a treasure trove of inspiration!” she squee’d quietly. He let himself be pulled toward her so she could kiss his cheek.

“If this works, do you think this could work out as a scroll?” Astarion asked Gale. “Asking for a friend.” He gave Gale a vicious toothy grin.

Gale let out a little sigh. “Of course. Why not?” he said sarcastically. “Any one else have any other requests? Perhaps a spell to extract gold from tooth fillings? Or maybe one that can turn a person inside-out?”

“Maybe one that forces all the calcium and phosphorous in bones into the bloodstream so that the vic becomes all floppy and has seizures?” Edie suggested.

“Yes! I like that!” Lena exclaimed quietly. “Even if it only partially works and they survive, anything with a calcium-based skeleton could be passing out kidney stones for months!”

“Not that that partial version would work on vampires and other undead,” Astarion pointed out.

Rolan snapped his spellbook shut then gave Gale a withering look. “I’ve finished preparing the spell, despite all the insane ramblings I’ve overheard. I’m still amazed that you’re entangled with her.” He pointed at Lena and she gave him a cheerful smile and waved. Just as Gale opened his mouth to respond, Rolan stopped him with a hand and continued. “And yes, I understand that you’re enamored with her and her prowess in bed, and she seems to have a strange and novel capacity for spellwork, but she’s just so irritating! Even you seem to find her frustrating!”

Everyone looked at Gale. Lena raised an eyebrow at him. Then he cleared his throat. “At least she’s never boring,” he said somewhat lamely.

Lena gave Rolan a wide-eyed stare and gestured between herself and Gale. “See! It makes perfect sense why we’re together!”

---

A high elf woman with platinum blond hair and piecing blue eyes and a tall half-orc woman with black hair with red highlights and a very large battle ax stormed into the hallway that led to the dungeons. One of the two drow guards on patrol nudged the other to stand alert just as the high elf stranger spoke: “I need to speak immediately to the warden.”

“Who are you? And on who’s authority?” the first guard demanded.

The stranger sneered. “I am True Soul Eowyn Stormcrown. I am here with my personal guard, True Soul Grulga. My orders come from Ketheric Thorm himself. It seems that one of his high-value prisoners has been withholding information, and he sent me to learn why the warden has missed this. And if necessary, replace her.” Then the stranger leaned forward into the guard’s personal space and gave her a sinister grin before she hissed, “Perhaps with me.”

Both guards watched with wide eyes as True Soul Grulga toyed with her battle ax and glowered at them.

“Your names!” True Soul Eowyn barked.

Both guards stood at attention. “Zealot Soreni, True Soul!”

“Zealot Zira! We can both escort you to see the warden.”

“Why would I need two guards to lead me?” True Soul Eowyn asked in a patronizing tone. “Zealot Zira, you remain on patrol. Zealot Soreni, with me.”

“Yes True Soul!” The guards saluted True Soul Eowyn before Soreni led her and True Soul Grulga into the prison while Zira started her patrol.

As they walked through the doorway, Soreni thought she heard a thud behind her and stopped. “Did you hear something?” she asked, turning to look behind her, but True Soul Grulga glared, her hulking blocking her view.

True Soul Eowyn narrowed her eyes at Soreni. “I heard nothing.” She gave the guard an assessing look. “Yes, I think I see why the Absolute has not chosen you to become a True Soul.”

“What?” Soreni’s eyes went wide.

“If you hear things that aren’t there, the Absolute cannot trust your senses,” True Soul Eowyn explained. She pointed to a half-orc guard ahead of them. “Who is that?”

“Zealot Nadi, True Soul.”

“Introduce us.”

“Zealot Nadi,” she hailed the guard. “We are blessed with the presence of two True Souls. This is True Soul Eowyn Stormcrown and her personal guard, True Soul Grulga.”

The guard stood at attention and saluted. “True Souls!”

“Carry on, Zealot Nadi,” Eowyn ordered with a dismissive wave. “Who else guards the prison?”

“On the other side of the path is Adept Keris. She directly guards the prisoners.”

“Lead me to her. I want to see her before I confront the warden.”

Again, Soreni thought she heard something akin to a struggle and a thud, but she chose to ignore it after the True Soul’s set-down.

As they walked, they passed a scrying eye. “Is this the only one?” True Soul Eowyn demanded.

“No, True Soul. There is another patrolling alongside Adept Keris.”

True Soul Eowyn nodded approvingly. “At least standards haven’t fallen that far.”

Soreni though she heard a whooshing sound behind her and surreptitiously looked at True Soul Eowyn for any reaction. However, her countenance remained impassive until she noticed Soreni looking. “Is there something the matter, Zealot Soreni?” she asked pointedly.

Soreni snapped her head forward. “Nothing! Nothing, True Soul!”

True Soul Eowyn nodded curtly and they continued, passing a second scrying eye and two cells holding prisoners, some of whom were sobbing, before encountering another drow guard; this one wore a tall hat to indicate her status.

“Adept Keris! We have guests! This is True Soul Eowyn Stormcrown and True Soul Grulga!” Soreni said.

Keris stood at attention. “True Soul!

True Soul Eowyn glared at her, and then at the prisoners. “Have you no way to shut them up?’ she demanded.

“No, True Soul!” Keris replied. “The warden ordered that we avoid methods that could leave permanent damage until she finishes questioning them.”

True Soul Eowyn let out a disapproving growl. “That will have to change. Zealot Soreni, take me to her now.”

“Yes, True Soul!” she replied. She turned to lead them to a narrow bridge to a chamber when she heard the whooshing sound again, followed by a gurgle and a thud. The prisoners suddenly stopped sobbing. She turned her head and again her vision was obstructed by True Soul Grulga. “I know I heard something.”

She looked around the massive True Soul and spotted a githyanki woman drag Keris’s body into a dark corner and the shattered remains of a scrying eye on the floor when she heard True Soul Eowyn sigh. “Now,” True Soul Eowyn indicated to True Soul Grulga and Soreni found herself suddenly lifted off her feet and tossed into the gap between the path and the warden’s chamber by a cheerfully-grinning True Soul Grulga.

“Toodles!” Grulga said in Karlach's voice, waving as Soreni disappeared from view. She dusted off her hands. “That worked better than expected! Nice going, Minthy!”

'Eowyn' gave a graceful bow. "I thank you for the compliment."

Edie slunk out from a shadowed corner while wiping blood off the blade of a long sword. “Always a problem when you demand perfect unquestioning obedience from your underlings; someone can pretend to have authority and upend your entire operation.”

Rolan rushed over to the bars of a cell. “Cal! Lia!” he whispered urgently.

“Rolan!” Lia cried out, as she crawled from her seat on the cell floor to the bars. Everyone promptly shushed her. She used the bars to pull herself upright while Cal limped to join her. “You’re alive!” she whispered. They tried to hug each other through the bars.

Suddenly, the door to the warden’s office opened and Lena stepped out carrying the head of a tiefling. “Don’t worry; just don’t be too loud,. Here, catch!” she said, tossing the head over to Rolan, who dodged it instead of catching it. It smacked the bars with a sickening crunch before landing on the floor.

Cal looked down at the head. “Oh gods, that’s the warden,” he whispered. Then he stared at Lena’s bloody mouth and claws as she started cleaning her hands with a rag. “I think I’m in love.”

“Me, too,” Lia whispered, her hand over her heart.

Rolan gaped at them in horror. “No, no, no, no, no! No! None of that! You are not pursuing her or anyone else like her!”

“She’s spoken for,” Gale snapped as he sidled up to Lena and wrapped an arm around her waist possessively before kissing her forehead.

Edie picked up the head by a horn and turned it in her hands to examine its ragged neck stump. She frowned. “Wow, this thing's a mess. Bite marks everywhere, the trachea and arteries are all torn up, and you chipped the bifid process on C4. Good thing no one's asking for this head.” She lobbed the head like a basketball into the gap where Karlach tossed Zealot Soreni earlier. Its horns scraped against the wall next to the door to the warden's office, giving it a little spin before disappearing into the depths.

“Oh yeah, I decided to try seeing what I could do with just fang and claw.” She just finished wiping the majority of the gore off her face and hands before casting a cleaning cantrip on the rag and putting it in her carry-all.

"Uh, why?" Edie asked. "With a few exceptions and the magic, most of the people here are a lot like the full humans at home — easy pickings."

Lena shrugged. “You know, just because I could. Why else?”

Chapter Text

Shadowheart finished healing some of the tieflings’ worst wounds—setting bones, closing open sores, etc.—through the bars while Wyll questioned them. “Have any of you seen a bald human who looked a little like me, except older?” he asked.

A female tiefling with rose-colored hair in a high ponytail shook her head. “We never saw anyone like that down here. I overheard some of the guards and the ‘questioners’ that there was some sort of ‘high-value’ prisoner, but he was being held elsewhere.” Wyll let out a disappointed sigh. The tiefling leaned against the bars “I’m really sorry about your … brother?” Wyll shook his head. “Father?” Wyll nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry about him, but can I get someone to let us out? Or maybe work with the deep gnomes if you can’t work the locks? They’ve got some sort of plan going.”

Suddenly the cell doors juddered open and the tieflings rushed out of their cell as fast as their healing injuries would allow. A different cell held three deep gnome that Shadowheart hadn't managed to examine, and one strolled out and stretched while the other two limped.

Lena poked her head out of the warden’s office. “That worked! The doors opened!” She looked back into the office. “Those levers would make much more sense if they were closer to to where you could see the cells.”

“‘Labels,’” Astarion replied from somewhere in the office. “The levers are labeled with the cell numbers.”

Lena thought for a moment and then wended her way between milling prisoners to where Lae’zel had stashed the body of Adept Keris dragged it out a doorway, shooing away Cal and Lia from the door. Minthara poked her head through a window from a mezzanine window above the warden's office. The freed prisoners watched with open curiosity, though Gale, Rolan, and Wyll observed with some trepidation.

“Hey, can someone toggle the lever for cell door three?” Lena called out.

The door slammed into the body, trapping its ribcage against the bars and nearly bisecting the corpse. A few bone shards had punched their way through the robes, while bits of organs and their contents squeezed out of the wound that Lae’zel’s sword had left in the Adept’s back. Noises of surprise and disgust rose from mostly the prisoners and Rolan who were unused to seeing casual corpse abuse (even if it was for science). Astarion’s and Edie’s heads poked out of the office door. Minthara barked a laugh. Karlach, still wearing the illusion of a half-orc, leaned out of the window Minthara stood next to. “Ooo, that would’ve hurt!” she said.

Edie looked back at the levers and then at the mangled corpse. “There really isn't a clear line of sight between the levers and cells.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose. “I wonder if anyone’s ever moved those labels around on those levers.”

“Or gotten drunk and just started randomly toggling them.”

“I can see those being used to behead someone or slaughter a cow,” Karlach added. “Or a really lazy butcher cutting up a carcass.”

Edie scrunched up her nose. “That’s a lot of bone fragments, not to mention this place doesn’t look easy to clean. I’d fire them.”

Astarion tilted his head as he regarded the corpse. “I’m curious if it can crush a skull.”

Lena nodded thoughtfully. “Can you open the door back up so I can move the body?”

Astarion looked to Edie. “Could you? I didn’t get to watch the last time.”

Edie huffed. “I didn’t, either!”

Gale sighed. “Here, allow me.” He cast mage hand and a few seconds later the door rattled open.

“Thanks, babe!” Lena called out before moving the corpse over so the head was in the path of the door before moving herself out of the way. “Ready!” The door slammed the head, but it only managed to crush the facial bones. Rolan and Wyll winced.

“That was anti-climactic,” Astarion complained.

Lena shrugged. “Eh, can’t have everything. Though now I wanna know if there’s a way to modify the enchantment so it can squish a skull.”

“I might have an answer to that,” a deep gnome with loose raggedly-cut pale yellow hair interjected. She approached the bars and pointed to a line of characters scratched into the metal. Gale and Lena approached the bars, with Rolan hesitantly following. “See this series of runes?” the deep gnome said.

A bald deep gnome with a perpetually pinched expression grunted in disapproval. The first deep gnome looked back at him with some confusion. “I was only explaining how the enchantment worked, Wulbren.”

“Nimble, we talked about this,” Wulbren said in a patronizing tone. “We don’t know these folk or why they killed the guards or let us out. For all we know they may try to extract Ironhand secrets from us.”

Shadowheart started. “Wait, you’re Wulbren? Wulbren Bongle?”

Wulbren crossed his arms and sneered at her. “Who’s asking, halfbreed?”

Lae’zel hissed then unsheathed her sword and stalked toward him, but Shadowheart stopped her. “Let it be,” she said to Lae’zel. Then she addressed Wulbren. “Your friend, Barcus, has been looking for you.”

Wulbren looked surprised. “Barcus? Out here? I didn’t think he’d have the stones.” Shadowheart raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, but he continued talking with his hands raised expansively. “I reckon we were meant to meet—I’m Wulbren.”

Now Shadowheart crossed her arms and her expression turned wry. “So I’ve gathered. You seem remarkably intact compared to the tieflings.”

Wulbren shrugged. “What can I say? I’m worth more unharmed.”

Minthara smirked. "I always found deep gnomes to be arrogant, but this one appears to be especially deranged." She politely clapped. "Bravo; you've managed to exceed my expectations."

Edie snorted and she started to stalk toward him from the warden’s office. “We found a barrel of illithid tadpoles filled to the brim with nitroglycerin just outside.” Wulbren gave her an artfully blank look as she continued to talk. “You know, the primary ingredient to your ‘runepowder’ recipe that you so doggedly searched for? Risking life and limb of yourself and your clan members?”

Wulbren’s lips tightened into a thin line for an instant before he flashed her a snide grin. “Yes, a common-enough recipe—”

“Except when it’s not!” another bald deep gnome interrupted. He kept one arm cradled to him and limped over to Wulbren. “I saw them take you away and you always came back looking like nothing happened. I thought you were acting tough with whatever torture they were doling out.” He rolled up a sleeve, exposing oozing scabs and fresh burns and lacerations. “You always went on about how hard it was to make some of the components for runepowder without it exploding on you—what did you tell them?”

Wulbren narrowed his eyes at the other deep gnome. “I don’t need to tell you anything, Nickel.” Lena raised an eyebrow at the name and mouthed ‘Nickel?’ surreptitiously over at Edie. Edie shook her head and shrugged. “Just know that I lead the Ironhand gnomes, and I ensure that the Ironhand name gets the respect and recognition it deserves!”

Just as Wulbren was about to reach out a finger to poke Nickel in the chest, Edie caught his hand and looked over to Shadowheart. “This one injured at all?”

Wulbren tried to pry himself free from Edie’s grip, but she didn't budge. Shadowheart reach over to him. He shied away, trying to avoid her touch but she laid a hand on his shoulder, causing him to glow briefly. “I detect no major injuries. No evidence of trauma. His vitals appear to be within normal ranges for a deep gnome.” The glowing stopped and she eyed him suspiciously. “Your speech appears to be normal, you’re neither hysterical nor withdrawn; unlike your friends, you appear to be whole.”

The two gnomes stared at Wulbren. He looked at them with panic, then rage and yanked his hand free. “I told them nothing of import!” Wulbren lashed out. “Only some tidbits that would end up with them blowing themselves up!”

Gale tapped a finger to his chin. “Yes, and I recall that a Beldron—whom we rescued from the Absolute while we traversed the Underdark—saying that the cult has enough people to throw at the problem such that casualties would not be an issue: warning that no part of the recipe should be revealed lest they manage to produce significant quanties. Which, apparently, they have. And not for the reasons we originally assumed.”

Wulbren lifted his chin defiantly. “What I did, I did for the good of the clan.”

“What you did, you did to save your hide!” Nickel accused.

“Without me, the Ironhand gnomes would fade into obscurity. I am the Ironhand clan!” Wulbren said.

Lena winced. “Wow, delusional much, dude?”

“Shut your whore mouth, slutkin!” he snapped, then he froze as a blade appeared at his throat.

“Honestly, I don’t know why we’re bothering to save gnomes,” Astarion complained blithely with his free hand pinching the tip of Wubren’s ear hard, effectively trapping the gnome between pain and death. “Especially rude ones. Say the word and I’ll ensure we need never hear this one ever again.”

Lena was about to give him the go-ahead, but Shadowheart shushed her, saying to him, “We at least owe it to Barcus to see his friend again and make his own judgements.”

“We could always kill Wulbren and give Barcus our sincere condolences,” Lena suggested.

Astarion grinned and Edie, Gale, and Shadowheart all gave Lena a chiding look. “No, we can’t,” Gale said.

Astarion's face fell and Edie nodded. "Barcus deserves to find out that Wulbren's a dickhead on his own. Otherwise he won't get closure."

"Why are any of you concerned with that soft little tagalong?" Wulbren cried out. The fingers holding his ear in place pinched harder. He flinched only to slice his neck against the dagger.

Lena sighed, ignoring Wulbren. “Okay, fine, we’ll drag the tiny turd—” all three gnomes glared at her, “—back to Barcus and let him decide if he wants to forgive him.”

Astarion wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I’m not carrying him all the way back to Last Light Inn.”

Lae'zel made a scoffing sound. "As if you had the strength," she muttered. Astarion glared at her.

“No need,” Nimble piped up. “The wall on the back of our cell’s structurally unsound. And I found a book that another prisoner left behind about how there’s tunnels behind the walls that lead to the river, and maybe even a boat.”

Wulbren glared at Nimble and she stuck her tongue out at him. Karlach had come down from the mezzanine when the discussion started and pulled out a warhammer. “Easy enough to see what’s back there.” She raised the hammer and wailed on the wall a few times until a hole appeared, then she and Lena pulled the rocks and debris away until it was large enough for Karlach to get through.

Lena sniffed the air. “Definitely water back there.” Gale approached the hole and Lena pointed to an unlit torch in a sconce nearby. He cast firebolt and the light flickered on the walls of a rather large tunnel and at the far end, a dock with a boat.

Karlach looked back at Wulbren and gave him a wicked grin. “Seems like we won’t need to carry you very far, after all.”

---

After they finished hog-tying and gagging Wulbren and Shadowheart treated the other two deep gnomes' wounds, they dropped Wulbren into the bottom of the boat with the tieflings at the oars.

Wyll gave Rolan a friendly slap on the back. “We’ll see you back at Last Light Inn.”

Rolan nodded and stepped aboard. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me save my brother and sister.”

“It was an honor.”

Rolan waved before he sat down. As the boat cast off Rolan noticed both Cal and Lia staring longingly at something on the docks as they rowed. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and said, "At least try to pay attention to where we're going."

Wyll snorted and leaned against Karlach, who in turn embraced him from behind.

“I wonder if Barcus’ll forgive him,” Karlach said.

“If he does, he’s a far better man than I,” Wyll replied.

“Or a complete sap,” Lena offered, stepping up onto the dock alongside them. Wyll glared at her. “What?” she asked defensively. “Dude gave up secrets while his friends got tortured, and now we’re faced with a bunch of cultists that’re shipping live larval illithids into Baldur’s Gate. And he had the gall to say that he was doing it for the good of his people. I wanna go back to camp to make sure no one lets him out.”

“It’s still not up for us to judge for him,” Wyll replied. “Besides, I still want to see if I can find any information on where my father might be.”

Lena sagged and groaned. "I can't tell if it's the lack of daylight or something else, but the days here just feel endless. The Underdark didn't feel anywhere near this oppressive."

"Suck it up, soldier," Karlach said. "At least we can still taste our food. And while we're here, we may as well give everything a quick look-see. Besides, the sooner we figure out who to kill, the sooner we can get the fuck out of here and head off to Baldur's Gate. And I can finally see home for the first time in over a decade."

Lena sucked in a deep breath, then let it out in a puff that blew stray hairs from her face. She gave Karlach a hearty slap on the shoulder. "Fine. Let's grind our way through this shithole and see if we can't at least find Wyll's dad."

"That's the spirit!" Karlach cheered. "Let's march!"

Chapter Text

After bidding Rolan et alia bon voyage in the prison, the party dispatched a lone remaining guard at the base of some stairs before heading up.

"Now as I recall," Minthara said quietly as they exited through the door at the top of the stairs, "we should be heading through an old advisor's chamber before reaching the throne room."

They entered a time-worn wreck of a room with a drow woman with waist-length white-blond hair and overzealous red shimmery eyeshadow looking at them from across it with predatory interest; more specifically, at Astarion. "You there," the woman called out with a languid refined voice. "True Souls. I have a particular offer I'd like to make if you're interested."

Lena squinted at the drow woman in confusion then pointed to herself. "Who, me?"

A flicker of irritation crossed the woman's face. "Not just you, True Soul."

Lena cautiously approached, followed by an alarmed-looking Gale. "Are ... are you a prostitute?" Lena asked. Behind her, the rest of the party groaned or snickered.

Karlach looked a little confused. "I don't get it—seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me."

The woman's expression darkened. Shadowheart stifled a giggle behind a cough then approached Lena to whisper, "Perhaps you shouldn't greet strangers with that question."

Lena raised her eyebrows. "Why? Complete strangers don't try to talk to me about ambiguous offers unless they're trying to sell me something, and I'm not seeing what else she's trying to sell."

Edie looked at the woman's table of goods. "I think the candles and crystals are a clue; she's a hausfrau who think she's a perfumer and wants to sell us 'healing' crystals and scented candles." She sniffed the air and winced. "I have to say that the latter doesn't seem to work; she smells like a dead skunk and those candles aren't doing anything to cover it up."

The woman's face became outraged. "I was going to offer you a deal; a potion of great power atuned to you for a vial of your blood."

Lena snorted. "You think we'd trust you? You can't even come up with a way to cover up your own awful funk. You'd fuck up instant ramen!"

"She seems like the kind of person who'd add mayonnaise to fruit salad," Edie commented.

"Or would replace oil or butter in cakes and cookies with applesauce."

"I bet she'd add a cinnamon stick in a cup of tea and call it 'chai.'"

Lena nodded. "Or add raisins to potato salad."

Edie shuddered. "Oh, that's just nasty! She'd add canned ham, pineapple, and olives to lime-flavored gelatin and call it 'aspic.'"

"She's use Cool Whip instead of whipped cream in everything."

"QUIET!" the woman barked. The two shifters looked to each other and shrugged. The drow woman composed herself, flipping her waist-length hair before looking at the rest of the party. "My offer still stands for the rest of you True Souls: a potion of all your best traits in a bottle for a tiny vial of your blood—"

"Seems reasonable," Karlach commented.

"—And your friend—" the woman added, looking toward Astarion.

Edie and Karlach crowded into the shorter woman's personal space. "—Not so reasonable," Karlach said.

The woman's eyes went wide and she held up her hands. "Not like that! He's a vampire, isn't he? Or at least one of their spawn. I assume he belongs to one of you. I'm just asking to borrow him for a minute or two."

In the shadows, Lena suddenly appeared from behind the woman and whispered in her ear, causing her to shudder; "Still not hearing anything worth listening to. Because you said 'belongs' and 'borrows' like someone owns him. And frankly, that's really insensitive to the average vampire spawn." Lena dug the point of a knife into the base of the woman's skull. A trickle of fetid blood came out.

The sour scent of flop sweat suddenly overlaid her smell of rot and contagion and she quietly started to cry. A thin, whiny cry. "I just wanted him to bite me! Was that so much to ask?" she whined

Everyone looked to Astarion, who looked vaguely startled. "What? Why the hells would you want me to bite you? And why would I want to bite you? My friends weren't wrong in describing your odor as something foul, like decaying vermin pulled from a sewer."

Lena wrinkled her nose. "You'd probably give him the vampire equivalent of hepatitis A or typhoid."

The woman gasped in offense, and Lena dug in deeper into the meat holding up her head. "You could answer why you want him to bite you," Lena said nonchalantly. "Or I could just jam my blade into your brain stem and wiggle it around like a chimp fishing for termites. Honestly, I'm good either way."

The woman's tears stopped as if on command and she held still before slowly and carefully answering. "I've dreamt of having a vampire bite me since I was a little girl. I want to feel my life's blood slipping away. To dance on the edge between life and death."

Edie shook her head. "No, I don't see how your kink justifies your treating a complete stranger like they exist just to serve your whims. I believe you should always treat people in the service industry with a modicum of respect." she said. She thought for a moment. "Unless they're pissy abusive assholes, then all bets are off. Anyways, as per your kink, l can and will be generous and oblige you to a degree." She raised a clawed hand and raked the drow's throat, severing arteries and spraying even more blood on everyone nearby. The woman gurgled and went limp, then Lena and Edie hoisted her by her armpits between them like they were handling a drunk.

"What's going on there?" a man's voice called out nervously from the other corner of the room.

"Nothing to see here, mister!" Lena answered cheerfully without looking. "The lady here just fainted and is going to take a little nap!"

"Should I call the guards?"

"No, no need!" Edie replied, equally chirpy. "She's just overwhelmed by the fumes from her candles! You know how sensitive to smells some people can be."

"Ah," came the answer. "I'll just leave you to it."

"Thanks for offering, mister!" Lena replied, laying the woman down behind some moldering crates with her head lolling to one side. "There! All cozy!"

"Her eyes are still open," Karlach commented.

"Anyone got any pins? Like from a sewing kit?" Edie asked.

Astarion went through his carry-all and handed her some steel head pins. "What are you doing?" he asked as she bent down over the body.

She pinned the eyelids closed, driving the pins into the bones it the back of the eyes to hold them in place. The crunching sound made Wyll blanch. "Was that really necessary?" he asked.

Edie gave him a flat look. "Yes."

"it's not like she can close them on her own. Anymore," Lena replied, tying a rag around the neck like a scarf, covering the rough gashes. "There! Fashion!" she said, pointing to the lumpy knot.

"This feels wrong," Shadowheart commented.

"What, killing her or posing her?" Lena asked.

"That ridiculous neckcloth. Here, allow me." Shadowheart bent down and retied the now-blood–soaked rag into something resembling a cravat. "Much better, wouldn't you agree?"

"I cannot fathom how that made any difference," Lae'zel said.

“I can! She looks fancy now!” Karlach said.

They all looked up as they heard a woman shout of “ENOUGH!” from the next room over, followed by the smell of ozone. Everyones’ tadpoles squirmed, trying to obey, and the party doubled over in pain. Well, except Edie and Lena. Edie looked down at a wincing Lena. “You okay?” she whispered.

“Damn it! That smarts!” Lena whispered back while massaging the space above her eye as blood trickled from her nose. She blew out her nose in the general direction of the doorframe and then wiped away the rest on the back of her hand. “Something’s happening. Let’s go see what it is.” She motioned for everyone to start moving toward the doorway leading to the throne room.

There they saw a group of four goblins cowering in front of a throne. Sitting on said throne was a tired and pale-looking elderly half-elf man with a gray beard and lank gray hair dressed in full-plate armor. Next to him stood a tall woman with green skin and a pair of tusks protruding from her lower jaw. She wore robes similar to those of the Adept guard they killed in the prisons below.

Lena squinted at the tusked woman. “I wonder if she has some sort of special routine for maintaining those tusks,” she wondered quietly. Everyone in the party turned to look at her askance. “What? Exposed dentin needs special consideration!”

The tusked woman continued to talk. “You failed to retrieve the artifact. You failed to protect your True Soul. You do not deserve to live.”

One of the goblins spoke up. “Mercy, General Thorm! Please!”

The elderly man who was Ketheric Thorm gave a tired sigh. “We are too close to the ending—and the new beginning. I can coddle failure no longer.” He stood. “Kill them. Quickly.”

The first goblin spoke up. “What? No!”

Another goblin erupted in fury. “YOU CREAKING OLD BAG OF SHIT!” she shouted. She grabbed a battle ax from one of the guards next to her and threw it at Ketheric; it planted itself in his chest and knocked him back onto the throne, seemingly killing him as black ichor dribbled out of the wound. The other goblins cheered.

Then Ketheric's eyes opened and he stood, yanking the ax out of his chest and strode forward.

Edie’s and Lena’s eyes grew wide. “Cool,” Lena whispered. “This is like that Reanimator movie we watched as kids.”

Edie nodded. "I really don't get the armor. What's the point of that if someone can embed an ax that far?"

“I’m so sorry, my lord,” the half orc apologized. “She’s an unbeliever—outside my control.”

He ignored the half orc and then dropped the ax in front of the goblin who attacked him. “Try again.” The goblin momentarily hesitated before she screamed and swung the ax, slicing Ketheric from shoulder to heart. This time, he remained standing. When he yanked the ax out his bisected torso grew back together.

Lena and Edie gasped and then looked at each other. “Awesome!” they whispered to each other. Then Lena ran toward the Ketheric, shouting, “My turn! My turn!” Gale half-heartedly raised a hand to stop her.

“No! I get to go next!” Edie shouted, trying to outpace Lena. Ketheric froze to watch as the two women scrambled over each other, and Lena snatched the ax from his hand and hip-check the goblin out of the way before winding up to swing.

“WHAT THE HELLS ARE YOU DOING?” Ketheric bellowed just as the ax whistled and sliced across his neck to leave a deep gash that nearly decapitated him. His head fell backward, dangling against his back by a just few muscles fibers and tendons. .

“Oops. Not a clean cut," Lena said. She watched as and he groped awkwardly, trying to find a way to pull his head back up. "Uh, need any help?” Lena asked tentatively, still holding the ax. The room was silent except for the sound of his armor clanking as he continued to fumble for his head.

“NO!” he somehow shouted. His fingers managed to get purchase with his beard and his face slowly came back into view with the wound closing in front of them.

Edie grabbed the ax from Lena, hip-checking her out of the way. “My turn!” She swung the ax, but this time Ketheric’s head flew off and rolled in front of Karlach’s feet. The rest of the man’s body dropped to the floor and flailed helplessly. She put a hand on her hip, looking annoyed. “Rats! I was hoping the head would stay in place, like those physics demos about inertia!”

Karlach lifted the now irate head up by the hair. “Think we can reattach his head so I can get a turn?” The body tried to lurch toward her, but flailed impotently.

Wyll shook himself out of his stunned stupor and looked at the Absolutists that were also coming out of their shock. “Unfortunately, I think it’s time to run.” He grabbed Karlach’s hand and they raced together out the door, followed closely by the rest of their party. Edie and Lena looked at each other then sprinted after their companions.

Before she could go far, a voice rang out in Lena's head: "GRAB THE NETHERSTONE IN HIS ARMOR! NOW!"

"Goddamn it! Stop with the mental shouting!" Lena said as she raced back to the crawling body and gave it a swift kick to the ribs to force it to turn over. An arrow found its way into her neck—it only stopped from going deeper because of her thick badger skin—and she roughly yanked it out to use the tip to pry out the netherstone. A fireball flew past her head and the throne behind her exploded into flames just as the stone popped out. "I GET THE HINT! I'M GOING, I'M GOING!" she shouted and raced to the door where the rest of the party escaped, narrowly evading several armed guards attempting to grab and/or impale her. Gale had provided cover for her with firebolt cantrips. Just as she crossed the threshold, he cast sleet storm on the throne room. Without pausing, she grabbed him and hoisted him over her shoulder with an arm around the back of his knees, continuing to run while Gale continued casting spells and cantrips behind them.

“Put me down!” Ketheric ordered, though his voice was no more than a whisper now he was fully detached from the rest of his body.

“SHUT UP!” Karlach shouted down at the head. The party raced past guards and revenants until they made their way into Reithwin, running past shadow zombies and wraiths that became engaged and slowed down some of the Absolutists. They were about to pass through a gate when suddenly Lae’zel’s necklace started to ring.

“TSK’VA!” she yelled. “VLAAKITH’S INQUISITORS ARE NEAR!”

Karlach looked up to see three githyanki emerge from a portal on a bridge over the road and she yeeted Ketheric’s head at them. “CATCH!” she yelled then veered right.

A surprised gith Inquisitor caught the head and then saw the small army of Absolutists chasing her quarry. “HTAK'A!” she cried as she dropped Ketheric’s head and her assassins began fighting the cultists.

Lena and Gale kept pace with the rest of their companions until she noticed they were too busy fighting each other to continue the chase. She put Gale down to where Edie stood to wait for them and urged him to keep running and motioned for Edie to follow her back to the fight near the bridge. Edie stayed out of sight as Lena sneaked between the fighters and little fires and ice slicks that littered the battleground to grab the head. Before he could magically speak without lungs, she shoved him into her carry-call, muffling him.

When she reached Edie, she had out the barrel of nitroglycerin-soaked parasites. Barrel in hand, Edie looked pointedly at the pitched battle and Lena nodded. Edie launched the barrel like a football into the fray, where it exploded, sending githyanki and Absolutists pieces into the air, only to rain down like the patter of globby hailstones on top of the bodies flattened by the shockwave. A few of the bodies groaned. They grinned at each other before going back to the blast site and stabbing and beheading the survivors, then headed toward the rest of their companions.

They found them a little ways away in the graveyard, panting and leaning against headstones. “What kept you?” Shadowheart asked.

Lena carefully reached into her carry-all to avoid Ketheric’s bared teeth (because she didn’t want to find out what sort of gross lived in his undead mouth) and he started spewing obscenities and threats, though he was unable to properly shout. “Quiet, you! Or I’ll turn you into a chew toy for our owlbear!” she scolded and lifted out the battered and filthy head.

Almost everyone make noises of disgust. “Eww! No, don’t do that!” Edie complained. “Owlbert deserves only the best, and not some nasty old cadaver chunk! That thing doesn't even have real blood anymore! Besides, we have fresh corpses for him and the wolves!”

“What if we wrapped it in a few burlap sacks and toss it around like a ball?” Lena asked. Ketheric growled. “How are you able to make any sound other than teeth clacking and mouth smacking noises? You don’t have lungs!”

“I might have an explanation,” Gale said. “For some spells to animate the dead, body parts can have a sort of ‘ghostly’ force that can influence each other in case a part becomes severed, such as with our severed head of Ketheric Thorm. It’s weak, but it allows the head to continue speaking by way of the detached lungs so it’s easier for someone, say a necromancer, to find the head. It also means that he’s still controlling the rest of his body.”

“My body will lead my army to find all of you and turn you and those pathetic Harpers into more thralls for the Absolute,” Ketheric threatened, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Yeah, but it’s navigating without eyes, ears, or a sense of smell. I figure we have a little bit of time, what with your people still in the tower needing to figure out where everyone else went. I'm pretty sure we didn't leave any survivors at that battlefield,” Lena said.

Edie nodded. "Not to mention how your equilibrium will be completely off without your inner ears. Your body was barely able to crawl, much less walk."

“What if we just dropped the head into one of those magic rifts?” Astarion asked. “I don’t imagine that it’d be easy to find anything there.” Ketheric’s eyes grew wide.

Wyll nodded. “That seems rather a sound plan to me. I’ve yet to hear of anything being successfully retrieved from one, though it may be that I’ve rarely heard of travelers who’ve made it through the Shadowlands alive and sane.”

“Chk! We should chop it up and toss each piece into different rifts,” Lae’zel said.

“Ooo! I like that idea!” Lena lifted up the head and grinned into Ketheric’s panicked face.

“Please don’t…” he started to say."

"But I think I have an even better one!" She rifled through her carry-all with her free hand and pulled out a leather helmet.

Ketheric's face dropped. "What are you going to do?"

Her eyes grew maniacal. "Let's do a little science experiment and see what helmet designs work best! And because you 'heal' pretty much immediately, we can repeat the experiment over and over and over, while eliminating a whole fuckload of factors, like skull variations! Because it'll be your skull each and every time!" She put the head down and replaced his circlet with the leather helmet. Then she looked up at Karlach. "Could you help?"

Karlach grinned. "I'd love, to, thanks! What do you need?"

"I need you to try to split that head down between the eyes," Lena said as she stood and backed away. "We're going to do this LOTS, so try to use the same force each time."

"Easy-peasy!" Karlach said and raised her ax above her head.

"Hold on!" Edie interrupted. "We need to have a control—no helmets."

"Oh, right!" Lena took the helmet off and back away again. Ketheric whimpered. "Ready!" she called out.

Karlach gave a little war cry before bringing her battle ax down and embedding from crown to lower jaw right between Ketheric's eyes, almost but not quite bisecting his skull completely: his eyes kept rolling, though now in different directions. Minthara started to laugh and Astarion let out a giggle. Gale watched with interest and curiosity and a smidgen of horror and arousal, while Wyll looked a bit peaky. Karlach stepped on the head and yanked out the ax stuck in the bone in the back of the skull before backing away.

Edie, keeping in mind how quickly Ketheric 'healed,' stepped in with a set of calipers to measure the cut depth, jamming the end right into the wound. "It looks like twenty centimeters from the crown straight down," Edie said aloud, and then she pulled the calipers out with a tearing sound as the tissue tried to knit itself around the metal. She pulled out her phone and started typing. Then she bent down and push the halves of the head back together to close the fissure, watching impassively as threads of tissue knit together. The head gave a little groan as its skin finished fusing together without a scar. "Results recorded. Head reset. Round two?"

Shadowheart raised an eyebrow. "Should we consider continuing these 'experiments' back at camp instead out in the middle of the Shadow Curse where we can be attacked by shadows at any time?"

"Yes, I, too, would like to participate in this 'experiment,'" Lae'zel added.

Lena looked into her bag. "We could split—' Astarion rolled his eyes at the unintentional pun, "—the experimentation across multiple weapons, so we'd just need an extra set of control tests with just you and a weapon. Do you happen to have extra helmets?"

"I managed to collect five helms made of githyanki steel, as well as a few trophies made in the istik styles," she replied.

"Awesome!" Lena picked up the still-disoriented head by the hair and shoved it roughly back into her carry-all. "More data!"

Chapter Text

The party wandered through the graveyard when they heard a child’s voice ring out in the oppressive silence. As they approached, they saw a tiefling girl with lavender skin and blond hair in braids and a ponytail, who called out, “Hey—I know you! You’re—”

Just then, two shadow wraiths appeared near her and her eyes glowed green. “Twist ‘em up!” she shouted and with a sweep of her arms magical vines erupted from the ground and incapacitated the two wraiths.

Wyll stared. “Is that … the kid that Kagha went after? Seems she’s learned a new trick.”

“Pity she couldn’t do that in the grove,” Lena muttered. “I could’ve used the distraction to snack on that snake.”

The child heaved an exhausted sigh, then looked at Lena owlishly. “You were really going to eat it?”

Lena let her fangs drop and grinned at her. “And I would’ve relished every single bite, small horned child.” The child stared at her in awe.

“Her name’s Arabella,” Shadowheart whispered.

Lena blinked at her. “And? So?”

Shadowheart let out a sigh then approached Arabella, kneeling so they were eye-to-eye. “Arabella, what are you doing out here? Why aren’t you with your parents?”

Arabella’s eyes went shiny. “That’s who I’m looking for. Mum and pops. When Zevlor, when he—”

“Succumbed to the call of the Absolute?” Minthara finished. She shook her head. “We’ve heard of the unnecessary cruelty of the cultists. It is just as well you escaped.” Edie and Lena both raised their eyebrows at Minthara’s wording and Lena mouthed the word 'unnecessary?' Edie shrugged, mildly horrified.

Arabella nodded. “We ran when mum yelled ‘run!’ I could hear ‘em running behind me. ‘Til I couldn’t,” she said, her voice breaking. “Still can’t find ‘em—” then her expression brightened, “but I bet you can! You’ll help me, I just know it!”

“Of course we’ll look for them,” Shadowheart said, soothingly. She held out her arms and Arabella fell into her embrace. “We’ll find them,” Shadowheart eyed Lae’zel over her shoulder, “Won’t we, froglet?”

Lae’zel huffed a ‘Chk’ and blushed as the others giggled, then said as an aside, “I thought we agreed that you would not call me that in front of the others.”

Shadowheart gave her a smug smile. “Just making sure you were paying attention.”

Lae’zel rolled her eyes. “T’skva, I fear that the shifters have had undue influence on you.”

“Undue, or not enough, froglet?” Lena asked, wagging her eyebrows.

"I don't get it,” Karlach whispered to Wyll. "It's a cute pet name. What's Lae'zel got against it?”

"Maybe because it's cute she doesn't want the rest of us to know that she likes it," Wyll whispered back.

"Why not just admit to liking what you like? Like those smutty books you read like they're instruction manuals?”

Wyll coughed suddenly and looked up to see Karlach's shit-eating grin.

Lena shook her head gravely. "I swear, everyone here is coming down with something and it's crossed species. We might have to worry about a full-blown epidemic on top of everything else."

Edie gave Lena's shoulder a slap to shut her up and sniffed the air. “I smell death and decay.”

"We're in the Shadow Curse," Karlach remarked. "What else is new?"

"Recent death and decay," Edie corrected. "Relatively newly-dead. Not something straight from an abandoned mausoleum."

Arabella grew pale. “Is there anyone else? Someone alive?”

Edie narrowed her eyes as she concentrated, letting her mouth fall open and breathed through her mouth and pointing her head in different directions. “There’s a chance that there’s someone living, but the smell of recent decay is pretty overwhelming.” She pointed to the building next to them. “I’m going to bet we’ll find our answers in there.”

“‘The House of Healing,’” Astarion read from a sign near the door. “That seems promising,” he said sarcastically.

“Aw, fuck,” Lena complained. “I guess we’ll have to put off our helmet experiment until later.” Wyll coughed. Lena looked at him quizzically. “What, are you coming down with something?”

Wyll’s shoulders sagged. “No, I think that you should watch your language around children.”

“Why? I think the word and my inflection perfectly convey the sort of horseshit we’re dealing with right now,” Lena replied. She heard a muffled cry from inside her carry-all and opened it to see her phase spiderling hissing at Ketheric’s head and Ketheric with fang marks on his nose, emphatically whispering a litany of awful things he’d do to them once he has his body back. “Jeebus, Bitey! Don’t bite the undead head! You might get sick!”

“What about me?” Ketheric whispered. “That thing bit me and now I’m poisoned!”

“You’re undead: I don’t see how you can be poisoned; poisoning is a disruption of living cellular processes and you're held together with unholy magic and chewing gum. And even if you could be poisoned, you’d be back to whatever the fuck is your baseline in no time.” She gently gathered Bitey up and settled them onto her shoulder. “No more! We don't know how long he's been dead or where he's been! And we have fresh body parts!” She wagged her finger at the spiderling. Bitey lived up to their moniker and bit her. “Ow!” She sucked her fingertip. “Bad spider! Bad spider!”

Arabella looked Lena, then at Shadowheart. “Does that spider understand her? Or is she just crazy?”

Shadowheart gave Arabella a grave look. “I’m certain she’s crazy, but I honestly can’t tell if the spiderling understands her speech.”

They watched at the spiderling waggled their forelegs at Gale for ‘uppies’ before hopping onto him when he didn’t pick them up right away. Lena glared at the spiderling. “Oh, so now you’re going to daddy because you’re not getting your way with me?” The spiderling chittered at her, then waved a single foreleg at her as though giving her the finger. Lena gasped. “Rude!”

Gale pinched the bridge of his nose to try to keep from laughing. “Perhaps we should focus on Arabella’s parents?” he suggested.

Lena threw up her hands. “Fine! Just so you know, I’m really annoyed right now!” She stomped to the door.

“Should I be worried?” Gale asked Edie.

“For yourself? Nah,” she replied.

Just as Lena reached the door, she paused and reopened her carry-all to shove her face up to the opening. Then she screamed. No words. Just a long, frustrated, irritated scream, muffled by the bag. Then she yanked it closed and threw open the door. “THERE BETTER BE TWO LIVING TIEFLINGS IN HERE OR I’M GOING ON A RAMPAGE!” she bellowed.

Edie could hear a soft, whispery feminine voice that reminded her of ASMR videos say, “Don’t call the doctor yet! I’ve got potions, sutures—I know I can do this …”

“OH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, THEY’RE ALREADY DEAD!” Lena shouted.

“Oh, you’re a patient,” said the voice politely. “This is the children’s ward—” The voice was suddenly cut off, followed by the sounds of a scuffle. Then something roughly the size and shape of a human woman wearing what looked like a tuxedo shirt as a helmet and a filthy dress and apron got tossed through a stained glass window—clearly missing an arm and leaking ichor—and landed on the ground below. As the zombie-thing tried to get up, Lena climbed through the broken window onto the sill with a severed arm in one hand, and jumped down on top of its abdomen, forcing fluids and rotting tissue to spray out of their mouth and the arteries of its shoulder.

Shadowheart immediately covered Arabella’s eyes with her hand and tried to shield her view with her body, but Arabella managed to wiggle enough to watch as the crazy human started whacking the zombie-thing with its own arm.

“WHAT. DID. YOU. DO?” Lena yelled, punctuating her words with a smack of the arm. She continued to slap the corpse with its own arm until the hand and forearm simply fell apart and all she had left was the bloody fragment of a humerus. She tossed it away when the zombie thing seemed to come-to and hissed and clawed at her, but she shoved its head back down into the dirt and reached into her carry-all to pull out Ketheric’s very startled head. Then, holding him by his shoulder-length hair with both hands, she used his head like a flail to slam the zombie-thing over and over in the face until it was pulp. Then she finally stepped off of it with Ketheric’s head still in one hand, though now it was heavily dented and dazed.

Astarion and Minthara were doubled-over laughing. Karlach looked impressed, while Lae’zel nodded approvingly. Wyll, as usual, looked oddly green, while Shadowheart glared at Lena, while an awed Arabella’s mouth hung open. Gale looked a little more flushed than usual. Edie watched dispassionately as though waiting for a train or a bus.

After Lena took some time to catch her breath, Wyll asked, “What about Arabella’s parents?”

“There are two adult tieflings on the beds back there.” Lena pointed behind her with her thumb. She gave Arabella an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, but they’re both dead.”

“Are you sure they’re my mum and pops?” Arabella asked.

Lena shook her head. “No, I don't know who they are. Seeing as I don’t know what your funerary practices are here, I’m not sure you want to see two strangers like this any more than you'd want to see them if they're your parents: neither body is in particularly good shape."

Arabella broke free from Shadowheart and rushed through the door with her and Wyll following closely behind. “No, no, no!” Arabella wailed.

Shadowheart hugged the girl tightly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she said, repeating it like a litany. Everyone else froze outside, listening to the girl sob, unsure of what to do.

After several seconds Edie looked over to Astarion. “Hey, got that spell to speak to the dead?”

“Yes, why?”

They heard her shout, ““This can’t be happening!” followed by a burst of green light and the sounds of Shadowheart and Wyll getting tossed across the room.

"Wyll!" Karlach shouted, rushing into the building. Lae'zel followed her close behind.

Edie sighed. “It looks like we have a magic user with a lot of power who’s in a lot of pain, and she might decide to share that pain with the rest of us unless she gets closure.”

Astarion blinked at her. “Sorry? What?” Arabella’s pained wailing grew louder followed by another burst of green light. Astarion wrinkled his nose. “I’m not sure I want to be in there.”

Edie pushed him from behind toward the building. “Just go!”

“Did you at least wipe your hands? As I recall you never washed up after killing that drow ...”

Edie growled then shoved him through the doorway to see Arabella kneeling on the floor in a fetal position at the foot of the beds that held the bodies of her parents. She was surrounded by a nimbus of green magic oozing with black shadows like a lava lamp. Behind her Lae'zel and Shadowheart watched the girl warily—neither looked worse for wear. Karlach held Wyll protectively while he rubbed a sore spot on his head.

“You expect me to walk past that?” Astarion whisper-shouted as he pointed at the ominous magic that enveloped Arabella.

Wordlessly, Edie shoved him past Arabella—who didn't notice of them—until they were between the mangled corpses. “Now would be a good time,” Edie whispered.

Astarion sighed then cast it on the less-battered male body. It floated off the bed and regarded them lifelessly.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING! GET AWAY!” Arabella screamed. She stood and looked like she was ready to blast them when Astarion asked, “Who are you?” to the floating corpse.

“Locke …” the corpse rasped, barely speaking above a whisper. “Husband to Komira … father to Arabella.”

The remaining members of their party started to cautiously drift in.

Arabella’s eyes grew wide. The green nimbus and oozing shadows that surrounded her fizzled out and her sobs became hiccups. “Pops?” The corpse turned its head toward her.

Edie knelt down next to her. “Keep in mind that this spell only allows us to ask five questions,” she said. “And for all I know, you just asked one. Think carefully about what you want to know.”

Arabella wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and thought for several seconds. “How … how did you end up here?”

“Ran … shelter … from shadows.”

She swallowed. “And then what happened?” she whispered.

“Surgeons … sisters …”

Lena hissed and Gale gently shushed her.

Shadowheart now also knelt beside Arabella. “This is your final question to your father,” she reminded her gently.

Tears started falling down Arabella’s cheeks. “I don’t want to say goodbye,” she whispered, her voice breaking.

Astarion opened his mouth the say something but Edie held up a finger to shush him without breaking eye contact with Arabella. “I know, but Astarion can’t keep the spell going forever. I don’t think it’s fair to your father to keep him here when he should be at peace. It really sounds hard on him to stay.”

Arabella tucked her chin against her chest, trying suppress her sobs as Shadowheart kept a comforting hand on her shoulder. After several several seconds, Arabella looked up at her father. “What should I do?” she asked in a small voice.

“Stay … alive … be … happy.” The glow faded from the corpse drifted back down onto the bed. Astarion rolled his wrist as though dissipating any errant magic.

Lena looked vaguely dissatisfied. "At least he didn't say 'Live, Laugh, Love,'" she muttered to herself. Nearly everyone within earshot gave her a hard look. Astarion covered a laugh with cough and Minthara snorted.

“Can I talk to my mum?” Arabella asked.

Astarion regarded her, then regarded Edie's and Shadowheart’s hard looks before he gave Arabella a plasticky smile. “Of course!" he said with false cheer. "I’ll certainly try!” He cast again over the female corpse, asking her name, but nothing happened.

“Why isn’t my mum speaking?” Arabella demanded.

Astarion blinked, the fake smile faded. “I … I think she’s already gone,” he said quietly.

Arabella’s face crumpled and she started to sob, though this time no magic surrounded her. “Why did this have to happen?” she wailed.

“I don’t know,” Edie admitted, “But would it be okay if one of us took you back to camp while we keep this from happening to anyone else?”

Arabella shook her head. “No, I want to help,” she said

“I’m not sure that’s wise,” Wyll suggested.

“I don’t care!” she cried. “Pops said a surgeon and the sisters in this place that killed 'em, and I wanna be there when they die!”

“Yes,” Shadowheart said soothingly, “But he also said for you to stay alive—”

Right then, Lena pulled out Ketheric’s head by his hair.

“No more,” the head whimpered.

“Shush!” Lena barked at Ketheric, “This is all your fault!” Then she shoved a wadded-up rag into his mouth before addressing everyone else. “I think that between nine adults we can keep a child safe.” She walked over to Arabella and handed her a quarterstaff she pulled from her carry-all with her free hand. “In case your magic fails because you’re tired,” she said. Arabella looked a little disappointed at the blunt weapon. “I know, kiddo,” Lena continued, “I love me some shiny metal cutting objects. But if you want to accompany us, you need to follow two hard rules: One, stay close to Shadowheart so if you get hurt she has a better chance of seeing and healing you. And two, try not to hit one of us. If you're not sure you can do one or the other, then one of us’ll take you to camp, okay?”

Arabella nodded. “Are you gonna to hit the people who killed my mum and pops with that head?” She looked at Ketheric, who's eyes went wide with panic.

Lena grinned. “Definitely. I’m using it to smash the rest of those ‘Silent Hill nurse’ knockoffs! I was ready to go back to camp and do science with it, but suddenly I have a lot more rage to burn off.”

"Try not to lose too much bone mass if it becomes a gooey mess," Edie said. "It'll throw our results off if there're weak spots we can't compensate for."

Lena held her thumb up in acknowledgement. "So, in or out, kiddo?”

Arabella blinked then gave Lena a little smile. “I don’t know what a silent hill nurse knockoff is, but I think that I wanna at least see them all die. And maybe help.” The head gave a muffled whimper. Arabella snapped “Shush” before she gave it a smack to the forehead with the end of her quarterstaff.

Minthara cackled. “Oh, this will be such fun!”