Chapter Text
A howl startles the ragtag camp awake. It’s loud, frantic, and far too close considering that the group has slept in shifts ever since being brought together by the Nautiloid. Lae’zel is on duty currently, slitted pupils regularly scanning the perimeter with military precision.
While her begrudging companions stumble out of their bedrolls, the Githyanki warrior’s head snaps towards the source of the noise. The ridiculously adorned tent of the Sharran cleric. Although the half-elf had been more tolerable as of late, clearly she was still a magnet for trouble.
Lae’zel edges towards the tent, sword carefully drawn, thankful that she had ignored Tav’s suggestion that she doff her armor for her shift. Clever and charismatic the bard may be, they were still woefully soft in so many ways.
Of course, Lae’zel’s casual clothing is still far more practical than any of her istik companions. It affords her freedom of movement, unlike the tight belly-shirt the warlock wore; the crisscrossing straps supported her, unlike the ridiculous plunging neckline of the foolish cleric. However, when facing an unknown threat, githyanki half-plate provides her the perfect combination of defense and mobility to save the troublesome half-elf.
She flings open the tent flaps, prepared to strike, or perhaps even wrestle some assailant off of Shadowheart. Instead, she is faced with what at first appears to be a writhing mass of shadows. As her eyes adjust, the shadows coalesce into the dark form of a wolf.
She hears the telltale sounds of her companions joining her as her eyes continue to scan the tent, looking for any sign of Shadowheart.
Tav, with their admittedly superior nightvision, verbalizes her fears. “Where’s Shadowheart?”
“I do not know,” Lae’zel hisses back. “but perhaps this beast does.” Her eyes glitter with malice as Gale conjures and holds a palm of fire in his hand, both to illuminate the scene for his pathetic human vision, and to sling at any threats.
The creature’s eyes are bright with panic. Whipping its head back and forth, it lets out a low whine, before crashing through the back of Shadowheart’s opulent purple tent, sending candles and incense flying as its weight rips up the stakes securing the tent.
Tav begins giving orders immediately. For a storyteller, they are surprisingly adept at assessing a battlefield.
Karlach hurries to pat out the fire caused by the upturned candles, barely flinching as she smoothers the flames. “Come on Shaddy, where are ya?” she mumbles, fishing through piles clearly far too small to hide the cleric, despite how fragile and weak she was.
Gale’s palm sizzles as he exchanges the mote of flame for a fistful of frost, flinging it into the wolf’s path. As it stumbles on the newly slicked terrain, Wyll’s eldritch beams drag it back several paces more, directly into Astarion, who appears out of the shadows like a ghoul.
Tail between its legs, the creature yelps in alarm as the pale elf bares his fangs.
“Wait!” Tav calls, jogging over. “We still don’t know what happened to Shadowheart. I want to speak with it.”
Lae’zel is several steps ahead of them, her more powerful stride bringing her squarely into the interloper’s back as she wrestles the animal to the ground. “What have you done with our healer?”
It yips, tongue lolling as it tries to escape. Just as Lae’zel fears she may need to call Karlach in to help her keep the creature subdued without hurting it, Tav kneels down, a low snarl on their lips. The wolf freezes, going limp as it whuffs its response back.
Lae’zel watches as their leader’s brow furrows. “Even with my magic, it’s so panicked that all of its words are jumbled. It's been following us for a while I think? It seems to recognize us.”
Suddenly the tiefling freezes, the telltale glow of the Absolute blinking across their face before they stumble back as though rocked by a blow.
“It… has a tadpole?”
“Bah! Are the ghaik truly so desperate that they utilize even lowlier creatures than the istik of this realm?” Lae’zel reaches, using her psionic training to barrel into the wolf’s mind.
She ignores the panicked thoughts she does not understand, digging until her mind brushes against a familiar(?) mindflayer spawn. Now it is her turn to jerk backwards in surprise. “This deformed dog is Shadowheart.”
“What?” Tav resumes their whining at the wolf, until it goes limp in Lae’zel’s arms, its distress seemingly abating for now. They look around at the rest of the party, making their way over to the scene. “Gale, Shadowheart is under some kind of spell. Can you undo it?”
Gale rubs his chin, thinking deeply. “Fascinating. A full body and mind transformation is beyond my capacities, for now at least, but I know the theory of course, and perhaps I could even reverse engineer the last few steps—”
“Can you undo it?” Lae’zel snaps, practically in unison with Tav, whose normally sarcastic and charming facade appears to be cracking slightly under their worry.
The wizard puts his hands up placatingly. “As I was saying I can’t quite replicate the magic just yet, but I do understand it enough that I believe I could unravel its effects.”
“Then get to it!”
“A ‘please’ would be most lovely.”
“Please, Gale,” Tav interjects tiredly.
Lae’zel sneers at how quickly the wizard’s obstinance fades to a simper at their voice. She watches his hands flit about as he contacts the Weave, her own absently stroking the wolf’s head as her grip relaxes from a pin to more of an aggressive embrace.
His purple magic reaches out and then fades into nothing. “This is very odd indeed. I couldn’t even grasp the spell that is holding her, let alone dispel it.
“This transformation is no arcane spell.”
Lae’zel starts, the wolf on her lap the only thing restraining herself from swinging at the stocky elf who has suddenly appeared. Halsin has finally made his way over from the far corner of camp, where he has been staying ever since they had prevented his people from feeding Tav’s people to goblins.
Despite his power, he seems content to wait with the skeleton, only rising to partake in meals, or to scold Tav for not hastening to Moonrise. Lae’zel herself is guilty of voicing her frustrations towards their leader when they delay the search for the crèche (a guaranteed cure!), but at least she ventures forth each day, paying her dues in blood. What has Halsin done besides create issues for Tav to clean up while dragging them along?
“Then perhaps you will deign to contribute a solution, Druid? Beastial transformations are your specialty are they not?”
Halsin kneels down, looking intently at the wolf. “This is indeed Shadowheart.”
(“Tsk’va! We know you fool!”)
“This is Shadowheart, but her transformation is not the result of a simple spell, nor is it like my own. Mine is a partnership, communing and becoming one with nature. Her mind and body are rejecting each other. If she cannot be calm enough to will herself back into her true form, I do know a way to force the transformation.” The elf looks to Tav. “You may want to prepare some soothing melodies.”
“Will it hurt her, Halsin?”
Wyll’s own recent transformation clearly has done nothing about his bleeding heart. A shame. The horns are a rather dashing addition.
“It will not be pleasant, but it will work and she will survive.”
Tav grits their teeth. “If you can guarantee it will work, I will ask her consent.”
Lae’zel is not sure there’s much point to this endeavor. Most of what she can feel through the thin connection of the tadpole is fear fear fear. Still, Tav looks satisfied enough by Shadowheart’s pathetic whimpering.
“She hates this form and wants it gone.”
“Very well.” Halsin lifts his oak staff solemnly. “Hold her steady, young one.”
Young one?! Lae’zel is a proud soldier, the strongest of her clutch. Nevertheless, she braces Shadowheart as best she can, silently offering her gauntleted arm to bite down on.
The howl of anguish as Halsin unleashes a column of silvery light hurts, as does the burn of radiance engulfing their space. The wolf thrashes in her arms, gnashing against the proffered limb. She can see its fur starting to catch in the searing light, radiant flames licking down its body as it twists and seems to crumple in on itself.
Shadowheart had not gone to bed without injury, using the last of her magics to seal a rather deep gash in Lae’zel’s thigh. She had waved off the gith’s insistence that it was nothing, how was Lae’zel to function as a meat shield if she could not charge headlong into battle?
The blow from Dror Ragzlin’s maul had seemed glancing at the time, the cleric scrambling back with a hastily tossed mote of fire. A hatchling could suffer worse. But now, as the half-elf’s form reasserts itself, Lae’zel can see the mottled bruising across her chest, disappearing into her ridiculous camp clothes. The wolf’s howl subsides into labored moans, and Lae’zel meets Shadowheart’s eyes, glassy with pain and confusion.
Hoisting the woman over her shoulder as gently as she can (thank goodness githyanki plate lacks the inefficient ornamental spikes she has seen on armor in this plane) she lunges forward, nearly stumbling into Halsin as they burst out of the painful column of light.
“Cease, before you kill the only healer brave enough to venture forth with us.” (“Hey!” Tav objects, running over to examine the damage and hum a soothing melody.)
Lae’zel glares at the Druid, shifting Shadowheart’s groaning body to rest in her arms, awkwardly outstretched as though giving Tav an offering.
~
Shadowheart’s first clear thought when the haze of fear and instinct lifts, freeing her from being a spectator in her own body, is that the moon is unusually bright tonight. She reaches a hand towards the glinting silver blearily, only to knock into the hard curves of a breastplate, shining in Halsin’s artificial moonlight. With a guttural noise of surprise, Lae’zel (?) lowers her to the ground to be fussed over by Tav and Karlach, who try to sit her up and offer her only slightly boiled potion.
She sits curled on the ground by the fire, trying to ignore the group’s stares while her racing heart settles. Finally, she looks up.
“Some of you may have already noticed but I'm not terribly fond of wolves. Tav has already been kind enough to try to avoid them, but there’s more. Back when Lady Shar saved me. There was a wolf. I don’t remember everything clearly but… it must have bitten me.” Shadowheart holds up her hand, displaying the strange festering wound that she would sometimes clutch in pain before rebuffing Tav’s attempts at aid. “The Mother Superior told me later that it wasn’t just a wolf, but a lycanthrope.” She smiles bitterly. “Another one of the Moon-Witch’s curses.”
Lae’zel looks closely at the small circular wound for the first time. “Chk! This looks like no bite I have seen before. Was it a cub, prodding you with its last milk tooth?”
“Very experienced with biting, are you, Gith?” the cleric snipes back with little energy. She suppresses a shudder when the fighter responds by running her tongue pointedly across her sharp teeth.
“Wolf young are called pups actually, Lae’zel,” Tav muses. “But I do have to agree. You treated a bite wound this morning,” they say, gesturing to their neck. “It looked nothing like this. I’ve never heard of lycanthropy bites causing this type of ongoing injury either.”
“That’s because Lady Shar saved me!” Shadowheart snaps, a flush starting to rise in her pale cheeks. She turns her baleful glare on Lae’zel, its effect somewhat diminished by the fact that she is still shivering on the ground. “If you had just let me finish instead of interrupting.”
The githyanki is unmoved. “Very well, pup. Speak.”
“A-as I was saying, Lady Shar holds back the power of the moon. The wound is as small as it is because of her!”
“And a splendid job she’s doing. Bravo! Should I thank her for the time you collapsed mid battle before healing me, or for the mud stains on my sleep shirt from you and the githyanki rolling around on the ground just now?”
“Shut up leech! You know nothing of being held in the goddess’ embrace. Her power keeps my curse in check as long as I allow it. She provides that shade that keeps me safe. It only hurts when I walk away from her embrace, and yet she has always allowed me to come back.”
Wyll and Gale exchange knowing looks, before the wizard steps forward. “Shadowheart,” he says, his voice unusually gentle. “I have conducted some amount of research on lycanthropy. Perhaps I could take a look?”
The cleric looks even smaller than usual, hunched on the ground, cradling her hand to her chest. “No, I already have the cure. It’s my fault when I stray. But when I become a Dark Justicier I will become a personification of her devotion. The Moon-Witch’s light won’t be able to touch me then.”
Karlach looks dismayed. “Soldier… That’s like Dammon telling me I have to go back to Avernus for the old clunker. Zariel bloody did this to me. Even if I were to ever go back, I wouldn’t thank her stinkin’ hell pit for ‘saving’ me.”
“You should listen to Karlach, Sharran.” Lae’zel says solemnly. “Not only is she an admirable warrior, but she offers you great wisdom tonight.”
(“Aww thanks Lae!”)
“Vlaakith does not keep me fattened on a steady drip of poison, only giving me the antidote on days I groveled in the dirt sufficiently.”
“Your queen keeps you in line under pain of death. I thought you of all people would understand.”
Lae’zel strides over to grip Shadowheart by the chin, making their eyes meet forcefully. “I will forgive your ignorance due to your excessively weakened state. Yes, if I falter I will be punished by the natural consequences of my failures. Injury or death in battle awaits those who are weak and they welcome it. Despite your many flaws, your continued survival has proven that you possess some modicum of strength and bravery. Your goddess should not make you less efficient with needless agony.”
Shadowheart seems stunned for a few moments, before wrenching out of Lae’zel’s grasp.
“Thank you so much everyone, but I’m quite exhausted. I hope you don’t mind waiting until tomorrow to continue belittling my faith.” She strides over to her tent, the contents still strewn about the ground and smoking slightly, despite Karlach’s best efforts.
“Sorry solider! I’d offer you a spot but I still run hot at night” “I usually just toss a bedroll by the campfire” “The children at the grove used to enjoy sleeping on my bear form–”
“Pa’vrylk! For Vlaakith’s sake!” Lae’zel growls, standing up as well. “It is still my watch. The elf will take my tent. She needs privacy and peace to recover if we are to continue traveling tomorrow.”
“Half-elf. But, thank you. Your tent is surprisingly clean, for a gith. I suppose I can deal with your ghoulish doll (“It’s for training!”) for one night.”
Shadowheart digs through her own tent’s wreckage to retrieve the artifact before heading for the offered tent. When had they started setting up across from each other? She shuts the tent’s flaps pointedly, leaving the rest of the camp to return to an uneasy slumber.
Lae’zel resumes her watch by the fire, and if her gaze flickers to the closed flaps of her tent more often than the perimeter, then it’s to make sure that the blasted half-elf doesn’t endanger them anymore by losing control for the second time that night.