Chapter Text
A githyanki to the right
Eyes
Forced open
Parasite
Forced in
A mind flayer holds my gaze
Eyes
Forced open
Parasite
Forced in
Loss and pain are sacred
Loss and pain are sacred
Loss and pain are sacred
Loyal servant of Shar am I
Shadowheart heard a bell toll. The sound triggered a memory of a wooden bridge near a bell tower. Not that bell . The real bell and the remembered bell echoed in call and response until she opened her eyes. Still here. Wherever here is. Several yards away from her, barely visible through the thick glass of the pod holding her captive, she saw a little stream of sunshine rippling through the wall of the ship. Perhaps this is a dream and I’m finally being awo– Flames spewed through the tear and spread instantaneously. The heat upon her face was far too real. Shadowheart felt something move behind her eye and then she was out again.
Her body fell forward, yet she didn’t hit the ground. Still restrained . The constant turbulence of the ship was softened by the pod holding her. A githyanki woman fell into view at Shadowheart’s feet. Now how did you get free?
A plume of ash blinded Shadowheart and threatened to fill her lungs. She writhed and coughed, blinking rapidly, trying to look at the other woman again and ask for help, but couldn’t see past the burning tears in her eyes. Breathing became difficult. If ash can get in, some part of this pod must be broken. Something massive slammed against the ship, jostling everything violently. Something else nearer to her groaned followed by a high-pitched snap, dropping her to the floor.
Shadowheart coughed and wiped her eyes so she could look around. The githyanki was gone and a dead Mind Flayer was curled against a warped beam. A mace lay a few paces away that would do well enough to incapacitate or kill anything she could get close enough to hit. Her hands fluttered against her armour, searching her pockets and layers of clothes. Worry spread through her then quickly retreated as she spied what she was looking for at her feet. My mission’s purpose. The reason so many are dead. She slowly picked up the alien looking artefact, turning it around in her hands. It had managed to remain clean and unscuffed through her abduction. The spindles unbent and the symbols still glowing.
Shadowheart returned the foreign trinket to her person and began searching for answers, clues, or even a better weapon. Her shield was wedged under some rubble near an open hole of the ship. She approached carefully and after wiggling it loose, she took in the terrain as the nautiloid flew past. Dark raggedy cliffs composed of such sharp angles, it was as if the terrain were clawing to escape or to pull others down.
“Lady of Sorrows guide me,” Shadowheart heard herself whisper. Her lips cracked, chapped from the dust and heat. The Nine Hells. How could I be this far? Shadowheart tried to remember where exactly she was before all of this. An arm of Tu’narath. As far away from Avernus as a grain of sand is from a star. A star on another plane of existence. Different plane, same plan.
Turning her back to the abysmal enviornment, she approached the illithid corpse. This wasn’t the one that forced her to look at it; that stared down at her as its worm crawled into her eye. Shadowheart’s stomach turned and anger rose with bile recalling those orange eyes. She went to the cauldron-shaped pool from where the creature had been plucked. There were still a couple of these cursed things left, squirming in their thick yellow liquid. I will not allow the crumbs of this accursed affliction a chance to survive.
She felt the thinnest sliver of catharsis as the last one squealed and exploded under her mace. She was walking to the only exit from this room when another shudder of the nautiloid sent her stumbling toward a tall glowing structure. Her back slammed into the device, but instead of pain Shadowheart was washed in a sense of restfulness and energy. Escape and survival seemed a touch more attainable now that she felt refreshed.
Shadowheart stepped into the adjoining room with her mace gripped tight. She saw a dead goblin on a slab and several other areas of the room set up similarly. There were chairs scattered around the slabs giving the morbid surgical room an air of recreation.
A stone tablet was on the slab beside the corpse. There was no way Shadowheart could read the etchings–-comprehending languages was Dreena’s skill, a skill that died with her a world away from this one. But here Shadowheart stood, fully understanding the tablet. She quickly gathered and scanned every one she could find. According to these logs of past observations, she should have turned into a mind flayer by now. Or she should be dead like the goblin beside her. Yet she wasn’t. She was an anomaly. My Lady repays my loyalty with Her protection.
Shadowheart turned to cross the room when a curved incline caught her eye. She followed it up and saw a man twitching in a chair. Her healing gifts and potential need for allies outweighed the looming sense of urgency to exit this room. She would be wandering aimlessly if she didn’t find a map or someone that knew the layout of the nautiloid.
“Help us,” something begged of her as Shadowheart approached. The voice was sweet and desperate. It could not have been the man who spoke. His mouth hung open, tongue folded backwards down his own throat as his eyes moved erratically in their sockets. “Help us!” the plea repeated. It was the brain inside the dead man’s skull, exposed and stuck inside the open cranium.
Shadowheart deduced the brain was an intellect devourer, suffocating due to the swelling of the skull cavity. Where a mind flayer is, an intellect devourer is not far behind. If she could free this one, it would surely know the layout of the ship. My Lady allows me to heal, so I shall.
Slick, warm mucous coated her fingertips as she sunk them around the intellect devourer. Her fingernails scraped lightly against the inside of the skull, causing her upper lip to curl reflexively at the sensation.
Working the top two joints of each finger in a massaging motion, Shadowheart began to pry the creature loose. Using each ridge of its brainlike structure as a step for her fingers to grasp, she gently pulled and then repeated the motion into the sulcus and over the gyrus until–-with a squelch and a soft pop–-the devourer slid heavily into her cupped palms.
She held it up and gazed at it. It was remarkable how much it resembled a human brain. She considered pressing her fingers deep into the creature’s fissures, stretching and crumpling the being until it swore to serve her. She ignored the intrusive thought and loosened her hold on it. The intellect devourer leapt to the floor as wiry tentacles and clawed feet emerged to turn its mass around and face its rescuer.
“Friend!” the little creature proclaimed. Shadowheart was pleased that this diversion would pay off if the little thing felt kinship already. The intellect devourer introduced itself as “Us” and informed its savior that they were needed at the helm. Apparently, a plea was being sent out to everyone like them on the ship, but Shadowheart heard nothing.
Us and Shadowheart walked down the ramp and into what once may have been a hallway. It now stood torn open to the elements of Avernus. Peering over the side, she saw the ground was obsidian with bones of mammoth creatures speckling the smooth black wherever rivers of lava hadn’t cut through and incinerated the remains.
As Shadowheart followed Us along the open corridor, she noticed the ship was half inorganic material, which provided a strong foundation. There was a layer of biological material as well–-she realized it looked like a street growing organs.
The githyanki from the pod landed directly in front of Shadowheart. The woman snarled at Shadowheart while drawing her weapon to strike but quickly hunched over as they were both overcome with pain. A band of pressure tightened around their skulls, restricting the blood flow as shards of memories sliced at their minds’ eyes. Shadowheart saw what must have been this other woman’s last moments before she was abducted, which meant the githyanki was privy to the same point of view. Shadowheart steeled her mind, a skill she had honed and was thankful to possess. The pressure around their minds released and the githyanki lowered her sword.
Shadowheart was calculating how best to force the other woman over the open side of the ship when she heard “Vlaakith blesses me” from the raspy voice of her potential opponent. Never thought I’d hear that name again unless it was right before my death. But instead of being attacked, the githyanki smiled and entreated Shadowheart to join her and fight through the imps that were lying in wait around the corner. She cautioned Shadowheart to continue acting as a thrall-–it would keep Us their ally and might ensure their survival if it was only mind flayers left at the helm.
Between Shadowheart, the githyanki, and Us, the imps were dispatched in moments. Assorted mind flayer and cambion corpses near the little hellspawn gave Shadowheart ample fuel from which to send sinews bursting. They continued on and found a room with a couple pods to one side and a circle of chairs with bodies in them. Two separate panels looked overgrown with viscera. As they approached the first panel they saw three buttons with corresponding symbols, but whatever previously helped Shadowheart understand the tablets in the same language was evading her consciousness now. The githyanki impatiently pressed a button which rendered the corpses in the chairs around the central pillar to seize and drop limp. The button Shadowheart pressed next did nothing. As they passed the empty pod and the panel nearby, Shadowheart felt a wave of nausea. What if I had been put in here instead? Would my dead body be sliding off one of those chairs?
Us led Shadowheart and the githyanki to the nearest doorway. It confirmed the helm was on the other side and the githyanki instructed Shadowheart to do as ordered. Taking orders from the likes of her. How absolutely ironic… She scowled, but nodded in agreement.
Lesser imps, lesser hellboars, a ferocious cambion…and a Mind Flayer. Here and now, the voice Us heard was issuing commands inside Shadowheart’s mind.
Skirting the battle as commanded, Shadowheart and Us neared the control panel when the last foe died. The githyanki picked up this cambion’s sword and the Mind Flayer regarded her with malice. He saw no need to keep these loose ends alive. His sharp, curved fingers reached toward the githyanki’s head.
Shadowheart dove for the tendrils that served the helm’s controls and lashed two together. The Mind Flayer turned to strike her down, but Us stood in the way, taking the fatal blow for its newest friend. She let go of the tendrils and prepared to retaliate when she saw a dragon latch on to the front of the helm. All eyes turned to the large creature as its powerful jaws opened. Was this the same dragon whose flames warmed my skin not so long ago? Before she could feel that heat a second time, the ship phased out of The Nine Hells, a jet of dragon flames spreading above an onyx wasteland where the nautiloid deck had just been.
With a violent lurch, the collapsing ship phased into its newest coordinates. Shadowheart and that damned Mind Flayer slid near the brink of a new hole in the ship. It gained speed as it plummeted toward a beige and green landmass. Through the smoke, Shadowheart could make out the outline of the Sword Coast. At least she would die on familiar lands. This is as close to Baldur’s Gate as I’ll get. May Shar send someone more worthy to my corpse so the mission will be complete. She slipped her left hand down to her hip, and gripped the artefact. While shooting a contemptuous glance up at that foul illithid, something struck the side of her head so hard her vision cut out and she felt her entire body jettisoned off the nautiloid.
Protected servant of Shar am I
Shadowheart regained consciousness on an ashen beach. Hot sand on sore skin. The stench of burnt flesh and mergrass wafted under her nose, reminding her of an interrogation in a dusty prison cell. But as she opened up her eyes and looked around, she saw there was no cell-–there wasn’t even anyone else alive to interrogate. The shore was littered in corpses and singed herbs, the water lapped at it all, dragging soot and blood back into the river.
Shadowheart got up and searched for signs of where she was or a safe place to shelter. Stepping around dead intellect devourers and humans, she pilfered abandoned bags and collected the herbs that could yet be rendered into salts and suspensions. In one of the bags she found a love letter. Frowning, she returned it to the corpse. It seems bad luck will out over love.
Standing up and walking further along the shoreline, Shadowheart saw a large door built into a short cliffside. There was a Waypoint behind some weeds near the door, but with no other Waypoint established she paid it no mind.
What’s behind you, then? She pulled on one of the heavy iron handles, but it was locked. Of course. Were you locked before the crash or is there a survivor in there, hiding? With answers? Shadowheart only had one set of lockpicks and knew she wasn’t skilled enough to open such an intricate lock. If only Kurk were here. The nimblest fingers graced by Lady Shar. She couldn’t help but smirk when she recalled the incongruity in that. Kurk Deepcroft had been the most verbally clumsy member of their party. Constantly putting his foot in his mouth. The smile that had been growing quickly dropped as the memory of his murder flashed through her mind. She was right behind him when it happened. He had been trying to talk his way out of a fight after they had all been caught. He hadn’t even finished his sentence when a thick silver blade pierced his mouth and emerged out the back of his skull.
Shadowheart spun away, trying to leave the memory with the locked door. She had only gone a dozen meters before she was inside part of the destroyed nautiloid. Two understandably hostile intellect devourers sprinted toward her. They were both already injured, so she wasn’t surprised at how quickly her mace rendered them lifeless.
Stepping over their bodies, Shadowheart continued through the destroyed room and out to new ground. She followed a dirt path toward thicker foliage where she spotted a small cove. That might make a decent place to build a fire. I could defend it while I wait for nightfall when I can see the stars and approximate my location .
She hopped down the sturdy outcroppings and waded across the water to the shallow, curved cavelet. Most of the boulders wouldn’t budge, so clearing room for a fire or even space to defend herself would be too difficult. She did notice one large rock was less weathered than the others. She gave it a shove toward the water and found a metal box barely buried underneath it. Inside were some excellent trinkets which she could easily barter for coin or supplies, as well as a map with a Harper seal on it. After dropping the box back in the depression, Shadowheart faintly heard a voice asking for help. Dammit, I made too much noise. She listened a moment longer and determined the nasally plea was coming almost directly above where she stood. Quickly climbing back up to the dirt path, Shadowheart walked toward the voice until she stood before a pretty man. He entreated her to take out one of the intellect devourers which he had cornered in the bushes ahead of them. She appraised his physique: Lithe, manicured, elven, and perfectly capable of taking care of a little walking brain all on his own…but if I help, he’ll owe me. I can take that in kind or from his corpse if he’s not grateful.
Shadowheart readied her mace, but before she could see the devourer a boar shuffled through the shrubbery and dashed away. She turned to scold the stranger, but he was faster, knocking her to the ground. His dagger was at her throat. With no regard to her skin, she headbutted the bastard and stood back up. Before either could make another lunge, that surge of pressure and discomfort around her skull returned. Through his red eyes, Shadowheart saw his abduction, but before she could recognize from where he was stolen he cut her off.
Now understanding that they were in the same predicament, the elf apologized and they exchanged proper introductions.
“Astarion.”
He informed Shadowheart that he was snatched from Baldur’s Gate, igniting a spark of hope inside her. My Lady is leaving me breadcrumbs back to Her arms. She surveyed his gestures and attire with more scrutiny. His clothes were a fine make, but worn–as if he acquired the finest and wore them until they were threadbare. He had puncture scars on his neck, his highbrow accent reeked of privilege and class, and he kept his lips low over his teeth; hiding them like one with stained or missing teeth might try to do.
The waifish elf’s swarthy affectations reminded her so much of Deepcroft, specifically right before he’d say something that would lead to a tussle with a target or a cold shoulder from a companion. Has my Lady provided me a replacement for this mission’s dead rogue? While he had the same air of overconfidence Kurk had, Shadowheart knew he was no reincarnation, and thus no follower of Shar. I’ll test his skills and use him as long as I can while we seek a way back to Baldur’s Gate.
Shadowheart intended to take Astarion back to that locked door as a means of testing what skills he and her slain accomplice might share. They hadn’t made it through the back half of what remained of the nautiloid before they came upon a dying Mind Flayer. Shadowheart approached with apprehension. While calculating how close to death it was and how much information she might be able to force from it–she was suddenly overwhelmed with compassion. It was an emotion she had little experience with, which made it easy to cast aside.
I have no sympathy for you!
Shadowheart pulled away from this nauseatingly strong emotional manipulation. The Mind Flayer reached out again, the psychic tether weaker this time. It was foolishly trying to manipulate her heart to love it. The sensation was sickeningly sweet. There was an acrid taste growing in the back of her throat as if she had been forced to drink a case of Berduskan Dark. Suppressing the urge to vomit, she stomped on the cretin’s skull and a wash of apathy returned to her like a comforting breeze. There were some levels of deceit and manipulation even this devoted cleric of Shar could not bring herself to condone.
Astarion and Shadowheart continued through the nautiloid rubble. They came out through a massive opening into a small patch of dead grass and dead goblins. More abducted survivors killed by devourers? While they looked for answers, they neared another Waypoint. This one looked unstable, but it was enchanting. A swirling void of nothingness. Shadowheart was enamored by its empty beauty. Another breadcrumb from My Lady?
Focusing on the edges and their erratic borders, Shadowheart brought her pointer finger and thumb into a pinched gesture, carefully redefining the boundary. With the runes stabilized, from inside a presence called out of the darkness and a soft but masculine hand emerged. Waypoints were outside her experience as a cleric, but she knew the general components. She had to assume the vocal and material had already been invoked, leaving her to supply the somatic. Shadowheart’s peripheral vision darkened as she saw in her mind’s eye the glyphs needed to complete the stabilization. Her arms moved with an eerie lightness, her wrists flicking, and her fingers bending. What felt like an hour had been merely a minute.
Her vision unclouded, she took a deep breath and grabbed the stranger’s hand, pulling him from the portal that was quickly hardening back into its cliff face.
“Gale. Of Waterdeep.”
Unremarkable at first glance, but full of knowledge. Shadowheart was beginning to doubt that he shared the parasitic affliction when he mentioned he was a wizard. That would explain why their minds had yet to clash off of each other. His education and years steeped in magics that required focus and concentration would have made him decently adept at shielding his thoughts from others.
Ceremorphosis was imminent and they needed to find a specialist on mind flayer tadpoles to have theirs removed. Shadowheart may have been taught how to root around in a brain, but not how to close a skull back up and let the subject walk away. She divulged her skills at healing were not in this vein, so they resolved to continue searching the area.
Heading back toward the riverbed, the trio discovered an overgrown sitting area. Shadowheart looked over the edge and realized it was directly above the locked door. She turned back to the men to redirect their trajectory, but found them already slinking around the side of a large arch. Looking through the arch, Shadowheart noticed several people in a heated conversation, debating the merits of looting the crash site. Upon hearing this, Shadowheart walked forward, approaching the closest two would-be-looters with good intentions. There was simply nothing down there to find and if she could persuade them to stay here and talk to her she might be able to get some answers as to where here was.
Unfortunately, this act of honesty backfired and the group took her as someone trying to dissuade them from finding amazing prizes under all the dead bodies and burning ship parts. Shadowheart took a step away from them as they moved closer to her to attack.
“Ignis!”
A flash of heat shot high over her head, the ground shook, and the wind was knocked out of her as she fell into some ensnaring vines. The men that meant to attack were nowhere she could see. Looking up from where Shadowheart had stood a moment before was a singed rope attached to a crane and directly below it was a large hole in the stone floor. She looked behind her and saw Astarion, hand slowly returning to his side with a coy smile on his face.
At the top of the stairs beside the broken crane was a woman whose face shifted from shock to rage. While Shadowheart struggled to get free from the vines, a spider jumped past her and up the stairs. She couldn’t see where it had gone, but she heard the hiss of acid and the woman flailing away from Shadowheart’s line of sight. Gale shouted words of encouragement to the spider as Astarion sauntered past. He sent another flame at a halfling who was descending a worn and mossy staircase across from Shadowheart. Gale helped her up and followed Astarion’s heat with his own blast of ice. Shadowheart quickly climbed the stairs and hit the acid-soaked woman. The spider, who had taken a blow to its thorax, bit the woman, eliciting an anguished final scream before hitting the ground. By the time the spider and Shadowheart had descended their set of stairs, Astarion and Gale were done with the halfling. They all looked down the hole at the dead bodies and shared a brief glance before turning down the narrow open corridor.
Gale gave his eight-legged familiar a pat on the cephalothorax then knocked on the door at the end of the corridor. He motioned for Astarion and Shadowheart to stay back, but they could still hear him as he expertly talked his way into getting the door unlocked by the guard on the other side. Not bad, wizard. The chatty man might have his uses, too.
Now that the door was unlocked, Gale stepped back and motioned for Shadowheart to step through. The guard on the other side was surprised both by a woman walking through the door instead of one of his companions, but also at how strong she was. She gave him a shove and knocked him down, crossing over him and making room for the other strangers entering the refectory. Astarion and Gale gave the man another one-two, fire-ice combo and Shadowheart dragged his corpse into a corner out of their way. None of these people were going to give them any answers or even a chance to ask any questions, so they decided to find answers for themselves. They split up and searched the room. Shadowheart quickly became discouraged as all the books were about death, and the plaques were worn illegible or in a language she didn’t know. She missed Dreena for their knack at deciphering anything written; from languages to codes and even symbolism. But Dreena was gone, too.
Shadowheart thumbed through yet another of the ruin’s copies of “The Unclaimed” and felt a sinking sensation in her stomach as a passage caught her eye. A dedicated servant of Shar had died and been abandoned in the afterlife. Is Dreena there? Alone and waiting for Shar’s embrace?
The sound of Gale and Astarion bickering over cheese and wine pairings brought her back to the present. Nothing but old anti-Shar propaganda. Yet she slipped the book into her bag before she walked past the men and pulled a lever beside a closed door. The door slid open and Shadowheart quickly counted the number of bandits standing around barrels and rubble in the next room. She threw her back against her side of the wall and motioned to Astarion by making a flame gesture with her hands.
The elf nodded causing a lock of curly white hair to bounce on his head. He slid his back along the wall and crouched low, quickly side stepping and avoiding the sightlines of the open door. Gale’s spider ran ahead and distracted the bandits while Gale himself provided Astarion with a little more cover as they both neared the door frame. Shadowheart sent a blessing to Astarion and as he stepped around Gale, he sent an intense flame not at any one body, but at a big barrel of oil that was leaking onto the floor at the center of the sextet.
Astarion, Gale, and Shadowheart flattened themselves on their side of the dividing wall as screams of pain and death filled the next room. Shadowheart glanced to her left to her companions for their next moves. Gale watched the flames in a reflection of the mirror on a wall across from them. She followed his gaze back to his eyes and noticed they were rimmed with regret.
Astarion whirled around Gale and joined the spider at the edge of the flames. He drew his bow and arrows, hitting one of the survivors. The shot ended their screams of pain, but just as the trio had used the wall to obscure their locations, so had two on the other side of the wall.
A tall man roared, harnessing the flames around him, and shoved through the door frame to punch Shadowheart. Gale snapped back to the fight at hand and worked with Shadowheart to kill the raging man between them.
The other bandit directly by the door was a short, older woman. She stepped over her comrade's dead body and attempted to choke Gale with a vine, but overshot due to their height difference. The spider jumped through the flames and bit the last bandit left in this area as Astarion turned to the doorway and stabbed the old woman before following the spider. Shadowheart and Gale stepped through the doorway as the bolt from a crossbow missed them both. Shadowheart returned the shot and with a final scream, the looters all lay dead.
They stepped over the charred corpses and entered a library at the end of the short hall. Shadowheart clenched her jaw while she looked through more bookshelves filled with “The Unclaimed”, “Vampyr”, and “Death and Divinity”. She made her way around the statue on the farthest side of the library as a glint of sunshine through a crack in the wall caught her eye. Following the sunbeam, she discovered a skull shaped button protruding. Once pressed, they all heard stone on stone scraping back in the scorched hallway.
Following the sound of the scraping, they found themselves in a bland antechamber. At the far end was an unlocked door which they walked through into a much larger enclosure, littered with beautiful vases and jugs. To the right were a pair of massive wooden doors. Astarion pushed them open and discovered the floor had vents strategically placed among the stones. Shadowheart’s original team had been trained to spot and disarm traps, but it was Deepcroft who spotted and disarmed the most. She knew these would unleash noxious fumes or flammable gas if any traps were set off, so they took turns working their way through the room.
While Gale and Astarion inspected a couple ominous iron coins, Shadowheart approached heavier iron doors at the far side of this crypt. Opening them led directly to the shore she had woken up on a couple hours ago. She looked up at the sky and noticed that while it was getting darker it was also cloudy and thick black smoke was still rising from the crash. Hardly a night to chart stars under. But at least I know how difficult this door is to open from that side.
Closing the doors, she slid some benches in front of it and stacked a couple iron trunks on the seats of the benches. That’s one entrance heavily secured. She returned to the large enclosure where Gale and Astarion were waiting for her before they opened the door leading to the opposite wing.
Granite pews lined both sides of the dank sepulchre. Moss was covering every surface, vines snaked down from the ceiling, and twisted through banisters and railings. Scattered around this church-like entry were undead. They all felt some level of deference tinged with unease as they found more undead the deeper they explored the room. Shadowheart heard running water in the direction of sunlight. Astartion was already heading toward it. They followed the curve of the stream and found a ladder that led back above ground. Gale theorized the skeletal remains were Jergal’s scriveners and charged with protecting this place even after death. They worked quickly to strip the corpses of their weapons in case any of them decided to pop back up and because most of what the dead scriveners carried would fetch them enough coins for meat and vegetables if they could find a merchant.
They passed an unassuming door while collecting swords and returned to it, stepping inside, and spreading out to look through the broken tombs. They found another haunting coin and Shadowheart spied a massive tome in the shadows on a wall’s ledge. She used both hands to pick it up and was relieved it wasn’t a book she had already seen countless times today. She was also surprised at how light it was; the lock on it was nearly as big as the cover. She read some familiar runes around its edges, but the combination was foreign to her. Shadowheart closed her eyes and imagined Shar’s hand stroking the spine and running sharp, manicured nails across the glyphs.
Astarion and Gale watched the absence of light and matter quickly rip itself across that little distance between Shadowheart’s fingers and the cover of the book. The dark spark had stolen something from the magic that was keeping the tome locked.
Shadowheart’s eyes fluttered open when she felt the lock give. Silently thanking her goddess for the assistance, she opened the book and found a list of names. Shadowheart instantly knew why she had received help in opening this book. These names were the deities once dead that came back during the Sundering of Toril and Abeir. So many of Shar’s worshippers were stolen from her by these lesser gods and goddesses, like the once lost Drow gods, and others that lurked in shadows and revered loss. Shadowheart wasn’t sure what to make of the names near the end of the book. They had been crossed out so thoroughly that they were illegible, but she was going to keep the book regardless. It was a good reminder of the wrongs her Mistress of the Night had suffered and a handy list of gods for Shadowheart to spit upon if ever she passed their statues or sanctuaries.
They left this little room and walked down the stairs into an overgrown courtyard. Each took a moment to inspect the large statue in the center, but couldn’t discern what it was. Shadowheart noticed a button beyond the statue and pressed it. As a hidden door slid open, Gale’s theory proved true: the corpses rose and attacked.
Having been robbed of their weapons, the bodies were rubble after a few seconds of spells and slashing.
Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale entered the little room the button had revealed. So much secrecy and protection for one sarcophagus and a couple trunks? Shadowheart pushed off the sarcophagus lid and stumbled back in surprise as a corpse rose from its resting place.
“What is the worth of a single mortal life?”
“Life’s only value is as currency,” she answered. The response lolled off her tongue as casually as reciting her order at a tavern.
He informed the trio he would see them again soon and left to tend to his own business. Shadowheart, Astarion, and Gale exchanged confused glances and looked around the little room for context to the odd exchange. The plaque at the foot of the sarcophagus referred to the creature that just left as the Guardian of the Tomb.
Shadowheart found and donned an amulet which Gale informed her was fashioned after Jergal. He surmised that if she spent an hour attuning to it, she might be able to converse with a dead person. Astarion was fine with a short rest, so Shadowheart found a comfortable patch of grass in the shadows and cleared her mind. With her eyes closed and the heavy amulet around her neck, she sat in silence.
After a few minutes Shadowheart heard a familiar sound, like bones falling down a well. She opened one eye, expecting to see the Guardian of the Tomb waking past her, but there was no one around. She closed her eyes again and the sound returned. It grew louder and she felt the reverberations in her chest. A death rattle.
Dedicated servant of Shar am I
A warm hand gently tapped her shoulder causing her to inhale sharply. How long had I not been breathing? She looked up and saw Gale extending a hand to help her stand. She took it and upon standing up noticed the sepulcher was much darker.
“Astarion and I used the downtime to secure all but one exit so that we might have a comfortable evening camping in this…charming crypt. But! We still have some daylight left. Let’s see if your amulet has attuned with you. Judging by how cold your armour and hand are, I’d wager the necklace and you are now one.” He gave her a small smile and gestured toward the running water. They climbed up the iron ladder where they met back up with Astarion who leaned against a tree in the last beam of direct sunlight, patiently waiting for them.
They returned to the docile sitting area that overlooked the crash site so that Shadowheart could look over the edge once more. Sure enough, some of the corpses along the riverbed were glowing. Approaching the closest corpse, her vision blurred and she heard herself whisper, “Cum mortuis in lingua mortua.”
The limp body levitated off the sand, still in its final resting position. The eyes opened and lit up with the same green Shadowheart’s currently possessed. Through a brief conversation, Shadowheart learned the dead body had been a fisherwoman from Elturel named Ellie and that they were along the river Chionthar. Her last words recounted her last moments. She told Shadowheart she had been killed by an elf and intellect devourers. I assumed all these bodies died during the crash because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time…and this elf she mentioned…surely it isn’t the one I travel with now.
As a ray of moonlight is extinguished by the Lady of Loss, the green light in Ellie’s and Shadowheart’s eyes disappeared while the dead woman gently sunk back into the bloody sand.
“Well? What did she say?” Astarion asked as he looked anywhere but the corpse.
“Your hearing should be as good as mine,” Shadowheart responded, confused at how an elf could be standing so close and have heard nothing.
“If I may–” Gale interjected, “While we were able to witness the conversation, it appears that your connection to this amulet has granted you some privacy into the actual voice of the departed. A Speak with Dead spell is a little complex and takes time to prepare, but one can surmise this trinket of Jergal’s Scriveners was a shortcut to what they might consider as mundane a task as sweeping off one’s porch steps every morning.”
Shadowheart would use this to her advantage, providing only useless or mutually pertinent information to her new party. She relayed the information Ellie gave them, omitting that an elf was with the intellect devourers.
Several paces away from Ellie, Shadowheart noticed another corpse glowing. She approached and learned this dead man’s name was Marcus. Another fisher whom the devourers killed. Marcus didn’t mention an elf, but he did mention a beautiful woman survived the crash and that she went west, followed by other survivors. So many abducted seem to have survived the crash. I’m impressed.
“It seems more people died trying to help crash survivors than there were abductees in need of help.”
“Mind Flayers choose their incubators well,” Astarion said, a mix of sarcasm and pride rolling around on his tongue. “We might be defective, but we also survived while these goody two-shoes received a painful end as reward for their efforts.”
“One would have to be quite strong to survive ceremorphosis,” followed Gale. “The unfortunate corpses we’ve passed have been plain folk and goblins.”
A good reminder to avoid underestimating my new traveling companions.
“Yes, Marcus,” Shadowheart said, gesturing to the dead body that had returned to the lapping river water at their feet, “said he came down the river from the west intending to help any survivors. Let that be a lesson to us that we need to stay focused. Find someone to get these bugs out of our heads and then get to Baldur’s Gate.”
Astarion let out a high pitched laugh. “I don’t recall saying I had any intentions of returning to Baldur’s Gate nor having this thing removed. I’ll stick with you two until we find someone who actually knows something–” He pointed a finger at Gale to cut off the wizard’s opening mouth, “--something pertinent to our situation. And then I’ll decide what I’m going to have done to me and where I may or may not go after.”
Shadowheart’s brows furrowed, but she nodded. There was no use alienating a potential ally so soon after meeting. They would keep traveling together for now. The more people she had around her, the better her chances should be at getting back to Baldur’s Gate. She’d pry as much information out of Astarion as possible about the way to get there on the off chance he changed his mind and refused to keep traveling with them after their parasites were evicted.
“Fine, but for our self-preservation, we should avoid helping those who can help themselves so we don’t end up like Ellie and Marcus. I certainly learned my lesson when I tried to help an elf catch a boar.”
“I already apologized for that!” Astarion shouted as he threw up his arms and began heading west toward more corpses.
Gale gave Shadowheart a soft smile and jogged ahead. She could hear him reciting a recipe for something called ‘boars in a carpet’ while she followed at a slower pace, surveying the dead for any that might have something left to say.
They had already walked through this part of the nautiloid, but as Shadowheart neared a corpse whose glow indicated its ability to speak, she took in his exquisite attire. Some knee jerk reaction triggered inside of her and the first question out of her mouth was to offer last rites to the rich man. His vehement refusal caught her off guard, but it was his disparagement of her religion that fully shifted the tone of their conversation. Shadowheart felt anger well up inside of her. She could see Astarion and Gale from the corner of her eye and gestured for them to keep moving. She feigned the motions of obsequies until they had continued walking on. Dropping the act she quickly checked the blasphemer's pockets for anything worth something, then took several steps away from the corpse to destroy it.
With no more corpses and sunset imminent, they agreed to go back to the crypt for rest and set out on a westward path at first light.
Shadowheart removed her armour and washed up at the little underground stream. As she donned her nightclothes, she held her Sharran garb in her hands. This attire won’t be glanced over in this region. That nobleman knew who I worshipped and I wouldn’t put it past Gale to have surmised it either.
“I trust you understand, My Lady,” Shadowheart whispered while she folded her pauldrons and breastplate inside her hauberk. She tied it all into a package with the banner of Shar she had been wearing between her hauberk and breast plate.
Shadowheart and Astarion briefly exchanged eye contact upon her return to the campsite in the large enclosure. He looked back down without a word, continuing to read one of the books they had found earlier in the day. Gale passed her as he headed to the stream for his turn at scrubbing off the ash, dirt, and undead gunk. She placed her Sharran armour in her trunk and decided to do some light grave robbing for new attire. Less than an hour later she came back with sturdy armour and a dark leather doublet.
“Doing a little shopping before bed?” Astarion asked as he peered over his book at her armload of clothing.
With a bit of elbow grease, she could make the breast plate shine if she really wanted to. No. This layer of patina will serve me better when I need to step into shadows. “I found boots in better condition than my own. The arches and laces are significantly better made which would allow me to crouch and jump with improved ease…and the skeleton I pulled them off of won’t be doing any of that anytime soon.”
Astarion smirked and put his book down, sitting on a large pillow and pouring himself a glass of wine. “Anything in my size with those skeletons?”
“I didn’t see any dead children, so no.”
“Pah! Ahahaha! Darling, you’ll have to work on your insults if you expect to actually hurt my feelings.” He chuckled again before he got back up and stepped into his tent and out of view.
Shadowheart noticed Gale gazing into the campfire. He spoke dejectedly of the predicament they found themselves in. He wasn’t a violent person and hadn’t killed anyone until today.
Shadowheart was reminded of Dreena’s brooding sessions. They often spent all their downtime glowering in a corner or brushing off strategy sessions. Their negligence to keep focused and work as a team without question or hesitation could have kept almost everyone from being caught back on Tu’narath.
“We don’t need your self pity nipping at our heels as we make our way through potentially dangerous territory. Stay out of your own big brain unless it’s going to help us move forward.”
Gale took a moment to absorb Shadowheart’s harsh advice. He rocked backward on his heels as he bowed toward her and then stood up straight again. “Yes. Perhaps you’re right.”
He continued to drone on about something pertaining to the rate at which moss grows on stone compared to wood, but Shadowheart just stared at him until he took the hint and wished her a restful slumber.
Shadowheart felt it was still too early in the night to sleep, so she wandered into another room adjoining theirs. There were a few short and crumbling stone bookshelves, but what caught her eye was a beautiful mirror propped against the wall to her left. Its golden frame contained swirling blue glass, and it reminded her of another mirror– But where? The training rooms are dark stone and the vanities in the wardrobe room were plain. She stepped closer and noticed her reflection wasn’t there.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up as she felt another presence in the room with her. Turning from the mirror, Shadowheart saw Jergal’s wraith in the far corner, silently watching her with a neutral expression.
“Well, here we are again, though this isn’t very surprising considering we’re still in your…home?” Shadowheart doubted this being considered anything on this plane a home, but it was the best word she could find. She continued to speak with him bluntly about his motives. He informed her that he was a part of fate and would always be nearby to help in her journey. Shadowheart wasn’t sure if she could trust him. He serves someone other than My Lady .
“Well, what actual help can you offer us, other than a body we can point Gale towards to talk at?”
He clarified that should she or her new companions fall, he is prepared to raise them at a reasonable price. Shadowheart smirked; a clear reference to their earlier exchange. She excused herself as a yawn fought to interrupt their conversation.
Should I have him return my Sharrans? Or should I keep them in Her embrace? Who am I to take them from Her? She has led me to two replacements for part of my fallen team. She asked herself these questions over and over as she slipped into slumber.
“Ah!” Shadowheart shot up and grabbed her hand. The wound she’d had for as long as she could remember burned. The pain grew so hot she thought her bones would combust. She couldn’t see the campfire when she glanced toward it to check if her companions were still asleep. She blinked rapidly, but the darkness grew, surrounding her. She felt another presence in front of her. It admonished her for indulging in rest. It told her to stop asking questions and remain focused on the mission.
The pain receded until her wound felt manageable again. Shadowheart’s hearing and vision returned, confirmed by Gale’s soft snoring and the hum of Astarion’s trance on the other side of the dying firelight.