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The Dark Urge could feel the glare of his murder sibling as he eyed the bottle in his hand for a moment, before dropping another finger inside with a wet plurp. He continued to ignore her presence as he carefully inserted an eyeball through the small opening. Finally he sealed the bottle with a firm twist of its cork and turned to face the family idiot.
“Making more gifts for that Banite, brother dear?” Orin the Red spat. “Are you truly so pathetic as to fall in love with that waste of flesh?”
The Dark Urge rolled his eyes. “For the last time, Orin, Gortash is our ally in carrying out the Plan. I’m simply ensuring that he is capable of doing his part.”
“And how is making customized wine for the lordling ensuring that he does his job?” The changeling demanded.
“Turns out that mortal nobility are all secretly freaks pretending at being civilized,” The Dark Urge said, a twitch of his maw showing his amusement, “Gortash gave them a sample of my vintage gold dwarf a few months ago and they haven’t stopped pestering him for more. He’s since placed an order for a shipment of three crates.”
Orin stared for a few moments at her fellow Bhaalspawn in disbelief. “You are joking.”
The Dark Urge bared his teeth at her in a wide grin. “No, I’m not.”
His murder sibling continued to stare at him, so he turned back to grab another bottle and reached for his bag of body parts. Not his problem Orin didn’t believe him.
“Ah, my favourite assassin!” Gortash grunted in a falsely happy tone as the Dark Urge climbed in through the window, the Banite’s head poking up briefly from behind the other side of the bed before disappearing again, “Excellent timing, come here and give me a hand.”
The Dark Urge blinked but obligingly went over to see what the human was doing, after setting down a box containing the latest batch of halfling pâté carelessly on a nearby desk. The dragonborn made his way around the giant four poster bed Gortash had in the middle of the room, ignoring the various toys scattered around the blankets to see what he was so busy with.
“…Do I want to know?” He asked, staring at the sight before him and feeling his lips quirk up.
The human gave him a mildly annoyed look and shoved at the sizable mass currently pinning most of his body to the ground. The reason for how the man was unable to free himself was made evident with the ropes wrapped around his wrists and legs, restricting his movement.
“Lord Cassius here,” Gortash said irritably as he gave another ineffective shove at the limp form on him, “proved as useful as he was in life as in death: utter dead weight. Despite my increasingly unsubtle hints for him to take a break, he insisted on continuing, and now he’s dead from what I assume was a heart attack and he hadn’t even managed to sign the contract first. Useless.”
Amused, the Dark Urge crouched down and the two Chosen proceeded to shove and roll the body away with a grunt. He watched as Gortash winced and immediately shifted himself to get the blood circulating again after having been pinned down for however long before the he found him.
A few seconds of simply watching Gortash flex his toes and observing how the skin turned from bluish purple back to pink, the human huffed. “Are you just going to stand there or will you make yourself useful and give me a knife?” And pointedly shook his bound hands in the Dark Urge’s direction.
The Bhaalspawn grinned. “But you look so funny like this, all tied up and wriggling around like a worm.” He dodged the ball gag thrown at his face. “I’m sure you can figure something out now that you’re no longer being crushed by that mound of flesh.”
The Chosen of Bhaal then climbed back out the window and left, laughing as he listened to the fading curses from the Chosen of Bane.
“What’s this about accepting gifts from the Banite now, brother dear?” Orin hissed as the Dark Urge directed the several Bhaalists carrying crates of supplies into their sanctum.
“It’s just a few boxes of supplies for our operations, Orin.” The Dark Urge responded, rolling his eyes as he opened one and begin passing out the steel daggers to the other cultists gathered around. “It is payment for the pâté from last time and some additional investment for procuring more experimental ingredients.”
The wine had been such a hit with the upper echelon of Baldur’s Gate that they had decided to try expanding the business a little into making side dishes to go along with the alcohol. Gortash had deemed the first batch of human pâté to be a little on the lean side so the Dark Urge decided to try and see if using halfling would work better. It did, so now it has been officially added onto their list of Exclusive Products to bribe and entice the influential with.
It never failed to amuse the two of them that they had gotten so many people to unknowingly consume their own kind (or adjacent enough to their own kind) and then proceed to beg for more. Gortash then jokingly brought up the suggestion of using the family of the patriars he intended to rid the city of as parts of the dishes to be served during his coronation to Arch Duke, and the Dark Urge already has several ideas written down.
Orin grabbed one of the daggers and glared at it. “We could have gotten supplies from any shopkeeper or peddler in the city, and yet you insist on going to the lordling! These daggers even have our father’s symbol stenciled into them, how is this not a gift from him if he’s making personalized daggers for you now? For a few crates of pâté??”
“If we kept stealing, robbing, and murdering every single merchant we ever collect supplies from we’re never going to be able to replenish our stores at an adequate rate,” The Dark Urge explained impatiently, “Gortash happens to have an entire foundry at his disposal, why wouldn’t I go get our supplies from him when he even sells them to us at a discount?”
Orin let out a shriek of frustration and stomped off. The Bhaalists she approached as she left quickly hid their shiny new daggers behind their backs until she was gone.
The Dark Urge shook his head and went to open another crate. Oooh, imported drow poison, and even a bottle of death viper venom! He happily tucked the latter bottle away. The dragonborn could think of several worthy targets to use them on already.
The Slayer let out a shrill shriek of triumph and clawed into the last of the smugglers at the warehouse, eliciting several desperate screams before they were finally all silenced. Only the soft sounds of blood dripping and the occasional wet gurgling noises as gas seeped out from the intestines of the meat sacks could be heard.
The creature sniffed around, looking for any life it may have missed. There had been enough people at the meeting that the slaughter had mostly sated its bloodlust, but it certainly wouldn’t say no to eviscerating a few more.
Then, it heard it- a small wheeze from behind a pile of crates and bags. The Slayer immediately pounced towards the sound, and swiped away the obstacles until it could see its new target. Fresh meat fresh meat fresh meat-
Its maw was wrapped around the neck of the creature and clamping down when a hand smacked it right on its nose, not in a desperate ‘no please don’t kill me’ way but more ‘stop scratching the upholstery you stupid cat’, which startled it into actually pausing, eyes flicking over to see who had the audacity.
…Now that it was thinking about it, the person it was about to chomp down on smelled kind of familiar. The Slayer slowly opened its jaw and removed its mouth from the softtendermeat to get a proper look at it.
Oh. It’s one of the people on the ‘do NOT kill’ list, which was a tier higher than the ‘don’t kill’ list. The reasons escape it now, but it supposed its smaller form had a good reason to not want this particular piece of meat dead.
It clicked its maws a little discontentedly. The person was not supposed to be killed but did he have to smell that delicious?
“-en listening to me?”
…Oh, was he speaking to it? That does make a little more sense he was on the ‘do NOT kill’ list, then. Not many mortals faced it without being terrified after all, let alone daring to speak to it with such a demanding voice.
The Slayer focused a little more of its attention to the human and clicked its maws again.
“Now that I finally have your attention,” The human groused, “Can you turn back or are you remaining in this form for the time being?”
Click.
“…I’m going to take that as you staying like this for now.” The human continued after a moment of pinching his brows with a hand, “This is not ideal.”
Why? It’s not like they had anything to do right now. Everyone else inside the warehouse except for them were dead.
The Slayer sniffed at the body before it. Ooh. A pretty little wound that was still leaking. It reached out a clawed hand and poked at the human’s side, eliciting a pained hiss and another slap. It poked him again.
“Stop that.” The human glared, grabbing its hand before it could poke him a third time.
Ha. Joke’s on him; it had three more hands to poke with and the human only had two to stop it with. The Slayer wheezed out a laugh and proceeded to immediately do that.
Poke, poke, poke.
“Seriously, stop. that.” The human growled, slapping the creature again but accidentally hitting it on one of the spiky patches of its skin, causing him to immediately withdraw his hand, hissing and shaking it.
Aww, humans and their tender little paws. It’s almost cute.
“Are you going to make yourself useful or are you just going to stand there and annoy me? I don’t have all day.” The juicy little tidbit gritted out, still shaking his hand while his other clutched at his side.
The Slayer tilted its head a little to the side. Make itself useful? How? Did he want it to go out and kill more people?
“You know where I live, do you not? I need a ride-” The human paused, looked at the spikes protruding from the Slayer’s back, and amended, “-perhaps not a ride, but some form of transportation back home. Do you have the means to arrange this?” There was a pointed look in his eyes that seemed to be hinting at wanting the Slayer to return to its smaller form.
The creature snorted. It may not have access to its smaller form’s spells at the moment, and it was pretty sure their pre-arranged transport are all dead from the smugglers that turned on them, but that was no reason it can’t carry a single human home! He didn’t even live that far away and it was nighttime. Easy.
“Wait, what are you-” The human’s words cut off with a pained yelp as the Slayer grabbed him with two of its hands and held him against its spike-less chest and stomach, in a parody of a caretaker cradling a child. It then took off with a running leap and burst out of the warehouse, climbing onto the roof with its two other hands and jumping its way across the rooftops.
“This was not what I meant-” The human’s protests fell on deaf ears as the Slayer happily bounced its way over to where it knew the human lived, avoiding the patrols and sticking to the shadows.
Unfortunately, the windows to the human’s room was not Slayer-sized so it had to squeeze itself in with a lot of broken glass, but they were not quite sharp enough to pierce through its hide so it ignored the mess and proceeded to dump the human into his bed, drawing another pained noise from him when he landed.
An armored half-elf and a dwarf promptly burst into the room a moment later.
“Lord Gortash, what was th-”
The Slayer perked up. More meat for the slaughter! It reared up, ready and eager to pounce, and-
A blanket fell over its head.
It shrieked angrily and clawed the offending piece of article away from its face, just in time to see the human throw another pillow into its snout.
“Do. NOT. Kill. My subordinates. You oversized twat of a lizard!” The human berated, one hand grabbing onto and then smacking another pillow against the Slayer’s head, the other pressing a potion-soaked gauze against the wound on his side.
The Slayer made a confused, disappointed growl. It gestured at the two creatures frozen in fear. But meat!
“No! Stop it! Banites do not grow on trees!” The human sternly spoke, giving one final smack of the pillow before dropping it, staggering backwards on the bed and nearly tripping over his legs.
Without thinking, the Slayer reached over an arm and grabbed the human to steady him. It then stared at its own appendage in offended confusion. Did it really just stop a human from potentially killing himself…?
That was how the Dark Urge blinked and found himself standing in the middle of a room with glass shards all over the floor, half-standing on a bed, holding onto a pale, swaying Gortash, and two Banites staring at the two of them from the doorway with their mouths open.
“…What happened?”
The tyrant looked at him with an utterly exasperated expression before he abruptly passed out and face planted against the dragonborn’s chest. The Dark Urge had to stagger back a step and use both arms to keep the human upright against him. He looked up at their audience in befuddlement.
The two Banites continued to stare.
“…No seriously, what happened?”
Somewhere in the bowels of the sewers of Baldur’s Gate, a changeling listened to her subordinate’s report on their Chosen’s movements. The subordinate, despite being increasingly uncomfortable at the amount of anger radiating from their superior, continued to dutifully describe how their agents had spotted the large, lethal, and divine form of the Slayer being seen jumping across the rooftops of the city, all the while carrying someone bridal-style against its chest.
A moment later, a shrill shriek was heard echoing through the hallways.
“Oh that is IT! I’ve had enough of their bullshit!”
Gortash rubbed a hand against his temple tiredly. As if there wasn’t enough work to be done in preparation for the Plan, his fellow Chosen had gone missing.
The spare Bhaalspawn was an extremely poor replacement compared to the dragonborn. As infuriating as he was to work with at times, they still produced far better results together than…whatever it was that this ‘Orin’ thinks she’s doing.
Things were not helped by his subordinates acting oddly ever since news of the Bhaalist having gone missing reached them. One went off on a long tangent of how they dedicated themselves to Bane after the loss of their spouse during a logistics meeting. Another left him chocolates on his desk. Then it was one who kept bringing him far more coffee than he’d ever needed in a day.
He finally lost it on a particularly audacious elf who shoved a gaudy bouquet of flowers into his face and attempted to court him! No, he was most certainly not interested! He had far too many things to be doing than entering some useless relationship with someone who had nothing to offer! No, he was not ‘heartbroken and in need of comfort in this trying time of loss’, what the hells are you talking about-
…Wait what.
It took Gortash a few more days of wasting time hunting down the source of the delusions and eccentricity before he finally figured out what was going on. Apparently, most, if not all of the Banites, and possibly the Bhaalists too, were under the impression that he and the Dark Urge were sexually, if not romantically, involved.
What the hells? Gortash wasted a few more fruitless hours going back on all his past interactions with the dragonborn Bhaalspawn, trying to figure out just where in the madness of Yeenoghu did these people even come up with such a notion, and came up empty.
Insane, every last one of them, he thought disgustedly, before turning back to his work. He had better things to be doing than ponder where this sudden bout of collective derangedness came from.
The tyrant sighed. He missed his assassin.
“Someone managed to kill the General? Concerning, if rather impressive, given Ketheric’s little immortality trick. Who was the responsible party?”
“…He lives?”
“Okay, that was weird, right? Everyone agrees with me that that was weird, right?” Astarion demanded, almost as soon as they left the castle of Wyrm’s Rock and were making their way towards the Lower City. “It wasn’t just me that saw it, right??”
“What are you talking about?” Durge asked, confused, when he saw everyone in their party nod in agreement.
Shadowheart gave him a Look. “Really? You didn’t see and hear the try-hard dictator acting like he was one step away from publicly drooling after you?”
The dragonborn was even more confused. “What? No he wasn’t.” Lord Enver Gortash had been enthusiastic in welcoming them to attend his coronation, certainly, and perhaps a little oddly insistent in asking them to consider teaming up, but it seemed understandable when they were potentially about to face an elder brain on the verge of breaking free to go on a rampage.
Astarion did an actual face-palm. “You really didn’t see it? Seriously? The man was practically throwing himself at you!”
Durge stared at his travelling companions blankly. Then shook his head. They made for decent company, and he could maybe even call them his friends, but he really did not understand them sometimes.
Durge stared at the tyrant in front of their party, leading the way towards where the brain resided inside the morphic pools.
Or more specifically, he stared at the tyrant’s ankles. His memories were still quite spotty, but he was struck with an almost overwhelming desire to…kick them. Or maybe trip the person they’re attached to, and potentially seeing the Chosen of Bane eat the ground. (Flesh. Whatever.)
This was really not the place to be doing that. But.
“What are you doing, you damned fool?!” Gortash snapped, after he caught himself from tripping right into a tangle of fleshy membrane, “We are on the cusp of confronting an entity beyond comprehension, we need to work together!”
“…My foot slipped.” Durge muttered. He had not intended to do that! Was it the Urge, rearing its ugly head again after all this time? Yet it wasn’t a murderous urge, but an almost strange feeling of…wanting to see the tyrant being outraged? He frowned in confusion.
Then he yelped and hopped back on one foot after Gortash kicked him back in the shins, hard. It was not fair that the human was wearing metal-tipped boots. Those pointed tips were sharp enough to stab with!
“What a coincidence- so did mine.” The Banite beamed at him, then abruptly the smile dropped and became a glare. “Don’t do that again.”
He then turned around and continued down the fleshy corridor. Durge could swore he could hear the human humming a happy little tune under his breath as he walked. The dragonborn pouted.
“Okay, seriously, what is going on between the two of you?”
“I don’t know!”
“So, that could have gone a lot better.” Durge muttered, sitting with his back against a mound of flesh and holding a hand to his head, trying to stop his brain from feeling like it was going to leak out of his ears.
“You think??” Gortash slurred sarcastically next to him, slumped against the dragonborn’s shoulder and nursing a heavy nosebleed.
Pros: The psionic blast from the now-evolved-Netherbrain didn’t manage to kill them immediately thanks to Durge interrupting the attack just in time.
Pros: The psionic blast had also happily, for him anyway, managed to obliterate the parasite in his head in the process.
Cons: Just because the attack didn’t kill them didn’t mean they got out of it unscathed, and his brain has been damaged enough already in the past few months.
Cons: Having a liquified illithid worm leak out of one’s ears was a surprisingly disgusting feeling. Not like having a ruptured eardrum or leaking cerebrum fluid at all. Ick.
Pros: At least the mindflayer calling itself Emperor had finally fucked off now that he was ‘useless’ and can no longer be influenced by the worm that was in his head anymore.
Cons: Everybody else, however, still had their worms, and they left with the Emperor.
Cons(…?): They all think he’s in a romantic relationship with Enver Gortash. (???)
With that thought, Durge turned his head slightly towards the human still lying against him. “Hey Gortash.”
The human grunted, a hand pressed against his forehead. He appeared to have given up on staunching the nosebleed. Durge watched distractedly as the blood dribbled down past his chin and onto his chest, where it soaked into the Banite’s clothes.
“Were we ever lovers? Before I lost my memories.”
For a moment, there was no response. Then, very slowly, the human raised a fist. Then, slower still, raised his middle finger at the dragonborn.
“…Yeah, that’s what I figured.”