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Karlach wasn’t built for delicacy.
She bumped her head on most doorways, could drink everyone she knew under the table, and took up a lot of space. There was also the teensy weensy matter of her being a war-forged being of metal and flame, which didn’t help matters. People looked at her, and whether it was Gortash or Zariel or a random sod in the street, they saw a fighter. They saw someone with a weapon that could cave someone’s skull in, and she didn’t correct them.
For the most part, she was happy enough to play guard dog. Sometimes, like, say, for instance, she didn’t have a choice in the matter, (fuck you, Zariel,) then the whole sprinting into battle with an axe thing got old quickly. But she was good at it. Her time with that gold-plated nitwit and decade in the hells made sure of that.
Her name was Karlach, she belonged to the infernal, and she hit things.
Except, now her life had taken a really bloody weird direction. Something something, space squids, something something, baby frogs, something something, crash landing. She wasn’t a historian or a wizard or anything like that, but she’d been on the losing side enough times to know they were definitely the underdogs. It was their ragtag crew against the space squids, and suddenly her giant axe looked a lot less giant.
But, still, it was kinda the only thing she had, so she could make do.
They’d been on the road for a while, and she’d gotten used to her campmates. She knew who to cover, and who to duck behind, and to ‘for the love of Shar, stay where I can see you! Just because we share telepathy does not mean I can find you in the middle of nowhere and zap a healing spell your way!’, courtesy of Shadowheart.
She gossiped with Astarion, stopped Lae’zel and their cleric from murdering each other in increasingly ridiculous ways, and, surprisingly, spent a lot of time with Wyll.
Look. Karlach could describe herself as ‘happy-go-lucky.’ Despite everything.
She didn’t hold a lot of grudges, and she’d been pretty chummy with some serious pricks in her time. Obviously, there were exceptions, and, yeah, sometimes she daydreamed about sticking peoples’ heads on spikes, but for the most part, she could let bygones be bygones.
Like with Wyll. Sure, his job had been to kill her, but he didn’t actually do that, and once they got over the initial awkwardness, he was a pretty decent fella to have around. He had that kind of charisma that drew people to him, and was pretty to boot.
What? She had eyes.
Oh, and he was a genuine ray of sunshine who could whip out the filthiest innuendos out of nowhere, and that always set her off.
Her philosophy was that everyone needed a laugh.
And considering they might only have a couple weeks before dying or turning into squids, they needed all the laughs they could get their hands on.
-
There wasn’t a whole lot of rhyme or reason to their travel. They’d start off with a plan or ten, but then some orphan or army of goblins or flying gnome would show up, and derail the whole thing. Fine by her, since she was really good at hitting random things until they stopped being a problem, but it was clearly weighing on her travel buddies.
‘Didn’t we pass that tree already?’ Gale asked.
Halsin shook his head. ‘That is an oak. We passed maple.’
‘Oh goodie, another tree lesson.’ Astarion asked. ‘Tell me, do bears spend as much time scratching their backs against them as people say they do, or is that a horribly offensive stereotype?’
‘That would depend on the bear-’
‘No, I think we’re definitely lost.’ Gale interjected.
‘According to the squirrel, the cliff path should be just up ahead.’ Wyll said.
‘Wonderful, a cliff. If I have to spend much more time listening to incessant squabbling, I might just throw myself off it.’ Shadowheart grumbled.
‘Awk, cheer up! We might get a nice view after hiking!’ Karlach grinned.
‘You mean after going in circles.’ Astarion bitched. He was really good at that, actually. Made for decent entertainment.
‘I think we’re finally on the right path!’ She said brightly. ‘Still got a couple hours to go- tell you what, I think between us we can wrangle up a tune from that bard. Ahem- THE QUEEN OF SORROWS SPENT HER DAYS IN CONTEMPLATION BLAND-’
Shadowheart growled like a puppy. High-pitched and kinda cute. ‘It was bad enough having to hear it the first five times.’
‘I thought it was rather droll, actually.’ Astarion said.
‘It was blasphemy!’ Her fair skin was looking more and more like Karlach’s own complexion by the second. ‘To think a two-bit bard would compose an entire ballad about my goddess’ lovelife- it beggars belief!’
‘I think it beggars a sequel.’ He replied with a shit-eating grin.
Karlach, for her part, was trying to keep the peace by not laughing too loudly. If they were gonna kick some mindflayer arse, they needed to preferably be alive and have all their limbs by the time they got there. Still, the Shar song was bleedin’ funny, and Shadowheart could do with a little loosening up.
‘Not a fan, then, aye? How about a classic travelling song, then? MY OLD MAN SAID FOLLOW THE CART, AND DON’T DILLYDALLY ON THE WAY-’
‘Well, I dillied and dallied, I dallied and dillied-’ Wyll enthusiastically joined in.
‘How about we travel in silence?’ Lae’zel snapped.
Astarion raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t be so morose, it doesn’t suit you. Go on and give us a ribbit ribbit, darling.’
The party had to pause to stop a Githyani warrior from decapitating a vampire with her bare hands. Luckily for them, they made it to the cliff path after most of the murderous urges, so no-one took a suspicious tumble down. Unluckily for them, their campmates and tall ledges weren’t the only threat up there.
The route was supposed to be safe, according to every source and friendly villager they could find, but literally nothing was ever gonna be simple for them.
So, in the brief lull between threats of violence, they turned the corner of a cliff path and literally walked straight into a bandit camp.
For a second, everyone just stood around and stared at each other like owls.
Gale piped up, ‘Oh dear, we seem to have taken a wrong turn, we’ll be on our way-’
Then all hell broke loose. And that was really saying something, since Karlach had spent an entirely bloody decade in the stupid place and was well-acquainted with their personal flavour of bloodbath.
No-one had been prepared for a proper fight, least of all the mid-dinner bandits, so there was a lot of struggling with sheaths and throwing the nearest object at the enemy. Gale and Wyll, for their part, were doing a pretty good job with the old magic, but, frankly, it was an embarrassing display from the group that were meant to save Faerun from evil space squids.
Still, Karlach had been well-trained, and she kept her wits about her. Also her axe. Her wits and her axe came in very handy.
In the end, she probably saved a few necks purely by being her rough-and-tumble self. There wasn’t much a bandit halfway through a bowl of stew could do against a moving mountain of tiefling sending a whole lot of hurt their way. Ha.
She probably needed the exercise, actually. It’d been a few days since the last time she got to properly swing an axe.
So she barbarian-ed til she could barbarian no more, and her campmates took up the slack, finally armed and more than a little annoyed. Lae’zel hit fast and hard as lightning, Halsin saw an enemy wizard’s fireball hit what was probably a very old mountain shrub and went ballistic, and Astarion and Wyll were working in-sync.
Wyll was showy, with the false eye and the shiny sword and fairytale prince aura. Astarion enjoyed a good skulk, and the more of his opponent’s focus was on his battle buddy, the better. People lined up to strike Wyll and got felled by daggers they never saw coming.
They made a good pair. She was gonna make it a trio, though.
She joined the fray alongside them, and some knife-happy bandits finally got the bright idea to turn tail and run until they hit the Sword Coast. At long bloody last, all that was left of the bandits were their abandoned camp, corpses, and footsteps.
Everyone took a deep breath, and started taking stock of injuries.
They hadn’t been in full armour, since that path was meant to be secret and deserted, Gale, but neither had their foes. All in all, the fight had more in common with a childhood mud-slinging contest than a serious battle. They scavenged for anything useful, (Astarion maybe more so than the others,) and got a dose of healing off Shadowheart.
Honestly, she was surprised their cleric even bothered to deal with Astarion’s cuts and bruises after the apoplectic row they’d had on the way up, but maybe Shadowheart was a little more professional than that. Didn’t stop her glowering, though.
It was evening, but they still had an hour or so of light left, which was plenty of time to get away from the big scary cliff and onto something a little flatter to camp.
As a general rule, she didn’t like ending her days by rolling off her bedroll straight to her death.
Unfortunately, all their hopes for a nice, quiet jaunt to a campsite were dashed by something jumping out from behind a rock like a shoddy theatre performer, and launching themselves at Astarion of all people.
She knew a couple things about the guy, as cryptic as he could be. For starters, she knew he was a bastard, and following that, he was a vampire. Weird squid shite was stopping him from burning up, but he was still vulnerable to things like starving and staking.
Speaking of staking-
Before anyone had a chance to react- including their resident paranoid rogue, so the bandit fucker was really godsdamn fast- he managed to drive something straight into Astarion’s chest with enough force to split a melon.
His triumph didn’t last long. Namely, because a whole bunch of party members dragged him off their vampire, and tossed him to Toasty the owlbear cub. Between him, Scratch, and the injuries he already had, he was a goner. Karlach couldn’t take much comfort in that, since Astarion was probably on the way out as well.
For the second time in half an hour, they were caught off-guard. And this time, it wasn’t just their ego that was hurt.
Just for a second, Astarion stayed on his feet, swaying and looking more confused than anything else. Then a godsdamn geyser of blood shot out of his chest, and that was enough to take him down. She might not have been a healer by any stretch of the imagination, but she knew a mortal wound when she saw one.
ShitshitshitshitSHIT!
Almost by instinct, she went to reach for her friend. Then she remembered she was on fire and that was probably a terrible idea. Luckily for her, and their increasingly pale pale elf, Wyll was there to be the dashing hero.
Elegant as a dancer, he caught Astarion and lowered both of them to the floor.
All Karlach could do was stand there. She hadn’t even realised until that second how much she relied on her little bit of bitchy chitchat every day, or just how genuinely nice it was to have a friend or two.
She’d tried to shut down that part of herself- it’d only gotten her into trouble- but damn it all if their merry band of misfits hadn’t dredged it back up again.
Beside them, Shadowheart shook her head. Everyone except her and Wyll dispersed, like they were giving them privacy. It was a nice enough gesture, but not one she could properly appreciate as she dropped to her knees.
Wyll was probably better at the comfort malarkey than her, but that didn’t mean she had to be useless.
He needed the help, actually, ‘cuz their invalid was taking the whole thing quite badly. Astarion wasn’t making a peep, which was bloody unnerving, but he was still trying to get away. Wyll had him by the shoulders, clearly trying not to hit the tent peg buried in his chest, but Astarion was scratching away at him like an alley cat.
Insult to injury- Karlach couldn’t even help out with that. Not unless they wanted to hand Withers an overcooked corpse. Instead, she settled for the only tool she had- talking.
‘Hey, Fangs. Take it easy, alright? We’ve got you. You’re fine.’ She said.
Even though Astarion’s eyes were rapidly drooping shut, she could still see him roll them.
‘Okay then, smart Alec, you’re not fine. We’ve still got you, though. We’re not going anywhere. And I betcha the rest of them have gone off to get that boney bastard and his resurrection bullshit.’
He managed to open his eyes wide and-
He looked terrified. She was used to him having a certain amount of venom or bravado and- he just didn’t. Looking at him like that, she could forget he was a bloodsucking bastard- oh for fucks sake, she would’ve been a softie at heart if she still had one of those- and just see him as her friend.
Well. Once a gullible softie, always a gullible softie.
And maybe that was what her buddy needed right that second, losing the fight against unconsciousness despite his best efforts.
Astarion mumbled something. Only Wyll was close enough to hear it.
‘What’d he say, soldier?’ She asked.
‘He said… ‘Not again.’’
‘Bollocks.’
She shimmied as close as she could to them before saying to a man she wasn’t even sure could hear them anymore;
‘Just think of it like going for a nap, yeah? You just take a second there, mate, and relax. That’s a good lad, just settle there. Lucky you, ending up in Wyll’s lap. Looks pretty comfy from where I’m sitting.’
That got their paladin to chuckle, at least.
Astarion looked at her for half a second longer before even his undeadness couldn’t help him anymore. At least he wasn’t actively trying to run away. That was hard to watch.
‘Lucky you, aye? Fine, you can stay right there, Fangs, I’d hate to disturb your beauty sleep. We’ll wake you up in a bit. You just nod off there now and-’
Telling if a vampire was deader than usual wasn’t exactly easy. Couldn’t look for a pulse or check to see if he was still breathing, but- she was pretty sure that was him gone.
‘... We’ll wake you up in the morning.’
Beside her, Wyll was looking more than a little shaken. He always did wear his heart on his sleeve.
Where the hells was Withers? She didn’t know their rogue half as well as she would’ve liked to, stubborn git that he was, but she knew he had a bit of a thing about the dark. She’d discussed it with Wyll, once- sworn to secrecy- and didn’t like the idea of leaving Astarion in the cold void for any longer than she had to.
Gods, she really was a sap, wasn’t she?
She took a deep, shaky breath, and leaned forward. Even if Withers resurrected him, it would be for nothing if he still had a stake through the heart. She grasped it and tugged it out with minimum fuss. She still winced. So did Wyll.
Just because the pair of them knew how to chop off a couple heads didn’t make it any easier when they had to hurt their chum.
A tiny stream of blood leaked out, no more than a nosebleed's worth. That made sense, since his heart wasn’t pumping and he probably didn’t have a ton to begin with. That made her feel a little guilty on top of sad- it wasn’t fair if one of them went hungry when the rest of them didn’t have to.
Still. Right that second, there was nothing else either of them could do for a corpse.
So they sat, and they waited, and they probably thought too much. Kind of hard to not think about death when you just saw a corpse die for a second time. Especially when there was a timer on your own life.
None of it was fair, was it?
Fate had really fucked her over when the bloke she thought she could trust sold her to the Hells. Add in a sprinkle of non-consensual surgical experimentation and just a pinch of ‘I’d rather die than go back there,’ and she was all set to be a tragedy in the making. Even a skeleton wouldn’t be able to bring her back- she was too far gone, too faulty for that.
Karlach wasn’t built to last.