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The fire crackled like it was gossiping. Sparks shot up into the dark canopy of the wilderness like tiny, drunken fireflies trying to escape the party. Around it sat the full circus that was Caliban’s adventuring party: Astarion lounging with theatrical elegance, Shadowheart nursing a cup like it owed her money, Gale already halfway through a monologue about fermentation chemistry, Karlach practically vibrating with excitement, Lae’zel looking like she was about to challenge the fire itself to a duel, Wyll grinning like a man who had already accepted this would end poorly, Halsin radiating calm woodsy energy, Minthara radiating the opposite of calm woodsy energy, and Caliban himself—scarred, pointed-eared, dark-haired with those t`elltale reddish tips, the permanent little frown line between his brows, and the expression of a man who had survived mind flayers, orcs, and one very enthusiastic night with a drow only to be defeated by peer pressure and cheap wine.
Someone (Karlach) had produced an alarming number of bottles. Someone else (Astarion) had declared that ordinary conversation was boring and that they would therefore play “Never Have I Ever” until someone cried, confessed something catastrophic, or passed out. Preferably all three.
“Rules are simple,” Astarion said, swirling his wine with the air of a man who had once been invited to better parties. “Someone says ‘Never have I ever…’ and if you have, you drink. If you haven’t, you get to feel smug for approximately three seconds before the next round ruins you. No lying. The tadpoles will know. And if anyone tries to skip a turn, I will personally drain them. Lightly. As a joke.”
Caliban raised an eyebrow. “You’re already threatening us, and we haven’t even started.”
“I’m setting the tone, darling. It’s important.”
Karlach slammed her tankard down hard enough to make the ground tremble. “I LOVE this game! Okay, me first! Never have I ever… kissed a devil!”
Wyll immediately drank.
So did Karlach herself, cackling. “Got me! Infernal blood, baby. Comes with perks.”
Astarion sipped with exaggerated delicacy. “Technically, the cambion counts, doesn’t it? Mizora is… well. One does what one must for a good contract.”
Wyll groaned. “Please do not elaborate.”
Gale took a thoughtful sip. “I once kissed a fire elemental during a particularly experimental phase at Blackstaff. Does that count as devil-adjacent?”
“No,” several people said at once.
Lae’zel stared into her cup as if it had insulted her ancestors. “I have not kissed a devil. I have killed several. Drinking for killing would be more efficient.”
“That’s a different game,” Shadowheart murmured. “One we play every day.”
Caliban drank. Everyone stared.
“What?” he said, wiping his mouth. “There was a cambion in Baldur’s Gate who ran a very exclusive club. Long story. Involved a bet and a very bad decision about mirrors.”
Astarion’s eyes lit up like twin moons. “Oh, we will be returning to that later.”
The bottle made its first full circle. Shadowheart went next, voice dry as bone dust. “Never have I ever… stolen something valuable from a temple.”
Almost the entire circle drank. Shadowheart herself did not, which earned her several suspicious looks. “I returned the thing I stole,” she said primly. “Eventually. After it stopped being useful, admittedly.”
Halsin chuckled, deep and warm. “I once borrowed a sacred oak sapling from a particularly stuffy grove. They still send me strongly worded letters via bird.”
Minthara drank without comment, then added, “I have stolen many things from temples. The priests make such satisfying noises when they notice.”
When it was Lae’zel’s turn, she lifted her cup like a weapon. “Never have I ever… been seduced by a vampire.”
Astarion, unsurprisingly, did not drink. He smiled, slow and sharp. “Technically, I do the seducing, darling. And Caliban here has been remarkably resistant. So far.”
Caliban felt heat creep up his neck that had nothing to do with the fire. He took a pointed sip anyway, just to be difficult. “There was that one time in the Underdark. The pale one with the nice voice. You were busy arguing with a mind flayer.”
Astarion’s smile faltered for half a second. “We will discuss this later, darling. Privately. With wine. And fewer witnesses.”
Karlach whooped. “Spill, Cal, was it good? Did they do the dramatic cape thing?”
“No cape. A lot of teeth, though.”
Gale cleared his throat. “Never have I ever… accidentally turned myself into a sheep.”
Silence.
Then Gale drank, looking deeply betrayed by his own past. “It was a research accident. The counter-spell was… delayed. I spent three hours eating grass in the courtyard while students took notes. Very humiliating. Also surprisingly nutritious.”
Halsin laughed so hard he nearly spilt his drink. “I once spent a week as a bear because I forgot I was supposed to change back. The local hunters were very confused when I started lecturing them on sustainable foraging.”
Wyll raised his cup. “Never have I ever… made a deal with a devil that I immediately regretted.”
He drank. Karlach drank. Astarion drank with a flourish. Minthara drank and looked proud of it. Caliban drank and muttered something about “mirrors again.”
Lae’zel did not. “K’chaki, Githyanki do not make deals. We take what we want.”
“That’s just a different kind of deal,” Shadowheart said. “With extra stabbing.”
The night deepened. The bottles emptied. The confessions grew progressively more ridiculous, but very honest.
“Never have I ever danced naked under the full moon.”
Halsin drank. Karlach drank. Caliban drank after a long pause and muttered “it was a dare, and the moon was very persuasive.”
Astarion claimed he had done it for aesthetics and refused to elaborate.
Never have I ever been caught in a compromising position with a member of the party.
Several people looked at Caliban and Astarion. Both drank.
Shadowheart drank very slowly and refused to make eye contact.
Karlach drank and announced, “It was a hug that got out of hand and involved fire. No regrets.” She paused for a moment. “Never have I ever pretended to know what I was doing in a fight while completely panicking.”
Everyone drank.
Even Lae’zel, after a long, sullen silence.
“The first time I faced a Ghaik, I… recalculated my strategy mid-battle. Extensively.”
Never have I ever written poetry about someone in the group.
Gale drank immediately and looked ready to recite.
Astarion drank and claimed it was “satirical.”
Caliban drank and refused to show anyone the notebook.
Shadowheart pretended she hadn’t, then drank when Karlach threatened to tickle her.
Never have I ever stolen Astarion’s hair products.
Karlach drank. “What?! They smell nice! And my hair was getting crunchy from the fire.”
Astarion looked personally betrayed. “Those are imported. From Baldur’s Gate. Do you know how hard it is to find decent rose oil when you’re on the run from the Absolute?”
Never have I ever tried to seduce a goblin for information.
Wyll drank, looking haunted. “It… almost worked. Until the singing started.”
Never have I ever cried during a particularly moving performance of a bard’s song about lost love.
Halsin drank openly.
Gale drank and admitted it was his own composition. Caliban drank and blamed “dust in the eye.”
Astarion insisted the wine was making his eyes water but no one believed him. No one believed him.
The game rolled on. Someone, probably Karlach, introduced a rule: if you finished your drink, you had to do a forfeit. Forfeits included:
Lae’zel attempted to teach everyone a Githyanki war chant, but it mostly sounded like aggressive throat clearing.
Gale, explaining the Weave in increasingly drunken metaphors involving cheese and longing.
Shadowheart, doing an impression of her own Shar-worshipping self that was so accurate it made everyone slightly uncomfortable.
Astarion, performing a dramatic reenactment of his own first death, complete with exaggerated gasping and a very pointed look at Caliban.
Caliban was forced to demonstrate the “sexy mirror club dance” that had apparently won him that earlier bet. It involved a lot of hip movement and zero dignity. Astarion, naturally, applauded the loudest and then immediately tried to recruit him for future performances.
Minthara’s contributions were mostly variations on “Never have I ever shown mercy when it was inconvenient,” which resulted in almost no one drinking except Halsin and Wyll, who both looked mildly offended on principle.
At one point of the evening, the conversation drifted into “funny little snippets,” as alcohol tends to encourage.
Astarion revealed that he once spent an entire decade pretending to be a high elf noble just to get invited to better parties, only to discover the host was a were-rat with a cheese fetish.
Shadowheart confessed she still sometimes hummed Selûnite hymns under her breath when she was nervous and then immediately felt guilty about it.
Gale admitted that Tara the tressym had once locked him out of his own tower for a week because he forgot her birthday, and he had been forced to sleep in the library like a common student.
Karlach proudly announced that her personal record for consecutive days without setting something important on fire was eleven, and she was hoping to break it soon.
Lae’zel shared that the closest thing Githyanki had to a drinking game involved stabbing a moving target while intoxicated, and she found this current activity “soft but strangely entertaining.”
Wyll told the story of the time he tried to impress a barmaid with a dramatic sword flourish and accidentally cut his own belt, resulting in a very public wardrobe malfunction and a new nickname he still refused to repeat.
Halsin reminisced about a summer solstice festival where he had shape changed into a particularly large stag and accidentally started a new local legend about a “horny forest god.” He seemed only mildly embarrassed.
Minthara offered that the best way to win any drinking game was to poison the other players’ drinks first, then looked disappointed when no one took her up on the tactical advice.
Caliban, somewhere around the fourth bottle and the seventeenth round, admitted that the scars on his face were not all from battle. Some were from a very enthusiastic night involving a pair of scissors, a mirror, and a bet with a bard who claimed he could “improve the aesthetic.” The bard had been wrong. The scissors had not.
Astarion nearly choked on his wine. “You let a bard near your face with scissors?”
“He had very convincing dimples,” Cal shrugged. “So sue me.”
Astarion giggled maniacally, “I am both horrified and aroused. This is a problem.”
The fire burned lower. The laughter got louder, then softer, then louder again when Karlach tried to stand up and immediately sat back down because the ground had become “unreasonably wobbly.”
They played until the stars wheeled overhead and the first grey light of dawn began to threaten the horizon. Confessions piled up like empty bottles:
Never have I ever fantasised about pushing Gale into a portal just to see what would happen. (Multiple drinkers. Gale looked wounded.)
Never have I ever practiced my “mysterious stranger” pose in a mirror for more than ten minutes. (Astarion drank without shame. Caliban drank with extreme shame.)
Never have I ever named a weapon after an ex. (Wyll. The sword was called “Mizora’s Regret.”)
Never have I ever tried to high-five a bear. (Halsin. The bear had not been amused.)
Never have I ever kept a list of people I want to bite, ranked by how interesting their blood might taste. (Astarion, naturally. Caliban was somehow both relieved and concerned to discover he was near the top.)
By the time the sky turned the colour of watered-down wine, most of them were sprawled in various states of cheerful ruin.
Karlach was using Halsin’s leg as a pillow.
Lae’zel was sharpening her sword with intense focus, occasionally muttering Githyanki insults at the remaining bottles.
Shadowheart had fallen asleep sitting up, still holding her cup.
Gale was explaining something complicated to a very patient tree.
Minthara was staring into the fire like it had personally wronged her. Wyll was humming a sea shanty that kept changing key.
Astarion had migrated until he was leaning against Caliban’s shoulder, cool and content, one pale hand idly tracing the edge of a scar.
“You know,” the vampire murmured, voice low and amused, “for a man who claims to be the responsible one, you have an alarming number of stories involving mirrors, scissors, and poor life choices.”
Caliban smirked at the fire and nudged him with an elbow. "Says the man who spent more than half the night ranking our blood like it was a tasting menu."
The vampire let out a hearty laugh... "Touché. Still. This was… unexpectedly enjoyable. Even the parts where Karlach tried to teach us a drinking song that consisted mostly of yelling.”
“Especially those parts.”
Astarion smiled, small and real. “We should do this again. Next time with better wine. And fewer opportunities for you to demonstrate interpretive dance.”
“No promises.”
Somewhere in the growing light, Karlach stirred and mumbled, “Rematch tomorrow. I’m gonna win. Gonna drink all of you under the table. Even the vampire.”
Astarion’s laugh was soft. “I look forward to watching you try, darling.”
The fire settled into embers. The companions drifted into sleep one by one, full of secrets and wine and the strange, stubborn warmth of people who had chosen each other in a world that kept trying to kill them.
Caliban stayed awake a little longer, watching the last sparks rise, feeling the solid presence of Astarion against his side and the quiet breathing of the others around the circle. He thought about all the things they had admitted, and all the things they hadn’t, and how somehow both lists made him feel less alone.
Then he closed his eyes, smiled at nothing in particular, and let the night take him.
When the morning came, there would be headaches, and teasing, and possibly a very stern lecture from Lae’zel about “weak surface constitutions.” But for now, there was only the fading fire, the soft weight of shared ridiculousness, and the knowledge that whatever came next—Absolute, elder brain, or simply another night of terrible decisions—they would face it the same way they faced everything else.
Together. Slightly intoxicated. And with far too many stories about mirrors.
Written by a human in Ellipsus.