Coarse sand. Coating the inside of your nose. If you needed to breathe, you would be coughing and retching. You feel a warmth upon your scalp, almost as alien as the worm freshly nestled in your brain. You open your eyes and jump on your feet in a rush of panic, darting to the nearest shadow. You're trembling. It takes you a few minutes to calm down and finally take notice of your surroundings. Your life saving shelter is a smouldering part of the crashed ship you were on. The climate is temperate, with kind weather and the sun lazily dragging itself across a cloudless sky over the seawater during the last hours of the afternoon. You're back in Faerûn, that is at least one reassuring fact. How did you survive the crash? You barely reached the nautiloid's transponder in time, as the three cambions who almost already ended you once, if not for that cleric, were on your tail. The githyanki was shouting a war cry as she charged at them with a flaming sword, in the hopes of buying you a few more precious seconds. The illithid craft went spiraling through the planes. You met the gaze of a wounded mindflayer. And then, darkness where memory should be.
It doesn't make any sense: according to every forseeable outcome you should be dead, and for good this time. You wonder why you didn't burn in the sunlight since you may have been unconscious for hours, face planted in the sand. You've always had an investigative nature, so you decide to experiment: you extend hesitantly your left hand out of the shadow. You wince in anticipation: you've already been burned by the sun a few times in your long life. No pain. No flesh slowly burning and crackling. Nothing. Summoning all the bravery your exhausted body and mind can muster, you get up and step into the light. Still nothing. Could it be linked to the tadpole that was forced through your eye? Your pondering is interrupted by a cramp in you stomach. Hunger. Your last meal must have been farther than what you can recall. You reach to your right pocket for your vial of horse blood. And you can't find it. "What?" you mutter, confused. No glass shards or smell of spilled hemoglobin, it's just... not there. You can't find your scimitars at your sides nor your hand crossbows on your backstrap, and your quiver is empty. You've been robbed blind in your comatose state. "Godsdamnit". You are left with nothing but the clothes on your back and the silver pendant hanging around your neck. Even your earrings are gone. "What. The. Fuck." Your mind defaults to the hunt as you catch a scent of bergamot, blatantly standing out in the iodized air. Whoever the bastard is, they're going to bleed. You do not need handcrafted weapons to get your revenge, only your claws and your fangs.
You follow the scent through the remains of the ship scattered across the beach before stopping abruptly. Another smell, nothing like the extravagance of the perfume you've been tracking. You recognize it: it's the cleric's, the one you fought alongside with on the nautiloid. You see the form of her body still freshly imprinted on the sand and you realize that she went in the same direction as the aroma you're after, she is barely a few minutes away. "A potential ally. Good", you think to yourself as you get back to your hunt. You sneak your way around a few intellect devourers and find yourself on a dirt road following the coast. You spot a cart with open crates, and dash to it, hopeful. Already looted. Shit. You perceive their presence, the both of them, they are maybe thirty meters away, a bit higher along the path. You immediately crouch back, beginning your discreet ascent. As you approach, you get a whiff of sweat and muscles struggling against each other, the air heavy with tension. The scene comes into view: the half-elf is pinned to the ground on her back, a rogue holding a dagger to her throat. A rogue that smells of bergamot. They're... talking? The man asks questions with a soft voice as the cleric reluctantly answers, uselessly trying to squirm her way out of his deadly embrace. Should you skirt your way around them or immediately pounce? You choose a better third option: you stand up in his peripheral vision.
"One more step, and the girl breathes her last", he hisses through gritted teeth, pressing the knife against her neck. You're in your element, a bluff easily rolling off your tongue as you shrug:
YOU ARE READING
On the Death of Stars
FanfictionA fanfiction based in the extended universe of DND 5e, following the characters and plotline of Baldur's Gate 3. Elen was lucky enough to have their life finally begin right at its end and find their place in this world. But now? It has been snatche...
