Chapter Text
20, Eleasis. Gale. 2:16pm
Summer, 1492 DR.
Of all the vast number of things that could have happened to Gale of Waterdeep on his way to Karse (and then Anauroch, beyond), getting abducted by an illithid nautiloid was exceedingly low on his list of expectations. Even lower still was the idea that his magic might fail him at such a crucial moment, and leave him trapped inbetween planes thanks to a half-cast teleportation spell. His magic may have been drained by the orb, but that it would lead to this degree of ineptitude was really a bit much. As if his ego needed any more bruising nowadays. Still. Even the greatest of wizards made mistakes. He knew that all too well.
And, on the bright side (because one always must look for the silver lining in desperate times), it seemed to have landed him with some rather helpful, if not particularly agreeable, potential allies in shared distress. He was going to travel with them, they were going to find a cure together for their slimy head-mates, and then he would be back on his way to… to heading off alone into the scattered ruins of Netheril to find a solution for his problem, and then far into the Underdark or the barren desert as a final resort. Silver linings. No more sitting in his tower and waiting to die. Silver linings. What he wasn't going to do was was panic about his lack of access to enchanted items, the volatile instability of his orb, that his being turned into an illithid could set said orb off in a spectacularly gruesome fashion, or his being no doubt far removed from the region where he had intended to search for a more convenient (or more permanent) treatment for his condition.
Mystra have mercy.
Gale was the third they had collected — maybe the fourth, there was a very brief mention of a gith soldier? — and although they were bereft of a healer specialised to their condition, it seemed like they were each capable enough. Shadowheart, an unspecified cleric (that would take some investigating once they were all more comfortable with each other, if they ever got more comfortable with each other) with well-fitted and professional armour that spoke to a reasonable amount of field experience. Not to mention the faded scar on her face, though that could have been from anything. Parsipan, a hunter of some sort. He had been a bit vague on the matter, but his familiar movements with the crossbow in his hand bore up his claim. Possibly he was a poacher of things that ought not to be hunted, which would explain his reticence but was hardly a dealbreaker when it came to alliances in times like this.
Astarion…
Well, possibly not Astarion, as he quickly identified himself as some sort of magistrate when asked about his field of expertise. So, a party of three capable adventurers including himself, and one vaguely sultry “civil servant”. Gale would be politely avoiding him where possible.
Parsipan, he’d learnt, was their troupe’s de facto leader, as he'd saved Shadowheart on the nautiloid and Astarion had no desire to lead. A deep gnome with a slender, freckled face — what a fetching shade of lavender —, the remains of some dark makeup that had not survived their nautiloid encounter smudged around his eyes and lips (if it wasn't intentionally so, Gale was unsure), some fresh, deep scarring across his cheek to the bridge of his nose, and a thick and equally fresh scar over the front of his neck that appeared as if he may have survived a half of a beheading not too long ago. The right side of his neck (his left, Gale's right) where the scarring didn't quite reach revealed hints of an unidentifiable tattoo that dipped beneath the collar of his armour.
He also sported a long length of vivid, sunset orange hair, braided down to near touching the ground. An unusual colour, for someone whose people hailed from the Underdark. And a very unusual length for a people whose men were effectively hairless, as far as Gale’s readings on Underdark demographics were concerned.
He wasn’t about to ask the where or why any time soon, of course. That would be impolite, and Tara would never forgive him for being that socially inept after his time in seclusion. No, he'd no intention to start asking questions of his new companions until it was certain they'd be stuck together for while and cooperation bid some deeper social connection. What he might ask about, once they had an opportune moment, was the exceptionally well manicured and twirled moustache considering the crashed nautiloid it had been through. Parsipan might not know anything about the tadpole, but he clearly knew enough to compare beard care routines with.
“There’s ruins to the east,” Parsipan pointed down the road, to the remains of an overgrown stone pavilion in the distance. His voice was soft — breathy and feminine, like his vocal cords couldn’t quite come together all the way. A result of the trauma to his neck, Gale assumed. It was a pleasant voice, at least. “We may find a hint for where in Faerûn we’ve landed.”
“You’re certain we’re still in Faerûn…? We haven’t been dumped on some other continent?” Astarion asked.
Clearly the elf didn’t know much about geology. The sediment pattern in the rock here was obviously-
“By the dead fishers on the beach, yes,” Parsipan confirmed. “And those,” he pointed to a polypore-type fungus that Gale couldn’t specifically identify, “lace-white harpy’s saddle only grow in the southern Sword Coast. And a bit in Chondath, I… think. So probably Sword Coast. We’re somewhere between Daggerford and Murran.”
Skilled at beard styling and botany. How rugged! Gale had read here and there about the various fungi of Toril, and considered himself reasonably knowledgeable for someone whose passions lay elsewhere, but confident in-person identification was not a skill that could be picked up from diagrams alone, it seemed. Perhaps he'd pick up some practical knowledge on the road. That was one thing to look forward to in all this. Silver linings!
“I see,” said Astarion, unenthused.
“…They’re very poisonous,” Parsipan added, an odd smile ghosting at the corner of his mouth.
“I see!” he repeated, now considerably more enthused. “Should we be collecting them? Just in case. Self defence, you know.”
“No. They’re too slow. At least two days before paralysis sets in. Let’s go.”
“I see…” Unenthused once again, but Parsipan was still smiling slightly.
Parsipan began to walk towards the ruins, stopping abruptly after just a couple of metres when the path diverged and he saw something to their left, and his face lit up in a full, cheeky smile. Shadowheart was next to see it, muttering a low but still audible “Good. That’s where she ought to be.” under her breath.
“We should leave her there,” she suggested.
Gale followed their line of sight, up just over the hill and almost around a corner, barely visible from their position: someone trapped in a hanging wooden cage, a flaming sword strapped to her back that he was surprised hadn't caught the structure on fire yet. That would be the githyanki mentioned earlier, he supposed. Much to Shadowheart’s disappointment, Parsipan changed their course to head in the cage’s direction.
20, Eleasis. Parsipan. 2:47pm
Skull splitting head aching neck so stiff and metallic nausea churning deep in the core of him. Vision swimming in little circles that clouded the periphery. Wretched lump of flesh and rot body that pulled against every command of the nerves.
Find a cure. Find himself. Find his way back to the unknown, ungraspable purpose that urged him onwards and he knew in his heart must be what gave his existence meaning. Tear the wretch that did this to him apart.
As soon as he could remember it.
Parsipan. That was his name. That much he knew for certain. Sort of certain. There was an argument about it, inside of him — ‘Parsipan’ or ‘The Dark Urge’ (or something else that he could not recall yet, which felt newer on his tongue). The former was cute, sickly-sweet, the name of a child. But the latter might scare his prey, his dull blank mind supplied as reasoning, so the former had won for now. No surname. Everything else was feeling and guessing and the skull-splitting-head-ache. The pulse of blood in his heart and the pulse of blood in every fractal red memory he struggled to grasp for more than a split moment.
His whole body ached, just duller than his skull, and had since he woke up on that Hells-fucked alien ship. The indignity that anybody would dare to put him in that position bit deeper than the body aches. He was important, and the illithids had no right to treat him as they had. He'd been pleased to find one still pinned in the wreck, and only sorry that he couldn't take the time to see what kind of leather its skin might have made had he the opportunity to tan it after he'd put an end to its misery. He'd almost put the elf out of his misery too, when he'd tried that lovely little knife trick. He'd made sure the elf understood if anything like that was attempted again that he would have to work to get Parsipan's guts spilled before his own — but there were no hard feelings. It had barely been a flirtation with the blade, not a serious offence, and the elf was quickly proving to not be his preferred type.
His breathing was slow, even, and every step on the barely beaten dirt roads here in the wilderness was placed with a purpose that he could not verbalise but knew meant he left minimal tracks and neither prey nor foe would hear him coming. Instead, they would track and hear the straggling dull meat-shield bodies he had found to help him. The elf was fine. Light steps, cautious and alert. A prey animal, acting as predator to hide his fear. Parsipan could smell it, see it in his eyes. Perfect for breaking into pieces on a mortuary table, pretty pale skin in wide strips for the tanning rack. A dull little suck-up in a too-darling outer shell that would be far better once relieved of the spark of life that marred it. The other three… Quiet as mewling children.
He had to appreciate that the gith had landed as gracefully as she did, when he had shot the floor of the cage out from under her as the others looked for the anchor of the rope that tied the cage up in place. He’d been hoping her ankles might snap. So, so sweetly. So, so cleanly. More the pity she had only a soldier’s stride and no subtlety for all her grace. She’d wanted to follow the tieflings back to their camp immediately, but Parsipan had refused.
“We don’t know how far their camp is, how far your ‘kin’ are if they haven’t left the area already, and the ruins are right over there. Help us find supplies or walk into another trap and get swarmed by anybody else your ‘kin’ have made enemies of. It's your choice.”
She had sworn at him in a language he did not understand, but she had followed. The half-elf was visibly frustrated at their new addition, staying as far as she could on the other side of their group. Maybe they would gut each other, sword and mace and holy fire melting into alien metalwork with pools of blood ground into the dirt by their flagging footsteps as they collapsed together in a ruby heap. Inconvenient, since Parsipan was betting on strength in numbers to get things done until he’d properly oriented himself, and it would lose them a healer, but it would be fun to watch.
The human was handsome, seemed clever enough, and over-explained the threat of the tadpole in a way that made Parsipan want to tie him to a bed, gagged and slick with fear-sweat. He should have taken off the man's hand when the Urge had reared inside of him and the others might still have forgiven him for it. He could have kept it to play with. A pretty souvenir, with such practised fingers and well-flexed tendons. Parsipan knew how ceremorphosis worked. He didn’t know why he knew how it worked, but he didn’t need to be told by a man that had teleported into a rock. He’d yet to prove any value beyond that of a victim. Mm. Voice pitching up in sweetest, ragged, retching whimpers. And just how virile might he be, in those fractal seconds of ecstasy in death…?
He took them up to the high ground of the ruin, behind a gnome standing distracted on a crate — what a piss-poor watchman, completely open to his own sudden death. Resisting the bone-deep urge to shoot a bolt through the vertebrae of the man’s neck, out through his mouth to pierce the bandanna over his face, and send him off the oh-so-convenient precipitous edge below, Parsipan considered the best approach. He could hear, just beyond the gnome, a loud argument that identified this lot as graverobbers. Probably hostile. Probably armed. The watchman was. Parsipan wanted their blood, but he needed their cooperation. Two equally appealing options, and he’d already let those tieflings leave unharmed against his better judgement (or was it his better judgement to let them leave? It was so difficult to tell). But… but… if he was too eager to carve into anybody they met, he may lose half his new tools to their moral compunctions. He had a vague sense that this was wrong, that he should have far more allies whose bloodlust suited his own, who allowed him to play as he pleased, but his head hurt so severely when he tried to think on who those allies were that he dropped the subject with himself immediately. They needed to circle around, count how many fresh victims were on offer, not get in over their heads. Maybe if they outnumbered the graverobbers they could intimidate their way into what they needed. A happy medium.
“Hello!” the wizard called out.
Tied and slick with blood and his tongue split and his vocal cords severed-!
20, Eleasis. Gale. 2:51pm
He knew he’d made a mistake the second after he spoke, as Parsipan had turned sharply to glare at him, eyes wide and teeth bared, and the young fellow on the crate’s expression was not much better. He had tried to salvage the conversation, insist that they had no intention of interfering with this party’s apparently unsavoury activities, that they were just a bit lost. One can’t resolve an issue the gentlemens' way every time, alas.
The second the graverobbers had drawn their weapons, Parsipan and Astarion moved to slit the throats of the two closest to them ("magistrate" indeed!). The gnome leader who had refused to see reason and the half elf man who’d followed him up to the balcony both collapsed in their own blood, a light spatter decorating everybody around. Astarion moved to descend the stairs towards a woman in spellcasters’ robes who was backing away to keep her distance from them, while Parsipan rounded on the watchman, raising his soaked dagger to run the flat of the blade against his tongue in a clear (if rather unnecessary) threat. Their dying leader’s blood smeared across his mouth, mingling with the remnants of whatever dark lipstick he'd been wearing before their abduction, and without sheathing his dagger he raised his crossbow to aim directly at the watchman’s face.
“Have you ever wondered what a crossbow bolt feels like riiiight after it's been shot, as fast as it will ever be?” Parsipan asked, voice shaky with adrenaline. “Your corpse will tell me soon.”
The watchman fired off his own bow in response but missed wildly in panic — and was immediately gutted by Lae’zel, who had pushed past Gale before he had a chance to react and then shoved the man’s body off the edge of the balcony. Gale heard a dull crunch from somewhere below, flesh on hard paving.
“We don’t have time to play,” she snarled, and Parsipan gave her a sullen look, pouting slightly.
His shoulder twinged in pain where Lae’zel had pushed past, and the orb burned in his chest, an aching hunger that clawed at his ribs and seized his lungs as his heart rate thrummed into overdrive. Right. He was in this too. He ought to do something. He was a bit out of shape, certainly, but he’d faced things far worse than a gaggle of poorly organised bandits before his near-fatal disgrace. How hard could it be? He advanced to the edge of the balcony, peering down to try and locate their last foe before she saw him. There. An easy incantation, the lightest scent of roses from the weave at his command, and she crumpled into a heap on the vines beneath her, fast asleep. The orb shifted in his chest unpleasantly.
Parsipan peered down at her with interest, then withdrew, seeming unsatisfied. Astarion was rounding the corner at the bottom of the stairs, dagger still poised to strike. Despite Gale’s choice of spell, it seemed the young lady would not be surviving this fight. That was the risk of her profession, he supposed, and he had found himself in none too merciful company. This group of bandits was so eager to end the lives of innocent travelers in their greed, he reasoned, that it was likely for the best that they had been taken care of in any case.
“Just asleep…” Parsipan mumbled, which made Gale feel as if he had made a grave tactical error in trying to spare her, then turned to Shadowheart expectantly.
“What?” she asked. “You all had it taken care of before I had a chance to join. Besides, none of you were hurt. What else is there for me to do?”
Parsipan hummed noncommittally, then started to search the nearest body.
“See if they have a map,” he said, and they got to work searching the small camp.
Gale couldn’t help but wonder at the history of the place. Such fine stonework, abandoned for so long that it was crumbling to dust. There were only four bodies, and five in their own party, so he had left the corpse-searching and bag-searching to the others and — after letting them know that he wasn't just wandering aimlessly — started to look for any kind of identifying plaque on the building. They were likely to do a better job of shaking down their former foes than he was able to anyhow. Gale was far more suited to unlocking the mysteries of the past than the mysteries of somebody's pockets.
Astarion and Parsipan had gravitated towards the bodies. Astarion was picking through their armour with practised ease and seemed to have an uncannily keen sense of the key places one might hide valuable information (or valuables in general), while Parsipan was almost unnervingly thorough, his expression blank and mouth parted slightly in focus, running his palms flat across the bodies as he worked. Gale had to respect the attention to detail, grateful that he wasn't the one who had to feel up a deceased stranger's thigh for hidden pockets. Lae'zel and Shadowheart were going through the camp supplies and backpacks, the former tearing open the packs so roughly each time that their contents would scatter across the ground in a broad circle and the latter's expression became so sour at the coarse approach that Gale was well prepared to hear an argument break out over it. He did wonder if anything specific had happened on the nautiloid to stoke the fires of their mutual malcontent, and no doubt he would have to talk them both down from it at some point in the not so distant future if nobody else stepped in.
For the moment, he had other work to do. The architecture was local, that didn't help narrow it down, the broken statue yielded no clues on who its subject was, and the other statue off to the side was altogether too standard. The broken one's plaque was too worn to date precisely. Not a single piece of environmental information beyond this place's architectural style, and that it had received some attempt at rebuilding recent enough for the wooden scaffolding to not have rotted through. Doubtful it had anything to do with the ruffians that had set up camp here. He stumbled more than once while lost in thought trying to piece together any historical information that could help them — his shoes kept getting caught on the vines that bunched in the corners around the walls, their thorns pricking and pulling on the leather. Extricating himself for the third time in a minute, he moved to the centre of the cracked paving where he could be safe from any further vegetal mishaps. Perhaps he should set them alight and be done with it already.
Astarion had finished with the bodies and meandered over, making a show of looking to the same places Gale was with a contemplative hum.
“Any vital news to enlighten us with from the patterns on the pavement?” he asked.
“Built well before Dalereckoning, from what I can see,” Gale replied, electing to ignore Astarion's tone of voice. “But there's nothing specific. I'm surprised that the doors have held up in the wilderness for so long, assuming this was abandoned that long ago.”
Magic, perhaps, or it had stayed in use long after its initial construction. If it was that old and had held up so well, and it contained treasure worth hunting and dying for, it might even hold something to assuage his arcane hunger when it flared up again.
“I think we ought to head further in for more information,” he suggested, “unless we've found all that we needed out here?”
“I believe that depends on Parsipan,” Astarion replied. “Since he's so handily taken charge of us all, I'm sure he'll direct us on to the next great task.”
Gale wasn't sure if that was intended as a complaint or if this man was incapable of expressing anything without a heady layer of snark. Time would tell.
“I didn't find anything decent. Just some book on Talis cards or whatever,” Astarion continued, then gestured to the body of the mage Gale had cast sleep on. “I must say, that spell of yours made her very easy to deal with.”
“Oh, it was nothing,” Gale deflected with well-practised humility. At least someone appreciated his choice, even if it was one of the least trustworthy individuals he'd ever had the displeasure of meeting. “There'll be far more where that came from. And you? You seem very familiar with a dagger for a magistrate.”
“The perils of the city,” Astarion sighed, picking blood out from under his nails. “More destructive spells where that came from, did you mean?”
“Well,” Gale began, then noticed Parsipan staring at them, crouched near the half-smashed corpse of the former watchman, a focused crease in his brow. His gaze darted upwards, for just a second, and Gale followed it — they were standing under a dangling block of stone, attached to a single rope. “We should move.”
He had noticed it during his inspection of the structure, but had forgotten about it in his frustration with the vines. His stomach churned. There was no telling when that rope might give out, and then where would they be, with the orb set off after he'd been reduced to a well crushed paste? He had to be more careful. What a relief that Parsipan had such a keen eye on their surroundings.
“Anything edible?” he asked Lae'zel and Shadowheart as he joined them outside the ruin's doorway. “You know, if this expedition of ours continues until nightfall, I'm more than happy to cobble together something for dinner. I'm almost as skilled in the kitchen as I am at magic, in fact.”
“So, judging by the way we met…” Shadowheart looked at him expectantly. “Not particularly?”
“Very particularly. That was a one-off case that I don't intend to repeat, but ‘to err is human', as they say.” If only the divine would forgive. “Are you volunteering for dinner duty, then?”
“I never said that,” she said, and Lae'zel scoffed from the other side of the entry area, crouching by the wall as she adjusted her greaves.
“Good,” she said, looking up at Shadowheart. “If we have to share meals because you all must rest, then I do not want you near my food.”
“I'll try your cooking,” Parsipan said to Gale.
“I thought you'd be cooking. Aren't you a hunter?” asked Astarion.
“…I don't know how,” Parsipan replied.
“What do you mean you ‘don't know how'? Isn't that part of the whole ‘camping on the road and living off the land' thing? Shoot a baby bunny and then pitch it over a campfire?” Astarion mimed setting off a crossbow with exasperation.
“Raw is fine.”
"Well!" Astarion said, his tone of voice suddenly the warmest it had been since Gale had met the group, his hand on his hip and head tilted to the side with amused appraisal. "I suppose one must respect the efficiency."
To each their own, Gale supposed.
…But he would make sure that he had full control of the cooking pot, in this company.
“We should keep going,” said Parsipan. “I heard movement inside, there may be more supplies. Or, we can question the last person standing before we kill them.”
Parsipan looked at Astarion, who shrugged.
“You didn't tell me to stop,” he said.
“Just this time,” Parsipan clarified, finally standing from the bloody corpse.
Of course, it wasn't as simple as just walking inside, as when they tried the door it turned out to be locked, and guarded by a doorman who was by this point well aware of what had happened outside. Astarion offered to pick the lock (a career criminal…?), Lae'zel chose to instead break the door down with a firm kick to its handle. Gale cringed at the destruction to what he was certain was a historical site, then immediately forgot the issue as the splintered door hit the ground and they were all knocked back with a loud, hot, blindingly bright bang that threw the now flaming pieces of door back at them.
A blast mine.
His ears rang, a high pitched and uncomfortable thing with a piercing metallic tone, and he shook his head to try and clear his senses as he got back to his feet.
“Perhaps,” he said, “we should be more cautious when we don't have the home advantage.”
“Oh, really? You don't say?” Astarion spat back, patting grime and soot off his clothes with a sour expression.
Shadowheart, who had wisely been standing back near the graverobbers' bedrolls, murmured something under her breath - a prayer for healing, Gale realised, as some stinging on his face had subsided and a large gash on Lae'zel's neck stitched itself together without a trace.
“You're welcome,” she said.
Parsipan, up without a fuss and seemingly unbothered by the explosion, held up a hand and made a shushing sound, then pointed at Gale and Shadowheart and made a pushing gesture as if he wanted them to stand back. He pointed to Lae'zel, Astarion, and himself, then pointed inside the doorway, singling out an open door inside to the far left. He pointed to the same trio again - we - made a slow and low walking gesture - sneak - he pointed to the space beside the door - there -, he pointed to Gale and Shadowheart - and then you two - pointed to an area away from the suspiciously open door within but still decently out of sight of it - over there - and then mouthed the words “stay separate” to them. Gale appreciated that he didn't immediately attempt to use the tadpole for silent communication as Lae'zel had, but perhaps it hadn't occurred to the man that this was an option. Gale would not be the one to bring it up — he didn't wish to encourage too much interlinking of their minds and risk his own privacy in the long term.
Once they had all acknowledged his instructions, Parsipan dropped low to the ground, slinking forward into the room and gingerly stepping over the remnants of the blast mine, slow and focused with his head held at a steady level. As much as Gale hated the idea of sneaking around when once upon a better time he could simply have set the entire group of foes ablaze in one fell swoop, he was vividly reminded of watching Tara on the prowl, and that small flash of delight was just enough to stop him from bemoaning the chosen approach as they took their directed places.
When he had reached the wall by the inner door, Parsipan pressed flat against it, motioning for Astarion and Lae'zel both to do the same beside him, which left them bunched uncomfortably in the corner of the room. In part, Gale was glad to not be there with them, but on the other hand his and Shadowheart's positioning seemed very… open? He tried to shuffle a bit further towards the edge of the room, where he would not be the first seen by anybody exiting the door, but it wouldn't be likely to help. He had unwittingly agreed to play the role of distraction, it seemed.
Parsipan was still moving with absolute focus — listening intently at the doorway and taking slow, deep breaths, as if he was tasting something in the air. Gnomes were known for their exceptional sense of smell (though if he was being perfectly honest, compared to humans, all of their senses were exceptional), so Gale could only conclude that there likely was something Parsipan was tasting.
Did the orb and the deep illness it brought have a scent to others, one that they were too polite to tell him of?
Carefully, Parsipan readied his already loaded crossbow, then held the tip of the arrow against Lae'zel's sword until it caught alight. Swiftly and suddenly, he stepped into the doorway and let the bolt loose. A short pause, and then the target room erupted in explosive flame and pained, panicked yells for someone named Barton. Parsipan darted out of their enemies' sight again, this time to the side of the open door opposite Astarion and Lae'zel. He was smiling broadly now, face half-lit in flickering light from the flames just beyond.
Efficient! Served them right, too, for that little trick with the blast mine.
Not that Gale approved of violent solutions.
Two of the looters exited — a man wielding two blades who immediately turned to strike at Lae'zel, and a woman with a bow, who took a shot at Shadowheart and bound her in thorny, thick magic vines that erupted from the arrow's tip and that there was no chance of manually removing without hurting the cleric, then retreated back out of reach.
Gale rushed forward, sending a firebolt after her in hopes of breaking her concentration on the spell but missing just barely as she ducked out of the way — he could see from here, in the cinder-filled room, two more women readying for the fight. One more with a bow, and another fellow mage. If only he still had the strength to cast something with a good, broad field of damage to it. It was so frustrating being unable to help to the full extent of his former ability. At least this group had been split between outdoors and indoors, as it seemed likely their own party would have been overwhelmed by facing them all at once.
As it was, the fight rushed on, the semi-restrained Shadowheart aiming a dim bolt of purple holy light through the doorway at a target Gale couldn't see, and Astarion moving in to the next room after extricating himself from the dual-wielding man's range and leaving him to be dealt with by Lae'zel. In a quick, regrettable trade-off Astarion was replaced in this room by a tall, imposing fellow with no shirt and a nasty looking spiked wooden club. As soon as he exited the door he rounded on Parsipan with a low and powerful swing. The club hit Parsipan's head with a loud crack, and he dropped his crossbow in his daze. The bolt shot off when it hit the ground, grazing the man's leg and eliciting a pained yell. Gale started to move towards them — he had to do something to stop Parsipan from being hit like that a second time, else they have their first impromptu and messy tadpole extraction right here — but was stopped in his tracks when the man grabbed Parsipan by the collar of his armour and, with a loud roar, tossed the gnome directly at Gale, knocking the wind out of him and sending them to the ground in a small assemblage of limbs, Parsipan flat on the ground beneath him.
“Are you alright?” he gasped, still a bit winded from the heavy hit. Parsipan groaned in response, squinting up at him through the rivulets of blood that had trickled down from where he'd been clubbed. He was still conscious. Good enough for now.
Gale heard the thud of heavy footsteps and looked up just in time to see the half-nude man swing the club at him and to dodge out of the way.
“You lot killed Barton,” the man snarled, grabbing the front of Gale's robes so that he wouldn't be able to dodge again, pulling him up into close quarters. Big mistake.
“We've done rather more than that, actually,” Gale said, and took hold of the man's face. “Fulgur!”
The man convulsed, letting go of Gale and shuddering in his grasp as he was electrocuted, blue and bright arcs of concentrated Weave dancing across his face and a crackling, buzzing sound emanating from deep within his thick skull. For a beautiful, fleeting moment, it was as if his powers had never been sapped by the orb at all. He'd cast it perfectly, and he'd been rewarded with the purest surge of Weave through his hands that he'd felt since his fall. Gale heard Parsipan gasp, but he was too busy keeping his grip on their foe to check why. The smoking scent of burning flesh seeped through the air, and Gale watched as the man's eyes slowly faded to a dull, glassy stare, only letting go of the still-convulsing body when he was certain the man was dead and wouldn't be trying a second time at knocking their heads off.
"There," he said, looking down to Parsipan, who met his gaze with wide eyes and flushed cheeks. His head was still bleeding, but he didn't seem to mind. He was in awe, Gale recognised with a rush of pride. As he should be, in front of one of Mystra's Chosen (former Chosen…), even if it had just been an over-charged cantrip.
"You do that often?" Parsipan asked, oddly short of breath. They needed to get that head injury looked at as soon as possible if it was affecting his breathing rate.
"When the situation calls for it," he said.
"Mm," said Parsipan, which Gale didn't have time to decode as his attention was drawn back upwards by Lae'zel yelling — she had beheaded the man with two blades.
"A little help in here!?" Astarion called out from the burning room, and then grunted loudly. He must have hit the woman who cast the binding spell on Shadowheart, as the vines dissolved into threads of soft magic and she was dropped from their grasp to land heavily on her hands and knees against the gritty, dusty stone floor. Lae'zel moved in after Astarion, leaving the three on the floor behind. Gale's pride was tinged by guilt; he shouldn't have paused to stroke his ego when the others were still in trouble. As swiftly as he could, he got to his feet, then reached down to help Parsipan up after him. He stumbled, gaze unfocused, heavily leaning on Gale for support and gripping at the front of his robe as he struggled to stay upright. Shadowheart, now back upright herself, said a healing incantation and Parsipan shook his head, cleared of the worst of his injuries.
"Thank you," Parsipan said to Shadowheart as she followed after Lae'zel. He did not, however, let go of Gale's robe, fists still clenched in the fabric around Gale's hips. An impolite thought flittered across his mind, inspired by the proximity of the Parsipan's grasping hands to… something else, but he pushed it aside immediately. This was not the time, and the excitement of the fight alone was enough to make the orb claw at his insides with its spined, wanting tendrils. He couldn't afford to dwell on those sorts of ideas even in his calmest hours until he was cured. Besides, he was a gentleman. Pent up as he may be, that was no excuse to start lusting over the innocent actions of an injured ally like some lecher looking to take advantage.
Parsipan let go after what felt like an age but was in actuality just a few moments, flashing a bright smile up at Gale and then scurrying off to grab his crossbow and get back into the fight. Fully free of the unexpected temptation, he would put those thoughts away for good. He was not a schoolboy with no sense self-control. Remove the tadpole. Treat the orb. Move on with the dregs of his life. He was determined not to impose such thoughts on his allies again.
20, Eleasis. Parsipan. 3:43pm
The rush of lust he'd felt from Gale's display of power carried him well through the final throes of these pathetic looters, paired like a fine spiced wine with the unbidden but oh-so-savoured shivers of pleasure he felt at each body that hit the floor and soaked the stone red by his hand.
Parsipan had tried his best when he'd been helped to his feet and had an excuse to stand so close, but he had been about as unsuccessful as he'd anticipated: He couldn't figure out how big Gale's cock was through those robes. Not without a more open grope, and he couldn't risk that yet. He did not recall anything useful about himself or his life, no elucidating thoughts had been shaken free from the sludge of his mind with the sharp-crack blow to the skull he'd received, but he could recognise a skilled mage in action when he saw one. This was not a corpse that he could pull and push and play with as he pleased. This was a deliciously arrogant man with the fabric of reality at his fingertips, who had so quickly earned the right to be thought of by name. Parsipan had to seduce him to get what he wanted.
He would settle for an ego-flayed victim if he had to, decorate that handsome body with cuts and burns and swallow that skilled tongue raw after slicing it out, but he really didn't want to. Not yet. He could still smell the ozone in the air and the burnt flesh of the man Gale had electrocuted, it lingered in his senses and each breath pooled warmth in his gut and a slick, wanting wetness that throbbed between his legs. Gale had landed between his legs, too, when they'd fallen together. Head spinning giddy from injury aching in his skull and sight-touch-taste-sound-mind filled with the irresistible pleasure of a cruel, painful, powerful kill, he had wanted nothing more than to pull Gale back down on top of him, wrap his legs around the man's hips, pull that hand between his legs so still sparking and deadly it could rub.
Parsipan was very certain that he had never had to bother with seduction before, as he couldn't think of a single thing to try to achieve that end. It made him feel a little ill, actually — disturbingly anxious, in the face of a task he could not resolve with violence, and furious that he could not just take what he wanted by force. He wanted Gale to want him, to need him, to use him, but what was he supposed to do if Gale found him unattractive? If Gale rejected him?
No, he would still take what he desired one way or another. That felt correct, reassuring in the face of the unknown. Test his morals, string him along into the dark bit by bit, a little give and take and acting the reasonable commander like boiling a live frog so that it did not want to escape the pot, and if the wizard still refused to comply, did not get any crueler and did not try to claim Parsipan's body as a toy the way Parsipan hoped to claim his mind as one…
Parsipan shot the last graverobber standing, licking his lips as her body crumpled to the floor with his arrow clear through her head and a coil of pleasure released itself in his core. Something was wrong with him, broken deep inside where he could not remember it, and it was such a thrill.