Chapter Text
Chapter One: Leaving Candlekeep
It was a calm, spring day in Candlekeep. The seagulls called to each other as they flew overhead; the sun slowly rose from the water, coloring the sky and ocean alike in bright oranges and pinks. The breeze gently rustled through the trees’ leaves, and the ocean’s waves crashed steadily and rhythmically against the cliffs.
It was a fine spring morning and after a late night in the morgue, Khezadrin was happy to be sleeping through it.
There was an arcane knock on Khezadrin’s bedroom door. Before the magic even finished fizzling out and returning to the Weave, Gorion burst through and sprinted to the bedside.
“Khezadrin! Khezadrin, my child, wake up!” Gorion shook Khezadrin almost violently. Had he been younger, his grip on her shoulders may have been painful.
“What? What is it?!” A Blindness spell jumped to the forefront of her mind, ready to be cast.
“We must hurry; there is no time to tarry. The keep is safe, but not invulnerable. We must leave as soon as we can!”
“What? Why? What’s going on? And the lab—”
“There is no time to tarry,” Gorion repeated, “I will explain when we have time!”
“But—”
“Listen to me, child! This keep is not insurmountable! No matter how thick the mesh, a mosquito will find its way through. We must leave as soon as possible, for our safety, and for that of our friends here.”
Khezadrin remembered that Gorion was a former adventurer and a current Harper, “Is an old enemy coming?”
“It is not me that they are after,” Gorion said grimly. With that, Gorion rushed out of Khezadrin’s bedroom to make his own preparations. He did not look back—he trusted Khezadrin to heed his words and to get up herself. His trust was well placed.
She got dressed in the only clothes that didn’t smell of formaldehyde—today was supposed to be laundry day—and unceremoniously grabbed Felix, her ferret familiar and kleptomanic menace of Candlekeep. Like Khezadrin, Felix didn’t have the chance to wake up properly, but at least Khezadrin didn’t get shoved into someone’s oversized pocket. Felix did not have such a luxury.
Once Felix was mostly secure in her pocket, she ran through the courtyards past the chanters and to the morgue.
“When shadows descend upon the lands, our divine lords will walk alongside us as equals,” chanted The Voice of the South as she ran by, “So sayeth the great Alaundo.”
She was very glad that she was too young to remember The Time of Troubles, when the gods were cast out and forced to be among mortals. It sounded like it was an absolute disaster. Kelemvor ascended to divinity in a rather roundabout way because of the Troubles, and he was much better than his predecessors, but… had it been up to her, there never would have been a Time of Troubles. Even if it meant Kelemvor never became a god, it wasn’t worth the trade-off.
Was that heretical to think that?
Ah, well. There was only ever one god who paid any sort of attention to her, and it wasn’t Kelemvor.
Khezadrin passed a Red Wizard when she was near the morgue. Not a wholly unusual sight to see one here.
She exchanged the warm light of spring for the cool dark of the morgue as she entered the building and descended down the stairs. It was nice, going down the stairs. It gave her a moment to catch her breath. She tried not to think about the fact that she’d have to go back up them soon.
Her study was small—she suspected that it used to be a supply closet of some sort. There were bigger rooms that she coveted, but she knew when not to press her luck. It was hard enough to convince Ulraunt to let her have this space; there was no way that he’d give her something bigger.
She opened her desk drawer and pulled out her Bag of Condensing. She had tried to enchant a small Bag of Holding—while she got the “bigger on the inside” part, she wasn’t able to enchant for the “weighs almost nothing” part. Still, it made things much easier to carry. And it’s not like she had any other options right now.
She began shoving things into her bag and didn’t bother to put gloves on first. There would be so many smudges on her glass specimen vials, but she could clean them later. A small, expensive silver birdcage used for trapping souls with matching Kelemvoric candles to attract the souls in the first place, and a book on properly catching trapped souls on the Prime Material and releasing them in the Ethereal Plane where they belong.
She grabbed some spell components (not that she needed them as a sorcerer, but maybe she could trade them for a book or something later); speaking of books, she should bring these papers on Thayvian advancements in soulistic anatomy (it’s astounding what you can do if you don’t have morals, not that she’d do anything of the sort); and supplies for the, ahem, Art and Craft.
She would’ve been horrified at the way she was treating the equipment, had she any time. But Gorion had made it clear that there was no time for emotion or caution.
Soon, her bags were full and she’d have to start utilizing her pockets. She started shoving some scrolls and blank paper into her pockets, much to Felix’s annoyance. The ferret crawled out of her pocket and onto her shoulder.
Suddenly, she and Felix smelled something. Khezadrin froze and sniffed the air. Was that… was she smelling Nessie? What was Nessie doing here? Gods, did she--?! No, Khezadrin made that antidote herself…
It had to be something else. Nessie couldn’t be arriving in the morgue. Besides, why would someone bring a cow, dead or alive, into a morgue?
Perhaps Dreppin heard that she and Gorion were leaving, and he came down to say goodbye. That made much more sense and would be very kind of him.
Khezadrin continued shoving things into her pockets. She wasn’t about to look up to greet Dreppin—he could wait for a moment.
“You there, yer Gorion’s little whelp, aintcha?” a stranger’s voice said. Khezadrin looked up. She didn’t see Dreppin, but this stranger still smelled like the stables. One of the new hires… called himself ‘Carbos’, didn’t he?
Carbos looked Khezadrin up and down, “Yeah, you match the description. You don’t look that dangerous to me.”
“Excuse me?” Khezadrin noticed that Carbos was in the doorway. He had her trapped. And he had a dagger.
“Ha! Just thought I’d have a look at ya before I puts a blade down your gullet! Someone thinks you’re trouble. I’m just a little street trash they say, but I’ll show ‘em! Yer head is the ticket out of this life for me and mine, and--”
A sleep spell. Nonlethal, safe, effective. Khezadrin said a few words and magic sparked into the air, but Carbos, full of bitterness and adrenaline, stayed awake.
Felix leapt off Khezadrin’s shoulder and onto Carbos’s throat. A large dog could bite and kill in a single shake. Felix wasn’t big enough to get a clean kill. He’d have to settle for a messy one.
Carbos couldn’t stab Felix—there was too much chance of injuring himself while trying. He grabbed Felix and pulled, but Felix would not let go.
Khezadrin was frozen in place and could do nothing but look on with horror.
After another few moments, Carbos fell to the floor with a sickening thud. Blood oozed from his throat onto the stone floor and his glassy eyes gazed into Khezadrin’s study.
“Felix… Felix, what did you do?!” Khezadrin asked through their telepathic bod.
Felix wrinkled his face and shook himself.
“I got absolutely filthy, that’s what. I know that Gorion’s in a hurry, but do you think there’s time for—”
“You killed him!” Khezadrin realized that she never actually checked to verify, and so then she asked, “He’s not still alive?”
Felix looked back over to Carbos’s body. “Not being alive anymore is the very definition of being dead, you know.”
“I’m not sure,” Khezadrin scowled, “Undead aren’t alive anymore, but—but that’s beside the point! I had a spell for that! He didn’t have to die!”
“He didn’t?” Felix mockingly tilted his head, “You had your chance; your sleep spell failed. I don’t know why, but it’s kill or be killed now.”
“We could have—I don’t know! We could’ve ran! Or something?!”
“You? Run? If you were capable of running, you would have!” the ferret huffed.
Khezadrin said nothing.
“Look, I promised I’d try to take care of you. And I will,” Felix said as he climbed back onto her shoulder, leaving a trail of bloody pawprints on her clothes, “For now, let’s just… let’s just find Gorion.”
Carbos’s blood reached the edge of Khezadrin’s shoes. Did she remember to grab any cleaning supplies? No matter; there wasn’t time to check.
She carefully stepped over Carbos’s dead body, as if afraid that he might reanimate at any moment.
Just another corpse, Khezadrin. You’ve seen plenty of those. You’re a necromantic scholar. You can handle a fresh cadaver.
She sprinted halfway up the stairs, then stopped suddenly. She would be sweating if it weren’t for the dry coolness of the morgue.
“Felix, the consecrations!” Khezadrin wheezed, nearly out of breath, “We didn’t… we didn’t do the Kelemvoric consecrations!”
“He’ll be fine! No one’s going to try to reanimate him for nefarious purposes here, of all places!” Felix argued, “The consecrations are only needed to prevent nefarious reanimations. Completely unnecessary right now.”
“But it’s the principle of the thing!”
“Remember what Gorion said? We have no time!”
Khezadrin was unconvinced, and so Felix changed strategies.
“Look, Tethtoril will do the consecrations.”
“…you’re right,” Khezadrin resumed sprinting up the stairs as fast as she could.
Soon, they were out of the dry darkness of the morgue and into the damp light of the surface. The breeze was pleasant enough, though a bit salty from the sea.
Tethtoril hurried over.
“Khezadrin! Have you—what is wrong, child? And why is Felix—” realization dawned on Tethtoril’s face, “No, there is no time. Hurry, child. Equip yourself and find Gorion on the steps of the library. Oh, Khezadrin. I have been your tutor for so many years, and only in this moment have I come to doubt that my teachings have been enough. Go to Gorion, child. It is safe for you here no longer.”
“Tethtoril, some of the magical books have been restless and misbehaving all week, Gorion suddenly wants to leave, and now someone tried to kill me?” Khezadrin whispered urgently, “What’s happening here?”
“It’s not the place, child,” Tethtoril sighed, “It’s you. Oh, child, it is not safe for you anymore. We have all done our best for you. Hopefully it will be enough. Go, find your father, and may the gods go with you.”
Khezadrin felt sick. It was her? Why wasn’t it safe? Why did someone want her dead? Was it her research? Did she anger some Thayvian somewhere by publishing her results first? And now, the Thayvian has sent assassins after her?
It didn’t make much sense, but the Red Wizards were not known for their sanity.
“Fine!” she conceded to Tethtoril’s instructions, “But remember the Kelemvoric consecrations for Carbos down at the morgue! I couldn’t do it myself!”
She trusted Tethtoril to do so, and thus did not look back as she ran past the Chanters again.
“The spawn of the Lord of Murder are fated to come into their inheritance through bloodshed and misery. So sayeth the wise Alaundo.”
She saw Gorion in front of the library and climbed the stairs to him.
“Ah, my child! I am glad to have found you.”
***
Khezadrin dreamt of Candlekeep that night.
Gorion stood next to her, but his visage was shadowy and weak, as dead in the Dreamscape as he was in the waking world.
They walked out of Candlekeep together and towards the woods. The day was uneventful. But the night….
Hand over your ward, the armored figure said.
I would be a fool to trust your benevolence, Gorion replied, Step aside.
Then the fight, and Gorion falls.
The dream replayed these events over and over again. She did not get used to it.
Tired and distraught by fate, Khezadrin tried something different in the dream. Instead of following Gorion, this time, she turned back towards Candlekeep and began walking home.
“You cannot go back that way, child. You must go on.”
Khezadrin turned and saw Gorion smile and gesture towards the woods once again.
Then, she a smooth and obvious path open before her, a different path than she and Gorion had taken into the ambush. The was seemed perfect, as if meant for her, and she felt a strange pull towards it.
Still, she hesitated. Through all the stories she had learned at Candlekeep… she learned that the easy, obvious path it not always the one that should be taken.
The pull towards the obvious path became stronger, and she took a few involuntary steps towards it. Gorion still gestured for her to follow him on the path they had taken in the waking world, the one that led towards the ambush and his death.
Khezadrin turned away from both of them and headed towards the woods in her own direction. If she wasn’t with Gorion, the armored figure would not demand her, and thus the dream wouldn’t be able to replay the events of that night.
And the obvious path… something wasn’t right about it.
Gorion smiled and faded away.
As Khezadrin continued walking, a whisper followed her, something vestigial and sinister; a voice she recognized, but had never heard.
You will learn.
***
She woke with a start.
“You’re finally awake,” a familiar and un-sinister voice noticed, “You sleep rather soundly. It’s a terrible habit, do be sure to break it while you can.”
Khezadrin looked at him and tensed her jaw.
“I’m afraid that **** has gotten… more observant,” Mask, the Lord of Shadows, continued, “***** ***** *******. Not even I can **** ****** ******. But if I happened to notice that a certain person from a certain guild in Beregost happened to be in the area and happened to fleeing from bounty hunters, who happened to have trouble seeing through mist…” he trailed off for a moment, “And if, on top of that, if I happened to see a resolute elven ranger and a shipwrecked captain also needing cover? Why, how could anyone blame me for providing some?”
“And you couldn’t’ve provided me with anything?!”
“Now, now, don’t go getting all bitter on me,” he waved his hand dismissively, “I never said that I couldn’t have done so, just that no one could blame me for providing cover to certain other people who were nearby, convenient and suspicious as that may be.”
“My father is dead, Felix and I are…. are out here, and you’re playing with technicalities!?”
Mask shrugged. Evidently, there was nothing he could say.
“I’ll give you some information. What you do with it is your choice. To the south, towards Beregost, are… strangers who could become friends. And I don’t think I have to tell you that there can be some safety in numbers. To the east is the Friendly Arm Inn. You may find a few surprises there.”
He looked off to the distance.
“Of course, there’s danger in numbers, too. Do be careful about that. Regardless, you are being followed by both foes and a friend. If you wait, who knows who will catch up to you first?”
Khezadrin only had two friends, and Felix was right here. Which meant….
Imoen.