Astarion and Gale

This is a Commissioned Story

They worked their way around the wreck, following a path between broken trees and scattered stone. Smoke still hung among the branches. Vurog watched the ground for tracks, picking his way over roots and splinters with the scavenged sword loose in his hand. Whoever had lived here before the ship came down must have roads somewhere.

“Stay where you are.”

He looked up. A slight and pale elf stood beside a boulder above the path, white curls disordered, an arrow drawn to his cheek. Fine clothes, filthy now, and a steady bow hand. Vurog stopped as Lae’zel’s sword scraped free behind him. Shield pressed on his thoughts, ready to flash into existence, as he judged the climb to the elf’s perch.

“I saw you on the ship.” The elf’s gaze dropped briefly to the bulge straining down one leg of Vurog’s borrowed trousers. “With your cock out, you were rather difficult to miss. Why were you walking free while I was locked in that horrid coffin?”

Vurog let him look, watching the arrow. “I broke free. What do you want?”

“To know what you and those creatures did to me.”

“We were their prisoners,” Shadowheart said, bringing her shield around. “Whatever you think you saw, you’ve misunderstood it.”

The bow shifted toward her. Vurog’s jaw tightened, but before either could move, pain caught behind his eye.

For a heartbeat he was moving through a city at night, looking through the elf’s eyes. Lamplight caught passing faces, and he studied them with a purpose Vurog couldn’t grasp. Then the memory slipped away into blinding light, a worm coming toward his eye, fear. His own memories stirred in answer, mountain cold and snow underfoot, before the contact broke. He stood on the path again with his teeth clenched, while the elf sagged against the boulder.

“Gods, I could see...” The bow dipped, and the elf pressed a hand to his brow. “You’re caught in this as thoroughly as I am.”

Vurog’s irritation eased. Another poor bastard dragged from home and left with a worm in his skull. That explained the questions. He lowered his sword, giving the elf another look. A bow would be useful, and the fellow had set himself up in a decent ambush position. There was room for someone like that beside two fighters and a healer in their group.

“Put it away. We’ve all banded together to deal with this head-worm thing.”

The elf eased the string forward and removed the arrow. “Ah. I was about to put a hole in you over what appears to have been a misunderstanding. Do forgive me.” He descended cautiously, watching Lae’zel until she lowered her blade, then straightened the front of his doublet.

“Now, let’s try this properly, shall we? My name’s Astarion. Those creatures snatched me from Baldur’s Gate, and I’ve had a thoroughly wretched time of it ever since. And you are?”

Vurog gave his name and gestured toward the women. Shadowheart introduced herself; Lae’zel supplied hers impatiently, already looking along the trail.

“A pleasure,” Astarion said, letting his gaze pass over them. “I take it you’ve compared notes already. Is anyone able to tell me what these worms actually do?”

“Ghaik tadpoles,” Lae’zel said. “Unless we are purified, they will turn us into the creatures that took us.”

Astarion stared at her. His mouth opened, then he laughed, a harsh sound that carried none of the warmth he had just put into his introduction.

“Of course it’ll turn me into a monster. What else did I expect?”

“We’re looking for a settlement. Hopefully find a healer who can help.” Vurog said. “Come with us, your better off than alone.”

Astarion considered them, then put his bow over his shoulder. “I do think my chances would look considerably better beside you. And I’m sure you’ll find me useful. Yes, let’s find this settlement of yours.”

He moved aside for Lae’zel and fell in behind Shadowheart. Vurog kept an ear on him as they walked. The elf asked where they had landed and what the others had seen since the crash, offering very little about himself in return. Vurog let him keep his secrets. The contact had left him with that familiar sense of a mind within reach. When he wanted answers, he could open the elf’s skull and read them.

Vurog felt the disturbance in the Weave before he saw its source. He slowed, turning toward the trees, then left the trail and followed it. The sensation strengthened as he rounded a fallen trunk. Beyond it, purple energy wafted off a circle carved into the rock, curling in thin wisps above the glowing marks.

“We are wasting time,” Lae’zel said behind him.

Vurog beckoned the others after him and kept going. She could complain; she wasn’t choosing their route. He had spent days chasing rumors of magic, freezing on mountain paths for the chance of learning a single spell. He would have a look at this.

He laid his sword beside the rock and crouched. The runes were unfamiliar, and he had no idea what the circle did. He studied it closely, trying to make sense of the power prickling along his forearms.

“That looks unstable,” Shadowheart warned.

He could feel it, a pressure that built beneath his palm and fell away before he could get hold of it. He brought his hand closer, following the disturbance. At his touch the light swelled and a human arm thrust through.

“A hand? Anyone!” came a male voice through the vortex as if the man was inside of the boulder.

Vurog caught the wrist. The stranger clung to him while the magic snapped around their hands. He held on, feeling his way into the disturbed Weave, and murmured until the worst of the turbulence began to settle.

“Yes, that’s helping. Pull!”

He planted his feet and hauled. A bearded human in purple robes stumbled out against him, knees buckling. Vurog caught his shoulder and held him upright until his legs took his weight.

The man drew a shaking breath, looked back at the stone, then straightened his robes with a sheepish smile.

“Gale of Waterdeep,” he said, giving Vurog’s forearm a grateful squeeze. “And very pleased to meet you. Thank you, my friend.”

“How did you get in there?” he asked, looking the man over with interest. The robes and staff on his back already marked him as some kind of spell-caster, and everything else about him fit: soft hands, city speech, the easy way he had talked about the magic even while half trapped inside it.

“The nautiloid broke apart while I was aboard. As I fell, I noticed the magic here and reached for it with a spell.” Gale glanced at the sigil. “It saved me from the ground, though I found myself unable to complete the journey.”

Vurog studied him. He had been freezing his arse off in the Spine hunting a dragonborn wizard when the squids took him. Now here was a man who could catch hold of magic while falling from the sky…

“You managed this while falling?” he asked, suddenly wondering how he himself had managed to hit the ground safely.

“Fortunately, yes. You have some training yourself, I take it?”

“Enough. Are you a wizard?”

“I am.” Gale looked more closely at him, then at the others. “You were aboard as well, weren’t you? Were you infected?”

“All of us,” Shadowheart said.

“Then I imagine you’re looking for a healer. Removing an illithid parasite will require rather more expertise than I possess.”

That yielding pressure was there in Gale too, just behind the face, inviting Vurog to reach. He could open this one as he had the women, a wizard’s hoard waiting to be unrolled in Orcish script.

“We need a ghustil,” Lae’zel said. “At a creche, we can be purified with a zaith’isk.”

“Perhaps you could tell our new friend where this creche is,” Shadowheart said.

“The teethling Zorru has seen my kin. We find him, and he will tell us where.”

“Where he saw a patrol. I still intend to ask about a healer before agreeing to let a githyanki put me in anything.”

“A common healer will kill you trying to remove a ghaik tadpole.”

Vurog retrieved his sword, watching Shadowheart. He knew exactly why she wanted another answer. He had read the mission in her scroll: steal the artifact from the githyanki and carry it back to Baldur’s Gate. Every step toward a creche risked someone recognising what she carried. She worried about Lae’zel discovering it too, though Vurog had read that mind as thoroughly as hers. The young soldier knew nothing of the artifact, let alone that Shadowheart carried it.

“Then perhaps I might accompany you?” Gale asked. “We can look for this Zorru and ask after a healer in the same place. I would be glad to help.”

“Come along,” Vurog said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He was pleased with the addition. Another spell-caster would be useful in a fight, but that was only half of it. Gale had training Vurog did not, spells he had never seen and probably years of lessons packed away behind that clever human face. Even without the strange power in his skull, Vurog would have wanted to pick the wizard’s brain.

Now he might be able to do it literally.

Lae’zel turned back toward the trail. Shadowheart followed, leaving several paces between them. Vurog watched Gale settle the strap of his pack.

“My spellbook went with the ship,” he said as they started walking. “When we stop, I want a look at yours.”

It was a direct demand and one not a single practitioner of magic he'd met on his journeys would accept with anything but derision but this was a novel situation. He wasn't a beggar but in a position of power and authority as the leader of this impromptu little band. Not likely to work. But, it was a position of strength to start the inevitable bargaining, a novel experience for-

“Of course. Find yourself ink and parchment, and we can see about getting you started again.” Gale smiled. “A lost spellbook is a misery I wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

Vurog looked at him for a moment, a bit taken back by the easy offer. After years of paying for scraps and here this one was offering to help for the cost of ink. His tusks showed as he returned the smile.

Before he could answer, Lae’zel called his name from the bend. Shadowheart was already beyond her, heading uphill, and Astarion stepped past them both without waiting for an invitation.

Vurog shifted the sword in his grip and went after them, Gale keeping pace at his shoulder.