• 1-Children of Bhaal
• 2-Children of Bhaal - Part 2
• 3-Children of Bhaal - Part 3
• 4-Children of Bhaal - Part 4
• 5-Children of Bhaal - Part 5
• 6-Children of Bhaal - Part 6
• 7-Children of Bhaal - Part 7

First
Interlude: A son of Bhaal, a daughter of Bhaal and Oghma

Jagged mountaintops covered in snow, a crystal
clear lake in front of me, a fast flowing
creek running from the lake down into the valley. Behind me was a wooden
cottage, a fire crackling in front of it, giving warmth, for the wind was chilly, but
fresh, the smell of herbs in it, although the sky was clear and blue. I could see an eagle circling
in it. Imoen sat at the shore of the lake, eating a slice of bread and some
cheese.

“Hey, come here, it’s beautiful!” she called to
me.

I smiled and stepped down to the lake.

“So, you seem to like it. And
no word of thanks to me for creating it?” I asked with a grin.

“Oh well, thank ya, oh Lord Darnoc, god o’ the sword masters! May yar name be praised for all eternity,
etc.”

We both laughed at this. Sometimes it was
really great to be a god. This mountain-area was my new realm (one of the
duties one has as a god; you need to create places where the souls which belong
to you can go) and here I dwelt together with Imoen since I had ascended to
become a god. I was the god and protector of all who learned the arts of war in order to fight evil; I was the
patron especially of the art of sword fighting. All who were worthy to
enter my realm would live here after their deaths and would come with me into
battle, if I commanded them. An army of ghost-warriors, what a sight this would be!

There was only something which bothered me: I
was immortal, Imoen was not. Eventually she would grow old and die and I would
be left with just memories of her. It tore me apart inside, although I tried to hide
it from her. I had a hunch, though, that she suspected something.

While we were sitting there, I thought about
the whole matter and finally came to a decision.

I sighed and turned to Imoen.

“Im, have you ever thought about death?”

She looked puzzled at me.

“Death? Well, of course, who hasn’t? What’s
this all about, Darn?”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t mean that. I mean that one day you are going to die, but I will remain,
because I am a god and therefore immortal. Did you ever think about that?”

“Well, I did, but not much. I mean, isn’t it a
bit early? I’m still yun’ and all; I’ll
live for quite some time, especially ‘n this really healthy climate ye’ve
created here.”

“But I can’t get it out of my mind, Im, I’m thinking all the time of it. I couldn’t live without
you around, you know that. It would
destroy me. I will find a way to make you immortal too, I promise. And then
we’ll never be separated.”

With one thought I switched the plane and was
standing in front of Oghma. Personally, I like Oghma a lot, since he was the
only one ever interested in my research. And I think also that Oghma is one of the
wisest gods around.

“Darnoc, why are you seeking my advice?”

So I told him the whole thing. He listened
patiently and remained silent long, thinking.

Finally he answered: “I see your problem. Since
I must maintain order and since I value you highly, I cannot allow that you
will become unbalanced or else there could be catastrophic results. Imoen’s
death will clearly unbalance you; therefore I have no choice but to help you.

Mark my words carefully, Darnoc! You and Imoen will descend upon
Faerûn and seek the Cave of the Source. An explanation is at hand, I think.

You do not know how all things started. Mortals can rise to gods and
gods can be destroyed, but there is something which holds all together. I am
not talking about Ao; he is merely doing the biding of this even greater power,
controlling us gods. This power creates and destroys; its energy is what makes
existence possible. We gods are bound to this power ourselves, bound to the
laws of this power. The planes that exist are a product of this power. Although
the power never shows itself, it can be seen in everything which exists.

On every plane there is a place where this
power has its concentration and its energy streams from there into the plane.
On Faerûn this is the Cave of the Source. The energy assembled there should be
enough to give Imoen immortality.

But beware, the road to the cave is dangerous and you
will have to lay down your godly powers and walk the land as a mortal.”

I nodded and replied: “I accept this and thank
you. Can you make the necessary arrangements?”

“Yes” he said and a moment later he was gone. I
stood beneath some forests, a road under my feet and Imoen was beside me.

She looked rather puzzled. We were both back in
our old clothes from our traveling days, my sword the Equalizer at me side (Im
had Gesen’s bow). Some of my new weapons were there too: two of my Fire-spiters
and my long fire-tube. Those were the pinnacles of my inventions, a completely
new and very powerful kind of weapon. They used an explosive powder which I had
invented in order to catapult a bullet of iron with tremendous velocity at
one’s enemies. Those firearms (I called them like that) could even
penetrate full plate armor without much of a problem.

But those had been the older versions. By
practicing and using them in combat I found out some of their weaknesses and
continued to improve them. Soon I found out that it was easier to make one
hollow iron-bullet filled with the explosive powder and shove it down the
fire-tube from the back instead from the front. I also found a better way to
let the whole thing go off: with the trigger I set a wheel of metal in motion
which hit a flint. The resulting sparks let the powder explode. Then I managed to
create a mechanism which automatically pushed the next bullet into the barrel after hitting the trigger. This
made it possible to have a full set of bullets attached to the firearms, so I could shoot repeatedly
without reloading.

The fire-spiter used a round chamber with
holes, which could be filled with bullets. Each time I activated the weapon by
pressing the trigger, the bullet was shot and the chamber moved itself, so the
next bullet was ready to be shot. My fire-tube worked in a similar way, just that the chamber was
attached from below. Oh, and I had found a way to use the energy of the
repercussion from the explosion to fire the next shot.

Well, being a god an all I had lots of spare time. Those weapons had become my
continuing hobby. And they indeed came in handy, although Imoen always had
refused to use them – she rather liked to stick with her magic and her bow.

And so I and Imoen went on the road again…

Part Two: Money

Darnoc:
Arrival on the surface

Irenicus stood in the middle of ruins,
surrounded by several of those hooded figures we had met inside the dungeon.
They approached him, weapons drawn, but I saw fear in their eyes.

“You will suffer, you will all suffer!”
Irenicus screamed at them and began to conjure powerful magic.

Seconds later all his enemies had been
vanquished, burst into flames, exploded from the inside or simply dissolved
into nothingness. He turned towards us and smiled (and again it seemed as if he
didn’t even think it’s funny).

“Ah, so you escaped my little dungeon. You seem
to be more resourceful than I thought. Of course, I can’t let you escape, not
now when I am so close to uncovering your secret.”

Imoen grew pale, her eyes opened wide, I saw
that she was shaking slightly. But her voice didn’t show any sign of fear, only desperation.

“We don’t want anythin’ from ya, leave us,
please!”

“Silly girl! I will not leave you, so don’t even
try, I am far too powerful for you.”

He conjured a magical missile and shot it at
her. When it hit her, I saw how her face became distorted from the pain, but
somehow she still managed to shoot a magical missile back at Irenicus. He
didn’t even seem to feel it.

I drew my sword and yelled at Irenicus: “I will
kill you, if you don’t leave Im alone! Do whatever you want with me, I’m going
to fight with you until my death, but don’t you touch her again, you sick bastard!”

He just laughed at me.

“Fool! You stand no chance against me, I do
whatever I wish, there is no way you can hinder me!”

Suddenly several wizards in grey cloaks
teleported to the place.

“Stop this! All of you arrested for the illegal use of
magic!” one of them shouted.

Irenicus grew angry. In an outburst of his
anger he simply killed all of the wizards in about two seconds. Now that I saw the
true power of him, I wasn’t so eager anymore to fight him.

More and more of the wizards teleported in.

“Stop your attack, mage! You will eventually be
overcome!”

Irenicus grew even more annoyed.

“You bore me, little wizard. Get lost!”

“You may be powerful, but your power won’t last
forever. And then you will be killed.”

Irenicus thought about this for some seconds
and then he sighed. But in his face I saw no sign of surrender at all, he
seemed even more determined now than before.

“Alright, I surrender. But then the girl will
come with us too.”

All blood vanished from Imoen’s face, my sword
sunk to the ground and then I raised it again, pointing it at Irenicus.

“You wouldn’t dare, Irenicus! I’ll get your ass, I
swear this to you! I will kill you, you
piece of shit!”

Imoen screamed: “No, I didn’t do anything, this
isn’t fair!”

But it was too late, one of the wizards conjured a teleport and she vanished
into thin air, together with Irenicus and the other wizards.

I just stood there dumbstruck. My sword fell
clanging to the ground and I followed soon after, falling on my knees. I stared to the ground, unable to say
anything. Then I looked up to the blue sky and the sun in it, mocking me with
their happiness.

I raised my fist to the sky and yelled: “I
curse you, I curse you all! Irenicus, I will find you, wherever you go! You
cannot hide from me, I will go to the end of all to find you and then you shall
die the most horrible death that ever was and will be!

Im, Im, no, this cannot be happening! I let you
down, Im, I let you down…”

I collapsed and fell on my face. Although I
hurt my head and blood flowed down from the wound, I didn’t bother. I just
wept, until my whole body shook.

Minsc and Jaheira knelt beside me, helped me up
and dragged me to one of the steps near the ruined archway. Jaheira looked at the wound
on my head and shook her head.

“This doesn’t look too good. Darnoc, stop your foolish crying, it
won’t bring Imoen back. Better start thinking on how to do that.”

Minsc reached some cloth to me and I dried my
face of the blood and the tears.

“I and Boo think we should go and find Imoen
right now! And then we’ll kill Irenicus! Hah, he will feel our just wrath!”

Yoshimo stood in front of me and looked down on
me.

“Hm, I might have a suggestion to make. Perhaps
the Shadow Thieves can help us; they are a mighty guild and have many connections.”

I had calmed down a little and could answer
him: “And where would we find those Shadow Thieves?”

“Oh, that’s easy: In the slums and at the dock.
The slums are nearer, so I would start looking there. They also have a very good inn
there: The Copper Coronet. One can get much information there, if one has
money.”

Jaheira and Minsc agreed to this, so I sighed
and told them that it was ok with me. Now we just had to find those Shadow
Thieves and convince them that their help was worth their while.

Imoen:
Capture

There he stood, surrounded by his attackers. No
sign of worry showed on his face, though. I shuddered, when I saw him standing
there, glaring coldly at his attackers.

His attack was impressive. Since I had studied
magic lately, I understood what he was doing there. Fingers of death shot out
of him, hitting his enemies, a wave of fire followed, killing those who hadn’t
been before.

Then he turned around, glaring at us. I felt fear taking hold of me again, all blood
seemed to vanish from my face and I felt cold, icy cold. Inside I prayed to Mystra,
goddess of magic, to help me. She couldn’t let such a monster take me again,
she just couldn’t! But no divine help arrived; Irenicus just continued to stare at us.

I didn’t even hear what he was saying, I just screamed
at him: “We don’t want anythin’ from ya, leave us, please!”

My vision seemed to be clouded, my ears were ringing, I didn’t understand
what anybody said or saw what was going on, I only saw him, his eyes, his cold and merciless eyes. Fear seemed to stun me. Only when the
magical missile hit me, I came back to reality, pain raced through my body. I
needed to concentrate, I needed to fight back, I
couldn’t let him take me again! The words almost automatically left my mouth
and a missile left my hand. He didn’t even move, it hit him and he didn’t seem
to feel. Panic began to consume me.

I noticed Darnoc beside me drawing his sword and
screaming at Irenicus, but still I was focused only in Irenicus, my panic
growing and growing, my body shaking now.

Suddenly several grey-cloaked wizards teleported in and surrounded
Irenicus, for a moment hope rose in my heart. But when the wizards tried to arrest him, he attacked. It was
horrible, he slaughtered them, he destroyed them.
Shuddering I remembered that some of those spells he had used on me.

Again wizards teleported in, more this time. I
began to hope, they would overcome him in the end. But then I heard Irenicus’ words.

“Alright, I surrender. But then the girl will
come with us too.”

No, it couldn’t be, it couldn’t be! No, not
after all this, they wouldn’t separate me from Darnoc! I needed to escape this nightmare, it couldn’t be true!

“No, I didn’t do anything, this isn’t fair!” I
screamed at them.

But there was nothing I could do, I felt the
pull, I felt how they teleported me away, I saw how Darnoc vanished, horror in his eyes.

Darnoc:
The Circus

We walked down the steps onto the plaza.
Yoshimo told us that it was called “Waukeen’s Promenade”. I looked at it from
our higher position. The promenade was encircled by a white wall, into which
houses were built. On the plaza it self stood many platforms and one colored
tent. In front of this tent I could hear many voices; several soldiers seemed to be barring the way.

We went towards all the noise and asked one of
the soldiers, what was going on.

“Somethin’s happenin’ in dah circus, we dun’t
know what exactly. People disappeared an’ nevar came back. Dah circus is closed,
until a cowled wizard’ll come an’ investigate this matter.”

I almost laughed. This would be such a simple
task after everything I had done before. I mean, I had to fight of dozens of
assassins paid by a mighty trading organization, destroy that very
organization, kill my own brother with all his thugs and eventually escape the
prison of an insane wizard. And since there was nothing else to do
anyway, I thought we just might help those poor souls in the circus tent.

“What do you think, should we look at the
matter?” I asked my companions.

Minsc was all for it, as always, Jaheira
agreed, since she was interested in the matter and Yoshimo asked, if we could earn something by doing this, but he
eventually agreed too.

So I stepped back to the soldier.

“We would like to investigate the matter
ourselves. Do we have permission to enter?”

The soldier shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, if yah really wanna kill yahrself, go
ahead, not mee problem.”

So we entered the circus tent. And immediately
found ourselves in a completely different world.

The tent was much bigger inside and the
entrance had vanished somehow. Everything was shining marble, a bridge led over a still lake
and on the other side we could see a huge dome. On the bridge
stood a genie, a scimitar in his hands.

He called to us: “Welcome, travelers, to the
realm of Kalah the Mighty! If you wish to proceed to see the wonders of Kalah,
you must first answer my riddle.”

I nodded. Anything that would
let us continue. And after all the fighting, a little brain-sport wasn’t
that bad.

“Very well. Listen carefully and answer correctly! If not,
you may not go past me! A princess is as old as the prince will be when the
princess is twice as old as the prince was, when the princess’ age was
half the sum of their present age. How
old are the prince and the princess now?”

Not really my kind of riddle. I had no problem
solving differentials and integrals, calculating whole graphs in my mind, but
that kind of riddle wasn’t my thing. My world was a world of numbers and
formulas, not stupid riddles.

“Any suggestions?”

They all shook their heads. I sighed.

“Ok, let’s sit down and figure this out…”

So we sat on the floor and discussed this whole
riddle over. Sometimes one of us asked the genie to repeat it, which he did
with a smile.

“I hate genies, why are they so fond of riddles? Why can’t
they give me a simple three-dimensional vector-calculation?” I muttered to myself.

“Geez, never try to face a sphinx, those will
kill you immediately, if you don’t answer their riddles correctly. And sphinxes
are really strong, believe me” Jaheira
answered to that.

Suddenly Yoshimo smiled and his eyes flashed.

“The answer is that the prince is thirty and
the princess forty.”

We all looked astonished at Yoshimo. He hadn’t
said a word up till now and we had no idea that he quietly had solved the
riddle.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“Well, you never heard that the people from Kara-Tur are mathematical geniuses?”

I had never heard of that, but Jaheira seemed to
have.

“Although I never believed it until today” she
added.

“You must know that mathematics and other
sciences have a long tradition with us. All inhabitants of our land learn how to calculate when they are young and we are quite adept at it.”

After saying this he rose, went over to the
genie and told him the answer. The genie’s smile broadened.

“Wonderful, you have solved it. You may
advance.”

And with this he vanished in a puff of smoke.

“He should have given me the whole thing as an
algebraic formula, wouldn’t have been a problem that way” I muttered.

So we continued on and entered the dome.

Inside we came to a plaza, where a huge ogre
stood. We immediately drew our weapons, but the ogre didn’t attack. Instead he
called to us with the voice of a woman.

“Don’t attack me, this is not my real form,
it’s just an illusion! If you free me, you’ll see!”

I lowered my sword and looked startled at the ogre.

“Is this some kind of trick or what?”

“No, it’s really not. Kalah has done all this,
he has created this illusion; how I don’t know. We were in the circus, running
our show and everything went fine. But suddenly Kalah did something and he
changed everything into this. You must find a sword. Those guys that look like
humans have it and it will free me. But they aren’t humans, they’re the real
monsters. Please, believe me!”

This place was really strange and I was willing
to believe almost everything. The ogre didn’t seem to want to attack us, so I
shrugged my shoulders and agreed to find the sword.

The two guys looked like simple farmers and first I really thought that
this was just really all a trick and those were actually real farmers. So I called to them.

“Hey, you, over there! Who are you?”

“Uhm, we were just members of dah crowd, when
everything just changed heer. We really have no idea, what’s goin’ on heer. And
if yah’ve talked to this ogre, I hope yah don’t believe ‘im.”

How could they have known what I had talked
with the ogre? They were standing quite a bit away, they couldn’t have heard anything. And now something seemed
to be going on with the second farmer. For just a second, his face seemed somehow
to shift and something else was revealed under it: a hairy
beast, looking a little like a wolf. But only for a moment, then everything
was normal again. The farmer just grinned at me, when he noticed that I
looked puzzled at him.

That did it. I drew my sword and my companions
took out their weapons.

“You’re werewolves!” I cried.

The two farmers looked at each other and then
changed into their other form: hairy beasts with claws and teeth. Of course
they attacked immediately with a roar.

One tried to jump at my throat, but I thrust my
sword forward and caught him mid-air right into the chest. Blood splashed into my
face, my sword had pierced the heart and the werewolf fell dead to the ground. The
other one had been beheaded by Minsc.

Still panting, I went over to where the clothes
of the werewolves lay. There I found the sword the ogre had mentioned. Sighing
I took it, cleaned my sword with the clothes on the ground and went back to the
ogre, handing the weapon of the werewolves to him.

“Oh, thank you, now I’ll be rid of this
disgusting body!” the ogre said with his female voice.

And suddenly a change came over the ogre. It
shrunk, his body-hair vanished and his hair on the head grew long and soft and
its face changed. After the transformation, a young elf-woman stood in front of
me.

“Well, I think we haven’t been introduced. My
name’s Aerie and I’m an Avariel. Although”, and with this she glanced backwards, “not much is left of the wings
my people have.”

Where the wings should have been I only saw big
stumps of what once could have been wings. She had cut holes into her cloth in
order to fit them in, so they looked out of her back.

“We must stop this Kalah. He is further on and
I think my uncle Quayle is with him. I don’t want to imagine what Kalah is
doing with him right now. Please, help me!”

I smiled encouraging.

“Hey, wouldn’t be much good freeing you now and
just letting you hang around here. Come on, I always can use some extra help!”

The others didn’t say much, but I could see clearly that Minsc was delighted to have
Aerie as companion.

“Hello Aerie, my name’s Minsc. And that here is my hamster Boo. He is very smart, you know, for he is actually a
giant space hamster, he just took on a smaller form as disguise. Boo tells me
he likes you too. He asks, if you want to pet him.”

Aerie smiled and petted Boo a little on the
head. The little hamster squeaked of delight.

“He seems to be a nice little fellow, I guess
we’ll come along just great” Aerie told Minsc.

That seemed to please Minsc even more. His
smile broadened and he blushed a little. I never saw
this happen with Minsc and rose questioning my eyebrow. Jaheira seemed to
notice it; she winked to me, smiling knowingly. I had the queer feeling that
she knew more of what was going on than I did…

We continued on to the next part of the dome. It was a little
chamber we entered, covered with marble and a throne standing in the middle. A huge
ogre sat on it, next to it a piece of green slime.

“Ah, they have finally entered here. And young
Aerie, you’re here too? So they didn’t fall for my little trick, did they? My
servants have already told me of your arrival, so I welcome you into my realm.”

Suddenly the green slime began to talk: “Hi,
Aerie, I hope you’re well. Just look at me, I can’t see a thing, dammit!”

“Shut up, Quayle, just shut up or I’ll stuff
your mouth for good!” Kalah screamed angrily.

Aerie let out a cry of dismay.

“Uncle, what has he done to you? Oh gods, Kalah, why are you doing this?”

“Now, now, don’t get upset, my little one. This
is my revenge upon the world, now I’ll be respected as a great illusionist. No
one will ever laugh at me, ever! I am Kalah the Mighty!”

“Kalah the Mighty, you wanna make me laugh?
You’re Kalah, king of nothing; this is just an illusion, nothing else!” Quayle
answered to this.

Now this really upset Kalah. He took out a huge
flail and began hitting the green slime. Aerie shrieked and rushed to her
uncle’s help, hitting Kalah with her wooden staff. Kalah turned around and tried to hit Aerie with his
flail, but she dodged. At the same time he hit her with his fist and she
tumbled backwards.

He cried triumphantly, swinging his flail to
finish her, but Minsc roared in anger and rushed to Aerie’s help. Just
before the flail hit Aerie, he swung his sword between her and caught the hit.
With his extreme strength, Minsc pushed away Kalah, who now tumbled backwards himself. Minsc went after him and
before Kalah could recover he thrust his sword into Kalah’s chest.

Several things happened now. The whole chamber
suddenly changed and was now the interior of the circus tent again. Quayle
changed back into his normal form; he was actually an elderly gnome with a huge
hat. And Kalah also changed back into his gnome-form, but the wound and Minsc’s
sword stayed.

Kalah fell to the ground, blood tainting his
clothes. Minsc pulled his sword out and I stepped to Kalah.

“Now why did you do all this?” I asked the
dying gnome.

“I wanted to be respected! I was always laughed
at, ridiculed! And you fucking, stupid bastards have destroyed it all!”

He coughed more blood, his body trembled and
then he died.

Quayle rushed to Aerie, hugging her tightly.

“Oh Aerie, I’m so glad to see you! Did anything
happen to you? Are you hurt?”

Aerie smiled.

“Everything’s fine, uncle, just
fine. I’m so
glad we could stop Kalah. Without Minsc we would both be dead now, I guess.”

Quayle now turned to Minsc.

“I want to thank you for saving us both, Minsc.
You are a brave and strong warrior and I wish you best of luck.”

Minsc grinned happily.

“I and Boo are happy that we could help you. Do
you mind if Aerie travels with me, Quayle?”

Quayle’s eyes flashed up in amusement.

“Oh, not at all, I think you’re a funny and a
good fellow. My Aerie will be in good hands with you, I think.”

“I am glad. You know, my witch has been killed
and now I have lost my entire honor. Will you be my new witch, Aerie?”

I looked puzzled at Minsc and asked:
“Dynaheir’s dead? When we are captured, I didn’t actually have time to pay
attention. I always thought that she was captured, although I was puzzled that
we didn’t find her in the dungeon somewhere.”

Minsc’s eyes looked sadly at me.

“She was murdered in front of my eyes! They
stabbed her in the back, they did! I lost my witch, I can never return to
Rashemen! I am no good as a warrior! Boo is ashamed of me!”

Aerie put her hand on Minsc’s shoulder.

“Don’t be sad, Minsc, I’ll come with you and
I’ll be your new witch. And when we’ll return to your home, all will praise you
as a great hero. You have a good soul and I like you.”

Minsc sniffed a little, but he smiled again at
least.

“Hah, you’re right, Aerie! We will travel the
lands and destroy all evil! We two will be known as great heroes and slayers of
evil! Beware bad creatures, Minsc, Boo and
Aerie come after you!”

I smiled too and commented: “Now that’s the
spirit, Minsc! Come on, we should be going, we still have to find Imoen!”

Aerie looked puzzled at me.

“Who is Imoen?”

It really hurt, the
memory of her capture. When Aerie asked me, I saw it all again. Anger, hate,
sadness, it all grumbled inside of me. Aerie seemed to notice that there was a
painful memory inside of me.

“I grew up with her and she… she was captured
just before we entered the circus. Captured by those damn
cowled wizards!”

Aerie didn’t say anything else, but later I learned that she didn’t, because she
understood my pain. She also had had her losses.

So we left the circus with a new companion. The
soldiers outside looked astonished at us. The one who had let us in came towards me.

“But… but how’s this possible?”

“Everything’s okay. This gnome created a huge
illusion and captured everyone in it. We killed him and now everything’s fine
again.”

Now the soldier looked at us in awe.

“Yah… yah did all this by yahrself? By dah
gods, I must tell dah authorities immediately! Dah members o’ dah counceel will
probably wanna speek with yah.”

“Ah, don’t bother. Just tell them everything,
but don’t invite me. I don’t like all this hero-worshipping, you know. In
Baldur’s Gate I had enough of this for a lifetime.”

The other soldiers and some people had now
grouped around us, listening to my words. I began
to feel uneasy.

“Hey, yah’re dah one who sav’d Baldur’s Gate
from Sarevok, aren’t yah?” someone called to me.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s me. Now I have urgent
business to attend to, so if you would excuse me.”

I left the tent, leaving behind a mass of
people all whispering and pointing at me. Gosh, how I hated all this fame!

Imoen:
Trial

After the teleport had finished, I found myself
standing in a long hall, surrounded by those grey-cloaked wizards. A magical containment field was around me, next to me stood Irenicus,
in a similar field. In front of us, standing on some stairs, stood a white-bearded wizard, wearing a golden staff.

“The court is now in session. Accused and
witnesses are present. Who is prosecutor, who is defender?”

The young wizard, who had talked to Irenicus at his
arrest, stepped forward.

“I speak for the prosecution, since I’ve arrested the accused.”

An elderly, sinister looking wizard stepped forward; he had also been present at the arrest.

“I will speak for the mage. You know that I
handle such cases.”

The judge nodded at Irenicus’ defender.

“Who speaks for the girl?” he asked.

“I will” an elderly, friendly looking female
wizard said.

“Are these the two you arrested for the illegal use of magic
on Waukeen’s promenade? Just for the record” the judge asked in a grumpy voice.

“Yes, they are the two. The mage is Jon Irenicus,
the girl Imoen, sister of Darnoc, savior of Baldur’s Gate” the prosecutor
explained.

“Hmph, you are the sister of Darnoc? It matters not, in front of the
law all are equal. Prosecutor, bring forth
your first witness!”

“I didn’t do anything, it was ‘im, he killed
all those people, I only tried t’ defend myself!” I screamed at the leader of
the wizards, for this he seemed to be.

“Keep quiet, child, let the fool make his
judgment” Irenicus said to me in his cold voice.

“Silence! No talking unless you are questioned!” the white-bearded leader screamed angrily.

“I present myself as first witness” the
prosecutor said.

The judge then turned to prosecutor.

“Recount what has happened” the judge demanded.

“It seems as if the Shadow Thieves have tried
to attack Jon Irenicus. He killed his attackers with magic and we of course
noticed this. We also felt a small amount of magic from the girl towards Irenicus, but only after Irenicus
had used magical energy against her. Indeed she speaks the truth, she only
defended herself.

Some of us teleported in and tried to arrest Irenicus, but he killed them
all with his magic. I led the second attempt and it was then that he finally
surrendered.”

“Clearly illegal use of
magic, from both Irenicus and Imoen. And Irenicus even used his magic to murder
some of our own, he is therefore charged with two crimes.”

The white-bearded judge pointed his golden staff
at Irenicus.

“Do you deny these crimes, Jon Irenicus?”

“I deny nothing. Do what you must.”

“Has the defender of Irenicus anything to say?”

Irenicus’ defender stepped forward and remarked: “It were the Shadow Thieves,
who first attacked Irenicus, he used magic in self-defense. When we teleported
in, he probably thought that we were new attackers and tried to defend himself.
This should be considered when passing the judgment.”

“Thank you, your arguments are noted. You are a murderer and far too powerful a mage, Irenicus. You
shall be dealt with accordingly. It is my sentence that you shall be brought to
the Spellhold and locked in there for the rest of your natural life. Now, to the girl. We already have heard that she illegally used magic.
What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Please, I don’t care, what ya do with me, as long as ya
don’t put me anywhere near ‘im. He did thin’s t’ us, t’ me an’ my
brother, he experimented… I couldn’t… I won’t… He… Darnoc, please, get me out o’ here,
please…”

It was just too much, I was so afraid, the
thought had arisen in me that they would lock me into this Spellhold together with
Irenicus. The last words were cut off by my sobs, as I broke down, shaking all
over my body.

The elderly female wizard, my defender, came towards me and looked at me.

“Hush, child, you needn’t worry, whatever this
sick man did to you, he won’t be able to do anything in the Spellhold. It is a
secure place and he won’t escape, believe me. We will bring you there, but you
needn’t stay long, just for some time. There help shall come to you and healing.
I can see that he has brought harm to your soul, mind and body and we will find
a way to cure you, after that you shall be released. It is not really a prison;
it is a place to cure, an asylum.”

“Do you have anything to say in Imoen’s
defense, Dansia?”

My defender looked at the judge and said: “Clearly Irenicus has illegally
experimented with this girl and when she used magic, she had probably just
escaped the mage’s grasp and was only defending herself. She probably also
didn’t know that she was in Amn. That last thing we heard from Darnoc’s group was that they had left
Baldur’s Gate, nothing more is known. I advise that she be put into Spellhold
in order to examine and cure her.”

“Yes, you are right, Dansia, she shall be put
into the Spellhold also. Not knowing the law doesn’t excuse breaking it. I put
you in charge of her. If you believe that she
is fit for release again, tell the coordinator” the judge decided.

“Will I see Darnoc again?” I asked Dansia.

“Not now, but you shall be released soon,
basically there is not much wrong with you. When you are released, you will see your
brother again. Be patient, child.”

I wanted to believe her, I really wanted to.
But Irenicus kept glaring at me, as if he already devised new experiments and tests, which he
wanted to try out on me. A shudder ran through my body, as I looked at him and
I had this odd feeling that this wasn’t over yet…

Darnoc:
The gladiator’s revenge

The slums weren’t difficult to find: You just
had to follow your nose. The slums of Atkatla were the most stinking place I
had ever seen. The buildings didn’t look much better too.

When we entered them, a man waited there for us.
He had a look which I knew: a black hood and black armor, at his side a short sword. He
was definitely a Shadow Thief.

He came towards us and greeted us.

“Ah, you must be Darnoc, heh. I was waiting for you, for
I have a proposal to make to you, if you would just follow me to my house.”

I was suspicious.

“What kind of proposal?”

“Oh, well, let’s just say that I work for a
mighty organization which could help you to find your friend, Imoen.”

I was of course immediately interested.

“Ok, lead the way. I’ll hear your proposal.”

We followed the hooded man through the slums
and passed lots of decrepit houses, beggars, black-market traders, thugs and other dubious
characters. In front of a stony
building, which somehow looked a little better than the others we saw here, the
hooded man halted.

“Here’s the place. Now if you would just follow
me in.”

He unlocked the door and we entered. Inside
there was a comfortable room with a crackling, warm fire. He waved us to some chairs
and we sat down.

“Well, now that we are all comfortable and all, I think
I’ll introduce myself. My name is Gaelan Bayle and as I said I represent a
powerful organization which is willing to help you. But there is a price for
our help: 20,000 you’ll have to pay.”

We were all flabbergasted.

Aerie cried: “20,000! That’s a fortune; I never
had that much in my whole life!”

“And where do you suggest we earn that much money?” I simply asked.

Gaelan shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re the famous Darnoc, hero of Baldur’s Gate. I guess
that you already were in possession of much more than that. And you’ll be soon
enough again. You’ll get your money, I promise you that. Probably you’ll soon
have a lot more than 20,000. But as I start I would suggest that you visit the
Copper Coronet, there is always someone who is looking for someone else there.
Mercenary-jobs and similar things, you know.”

“Guess you’re right, Gaelan. I’ll return as
soon as I got the money.”

Gaelan grinned.

“That is good, very good. Until then, I would
say. Good luck with earning all the money!”

We left his house and went over to the Copper
Coronet. I had seen the inn already when we had entered the slums.

The Copper Coronet was quite a lively place.
All kinds of people could be found here, from low-lives to nobles. A young,
red-haired woman with expensive clothes and a richly decorated ring at her
finger approached us at the entrance.

“Can you help me? I’m looking for mercenaries; my home has been overrun by
trolls. Is there no one who can help me?”

“Now don’t get upset, young lady. How can I
help you?” I asked.

“Ah, thanks to the gods! My name is Nalia
de’Arnise and my father’s castle has been attacked by trolls. We desperately
need mercenaries to fight them back.”

Minsc immediately jumped at the occasion.

“Hah, evil trolls to slay! I and Boo will help
you, young lady!”

“Well, I guess that we’ll help you then, when
Minsc is so enthusiastic about it…”

“Great, thank you… what is your name, anyway?”

“Oh, I almost forget. I’m Darnoc. The elf behind me is Jaheira,
the elf next to Minsc is Aerie and the man behind Jaheira is Yoshimo. Minsc you
already know.”

Nalia smiled friendly.

“Well then, shall we depart?”

“Hey, wait just a second, we need some
equipment first!” Jaheira cried.

“Oh, of course. I would ask Bernard, if I were you. He always has some
things to sell” Nalia suggested.

Bernard was a fat guy with a green apron, his eyes
looked friendly and joyfully, he always seemed to be smiling about something.

“Oh, hello there, what can I do for yah?” he
asked me, as I approached.

“Well, do you have weapons and similar things?”

“Indeed I ‘ave! If yah’d just follow me…”

He led us to a back room where he had quite a
collection. I looked through all the weapons and one immediately caught my eye.
It was a beautiful long sword, its hilt decorated with roses and it shimmered
slightly red.

“Ah, yah’ve indeed a good eye, mister. This one’s dah beauty of mee store. It’s called “Dah Rose
Blade” and it’s said that whoever wears it somehow makes a greater impression on people,
although no one knows why. But even without this, it’s still one o’ dah best
weapons I’ve ever seen or heard o’.”

“Indeed it is. It is a masterpiece. How much
does it cost?”

“Oh, well, about 3000…”

I didn’t have that much money. Not yet at
least. So I told Bernard to save the sword for me.

“I’d be delighted, mister. Yah two seemed t’ be
made for each other.”

I smiled a little.

“Yes, I have the same feeling.”

Other than that, we found plate mails for the warriors among us and a good studded leather armor for Yoshimo.

All the time a man watched us. Somehow I didn’t
like his look. He was about my height, he had a scar above his left eye and dark hair. But his eyes, they had the
look of someone who had done things, which he better shouldn’t have, but didn’t
regret them. Other than that I saw just plain greed.

I went to him and asked: “You’re the owner of
this tavern?”

“Yeah, I’m Lehtinan and this is mee tavern. Go
back t’ Bernard, he serves dah customers.”

Yoshimo stepped behind me and asked Lehtinan:
“Is there anything else to this place than what I see? I mean, more than just
drinks and a store.”

Lehtinan smiled a greedy smile.

“Ah, yah wanna get rid o’ some o’ yahr money,
eh? Looking for entertainment? See that guy over at dah door, dah one wi’ dah sword? Tell ‘im I sent yah.”

Yoshimo thanked him and went over to the door.
I and the others followed him. Somehow I was curious as to what was behind that
door.

“Oh, Lehtinan sent yah? Come on in then.”

With this the bouncer opened the door and let
us in. Behind it was a corridor, a stair went up left, a
door was in front and another to the right. A guy with expensive clothes waited
in front of the door to the right.

“Ah, yah wanna watch dah show? Come on, follow
me!”

I asked myself, what show he meant, but we saw
soon enough, for the door to the left led to a balcony overlooking three
fighting-pits.

It seemed as if a fight was just about to start. A gnome stood in one of the pits,
a dagger in his hand. An announcer stood next to the balcony.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, have all the bets been
made? Very well then, let the fights begin!”

The gnome let out a cry of horror, when he saw
a troll enter. The troll shrieked triumphantly and immediately attacked the
helpless gnome. With two hits of its huge claws the troll tore the gnome apart. I didn’t even see a scratch on
its body.

Aerie had covered her eyes, Jaheira, Nalia and
Minsc looked angry. Yoshimo on the other hand looked as calm as ever. What he
thought I couldn’t possibly tell.

“We must help those poor souls somehow, I can’t
stand the thought of them being imprisoned and fighting those horrible
creatures” Aerie whispered.

“Hah, Boo is very angry at those evil people! I
want to kill them!”

I agreed with them, something had to be done.
But where were the gladiators kept? I overlooked the arena and saw a door at the back.
Remembering the door in the middle of the corridor, I hurried back there, my
companions following me.

As I had thought, the cells of the gladiators
were really there. A huge man with strong muscles stood at the bars of one of the cells, a guard in front of it.

“Halt! Yah can’t enter heer, turn ‘round or
we’ll kill yah!” he called at us.

“Release the prisoners or we’ll kill all of
you!” I shouted back.

The guard laughed at me and drew his sword. Out of the
corridor several other guards stepped.

“Yah’re outnumbered and don’t stand a chance!
Kill ‘em, men!”

The leader of the guards attacked me directly. I heard the swishing of Aerie’s sling and
a guard dropped dead to the ground. Then
the leader was at me. I blocked his first thrust with my shield and swung my
sword at his feet. He quickly jumped, opening his own defense, which I
immediately exploited. I thrust my sword at his stomach, but somehow he managed
to dodge to the left and hack on me from above, but my shield saved me.

As he let his sword fall down on me, though, I
swung my sword at his lower parts and cut his thigh. He howled of pain and
stumbled backwards, quickly regaining his balance, though. I immediately advanced and
used the opportunity, thrusting my sword deep into his innards. My sword sticking in him, I
turned it around and with this created a greater wound. Blood shoot out of the
wound, even more when I pulled out my sword.

The leader of the guards howled even more and collapsed to
the ground. I stroke out and thrust my sword into his throat. The howls
immediately stopped (I had cut his vocal cords), but he wasn’t dead yet and
slowly bled to death.

Another guard jumped at me with a cry of rage,
but I beheaded him with a backswing. Then it was all quiet, except for the
moaning and screaming of two fatally wounded guards. The huge gladiator behind the bars looked amazed at me.

“Now that was just great. Can you let us out?
You should find the key with the leader of the guards you just killed. My name’s
Hendak, by the way.”

I went over to the leader of the guards, who was still alive, knelt
beside him and searched his pockets. I found it hanging on his belt. When I wanted to get
up, the leader of the guards grabbed my arm. He tried to say something, but
because he had no vocal cords, no sound came out of his mouth. Then his eyes
broke and his hand slipped from my arm.

With the key I opened the cells of the
gladiators, who all gathered around Hendak, who seemed to be their leader.

“I thank you for liberating us. We now still
need to take out the other guards of Lehtinan and of course Lehtinan himself.
I hope that I can count on your help for this task as well?”

“Of course. We have helped you so far, we couldn’t just stop now.”

“Well then, off we go!”

Hendak led the way, we and the other gladiators
followed. The bouncers tried to attack Hendak, but with several quick slashes
of his two short swords he killed them.

Then he stepped into the main room and cried:
“Lehtinan! Come here and face your death, you fucking bastard!”

Lehtinan saw Hendak and his face grew pale. He
tried to stutter some words, but nothing came out. Then he turned around and tried to flee. Hendak let
out a cry of rage, jumped over the tables and caught Lehtinan’s leg. Lehtinan
tumbled to the ground; Hendak knelt on his chest, raised his two swords and
thrust them right into Lehtinan’s throat. Then he pulled them out again and
sliced open Lehtinan’s stomach.

Hendak rose again, triumph in his eyes and
blood on the rest of his body.

“Now we are free, finally!” he shouted out
into the hall.

Bernard simply shrugged his shoulders and said: “I
never liked Lehtinan anywee. I guess, yah’re dah new
owner now, Hendak.”

“Owner of the Copper Coronet? Well, that is ok with me.”

Then he turned to me.

“I thank you. I didn’t catch your name,
though.”

“Oh, no problem. I’m Darnoc.”

“Then I thank you, Darnoc. There is something I must tell
you. Lehtinan got his slaves from somewhere, as you probably have guessed. I
know this place, having been there myself, before I was brought here. I ask you
to destroy the slavers here and free all the other slaves.”

“Of course. Just show me the way.”

“Good. The safest way is going through the
sewers, I would say. You can reach the headquarters of the slavers from the Copper
Coronet that way.”

It seemed as if this whole wasn’t over yet. So
Hendak led us to the entrance to the sewers, somewhere in the back of the
Copper Coronet. The sewers were dark and wet; it stunk even more down there than
in the slums.

“I wish you best of luck. When all goes well,
we’ll see us each other back here.”

With this we descended. Marching through the sewers we came
across several different creatures. A group of hobgoblins tried to rob us, but
was quickly dispatched of. Some kobolds were hanging around, but they were even easier
killed than the hobgoblins.

Finally we reached a dead end. In front of us
was a pool of water and four pipes went into it.

Suddenly a deep voice filled the void: “Ah, now
look who’s here! Welcome, welcome! I guess you’re seeking me, eh? But I won’t
make it as easy for you. Gotta solve my riddle first.
Go talk to Quallo; I’ll use him to talk to you.”

I was rather perplexed, but since I had no
clue, what this about, I just went to look for Quallo. I found him soon enough,
sitting in a corner next to a table with some moldy bread on it. He was an old
man, very meager and next to him sat a carrion crawler. When he saw us, he
greeted us.

“Welcome, travelers! If you wish to seek him,
you must solve the riddle. Find the four objects and I while tell you more.”

And that was all he would say at this time.

So we went back, seeking for some “objects”.
After some extensive we came across four things we thought Quallo could have
meant: a hand with claws, a funny stick of a kobold-shaman, a ring of two
skeletons embracing each other.

Quallo looked at the things and nodded.

“So, what do those things mean?”

“The ring is the gift of the lovers. The hand
is the hand of Vallah who put him where he is now. The stick is of the beast
which smells like a dog and has the skin of a lizard.”

But the fourth object missed yet. I went back
to the pool and looked at everything. Suddenly I saw markings on the pipes. Three of them
described the three objects we found. But the fourth one talked about “finding
the blood of a true friend”. Where the hell should we find a true friend down
here? Then I remembered the carrion crawler with Quallo. Perhaps this was the
meaning of the riddle.

So I went back, drew my sword and killed the carrion crawler with one stroke. Quallo
cried out in dismay, but was unable to hinder me. Quickly I searched for an empty bottle and found
one soon enough (there were plenty lying around here). With it I caught some of
the carrion crawler’s blood.

Now I had all the objects, I thought. So back I
went to the pipes and I threw the object into the water. First nothing
happened, but then something stirred in the water. Suddenly a sword just rose
out of the sewers; I took it by the hilt and lifted it up. It was a two-handed
sword and a fine one too.

I just wanted to hand it too Minsc, who fought
with two-handed swords, when a voice rang out: “Thanks for saving me, oh mighty
hero! Now let’s go kill something!”

Puzzled we looked at each other and the voice
said: “Oh, come on, don’t look dumber than you are (although you are definitely dumber than I am)!
Never saw a talking sword before, or what?”

I hit my head and shouted: “Oh, gosh, a talking
sword! Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“A joke? You call me a joke? How dare you! Just wait until you see me in
battle, then you’ll change your opinion of me soon enough, fool!”

A shook my head and waved my companions to
continue on our way. But the sword simply didn’t want to stop babbling.

“Now what are you up to? I hope some killing is
at hand, I haven’t killed for some time, you know…”

“Oh, just shut up!” Jaheira snarled.

“And who have we here? A
half-elf warrior? A female even?
Oh my, I know some really nasty stories concerning that subject. One day, I was
in the possession of a real bad-ass mercenary then, we came upon a camp of
elf-traders and the mercenaries decided to rob them. There was a half-elf
female warrior there too and after they had
either killed or captured the others, the mercenaries…”

Jaheira was now really angry and interrupted
the sword.

“If you say one other word concerning that I will throw you back into the
sewers myself!”

“Geez, no reason to go get annoyed with me.
Stupid elves, I always liked humans better anyway…”

We finally reached a stairway out of the
sewers. At the top of it was a door, which Yoshimo quickly picked. Slowly I
opened it and peeked into the room behind it.

I could make out several armored figures there, standing in
some kind of storeroom filled with lots of crates. If Hendak was right, these
were the slavers.

I turned around to my companions and said: “Ok,
listen up! I think we have reached our destination. Now here’s the plan: I,
Minsc and Jaheira will enter the room first, followed by Yoshimo, Nalia and
Aerie. Nalia and Aerie, take out the enemy’s archers first. If they have any mage,
of course him also. We others will concentrate on the ones with the best armor and weapons. Good luck to
everyone!”

I kicked the door opened, I, Minsc and Jaheira
jumped into the room and immediately attacked their melee-fighters. Yoshimo
followed, swinging his katana, Nalia and Aerie stayed behind and shot at the
enemy’s archers.

I took on a guy with chain-mail and long sword.
He seemed to be an experienced fighter and didn’t attack me head-on, but rather
tried to lure me nearer with fast attacks and withdraws. But I didn’t fall for his trick; I
quickly slashed at his feet, then turned around and used my own momentum to
strike at his head. The first strike he dodged, but for the second he wasn’t
fast enough and my sword sliced through the chain mail covering his chest. My
enemy stumbled forward and tried to thrust his sword at me, but I quickly dodged and stroke
down on his neck. He immediately fell dead to the ground, his neck broken.

Suddenly I felt a sharp pain going through my right leg.
When I glanced there, I saw an arrow sticking in my greaves, blood flowing from
the wound. I couldn’t do anything about it right now, since I was attacked by
another slaver, who charged in howling. I stepped out of the way and stroke sideward, slicing open my enemy’s side.
Then I turned my sword and thrust it into his back.

It was the last slaver, with the exception of
one. The only living slaver seemed to be the leader. He had a two-handed sword,
a plate mail and helmet decorated with a wolf’s tail. When he realized that he
was surrounded, he threw his sword to the ground and knelt down.

“I surrendar, please, ‘ave mercy!” he begged.

I stepped forward, limping with my right leg, my
sword stretched out towards the slaver.

“What’s your name, bastard of a slaver?” I demanded.

“Mee name’s Captain Haegan. Please, don’t kill
me!”

I pulled off his helmet. He had black hair and
beard and eyes, several scars on his cheeks and brows. Right now
he was trembling with fear.

“So, you ask for mercy? And what is with all
the slaves? Have you showed them mercy?”

“But it’s fuckin’
business, everyone has gotta make a fuckin’ livin’!”

I spat into his face.

“You’re nothing more than a piece of shit,
Haegan, and I would do the world a favor by killing you right on this spot.”

I put my sword at his neck. Haegan’s body began
to shake violently.

Aerie stepped up to me and put her hand on my
shoulder.

“Don’t do it, Darnoc, it wouldn’t be right. We should
tie him up and give him to the authorities.”

“Pah, the damn authorities! Are you really so naïve to believe
that they would do anything at all, those fucking, corrupt sons of bitches?
Those shit-head slavers have probably bribed them anyway. It would rather rain
assholes than that the authorities would condemn any slavers. No, we have to
finish this damn matter here once and for all!”

I turned back to Haegan.

“In the name of Helm, who watches all, I
condemn you to death for all your evil deeds, Haegan! May you burn in hell forever!”

I stroke out with my sword, Haegan screamed in
fear. With one forceful stroke I
beheaded him; his head flew through the room and hit the wall. Haegan’s
headless body sunk to the floor.

I turned around, my face red from anger, my
eyes flashing. Aerie hadn’t watched the gruesome scene, she had covered her
eyes and the others looked uneasily to the ground. Only Minsc seemed to be
agreeing with my course of action.

“What are you all looking at? He was only a damn slaver,
a fucking bastard! No one will shed a damn tear for him and it’s good that he’s dead now, this
motherfucking son of a bitch!”

Angrily I bent down and took a key from
Haegan’s body.

“Come on, let’s free the slaves!”

Suddenly everything began to blur before my
eyes. I began to stumble, I felt an intense in my right leg, suddenly I
shivered, as I felt how my whole back seemed cold as ice and then suddenly hot
as fire. All began to grow black and the last thing I noticed was how the floor
came towards me.

Imoen:
The asylum

Again we were teleported away and next thing we
were standing in another hall, but this one looked less monumental than the
other. The other hall had been all stones and pillars, this one actually looked… nice. Blue and orange walls, a huge carpet on the floor.

The coordinator approached us, he wasn’t
clothed in grey, but in green.

“Ah, the new prisoners. Already heard of them. Bring the mage down into cellar to the maximum security room. Don’t
want that one to escape, do we? Now, the girl, the girl… There’s a cell free up
here, place her there. Dansia, you’re in charge of her, I heard?”

Dansia nodded.

“Alright, you look after her, I must return to
my study. You know the way, right? Give me a memo about her condition, if you’d
be so kind.”

He turned around and left. I took a look around and watched the coordinator’s
assistants. Some of them starred at me, one even grinned openly, probably
very pleased with what he saw. He only stopped when I gave him an angry look,
but when I looked away I heard him whisper to his colleagues and they
laughed, glancing over to me. Dansia shook her head at their behavior, but
there wasn’t much she could do about it.

I sighed with relief, as I saw, how they
teleported Irenicus away. I really hoped that this would be the last I saw of
him.

“Don’t worry, child, you won’t see that one
again. He has a life sentence in the maximum security room, solitary confinement. Now, follow me,
child.”

Dansia led me to a cell, there was a bed and
even a table and a chair in it.

“Here is yours. Is there anything you take particular interest in? We encourage
activities of the inmates, you know.”

“Oh, I like reading, Dansia. Lately I’ve taken
an interest in… technology. My brother Darnoc began experimentin’ an’ such
thin’s an’ I wanna understand, what the hell he’s makin’ a fuss about.”

“Well, you are lucky, child. This asylum was
built by followers of Gond and so we have some books from them. Shall I bring
them to you?”

“Yes, I’d like that, please.”

“Alright, I’ll be back soon.”

With this she hurried off and so I had some
time to look at my new room. It wasn’t a king’s quarters, but it was comfortable enough.
The pallet had a mattress, although not really a soft one, I could use the table
to eat and even read, for there was light. Being tired and weary, I lay down on the pallet and
closed my eyes. Immediately I fell asleep.

I woke up and realized that Dansia sat next to
me, looking at me pitifully.

“I just noticed several fresh scars on your body. Can I take a closer
look at them? Perhaps there is something I can do.”

I nodded and she undressed me, examining my
wounds.

“Some of them look quite nasty. How can anyone
do such things? I will never understand such insane behavior. Alas, there is
much evil in our world… Do you feel any pain?”

“Yeah, my head hurts all the time. It seems t’ burn.”

She closed her eyes and touched my head,
probably trying to feel inside me with her magic.

“He did something to your mind, I can’t really
figure out, what exactly. Hmph, perhaps time will mend this pain. Does it grow
less?”

“It does, thank ya for tryin’ t’
help.”

“As I already said, this is a place of healing,
child. Now, I’ve brought you some books, placed them on the table. If you feel
strong enough, you can read them later on. But first I must write this memo
concerning your condition. For this I need you to recount everything you can remember.
Tell me as best as possible, what happened to you. Just keep talking, I won’t
interrupt you.”

She took out some paper, a pen and an inkpot.
So I began telling her, starting with our capture. I told her of the things
Irenicus did, sometimes not able to continue, trying to gain strength for
continuing. I told her of our escape and of what happened on the surface.
Finally she put down the pen and smiled warmly at me.

“It’s alright, child, it’s all over now. I can
see that he has done many horrible things to you and we can only pray to the
gods that you will heal. On the outside I can care for your wounds, but inside it
will be more difficult.”

Then she stood up and left the room, locking it
behind her.

“It’s not that I wouldn’t trust you, but it is
the regulation” she explained and went off to write her memo.

Soon after she had left, the door was opened
again and the wizard, who had taken an interest in me back at the entrance, and one of his
colleagues entered.

“Say, aren’t you a pretty one, girl” he remarked, grinning at me.

“Perfect for some things we wanted to try out”
his colleague added.

“Yes, there are some new spells we invented. We
just needed a pretty little woman like you in order to try them out.”

Memories of Irenicus came back to me and I
crawled into a corner. I couldn’t escape, there was no way out, they had
betrayed me! They weren’t better than Irenicus!

“Ah, no need to fear, girl, we won’t hurt you. You’ll
enjoy that one, I can tell you” the grinning bastard tried to explain.

“Ya won’t do anything t’ me, get away! Ya won’t
touch me; Irenicus was enough, please, leave me!” I screamed at them.

“Ah, come on, we aren’t some sick bastards like that mage! We only want some
fun and you’ll have some too. After I used that spell on you, you’ll feel
better than ever in your life. In fact, you’ll remember it as the best time in
your life.”

The other laughed at this comment.

“Tiod invented it, you know? It’ll make you
feel so good you would want to have us both. No problems with women with this
spell, they would even want you, if you were ugly. It’s a very stimulating
spell, you know” he remarked, still laughing.

Suddenly I heard screams from outside and then
flashes of energy, fire and electricity.

“Irenicus!” I whispered in terror.

“No way, that cannot be, it isn’t possible that
he escaped! No one escapes the maximum security cell!”

He should be proven wrong, when a ball of fire
consumed him and his colleagues. I hid under my pallet, shaking all over, when
I heard the steps coming closer and
closer. It was silent everywhere, only those steps could be heard.

And then I saw his feet from under the bed.

“Hello, my dear! Now that those foolish wizards are out of the way there is nothing,
which stops me from my experiments. We’ll continue right away.”

“No, please, no, leave me, don’t
hurt me anymore!” I begged him, my voice only a whisper.

There was no answer, no movement; his feet
remained where they were. Slowly I crawled out, staring upwards into his face, trying to find a
sign of mercy in his eyes. But there was nothing, nothing at all, only coldness
and observation.

Tears began to stream from my eyes; my body was trembling
from fear. I crawled to his feet like an
animal and touched them.

“Irenicus, I beg ya, I couldn’t stand it
anymore, I’d die. I don’t wanna die; I don’t wanna
feel more pain, please. Why ‘re ya doin’ this, ya bastard?”

“As I already explained to you, it is nothing
personal. You have something, which I need and I will get it by all means
necessary.”

“No, no, ya fuckin’ bastard, ya son o’ a
bitch! I hate
ya, I hate ya!” I screamed, hitting his legs with my fists.

“Would you please stop this foolish behavior,
it won’t change your situation.”

I just lay flat on the floor, sobbing.
Desperation took me, I needed to try, I couldn’t stay
here! I would surely die, of that I was certain.

My fear gave me the strength, I stood up, rammed my
head into his stomach, he stumbled backwards and I ran out of the door, down
the corridor.

But he had himself under control again soon
enough, behind me he began conjuring a spell. Desperation gave me speed; I
reached the entrance hall and even the doors. But when I tried the doorknob, I
couldn’t open it, the doors were locked. I screamed and hit the doors.

“Open, open up ya damned, fuckin’ doors!”

It was then that the spell hit me. Pain raced
through my body, I was flung against the doors and then onto the floor, my body
shaking violently. I screamed without end, the pain increased and increased and
I thought that I would die.

When it finally stopped and I was just a
huddled up bundle lying on the floor, he was standing behind me. He grabbed my
hair and dragged me along the floor, back to my cell. I tried to claw into the
carpet, but he was stronger and dragged
my along, my fingernails broke off, as I tried to get a hold. Then I tried to
wrestle from his grip, my fingers bleeding, but he kicked me into my chest,
pressing all air out of my lungs.

Finally we arrived back at the cell and he
grabbed me at my shoulders and flung me against the wall. I almost heard my ribs break, as they hit the
wall. All strength had left me and I just lay there, not able to move or fight
anymore, pain covering my whole body.

“Don’t be foolish girl, you’ll never escape
me!” he told me, his voice still without emotion.

And so the horror began anew, but this time
even worse than the last time.

Darnoc:
Troll-infestation

I can’t remember much of the time of my
illness. Sometimes I remember waking up and seeing shadows and voices, then I
fell into nothingness again. Strangely enough I remember one thing clearly: a dream.

It wasn’t a normal dream, though. I was back in
Candlekeep, where I had grown up. But my home was all empty, the wind howled
solemnly through the dead and dark ruins. In front of me I could make out a
familiar, but faint figure: Imoen. But
something seemed to be wrong. She somehow looked… lifeless. Like a statue or a
painting.

I felt a warm feeling inside, when I saw her,
but it didn’t last long. Was she real or was this just a fantasy?

Suddenly she spoke: “I… I remember this place.
Unclearly, though… It all fades away, I
can’t remember anymore!”

She began walking towards the gate and I followed her,
uncertain what this was all about. Three figures were standing there, I knew
them quite well: Gorion, Elminster and Khelben.

“They were our teachers… I think. But I can’t
remember them. I can’t.”

And with this the three figures dropped dead to
the ground.

I turned around and halted, terror in my eyes.
His memory alone pained me, but now he was standing there, smiling coldly at
me. Irenicus, whom I forever will curse.

“Why don’t you use your power? You have so many
gifts, but you don’t use them. It is you who has called us here. But still you
refuse your destiny.”

I knew just too well, what he was talking
about. He wanted that I accepted the essence of my father, Bhaal. He wanted
that I should give in to the evil inside me. But I had still strength left and
as long as it lasted, I would fight.

“No, I will not! Never,
Irenicus!” I shouted at him.

His smile grew broader, but was still cold.

“Then the ones close to you will have to
suffer.”

And with that he conjured a magical dart of flame and shot it at Imoen, who
burst into flames and burnt to ashes in front of my eyes.

“No, Irenicus, you fucking bastard! I’ll kill you, I swear by the abyss and all the fucking demons
in it!”

With that cry I awoke and found myself lying in
a bed, covered by several blankets. Jaheira sat next to the bed on a wooden
chair, looking exhausted.

“Thank the gods, I thought you would never wake
up!” she exclaimed.

“How long…?” I began to ask.

“Six days and nights. Remember that Othyug in the dungeons?
He infected you with something. And the poisoned arrow did the rest. There were times
when we thought you would die. But thanks to my knowledge in herb-lore I could
bring you on the path of healing. You should soon be as good as new.”

Then I saw the Rose Blade resting on her knees.
When she saw my questioning look, she smiled.

“Hendak left that for you as a gift. You’re his
personal hero now and he promised that we would always get lower prices at the
Copper Coronet. Oh, and since we are talking about swords, here is something
else.”

With this she handed me a knob of a sword.

“I have found this down in the dungeon, not
knowing at that time, what exactly it was. Now I think it’s the knob of the
legendary sword “The Equalizer”. Guard it well, perhaps one day you’ll
come across the other parts of the sword.”

It took me another three days to fully recover.
Sometimes my companions visited me. Especially Minsc seemed very sad at my
illness and came often to me, letting me pet his hamster Boo, who seemed to
have taken a liking to me.

When I had finally recovered, Nalia wasn’t
pleased at all because of the delay. She was worried about her father, which I
perfectly understood.

So I told her that we would set out immediately
to her family’s castle. We marched through the slums towards the city gate. Once there a guy
came running towards us, telling us to wait for him.

“Sir, are your services as warrior for hire?”
he asked me.

I nodded.

“That is well. I’m here to look for someone who
could help us out in Trademeet. We are overrun by beasts! Please come as fast as
possible!”

“Alright, alright, go tell your superiors that
I’ll come.”

“Wonderful, I’ll go right away!”

And with this he went out of the gate. We
followed him, but took the road eastward, not to the southeast like he did.

The castle of the de’Arnise was about eight
hours away from Atkatla. When we arrived, I immediately felt that something wasn’t
right. Bodies of soldiers had been staked in front of the castle’s gate and a
wooden fort lay a little south of it, guarded by several soldiers.

“The castle has already been stormed! Perhaps
Captain Arat is in the fort, he may know a little more” Nalia told me.

Captain Arat was indeed over at the fort. He
was an old, grey-haired man, who looked very weary, as if he had just come out of a
battle.

“Miss de’Arnise, is that yah?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s me, Arat. What has happened here?”

Arat sighed.

“Dah castle’s been stormed and we’ve survived.
I can’t tell where yahr aunt is. Yahr father’s been dragged into dah castle by
some trolls just a while ago. What has happened to ‘im, I can’t tell either.”

Nalia’s face grew pale as she heard the news and she turned to me.

“We must go and save my father! I know a secret
entrance, follow me!”

She led us to a group of rocks a little north
of the fort. There she touched one of the stones and suddenly a door opened in
the rock.

“There you go. I use this door to sneak out of
the castle, the servants know of it, but my aunt has no clue, hehe.”

“Can we go now and kill those trolls?” Minsc’s
new sword asked.

“Oh, shut up! What’s your name, by the way?”

“My name? Lilacor, of
course? Why do you ask?”

“So, Lilacor, would you be so kind to hold your
fucking, stupid tongue!”

The sword kept silent for some time after that.

Nalia led us into the castle and to the quarters of the servants. There an old
man stood and when he saw it, he rushed to Nalia.

“Mistress Nalia, I’m so glad yah’re heer! An’
who’s that? Mercenaries?”

“Yes, my good Daleson, I found them in Atkatla.
What happened here?”

“Oh, things have been going very badly lately.
The trolls came in heer an’ killed everyone. Captain Arat could save some,
though. I saw how some trolls dragged yahr father into dah cellar. Hopefully he’s alright.

Oh, dah trolls have umber hulks. They eat dog
meat, ugh. Perhaps yah can feed some t’em and they’ll leave yah alone. And I’d
try to put dah flail o’ ages back together, it could be useful against those
trolls.”

“Well, thanks for the advice, Daleson. I
suggest you use the secret exit to go to Arat. We’ll meet you there.”

“Then I do as yah command, Mistress. I wish yah
dah blessin’ o’ dah gods, yah’ll need it.”

Daleson disappeared through the tunnel they had just
used.

“Hm, perhaps we really should put the flail of
ages back together. It could help against those trolls, as Daleson said…”

I looked puzzled.

“The flail of ages? What’s that?”

“It’s a very powerful magical weapon,
consisting of three parts. My father always insisted on taking it apart, he said that it was not safe to
have such a powerful weapon just lying around. If we could just put it together again…”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Well, we’ll keep our eyes open for the parts…”

The first part wasn’t too far, for it lay in the smithy just
north of the tunnel. The head of the flail was pale blue, almost like ice. When
I touched it, it felt cold.

“We should go looking for some dog meat, if we
want to pass those umber hulks. Where do they keep them?”

“Oh, we have to cross the great hall for that
and exit the castle through the main doors. Outside in the courtyard the dogs are kept.”

I nodded.

“Well, let’s get moving!”

The hall was empty and dark, signs of battle could be seen
everywhere: blood, destroyed tables and chairs, thrown away weapons. But no
bodies, those were probably eaten by the trolls. The doors were closed, but
Yoshimo could fix that easily.

Indeed there were dogs in the courtyard and it pained me to kill those
innocent creatures. They looked at us with their trustful, dark eyes, not knowing, what awaited
them. With a sigh I drew my sword, stepped over to them and killed all four of
them one by one with a deadly stroke. Together with Minsc I dragged the bodies
back into the castle and there to the kitchen, a little north-east from the
doors. Jaheira did the cooking; she was our expert in it.

Soon we had a dog-stew ready for the umber
hulks, now we just had to find a way into the cellar. The courtyard had looked deserted, so I guessed
we could just open the castle gates and let Arat with his soldiers in.

The gate opened, when I turned the wheel on the
top of the gate lodge. Arat seemed to have seen or heard it, for some minutes later he and
his men entered the courtyard. I awaited him at the entrance.

“Good job, mercenary! Now we can perhaps conquer dah
castle back. Any suggestions, how to do that?”

“Lady Nalia’s father seems to have been dragged
down into the cellars. I want to go down there, so it would be helpful, if you could
smoothen our way by battling the trolls inside the castle, especially on the
first and second floor.”

He nodded and gave orders to his soldiers
according to what I have told him. We followed the soldiers back in and up to
the second floor.

Nalia led us to the library, for she thought a key to the
other rooms might be there. When we entered, we saw that the soldiers had
already killed three trolls which had guarded the library. Arat handed the key to Lady Nalia
with a grin.

“I guessed yah’d come lookin’ for that,
Meelady.”

“Thank you, Captain, you indeed guessed right”
Nalia replied.

“What does it open, this key?” I asked her.

“With this we can enter the inner chambers. And
also the chapel, a stair down to the cellar is there.”

North of the library was a corridor which led us to a
richly furnished room. At the other end stood a heavily armored guard with a
two-handed sword.

“Glaicas? What are you doing here? I thought you were
dead!”

A pained look came over his face, as if he had
done something wrong, which he somehow regretted. But then determination took
over again.

“I’m here t’ guard dah chambers o’ mee new master.
Yah may not enter here, or I’ll be forced t’ kill yah. And that I wouldn’t like
t’ do, Mistress Nalia.”

Nalia looked shocked at Glaicas.

“You betrayed my father, your Lord? How could
you do such a terrible thing, Glaicas? You have served us long and earned our trust, why do you betray us
now?”

Again a pained looked crossed Glaicas’ face.

“Yahr father was a good man, Nalia, but mee new
master’s much more powerful and there’s no use in resisting ‘im. It’s better t’ serve ‘im than t’ be destroyed. I’m sorry
Nalia, but I’ve no other choice than t’ kill yah. Torgal won’t like it, if I
don’t do it. And one should never anger Torgal.”

He took his sword and advanced towards us, his sword pointing towards us. I stepped in front, drawing
my long sword. When he was about two meters in front of me, he changed into “la
posta di falcone”, a position for two-handed swords, where you hold your sword
high above your head, so you can strike downwards and across at the same time in a
mighty stroke.

I knew what would come now and held my shield
forward to block the attack. Still,
Glaicas was a strong fighter and his stroke almost broke my arm. I immediately thrust my sword forward, but he parried with his own sword and with such
strength that I almost let go of mine.

Glaicas was an experienced fighter, using his
strength as an advantage over me. I had to be careful or else he would crush me. Best
was to keep my distance. Although this would be difficult, the space was thin
and he had the longer sword.

I stroke first at his feet, then thrust at his
head. Before he could attack again, I jumped onto the next table and began
hacking downwards on him. I hit his helmet, but didn’t penetrate it. Still, it must
have hurt him quite a bit, for he stumbled backwards. With a groan he caught himself
and thrust his sword upwards, but I jumped down on the other side of the
table.

He immediately took the chance and jumped on
the table, but that was exactly, what I intended. While he was still jumping, I
stroke at his feet, cutting them off with one, smooth swing. Glaicas howled in
pain, fell first on his knees and then on his face. I lifted my sword and
rammed it into his back, right where his heart was. After that I pulled it back
out again and cleaned it with Glaicas’ clothes. Blood began to assemble on the
table where Glaicas’ body lay and dripped down on the floor.

Then something caught my eye. Something
shimmered green in Glaicas’ pockets. Slowly I reached into the pocket and
immediately drew my hand back out again. Whatever was in there was acidic, my
skin burned. I cut off a bit of Glaicas’ shirt and with it I drew out the head
of a flail.

Some doors further on we came to another locked
door. We opened and were greeted by another guard, who sighed in relief when he saw
us.

“Yah can’t imagine how glad I’m t’ be out o’
this damned room! I just can’t stand it anymore, bein’ together with this old
witch in heer. My name’s Hendorn, can yah tell me, where Captain Arat is?”

Then he saw Nalia and blushed.

“Hendorn, my aunt is still a member of this
family and you will not speak of her like this!”

“Ehm, yes, Meelady, as yah wish…”

The “old witch” seemed to have heard us talking and came to the
entrance. She was expensively clothed, but her face was old and wrinkled.
Still, her eyes flashed with anger.

“What is this noise? Can’t one have some peace around here? Barbarians, no manners,
pah!”

“Aunt, are you well?” Nalia asked.

“Well, child? What a question! Try to stay locked
in with this barbarian here for a change! And whom have
you brought with you here? Another bunch of manner-less barbarians, I guess, as always. You really
hang out with the wrong people; I’ve always told you, Nalia.”

She really began to annoy me and I completely
understood Hendorn.

“Milady, if you excuse us, we would like to
rescue the Lord of this house” I told her brusque.

She didn’t say much after that so I went over
to the door in the back of the room. It led to the chapel. Several golems were
standing around there; three statues were at
the other end of the room.

“The last head of the flail should be in one of
the boxes at the feet of the statues” Nalia explained.

I nodded and stepped over to them, searching the boxes. Indeed I found
another head of a flail, this one shining fiery-red and being hot. I wrapped it
into some clothes. Now we just had to go back to the smithy and put the heads
back together.

When I put the three heads on the smithy,
something extraordinary happened: There was a blinding, white flash of light and then the
heads were put back together in one flail. Slowly I reached for it and looked
at it in awe. It was indeed a masterful weapon, especially against trolls, who
could regenerate easily and whose bodies had to be completely destroyed.

With this weapon I thought we were now enough
prepared to go down to the cellar and look for Nalia’s father. We
went down the stairs and halted in the first room, for we could hear the grumbling noises of umber hulks
further on.

“Give me the pot with the dog-stew and the key
for the castle. I’ll handle this” Yoshimo whispered.

So I gave the things he requested to him.
Yoshimo sneaked over to the door, opened it slowly and went through it, closing
it behind him. We waited some minutes, hoping that nothing had happened. And
then Yoshimo returned with a sly smile on his face.

“Come on, come on, it’s all okay; I have locked
the umber hulks up! They’re happily eating the dog-stew.”

We laughed in relief and I said: “Now that was
really something you pulled off here, Yoshimo!”

Indeed the room was empty and the doors to the
right were locked. Nalia explained to me that the cells were there. The family
vault was to the left.

I opened the door and looked into the vault. It
was a long hall, at the sides stood huge statues of deceased family members.
And at the very end there was an altar. In front of it lay a body of a man, heavily
mutilated and three huge trolls standing behind it. Nalia screamed, for the
body was her father’s.

One of the trolls rose and walked over to us.

“What you do here? I Torgal, I big troll, I
follow big master! We eat you, puny little human!”

Nalia had put an arrow on her bow and released it,
hitting Torgal into the throat. The troll shrieked and attacked, trying to hit
me with his long, clawed arms.

I swung my new weapon and stroke at Torgal’s
stomach. The head of fire hit him and he immediately began to burn, shrieking
and wailing, until nothing but ashes was left of him. The other two trolls had
watched in terror, but when they saw their leader fall dead to the ground, they
attacked howling. I just stood there and awaited them, hitting them both with
my flail. One caught fire; the other was consumed by acid.

Nalia rushed to her father’s corpse, Minsc came
over to me and looked in awe at my weapon. Lilacor seemed to notice it too and
shrieked: “Hey, that is not fair! I want those
damage-bonuses! Give them to me!”

The castle was rid of the troll infestation,
but at what cost! The lord was dead; a lot of servants and soldiers had fallen.

I stepped over to Nalia, who held her father’s
corpse in her arms and sobbed. Finally, she looked up, noticing me.

“I… I thank you, Darnoc. It’s just that I don’t know
what to do now. This horrible Isaea Roenal will get the castle, because he is
my fiancé.”

She had never told me of that. But something
came to my mind which could perhaps help.

“You are now the heir of the castle. And you could
decide to appoint a master of arms to look for the castle. I would take the
job, if you want. This should make this Roenal guy think twice before appearing here.”

She nodded in agreement.

“Yes, this is a good idea. So, Lord Darnoc, how do you like your new home?”

I smiled.

“Oh, it’s not bad at all. I never had a castle
of my own, you know…”

Nalia’s aunt didn’t like the idea of me being
the new steward of the castle. She immediately left for her own house, not even giving
me the courtesy of a thank you for saving her life. But the other people were
glad to have me as their new master. Arat asked for retirement, the whole
experience and especially the death of his old lord had pretty shaken him. He
recommended his second in command, Cernick, as new captain.

To Cernick I talked for a while about the
defenses, making some suggestions.

“Look at those sketches; they are a new weapon I invented. We need
to create more of the exploding powder, though, but the material can probably
been found around here. Then we need to find a skillful smith, which can make the
kegs and the balls.”

“But sir, what good will these weapons do?”

I smiled knowingly.

“It’s an ingenious idea, you know. The ball of
iron will be catapulted out of the keg with such force that it will rip our
enemies apart when hitting them. I call them ‘Fire-kegs’ by the way. You see the
small string? When we put fire to it, it will burn and reach the powder, so the
ball is catapulted out.”

Captain Cernick looked at me in awe.

“Yah’re a genius, Lord, a real genius! I never
would have thought of’somethin’ like that!”

“Well, such things always fascinated me. And
sometimes I even come up with something useful…”

A feast was held in my honor and I enjoyed it
immensely. It had been a long time since I had eaten that good. The ale was
great too and I probably drank a little too much, for things looked a little
blurred when I walked to my bedroom.

That night I dreamt again. I was standing in a
library, Irenicus in front of me. Several
statues of people surrounded him.

“Ah, Darnoc, we meet again…”

“Is this real?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Only you can tell. It is by your power that we
meet in this dream. But let us not concern us with such unimportant matters. I
want to give you a… lesson.”

He waved his hand and one of the statues turned
into a living, breathing person. It was an old woman, wearing rough and dirty clothes. I
guessed that she was a farmer’s wife.

“This woman has some strength. Her husband died
in a war and she had to raise her child by
herself. Without any relatives she managed the farm. She grew old and her children had
children. Then she died and was forgotten.”

With this he waved his hand again and the woman
turned to dust.

“You, on the other hand, are the son of a god. You have much
more power. You have the power to change the course of destiny itself. Mortals are weak beings.”

Several creatures appeared, monsters. A human stood there,
frightened at the look of the monsters. They immediately attacked him and tore
him to pieces.

“But you are the son of a god. Use your power
and become more powerful than the most powerful magical beings.”

Again the human appeared, but this time something was
different. The human seemed to be confident, proud. He waved his hand, spoke
mysterious words and conjured… something. The monsters just dropped dead on the
spot, as if life had just been sucked out of them.

Irenicus smiled at me.

“Darnoc, you may not want this power, but you are going to need it. Or else those
you love will suffer and die. You must use your power to protect them!”

Suddenly Imoen appeared in the room. She was surprised
first, not knowing, where she was. Then she saw me and I saw hope in her eyes.
But then she saw Irenicus and terror took over.

Irenicus now turned to her, grinning like a
skull. He conjured the same water-draining spell he had used on me back in the
dungeon and shot it at Imoen. She screamed in agony, as all liquid was just
sucked out of her. I wanted to help her, kill Irenicus, but found that I
couldn’t move or even say something. In front of my eyes she dried out, until
she looked like a mummy, having lain in the desert for thousand of years, no liquid left, lifeless.

I awoke, screaming, hitting into the air, until
Minsc and Jaheira rushed into the room and held me down.

Imoen:
Spells

Irenicus was a genius in his own right, I had
to admit that. But that didn’t change the fact that he was a sick bastard, the cruelest person I ever knew
in my life.

First he had used several spells on me in order
to make me unable to fight back. That was after my first attempt to escape. He
used them on me and a whole new world of pain opened up to me. For the time
being I had no strength left to fight back and so he left me in my agony.

For some hours I couldn’t do much at all, I was
just lying there and trying to survive somehow, only the pain existing for me.
After some time, the pain lessened and was able to think again. Looking around I noticed the books Dansia had
given to me. She was probably dead now, murdered by Irenicus. I cursed him for
killing the only nice person around.

Still, I got up and took the books. The one on
the top was titled “On numbers and their laws”. So, a book
about mathematics. Should be interesting.

I began to read, trying to concentrate on the
words and somehow forget the pain. Focusing on algebra I even almost managed.
Somehow I began to understand the fascination, which had taken hold of my
brother. A whole new world opened to me and I realized with a shock that one
could do many things just with those numbers. Perhaps even describe the
universe as a whole. Probability was very fascinating, you could actually calculate,
how likely it was that something happened.

So consumed by fascination, I hadn’t even
noticed Irenicus enter my cell.

“Fascinating, isn’t it? The chapter you are reading right now, about
probabilities, I concerned myself with it. And I had some very interesting
results, when I used it. But now isn’t the time for mathematics. Other
experiments are at hand. Come, Imoen.”

My spirits had returned again, I wouldn’t just
submit to him, not now! I would find a way to beat him!

So I acted, as if I wanted to turn around and follow him, but then I
stroke out and rammed my elbow right into his chest, using the same trick he
had used on me. He groaned and lost his balance, I hit again, this time into
his face and then again into his abdomen.

“Didn’t think I had it in me, did ya?” I
screamed at him, hitting him again on the head.

I needed to beat him unconscious, only then
would I have a chance for escape. I needed to keep on hitting him, so he would
have no chance of uttering any spell or hit back. Again and again I hit him,
until he no longer moved. I kicked him a last time in the stomach.

“Gotcha, bastard!”

Stumbling towards the entrance, I thought about
escaping. The doors were locked, but there had to be a key somewhere. But where
was it? In the entrance hall I saw a door left of me, but it was locked also.
Damn it, perhaps Irenicus had the key on him!

So I hurried back to him, he was still
unconscious. Feverishly I looked through his pockets and finally produced a
key.

“Here ya are, stupid thin’!” I shouted,
laughing.

Suddenly Irenicus’ hand shot upward and grabbed me at the throat. I
chocked and tried to wrestle his grip, but again he proved to be stronger than
I was.

“Hm, I need to do something about this, can’t
have you escaping, right?” he said and put his other hand around my throat.

Finally he let go and I fell to the floor,
panting heavily. But it wasn’t over; he grabbed me and pulled me along with
him, down into the cellar.

“What d’ya want o’
me?” I finally was able to whisper.

“I have this special place, where I can
experiment safely, without you interrupting me” he explained.

The place was a cage similar to the one he had had in his
dungeon. I saw two druegars around it; they had probably created it for him.

“Get out of here this instant!” Irenicus
commanded them.

They bowed and left the room in a hurry.
Irenicus lifted me and threw me into the cage, locking it behind me.

“Alright, now that we have you secure – let us
continue!”

He started with something easy: magical missiles en
masse, quickly one after the other. I was hit by waves of pain, always
increasing a little. First I tried to not give him the pleasure of my screams
(a stupid thought, since he didn’t feel anything), but finally I couldn’t hold
it any longer and screamed and wailed, finally having no strength left and only
whimpered on. In the end I even stopped with that and just endured it silently.

After some time he stopped, opened the cage and
healed me again.

“Oh, come on, that wasn’t so bad! At least compared with what is coming. For example,
there are some fascinating necromantic
spells, which I wish to try out.”

Although I knew that it was no use, I crawled
to the back of the cage, trying to get as far away as possible from him.

The spell was one of the life draining ones.
Its problem is not only that it actually drains your life; it also does this
very painfully. You’re just sucked dry of life and it feels as if something is
ripped out of you. And the more is taken, the more it hurts.

After he had finished, I felt as if I would
die. Hell, I was probably almost dead, when he stopped. He stepped over to me,
put his hand onto my head and let the life-force flow back. But this didn’t
take away the pain, what probably had been his intention.

“Now, since you read about probabilities,
here’s a little assignment for you to take your mind off the pain. Calculate
the probability of your own death. How much pain can you endure, Imoen, before
you die? I think this is necessary, for I need you alive. As a corpse you are no use to me. So, how far can I go without killing you?”

I tried to scream, but only a whisper came out
of my mouth: “Go t’ hell, Irenicus! I hate ya!”

“Certainly you hate me, Imoen. Just as I intended. Now, wouldn’t you agree that the probability
of your own death increases exponentially as I increase the pain? The problem
is this: When does the probability of your death reach a point, where it is too
risky to increase the pain?”

“Fuck ya! Die, ya bastard! Just leave me alone!”

He shook his head and continued: “You
disappoint me, Imoen. Your brother would certainly have jumped to the occasion
and calculated, but you… He has so much more potential… Alas, I only have you
right now. But you will lead him to me, won’t you?”

It was then that I realized it: Irenicus wanted
Darnoc to come here, wanted to get his
claws on him and experiment with him, as he did now with me. No, it could not
happen, I needed to warn Darnoc!

Darnoc: Serial-Killer

We went back to Atkatla. I wanted to buy some
new equipment and visit the Copper Coronet again. One always heard some news there. Hendak and Bernard were happy to see us again and
Bernard told me something which
immediately caught my attention: There had been murders in the bridge district.
And the city guard had no clue.

Atkatla was parted in two. In the south lived the
poor people, also the graveyard was there. In the north were the rich.
Between the two parts lay the bridge district, a huge bridge with houses built on it. The
famous inn “Five Flagons” was also there.

When we came upon the bridge, I immediately
noticed that this was quite a busy place. People were hurrying around, traders had their products in
front of them, shouting loudly to attract customers and guards patrolled the area. An officer stood at the entrance
and when he saw us, he came towards us.

“Halt, strangers, yah’re enterin’ dah bridge
district! What d’yah want heer?”

“Take it easy, we want no trouble. Just passing through. We heard that there have been some murders,
though. Perhaps we could be of assistance.”

The officer looked at us critically, but then
he nodded.

“We can use all dah help we can get. So I’ll
bettahr tell yah, what’s goin’ aroun’ heer. My name’s Aegisfield, I’m dah lieutenant of dah
bridge district. If I were yah, I’ll go ask Rampah, dah beggar, and Rose Bouquet, dah whore. They
might know somethin’ useful for yah. It’s just that they won’t talk to us, dah
guards. So yah might have bettahr luck.

Now I bettahr tell yah of the murdahrs. Bloody
mess, I tell yah. Dah corpsahs have all been skinned. Must be a fucking,
cold-blooded bastard, whoever deed this.”

We found Rampah sitting against a pillar a little to the north. He was
clothed in torn rags; he had lost most of his teeth and grinned a little
stupidly at us. And of course he probably didn’t have a bath for years.

“What yah want?” he asked suspiciously, when I
approached him.

“I’m looking for information about the murders”
I replied.

“No information. I don’t talk with no fuckin’ guards. Go away!”

Oh, damn, I should have thought about this:
beggars and other poor people mostly don’t
like guards and other authorities. I couldn’t
blame them; most guards treated them badly and even stole the few things they had left from
them. So I took out my money bag and shook it a little, so that the coins
jingled.

It immediately helped, Rampah’s eyes grew wide
and he said: “Yah give me hundred coins, I give yah information!”

I gave it to him, for he needed it more than I
did.

“Thanks, hehe. I found this at dah place where
it happened. I don’t know anythin’ else.”

He handed a piece of leather over to me. It
didn’t come from any animal I knew. Now I just had to find out, what animal
this was and who could possess such an exotic piece. Perhaps one of the traders
here could help me out…

I came to the market place and went over to one of
the traders, a slim guy with brown skin, black hair and eyes and turban.

“Hey, can you help me out with something? Do
you know what kind of leather this is?”

I showed him the piece of leather; the trader
bent over and looked closely at it.

“Ah, I have not seyn such a theeng een queyte a
long teyme, I can tell yeh that. Eet must bee the skeen of an elephant, yes it
must. The tanner over dahr might know somethin’, so yah go ask heem.”

Now that was at last something helpful! But I
still needed to find this Rose, so I asked the trader. He pointed at a woman
with long, blond hair and a dress which didn’t conceal very much of her body.

“I heard you know something of the murders. What can
you tell me?”

She looked at me critically.

“Hm, I might be persuaded to say somethin’. Of
course, my time’s precious, yah understand…”

I sighed.

“Ok, how much?”

A smile appeared on her face.

“Now that’s dah tone I like. 25 will duh.”

I handed over the money, she counted it and continued:
“Great, now I’ll damn well tell yah. I’ve seen dah fuckin’ guy who did it.
Well, not really saw him, but rather smelled him. He smelled like damn Guril
berries.”

“And what do they smell like?” I asked.

“Oh, yah should ask Bel Dalemark, the old fucker over there.”

She pointed at the trader we had been before.
Coming from a prostitute, her comment concerning the trader could well be meant
literally. I went back to him.

“You have any idea how Guril berries smell
like? Are there other things which smell similar?”

“Ah, well, I might have just dah thing. Here are some Guril berries, some Solik
berries and a piece of oak bark. They all smell similar.”

With the three objects I went back to Rose. She
snuffed at them, then handed them back.

“Must be oak bark. Yes, it must be. Fuckin’ Tanners
use them, yes. Yah must visit dah damn tanner over there. Never liked this
asshole anyway, he’s a badass customer.”

The picture became clearer. All evidence pointed at the
tanner. I looked at my companions and asked them, what they thought.

“Boo has heard enough, he wants to kill this evil
person!” Minsc roared.

Yoshimo didn’t seem to agree completely.

“We should be cautious. This tanner seems to be
a very dangerous person.”

Jaheira shook her head.

“This might be true, but it is still our duty
to confront him for his evil deeds.”

“Ah, come on, let’s just go and do it!” Nalia
shouted at us.

“Very well, off we go” I replied to that.

When we entered the building, a brown-haired
man who smelled like oak bark awaited us. He had an ill-favored look on
him. Something seemed to be… wrong. I couldn’t explain it. It almost seemed as
if it wasn’t him or not his true self.

“What do you want here? I have work to do, so if there’s nothing you want, leave!”

I stepped over to him, my sword drawn.

“Your crimes end here, tanner! You are the murderer!”

The tanner laughed at me.

“So, you found out, eh? Won’t
do you any good, though. But Rejiek will have his revenge upon you!
Remember my name, fool, for one day we’ll meet again!”

Then he jumped away and ran down the stairs
into the cellar. I followed him, the others came behind me. When arrived on the next floor, I could
just see how Rejiek vanished further down. The smell of the room almost flung
me back, it was horrible. Everything stunk rotten,
sweet and sickening, blood and body parts. I wanted to follow Rejiek, but Yoshimo
pulled me back.

“Wait, there are traps here!”

He stepped into the room, closely observing it.
Finally he seemed to notice something and stepped into the middle of the room,
where he removed one of the planks. I couldn’t see what was underneath it, but
Yoshimo knelt down and took out his set of tools. After some minutes he seemed
to be satisfied and stood up again.

“Well, that wasn’t too difficult. The path is
clear now. I suggest, you go up front, Darnoc.”

I looked around in the room. There was a
sickening, sweet smell in it, as if something was decaying in here. Then I saw
it: glasses, filled with an odd liquid and body parts. Aerie saw them and gasped in
horror, Nalia looked to the ground. The others were silent and starred at the horrors.

“What kind of person can do such things?”
Jaheira whispered.

Then I saw the table. Blood was all over it, a
knife lay on it, also covered in blood. And the body of a young woman, her skin
cut half cut off. It almost seemed as if we just had interrupted Rejiek at
doing this.

The horrible thing about it was that the young
woman was still alive. Unconscious, but still alive, how I
couldn’t tell. I stepped over to her and touched her head. The tanner
had begun the cutting down at her feet, so he hadn’t reached yet the vital parts.

Suddenly she awoke, moaning.

“What… what has happened? Where am I?” she
asked weakly.

She tried to sit up and looked down. And then
she saw parts of her skin lying on the table
next to her. It seemed as if the pain immediately rushed back into her brain,
when she saw this. She began to scream horribly. I still shiver, when I
remember that scream, may blood seems to turn to ice.

Jaheira couldn’t watch it anymore; she stepped
over to the girl, laid her hand on her head and mumbled some words. A white
flash of energy came out of her hand and covered the young woman. It seemed to
take the pain away from her.

“Go on without me, I’ll try to help her”
Jaheira told me.

I climbed down the stairs and stood still,
surprised. There was no sign of Rejiek, but a hooded figure stood there. We
were standing on a wooden platform and around it was water. It was a tunnel into the
river and I could see a small boat a little further up, just exiting the
tunnel.

“Sorry, guys, Rejiek has some other
appointments to attend to. In order to make sure you won’t bother him again, he
left me.”

And with this, the hooded figure just vanished.

“Invisibility! This guy uses magic!” Yoshimo
muttered.

We stood still, trying to hear our enemy approach. But this guy
was a real master of sneaking; at least I didn’t hear anything. Yoshimo had drawn his
katana and suddenly he thrust it backwards. I heard a shriek of pain and suddenly the
hooded figure became visible again, Yoshimo’s katana sticking in his chest.
Yoshimo pulled it out again and beheaded the hooded figure with one smooth
stroke. As if nothing had happened, he cleaned his sword and sheathed it again.

“How… how did you do that?” I asked, totally
astonished.

“Well, I have once been taught by a master of
the ‘art of shadows’. He taught me how to
use all my senses to find my enemy. Even when I can’t see him, I can still hear, smell and feel him. And that is
the whole magic behind everything.”

I looked down the tunnel, where the boat had
vanished. Somehow I had the feeling that this hadn’t been the last time we had
seen Rejiek…

Suddenly Yoshimo cried out.

“Hey, will you look at that! It’s the bow shaft
of Gesen’s bow!”

I went over to him. He held a blue bow shaft in
his hand.

“And what exactly is Gesen’s bow?” I asked
critically.

“Oh, it’s an ancient, very powerful artifact. The Shadow Thieves and the
Cowled Wizards are searching for it. And now we have one part of it. But where is the string? If
we had it, well…”

We went back up to Jaheira. She had begun
stitching the skin back on the woman’s body and she had already done so with
the left leg. Now she was working on the right leg. We waited patiently,
watching her. It seemed as if she had done such things many times before. She
had cured and cared for the wounded, this I knew. I had been vetted by her more than
once. But this was really the work of a master. It seemed as if Jaheira had had
an education as doctor of medicine.

“Now that is just… amazing” I told her, when
she was finished.

She smiled a little.

“Well, didn’t know that about me, did you?”

But she never told me, where she had learned to do this.

Imoen:
Knives

Some days he continued with different spells,
each one more painful than the other. Finally he stopped, probably realizing
that it was of no use anymore. I had simply stopped reacting. He had taken the
books away from me, so there was nothing, which could distract me from my pain.

It was then that I first met Bodhi, his sister.
She was a vampire and a beautiful one too. But at the same time utterly cruel
and evil, she seemed to enjoy hurting people, unlike Irenicus, who just did it,
because it served his purpose. It was she, who urged Irenicus to continue with
me, although he thought that it was of no use anymore.

So one day he commanded some of his druegars to drag me to his experimenting
room again. But this time I wasn’t thrown into the cage, but bound onto a metal
table. And again I saw his collection of knives next to it.

“No, please, no, not again!” I begged him.

Of course, it was no use. Irenicus was beyond
mercy or compassion of any kind.

He took up a hunter’s knife and began with his
work. First he cut open my abdomen, not heeding my screams of pain. With the
help of some healing spells, he was able to contain me, while he cut it open.
And I saw it, saw the inside of me.

Slowly he reached inside and grabbed…
something. It hurt and I watched in horror, whimpering in pain, as he dragged
out a long, thin something.

“This is your small intestine. Here the food
passes through, after it has left the stomach. Through my studies I have
realized that most of the food is entering the blood inside the small
intestine. Fascinating, isn’t it? Anatomy… We can learn so much about ourselves. Oh, and
don’t worry, you won’t die.”

He put it back in and took out something else
out, a kind of sack or something.

“Here’s your stomach. It contains hydrochloric
acid in order to help you digest. The acid is originating from the pancreas,
which is here.”

Again he showed it to me. It was then that I
lost my consciousness; I couldn’t bear the pain any longer.

When I awoke again, he had closed my abdomen
again, healed it also. In his hand he held a bone saw.

“One can die from loss of blood, when a leg or
an arm is cut off. Let me demonstrate” he
explained.

He put his saw to my left leg and began to cut,
while I howled. Finally it came off and I watched in horror, as blood gushed
out of it, masses of it.

“As you can see, such wounds can be mortal. I
need to close the wound immediately.”

With a fire spell he closed the wound, the
stump was now black.

“I have heard that people continue to feel their
lost limbs, although they no longer possess them. We shall see now, won’t we?”

I laid my head onto the table, closing my eyes,
trying to not head the pain. And suddenly the strangest thing happened. My left
leg, the one I had no longer, began to itch and I almost automatically tried to
reach down and scratch it, of course unsuccessfully. First my hands were bound
and second I no longer had a leg to scratch.

Somehow I tried to ignore it, but it didn’t
stop, it only grew worse, more painful, driving me insane. Finally I couldn’t
bear it anymore.

“Make it stop, make it stop!” I screamed at
Irenicus.

“Fascinating, so you really do feel something?”

“Yes, it hurts, make it stop, I can’t bear it any longer!”

“Alright, I put your leg back on.”

He took up my cut off leg and stepped over to
me, laying the leg right underneath the stump. With a spell unknown to me, he
made them grow together.

“Now, here you are. What next? Hm… we might try to do
some things with your body parts? I only showed you things, but I could try
some things out.”

Again he began to cut, but this time higher up,
into my chest.

“Do you know that it is your heart, which gives you life? Without
your heart pumping blood through your body,
you’d be dead quite soon. I always wondered, what would pain have an effect on
the heart. Perhaps it would react and change
its rhythm.”

I felt his hand grab inside me, touching my
lungs and then my heart, pumping and pumping faster and faster. And then he put something onto
his knife and lowered it back into the hole in my skin.

A scream left my lips, it burnt, it burnt! Acid, I realized. My heart began to race, as I tried to
struggle free from my bonds.

Again he closed the wound, healed me and then
he took his knife and cut my throat. I tried to scream, to catch some air, but
nothing came in. In total panic I twisted and pulled on my bonds, there was no
air, no air! Slowly the world faded in front of my eyes. But I didn’t want to
die, I didn’t want to die, no, it couldn’t end like that! Darkness took me and I remembered no
more.

When I awoke, the first thing I saw was
Irenicus’ face was starring into mine.

“That was only the beginning, Imoen. We have so
many things yet to do…”

Then I noticed Bodhi standing next to him,
smiling cruelly down on me.

“Is it painful, Imoen? How do you feel?” she
asked me.

“Go t’ hell, ya fuckin’ bitch!” I whispered.

She leaped onto the table and grabbed my face
with her claws, forcing my mouth open and then grabbing my tongue.

“Do you want me to rip out your tongue?”

But then she released it again and commented:
“On the other hand, it’s far more enjoyable to hear you scream, wail and beg. But
perhaps I can taste some of your blood…”

She opened her mouth, hissing with her fangs
and descended them into my throat, biting hard into it. I felt her suck, how she
took my blood, but after some seconds she released me, blood dripping from her
mouth.

“Your blood is weak and not tasty. I think I’ll
search myself a more suitable victim.”

Irenicus shook his head as she left.

“I don’t understand her, she is like an animal.
Did you know that she regularly hunts her victims down in the maze in order
to increase the fun? Well, let’s continue…”

He took up his knives again and commented:
“Think of it as an experiment, as an observation, as a course in anatomy. Pain
is only an illusion created by your mind, learn to ignore it.”

Then he released me from the bonds and called
some of his druegars.

“Lift her up against the wall and stretch her arms and legs.”

They did so, pressed my body against the wall
and took my arms and legs, stretching them sideward. What the hell had he in mind now?

I found soon out, for he approached my left arm, a huge spike and a hammer in his
hands. He put the spike against the end of my arm, just where the hand began,
between the ulna and radius. And then I of course realized what he intended: He
wanted to nail me to the wall!

He drove the spike into my arm, each hit painful. When he was
content with the results, he moved to the next arm and did the same there. And then the legs, where he put the spikes at the upper end of the
feet, just where the legs began.

He stepped backwards and looked at his work, at me
hanging there on the wall, supported by the spikes in my body. It was difficult
to breath, I almost caught no air.

“I’m going to return after some hours” he remarked and left the room together with
his druegars, leaving me alone in my pain.

At first I felt the pain heavily, I moaned and
tried to get into a position, where it didn’t hurt so much, but it hurt all the
time. Still, more and more I stopped feeling the pain, I just felt the
heaviness of breathing and total exhaustion. My head was resting on my breasts
and more and more my consciousness slipped away, until all became dark.

How long did I hang there? Hours,
days? I couldn’t tell and I have almost no memory of this time. My
memory returned to me, when Irenicus had already taken me off the wall and laid
me back onto the table.

“Have you finally learned to ignore the physical pain? We
shall see…”

Darnoc: Animals,
Rakshasas and other beasts

Together with Jaheira I hauled the young woman
back up.

“We need to take her to a temple. Do you know
of any around?” I asked Jaheira.

“I thought that there was a temple of Helm a little to the south of here.”

“Well, let’s bring her there.”

I asked Minsc, if he could fetch Lieutenant
Aegisfield. So Minsc went off into the other direction, while I and Jaheira
hauled the woman to the temple of Helm. The other companions followed us.

Jaheira explained the situation to the priest
of Helm, who was pleased to help us. As soon as we exited the temple,
Lieutenant Aegisfield came towards us.

“Minsc heer’s told me everythin’. Yah be good
people, yah really showed those fuckin’ bastards! But now t’
yahr reward. There’s a bounty on dah head o’
this killer. Too bad yah didn’t get ‘im. Ah, well, I’ll still give yah 1500.
Here yah go.”

And with this he handed over to me a bag of
gold.

“Thanks, always a pleasure to serve the public.
Especially when one is paid for it” I replied and winked at Aegisfield.

Jaheira put her hand on my shoulder and
whispered.

“Come; let’s go a little away from the people.
We have to talk.”

So I followed her to a corner of the temple,
where she turned to me and looked earnestly at me.

“Darnoc, we have already wasted enough time here.
You heard about the problems they have in
Trademeet. I need to look into a matter, I am a druid and a Harper; it is my duty.”

I nodded and replied: “You’re right, those
people need our help. This actually might get interesting…”

I told the others of this and they agreed,
especially Minsc, being a ranger and all, was eager to go.

So we set out towards Trademeet. It was a journey of
about a day, we marched on and on, telling each other stories. Especially I, Minsc and
Jaheira, we told the others of our adventures north of Amn. But when Nalia
asked me about Sarevok, I remained silent.

“Don’t ask him, it pains him to talk about it.
Sarevok was his brother” Jaheira
explained.

“Oh, I didn’t know that… They had the same parents?”

Jaheira shook her head.

“No, only the same father: Bhaal,
Lord of Murder.
And Darnoc always fights against the evil
inside him. Sarevok lost this fight, since there had been no one to teach him to fight.
He had given in to his father’s will and embraced the dark powers he received through his
father. In a huge war he wanted to cover the lands in blood and ascend to the throne of his
father. Darnoc killed him and foiled those
horrible plans. But still, killing one’s own brother isn’t easy…”

The memories came back to me. My brother,
mortally wounded, lying in my arms. And then the rage, the hate had come onto
me. I couldn’t stop myself; I just kept on stabbing and thrusting, until my
brother’s corpse was totally mutilated.

I was disgusted of myself and began to choke. A
sickening feeling came over me; I bent over and vomited into the ditch. Aerie
put her arm around my shoulders, trying to
stabilize me.

“Everything alright, Darnoc?” she asked quietly.

“It’s just… the memories, the death of my
brother, I can see it. Oh, gods, help me!”

I threw up again, choking I tried to stand up.
How I looked I cannot tell, but it must have been quite terrible, for the
others looked quite shocked at me.

Minsc came over to me and handed me a bottle of
water. I swigged it and handed it back to him empty.

“Come, Darnoc, let me help you” Minsc offered.
He put his mighty arms around my shoulders and held me up. This way I managed to march on. Some time later I managed on
my own again and I thanked Minsc for his help. He just smiled and Boo squeaked
happily.

It was already evening when we arrived in Trademeet, but we
immediately saw, what was wrong with this city: Wild beasts were attacking the
guards around the gates, so we rushed to
their help. With our help, it didn’t take long to either kill or drive away the
animals.

The captain of the guard came over to us, still panting,
blood on his sword.

“Ah, yah must be dah mercenaries dhee told us would come. Yah
bettahr go to dah mayor, he’ll help yah out. It’s dah
house with dah little towers.”

I thanked him and we marched over to that house. Inside we
asked for the mayor and were told to enter the bureau to the right.

The mayor wasn’t really a mayor but a High
Merchant. His name was Logan Coprith and didn’t seem like a High Merchant
either, but rather like a soldier.

“Oh, well, you’re right, I was indeed a soldier
in the army of Amn once. But that’s a long
time ago. The people of Trademeet appointed me to High Merchant I kept the
peace ever since. But this business with the druids now, this really is quite a
difficult thing. I am glad you came to help us out. Perhaps you should talk to
the druid down in the cells.”

Jaheira asked angrily: “A druid? You imprisoned
a druid?”

Lord Coprith immediately tried to appease:
“Only for his safety, milady, only for his safety. The citizens of Trademeet are rather on the edge right now and
let a druid just walk free among them might lead to unnecessary violence. And we don’t want this,
right?”

“Can we release him?” Jaheira asked.

“Alright, alright, if you look after
him. Here’s the key.”

The druid looked quite miserable in his cell.
He had huddled himself into a corner, but immediately got up, when we entered.

“Can you tell me, what is going around here, brother?” Jaheira asked
him.

“I do not know myself, sister, for I was sent
here from the north to investigate the matter.”

I stepped over to him.

“You’re free, druid. What’s your name?”

“My name is Cernd and as I said, I was sent
here to investigate this matter. I think it’s best if I depart immediately for the druid grove,
we shall meet there.”

“I agree, brother. Until we meet again. May
Mother Nature watch over you, brother” said Jaheira

“And over you too, sister” Cernd replied.

With this he stood up and left the cell. We
followed him, but didn’t leave the city with him. I was tired and still felt a
little sick, so I was rather looking forward to sleep somewhere. Luckily, we
found an inn just next to Lord Coprith’s house, where we spent the night. The
innkeeper told me something interesting, though. It seemed as if a group of dao
genies had bought all goods in Trademeet until their demands were met. Trade
had come to a complete halt in the city of Trademeet, because the prices the dao’s
demanded were exorbitant.

The next morning I stepped over to the dao
genie’s tent next to the city’s gate.

“I hear that you have some demands. It is my wish to
help you out” I told to the dao genie in front of the tent.

“Then come in and speak to our leader” he
replied.

Their leader listened to my proposal and then
explained the whole situation: “We are looking for the Rakshasa Ithafeer. Bring us
her head and we’ll release the goods.”

“Any idea as where to look for her?”

“None, or else we would have done it ourselves,
human.”

That wasn’t much help. But I would at least
keep my eyes open for this Rakshasa. Perhaps I would meet her one day…

The druid grove was a little to the southeast
of Trademeet. Although little is a little understated.
It took us about a day to reach it.

It was a swamp region and I didn’t like the
look of it. Jaheira seemed to feel right at home, though. What exactly would
cause that feeling, I really couldn’t tell. To the north I could make out a
stony bridge and a house with a tower next to it. Perhaps someone there might
give us some directions.

An old woman with her two sons lived there. I
asked her about the druid grove and she told me it was to the west. I was just
about to thank her and leave, when she sniffed the air.

“You have been with the genies, I can smell it!
Traitors, kill them!”

In front of our eyes, the old woman and her two
sons turned into cat-like beasts, with exotic clothes and scimitars. They snarled at us and attacked, swinging
their scimitars. I drew the rose blade and awaited them. The old woman, who had to be
Ithafeer, came hissing towards me. She not only swung her scimitar, but also used her claws to attack
me.

I used my shield to hit her left hand and parried her scimitar with my long sword. With my
strength I was able to push her scimitar away and thrust my own sword at her, but she
quickly jumped aside and stroke at me from above. My shield saved me, though,
and I was able to slash at her feet. She jumped into the air and tried again to
strike from above. This time I thrust my sword forward while she was coming down and
caught her right into the stomach. She hissed in pain and tried to throw
herself on me, claws stretched out. With my shield I pushed her away, my sword
came free and I stroke out and thrust it into her chest.

She collapsed dead on the ground, so I raised
my sword and beheaded her. The head I wrapped in parts of her cloth. The others looked
surprised at me.

“We need some evidence to show the genies” I
replied.

So we continued westwards. It didn’t take long until we
reached the entrance to the druid grove. It was a huge semicircle of stone-pillars, behind them a cave. Cernd already
waited there.

“Ah, you have arrived. I greet you, my sister, and
the others too. You probably wish to know, what is going on here. Well, I have
bad news: It seems as if one of the shadow-druids is now leader of the grove,
her name is Faldorn. In order to free this plagued land of her presence, either
me or my sister here must challenge this shadow-druid. I suggest that my sister
should do it, for she is older and wiser than I am.”

Jaheira nodded and accepted the challenge with
that. Then we entered the grove.

The cave was dark and gloomy, a little creek running
through it, on the left side a large pit. To the right stood a stony throne, a dark-haired woman with black markings in her face sitting on it.

“Who are you that dare to disturb this holy grove?” she
called to us.

“I am Cernd, a druid from the north. I have
been sent here to investigate what has happened here.”

“Hah, I have heard of you, Cernd. I am the new leader
of this grove and anyone who wishes to take my place may challenge me in the
pit. There’s nothing further to say.”

Jaheira stepped towards her, anger flashing in her face.

“This is blasphemy, woman! Your doings are not the will of Mother Nature! I
challenge you, Faldorn!”

Faldorn laughed at this.

“So this is the famous Jaheira! I have hoped to
one day meet you, they tell amazing things of you. And the one standing behind
you must be Darnoc. I can also make out Minsc, the odd ranger from Rashemen with his
hamster Boo. But I do not see Imoen, Darnoc’s sister, Khalid, your husband, and
Dynaheir, Minsc’s witch. What has happened to them? Ah, it is of no importance.
Let us bring this behind us! As soon as you’re dead, Jaheira, the others will
follow you anyway!”

Jaheira and Faldorn took off all their armor and weapons, as it was the
custom. The druids must enter the pit without any weapons, just with their
powers. To each one a wooden staff is granted, nothing more.

Jaheira took up the staff and swung it around.

“A good staff. This Faldorn won’t be much of a
problem, you’ll see” she told me.

Then she entered the pit and the fight began.

Faldorn attacked first, howling at Jaheira.
Jaheira remained calm, simply parried Faldorn, used her own momentum and hit
Faldorn into the back and then on the head. Faldorn stumbled backwards, blood flowing from her head.

She howled in rage and began casting one of her
druid-spells, but never managed. Jaheira jumped towards her, staff stretched at Faldorn
and thrust it right into her chest. Faldorn fell on her back; Jaheira
immediately seized the chance to hit her again, this time right into the face.

But now Faldorn did something unexpected: Her
body began to shift, her skin changed color and some seconds later a large and gray wolf attacked Jaheira.
Jaheira barely managed to defend herself and
soon faced the wall, trying to hold off the claws and teeth of Faldorn.

Suddenly she also began to shift and turned
into a huge brown bear. With one of her huge pranks she hit Faldorn and her enemy flew backwards through the whole pit, hitting
the other wall.

But she immediately came back up again and
jumped howling at Jaheira. Jaheira roared, raised her prank and hit Faldorn while
flying through the air. Faldorn’s stomach was ripped open, her innards hanging out and blood streaming
out of the wound.

She collapsed and changed back into her human
form, moaning in pain. Jaheira stepped over her, growled, raised her prank and
stroke Faldorn right into the face, ripping away half of it. Then Jaheira bent
down and bit off Faldorn’s head. I heard how the skull cracked. Quite
an unpleasant noise.

Turning back into her human form Jaheira
climbed out of the pit and put her things back on. The druids bowed before her,
as she stepped over to the stony throne and sat on it.

“As new leader of this grove, I declare an end to the war against Trademeet. Such violence is
not the will of Mother Nature.”

I went over to her and looked at her sadly.

“I guess this means the end of our travels
together. I will miss you, Jaheira.”

She sighed.

“Yes, indeed, although it pains me
to not be able to avenge my dear Khalid. But duty calls and I must remain
here. Cernd will stay with me, so don’t worry. But promise me one thing: Kill
that son of a bitch, this Irenicus! Kill him for all the things he has done to
us! Kill him for Khalid! Oh, and if you ever manage to rescue Imoen, come and
visit me with her. I would like to see her again.”

We hugged each other. I never had done this,
but we had traveled long together and grown fond of each other. It pained me to
leave her here; I was so used to have her around. Somehow I thought that
something was missing without her being my companion.

Thinking back I remembered how we first had met
in the Friendly Arm, way back in the north. Her husband, Khalid, had been there
with her, waiting for me and Imoen to arrive. They had been quite shocked when they had
heard the news of Gorion’s murder.
Together we had traveled the lands, trying to uncover the mysteries surrounding
Gorion’s death. And we did, yes we did…

So we went back to Trademeet, one companion
less. Lord Coprith awaited us and listened to our tale. He immediately sent
messengers to all the important people of Trademeet and when they arrived he explained everything to
them. We were all declared heroes of Trademeet and Coprith promised to send a messenger to
Jaheira.

After that I went to the genies and handed the
head of Ithafeer over to them. They thanked me and left, leaving all goods
behind. Of course I immediately seized the chance and looked through the
things.

One artifact especially caught my eye: a short bow,
which shimmered slightly. I handed it to Nalia, who was our archer. She tried it out, without
putting an arrow to the string. When she released the string, something extraordinary happened: An arrow, which seemed to be made of
fire, flew from the string towards the woods. There had been no arrow on the string before.

“What the fuck?” I said in total astonishment.

“Geez, a magical bow which creates
its own arrows. Quite a thing” Nalia remarked.

We were just going to the inn, when an elderly
woman came towards us and called us.

“Please, sir, can yah help an old woman? Mee
son, I dunno what’s with him. Somethin’ terrible’s happened, but I dunno what.
Can yah help, please?”

I followed the woman to her house in the north
of Trademeet. Her son sat on a chair in the kitchen, sobbing and trembling.

“They’ve taken Raissa, my dear Raissa! Oh, I don’t wanna imagine
what they’re gonna do to her!” he told me.

“Hey, calm down; just tell me everything that
happened, I’ll try to help you.”

He sniffed and wiped away the tears.

“We were comin’ home from walkin’ in dah woods,
when we were ambushed. I was hit on dah head, so I don’t remember much. When I
awoke I was bound on a chair an’ Raissa, she… she was lying on a table, all
covered in blood an’ this guy without skin was cutting hers off.

I screamed an’ he turned around t’ me, smilin’ viciously.
‘Don’t worry, yun man, yahr turn’ll come soon enough’ he said. And I’d to watch
everythin’, even when he put on mee Raissa’s skin.

He then turned t’ me and cut mee bonds,
probably wanted t’ perform dah same thin’ on me. I immediately took dah chance
an’ fled. Dah skinned creature came after me, but I heard someone call ‘Rejiek!’ an’ dah
creature turned ‘round.”

I looked at my companions. It was the murderous
tanner from the bridge district in Atkatla, he had fled here!

“We will find your love, young man, so don’t
you worry. Where did this happen?”

“To dah west, in dah woods.”

So we walked over there. When we exited the
western gate, a man with a large bow and leather armor was standing there.

“Halt, who are you?” he asked us.

“We could ask the same question” I replied.

“Very well, my name is Darsidian Moor and I’m looking for some
skin dancers. Have you seen some of them?”

“Skin dancers? What do you mean?”

“Oh, they are horrible creatures which take away
the skins of other people and use them as their own. I have tracked down two of
them; they must be here in this town somewhere.”

We all looked surprised.

“We search for the same people!” Aerie cried out.

“Then this is well. I think they might be on
the square to the east. Meet me there as soon
as possible!”

After that he ran away towards the east.

I turned around to my companions.

“Well, what do you think of that?”

Minsc looked troubled.

“I don’t know. Boo doesn’t like the look of
this man, something’s wrong here…”

“I agree, this man isn’t what he seems” Nalia
said

“We must be cautious, do not believe everything
he tells us” Yoshimo added.

“But he’s our only chance to find this horrible
Rejiek! We must find him and rescue that poor girl!” Aerie shouted.

“Very well, let’s go to the square. But be cautious, as Yoshimo has
advised us. I also think that something’s wrong here…”

When we arrived there, quite a sight awaited
us. Darsidian stood next to the gate, his
bow in his hands; Rejiek lay on the ground, an arrow in his chest, he was trembling;
and next to Darsidian stood a young girl, trembling in fear and her face pale from shock.

“Quick, finish him! It’s one of the skin
dancers!” Darsidian called to us.

Something was wrong here, I felt it. So I
stepped over to Rejiek.

“We finally meet again, bastard! I owe you something for all the
people you killed in Atkatla!”

“I’m not Rejiek, he is!” the person on the
floor who looked like Rejiek whispered with the voice of a girl, pointing at
the person who looked like a young girl.

“What the fuck? He wasn’t supposed to talk to
her!” the person who looked like a young girl whispered to Darsidian with the voice of a man. I
still heard him, though.

“Keep quiet, Rejiek! Ah, damn, he heard us, it’s no good anymore!” Darsidian replied.

Then something horrifying happened. Darsidian and Rejiek just took off
their skins like clothing. Two creatures, covered in blood, their muscles
visible stood in front of us and attacked. I drew my sword, let out a scream
and stroke at Rejiek. His body was cut into two parts. Minsc beheaded Darsidian with one quick stroke (“Yeah,
blood shall cover the lands, kill them all!” Lilacor shouted).

The girl, who probably was Raissa, with the
skin of Rejiek on her, whispered to me: “Please, help me! They turned me into
one o’ ‘em! Soon it’ll become permanent; I need dah assistance o’ a cleric!”

So Minsc picked her up and hauled her all the
way to the temple of Waukeen. I took Raissa’s skin with me. In the temple
we quickly changed her skins and then brought her to the cleric.

“What do you need, my son?” the cleric asked
me.

“This girl needs divine assistance. She has been
turned into a skin dancer, a horrible and evil creature. If you do not help
her, the change will soon become irreversible.”

The cleric looked surprised at the girl.

“Isn’t that Raissa, the friend of Tiris? Oh,
blessed Waukeen, this is indeed horrible! I will help you immediately.”

He stepped down to us, put his hand over
Raissa’s face and prayed to Waukeen for assistance. Immediately a pure, white
light flowed from his hand and into Raissa’s body. When it was over, Minsc put
Raissa gently on the floor. The girl stood up and looked at herself.

“It’s gone, I’m meeself again. Thank yah, thank
yah! I must find Tiris, where’s he?”

She hugged Minsc and kissed him on his cheek
and then she ran off. Minsc was quite surprised and touched his cheek. We others
smiled and then we went back to where Tiris lived. Raissa was of course already
there and Tiris opened the door for us. He shook my hand, thanking me about ten
times, laughing happily.

“We’ll marry, Raissa an’ me! I’m so glad yah
were able t’ save her; I’ll never be able t’ repay yah. But if there’s ever
anythin’ yah need from me, please, just tell me.”

I smiled and was indeed happy for the two. But
I was more concerned with a note I had found on Rejiek's body. It was a riddle
and if one could solve it, one would find the name of Rejiek’s master. Somehow
I had the feeling that we hadn’t seen the last of this whole affair…

Imoen:
First Dream

In my cell I sat in a corner, my mind somewhere
else. Pain, endless pain… He had done it all; there was nothing left he could
do to me. Somehow I didn’t even notice it anymore, I just endured it. It had
become routine, it was just something, which happened. As he had told me, I had
simply learned to ignore it.

Covered in blood and dirt, I somehow found
sleep and an escape from the endless pain.

In my dream I was lying on the floor of a
forest, cuddled. The moon and the stars illuminated my surroundings, but I didn’t
heed it. I was just glad to be rid of the pain for some time.

Suddenly a figure stepped out of the bushes, a
figure I had often hoped to see. Darnoc, my brother, had come for me.

His long, dark-blond, almost brown hair was
flowing loose in the wind, the skin of his face glimmered palely in the
moonlight, a shaggy beard covering parts of it, his eyes glowing in a cold grey-blue in the darkness. He smiled and stretched out
his hand, so I took it and he helped me up.

“Follow me, Im. I want to show you something.”

Suddenly the forest changed, it grew bright and
the sun shone above us, while we two almost vanished, just
like ghosts.

In front of us I could make out a boy of about
ten years, his hair blond and a mean grin on
his face, as he aimed with his sling at a crow sitting on a tree.

“Watch that, Im, I’m gonna take this bird down
with my new sling! I can hit it from over fifty meters!”

Suddenly a girl of about the same height and
age as the boy stepped towards him, a angry look
in her face.

“Stop it, Darn, leave the bird alone! What has it
done to you?”

“But… but I just wanna try out my new sling, I
need a target!”

My younger self starred angrily at the young Darnoc, until he dropped his sling.

“Alright, you win. Come on, let’s get back to
Candlekeep!”

Again all turned dark again, moonlight illuminating the
scene. Darnoc turned to me, a gentle smile on
his face.

“Remember that one? It often happened that you
reminded me to not do something. You are my conscience, Im, always were. Without you
being here and warning me, I don’t know, what would happen. Something horrible, I guess.
Im, I need you, I need to find you! I am trying, I really am and soon I’ll be
with you again!”

Suddenly he stepped forward and hugged me close and firmly. Tears appeared in my eyes, as I buried my face
in his shoulder.

“I’ll be soon with you, don’t worry, Im…” he
whispered.

Darnoc faded in front of my eyes, the cell reappeared. And with a shudder I realized
that soon the experiments would begin again.

Darnoc: The
darker side of Atkatla

Imoen stood in front of me, smiling slightly.
Looking around I saw the familiar walls of Candlekeep. It had to be a
dream, this couldn’t be real. But it still somehow felt real.

“D’ ya remember it? We were about ten, when we
met. It now seems all so long ago… Lost in the mists o’ time.
Still, there’s somethin’ I wish t’ show ya. Somethin’ from
the past.”

I tried to speak to her, but couldn’t open my
mouth. She laughed.

“Oh, now that’s interestin’, ya can’t utter any
word at all. Well, ‘ave t’ get used t’ it, I guess.
And this way ya also can’t interrupt me.”

She led me to the square in front of the gates and then
into the forests. Suddenly the environment changed. Before it had all been
empty and silent, now the sun shone, the guards stood in front of the gate and I
heard the noises of the forest.

And then I saw myself. Well, not really myself.
It was my younger self, about ten years old. My younger self had long, thick, blond
hair. Later on it had darkened, now my hair was dark-blond, almost brown. The face of
my younger self didn’t seem to be as earnest and hard as mine was. But my skin was pale
as always.

My younger self was walking from the gates towards the forest, when I suddenly heard a scream. Hearing it too, my younger self stood
still and then rushed towards the origin of the noise.

I followed him and soon came to a group of
trees. A goblin was standing there, attacking Imoen. Well, not really Imoen,
she was a lot younger, but her hair was also fiery-red. The goblin had cut the
younger Imoen in the stomach, luckily just scratched the skin. Imoen was trying
to dodge further blows, but then stumbled over a root and fell backwards.

My younger self grew red of anger, took up a
thick branch and ran towards the goblin, howling in rage. The goblin
looked at the young boy rushing at him in surprise and didn’t react quickly
enough. My younger self hit him over the head, again and again, until green
blood covered it.

Then he let go of the branch and rushed to the
younger Imoen, who sat on the floor and cried.

“Oh my, that doesn’t look too good” my younger
self said in his high-pitched, boyish voice.

“It hurts, Darn, it hurts!” Imoen whispered under
tears, holding her stomach, blood
dripping to the ground between her fingers.

“I killed that damned goblin, now I’ll take you
to father. He can help you, I promise.”

Imoen nodded and my younger self helped her up,
stabilizing her with his arms.

“Darn, d’ ya promise me t’ always be around and help me?”

My younger self laughed joyfully.

“Of course I will or else I wouldn’t be a good
brother, right?”

Suddenly everything changed and became the
empty and silent Candlekeep again. The older Imoen, the present Imoen, was now
standing again in front of me.

“Ya remember this, Darn? Ya promised me, remember? Where are ya now, Darn, when I need ya the most? Please, Darn, help me!”

She came closer to me, until she was only some
centimeters away from my face.

“Darn, think really hard ‘bout what I will ask ya now: Was
I always just a sister for ya? Yar little sister, whom ya tried t’ help an’
protect? Or’s there more t’ it?”

Suddenly she stepped right to me and kissed me.
First I was surprised, but then I realized (with a little shock) that I wanted
this to happen. But then she stepped away again and began to fade, as
everything else did. And with that I awoke.

We were back in Atkatla, in the Copper Coronet,
to be precise. I stretched my arms, yawned and got up. A bowl of water was
standing on the table; I went to it, wanting to wash my face. And then I saw my
mirror image.

My hair was long, thick and dark-blond, hanging into my face, all
dirty and shaggy. I would later on bind it together in a pigtail so that it
wouldn’t be in my way. I hadn’t shaved for months; my beard was thick, as shaggy and in the
same color as my hair. My eyes were grey-blue; they almost had the color of
steel. The outlines of my face were hard and square, the bones of my forehead were
like a roof over my eyes, giving me an almost threatening look. People used to
tell me that I pierced them with my look, as if I could almost see through
them, into them. Hair also covered most of my body, it was thick and dark. Imoen had once called me “Wolf”
and there probably was something to it. Not surprisingly, I had chosen the wolf
as my symbol and tattooed it onto my forehead in blue color.

I remembered the dream, as clear as if it had been real. Was it
possible that Imoen could love me? A man like me? I
always had the feeling that I wasn’t attractive at all. People thought that I
was too sinister, too pessimistic. Imoen was quite the opposite of me. Could it
be possible that someone liked me the way I was? No one had ever loved me.
Well, my father had loved me, my father Gorion, in his own way. And Imoen had
been like a nice sister to me. But love, like love between two adult persons,
was something unknown to me. I was the loner, the one who brooded about
sinister subjects, algebraic formulas, reaction of substances, new technologies
and thought about death, destruction and the never ending fight against evil.
Most people thought that I was unsocial, unfit to have a stable relationship
with anyone (the only exception being my notebook and science). Although there
were always people around me, I had somehow always stood alone and never had minded it. But
now I felt as if something was missing. As if something deep in my soul longed
for something which it couldn’t get and now finally could make itself audible.

My thinking was interrupted by Minsc’s yawn. He
also stretched himself and got up, walking over to me.

“How are you this morning?” he asked me.

“Oh, not bad, and you?”

He just smiled and petted his hamster Boo. This
was answer enough.

When had put our clothes on, we went down into
the main room of the inn. A young man came towards us.

“I greet you in the name of Helm, the
all-seeing! Are you adventurers on the path of righteousness?”

“You could say that. Wherever we go, evil will
be hunted by us.”

“Then I am in good company. May I travel along
with you?”

“I welcome you. My name is Darnoc, the others you’ll learn about soon enough. And what might
your name be?”

“My name is Anomen Delryn and it is my greatest
wish to be accepted into the noblest Order of the Radiant Heart here in Atkatla.”

“Ah, so you wanna become a knight. Then you are welcome indeed, we can always use
knights.”

He sighed.

“Well, I am not a knight yet. I am a priest-warrior of Helm.”

“We might amend this in time. Until then,
travel with us.”

So we had just gotten ourselves a new
companion. Sometimes I wished he would talk less about his achievements in
battle, but one couldn’t complain of his abilities as warrior or priest, for both were
excellent.

The next step, as I perceived it, was to go to
the Shadow Thieves themselves. Perhaps they had some jobs to offer. I didn’t
really like the idea, but what choice did I have? And Yoshimo told me that he
needed to do something for them, for he had somehow angered the Shadow Thieves
in earlier times and he needed to earn their favor again.

The others weren’t happy at all, when they heard about it. Anomen even openly
questioned my decision. But in the end I was able to persuade them that this
was for helping Imoen. Even Anomen admitted that sometimes actions, which
didn’t seem right, had to be done in order to reach a greater good.

Their headquarters of the Shadow Thieves was in
the docks and when we entered, we were immediately greeted by the familiar hooded figures.

“Ah, Darnoc, we thought yah might one day show up heer”
one of them said.

“Yeah, so now I’m here. I’m looking for jobs.”

“Yah bettar talk t’ our
leader, Renal Bloodscalp. He might ‘ave somethin’ for yah.”

I had heard of this Renal Bloodscalp, he was
infamous, the leader of the Shadow Thieves in Amn. Horrible stories of his
accomplishments could be heard in taverns and inns along the sword coast.

I was led around a corner and finally stood in
front of him – and was surprised. He looked different than what I had imagined.
He was quite small and had red hair, his face was covered by several scars, but he didn’t look entirely
unfriendly or menacing.

“Ah, finally we meet! The famous Darnoc, savior of Baldur’s Gate, I
presume? I have imagined you a little… taller.”

“Well, I have also imagined you a little
differently. Perhaps a little more menacing. But on
the other hand, this probably makes you even more dangerous in the long end.”

He laughed.

“Well spoken, well spoken! But I guess your
purpose for visiting me is of another nature. You’re looking for money and I
just might have the thing for you. There’s a leader of a local guild who
troubles me. I think he wants to betray us. So I need you to find out, if this
is true. His name is Mae’Var and his guild is just a little to the east of
here.”

“Hm, sounds like a good offer. I accept.”

But in fact I didn’t like the idea at all. My companions neither, with the exception of Yoshimo, who seemed to
be eager to please the Shadow Thieves.

In order to accomplish this task, Renal gave us
identification papers. I showed them to the innkeeper at Mae’Var’s guild house, for the guild was
disguised as a simple inn.

“Hm, you seem to be okay. Just go down the
stairs into the cellar” the innkeeper told us.

Mae’Var was just about to torture a prisoner, when we
interrupted him. He wasn’t really delighted to see us.

“New guys? Can’t yah see that I’m fuckin’ busy
here? Go and ask Edwin, the ol’ wizardin‘ bastard, he might ‘ave somethin’ to do for
yah, for fuck’s sake!”

Now that was quite a surprise. Could it be that
with “Edwin” he meant Edwin Odesseiron, whom we had met in Nashkell and who had
wanted to kill Dynaheir? To my dismay I had to find out that this was indeed so.

Edwin didn’t seem to remember our encounter at
all. He just told us that he wanted to see one of the cowled wizards dead who had been snooping around lately. His name was Rayic
Gethras and his house was also here in the docks. Although I had no reason to
love the cowled wizards, murder was still a little tough to stomach.

But what other choice did I have? I needed the
money desperately and in order to save Imoen I would do anything, even murder
someone. I just hoped that Imoen was somehow able to appreciate that fact.

In front of the house I told the others to wait
outside. This dirty business I could do by myself. I entered the house of this
wizard and found him reading a book, not
noticing my entrance. I drew my sword and stepped behind him.

“Are you Rayic Gethras?” I asked him.

He turned around, startled.

“Yes, I am. What do you want?”

“Your end has come, wizard. Some people think that you have
put your nose too deep into things which aren’t your business.”

The wizard’s eyes widened in fear and he fell to his knees.

“Don’t kill me, please, I beg you! I can offer
you money! Take it, let me live!”

First I wanted to tell him that I was sorry,
but then I felt anger rise in me. How could I feel sorry for one of the guys
responsible for Im’s capture? Something seemed to burst in me, a rage grown in
desperation. I saw it all again, how they took her away and how I couldn’t do
anything to hinder it.

“You have taken her from me, you hear, piece of shit! You fucking bastard, you motherfucking son of a bitch,
die!”

My sword penetrated his throat with one quick
thrust. The wizard gurgled, foam appeared on his mouth. I pulled my sword back out
again and stabbed him into the chest, pulled it out again and stabbed him,
again and again, until he was just a bloody bundle, barely recognizable as human anymore.

After this I stepped back, panting heavily, and
leaned against the wall. The corpse of the wizard lay there on the floor, the blood
slowly covering more and more area around him. And as it embarrasses me to say this, I was glad to
have done it, I was happy to have killed him. But then I realized that revenge
wouldn’t rescue Imoen. I began to weep, when I thought about her being
captured. I was ashamed of myself that I hadn’t been able to keep my promise to
her. I was a disgrace and killing Cowled Wizards wouldn’t make anything better.

When I came out again, my face was a mask of
frustration and desperation. Minsc patted me on the shoulder, probably somehow
feeling what was going on.

“We’ll find her, Darnoc, Boo and I won’t rest until we
do… Damn those wizards!” he said.

I smiled, wanting to show him that I hadn’t
given up hope yet.

Edwin was pleased with the results, although he
didn’t really show it. He handed some documents to me and told me to give them
to Renal. Those documents would prove Mae’Var’s betrayal. I was rather shocked
about Edwin’s easiness to just betray his master.

I handed the documents to Renal, who looked
through them and finally laughed.

“Great, this is all I need. Now you can go and
kill this annoying asshole! Can you believe this; he wanted to hire assassins
to kill me!”

“Hey, wait, you wanted evidence for his
betrayal, you didn’t hire me for killing him and his thugs!” I protested.

“Hm, let’s just say that the conditions of our
contract have just changed.”

I had no other choice than to accept. What else
was there to do, I needed the money and was at the mercy of Renal.

So we went back to Mae’Var’s guild. Gorch, the innkeeper
didn’t suspect anything, so he just asked us, what we wanted. I stepped up
close to him, drew my sword and drove it into his chest. The other thieves in
the room were surprised and didn’t react immediately, so my companions had time
to take out their weapons and finish them off. There was little resistance.

Mae’Var himself waited down in the cellar and looked furiously at me, his
short sword drawn. From the noises upstairs he must have guessed, what was
going on.

“Yah betrayed me, yah fucking shithead! But
I’ll ensure yah won’t live to enjoy it, I’ll swear by Cyric!”

He jumped over the table in front of me and
quickly thrust his sword at me. I stepped aside, so he missed me and tried to
hit him with an overhead-stroke. But he also dodged and tried to get into my
back. I reacted quickly, though, turned around and parried his attack, then pushing his
sword away with my strength and thrusting my sword into his stomach.

He looked down on himself in surprise and saw
the sword. Blood began dropping from the wound and he let go of his short
sword. With one forceful pull I took my sword out of his body and thrust it
into his chest, right where his heart was. When I pulled my sword out again, his
lifeless body collapsed to the floor.

Renal was extremely pleased with our results
and handed us our money, ten thousand all in all. But I couldn’t stop thinking
that I was holding blood-money in my hands.

We headed back to the Copper Coronet, where
already a messenger waited for us. When he saw Nalia, he stepped over to her.

“Are yah Lady Nalia de’Arnise?”

“Yes, I am. What is it that you want?”

“I’ve an urgent message for yah. Yahr father’s
burial’ll take place today. That’s all.”

After he had left, Nalia turned to me.

“I have to go to the burial.”

“Of course, we’ll accompany you, Nalia” I
replied.

Lord de’Arnise was buried in a richly decorated
tomb in the graveyard district of Atkatla. Many mourners had come, for the Lord had been
loved by his people. One man particularly caught my eyes. He wore rich clothes, had
long, golden hair and the look of someone who was used to command.

“Isaea Roenal!” Nalia hissed, when she saw him.

Nalia had told me of him, it was her fiancé. He
came towards us, as soon as he had seen us.

“Ah, my dear Nalia, you finally have arrived. And this must be this Darnoc you so unwisely decided to put
in charge of your lands.”

“What I do with my lands is my affair, Isaea”
Nalia replied coldly.

“But my dear, we are engaged! Soon I will be your
husband, so you must learn to do what I want.”

I hated him from the first time I saw him. He
was an arrogant, noble fool. And he was dangerous.

“Lady Nalia has put me in charge of the defense of her lands. And
I will fulfill my duty, at all costs and against all enemies” I told him, while
looking menacing at him.

Isaea understood quite well, what I had wanted
to tell him with that.

“Ah, the barbarian can speak! How entirely
fascinating! And he has quite a witty tongue too!”

“Be careful, what you say, Isaea, my sword doesn’t
make any distinction between commoners and nobles” I warned him.

He glanced angrily at me.

“This hasn’t been the last time we’ve met, Darnoc, so you better watch out!”

And with this he left the burial. I had the
distinct feeling that he was planning something and that I wouldn’t like it.

Indeed, when we finally left the burial, we were
stopped by several guards.

“Lady Nalia de’Arnise, yahr fiancé’s commanded
us t’ put yah und’r our protection. Would yah please follow us?”

I wanted to draw my sword, but Nalia told me to
stop with a quick glance.

“Try to find a way to free me. You’ve cleansed
my castle, you should be able to do something against Isaea, I guess.”

Grinding my teeth I watched as the guards took her away. I was still starring at them, when a guard came from behind.

“If yah wanna do somethin’ agains’ Isaea, I
suggest yah talk t’ Barg. He’s at dah docks, probably near dah Sea Bounty, a sailor with an ugly scar on ‘is left cheek. Yah should also
check Isaea’s house in dah north o’ dah government district. I’ve opened it.
There should be some interestin’ thin’s for yah t’ find. Bring any evidence yah
find to Isaea’s superior, Corgeig Axehand.”

He didn’t tell me, how or why he did this and
left. I never saw him again.

First I went to Isaea’s house. Thoroughly we searched it and finally Aerie found an
interesting book in one of the chests. It had some interesting facts about
Isaea’s finances. Something wasn’t right, money seemed to appear out of nothing and some disappeared without trace.

Barg we easily found, he was just hanging around the Sea Bounty, drunk.

I talked to him, asked him about his
profession. He proudly announced that he was a pirate and that he worked for a
certain Officer Dirth. He was also really pleased to tell me that Dirth
actually worked for Isaea Roenal, after I handed a bottle of whisky over to him.

Dirth we found in the Sea Bounty. He was a
small man with a swarthy face and several scars were on his face, his eyes darted through the room, examining
everyone.

“You’re Officer Dirth?” I asked him

“Yeah, what yah want?”

“We are friends of a mutual friend: Isaea Roenal.”

He sniffed like a dog.

“Is that so? Now wait, yah look familiar. Where do I know yah from?”

“Not possible, we never met.”

He examined me closely and then realization
seemed to strike him.

“Yah’re dah one who killed Captain Haegan! I
finally got yah, bastard! By Bane, Yah’re gonna bleed!”

He drew his short sword and slashed at me; I
quickly jumped back and drew my own sword. He advanced, thrusting his sword,
but I blocked with my shield and thrust my own sword at him, without success,
since he stepped aside.

This time he tried to strike at me from above
and then quickly cut underneath, but I parried and stroke at his undefended
middle. My sword slashed over his chest, blood splashed on my shield. Dirth
screamed and tumbled backwards, but he wasn’t mortally wounded.

Quickly he recovered and attacked again,
furiously he swung his sword. I simply thrust my shield into his face, breaking
his nose, then I stroke with my sword beneath my shield, cutting his knees. He
shrieked and fell to the ground, at the same time trying to thrust his sword at
me, but I was able to parry.

Stepping back I examined him. He was panting
heavily, blood wetting his shirt from the wound I gave him on his chest. I had
to react, before he could get up again, so I stepped forward and thrust my sword directly into
his chest again. His breathing grew fainter and finally stopped, so I pulled
out my sword, cleaned it on his clothes and sheathed it again.

The guests of the inn had watched the fight,
but now that it was over, they went back to their drinks. Such fights seemed to
be a common sight here. I quickly searched Dirth’s pockets and found a letter from
Isaea in which he told Dirth about some problems with the slavers. I grinned,
for it was I who had caused those problems by killing the slavers.

The book and the letter I brought to Corgeig
Axehand in the council building. Luckily, Corgeig took my accusations seriously
and arrested Isaea. He also let Nalia go,
who thanked me for the effort I put into helping her. But I was sure that we
hadn’t seen the last of Isaea. Somehow he would be able to get out of the mess
I brought him into.

After that we went back to the Copper Coronet
and I hoped to get some rest. But I shouldn’t get it, for there was another
messenger waiting for us. He wanted to speak to Anomen.

“Yahr father requests yahr presence, Lord. It’s
urgent, yahr sister is dead.”

Anomen’s face grew pale, but he finally managed
to answer: “Yes, tell my father that I will come.”

After the messenger had left, Anomen sat down.
I could see that he was barely able to hold back the tears.

“I… I have to go, Darnoc. You understand, don’t you?”

I nodded and put my hand on his shoulder.

“I’m deeply sorry for your loss. If you want,
I’ll accompany you and the others will too, I think.”

They all nodded in agreement and Anomen smiled
thankfully.

Anomen’s father was a mask of grief and
bitterness, but I still could make out some resemblance between the two.

“My son, you have returned at the most grievous
hour to me. Your sister has been murdered and I know how much she had meant to
you. But I know the name of the bastard who did this: Saerk Farrahd, our life-long enemy! He has
hired killers and has taken the last thing precious to me! My son, it is your
duty to avenge your sister! Kill Farrahd so that your sister’s tormented soul may
find peace!”

All blood vanished from Anomen’s face; I saw
the conflict inside of him. He was torn apart by rage and sorrow for his
sister’s death, but on the other hand was his oath to Helm, his oath to serve
the law. He put his hand on my shoulder and moved me away to an alcove, where
his sister’s ashes were resting in an urn.

“What shall I do, Darnoc! Please, help me! I don’t know, what
to do, I don’t know…”

And finally he began to cry, the tears he had hold back came now
streaming down his face, his body shaking. I patted his shoulder, trying to
comfort him.

“Anomen, I too am furious and full of sorrow
about what has happened to your sister. But we must not let this befuddle our
reason. We do not know if this Farrahd has really hired killers to murder your
sister and from what I have seen of your father, I simply believe that in his
sorrow he just blamed all on his old enemy. If we can find the truth, then by
all means, we will find a way to do something. But first we have to be certain.
Ask your father about it, there must be something, a clue, a
piece of evidence, whatever.”

Anomen sniffed, wiped away the tears and nodded. A determined look on
his face he stepped back to his father.

“How do you know that it was Farrahd, father? What makes you so
certain?”

Anomen’s father seemed to be astonished that
Anomen even asked.

“What are you talking about? Of course it was Farrahd, who else should it have been?
Farrahd has the power and he always
wanted to destroy the Delryn family!”

“But is there any evidence which points to Farrahd? Anything?”

Anomen’s father shook his head in disbelief.

“How can you even doubt it? It was Farrahd, I tell you, and I don’t need
evidence to know that!”

Sighing, Anomen turned around and walked away, back to me.

“You are right, Darnoc. What shall I do now?”

I remained silent, thinking desperately of a
solution. But then I remembered something. During my research, I had found out certain things
which might be helpful in order to identify the killer. I had always believed
that science was the clue to the future, not magic. Magic may be good at the
moment, but magic doesn’t really change, doesn’t improve. With the help of science,
we would one day be able to do things not even magic could do. Science could
advance, improve. That was the strength of it. And right now I could prove it
its usefulness.

So I reached back into my backpack, taking out
the leather-enclosed book full of sketches and notes. There was something which
could be helpful now. In my research I had also studied humans and other
creatures and found that all humanoid beings had different fingerprints. There
were also other marks which people left; one had just to know where to look for them. And if
one knew, those marks could tell everything about the person which left them.

Smiling, I went to the room of Anomen’s sister,
my companions following me. I motioned them to stay out and took out my enlargement glass. I was very proud of
this, for I had invented it myself. With the glass I could make objects appear larger. And it was quite a neat way to
make a fire too.

I found several marks there. One I identified as
Anomen’s, by looking at Anomen’s fingers. Some were similar to his, I guessed they were his
sister’s and some his father’s. But there were other, strange fingerprints. On
a piece of paper I carefully copied the fingerprint. Whoever had made it, was probably the
killer. Especially since the fingerprint was on a piece of broken glass from
the window the killer had entered.

Something else caught my eye: The killer’s
shoes had been dirty; several footprints were on the carpet. From the looks it appeared that the killer had worn soft
shoes, like thieves used them in order to sneak. They also indicated a small
person, probably a Halfling.

On a small chair I found splinters of steel.
Judging from the looks of them, they had probably been from a dagger. There was
also some liquid on them, which I identified as a widely used poison with the
help of my glass and with my sense of scent. But what was most importantly, the
splinters glowed bluish, the dagger had been magical. I could even identify the
dagger: A dagger of the Shadow Thieves, forged in Amn by the looks of the
steel.

So, the killer had been a hired Halfling from
the Shadow Thieves. Since I had already conducted business with Renal
Bloodscalp, he might be persuaded to reveal the identity of the killer for a
certain amount of money.

When I revealed my findings to my companions,
they were dumbstruck.

”And all that you found out by
looking at the room?” Nalia asked suspiciously.

I nodded proudly and explained them what I
intended to do. They didn’t like the idea of using the Shadow Thieves again,
but Anomen said firmly that he would do everything in order to find his
sister’s killer.

Renal was also impressed and probably saw me
now in a different light. He didn’t even try to deny that it was one of his
people who did it.

“Well, I might be… persuaded to help you. You
have already showed your value for our organization, Darnoc. Certainly
more than a mere Halfling-assassin. Hm, let me think… I will need some
money to conduct certain investigations… a thousand will do, I guess.”

So I handed him the money. He turned to his
henchman and whispered with them. After a long and seemingly heated whispered
discussion, at which’s end he handed some of the money to his henchmen, he
turned around again.

“I have acquired the piece of information you
wanted. The name of the killer is Nemal Swift who often takes on delicate
missions. You can find him mostly sitting around in the Sea Bounty tavern.”

Nemal Swift was indeed in the tavern, sitting
at the bar and drinking a mug of beer.

“Yeah, I’m dah guy. Got a contract for me?” he
answered my question.

Anomen’s face became red from rage; he pulled
out a dagger, gripped Nemal around the neck and held it to his throat.

“Who has hired you to murder my sister, scum?
Answer quickly, or I shall send you to the abyss!”

Stuttering, Nemal replied: “Wha…. what d’yah mean?
Yah’re si… sister, who a… are yah?”

“I’m the son of Lord Delryn and you have
murdered my sister! Who has hired you?” Anomen screamed furiously.

“Lord Farrahd, yes, ‘t was him!
Don’t hurt me, I just have to make a livin’!”

“I will tear him to pieces, I hate him and I
curse him! You’ll die, you fucking bastard, you fucking piece of shit, you…” Anomen
screamed.

He wanted to slit Nemal’s throat, but I grabbed
his hand. Furiously, Anomen turned around and hit me into my nose; blood began to
flow from it.

“Come to your senses, man! You want to become a
paladin, so begin acting like one! We have to bring this Halfling in front of
the council and formally accuse Farrahd of murder!”

Slowly Anomen let go of the Halfling and
stepped away. Minsc grabbed Nemal instead.

“You… you are right, Darnoc. Forgive me for my behavior, it
was not worthy of a paladin. It’s just that… I am so full of hate, I really
want to kill Farrahd, but I know I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, come on, you are human, like I am. We have our
faults, nobody is perfect. I won’t condemn you for showing feelings. So, let us
go and bring this bastard in front of a court! Oh, wait, I almost forgot…”

I pulled out the piece of paper on which I had
drawn the fingerprint of the killer, took Nemal’s hand and compared the two. They matched perfectly.

“Well, he’s the guy. Off we go!”

Commissioner Brega in the council hall listened
carefully to everything, which I told
him. Then he questioned Nemal, who was still frightened to death.

Finally he sighed and turned to me: “You have
done a good job and I congratulate you. If all my guards were that good, we would have no
problems with crime in our city! Of course, I’ll immediately dispatch a squad
to arrest this Saerk Farrahd.”

Saerk Farrahd was arrested and dragged to the council
hall under loud protests. Judge Brylanna set a date for the trial and Farrahd was put into the prison until
that time. The trial would be the next day and it was almost certain that Nemal
and Saerk would be sentenced to death for murder; the evidence was too striking
for anything else. Soon the whole city knew of what had happened and Farrahd’s name and honor was utterly
ruined. All who had business with his family immediately stopped them out of
protest, declaring openly that they never knew of such outrageous dealings of the Farrahd family.

We awaited the next day anxiously and went to
the council hall around noon. The trial was set for then. I was asked to
come forth and tell what I had found out, then Nemal was questioned again and
finally Saerk Farrahd himself. He saw no point in denying anything any longer and
confessed his crimes in order to spare his family. Clan liability was a common
practice in Amn and other nations.

It came as it had to come: Saerk Farrahd was sentenced to death by
decapitation, Nemal to quartering.

His head held up proud, Farrahd stepped up to the executioner
and put his head on the block. The executioner, wearing the common mask of every
executioner, raised his axe and let it fell down. The crowd cheered when Farrahd’s head rolled down from the
pedestal. Although I had hated Farrahd for what he had done, I disliked those
mass-spectacles even more. I didn’t stay to watch the quartering of Nemal and my companions
followed me, even Anomen.

Imoen:
Torches

It was a hall I hadn’t been in before. There
was none of the usual instruments, no table, no knives and no cage.

“What’s this?” I asked Irenicus.

He waved at some of his druegars and they began tearing off my clothes. I screamed and
tried to defend myself, but they were stronger and I was weak and weary. Soon I stood naked in front of
Irenicus and again he waved at his druegars. They grabbed my arms and bound them, then binding the
rope to a beam on the ceiling with the help of a ladder.

“From this point, I declare that you are no longer a sentient being. You are my object of experiment. You have
no name and will be referred to as ‘it’ from now on. It doesn’t need any
clothes. Food will be provided for it, in order for it to continue its
miserable existence until it is of no further use.”

He stepped towards me and starred at me.

“Bring it nourishment” he finally commanded.

The druegar brought bowls with horrible things
in them. What was most horrible about everything was that I recognized them.
There was a human heart, a human liver, a human stomach and a lot of other things, all taken
from humans.

“Most of the things here are from its former friend, Dansia.
Eat!”

I shuddered, as I looked at the body parts. Could they really be from
Dansia?

“No!” I screamed at Irenicus.

“It will eat, once it gets hungry” he commented
calmly.

He turned his back to me and looked at the
wall, where four torches hung, illuminating the room.

“How many torches are on the wall? It must tell me!”

“Four torches. There are four torches” I replied in a tired
voice.

He turned around, rage flashing in his eyes
(although I realized that he was only acting, he couldn’t feel rage, hate or
anger at all).

“There are five torches, say it! Say it and everything
will be fine! Five torches!” he screamed at me.

What the fuck did he want? Was he out of his
mind?

“No, there are four, I’m certain” I replied as
calmly as possible.

“Five! Five! Five!” he screamed.

He turned to the wall again and said calmly:
“Hit it with the whip. Perhaps it will learn then.”

One of the druegar approached from behind and began to
hit me, again and again, until my back seemed to be made out of fire. I
screamed and whimpered, but I didn’t tell him that there were five torches. He
wouldn’t bring me to accept a lie! But perhaps I could simply lie; perhaps he
wouldn’t notice the difference.

“There ‘re five
torches” I said.

His look seemed to pierce me.

“No, it doesn’t really believe it. It lies! It
must believe it! I will leave it now to think about it.”

He left the room; nothing remained in there,
except the bowls with the body parts and the torches on the wall. I don’t know,
how long I hung there, my arms began to ache more and more.

When he returned, I begged him: “I’m thirsty,
please!”

He put a bowl beneath my mouth, so I could sip
it, like a dog. But it wasn’t water.

“Blood, it’s fuckin’
blood!”

“Drink or die of thirst, it matters not to me”
he replied.

Again he walked towards the wall and began to speak: “It
must understand. Reality is an illusion we create. Reality is what we believe
it to be. So, if it and I believe that I was flying, it would be true. Believe
that there are five torches and there will be five torches!”

“No, ya won’t twist my mind, ya sick bastard!” I screamed at him.

Suddenly he turned around and flung a magical missile at
me. Pain shot through my body, a scream left my lips.

“Every time it gives an unsatisfactory answer,
it will feel pain. It will feel more and more pain, the more unsatisfactory
answer it gives.”

That time he left me for a longer time, until I
really began to feel thirst and hunger. I wouldn’t care what it was I drank, if it only
was something to drink!

“Alright, gimme the blood, please!” I whispered with a hoarse voice, when he returned.

“Wonderful, it begins to learn” he remarked and handed me the bowl.

I sipped the blood as if it was the best thing
I ever had drunk in my life, I sipped it like an animal, but I didn’t care any longer.

“Something to eat?” he asked me.

“Yes, gimme, gimme!” I whispered and he handed
me the bowl with the human heart.

With my teeth I grabbed it and began to eat. It
was difficult without the hands, but somehow I managed, although my face was
covered in blood afterwards.

“Again I ask it: How many torches?”

“Four!” was my defiant answer.

He shook his head and said: “It is no use, it
doesn’t seem to learn. It can leave, if it wishes.”

Hope was kindled in my heart, as I heard those words.

“Can I really go? Would ya really lemme go?”

“Yes, but then I would have to continue on Darnoc. If I can’t have it, I must have
its brother. I already captured him and everything is ready.”

“No, it can’t be, it
isn’t possible!”

“Yes, it is possible. It is true. Does it still
want to leave?”

I howled in despair, I hated him; he had just
taken all hope from me!

“I’ll stay…” I whispered.

“I thought so. I’ll leave it to think a little
more.”

Next time he came back, he had his set of
knives with him.

“How many torches?” he asked again.

“Four, ya bastard!”

“Alright, it is still fighting. Perhaps it will
stop afterwards.”

He moved closer to me, a knife in his hand, and
he began to cut me skin. He cut it all around, until he was able to take it off, like a
piece of clothing. Blood dripped onto the floor, as he put my skin on. It was
one of the most horrible sights I had ever seen. He looked now almost like me,
covered in blood, but there was something twisted about it all, something not
right. The color of the eyes, for example, and also the fact
that the skin seemed to be dead. And then he grinned, what gave me the
rest, it just looked so horrible, like a corpse grinning at me, only that I was
the corpse. I just screamed, even more when I realized that I was bleeding to
death.

He took off the skin again and put it back onto
me, healing me with a spell.

“Now wasn’t that something?” he asked me.

“Ya bastard, ya fuckin’, heartless bastard, leave me! Lemme die!”

“What is real and what isn’t? This skin it is
wearing, it is nothing, an illusion, a
cover. What is real is inside of it. Physical reality is nothing! It must learn to ignore it, to not heed it, to
adapt it to its needs! If it is needed that there are five torches, it must learn to see five torches!”

I tried; I really tried, to stop the pain. I
only needed to convince myself that there were five torches. And after staring at the four torches sometime,
thinking all the time that there were actually five torches, I really almost
saw five torches.

“I think… I can see five torches…”

“Excellent. Now, to something
else.”

He waved at some of his druegar and they brought in a strange
device. It was a cage and in it there were rats, huge, fearsome, hungry rats. At the cage was a
door and attached to it was a kind of basket, which could be fitted onto a
head. My head, I realized.

The druegar brought in a steel chair, unbound
me and bound me to the chair, putting the cage onto my head.

“If I pull this small lever, the door of the
cage will open and the rats will start eating it. They are hungry; they will certainly eat
its fresh flesh. Does it want to be eaten by rats?”

“No, no, get them away from me!”

“A life for a life, if it isn’t killed,
somebody else has to die!” Irenicus screamed at me.

“Anyone, I don’t care, just take them away from me!”

“No, it must name somebody specific, who shall
be eaten?”

Only one name came to my mind, Darnoc would safe me, Darnoc would safe me from the rats, I
couldn’t think of anything else. Darnoc would sacrifice himself for me, I would
live, I must live!

“Darnoc, Darnoc, take Darnoc; get the rats away from me!” I screamed
in total panic.

Irenicus removed the cage and I sighed in
relief, trembling.

“It has betrayed its own brother; it is like an
animal, only wanting to live. A human would have sacrificed himself instead of
betraying the ones he or she loved. But it isn’t a human; it is an animal, a
beast, a monster. It is inside of it, it is it.”

“No, no, I am not a monster, I am not an
animal!”

“Yes, it is a murderous beast and it will learn to accept it!”

Darnoc: Down
the sewers

After the execution, Nalia told me that she had
to leave for her castle.

“Got to look after things, you know. I suggest
you come soon; it’s also your castle now. And I don’t think we have seen the
last of Isaea…”