iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid - Tumblr blog

iguessyouregonnamissthepantyraid · 1 day ago

Text

idk if i'll ever actually write the "bg3 companions get dumped into curse of strahd" thing, but. BUT. i've definitely at least written an opening scene

Gale’s first thought, as the teleportation spell backfires and quite literally blows up in his face with a great crackle-bang-BOOM and sends him careening backward, is a mildly embarrassed gods, I haven’t buggered a spell that badly since that whole Death Slaad mess.

That’s his first thought.

His second, after his back slams none-too-gently into the dirt and he flinches against the impact, before his eyes have quite opened back up, is that no, he didn’t bugger the spell at all. He wouldn’t have. He couldn’t have. He’s performed the components of that spell so many times over the last several months that they’ve damn near become muscle memory! So what in all the hells could have possibly gone wrong?

His third thought, of course, is alright, so where did I end up, and unfortunately, cracking his eyes open does very little to help answer that question. There’s nothing above him but a pale grey sky churning with some pale grey clouds, framed on all sides by the lifeless naked branches of some darker grey trees, and—

Hang on. Isn’t it the middle of summer?

Gods, he must have ended up very far north if the trees have already lost their leaves here. Neverwinter? Mirabar? Further?

Well. On the bright side, at least he still seems to be in one piece. No limbs left behind in Waterdeep, anyway. He groans a bit as he sits up, still winded from the collision with the ground, and takes a better look at his surroundings.

Hm. Not much more to see at ground level than there was looking straight up, to be honest. Just… trees, really, many of them quite dead or nearly there, stretching on for gods only know how far. He certainly can’t see a break in the trees; between the low light and the fog, they all sort of blend together into shadow after a few dozen meters or so. The nearest town could be more than a day’s walk away or less than a few minutes over a hill for all he knows.

Behind him, a twig snaps.

Gale jumps—good gods, he hadn’t realized how quiet it was out here—and he pushes himself hurriedly to his feet, brushing the dirt off his robes as he does. He turns, and he finds the source of the noise straight away: There’s a vague bluish silhouette some distance through the trees, half hidden, hazy through the fog. A person of relatively average height, maybe a bit on the shorter side. Or hunched over? Maybe both?

Whoever they are, they seem to be completely alone.

“Er, hello!” Gale calls out, waving. “I’m Gale.” Then, as an afterthought, “Dekarios.”

Somewhere above them, there’s the creak of wood as a passing gust sends the trees into a slow ripple. A raven lets out a few braying caws, swooping high up through the branches. In the distance, hopefully the very far distance, a wolf howls.

But that’s it. No other sound.

Certainly no response from this mysterious stranger, at any rate. There’s a bit of a magical aura about them, actually, now that Gale’s really paying attention. It’s a shimmer of Weave hovering over their form, faintly crackling. Bluish, almost black, the kind of thing that’s hardly visible at all and then vanishes entirely when you try looking straight at it.

Not a sorcerer, he doesn’t think. Their magic usually has a certain… something to it, something that’s rather easily detectable. Another wizard, then?

Oh, that won’t be good.

Wizards, present company admittedly included, tend to be somewhat territorial.

“Ah. Sorry if I’ve, er… stumbled into some private property,” Gale continues, squinting through the fog. “Sincerely. It wasn’t my intention at all, I assure you. It seems my teleportation spell went a bit awry. Not the faintest idea how. I meant to end up just across town, and at a designated waypoint, no less. You see, I’m a professor at Blackstaff— that’s— erm…”

He trails off, catching himself before he can go on a long-winded explanation of where he’s from and what he does for a living.

The stranger still has yet to move, let alone speak. Whoever they are, they’ve hunched over further, and they might have a hand on their head. He thinks he can make out a face. Almost. Just the barest suggestion of a set of brows, the outline of a nose. Might be a man? Gah, to have the eyesight of an elf right about now!

“Sorry,” he says again, tentatively stepping closer. “I’m afraid I really have no idea how far away I’ve ended up. Can you understand me at all? Are you…?”

He hesitates, still squinting.

No mistake about it, the stranger is hunched over, and they’ve got both hands on their head now.

“Are you alright?” Gale asks. “It’s just— No offense meant, of course, but you don’t… seem all that well, and I—”

He feels the thrum of Weave before the spell is actually cast.

It’s hasty and sloppy, but it’s damned powerful, and he hardly has a split second’s warning before thunder rumbles overhead and—

He lets out a panicked squeak, dropping to the ground and throwing himself in the general direction of absolutely anywhere other than where he was just standing—and a sizzling, scorching bolt of lightning rips by close enough to send static into his hair. The blast is painfully loud, like someone’s deliberately gone and clapped a hand over his left eardrum. He can feel the heat of it through his robes, and he’s already midway through the vocal component of Dimension Door before he’s even made the conscious decision to run rather than fight.

But forget fighting, right? He has no idea where he is, nor with whom he’s dealing, and it’s probably safest to get his bearings before he starts an incredibly ill-advised duel in the middle of the woods.

He scrambles to his feet, and—

—and stumbles back.

Something’s wrong with his Dimension Door.

Something is very wrong with his Dimension Door.

Where there’s usually a lovely little portal carved into the air all resplendent in shimmering blue light, now there’s just… darkness, like a shadow has overtaken it, black smoke curling along its edges. And oh, gods, are those hands flickering in the darkness? Are his eyes playing tricks on him, or are there… spirits, or wraiths, or several somethings trapped in his Dimension Door, all trying to claw their way out? But that doesn’t make any sense! You don’t get trapped in a Dimension Door. And besides, the spell certainly feels normal, he can sense exactly where it opens up on the other side, so theoretically he could just—

Nope. No, no, he’ll pass, thank you very much.

Right. Expeditious Retreat it is, then.

He casts it on himself and starts running, and not a moment too soon. As he’s sprinting around trees and dodging branches and leaping over roots, there’s another crackle of lightning behind him, and a tree somewhere to his right explodes in a great burst of electricity and flame, branches tumbling in a pitiful smoulder down into the dirt.

This person certainly isn’t pulling their punches. If he’d taken that bolt of lightning, he’s not sure he’d be faring any better than that tree is.

He spins around, pausing just long enough to place his attacker’s silhouette in the distance and bring an Ice Storm down upon it, and then he’s sprinting off again. Maybe it’ll hurt them, maybe it’ll just slow them down—one can certainly hope for both—but either way, he’s not getting any closer to try and find out. He’s only got so much time before this Expeditious Retreat spell inevitably fades.

Another spell comes roaring up behind him, a Fireball this time, but all it does is send heat radiating through the back of his robes, haloing his vision in a great wash of orange light from behind.

He doesn’t bother with another spell. He’s clearly succeeding in getting some distance, and it won’t do to slow down now.

There’s a howl from his attacker—much further away now, angry, wild, and probably a male voice if he had to wager a guess—and the popping snap of unfettered Weave. Whatever spell is cast, it doesn’t hit Gale, but he certainly hears it, and he certainly feels it rumbling through the earth beneath his boots.

Still mid-sprint, he chances a quick glance behind him, and he sees a far-off harsh violet light, electricity zapping in arcs through the air, branches snapping off the trees above and plummeting down, and he turns around to keep running, and—

“Gale? Holy shit, is that really— AH!”

— and runs directly into someone twice his size.

The two of them go careening into the dirt in a terribly uncoordinated tumble of limbs, and Gale ends up with something metal jabbing into his stomach and a face full of someone else’s hair before they both hit the ground. His own hair is blown all over the place, his robes all twisted around, and now he’s got one hell of a bruise forming where his hip just slammed into—what is that, cobblestones? A road? Did he finally get out of the woods?

And who—?

He pushes himself up onto his knees, looking over at the person he’s just bulldozed into the ground, and his jaw drops.

“Karlach?!”

It is Karlach. Somehow, against all possible expectation, Karlach Cliffgate is right here in front of him. She’s already back on her feet, holding out a hand to help him up, squinting cautiously into the trees he’s just emerged from. He takes it, of course, and she hauls him up to standing with such ease that he might as well be a child.

“What’s the trouble?” she asks. She looks away from the woods, bringing her attention to him, and her eyes widen. “Oi. You got a little—”

He follows her eyes to his left arm, where a patch of his robes has caught aflame, but a few mildly panicked swats with his opposite hand is enough to put it out. “Ah,” he says, nodding, still out of breath. “Right. Seems I didn’t get off as unscathed as I first thought.”

“We need to go bop some heads?”

“Oh, no, no, no, certainly not,” Gale says, looking back into the trees and simultaneously guiding her away from them. “There are very few enemies I’d sooner avoid a tussle with than a mage who’s evidently lost his mind, and anyway, I think I managed to shake him, so…”

He stops, only belatedly realizing how absolutely delighted he is to see her, and he lets out a startled laugh.

“Karlach!” he says, throwing his arms open. “Hi!”

She laughs, too, and scoops him up in an embrace that’s as dazzlingly warm as a campfire, arms snug around his middle, and she even lifts him into the air and spins him around in a circle for good measure. “Oh, man, am I glad to see you! Surprised, yeah, but real damned glad.”

“Likewise. On both counts,” Gale says, grinning wide as she sets him down. “You look great!”

“You, too!”

“Your engine, is that all sorted out already? I hadn’t expected to see you or Wyll out of Avernus so soon. Where is Wyll, anyway?”

She looks stricken for a moment, enough to send a quick surge of instinctual fear through him, but then she admits, “I dunno. We were just together, like, seriously couldn’t’ve been more than ten minutes ago, yeah? It’s— There was this portal, right? And it was s’posed to lead us straight out of Avernus and to Dammon’s front doorstep, but someone must’ve tampered with it—”

“You're kidding. That's how I ended up here. You had portal trouble, too?”

“Yeah! One second Wyll’s stepping into it right at my side, and the next—”

“And the next, you’re here,” Gale finishes for her.

“And he wasn’t!” Karlach says. “Gods, I knew something was going sideways as soon as we stepped through, but it was too late by then to turn back, and then he’s just—” she waves her hands in front of her— “just gone! I’ve been searching around here like a godsdamned lunatic hoping he’s somewhere nearby. Fuck, he better not be stuck back in Avernus without me, because if he is—”

“Now, now, let’s not get caught up in what ifs,” Gale says. “Wherever he is, I’m sure we’ll find him.”

She sags a bit, worry still shining in her eyes. “Yeah?”

“Of course! Come on, surely you haven’t forgotten what it’s like to have a wizard at your disposal, eh? I’ll have you know, I’ve got just the spell for getting in touch with him, and it’s quite a simple one at that. Only potential snag is that I don’t have the materials on me at the moment— but!” he says, holding up a finger. “But, it shouldn’t be hard to remedy that at all. I don’t suppose you’ve got a bit of copper wire on you now, do you?”

“Can’t say that I do.”

“Oh, no matter, I’m sure we’ll find some.”

Finally, for the first time since running into her, he takes a good look at their surroundings. It is indeed a cobblestone road, like he’d originally observed, but it’s so old and worn down that the word road might be a bit generous, and in all honesty it’s probably more dirt than it is cobblestone. Everything’s quite grey and dismal, only made darker thanks to the shadows cast by the trees on either side.

Off to his right and to her left, the road winds away and disappears into the woods. Further, rising above the treetops, is a series of hazy mountains capped with snow.

And in the opposite direction…

“Is that a town, you think?” he asks, nodding toward the tendril of smoke curling up into the ashen grey sky.

“Good a guess as any,” Karlach shrugs.

“Right. Well. First order of business, then, is finding out where we are,” Gale says. “And, if we’re lucky, finding out how in the hells we ended up here. The nearest town would be the best place to find that out, I’d wager. Plus, there’s sure to be someone there who’s willing to sell or lend me a bit of copper wire, and once I get that, we’ll be able to get in touch with Wyll straight away, wherever he is, no matter how far.”

“And to think, I was just gonna keep running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Damned good luck I ran into you, isn’t it?”

She’s got a cautious, almost nervous sort of look about her when she says that. It’s a look that says she, like him, doesn’t quite believe it was luck at all—but she doesn’t say so aloud, at least not yet.

He’s not sure he wants to, either.

“Technically speaking,” Gale says instead, “I ran into you.”

“Ha! Ran me straight into the fucking dirt is what you did. You been building up some muscle in your down time, magic man?”

“Oh, no. Gods, no. Quite the opposite, if anything. Though I’m flattered you’d think so! Now,” Gale says, smiling, and then he holds out an elbow for her to take as if they’re waltzing into a ballroom. “Shall we, madam?”

“Aw, you big nerd,” she says, taking the offered elbow in both hands, and she slouches down so that she can rest her head on his shoulder for a moment before they start walking. “Missed you, you know.”

He tips his head to bump into hers. “I’ve missed you, too. All of you, if I’m being honest,” he admits, because it’s true. “Though I must say, if I had to run into any of the friends we made during that whirlwind of an adventure—and especially if I had to choose someone to accompany me in some unknown, foreign land apparently home to mad mages and gods only know what else—well. I’m quite glad it was you.”

#AND OF COURSE I'M OPENING WITH MY TWO POOKIES~#anyway. i miss DMing curse of strahd lmao #you won't need any CoS knowledge for this btw #except to occasionally point like the leonardo decaprio meme when you see something you recognize #bg3 #curse of strahd #gale dekarios #bg3 curse of strahd... thing... tag #guys i'm returning to my roots (throwing characters into scenarios they'd never encounter in canon and shaking the jar vigorously)

12 notes · View notes