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monowires · 11 days ago

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The Vanishing of Celeste Dekarios, Part 6 - Celeste

summary: Gale has some time for introspection (and getting lost in his own head again)

author's note: This is the most insane thing I have done so far - redoing an old story. But they deserve the love and care.

Theme song: Frederic Wiedmann - A Song of Love and Loss

content warning: This scene contains descriptions of torture, phsycial and magical abuse, bodily harm, dissociation, graphic violence and a lot of pain. Please proceed with caution!

taglist: @astarioffsimpmain @whiskeyskin @enbyofwaterdeep @monowires @rdekarios

word count: 4,6k

Start at the beginning

AO3 Link

Her resilience would hold. It always had. And her cleverness — her stubborn, sharp-edged will — would find the way forward. Out. Home. She clung to that belief, fragile as it felt.

She knew they hadn’t taken her far. Arakin had confirmed it.

She was still Waterdeep.

The place they’d locked her in wasn’t some repurposed basement. It had been designed for this, for holding, for breaking. Purposeful in its brutality. Rare, yes, but not unheard of. Only one place came to mind. The decommissioned City Watch posts in Dock Ward. She’d passed them once, maybe twice, in the uncertain haze of her early days here — barely legal dealings in forgotten alleys, back when she could still afford to be reckless.

The buildings were still owned by the city. Forgotten, but never truly erased. The Lords of Waterdeep had left them standing, though the reason had long since slipped from memory. Enough maintenance to keep the roofs from caving in. Enough silence to hide the truth of what lay beneath.

That was where the danger lived. Below.

The runes carved into the stone confirmed what her instincts already knew. Precision work. Cold, deliberate magic woven deep into the walls and floor. They pulsed softly at the edge of her senses. A warding cage.

A trap meant for people like her.

And it was working. Gale hadn’t found her.

He would have, if he could. She knew that too. Or needed to believe it. That faint tether between them — it was still there, wasn’t it? Distant, dimmed, but present.

Gale was still searching. He had to be.

Gale might be unraveling — trapped in his own mind, weighed down by blame. He always turned inward first. Always assumed the worst of himself. She could see it so clearly: the way he’d pace, the way the guilt would settle around his shoulders like a cloak. He’d wear it for days. Maybe longer.

But then he’d move. Act. Tear the city apart if he had to.

Unless … Unless he knew.

About what she’d done. About what she hadn’t said. She’d never lied to him. Not once. But omission had its own teeth. And she had held back more than he would understand. Things he’d never forgive easily.

If the truth had reached him — if the pieces had started to fall into place, he’d be furious and rightfull so.

But he’d still be looking. He would.

Because he loved her.

He would. He had to.

Within the confines of her cell, her strength ebbed away, leaving her feeling drained and hollow. It wasn’t just physical exhaustion — it was as if the runes were leeching her very essence, gnawing at her connection to what Gale perceived as the Weave and leaving behind a desolate void.

The chamber had been oppressive, but this cell was worse. Here, isolation carried an unnatural weight, her body struggling against forces she couldn't counter, her mind caught between desperate determination and encroaching despair.

As the weeks wore on, the sharp edges of her conviction dulled.

The cellar became her entire world.

Woken daily by the guttering flame of a torch.

Moldy bread and a mug of water that reeked of urine shoved through the bars.

Ordered to her feet.

Shackles too tight around her wrists, biting into her flesh, rubbing her skin raw until bruises blossomed into open wounds.

Rough hands grabbing her by each arm, a leering gaze to ensure the collar still bound her neck, only to be opened to unchain her from the wall.

Dragged up the stairs, past the faint light filtering through closed windows.

Past elegant but worn tapestries, rooms stripped of furniture save for a single chair.

For longer days, they let her sit in that chair as they worked.

On others, they shackled her to the ceiling.

“More points to hurt,” she thought grimly, even as her arms throbbed with white-hot pain.

She’d come to dread the longer sessions most. The moment they dragged her past the threshold, she slipped beneath herself, retreating into the folds of her mind like a creature burrowing deep for warmth. She wrote songs in silence, rewrote old verses, shifted chords and cadences that only she could hear. Anything to hold herself together. Anything but this.

She thought of other places. Far-off, unreachable things. The last time she kissed Halsin — how he lingered. Karlach’s final hug, blistering against her skin, scalding her armor, but not burning away the helplessness sitting heavy in her chest, behind her eyes. Gale, flour on his hands, promising to make her favorite that evening. Promising warmth, and bathwater, and shared quiet. If she tried hard enough, she could still feel his thumb brushing her cheekbone. Still see that look in his eyes — the one that had always said, you’re mine, and you’re safe.

But focus frayed.

The more bones gave way beneath the weight of their cruelty — snapped, splintered, twisted back into place — the harder it became to find that quiet space inside herself. The further away it slipped, like mist pulled from her hands.

Sometimes they left her hanging for hours. Long enough for the joints to surrender with a sickening pop. And then, just as predictably, they cut her down and dragged her back to the dark.

Each time, Arakin would come. The healer with a face that was never his own, an illusion she could never pierce. He would patch her up just enough to keep her alive, offering weak tea and the occasional piece of unmarred fruit as though it could undo the day’s torment.

The cold stone floor, the gnawing hunger, the scurrying rats, those she could endure.

But the collar. Magebane.

Gale had described it once, his voice laced with scorn. A vile creation, he called it: a ring of crude metal designed to strip magic from its wearer. And now it hung heavy around her neck, reeking of sweat and despair, stripping her of everything that made her her. For the first time in her life, her blood was silent.

The magic that had always thrummed through her veins, as vital as breath itself, was gone. Without it, she was hollow. Her head throbbed constantly, the absence of magic a gnawing ache that no amount of healing could touch.

They had added the collar after her first near-successful attempt at escape. For reasons unknown, her captors had forgotten to secure her with shackles that night, a mistake Celeste seized upon the moment the opportunity arose.

Using her returned magic, she sent the guards into a deep sleep, their heads slumping forward as she slipped past them with a mix of precision and desperation. Her heart thundered in her chest as she ascended the stairs, each step carrying her closer to freedom. When she reached the front door and managed to pull it open, the cool night air hit her like a balm.

But she had allowed her mind to be overtaken by hope, a cruel, fleeting distraction. In her haste, she failed to notice the third guard standing silently beside one of the doors she had passed.

The sharp crack of something striking her head came before she could react. Darkness closed in, snuffing out the fragile flame of her escape. By the time she awoke with a headache more crushing than usual, the collar was already in place — a cold, unyielding reminder of her captors’ cruelty and her dashed attempt at freedom.

Sleep became a distant memory, her resolve like a fortress slowly crumbling under siege. She had always thought herself unbreakable. That no dungeon, no torment, could strip her of who she was. But here, beneath the weight of Silas's merciless attentions, she began to doubt.

If only she knew the information he sought.

Unfortunately, she didn’t.

Silas’s obsession with her had been built on a foundation of false assumptions, a web of paranoia so thick that reason could not pierce it. He believed her to be an integral player in the next big scheme — a bold, almost reckless plot to steal a magical artifact from Candlekeep.

But Celeste knew nothing of this audacious plan.

She wasn’t aware of the artifact, nor the players involved, nor why Silas thought her privy to such details. The idea of her being at the heart of such an operation was absurd. None of the Zhentarim factions she was dealing with, would confide in her. She had no standing in their ranks, knew only a few of them even by name. Aris had made sure of it. Same for the temples enclaves or guilds. She was known, even liked by some but never involved.

Celeste’s role had always been simple. She bent the rules, greased the right palms or charmed the right people, and ensured her actions stayed small enough to avoid notice. Some espionage for information trading, observing who came and who went, who shook whose hand.

Smuggling a crate of aged whiskey, rerouting untaxed tobacco—these were harmless games of wits and charm, not conspiracies of grand theft or espionage.

But Silas didn’t care about the truth.

To him, her denials were lies wrapped in defiance, a mask for the secrets he was certain she held. Each unanswered question only fueled his belief that she was a cunning operative, withholding information to spite him. His frustration boiled over into violence, escalating with every refusal, every honest declaration of ignorance he refused to believe.

And so, the torment continued.

Celeste had explained herself, pleaded her case, while refusing to offer any knowledge she had, but it was never enough. The man was obsessed, not with the truth but with control, with breaking her until she gave him what he wanted — even if what he wanted didn’t exist.

Her shackles rattled as she was dragged from the cell each day, her body battered but her spirit still unbroken. Shackled to the ceiling or forced to endure hours of interrogation in a rickety chair, she repeated the same denials until her voice cracked and her throat burned.

“I don’t know anything,” she’d whisper, her words more a prayer than a plea.

But Silas didn’t want ignorance. He wanted compliance.

Each session ended the same way. When her bloodied and bruised body was returned to the dungeon floor, when the door slammed shut behind her, Celeste would curl in on herself, clutching her knees to her chest and staring into the darkness.

She had thought that enduring the pain would be enough, that her resilience would see her through. But each day wore her down further. The collar around her neck, that cursed ring of Magebane, robbed her of her identity, her power, her very sense of self. Without her magic, she felt hollow, as if the light within her had been snuffed out.

Celeste didn’t know how much longer she could hold on. Because the truth was, Silas didn’t just want her to confess. He wanted her to break.

Somehow, this lowlife scum had clawed his way up the food chain, leaving a trail of blood and chaos in his wake. Silas was no master tactician or cunning strategist; his rise was built on raw brutality and opportunism. Celeste had heard whispers, rumors of an unknown player cutting through the underworld like a blade in the dark, eliminating competition with cold efficiency. But she hadn't thought much of it until Malor, the High Harper himself, approached her four months ago.

Malor had known of Celest'e skills, her unique blend of charm, cunning, and magical prowess. Her reputation for navigating the murky waters between law and rebellion had caught his attention. He’d asked for her help investigating the deaths of several Harpers, slain in what appeared to be a coordinated attack. The payment was decent, the mission straightforward or so it had seemed.

Celeste had agreed, diving into the task with her usual fervor. She retraced the Harpers' steps, followed leads through the shadows of Waterdeep’s streets, and tapped into the whispers of the Zhentarim. Every clue led to dead ends or irrelevant figures. Not once did the name "Silas" cross her path.

And then, she woke up in his dungeon.

Of course, Silas didn’t believe her ignorance.

To him, her presence on this mission wasn’t coincidence — it was conspiracy. He believed she had been pulling the strings all along, orchestrating plans far beyond the scope of anything she’d ever attempted. In his deluded mind, Celeste wasn’t just a Harper agent; she was the mastermind behind a grand theft planned to take place a year from now: the heist of a priceless magical artifact from Candlekeep.

The accusation was so absurd it would have been laughable, if it hadn’t come with such dire consequences. Silas’s paranoia twisted every truth into a lie, every denial into defiance. To him, her failure to confirm his suspicions wasn’t a sign of her innocence but a challenge to his authority. He had her beaten, interrogated, and chained, all in an effort to extract information she simply didn’t have.

She had never even heard of this supposed heist.Yet, here she was, enduring his wrath for crimes she hadn’t planned to commit, for knowledge she didn’t possess. And as much as she hated him for what he was doing, a small part of her hated herself more — for agreeing to Malor’s request, for not seeing the trap before it closed around her.

It was the perfect irony. She had entered this mess to help the Harpers, to bring a killer to justice. And now, she was trapped in the belly of the beast, branded as the very thing she had sought to stop.

At some point, Silas had decided to change tactics.

Celeste couldn’t pinpoint what had prompted the shift — perhaps some unseen variable, or maybe she had simply lost track of the days and the reasons. She tried to glean any scrap of information she could from their methods, from the way their questions evolved. They were no longer fixated on the heist but instead turned to broader targets: the Guilds, the Zhentarim, the Harpers. They sought details about movements at the docks, about whispers in the shadows of Baldur’s Gate.

Days bled into a thick, indistinguishable fog of pain, fury, and moments of strange, bitter annoyance, locked away inside of her own head.

But then came the day something changed. They dragged her into the chair as usual, her wrists shackled tightly, and stationed a guard with a loaded crossbow across the room. His steady gaze tracked her every movement, ensuring there would be no missteps, no escape.

The day, they brought in the mage.

Like the others, his face was concealed by a simple masking spell — a trick Celeste herself had used more times than she cared to count. But his hands gave him away. They weren’t the rough, scarred hands of the thugs who normally stood over her. They bore no bruises or marks, no sign of labor. He used to wear a ring on his index fingers, the mark clearly visible on his skin. These were the hands of a mage — clean, precise, untouched by the brutality she had endured. The most telling part was the line a ring had carved on his left index finger. Celeste knew this line, the skin fairly brigther then the rest. All tenured lecturers at Blackstaff wore this ring.

Gale had a similar ring, worn on the same finger.

Interesting.

Silas’s demeanor shifted in the mage’s presence, the confidence he usually wore slipping slightly. Celeste noticed, and the truth dawned: this was the man behind the curtain.

The mage settled into a chair opposite her, his expression mild, almost apologetic.

“I apologize, Miss,” he said with a weak smile. “You will not enjoy this. But I need to know what you know.”

Celeste sighed, her resignation weighing down her words. “I understand."

Then, without further warning, he whispered words she couldn’t quite catch, and the spell descended. It clamped onto her mind, invading with a relentless force that tore through her defences. The intrusion was palpable, a cold hand prying apart the barriers she had painstakingly built over the course of her life. It pushed deeper, rifling through her memories, peeling back the layers of her thoughts and secrets as if they were nothing more than pages in an open book.

The violation was unlike anything Celeste had ever endured — a profound, inescapable exposure of her innermost self. It wasn’t just her mind he invaded; it was her essence, everything that made her who she was, laid bare under the mage’s unseen gaze.

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