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A fun spread of characters, each with their own personalities and styles. Kudos!

A Tale of Many Tavs

A series of short scenarios to introduce my three main Tavs— Zeke, Mina, and Breoch (pronounced Bree-ock). This is how they would be found and recruited by the party.

Leader Tav is @critical-goat 's lovely Talon who I love and adore

Rating: General Audience

Word Count: 2.5K

Content Warnings: Injury mention, blood mention

The stench of smouldering viscera stung Talon's throat as they inhaled lungfuls of the rancid smoke. They had already found three survivors of the crash: a dark-haired half-elf cleric, a pale well-dressed elf, and a purple-clad human wizard, and all of them now had to traverse through the wreckage of the nautiloid. It was a miracle that anyone had survived the crash at all. Yet through the plumes of smoke and flames, a horned figure stood poised in the midst of the destruction. Two long straight horns pierced through an immaculately styled head of lavender hair; the perfect stillness of the stranger's broad shoulders and spiny tail made Talon shiver in apprehension. They spied the glint of a blade.

Even amongst the haze of their amnesia, they were certain of one thing: this fiend was dangerous.

Talon motioned for the group to move closer. The man's eyes were fixed on a spot in the air and he seemed to be…talking…to himself? The details of the conversation were lost to them as the man spoke in a hellish tongue unfamiliar to them. His tail flicked and his gaze darted in the group's direction. His voice boomed, a dart of black hellfire exploded at their feet, a warning shot, and he pointed his glaive toward Talon.

"Szizy hafr efreawy!" The fiend commanded.

Astarion blinked and glanced at Gale, who merely shrugged in response. Talon ventured a peek at Shadowheart and saw that she was similarly confused. Seeing the blank look on the interlopers' faces, the fiend's tail drooped between his legs and the grip on his glaive slipped.

"Ah, right. State your pur—...!"

His words were halted by a psionic blast. Both Talon and the fiend doubled over, the tadpoles squirmed deeper into their memories, and snapped visions of their lives beyond their control. Flashes of endless waters, a palace adorned in blue flame, and screaming innocents scrambling through city streets fleeing a nautiloid ship flitted across Talon's eyes; then the man's clawed hands digging to rescue children from the wreckage of buildings, the inside of the nautiloid, and fights alongside a group of imps as the ship was beset by devils— the images slipped through Talon's consciousness and left only a faint impression upon their amnesiac tadpole infested brain. This man had been caught trying to save others: a wannabe hero that allies himself with devils. A most peculiar tiefling indeed. He straightened his back and massaged his temples.

"Ugh, Baalzebul's balls…what in the nine hells was that?!" He groaned.

"Ah, it seems your wriggly cranial parasites are becoming acquainted with one another!" Gale said with a flourish. "You must have also been infected aboard this nautiloid."

"So that's what they put into my eye? I suppose that makes sense." The tiefling's glaive fizzled into air and he shook Talon's hand. "My name is Ezekiel Ignistinea, but most people just call me Zeke. Sorry for the whole…pointing a sharp blade at you."

"Oh, don't worry. You're not the first one to try that today." Shadowheart looked at Astarion pointedly.

Zeke laughed heartily. His disciplined military poise melted away and was replaced by a disarming grin. His shimmering emerald eyes studied the group as he shook their hands in turn, asking for each of their names and committing them to memory. An imp appeared on Zeke's shoulder and chattered anxiously into his ear; he replied reassuringly in infernal.

"No need to worry, Titchy. These are our allies. Now, where shall we go next?"

"You could have waited for me to move away before setting fire to the blasted things!" Astarion yelled at Gale as he patted down the embers on his clothes.

"How was I to predict that she would jump out the way of my fire bolt? I had no idea that barrels of fire wine were so explosive." Gale licked his fingers and extinguished the small flame flickering at the end of Astarion's perfectly coiled wisps of hair.

"You two are lucky there weren't more of them. Your bickering is loud enough to wake the dead." Shadowheart said. Talon had finished rifling through the dead bandits' pockets and spotted a blood trail across the room. It led under a door besides the now destroyed barrels. With one decisive motion, Talon hushed the group and pointed to the trail under their feet. A low chuckle rumbled in Astarion's chest as he unsheathed his dagger and began silently slinking into the room. He followed the crimson droplets with surprising ease and paused at the doors of a shabby wardrobe. The blood pooled under the gap of the door and seeped into the ancient woodwork. Dagger poised to strike, Astarion flung open the doors and was surprised when his blade was deflected by a well-aimed dinner plate, rather than sinking into the soft flesh of the woman wielding it.

"Please don't hurt me! I mean you no harm!" The woman had curled up in the corner of the wardrobe, her hand clutched at a large gash in her side, and her clothes were drenched in a deep crimson. Astarion covered his mouth and stepped back, seemingly reeling from the sight.

Something about the woman shook Talon at their core. Maybe it was the fear evident in her teary eyes, or the matted blood in her golden ringlets? For the first time since leaving the nautiloid, Talon felt a tinge of familiarity. They had seen this woman before, but where? The woman's gaze fell on Shadowheart.

"Can you help me? I was attacked by an intellect devourer when I was escaping from that crash." The woman's lip quivered as every breath looked more painful than the last. Shadowheart paused for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action, and ultimately decided that the woman didn't appear to pose any threat to them. A deep purple mist cloaked her hands as the woman's wounds sealed under her touch. The woman rose to her feet shakily, almost crumpling to the floor until she was steadied by Gale and Shadowheart.

"How did you even get in here?" Astarion asked. There were no windows for her to sneak in, and the trail of blood would indicate that she had walked in through the only door to the room. The bandits here hardly seemed the welcoming type, even for a damsel in distress.

"I asked if I could rest here for a while so I could patch myself up. They were kind enough to lend me this bed." The woman sat on the rickety bed and met Astarion's scrutinising gaze. He sensed an untruth to her words, but her performance was flawless— this was someone whose ability to manipulate the truth matched, or perhaps even exceeded, his own. It seemed it was enough to earn the others' trust however.

"Who are you?" Talon said at last. They'd wracked their brain trying to remember her face and still the answer eluded them.

"Mina Briar, I'm a seamstress from Neverwinter. Well, I was until I was snatched up by some strange cultists and had a mindflayer tadpole inserted into my eye. It's…all a bit of a shock really."

"Oh, how awful for you darling. Well, I'm sure you can find your way back to Neverwinter from here." Astarion sneered, his distrust growing deeper the more it seemed the others fell for her act of innocence. Talon glared at him.

"Wait, cultists…? You weren't abducted by mindflayers?" Shadowheart said. Mina rubbed her wrists, her eyes flitted imperceptibly at Talon, and hummed thoughtfully.

"Yes, I…I think so. I don't really remember much of what happened. Sorry…" She gazed at the floor. Another untruth, Astarion thought, but who was he to judge others for their secrets? "I may not be the best in a fight, I'm too much of a pacifist, but I do have some trader contacts who could help us pull together enough supplies to make camp tonight. If you give me a couple of hours, I could probably rustle together enough bedrolls and tents to make sure we all sleep as comfortably on the road as we can."

"Do you truly think that'll be enough to persuade us to let you join our camp?" Astarion cut in, the venom in his words barely disguised behind his fanged smile.

"Uh, I'm also rather adroit with a sewing needle?" Mina stammered.

"Well, I for one think our little merry band would be much improved by your presence, Mina. Not to mention the improvements you could make to our modest sleeping arrangements. We'd be happy to have you." Gale announced finally and helped Mina to her feet once more. Her sleeve slid further up her arm, revealing a glimpse of a blue flower tattoo, Astarion narrowed his eyes as Mina swiftly covered her wrist again. Talon couldn't shake the ghost of a memory that seemed to linger around Mina's image. Just who was she really?

If Gale hadn't fallen down the well, they never would have discovered this place. Spiderwebs covered every surface of this cavern, creating vast walkways across the deep crevasses. One could almost spy the fluorescent glow of the Underdark down here as great holes burrowed down further into the abyss. Talon kicked the phase spider's corpse, satisfied that they had finished off the last of their attackers. However, something was off. Dotted around the cave were several clusters of spider eggs, yet their matriarch was nowhere to be seen. They tread deeper into the cave. A disgruntled series of curses echoed around the room; the voice was cursing in Undercommon and the words were familiar to Talon.

Turning a corner, the group saw the towering matriarch spider hovering around an ensnared drow. He had evidently fallen foul of the spider's web and was now wrapped securely in her silk cocoon. She had paused in her attempts to bind him as he berated her fiercely. Astarion giggled to himself at the irony of it all, and even Talon couldn't suppress the wry smile that twitched at their lips.

"You are by far the most ill-mannered spider I have ever had the misfortune of meeting, madam! Your time here on the surface has evidently dulled your sense of decorum." The drow cursed in a refined Undercommon dialect, the kind that Talon had only heard from the great families of Menzoberranzan. A few eldritch blasts and arrows to the spider's head were fortunately enough to scare it away. The drow's head snapped in Talon's direction and the air around them almost seemed to grow colder. "Lolth preserve me…I successfully avoided filthy surface elves for two centuries, only to now have two— and a half— here to laugh at my misfortune." He said mostly to himself.

"Watch what you say, or I might be tempted to leave you there," Talon couldn't resist quipping in reply. The drow flushed sheepishly, a little embarrassed that his words had been understood, but he soon recovered himself and smiled at them.

"Hm, I'm impressed. Your Undercommon is some of the best I've heard from a traveler." Flattery seemed as easy for him as breathing, and Talon couldn't help but feel at ease in his presence. The man was rather unusual looking for a drow elf, although not altogether unattractive. His hair was a midnight blue tinged with rose at its ends, the complete opposite of the pure white prized among drow nobility. His pale lilac skin looked almost iridescent in the faint light, and was adorned by patches of shimmering white scales across his cheeks and forehead. Talon had seen similar scales on a couple of others: a feature commonly found among draconic sorcerers. He could prove a powerful ally, Talon thought. His eyes further betrayed his draconic heritage. The right eye was the deep crimson characteristic of Lolth-sworn drow, a gift from their goddess, but his left eye was a piercing blue, presumably derived from his white dragon ancestor. A deep scar ran between his eyes, yet it didn't detract from the natural charisma that emanated from him. The drow tilted his head. He savoured being under Talon's inquisitive gaze. Then, as though growing restless, he looked Astarion up and down before his eyes rested at belt level.

"You look like you know how to handle a blade. Would you care to cut me free? I'd be most appreciative," the drow practically purred. Compared to his noble eloquence in Undercommon, his speech seemed more stilted now he'd switched to Common. The language sounded foreign coming from his lips— a deeply accented pattern of intonations that mirrored his native tongue. Yet it was no less charming in the attempt.

"I thought drow enjoyed being tied up?" Astarion teased, relishing the flicker of annoyance behind the drow's smile. "Are you sure you don't want to stay there a little longer?"

The drow pressed against his silk bindings, arched his back, and a quiet satisfied sigh fell from his lips. "Mmm…I know we drow are known to indulge in a little bondage now and again, but this is a little excessive…" he levelled his gaze at Astarion through half-lidded eyes, "even for my tastes."

"Just cut him down, Astarion. You two can flirt as much as you want back at camp," Talon grumbled. Astarion did as he was told, not wanting to argue with their group's unofficial leader, and cut the drow loose. The drow pulled the strands of silk from his lavish clothes and dusted himself off.

"Thank you," he bowed and offered his hand to Talon in greeting. They placed their hand in his; his touch was as cold as plunging bare hands into fresh snow. It almost stung as he raised their hand to his lips. "I am Breoch, eldest son of the House of V'ysse. It is my pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Pleasure, my name is Tal—...!"

Another psionic blast hit them as their tadpoles' connection collided once again. A whirlwind of images through Breoch's eyes flashed in their mind: the warm skin of countless lovers' bodies, a male drow's twisted smile, a bloodied scalpel, his hands shackled to a table, a white-hot searing pain slicing across his chest, a snapping and crushing of bones, his ribs, and a hand clenched around his heart. Talon wrenched their hand from his grasp. They stumbled backwards and slipped on the ice on the ground. The icy surface centered at Breoch's feet. His skin glistened like blades of grass on a winter's morning, a layer of frost spread from his fingertips and up his neck. His breath crackled in wisps of vapour as he tried to calm himself.

"They got you too…" Breoch said at last.

"It seems there's a few of us around," Talon replied, their head still reeling from the phantom pain they'd just experienced. Astarion helped them to their feet. "I keep stumbling across them everywhere."

"I just want to be rid of this parasite and go back home to Menzoberranzan. This problem is bigger than anything we could possibly imagine. And as much as it pains me, on my dignity as a drow, I think we'll need to work together."

"Even though we're 'filthy surface elves'?" Talon asked with a raised eyebrow. Breoch winced and sighed deeply.

"Yes…" he regained his composure and returned their question with a teasing smile of his own. "Although, I'm not averse to a little bit of 'filth'." He winked at Talon and joined the group as they made their way out of the spiders' cave.

#awesome oc

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