#i’m kinda sad i can’t play the homebrew campaign character

[nuclear-wiener420]

pov: ur getting urself excited for d&d but u don’t play for 2 more weeks

[feadae]

So I got a Secret Encounter(TM) at my last D&D session

And as I record my D&D sessions and take notes obsessively, I had everything I needed to write my Secret Encounter in prose form with the dialogue the DM & I actually said, as well as his descriptions, with Bonus My Character’s Inner Monologue. And lowkey I’m kinda proud of it? I’ve been meaning to get back into writing for a long time now, and this bit reads kind of flat and technical to me, but I’m getting back into it, and I had fun!

Context and the actual writing under the cut

Context: My character is a Tiefling Bard named Melaena Eukleides, who grew up in a small town full of humans and halflings. She has a 3-year-old son named Remembrance, born out of wedlock with a Drow called Una Mentira who wooed her, took her to bed, and left, and when Remy was born her parents agreed to take care of him once he was weaned but forbade her from seeing him again. She discovered several months later (during our campaign) that Una Mentira isn’t Una Mentira; he’s a mob boss in Waterdeep (Jarlaxle Baenre, for anyone who’s played Waterdeep: Dragon Heist). After we finished WDH, we moved into homebrew territory where we are now, and he’s kidnapped their kid, so the party is on a rescue mission. We passed through Mel’s hometown on the way to find a ship to follow Jarlaxle, so Mel decided to drop by her parents’ house and ask if they knew anything about where he had gone or at least why he had taken their kid.  When I told the DM that Mel was going to do that, he asked the rest of the party to leave the room, and my heart rate skyrocketed. Without further ado, this is what ensued.

-

Mel watches her allies’ retreating backs, then takes a deep breath and runs to the house where she grew up. She runs inside and...the house is abandoned. There’s no one there; in fact, most of the furniture is gone.

“Mother? Father?” No answer. Mel goes to her parents’ room and looks around. Everything’s gone. It doesn’t look like there was a struggle, nor does it seem so in the front room. She finds a note on the ground in the front room. It’s addressed to Mel.

Melaena-- He gave us all we ever needed in life--gold... We had to give him to him. I know that you may never forgive us for what we’ve done, and we can’t blame you for that. But when we came to this land, we wanted something better for ourselves, something better for you. Don’t try to find us. You’re no longer our daughter.

It’s signed by both of Mel’s parents.

Mel stands in shock, staring at the note shaking like a leaf in her trembling hand and willing herself not to cry. Her parents essentially disowned her when Remy was born; this isn’t a huge change. But it is. It didn’t even cross her mind that they would leave voluntarily and leave behind only a note saying she’s not their daughter anymore. She’s had many an intrusive thought, worrying that she’d find them dead in the front room, killed by Una--Jarlaxle--in order to kidnap Remembrance. Or that they’d be there alive, saying they did everything they could to defend their grandson, but Una was too powerful. It even occurred to Mel that they might have given Remembrance up willingly, but she dismissed that thought almost immediately. Finding out that they gave him up for gold and didn’t even have the decency to stick around and explain themselves in person is just...too much.

Mel is jolted out of her stupor by a knock at the door. She folds the note up, jamming it in her pocket, and draws her rapier as she opens the door. It opens on a human man with curly red hair poking out from under a wide-brimmed hat.

“Uh, excuse me, um...Do you own this house?”

Mel peers at him, racking her brains as she sheathes her rapier, but doesn’t recognize him. She hesitates.

“I--I live here. What happened?”

“Oh, well, I was just interested why you walked in; it’s been for sale for some time. The original owners, they recently left. If I remember correctly, they were heading...north, I guess?”

Mel processes this and decides to deal with it later, though she knows she doesn’t want to try too hard to find the people who abandoned her and her son. Still, out of habitual politeness, she says, “Thank you.”

The man looks around Mel at the empty house she stands in. “Mind if I come in?”

There’s a second where Mel wants to tell him, No, get away from my house and leave me alone, but there’s really no reason to; everything she remembers is gone, as is everything she loves. Is it really hers? She spreads her arms wide as if to say, Fuck it, come on in. The man says, “Thank you,” and makes his way in.

Mel stands at the threshold, trying to decide whether to rip the thorn out and leave now or stick around and investigate more--maybe ask this man if he saw Una and his men leaving with Remembrance--but before she can make a decision, the door closes on its own. Instinctually, Mel whips around to face the man, drawing both her blades as she does so, half-expecting the familiar Drow visage of Una Mentira to stand where he stood. But it’s not Una. It’s Gilgamesh, the Arch-Fey who posed as Xoblob the Waterdevian shopkeep and killed Asha for fun in exchange for the eyestalk of his taxidermized Beholder. That seems like lifetimes ago now, rather than months. What is he doing in Sintas? What is he doing in Mel’s childhood home?

He turns to Mel and says, “I can’t lie; I’ve been watching you in your travels for some time, and...you don’t need those.” He nods at Mel’s weapons, both still drawn and ready. “I don’t mean any harm.” Mel keeps her eyes trained on him and slowly, silently straightens from the defensive stance she’d taken, putting her swords back in their sheaths. He seems to take the silence as an indication to keep speaking. “So, this is your house,” he says, giving the front room a polite yet cursory glance. Mel nods. It feels strange enough that she’s here without anything that made it home when she was a girl, and stranger still that she’s here talking to an Arch-Fey, of all things. It doesn’t feel right.

“Looks spacious. Fun,” Gilgamesh continues, voice light. This time, Mel manages a small “Mm-hm.” Images flash in her mind of the countless hours she spent as a girl reading, writing, playing make-believe with herself, practicing violin, in this house which now stands empty and lifeless, looking as barren and pathetic as she feels. As if reading her mind, Gilgamesh comments, “A little bit--empty.”

Mel’s heart is heavy as she replies, barely managing a whisper, “Seems so.”

The Arch-Fey peers at her, not unkindly. “I don’t mean to poke fun at you or jest,” he says, sounding almost sad. “That’s not my plan here.”

“What is it?” Mel croaks, only half-caring about the answer.

Gilgamesh looks even more closely at her, not moving from where he stands. “I see pain in your eyes. This is loss--loss that...” He trails off into thought, and as Mel looks at him, there’s a moment where the high, otherworldly status he naturally exudes seems to diminish into something closer to a mortal one. He continues, “I know that. It’s not easy. And it doesn’t get easier.” Mel nods. She’s not a stranger to loss, however new it feels now and however much she wishes she were; she knows this already. But Gilgamesh isn’t done speaking.

“But I can make it easier.” Gilgamesh holds out his hand, and standing on his palm is a small, humanoid sprite which comes to life and looks at Mel with understanding in its eyes. Gilgamesh says, “Be mine, and I can make this pain go away. I see the pain you feel. I offer you something that...unfortunately, I hate to say, your songs and tricks cannot help you with.”

Mel had walked a bit closer despite herself to get a better look at the little sprite, but at the words “Be mine,” she reflexively stumbles back and folds her arms to conceal the fact that her hands are shaking. Una had called her his. Sometimes his something--his darling, his little pirate, his songbird--but always his. The idea of belonging once again to a man about whom she knows nothing save that he is much more powerful than she turns Mel’s blood to ice. She wants desperately to feel something other than this painful loss that feels like the heaviest nothing inside her heart, but the more she thinks about the bargain, the less it sounds like a good idea.

“When you say ‘be yours...’” Mel begins suspiciously, letting it trail off. “What do you mean?”

Gilgamesh seems to know once again what she’s thinking, because he replies, “Not like that.” He searches for the right words, then starts again. “Be my...protégé. My eyes and ears through this...desolate land. You’d lose some of your abilities, of course. You’d...change a bit. But it might be for the best,” he finishes as he fixes on Mel’s eyes a gaze that carries a note of something darker than the consolation he’s offered thus far. The sprite flutters out of Gilgamesh’s hand and zips closer to Mel, hovering in front of her face like a hummingbird. It looks at her with those eyes of understanding, and a small smile comes across its face, a smile that seems to say, Come with me and everything will be all right. As Mel looks back into this small creature’s face, unsure whether she wants to change who she is and work for this strange man--this entity--Gilgamesh’s voice cuts through her contemplation.

“Your choice.” After a moment, he adds with a tremor in his voice, “And I’m so tired of being alone.” Mel shifts her eyes from the sprite to its master. He still stands in that almost mortal stature, and she sees the weight of hundreds, probably thousands, of years of loneliness in his face and on his shoulders. A small voice in the back of her head tells her, He said it that way on purpose; he’s manipulating you, but still. Her instinct is to go to him, to assure him he won’t be alone--and had he made this offer at any time but this, she might have done it. But her parents’ note, telling her that they sold her son to Una Mentira and that after all their years of loving her and all her years of loving them she is no longer their daughter, seems to be burning a hole in her pocket much like the hole it’s burnt in her heart. And all she can think of is herself, and how she needs to protect herself from the trap of trusting anyone, because what has it gotten her? Her first heartbreak, her first (and now second) betrayal, countless sticks and stones and curses hurled at her from the day she learned to walk, a son born out of wedlock to a world that has already given him more danger and fear in his three short years than most people see in a lifetime, rejection from the only two people she’d thought she could trust, and expulsion from the only place she has ever felt safe. Not to mention the scores of times it’s almost gotten her killed. She should have learnt this lesson four years ago when Una Mentira vanished with only one trace, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. She’s learnt it now.

After what feels like aeons, Mel gathers the courage to speak, though not to look directly at Gilgamesh. Her eyes dart away from his face as she says, “I’m sorry. But...I’ve belonged to someone before.” She steels herself and looks directly into his eyes again. “And I’d rather deal with the pain.”

The Arch-Fey’s eyes harden and his expression goes stony. The sprite, still hovering in front of Mel, glares at her then flies back into Gilgamesh’s palm. He closes his hand into a fist, and the resulting crunch makes Mel wince. He opens his hand again, and there’s nothing there.

“I would say you made the wrong decision, but...” His mouth tightens into a thin line as he shakes his head and shrugs almost imperceptibly. “It’s your decision.” He snaps his fingers and disappears with a soft, swift whoosh.

He’s not gone for three seconds before Mel hears his voice in her head. “I was trying to hide this from you.”

Mel blinks, and when she opens her eyes, the house--her childhood home--is gone. She’s standing in a torn-down, demolished pile of rubble on an abandoned lot. No more house is there. She blinks harder, faster, and rifles through her pocket, pulling out the note. It’s as solid in her hand as it was before; it wasn’t an illusion. Everything else...not so. As Mel looks around, there are no thoughts in her head; only the heaviest emptiness she’s ever felt. In her head and in her heart, there is nothing but pressing pain and searing loss. Her legs go weak, and when they fail and she falls to her knees, she makes no attempt to stay standing. The tears come hot and fast before she can think to stop them, and she couldn’t stop them even if she wanted to.

And for the first time, the thing she wished all her childhood is true: no one in Sintas pays attention to her. She is invisible, kneeling in a pile of rubble, sobbing among the fractured remains of all she’s known.