#it's ADVENTURE TIME BABY

[mumms-the-word]

In Fathoms Below - Ch. 1

Ch. 1 - The Adventure Begins

Characters: Gale, Karlach, Wyll, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, Halsin, Minthara, Gortash + other OCs; pairing is Gale x fem!Tav Plot: The island city of Nautera disappeared over 4500 years ago, if it ever existed at all. Now not a single, legitimate record of Nautera exists, save for one. The Nauterran Account. Long thought lost, it has recently been retrieved from the depths of Candlekeep’s archives and placed into the capable hands of one Gale Dekarios. With the Nauterran Account in hand and an eclectic team of Baldurians and other allies mounting an official expedition, Gale journeys to find the ruins of Nautera…but hopes to find so much more. A/N: The adventure begins! Gale is setting off to meet with the expedition team, but first...how did we even get here?

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A strong sea breeze ruffled Gale’s hair as he stood on the deck of a ship nearing a small spit of land just east of Waterdeep. The island itself was nothing special, he knew that, but the people located there…they might be able to change everything.

He took a deep breath through his nose, scenting the salty air and wondering if today would be his last day breathing in fresh air for a while. Where he was bound to go, there would be no sun nor sky for some time, no wind to lift the hair from his neck, and no guarantee that he would make it back. But this was a chance in a lifetime. If he didn’t take it, he’d never get another opportunity to sate his curiosity.

Or set things right with Mystra.

Grimacing, he rubbed a hand absently against his chest, where the year-old dark mark of the Netherese orb lay dormant, hidden beneath his robes. For an entire year, he had isolated himself in his tower, trying to research ways to counteract the orb’s insatiable hunger for Weave magic, and failing that, trying to distract himself by researching nonsense. He’d all but mastered the dead languages of Netheril, both Netherese and Loross, and from there had gone on a whim to try and learn what he could of other languages, if only to have access to more reading material. But no arcane text in any language held the knowledge he needed. 

The knowledge of how to cure, stabilize, or rid himself of his greatest mistake, now housed in his chest, functioning as little more than a ticking time bomb.

Instead, he’d found himself absorbed with studies of the magics of old, the magic that existed before Karsus’s Folly. Magic like mythallars, great big orbs of power that could make entire cities float in the sky or submerge them completely underwater, yet allow for humans to walk and breathe air as easily as if they were on the surface. No such power existed anymore, except in histories and myths. Such colossal magic had long since been replaced with lesser magics, adhering strictly to Mystra’s post-Folly rules for the Weave. Not a single mythallar was left in all of Toril after Karsus’s Folly had destroyed the Weave and shattered them all.

Yet in his reading and research, he found himself returning again and again to the idea of mythallars, and specifically to one city that had housed the oldest one. Not a Netherese city, no, but a city that vastly predated Netheril. A city that was rumored to have gifted Netheril with the powers of flight.

Nautera.

It was all legend, of course. An elven city located somewhere in the midst of the sea, halfway between Faerûn and the elven country of Evermeet, home to the very first mythallar in existence. An island that no longer existed, disappearing a few thousand years before Karsus’s Folly, leaving nothing but open sea from Faerûn to Evermeet. No trace of it had ever been found, so these days everyone simply assumed it was an old bedtime story at best.

Besides, according to every human scholar, it was all hogwash. The city, the first mythallar, all of it. It was preposterous to think that the elves had invented mythallars before Ioulaum, the great mage of Netheril, had. Everyone with sense knew that mythallars were Ioulaum’s invention, a testament to human ingenuity, not elven trickery.  

But “everyone” hadn’t been following the clues the way Gale had, tracing connections between myths and histories to find kernels of truth, hints to suggest that Nautera had been all too real, once upon a time. Not only that, but that Ioulaum had been there sometime before he had invented mythallars. It was all hidden in throwaway references, marginalia in old manuscripts that no one cared to read anymore, footnotes long forgotten. But Gale, with nothing but free time on his hands while living isolated in his tower, had followed each breadcrumb meticulously from one to the next, growing more and more confident in the existence of Nautera.

That is, until he hit a wall. All signs pointed to the same source, an old text that, if it even existed, was likely lost to time or kept so deep in Candlekeep’s archives that there was no way Gale, newly humbled and fallen from grace, would ever be allowed near it. The Nauterran Account, it was called. A record written by an apprentice of Ioulaum’s recounting their journey to Nautera and the wonders they found there. If it existed, it was the last piece of the puzzle, the final source that would confirm whether or not Nautera actually existed…and if there really had been a mythallar there, centuries before the cities of Netheril ever took to the sky.

By the time Gale had realized the importance of the Nauterran Account, there was no use in trying to find it. He didn’t know the first place to look, beyond Candlekeep, and with the orb in his chest growing continually more unstable, the libraries and archives of Candlekeep were the last place he wanted to put at risk. His days were drawing to a close. He should have been preparing for a journey deep into the Underdark, or north to a secluded, icy vale, where he could wait out the inevitable explosion of the orb far away from anyone who might get killed alongside him. 

Yet he remained, unwilling to plan that kind of final journey. His thoughts were consumed by Nautera. But without that book, he was at a loss. Nothing else appealed to him. No other research mattered. He spent days either reviewing his notes, landing on the same old conclusions, or sitting on his balcony, looking eastward over the sea, wondering. Wishing. Dreaming. Not even Tara could distract him when his thoughts were on Nautera.

It was on one such dreary day that Elminster Aumar appeared.

Gale hadn’t been prepared for anyone to visit, let alone Elminster of all people. After a brief dinner and idle chatter, Elminster finally admitted he came not for chatter, but to give a message—both a promise and a warning, a gift and a deadline. Mystra was willing to offer what she considered forgiveness…but only on her terms. 

His message was simple. Mystra had agreed to stabilize the orb in exchange for a promise: that Gale would find a use for the orb’s errant magic before her charm wore off. He had, in effect, about six months to find something suitable. But “a use” could mean anything, and Elminster had gravely clarified that Mystra’s charm meant that Gale himself held the trigger to his own demise.

In other words, Mystra was asking him to die at a more convenient time and place.

No matter which way Gale turned it over in his mind, “a use for the orb’s errant magic” merely meant a suitable place for him to explode. So much for Mystra’s forgiveness in life. Death seemed inevitable. He was all but certain there was no spell on Toril that could cure him of his condition or siphon off the orb’s power, no scenario in which he would be able to give up the power locked within him freely without dying. And if he failed to find a use for the orb after six months…well.

It probably didn’t matter. He’d be just as dead.

But a command from Mystra wasn’t all that Elminster had brought. Though he had come professing to deliver a message, he had left behind a physical gift. “Some light reading,” he had said, chuckling to himself and passing over the canvas-bound package. Gale had looked cautiously at the old wizard before carefully unwrapping the canvas.

There, in his hands, was the long-lost Nauterran Account.

When he looked up, Elminster was gone, having disappeared without offering any further explanation, leaving behind only a single letter in the chair where he had been sitting. Written in an unfamiliar hand, it was a formal invitation (or perhaps proposal was the better word) for Gale to join an undersea expedition as a resident expert in arcane languages. Though the invitation lacked details, promising them on arrival at a small island to the east, Gale could readily connect the dots.

Elminster had opened up a path for him to Nautera. 

Whether Nautera held Gale’s salvation or not remained to be seen. By all accounts, the city should be in ruins. But if even fragments of their magic survived, if there were tablets to read or accounts to save…perhaps Nautera would have answers for Gale. 

And if not, well…the ruins of Nautera wouldn’t be such a bad place to die. Especially if aiding the expedition to get there meant proving to all the world that Nautera existed and that everything they thought they knew about Netheril was wrong. At the very least, he could go down in history as the man who proved thousands of Candlekeep and Blackstaff scholars wrong about the fabled islands of Nautera. 

That, if nothing else, was consolation enough.

Gale had answered the invitation immediately and wasted no time in packing his things, telling Tara to take good care of Morena while he was away, and to not breathe a word of what he was doing until he returned.

Now, several hours into the brief journey from Waterdeep to this tiny island, with the sea breeze on his skin, Gale was torn between a longing for more of this—sailing off toward a horizon, hoping to see more of the world—and a resignation that his final destination would be the ruins of a city far below these deep blue waves. He sighed and turned to sit on a long crate.

Only to hear and feel something bump within the crate as he sat down.

He sprang up again, staring at the wooden box with a baffled expression. Other than the sailors manning the small sloop, no one else should have been on board. Neither man, nor creature.

Narrowing his eyes, he reached for the lid of the crate. “Tara, you little minx, if that’s you in there…”

But before he could open the box, a sharp whistle sounded off behind him from the upper deck. “Reef the sails! Bring us in nice and steady, mates!”

It was time to depart. Gale cast one last suspicious look at the long crate before turning away to face the rudimentary docks constructed on the island.

Island was a bit of a generous term for the place where the ship docked, considering Gale could see every inch of land simply by turning his head. The island housed only a single stone building and a small pier, but this was where the invitation had directed him, and sure enough, someone was waiting for him on the docks. 

A red-skinned tiefling woman stood there, arms folded, watching them approach. She was tall, easily taller than him, with dark hair and one horn broken off. She sported a variety of black tattoos, but perhaps the most notable thing about her was that she was on fire, and yet barely seemed to notice. She grinned at him as the ship drew slowly to a halt, the sailors hopping off to secure the ropes.

“I take it you’re our expert in gibberish?” she called up to him. “Man with the words and all that?”

“I suppose I am,” he responded, shouldering his pack and walking down the gangplank the sailors had set up. He offered his hand for her to shake. “Gale of Waterdeep, at your service.”

“Karlach Cliffgate,” she said, taking his hand for a very quick but strong handshake. She let go and hooked her thumb over her shoulder. “Come on, the boss doesn’t like to be kept waiting. He’s been itching to get going.” She turned to the sailors. “You know where to store that stuff. Bring it downstairs, nice and easy, yeah? The sooner it’s on the submersible, the sooner we can shove off.”

“You got it, mate,” was the sailor’s reply. 

Without waiting to see if Gale would follow, Karlach turned and led the way toward the stone structure. Gale glanced back at the ship, wondering what was inside the crates, but figuring he’d probably find out soon enough. They were all going to the same place, after all.

The building contained only a small, sparsely furnished room and a staircase that led down into an underground space. As he followed Karlach down below, descending into darkness and emerging in torchlit passageways that seemed to lead deeper and deeper underground, Karlach kept up a steady stream of conversation.

“So, s’this your first time in a submersible?” she asked. “Mine, too, if I’m being honest. I know the boss loves these things, and I’ve worked with him for years, but I’ve never gone down in one of them. Gotta admit, I’m a little nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“Well, sure. I’m using to tackling things head on, you see. It’s my job. Bodyguard and all that. Assistant to his lordship. Big gal who carries all the smokepowder barrels. Whatever my boss wants me to do, you know? But if I’m trapped inside a bit metal ship…” She shrugged. “Doesn’t do much good to punch the walls.”

Gale decided that he liked Karlach immediately, though he was surprised she would talk so openly about her role on the expedition. It was his understanding that the expedition was rather hush-hush. Then again, they must be two or three levels below the surface by now, and well away from the other sailors. 

“Fear not, Karlach,” he said. “If anything should go wrong in a submersible, I’ll find a way to give you something to hit that isn’t a metal wall. I’d hate for you to feel left out.”

She laughed. “Okay, I like you. I think you’re gonna fit right in with the rest of the team.”

“The rest of the team?”

“Yep. Come on, that’s where we’re headed. Once we’re all together, we’re shipping off.”

The underground passageway soon gave way to thick glass, steel bars, and metal floors, all sloping gently downward. They had emerged in some kind of underwater structure, built out of the side of the island. Dappled sunlight filtered down through the glass ceiling, blue-tinted and faint, while schools of silver fishes drifted silently by, unfazed by the fiery tiefling and the purple-clad mage walking nearby. 

Through the windows, Gale could see a larger glass-and-steel room up ahead, with a branching passageway that connected to a glass-enclosed dock. There, laid out along the side of the enclosed dock, was the biggest submersible he had ever seen. Shaped similarly to the body of a dolphin, complete with fins and a long, trailing tail, it was easily as long as his tower was tall and as wide as a modest estate in Waterdeep. By appearances alone, it looked large enough to house and feed an entire village of people. At one end, the “head” of the body, the structure tapered off into a blunt point. Thick glass made up most of top half of the head, allowing for visibility when navigating the submersible. Or so he assumed. He knew very little about constructs and mechanics.

“Impressive and terrifying, isn’t it?” Karlach asked, glancing over her shoulder at him. “We’ll be inside in a minute.”

“I can’t wait,” he mumbled to himself, though a familiar anxiety thrummed just beneath his skin. He reminded himself that he had a fresh new spellbook with plenty of helpful spells, for breathing underwater, darkvision, and more, and that he would be fine. But even so, the thought of being trapped thousands of meters below the sea with people he had never met before…

It wouldn’t have been his first choice of adventure.

He focused on the task at hand, following Karlach into the wider glass room that connected the passage from the island to the underwater docks. This room was alive with activity, with sailors and workers moving to and fro organizing supplies and getting them down into the submersible. A few, more colorful characters were lounging in various places around the room. Gale was surprised to see a githyanki woman, of all things, among those gathered, as well as a smartly-armored drow woman.

The githyanki lounged casually against a table at the center of the room, arms folded, watching the workers with narrowed eyes, while the drow leaned over a map on the same table, frowning down at it. To the left, a dark-haired half-elven woman stood with a much, much taller, broad-shouldered elf dressed in druid regalia. Both were examining the contents of a crate, which seemed to be full of potions and herbs, and speaking in low tones. Karlach broke off to go talk to a dark-skinned human off to the right, a handsome man who greeted her with a smile and a curious glance Gale’s way. 

The drow woman looked up as Gale drew nearer, eyeing him with sharp, analytical disdain. He could see her crimson gaze flicking quickly between his robes, his pack, his stance, and his face before she straightened and set a hand on her hip.

“Wizard,” she said. “You must be the one with the book.”  It wasn’t a question.

“Excuse me?” he asked, blinking in surprise. 

She ignored him. “Stay here. I will fetch his lordship. It is about time this operation was underway.”

Gale watched her move toward a figure standing at the far end of the room, a dark-haired man watching the proceedings out the window with his hands clasped behind his back. The man leaned his head to listen to whatever the drow woman said and then looked over his shoulder. A quick, charismatic smile stole over the man’s features as he spotted Gale and he quickly made his way over to the table, rounding it to draw nearer to Gale.

“Welcome, welcome,” he said genially, spreading wide his arms. “Just the man we’ve been waiting for. Gale of Waterdeep, I presume?”

“The very same,” Gale responded, trying not to sound as cautious as he felt.

The man continued to smile. His eyes were almost completely black from pupil to iris and his smile, though seemingly geniune, was likewise oily. Gale knew on instinct that this man was used to controlling a room, whether that be through charm or pressure. 

Better to stay on his good side, for now.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the man said. He placed a hand on his chest and bowed his head. “I am Lord Enver Gortash."

[stilitrash]

The dynamic I never knew I wanted but definitely needed

[localcoffeeshop]

some stuff of recent...

[lobster-lover]

something about betty being themed around birds

[discount-supervillain]

[vanillaearwig]

I wanted to give Winter Betty a little army of snow babies to dote on ❄💙⛄

Also the first one is a lie. Winter King isn't arguing with anything his wife asks of him, he's doing Anything for Her

[gravitycoill]

wish we could’ve seen baby marcy in the baby universe. would’ve been cool to her and simon i guess

[moisthairyfarts]

*Coughs really loudly*

[antpony]

Pthbt

[orangelemonart]

I couldn't leave out Jerry-World Finn :)

[littledemo0n]

Last night i was granted a vision

Bonus: its just the baby :]

[venluming]

when your dad is about to leave you but he makes you say affirmations first so you can keep going without him ✨

(fun fact, i cried like 5 times making this 🤌🏾)

[jay-wasstuff]

Simon and baby Finn 🥺

[aria-greenhoodie]

Simon Shitposts

Click for Quality!

[zhaleys]

cried so much. thank you AT crew

[silliestballbreakerfourteen100]

okay im obsessed with simon from adventure time and in fionna and cake now too, especially him and betty!