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[writer86]

stray

[writer86]

"This place wasn't meant for the living," Selene observes as they venture into the crypt beneath the ruin. ((and again pay no mind to phantom Gale. He's here, but he's not here. We'll get to him properly soon, I promise!))

Two massive sets of double doors sit on opposite ends of this room - to their left and right - and ahead and straight up, some of the stonework has collapsed and is letting natural light into the space. But the light's presence does not seem to warm the space at all. It's cold, dark, quiet. No one lives down here, and no one has in centuries at least.

The door to their right contains a richly adorned sarcophagus - and a number of traps. Selene is able to successfully navigate disarming the one on the sarcophagus itself, and finds a key within.

"What do you think?" she asks Shadowheart. "That door?" she nods to the small door on the far end of this room, "Or the big one further in?"

In spite of her reluctance to venture down here, Shadowheart finds herself curious. "We'll have to try to be sure," she says.

"I'm betting further in," Selene says with a grin, nodding to the sarcophagus and the bones within, and adding, "If this was someone of importance here, then what's with him would be to get further in, not out."

"You think that leads out, then?" Shadowheart asks, nodding to the smaller door in this room.

"Looks about the same size and shape as the door built into the cliff we found on the beach, does it not?"

Shadowheart smirks a little. "And if we're not aiming to backtrack," she says. "Very well. Further in."

Further in, the place gets even stranger. A number of scribes, dead and not buried, scattered about the room and curiously, "Armed scribes, but no sign of a struggle."

Her voice is hushed, and so is Shadowheart's as she answers, "I wonder what was so subversive about their words that they commanded protection."

At this point, the towering statue at the far end of the room - bathed in light from another hole in the roof - captures Selene's attention:

"That's Jergal, Scribe of the Dead," she says.

Shadowheart squints up at it, her head cocked to one side curiously. "I didn't think anyone still worshiped him," she murmurs.

There appears to be an enclosed room behind the statue, but the button that triggers its release also awakens...

the scribes!

It's a hard fight for just two (well, I don't think it would be on the super easy baby mode in which I play :D but there's like five dudes, a couple of whom can Silence our gals, preventing them from using their magic. I feel like Selene's leaning on her glaive when it's over and Shadowheart is about doubled over, trying to recover, and shivering too 'coz Ray of Frost comes up pretty regularly too).

"Fools," Shadowheart gasps once the scribes have fallen silent. "Rising from the dead just to protect some dusty old baubles."

But Selene is staring again at the statue of Jergal, her expression one of thoughtful curiosity. "Perhaps they were defending more than trinkets," she suggests.

"Wha-no!" Shadowheart protests as Selene moves purposefully for the room behind Jergal. "Selene, I really must protest! We've fought bandits and the undead, and if you wake anything else-"

But at that moment, Selene is reaching for the sarcophagus within -

... and it begins to open of it's own accord.

"What did I say?" Shadowheart groans as a gaunt figure rises from within, then rotates so as to be upright before Selene. A moment passes... then his eyes open.

"So he has spoken, and so thou standest before me," he says in a calm, gravelly voice. "Right as always." He studies his surroundings and muses, "What a curious way to awaken. Now," his focus returns to Selene, "I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal's life?"

It's certainly not the first time in her life Selene has been presented with a curious question by a curious individual. He appears undead, and yet he is more inclined to speak than to attack. Not your typical undead, then.

"Quite the question," she says. "What's the reason for it?"

"Curiosity," he answers. "Nothing more. Wilt thou answer my question?"

She half-smiles. "Yes, of course." *

"So I ask again: what is the worth of a single mortal life?"

Perhaps an odd question for Selene - an immortal herself - but her answer is quick and sure: "Each life is of infinite value and merits sacrificing everything for." She has so recently proved her conviction of this - by saving a stranger and being taken by the Nautloid herself.

"And thus balance is achieved," the strange being says. "If all are at war, none can win. Very well. I am satisfied. We have met and I know thy face. We will see each other again at the proper time and place. Farewell."

With nothing further to say, he steps past her, past Shadowheart - who stiffens at his passing - and carries on out into the ruin.

"What was that?" Shadowheart gasps once he's gone.

"Chosen of Jergal, perhaps?" Selene muses. "Come. He is awake, which I think means we're in no more danger here."

Shadowheart is not so certain, not after the scribes, but she follows Selene as there's really only one more room here. Within, they find a few much simpler sarcophagi, and... a curious book.

*This book is far lighter than it should be with such a massive lock.*

"Locked to keep the evil in, or the prying eyes out?" Selene muses. "Let's see."

Shadowheart would really rather not, but Selene's right hand is already glowing a little brighter.

Channel a spark of divine power into the lock. [Wisdom.] Successful.

*As the lock opens, a loose page comes with it. Magic pulses from the parchment. What was once script is now an obliterated scrawl. You have a sense these are names, a list, but of what?*

Examine the book more closely. [Intelligence (Religion)]: Successful

*Gods. These are the names of gods, once lost, but now restored after the Second Sundering.*

For a moment, Selene is lost to memory - the Second Sundering, the most recent great war between the gods. Her own contributions, mostly seeking to protect those who could not save themselves. Watching the gods clash against one another, seeing those once thought lost forever come to reclaim a portion of their followers, their power, and take their place in the conflict. She sees their names here: Mystra, Helm, Lathander, Bhaal, many others.

She frowns slightly, staring a little more intently at the last lines of the book.

[Intelligence (Investigation)]: Successful

*The last three names in this book sit close together, but are so devastated by the scrawl as to be unreadable. Entire pantheons have dwindled and been reborn, silently recorded by this book.*

For a moment, Selene feels the need to protect this tome, wavers on the brink of putting it in her pack. But then slowly, reverently, she puts it back where she found it. This is where it belongs.

[writer86]

watching a movie at home circa like, 2001 was like

put your TV on channel 2 so the VCR will work

open up the clamp shell case that held the VHS that has that satisfying crrlikkkkkk

put in the movie

gdi it has to be rewound

press STOP and then rewind because its so much faster that way

start the movie and it takes a few seconds for the movie to actually start cause you rewound to the VERY beginning

FBI will get you if you illegally distribute or exhibit this movie

and then. because you forgot that movies are always so much louder than TV

COMING SOON TO OWN ON VIDEO AND DVD

QUICK LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME LOWER THE VOLUME OH FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay crisis averted.

although. these ads are kind of quiet. a little hard to hear.....

better turn up the volume...

THX

[writer86]

no one has ever made basic magic staff attacks look as cool as dragon age 2 did in 2011

[writer86]

[writer86]

have you ever shipped something so hard that you become irrationally happy and make a sound akin to steam escaping from a kettle everytime they so much as stand next to eachother

[writer86]

((A/N: And now for doing a couple of things slightly out of the order in which I played them. Because I had two camp scenes in a row, followed by rescuing Gale, and then the shenanigans with bandits and the ruins. And the ruins themselves. But the storytelling gremlin in me feels like it makes for a more interesting story if Selene and Shadowheart tackle the bandits and the ruins first. So here we go.))

~~

When Selene and Shadowheart awake the next morning, Selene recalls the sturdy, locked door they found on the beach and resolves to investigate further. A locked door could mean some manner of civilization. Sadly, as they make the top of the cliffs into which the door is set, they find this is not the case. It's a ruin, and further, it's crawling with raiders.

"... you're both twice as tall as me but have half the bloody backbone!" one of them is saying as Selene and Shadowheart approach.

"But we don't know what that thing even is!" protests the young man he's talking to. "And what about the crypt?"

"I'm telling you - it's a ship," the smaller man answers. "And the crypt can wait. Mari and Barton have been trying to break in for days. Now we - STOP!"

He turns and stares Selene down for a moment as she's caught his attention. He gets a nasty grin on his face and says, "Got ourselves competition already. That's our ship."

She's slightly impressed he identified it as a ship, but the risk of him and his compatriots running into still-living mind flayers as they try to scavenge for riches is something Selene would rather not encourage.

"That ship is full of monsters," she says. "I wouldn't go near it."

[Charisma (Persuasion)]: Success.

Suddenly, the little man is not so confident. "Well, uh, in that case..." he stammers. Then to his allies, "C'mon, you lot, no point in gettin' killed. Second worm gets the cheese, an' all..."

"Uh, second mouse gets the cheese, no?" the same young man queries.

But the ringleader's had quite enough. "Nobody's getting any damn cheese! Now move it!"

This quartet immediately scatters, and Selene is left to consider the ruins. There's something about this place... something she can't quite place.

"It's a ruin," Shadowheart tries to protest. "We're hardly going to find the aid we need here."

But Selene doesn't respond, moves down the stairs in the center of the ruin to try the door. A muffled voice comes from the other side:

"That you, Gimblebock? Everything all right out there?"

With a stern glare, Selene addresses the door.

"Gimblebock ran. Your friends abandoned you."

"Yeah?" the man inside sneers. "That lot always were a bit soft. But I've got plenty of friends who ain't soft. Come in here and you can meet 'em."

"No!" Shadowheart protests as Selene drops to her knees to pick the lock. "Are you going to pick a fight with every ne'er-do-well who crosses our path?"

But the lock is picked and Selene disappears inside. Cursing her ill fortune to have teamed up with someone so... combative, Shadowheart follows.

~~

((Pay no mind to the phantom Gale, he's not here yet. I believe Selene and Shadowheart alone could have accomplished this fight versus the bandits in large part due to this outburst of power from Selene's Glaive: Celestial Thorn (thank you, mods!):

It fires off once, fries several of the bandits in one blast, and for RP/storytelling purposes, it sends Selene reeling a little bit. Maybe someday she'll get used to the fact that she's been busted back to level 1 and is gonna have to regain her power the hard way for the first time in a very, very long time. BUT IT IS NOT THIS DAY!))

Selene and Shadowheart take a moment to recover after this; the bandits had a small feast laid out on one of the tables, and the two women partake, slowly regaining their breath.

"I feel a presence here," Selene muses aloud, considering the chunk of cheese in her hand as though it might offer some insight into what she feels. "A power. The patron god of this place?"

"Whoever that even is," Shadowheart answers immediately. Clearly, the feeling's been bothering her as well. "No intact symbols here, no dedications - nothing."

With nothing obvious to go on, they explore. The bandits had already collected anything of worth - at least, anything they could reach. There's a locked door with several broken lockpicks by it, clearly a highly complicated lock that even the best thief in the business might struggle with - and Selene is not that.

However, a moderately thorough exploration of the rest of the place reveals a strange lever that the bandits overlooked. Selene returns to the door, Shadowheart in tow, and opens it to look in.

"We're not going in there, are-" Shadowheart begins, but Selene has already crossed the threshold. With a weary sigh, Shadowheart follows, murmuring, "... of course we are."

[writer86]

I hate work I should be at the (remembers I don't want to go to the club) the imagination

[writer86]

So it's been a week since I last did (checks) one post for Selene. Given the volume of screenshots and events I've played (due in no small part to there being an astonishing number of camp events in early act 1, I think I have enough content here for like... three more posts. Maybe four. One of which is going to be my own creation because it cannot happen in game.

With all this in mind, let's do some more! Figure I can get through my screenshot/event backlog this weekend, since it's a long weekend in the US.

So without further ado:

Selene and Shadowheart work quickly enough to find a suitable campsite. It takes them through the Nautloid wreckage once, and they find a few surviving Intellect Devourers. Selene is again amused by a companion's assessment of her combat prowess, as Shadowheart remarks: "You fight well. Perhaps our survival isn't such a distant prospect."

Slightly more distant a prospect than it was before the worm, Selene muses. The fight has drained her more than she'd like to admit, and she's now determined to do everything she can to make sure it's the last fight of the day.

Still, it seems to take Shadowheart by surprise when - once they find a good site to camp - Selene is not inclined to leave it that evening.

"You strike me as the reliable sort," she says, one eye on her own discarded armor, "but are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Don't fret," Selene answers calmly. "We need some rest."

Or is she not feeling the same exhaustion Selene is? In a moment of doubt, she asks, and is slightly gratified when Shadowheart does somewhat back down.

"A little weary, perhaps," she confesses, "and I suppose I kept my distance on the Nautloid. You took on a devil and a mind flayer at close range. It's a wonder you're still standing at all."

She sighs. "Fine. But not for too long. Each hour that passes, the thing inside us grows. We need to find a healer. Let us wake up at first light."

"Agreed," Selene is quick to say. "Our top priority as far as I'm concerned."

"Maybe we'll get lucky," Shadowheart muses. "We're overdue some good fortune. Rest well. We'll need our strength."

On that, we can agree, Selene thinks as she collapses to her bedroll. But to her distress... sleep does not come easy.

*This is not the world you know. Rest feels impossible, no matter how heavy your eyes become. Every time they flicker shut, the tadpole seems to twitch behind them.*

*Dragons, gith, and the Hells themselves have come after you, and that's just in the last day or so. Yet it is this creature that lingers in your skull.*

It's strange to think about. She can't say she knows much about mind flayers, let alone their parasites; even in six hundred years, she's never encountered them. But if it seeks to change her, as the gith woman said, then it should know she's not letting it have her without a fight.

*You focus on the spot of pain from when it slipped behind your eye, to where it now lurks. You cannot prod it, but you can make it clear that you are watching. What is there to fear when it is the one stuck inside you? It is a minor victory, but enough to soothe you to sleep.*

[writer86]

BALDUR'S GATE III (2023)

[writer86]

Baldur's Gate 3 + Text Posts

[writer86]

Those people who constantly reblog your stuff but you never really talk:

[writer86]

ok fine maybe i DID come back wrong. what are you going to do about it. kill me? put me back in the ground? after all this effort? all this pain and suffering only to find out bringing me back wasn't worth it after all? you worked so hard. are you going to waste all of that just because im not what you wanted? just because i belong only to myself? are you going to let me pick out my own coffin

[writer86]

fascinated by how "dislocate" seems to be a word used almost exclusively to refer to the misalignment of bodies, or parts of the body, from their proper place. it's distinctly anatomical. you don't say "i dislocated my keys" for instance, even though that's technically a correct and coherent sentence.

[writer86]

I feel like Lae’zel asking her lover to protect her is severely under talked about in the fandom

The strong githyanki warrior, who will never admit weakness, telling her partner that she wants to be protected. Her going from seeing them as weak and inferior to seeing them as someone who can provide her safety. Seeing them as someone she can be vulnerable and soft around. Someone she can trust to save her when she gets herself in trouble and that she can trust to watch over her when she sleeps.

And they’re probably the first person she’s ever felt this way around. All of her classmates could slit her throat at any sign of weakness, her teachers could beat her for the smallest mistake. But her partner? She can make mistakes around them. She can be vulnerable without fearing a dagger to the heart.

And no one ever talks about it. It’s so good, but it’s completely ignored.

[writer86]

[writer86]

people who let me wake up to this get a special place in heaven. firefly_fox how does it feel to hold my life in ur hands....