Cards Reshuffled

Many people long for immortality. However, before accepting any such offer, you should be very careful about reading the contract through properly. Otherwise, there may be unpleasant side effects.

Excerpt from 'Ruminations Of A Master Bard'

Zaerini stared at the thing in front of her, trying very hard not to throw up. The moment I’ve decided nothing about our captor will surprise me anymore, he manages to outdo himself.

The dark tunnels and corridors never seemed to want to end, leading to ever more rooms, but with no trace of an exit so far. And the rooms and inhabitants were almost as strange and disturbing as their Lord and Master.

As soon as they had left the room where she had awakened, she had had to jump across a veritable heap of dead bodies. Dead men in dark clothes, all of them with expressions of pain and surprise on their faces. The ones among them who still had faces, that was. It hadn’t been an encouraging way to start.

Then there had been the annoying machine that kept trying to kill them with stinging lightning bolts. If her hair hadn’t been so dirty that it practically was glued to her skull, she didn’t doubt that it’d have been standing on end. The equally annoying creature that had bitten her shoulder before Jaheria’s quarterstaff swept if off and made it splatter against a wall had instantly earned a place on her private list of ‘Faerun’s Most Irritating Monsters’, right below kobold commandos armed with fire arrows. Mephit, Jaheira had called it. Misfit, more likely.

After that, there had been a change of scenery, as the artificial rooms gave way to a natural cave, where enormous red crystals hung from the ceiling and grow from the ground, twisted into forms both beautiful and terrible. In a small pool, silver light swirled like mist. It had almost seemed like a peaceful place at first. Right up until the genie poofed into existence next to the pool and insisted on asking her strange questions. The fact that he had seemed to know of her did nothing to reassure her. Your name is well known amongst those who watch. Your life's thread is bright indeed, though in your path lies many a dark and frayed end. She didn’t like the sound of that. No, not at all. He claimed that he wanted to know more of her, that her destiny was shrouded in darkness, unknown to him. He claimed that he would offer information in return for the answer to a single question. And she did need information. But the question had been strange, not at all what she had expected.

You and your sibling are captured and locked in separate cells, unable to communicate. The mage responsible appears and speaks. He explains his sadistic game: In each cell there is a magical button. If you press your button and your sibling does not, you will die but your sibling is free. If your sibling presses the button and you do not, they will die but you will go free. If neither you nor your sibling press the buttons, both of you will die. If both of you press your respective buttons, both of you will die. The Mage says that you have one turn of the hourglass to decide your action, then he leaves. Tell me, Zaerini, do you press the button?

A curious question it had been indeed, and she couldn’t help feeling that there was some hidden meaning to it. It reminded her altogether too much of the twisted games of her captor. I am told that I have many siblings, she had said. It would depend on which one it was. But there is one as close to me as any sibling. She had squeezed Imoen’s hand. For my best friend, I would press the button.

The genie had seemed both amused and interested. But the information he had offered in return had been aggravatingly cryptical. Know that more of my kindred await you, and two more you will face soon. The first holds something you need, something close to your heart. You must seek him out. The second aids one who would destroy you, and those dear to you. The worm in the apple, the canker in the rose, that one will not be turned aside…not by you. The outcome is still uncertain. The genie had grinned in a smugly superior way. There is the mask, and the face beneath. Which will you see? Which will it be? Then he had offered one final tidbit. Oh, and seek out Rielev. He waits for one such as you…

Then, she had come across the room with the jars. Don’t want to think about it, don’t want to think about it… Floating things in great glass jars, things that once been people, as Imoen had put it. Immy…what did the bastard do to her? What did he do to me? We have both been in that room, she said. But I can’t remember. There’s so much I can’t remember still.

And now, she had found Rielev, or so she thought. Or rather, what had used to be Rielev. This room was small and dark, with storage cupboards and shelves along the walls, and a table with a few assorted odds and ends. The jar stood in one corner, but this one wasn’t dark like the ones she had found before. It was glowing from within, glowing with a sickly green light, and she could see the being within, drifting, spinning slowly. Like a child in its mother’s womb, but a tormented child in a womb of poison. Once again, Rini had to fight the bile that was rising in her throat.

Rielev had been an elf. One pointed ear remained to tell her so, the other was long gone. A terrible wound had opened his stomach from side to side, and…things…spilled out of the wound, drifting around him like sea weeds. There was no blood, that she could see. Just the quietly bubbling green fluid. The face was undamaged. Well, the right half of it was. The left half…wasn’t. Not just wasn’t undamaged. The left half. Wasn’t. There. But the terrible thing, the really terrible thing, was that he was still alive. Now and then he would twitch slightly, or moan with pain, releasing a stream of tiny bubbles through the ruin of what had once been a beautiful mouth.

To live…like that…death would be preferable. Why? Why would anybody want to do a thing like that to somebody?

Behind her she could hear Imoen moaning quietly, Jaheira suppressing an oath, Minsc muttering about Jars of Evil. Does it get any worse than this?

Then, of course, it did. The one remaining eye snapped open, staring wildly at the adventurers. And then a voice screamed inside Zaerini’s head, a tormented, shrill, somehow tinny voice. Aaaaaa... who be thee... servants of the master?

“No,” she said, staring with horror at the elf. Not living…yet not fully dead. And suffering, suffering terribly. “I don’t serve that…that monster. Do you? Who is he, that he could do a thing like this? That he would do a thing like this?”

The glassy eye turned towards her. He was my friend, I think... cast out, and one of us no longer... I cannot remember... are you to take my place? She…she punished him…punished him as none had been punished before. I was his friend, Rielev, that was my name once…I tried to…to aid him…I was struck down. I would have perished but he…his magic saved me. He promised to save me. He promised… Crazed despair was evident in the voice now. He promised…but he has forgotten. He cannot bear to remember, because it reminds him of what was taken away.

The half-elf swallowed heavily. One who could leave a friend in this state…it is no wonder he was capable of doing those…those things to me. “I would help you…but I cannot restore you to what you were. Since I cannot give you your life back…would you like for me to give you a true death?”

Yes! Rielev screamed. Yes! Master! I no longer wish to come back! Release me! Please! Release meeeeeeee!

It took a few minutes to calm the suffering creature down, but then Rini was able to make him explain that there were crystals powering his jar, and that without them it would shut down, granting him the release he craved. He also advised her to use those crystals with the inhabitants of the other jars, and to speak with them to learn of how the ‘Master’ would come and go from this place. It was a hope for freedom, a slim one, but hope nevertheless.

“I am sorry I could do no more for you,” the redhead eventually said, reaching down to pull out the crystals. “I hope you find peace.”

Rielev’s voice was a fading whisper inside her mind. I thank thee... go and leave me to oblivion at last. Sweet sleep... Then he fell silent, and the jar went dark as the crystals were removed, mercifully hiding his twisted form.

Zaerini turned towards her friends, and was alarmed to see Imoen reach out and touch the jar, her eyes filled with a strange longing. “He’s dead now?” the thief asked, and she sounded almost…eager? “This pathetic creature...” She stared into the jar, as if searching for some deep truth. “I…can’t look away, Rini. I can’t look away anymore. Sure…I’ve seen people die before. But…it feels different now. Something has changed…and it scares me.”

The bard was at an utter loss about what to do, and it frightened her immensely. Whatever their captor had done to Imoen, it had affected her on some very basic level, and it seemed to be more than fear, or pain, or anger. Whatever he did…he will regret it, if I ever get the chance. But right now, she had to try to help her friend. “I suppose…death isn’t always something to be feared,” she said, carefully putting her arm around her friend’s shoulder to draw her into a hug. “I mean…I wouldn’t want to live like that.” A memory suddenly flashed through her mind, as clear as if it had been yesterday. There had been blood…so much blood. I was surprised that he was even able to speak, I remember that. But he did. And he got his wish. “Remember that wizard we met…back in Baldur’s Gate? The one we found dying, right before we caught up with Sarevok?” Winski, that was his name. I remember now. “To him, then, death was a mercy he wished for. Same thing here.”

Imoen shuddered in her friend’s grasp, her arms clinging tightly around the half-elf’s waist. “Death is…pretty. So pretty…” Then she was shaking again. “What am I saying? Why am saying these things? What’s happening to me?”

What did the bastard do to her? “You’ll make it, Immy,” Zaerini murmured into the pink hair. “You can. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you, you know that. It’ll be all right. We’ll just have to get out of this place, then you’ll feel better, I know that.”

Imoen nodded, hesitantly. “At least we’re together again…being alone was…it hurt.”

“And we’re sticking together,” the half-elf stated, giving her friend a crooked grin. “Best friends and sisters, always.”

Imoen smiled, faintly, but still with a hint of her old self shining through. “Yeah…always.”

Rini pocketed an oddly shaped stone she found on the table. She had no idea what it was for, but she was of the considered opinion that strange items with no obvious purpose should always be closely investigated. Particularly when adventuring. I remember…he always said the gods enjoyed playing jokes on adventurers by making them cart around enormous amounts of trash, in the hopes that some of it might turn out to be magical or otherwise useful. She shook her head determinedly. I shouldn’t think about him. He’s gone. I won’t ever see him again. And I don’t care if I ever do. I’ll be lucky to even get out of this place alive.

She knew that was true. So why then, did she practically hear a heartbreakingly familiar accented voice whisper into her ear? Hellkitten, if you do not stir yourself from these undeniably fascinating musings on my many aspects of perfection and male desirability, you not only will not get out alive, but it will be because of you dying from old age. One foot in front of the other now, it really isn’t that complicated, even a barbarian westerner should be able to comprehend the process.

Thanks a lot, Eddie. You’re marvelously supportive, did you know that?

You will live.

Yes. I will.

Her mouth set in a determined line, the bard walked away from the room, not looking at Rielev’s sad remains again.

You know, Softpaws said, considering that you claim not to care about the wizard anymore, you certainly think about him a lot.

I’m angry with him. That’s it. Nothing else. If he wants to run out on me, then fine. I don’t care. Not one bit.

Funny. I seem to recall plenty of tears, for somebody not caring.

And right now we’d better move on or there will be tears when Mr Mask catches us.

“Where to now?” Jaheira asked.

“It is simple!” Minsc suggested. “We must slaughter all evil within this dark hole, the bad wizard most of all. Let us bury him deeply and dance on the grave with iron-plated booties! And two pairs of hamster-sized ones for Boo.”

“Perhaps a little later,” Rini said. “But right now, I think we should go talk to some more people in jars…”