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[Laufey]

Salad Of Our Bhaalspawn Daily Lives, A Dynasty Of Godchildren

Abduh woke up to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. He yawned, scratched his hairy chest and stretched out between the silk sheets of the luxurious bed in which he lay. Yeah, life was good these days. Fame, wealth, power…what more could a guy want? Oh, and a free license to kill anybody too evil, too obnoxious, or too intelligent. And as head of Bhaalspawn Inc., the Heir to the Throne of his long diseased father, he had all that and more. Including the presence of a beautiful babe in his bed, of course. Grinning broadly, Abduh turned over, then frowned so that his single eyebrow creased into a deep furrow. Where she gone now?

Abduh tried to think, admittedly not an easy task, especially since the sound of the running shower kept distracting him. In the end he gave up on trying to find his wife this morning, and decided to go into the office instead. The disgustingly expensive suit, made from nymph hair, fit him like a glove, neatly emphasising his hulking shoulders and the way his knuckles practically dragged along the ground. Abduh took a look at himself in the gold framed mirror hanging on the wall, and gave his reflection a thumbs up. Yeah! Look at that, big hunk! The face that all chicks dig, huh? Smirking, he left the room, after devouring a nutritious breakfast in the form of a bottle of very expensive whiskey. Actually, it was cold tea. Unknown to Abduh, his head butler kept stealing the liquor, safe in the knowledge that the boss was too stupid to notice the difference anyway.

A few moments after the door slammed shot behind Abduh, the shower stopped running. There were a few seconds of silence. Then, a voice spoke from inside the bathroom. “Oh, drat,” it said. “Now where did he go? Doesn’t he know he’s supposed to look? And where’s the conditioner?”

Upon his arrival to the head offices of Bhaalspawn Inc., Abduh did what he usually did first thing in the morning, namely pay a visit to his personal secretary. The feisty redhead was sitting at her desk, filing her nails. It was with great appreciation that Abduh noticed that she was wearing that blue dress again…the one with the long slit up the leg. “Morning, boss,” she said. “Um…I found this paper in among the letters you wanted me to sort out, and I’ve got a question.”

“Nalia, Nalia, Nalia!” Abduh said, smiling broadly as he sat down on the edge of her desk, almost overturning her cup of coffee. “You too pretty to worry ‘bout stuff like that. Just you do what I tell you, you be fine.”

Nalia didn’t look convinced. “But it was a contract saying that you’re planning to tear the slums down and build a shopping area selling action figures and collector’s plates of yourself!”

Damn. “Uh…public service?” Abduh tried. “Those slums, real unhealthy, you know?”

It didn’t seem to be working. “Yes, I know,” Nalia said, and her blue eyes turned very cold. “But unlike you, ‘boss’, I happen to care.” She stood up. “I quit! And you know what? I think your worst competitor, Miss Melissan, will be very interested to hear what you’ve been up to, and to use it against you.” She smirked. “She may be your mother, but she sure hates your guts. Not that I blame you, not after the way you swindled her out of your father’s inheritance and had her committed to that mental asylum because she ‘had an annoying voice’.”

“But Nalia, toots, you’ve got two weeks notice!”

“Yeah,” Nalia said. “And here it is!” She was a good throw, Abduh had to admit that. The hot coffee hit him full in the face, dribbling down onto his suit. When he was able to see again, Nalia was gone. He could hear her voice fading behind the door though. “Oh, and you’ve got a visitor!”

Grumbling sourly to himself, Abduh stepped into his office. Then his eyes widened. There was somebody sitting there. Somebody sitting in his chair, behind his desk. And not just anybody, either. It was a big man, bigger than Abduh himself, with fiercely glowing golden eyes. He was wearing a black armour covered with impressive spikes, but for some reason he had replaced his regular spiky helmet with a broad brimmed white cowboy hat. He had spurs on his boots too…and they were wreaking havoc with the lacquered surface of the desk. He was smoking a fat cigar, and he was smirking in a very annoying and smug way. “Morning, little brother,” he said. “Miss me?”

“Sarevok!” Abduh hissed. “No way, you’re supposed to be dead!”

“Oh, come on,” Sarevok sneered. “Who do you think keeps the ratings up here? The charismatic guy with the good lines and the great voice, or the oaf who has a single facial expression, and who insists on a hairdo that looks as if a small animal died on his head.” He puffed on his cigar again. “Take your time, you’ll figure it out eventually. Anyway, I’m back. You see, I never really died, I…” He paused. “Is that a shower?”

Abduh listened. Yes, there was the sound of the shower running in the private bathroom next to his office. “Never mind,” he gruffly said. “How you live?”

“Little brother, it was simple. When you left me behind in the burning family mansion, thinking me pinned beneath the fallen beam that had crashed down after Dr Irencius went insane and tried to make everything explode after you showed him those pictures of you making out with his ex girlfriend, why I simply dropped into an existing plot hole, and came out on the other side, safe and sound!” Sarevok stood up, and his smirk widened even more. “And now, I will have my revenge on you. You aren’t worthy of the name of Bhaalspawn – and Father always loved me best, you know.”

“No way!” Abduh protested, hating the whiny note that came into his voice. “And I will fight you any time!”

“Fight you? But my dear little brother, I do not mean to fight you.” Sarevok rang the small bell standing on the desk. “Ladies…he is all yours.”

Abduh actually shivered as they entered the room, but his facial expression never changed. It wasn’t as if it could. “Darlings…” he weakly tried.

“Do not ‘darling’ me,” his ex wife spat, and her voice was filled with venom. “Distasteful as it is to suffer your presence once more, I will do so for the sake of vengeance, you filth.” Her mouth was twisted into a sneer, and her green eyes had a very worrying expression in them. She was in full battle armour too…and she was sober. He hadn’t seen her sober since…well, since her first husband was alive. Then there was something sharp pressing against his throat, and he backed up against the wall.

“But Jaheira…”

Sarevok’s laughter boomed through the room as Jaheira kicked Abduh’s legs out from under him, and then stood over the fallen man. The view from beneath her was impressive, Abduh thought, mad as she was. “But nothing,” Jaheira said. “You murdered my husband, my Khalid! And then you drugged me and boozed me up until I hardly knew who I was, and had that crooked Dr Irenicus brainwash me into marrying you! I count myself fortunate you eventually grew tired of me. I would never have married you, had I been in my right mind.”

“Hey!” Abduh heard his current wife say from behind Jaheira. She sounded petulant. “That, like, is so unfair! You gotta admit, his money is good…”

“Shut up, tramp,” Jaheira said, not turning around. “I care not for him or his money. I took none of it at the divorce, as you know. You would be welcome to it – if there was still any left.”

“Whaaaaat?!” Aerie’s voice rose to a shrill shriek at that. Everybody present, including Sarevok, winced. The Avariel’s blue eyes were wide with a combination of outrage and reproach as she turned to Abduh. “What does this old biddy mean, there’s none left?” Then she composed her self, and a saccharine smile spread across her face. “I mean, like, of course I would love you even if you were poor, honey bunny. You aren’t, are you? I mean, who’d pay for my plastic surgery? You promised me I could have an operation! I deserve it! I mean, like, my poor wings!”

“’Course I ain’t poor, my lovey-dovey,” Abduh reassured his tearful wife.

“Oh, but you are,” Jaheira said, and now her smile was as wide as Sarevok’s. “Viconia? Would you come in here a second?”

Abduh, managed to turn his head despite his prone position, and was able to see the woman who next entered the room. At first he didn’t recognize her, possibly because she was wearing clothes. Not the clothes he was used to seeing her in either, the skimpy little things with feathers and rhinestones on. No, she was in a dark green business suit, that contrasted nicely against her dusky skin and flowing white locks. There was no way of hiding her impressive figure though – or those lovely legs. “Well, well,” she said, sounding amused. “I see you have finally managed to learn the proper position for a male – flat on his back in the dust.”

“Vic? But…but…what are you doing here? You’re just a show girl!”

“Foolish iblith,” Viconia scoffed. “I came to explain things to you, so that your poor feeble mind would understand them. You see, the fact that I made hot, sweaty love to you more than once was not for pleasure. Nor was it the regular sort of ‘business’ that you might suspect. You see, I am not a show girl. I am with the Underdark Justice Enforcement Legal Departmen, and we have been after you for a very long time, ever since you made certain ‘deals’ back home, especially the one when you persuaded that Phaere woman to steal certain valuable artefacts for you. Need I remind you of the petrified dragon eggs? Those belonged in a museum, not your armoire or safe, or wherever you put them!”

“Urrr…I think I ate them,” Abduh murmured.

“Too bad that you trusted me enough to sleep with me,” Viconia said. “You talk in your sleep, you know. With the password to your computer, I could access all your sordid little secrets. You are going down, Abduh. The law has already frozen all your assets, and the control of Bhaalspawn Inc. has been transferred from you to your brother.”

“That’s me,” Sarevok helpfully added.

“So,” Viconia said, “you are dirt poor, as I said. And serve you right, for what you did to my brother!” Tears rose in her eyes, and she angrily blinked them away. “He was a promising young lawyer, until you got him hooked on Black Lotus, and now he is a ruin of his old self! I…I can hardly recognize him, especially after you planted that bomb on his pleasure yacht in order to keep him from revealing to your wife that you were sleeping with me!”

“Like…wait…” Aerie said, her brow furrowing. “He was…sleeping with you?”

“It is only right,” Viconia said, “that he should witness your humiliation. Edwin! Come in here!”

The man who entered was wearing a long red robe, and his entire face was wrapped up with white bandages, making him resemble a mummy. “I am coming, you miserable simian sister!” he said. “I can’t see a thing, you wrapped up my eyes!” Then he walked into the desk. “Ow. (Somebody will pay for this humiliation. In blood.)”

“But…” Jaheira said, sounding puzzled. “How can he be your brother? He is human, you are a drow.”

“I told you, the explosion mutilated his face, making him unrecognisable! Why, you would think he was an entirely different person!” Viconia lowered her voice. “I have to call him ‘Edwin’…he has amnesia you see, and doesn’t remember that his name is really Valas.”

“My name is EDWIN you insane woman!” the man in red protested. “And I do not have amnesia, much as I would like to forget I ever met you.”

“No? Do you remember our childhood in the Underdark then?”

“No, but…”

“There you are,” Viconian triumphantly said. “Amnesia. As for you, Abduh, sleeping with you was disgusting, unfulfilling and possibly hazardous for my health. But seeing you go down makes it all worth it.”

“HEEEEEEYYY!” Aerie screeched, finally grasping things. She grabbed the decanter of expensive whiskey off the desk and throw it all in Abduh’s face. “YOU SLEPT WITH HER? AND YOU’RE POOR?!”

His guilty look was apparently enough. “YOU DON’T L-L-LOOOOOOVEEEE MEEEEE!” Aerie screamed, tears spurting. “But I’ll s-show you! You know our, like, son?”

“What, little Quayle?” Abduh asked.

“Him, yeah. Well, guess what?” Aerie drew herself up triumphantly. “Quayle is not your s-son, so there! Like, I can’t believe you fell for that one. Elven pregnancy lasts two years, and we, like, met two months ago.”

Abduh felt as if his entire world was collapsing around him. “But…who?”

“Like, who do you think I n-named him for?”

“WHAT? The gnome circus director who was abducted by aliens and returned with amnesia?”

“Uh-huh!” Aerie said, looking blissfully happy. “And let me t-tell you, Abduh, in all the ways that matter he was a m-much bigger man than you are.”

“This is all very amusing,” Sarevok said, “but I think the time is almost right for me to give my dear little brother a big…brotherly…hug.” He stretched his arms out, displaying the spikes on his armour. The very sharp spikes. Then he looked annoyed. “Can’t somebody turn that blasted shower off?”

“I will do it,” Viconia said. She disappeared into the bathroom. The shower fell silent. Then Viconia came backing out of the bathroom again, a very peculiar expression on her face. And after her came…came…a giant lobster, with a towel wrapped around its waist. Abduh didn’t know what it was trying to hide, exactly. Mind you, he had more important things to worry about at the moment.

“What is it with everybody around here?” the lobster asked. It sounded very put out. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to look in the mysteriously running shower? What kind of children did I spawn anyway?”

“DADDY?!” both Sarevok and Abduh echoed in chorus.

“Yep,” the lobster said. “Bhaal, God of Murder. Sound familiar, kiddoes?”

“But…you’re dead!” Abduh tried.

“Nope. Sorry, that part of the story has been rewritten by the script writers. Never happened, actually.” The lobster grinned. “Which means that I will be taking over the old family business again, and run it as it should be run. Murder, mayhem, hostile takeovers, and lots of drinks with funny umbrellas in, preferably with a mixed salad on the side. Anybody got any questions?”

“Um…” Aerie said, smiling charmingly at the lobster. “Are you…are you v-very rich then? Only, I’ve got this t-teensy problem with my poor wings…”

She was interrupted by the sound of the door slamming open. “Everybody just shut up and don’t move,” shouted the woman standing on the doorstep. She had feathers in her hair, as usual. No wonder that mental institution had been so happy to have her. “YOU WILL ALL SUFFER!”

“Great,” Abduh muttered. “Mummy’s back too.”

Next: Will all the Bhaalspawn be wiped out by their newly returned sire? Will Viconia be pleased to watch? Will Nalia succeed in her crusade against Bhaalspawn Inc. and what is Mother Melissan planning? Will Edwin remember that he is, in fact, Valas? Or is he, really? Will Dr Irenicus escape from prison? Will Jaheira manage to keep sober, in the face of all these shocks? Will Aerie manage to get in good with Daddy Bhaal? Will anybody care? Answers to this, and more, in the next episode of Salad of Our Bhaalspawn Daily Lives, a Dynasty of Godchildren.