Chapter Text
Heat singes her eyelids, cleaving them open. Fire roars across her vision. She shields herself with a forearm as red wings whip air in her face. Blindly slashing with her dagger, she tears through the grey matter of a squealing intellect devourer. The glint of a silver sword and the snarling teeth of a Githyanki warrior catch in her peripheral vision.
Then, she is falling. Plummeting, towards a blazing, rocky shore. Her mind is so empty— so lost, so lacking— that she can’t even recall a life to relive before it is inevitably splattered across the beach below. Her scrambling body barrels toward the earth, panic screaming in her veins, just as the darkness claims her mind.
The smell of rotting fish and scorched flesh creeps into Rosamund’s nose.
Rosamund. Her name. At least she can remember that much.
The blinding sun makes opening her eyes torturous. Her irises ache as they adjust to the midday light. Alive? Impossible. But hells, the whiplash in her neck is an ailment of only the living.
How is she alive? Her blood was destined to paint the beach, but here she is, sitting up in the sand. She winces sharply at the bruises and scrapes that embellish every inch of her body.
The wreckage of an illithid’s nautiloid ship smolders behind her. Pressing three fingers to her eyelid, she wipes away the droplet of blood leaking from her brow. Her touch lingers for a moment, in hopes that something besides her name might return to her all-too-empty mind.
A wriggle behind her eye sends a bolt of pain through her skull. The tadpole. She’d been infected with a mind flayer tadpole. It adjusts again and images zap through her synapses, more blinding than the cloudless sky.
A child’s hands, her hands, glide across the keys of a grand piano. A gentle melancholy tune dances into the air, filling her chest with a melodic ease.
A once smooth mahogany desk, freckled with ink stains and tiny dents, rests littered with documents, treaties, and various well-worn journals. A bell jar terrarium containing a miniature replica of the Sylvanwild Grandfather Tree stands proudly on the desk, its magical leaves glimmering softly behind the glass.
Deeply lidded, glowing red eyes pull away from her body, grinning with malice. The figure stands tall over her limp body, the Baldurian moon illuminating nothing more than his silhouette. His eyes pierce the night as he stares down at her, and then, he’s gone— leaving her paralyzed and strangled by her own flesh and bone.
Fear roars from her mouth in a choked yelp, effectively jolting her from her far-too-few memories. She doubles over and her fists grasp for purchase in the fleeting sand as she gulps at the air, sweat dripping from her brow and pearling on the beach beneath her. Breath slowly re-inflates her lungs, only to be coughed out again and again.
Surely the fall— or lack thereof— must be responsible for this amnesic episode. Or maybe her parasitic hitchhiker has conveniently burrowed through the memory and individualistic traits parts of her brain? Her memory will surely come back after some rest, right? It’s just a bit of a concussion. But how did she even end up on that ship? Is she the only survivor? Is anyone even looking for her?
Focus.
She settles back onto her haunches, shoulders drooping with exhaustion. Once steady, Rosamund’s hands instinctively find their way to her hair and swiftly begin restructuring the braids. Two loose plaits drape from her forehead to the crown of her head, where a neat whip of a braid sprouts and extends down to her shoulder blades.
Her spine straightens, taut like a bowstring, and Rosamund rises to her feet. Before she can confront the void in her mind, she needs to find supplies, shelter, and most importantly, a healer. At least the little vermin left her survival instincts intact.
Corpses litter the ravaged beach— some mangled, some singed beyond recognition, some complete viscera. Rosamund spots a pack lying underneath one of the more extensively mutilated bodies and aims for it.
As her hand reaches towards the figure, an overwhelming feeling of manic excitement swells through her chest and down to her fingertips. The blood from the exposed bone and muscle seems to vibrate, as if magnetized by her touch. She almost wants to… giggle?
Repulsed, her hand snaps back to her chest. “Wretched thing, pull yourself together,” she grunts. What the hells is going on?
Rosamund reaches for the pack again, slower this time. The nearly severed arm, unwilling to let the pack go, tags along when she pulls. She nudges the limb tenderly with her foot, hoping to jostle the pack free.
On contact, Rosamund’s eyes no longer see the shoreline, but endless, vile gore.
Heaping piles of dripping innards drape like ropes from the ceiling. Bloated, broken bodies in every stage of decomposition shed their skin like wet parchment. A dark and viscid river of crimson blood snakes through the carnage, stinking of iron and death.
Rosamund stands up with a jolt, vision her own again. Her feet backpedal frantically, putting as much distance between herself and the body as possible.
“Oh okay, that’s enough.”
She feels utterly manic. Her mind is not her own, quite literally. Nothing of her former self remains, and has somehow been replaced by sadism and death. The panic begins to rise again, along with the acidic bile in her throat.
Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Supplies. Shelter. Healer.
Her eyes shut forcefully and tug back open, blinking away the sick. She straightens her shoulders with an exhale.
Rosamund resolves that this pack is simply not meant to be hers. With the number of casualties in her vicinity, finding another that doesn’t come with gory manifestations should be easy.
Up the beach lies what appears to be the ruins of an old chapel, its imposing wooden door adorned with iron vines and ivy. With the stealth of a shadow, Rosamund listens intently for any sign of life beyond. Hearing nothing more than a rat’s squeak, she reaches for the door and finds it locked, quelling any fears of intruding on another illithid escapee.
Picking the lock feels like greeting an old friend, comfortable and easy. With a click of the thieves’ tools she’d found in a waterlogged barrel, the door’s mechanism yields, opening to greet her with burly, imposing arms. She slips inside, shutting and locking the latch behind her.
The air inside reeks of mildew and dust— an unfortunate side effect of being abandoned near the oceanside. Nonetheless, it is a discomfort Rosamund can weather for the night. Her elven eyesight allows her just enough visibility to rummage around for a small flint and a torch.
The room illuminates before her, and a plaque reveals that she stands in what was once a hallowed Chapel of Jergal, Lord of the End of Everything— turned outpost for the Flaming Fist. All who once inhabited these halls are long gone, leaving more memories in their wake than Rosamund has to call her own.
Imposing statues of the Death Lord dominate the space. Elongated shadows from her torch dance in his deep-set stone features, and the chirp of bats echo, masking Rosamund’s careful and calculated steps. Banquet tables left by soldiers trim the edges of the room, strewn with shields, cutlery, goblets, and long-empty wine barrels.
She makes quick work of combing through the remnants, finding a rare, unbloodied bandage, a (mostly) rust-free dagger, some nuts that miraculously haven’t soured, and a modest bedroll. She shoves the spoils into her pack, and the first tendrils of hope creep into her chest. After a day—at least— of her sheer existence being juggled by the Gods (only to land in certain uncertainty), this feels like a much-needed win.
She doesn’t know where she is, who she is, or how to get home, but at least tonight will have a bedroll beneath her bones and a roof above her head.
A multitude of doors branch out of the main hall, and she gambles that one of the rooms beyond will likely contain better defense for tonight, considering she has no one else to keep watch. Room after room, Rosamund weighs the viability of each chamber she encounters, gliding on featherlight feet. The last lights of day streak through tiny cracks in the eaves as she turns the corner on her last option for sanctuary.
She finds herself inside a vast crypt, air heavy with echoes of the Weave’s magic. Rosamund maneuvers the shattered tombs, careful not to make a sound. Old chests bare their contents to her shockingly nimble fingers, and she stows away each new prize safely into her pockets. When did she become such a consummate sneak thief?
As she reaches the rear of the consecrated space, she spots what looks to be a lever. “Curious,” she whispers, barely louder than her own breath.
With a quick scan of the crypt to ensure no shadows have sprung to life, Rosamund slides the lever down without so much as a creak. The silence, however, is short-lived.
An imposing stone door scrapes open, rattling dust and debris free from every surface around her. She steadies her breathing, suppressing a cough as the dust fills her lungs. The last thing she needs is to announce her presence, should anyone have heard the earth-shattering noise of the door.
Steadily, she tiptoes towards the chamber. Her torch extinguishes the moment she crosses the threshold, but the tendrils of light seeping through the ceiling reveal enough so as not to lose her bearings entirely.
A monumental sarcophagus lies atop an altar of its own, commanding authority like a throne. Every step she takes is a meticulous calculation as Rosamund closes the distance between her and the holy resting place.
Before she can even lift a finger to brush eternities of dust from the plaque adorning the casket, the lid jolts to the side.
Thundering with every inch, the sarcophagus opens its groaning maw to Rosamund. Wishing her previously nimble feet knew now was the time to move, her body remains as still as the dead.
A humanoid figure ascends from the cobwebs and dust, its bones grinding and crackling with every movement. Its chest rises above skeletal arms, floating slowly to a standing position. Threadbare ribbons of priestly robes drip from its fragile frame and a delicate gold headpiece hugs each concave angle of its sullen face. Tatter wrapped foot bones clink onto the stone floor as the figure comes to a halt.
Its eyes snap open, boring directly into— possibly through— Rosamund’s empty soul. Ice floods her veins and a cold sweat trickles down the back of her neck.
“So he has spoken, and so thou standest before me,” the voice startles Rosamund. For a corpse of its decomposition, she hadn’t fathomed that any sound would be capable of emitting from its throat, let alone the graveled, disembodied echo that now fills the crypt.
Clasping the hilt of the dagger at her side, she musters the nerve to mutter, “Who is he? And… who are you?”
“Names are but breath upon the air, are they not? Yet if thou must cling to such tethers, call me Withers. I am the stillness 'twixt the breath and the grave—the hinge upon which now and evermore doth swing. A transition thou hath become wholly intimate with. ”
Rosamund unsheathes her dagger, hoping the subtle threat in her movement will mask her rising panic at the corpse's claims.
He continues, “And he, is an arbiter of certain matters, but that is not important now.” He stands unmoving, save his jaw stretched with decaying flesh. “Now, I have a question for thee: what is the worth of a single mortal’s life?”
“What does that mean, intimate with? Is that a threat?” Rosamund challenges.
“I am not the same as those thou hath slain, and thou shalt not find harm by my touch, if that is thy answer thou seeks. Now, whilst thou answer my question?”
Any retort evades her.
He asks again, “What is the worth of a single mortal’s life?”
Her tongue breaks its paralysis and speaks the words before her thoughts can catch up. “I know nothing of my own life, my values, my past. It feels rather ill-fitting for me to place an unacquainted value on mortality. ”
“A life and how it is lived are different equations,” he extends his cadaverous hand out towards her, as if to offer his touch. She stares at it unblinking. “A mere brush of mine ancient flesh, and lo—thy flickering essence is stirred anew. A fragment of life returned, gifted freely... for now.”
Touching an undead being that just elaborately accused her of murder seems perfectly insane, but Rosamund can’t help but feel the yearning ache for knowledge of her miserable heart. What kind of person is she? What kind of things has she done? It is all too probable that her life will end in mere days without a solution to the parasite problem, and dying without knowing her history is exponentially more frightening than the skeletal fingers before her.
She reaches her hand out, still marred with bruises and blood from the nautiloid, and barely brushes the delicate bone of his middle finger when a gust of burning wind shoves her backwards and she lands on all fours.
All at once, Rosamund remembers everything.
The rush of memory scalds her synapses, and the heels of her palms shoot up to her temples to tamp down the screaming pain.
Her childhood, her adolescence, her formative years of adulthood.
Her father’s leek soup that she always burnt her tongue on, running through the mossy forests of the Sylvanwild as a child, the sunrise over Baldur’s Gate while swimming in the Chionthar, her mother’s death.
Everything. Everything?
Life shudders through her like a chill. Rosamund had expected relief from knowing, but instead, a hollow feeling sinks leaden in her core. The person she is— or was— is a stranger. A cavernous gap in time stretches from the memory of the red-eyed figure to where she stands now, spanning years of life lost. Something has changed her, deeply, and whatever is left rots within. Tendrils of sticky bile course through her veins at the thought, and nausea bubbles up in her empty stomach, threatening to spill over like the watery heat in her eyes.
The skeletal figure regards her patiently, allowing her to process the outpour of memory and emotion at her own pace. She remains on the floor, mouth agape. Her hands prop her up on locked elbows, the only resistance keeping her from melting into the stone.
Her tongue tastes of iron and ash. The blood she leeches from a bite on her cheek sends a thrill down her spine. A sickly, malicious excitement stirs in her chest. She likes it, the blood. She wants to spill more, more, more! A half smile tugs at the side of her mouth. Disgusted, she coughs out a gasp to disrupt the grin, wrestling back control.
Once her eyes, red and swollen, tilt up to reach his, Withers speaks again.
“Aye… thy mind remains a tapestry half-woven—threads lost in shadow, truths yet unspooled. Even I see not all.”
Her heart sinks. “No! I need to know more! What is this? What have I become?” she chokes out, begging. She needs answers. She needs to understand. The uncertainty makes her vision swim.
“Tis for thee to seek, to stumble, to remember… or forget. Thou must cast off this vile affliction, lest thou remain ever estranged from thine own truest heart.” The tadpole.
“What? How do I get rid of it? When will I know more!?” Any regard she had for remaining undetected vanishes.
“When the time is proper. Inevitability is a wheel that turns of its own accord.”
With a mere lift of his finger, the bony figure gently levitates her back onto her feet. The phantom feeling of a warm hand presses reassuringly onto her back as her feet make contact with the stone. Her breath, dangerously close to hyperventilation, slowly returns to normal.
With that, he simply saunters past her and out of his own crypt. He gradually fades into nothingness like the ghost she expected he should’ve been.
Moments pass, minutes, maybe even an hour. Rosamund soaks in her numbness, replaying memories of a life long lost. What could she possibly have done to deserve a fate as indignant as this?
What she knows for sure is who she is.
Rosamund Sidhe. Daughter of the Sylvanwild.
Her father called her Ros, and she called Baldur's Gate home. She clings to the pieces of her heart that she remembers, and whatever is missing will either reveal itself in due time or she will hunt it down to the ends of the earth.
However, she knows she won’t have the chance to uncover the truth if the mind flayer parasite in her skull sprouts tentacles and gains an appetite for grey matter before she makes it home.
Tomorrow— a healer. Tonight— get rid of this splitting headache.
Drained, Rosamund slinks to what she deduces is the safest spot within the chapel.
She mounts her torch to the wall and surveys the corner she will call home for the night. Tucked away in an all too confusing maze of hallways, there is only one way in and one way out, and stone comfortably surrounds her.
The sigh she emits releases the weight of a thousand lives. She hopes trance will come easily tonight. Her exhaustion nearly guarantees it, but her mind is anything but quiet.
Rosamund turns to remove her pack and settle in for the evening. Just as she moves to unfurl her bedroll, the faintest scent of bergamot caresses her nose. Before she can register the smell, the glint of a dagger flashes beneath her chin, pressing firmly to her neck.
“Shhhshsh, not a sound. Not if you want to keep that darling neck of yours.”