#CH: Gnome Tav

[undead-potatoes]

Did I download recording software JUST so I could capture this kiss and the subsequent nose boop? No of course not

[mumms-the-word]

In Fathoms Below - Ch. 4

Ch. 4 - The Stowaway

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: I promised we'd get a pale vampire didn't I? Well, we might have also bitten off more than we can chew in this chapter...but you'll have to read on to see. You might also notice I'm making a few changes to the canon for a few characters. You'll see why...eventually.

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“A stowaway?” Minthara said, her lips curling into a playful smirk. Playful in the way that a tressym who’s cornered a pigeon feels playful. “How convenient. I was just thinking we might need to gather a sacrifice or two to appease any gods on our journey.”

“H-hang on,” the elf said. “Let’s not get too hasty. I can explain—”

“Save your words, darthiir. Lest I decide to kill you where you kneel.”

“How’d he even get on the sub?” Karlach mumbled nearby. Beside her, Shadowheart simply shrugged. Gale stayed quiet, but he suspected he knew exactly how the elf managed to steal aboard. Perhaps it wasn't Tara in that large supply crate after all...

“He looks like a vampire,” Wyll said, crossing his arms. “Red eyes, sharp fangs, pale skin. All the signs are there.”

The elf opened his mouth as if to argue, and then visibly seemed to change course. He looked up at Minthara instead. “I don’t suppose that rules me out for sacrifice? After all, I am undead. Not much left to sacrifice.”

She merely continued to smirk. “It makes no difference to me whether you are undead or not. If anything, it makes you even more disposable.”

“But I could be useful! Not as a sacrifice. I—er, I could—” His eyes cast around the room as if desperately searching for inspiration. 

Another gnome pilot spoke up while he struggled to come up with something useful. “Saer, we’re approaching the first area marked on the maps.”

“Enough, Minthara. We will deal with this later,” Gortash said, leveling a significant, almost warning look at her. "We have more pressing matters to attend to."

He turned to his pilots. “Activate the searchlights and begin a slow sweep of the area. Everyone else, eyes on our surroundings. You know what to look for.”

“Aye, saer. All engines reduce to ten percent,” Redhammer said.

A chorus of pilots responded with confirmations and other reports, and the great rumbling of engines that had filled the air and thrummed through the floor decreased to a faint purr in the background. Through the view of the glass ceiling and windows, towering cliffsides and rock formations materialized into view as the submersible slowed to a crawl, drifting slowly through the deep sea valleys and trenches.

“You two, keep an eye on the vampire, will you?” Gortash said, gesturing dismissively toward the drow. 

The two dark-clad soldiers glanced briefly at Gortash before focusing on Minthara again, clearly awaiting further orders. She stared down at Astarion with obvious disdain before turning away and moving to gaze out of the glass on the port side of the submersible.

“Bind him and keep him secure here in the helm. I don’t want him underfoot. If he makes any attempts to flee…stake him in the heart.” She flashed a crimson-laced warning look over her shoulder at the vampire before facing the windows again.

Gale watched, uneasy, as the drow soldiers bound the vampire’s arms behind his back and tied his legs together at the ankles. The vampire, to his credit, only murmured a few dark words under his breath, but more or less consented to the treatment. He settled down to kneel in a corner of the helm, watching them all with wary curiosity. Gale doubted he even knew what kind of situation he had gotten himself into.

“Poor guy,” Karlach said softly, joining Gale at the desk. “Feels kinda gross to claim a prisoner on our first day…but that’s Gortash and Minthara for you.”

“Have you worked for them long?” he asked, looking up at the fiery tiefling. 

“Long enough,” she said. “Gortash more than Minthara, though. I signed on to work for him over ten years ago. Then I got dragged into the hells. Literally."

"Literally?" Surely she wasn't being serious.

"Yup. Hear that?” She banged on her chest. Beneath the sound of fist on flesh, there was a dull metal thunk. He leaned in closer despite himself. In the quiet wake of the reduced engines, he could hear the faint sounds of machinery clicking and whirring and the soft, rhythmic release of steam. 

“Is that…metal?” he asked, a little awed and a little queasy. How in the world...?

“Infernal engine for a heart,” she said, stating the grim fact with about as much weight as if she were admitting her hair was naturally black. “Courtesy of a certain archdevil in Avernus. I spent years down there, a soldier in the Blood War, before Gortash made a few deals to bring me back. Never did find out the details, but…it doesn’t matter. I owe him my life.”

Gale could scarcely believe what he was hearing, and yet, it was far from the most ludicrous or tragic true story he’d ever heard, even in his short life. “How did you end up there in the first place?”

She shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. One minute, it’s any old day. The next, I’m waking up in the hells with this thing in my chest.”

She fell silent for a second and then quietly, almost a whisper, said, “Zariel said Gortash sold me to her for a bargain, but…that can’t be true. He sacrificed so much to bring me back, he can't have been the one to sell me out. He even fixed up the engine so I wouldn’t be on fire all the time. She must have been lying.”

But even as she spoke the words, a tone of doubt crept into her voice until at last she looked uncertain. Gale didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.

After a few seconds, she shook her head and glanced back at the vampire. “Anyway, as much as I hate to see it, it’s just how things are around here. I hope we can just let him go somewhere in the Underdark, though.”

Gale studied the vampire again. He was expecting feral hunger and wicked glances, but the elf simply watched his surroundings in silence. He looked, if anything, resigned. Even tired.

But perhaps it was all a ruse. 

“I’m gonna go talk to him,” Karlach decided all of a sudden. “See what he’s about.”

“Just make sure Minthara doesn’t get too annoyed with you,” Gale advised. “She seems to have plans for him.”

Karlach waved this off with “pfft!” and a smile before jogging over to the two drow soldiers and the vampire. Gale watched her chat a moment, a little smile on his face, before collecting the Nauterran Account, tucking it back into his satchel, and moving toward the windows on the starboard side.

Lae’zel and Wyll were both staring out of the glass next to Gale, watching the underwater scenery drift by. Amid cliffs and crags, there were standalone towers of stone, deep crevices, and far too many caves, some shallow, some deep. Night must have well and truly fallen by now because the water beyond the reach of the enchanted lights had grown pitch black, like a dense cloak of darkness. It didn’t make the search any easier.

The searchlight nearest the three of them swept slowly over the sea floor between cliffs and towers, at first illuminating nothing but stone and sand. There were no signs of any statues or carved structures just yet, but as for caves and crevices? There were more than he’d been expecting. It might take them hours to find anything worthwhile. 

After a moment, though, new shapes came into the light. Sometimes sharp and jagged, sometimes rounded and smooth, these shapes were noticeably different than the natural rock formations that surrounded them.

Shipwrecks.

“Uh oh,” Wyll murmured. “That’s not a good sign.” 

As more and more came into view, it was undeniable that they were anything other than the shattered remains of ships. Masts, hulls, even rare glimpses of shredded metal lay scattered around the sea floor and the cliff sides. It was as though an entire fleet of ships had been dragged down into the depths, suddenly and all at once.

Beside Gale, Lae’zel made a sharp noise. “Chk. There are enough ships here to build an armada. An old battle between two navies, perhaps?”

Gale frowned. “No, I don’t believe so. Look—there are too many different ship designs.” He pointed out several that he recognized. “Waterdhavian. Calishite. Even Luskan designs. These ships would have come from all over the Sword Coast, and perhaps even from Evermeet and beyond.”

“Some of these are quite old, perhaps even centuries old,” Wyll said. “I recognize a few ships from history books about Baldur’s Gate’s early days, the kind of ship Balduran himself would have sailed in.”

“We must be getting close,” Gale said. “Perhaps some of these people were sailing for Evermeet, but others…they must have also been looking for Nautera.”

The three of them were quiet a moment, watching as more and more shipwrecks came into view, their hulls cracked open, their masts splintered into shrapnel, their sails and flags and ropes little more than threads. At last, Wyll finally voiced the question they were doubtless all thinking.

“What dragged them down here?”

Gale dared not guess. His mind was already swimming with visions of catastrophe—everything from a great tempest or a whirlpool to the colossal figure of Umberlee herself, her blue-scaled face rising up before them with flashing eyes and a smile full of several rows of needle-sharp teeth.

None of this boded well. The sooner they found those statues, the better.

He moved the strap of his satchel from one shoulder to the other, so that it crossed his body, and made his way to the front of the helm to peer out of the windows there. He leaned against one of the metal control units, his nose nearly to the glass, trying to see further ahead despite the darkness of the water. 

Gortash joined him after a moment, frowning deeply as he stared out through the glass. “Blast this infernal darkness, I can barely see a thing.”

“Perhaps if you left the searching to those of us with advanced darkvision, your lordship,” came Minthara’s voice from across the helm, a hint of a smirk in her voice.

Gortash ignored her. “What we need is a powerful light spell,” he said instead, turning to smile at Gale. “I don’t suppose you have—”

His next words were ripped from his throat as the entire submersible lurched violently upward with a deafening bang, driving everyone to their knees or knocking them completely off their feet. The submersible tilted abruptly to one side, forcing Gale to grab onto a series of metal pipes to keep himself from sliding completely across the floor. Shouts rang out around the helm as pilots struggled to get back to their places and right the submersible again.

“What did we hit?” Gortash demanded, grabbing onto the control panel to clamber back to his feet. “Give me a damage report! Now!”

Another massive blow was his answer as something struck the back half of the submersible, sending them spinning nearly full circle. Redhammer bellowed commands as those not piloting the submersible fit themselves into nooks or secured themselves by hanging onto anything bolted to the seacraft, be it railings, controls, or pipes. A grating, repetitive alarm began to blare through the room and down the passageways of the submersible.

Suddenly the submersible lurched again with another bang, this time as if something had wrapped around the exterior and yanked it around. The pilots struggled against wheels and levers as they spun or activated on their own, but it was useless as the submersible was pulled upward and tilted sharply down. Gale tumbled over the top of the control panel he was standing near, hitting the glass of the front windows as the seacraft tipped dangerously downward, almost vertical. He caught himself on hands and knees, landing painfully, but it wasn’t the pain that froze him.

It was the sight of a massive, reptilian face and large, glowing yellow eyes that chilled the blood in his veins.

“Oak Father preserve us,” he heard Halsin say, somewhere in the back of the room behind him. “Is that—”

“A dragon turtle!” Wyll finished, his voice a mix of boyish excitement and sharp warning.

The dragon turtle tilted its giant head and then unlatched its jaws in a grin-like fashion. Its mouth was easily large enough to swallow half their submersible in one go. A serrated edge, almost like teeth, lined each jaw, the upper jaw forming a sharp beak that looked all too capable of puncturing even the thick metal exterior of their submersible. They were trapped in its claws, Gale realized, held fast in its strong grip as they tilted again under the dragon turtle’s piercing gaze.

A deep rumbling, like a laugh, issued forth from the depths of its throat, vibrating through the submersible. Then it spoke, its voice so deep and slow Gale could scarcely make sense of the words, even if there weren’t several inches of metal and glass between him and the dragon turtle. The volume and deep timbre of the voice shook the seacraft, rattling everything that wasn’t nailed down—the desk, trinkets around the room, even Gale’s bones. The sound was deafening, dampened only barely by the exterior of the submersible.

“What language is this?” Shadowheart shouted. “What is it saying?”

“I think—it must be draconic!” Gale shouted back, struggling not to collapse under the force of the impossibly deep voice. It finally trailed off, leaving a strange buzzing behind, as if everything were still reverberating from its short speech.

Gale could scarcely form a thought, the ringing in his ears was so loud. He suddenly felt tiny, staring down the maw of the gigantic creature with only a few inches of glass between himself and almost certain death. Something gripped his chest and squeezed it painfully, something that forced his breaths to turn shallow and sharp.

Terror, he realized distantly, as his body seemed to rapidly cool and grow warm in flashes.

He was terrified.

“Wizard, what did it say?” Minthara asked.

“I…” He could feel his hands shaking and the adrenaline singing in his veins. Was this to be his fate? Swallowed by a dragon turtle, or left to drown in the depths of its lair? All he could do was stare at one of the creature's large eyes, fixed beneath its glowing yellow gaze.

A familiar and loathsome ache seized his chest as panic threatened to consume him, constricting his heart and hardening his lungs. The mark on his chest began to glow bright purple in response to the pain. Almost like a reminder. He could do it now—if they couldn’t get out of this alive, would it be so bad to take the dragon turtle with them? If he—

“Wizard!”

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to focus. He mentally called back to just a moment ago, trying to retrieve the syllables and sounds the dragon turtle had said from his memory and play them again in his head, forming the words silently on his lips as he recalled each word. His eyes snapped open as understanding dawned on him.

“It said, ‘Greetings, strange metal one,’” he translated in a slightly quivering voice. “It...it wants to know what tribute we bring.”

[ollypopwrites]

Ch. 5 The Devil You Know

Pairing: Gale x Druid!Tav (named)

Rating: T

Warnings for this chapter: canon-typical blood & violence, fantasy racism, and discussions of death.

Summary:

The Drow turned around, he was tall and lean with a deeply discerning light blue eye. Only one was opened, the other eye permanently shut by a scar that puckered his indigo skin diagonally from chin to forehead. When he saw her his white eyebrows shifted upwards, and his brand of the Absolute revealed itself to her tadpole immediately.  “A tiefling who speaks Deep Drow,” the stranger said wonderingly. “And a true soul none-the-less.”  “My father taught me,” she said plainly. “Are you also searching for the escaped deep gnome?”  “I am,” he nodded. “The trail ends here.”  “Then our search continues,” Isra said, ready to turn and walk away.   “Shall I join you? We are hunting the same prey, after all.”

Notes: Translations at the bottom (please forgive any errors in lore, or language, I'm doing my best lol and I am always open to correction/feedback)

Read on Ao3 or below the cut.

Her father would have scolded her for this, venturing into the Underdark with a party so unfamiliar with its dangers and resources.  If Isra was honest, this had been a more enjoyable time beneath the surface than her childhood was. The myconid colony had been beautiful; Isra found the way they fostered life from the rotting carcasses of duergar that had threatened them somehow comforting. The sussur tree (although it came with the strange absence of magic) had been a beautiful natural wonder to behold, unlike any other flora she had seen before. 

The search for a path to Moonrise Towers led them to an outpost of duergar and Absolutists, which was a bit convenient since she agreed to save some deep gnomes and collect the head of a True Soul called Nere for the Myconids. The best plan they had was to infiltrate from the inside, which made Isra’s stomach turn. She brought Shadowheart, Wyll and Lae’zel to sail towards the outpost, planning to send Wyll back with the boat to bring the rest of the camp along after they secured their safe passage and a place to bunk down. When a boat full of duergar pulled up next to them, Isra had to resort to using the tadpole to assert dominance when her lies did not seem to stick. She hated to do it, hated feeling it tempt her with the promise of power — but they were in a tough position and it was her job to keep them all safe and on path.   

The inhabitants of the Grymforge abided by everything she hated about her past in the Underdark: cut-throat yet arbitrary hierarchies, and self-interest to the point of cruelty. It was all so familiar, and she wanted out as soon as possible. The dead drow littered about made her feel on edge, and she felt her gaze linger on a dead man that looked similar to her father. The slope of his nose was different and the lifeless open eyes were a pale lilac in comparison to her father’s red ones, but they looked similar enough that it made her pause. This man was left out to rot; displayed like a trophy from a prize hunt.

 She had to allow Shadowheart to speak to Duergar shoving deep gnome bodies into the river, her blood boiling hotter each minute she spent there. The whole place was already warm, due to the nearness of lava flow, and it felt like she was being stifled by the heat the further in they went. 

They played the part of Absolutists while getting information, but only Isra was able to get the deep gnomes to talk by mentioning Thulla, one of their own that had been saved  by the myconids. One of the enslaved gnomes had escaped, and with her was the solution to breakout Nere and the others. They had little time, only enough to camp out for the night and head out once everyone was fully rested. 

Taking breakfast with them, Astarion, Gale, Shadowheart and Isra set out. 

The Grymforge was formerly a Sharran temple, much to the excitement of Shadowheart. It was a warm and tiring search, having to utilize a moving platform and Misty step to venture across the impossibly tall structures. It was a marvel of architecture, regardless of what it housed, Isra had to admit.

After hours of searching amongst rusted swords, long decayed skeletons still in decayed armor, they saw freshly dried blood stains too new to have belonged to any of the countless dead they had passed. The trail led to a pair of discarded shackles, broken arrows and… a drow man inspecting the scene. 

In Deep Drow she warned him not to venture further into the forge if he was not a follower of the Absolute. Isra’s tongue was not practiced in her birth language, the sounds strange leaving her mouth. A warning was all she could offer him, without giving too much away but it felt wrong not to offer something judging by the bodies of her kin below. 

“Falduna l'Zif,” was his response. 

“Praise the Absolute,” Isra said aloud, in order to keep her companions on the same page. 

The Drow turned around, he was tall and lean with a deeply discerning light blue eye. Only one was opened, the other eye permanently shut by a scar that puckered his indigo skin diagonally from chin to forehead. When he saw her his white eyebrows shifted upwards, and his brand of the Absolute revealed itself to her tadpole immediately. 

“A tiefling who speaks Deep Drow,” the stranger said wonderingly. “And a true soul none-the-less.” 

“My father taught me,” she said plainly. “Are you also searching for the escaped deep gnome?” 

“I am,” he nodded. “The trail ends here.” 

“Then our search continues,” Isra said, ready to turn and walk away.  

“Shall I join you? We are hunting the same prey, after all.”

Isra did not need the tadpole to know this made her companions uneasy. Gale and Shadowheart were usually decent at not fidgeting in discomfort, but it was as if she could feel them staring at the back of her head. Astarion could not help himself but to shift his weight, hip cocked and arms crossed — he played it off easily with his haughty demeanor but she knew he was positioning himself to spring forward on his preferred foot and attack. 

The point of this expedition was to find the deep gnome so they could free the others, and taking an Absolutist with them may have complicated things. Still, she had no good excuse at the top of her mind to refuse him. Sending him back to the forge risked him telling the others that they were suspicious. Better to keep him close enough to dispatch if they needed to. 

“You may come as far as you are useful,” she replied evenly. 

As far as she knew he was not yet a True Soul, perhaps she could pull rank and dismiss him once they found another lead. But until then, she had to play along.

“As you command, True Soul,” he bowed slightly and then looked up, “— I’m sorry you haven’t shared your name,” 

“Phaere.” She had no clue what possessed her to use her mother’s name instead of her own, but she felt uneasy offering her real name to him.  

His eyes narrowed slightly. “True Soul Phaere.” 

“And you are?”

“You may call me Jevran.” 

She nodded once in acknowledgement before introducing the others. As they began their search again, she felt the tension amongst them all. Gale was glued to her side, Astarion refused to turn his back to the newcomer and Shadowheart was stoic as ever.

‘Any particular reason you are using a fake name?’ She heard Shadowheart in her mind through the tadpole.

‘I don’t know, I just said it,’ Isra sent back. 

The others were quiet, except Astarion who had started flirting for information. Jevran was on his way to Moonrise Towers to become a True Soul, he was under the command of Nere and was sent looking for the escaped deep gnome after the others had heard the enslaved ones talk about her stealing the only solution they had for the cave in. 

“It’s unusual for top siders to know our languages,” Jevran mused. 

“My father is no top sider,” Isra corrected. 

“A Drow?” He asked.

She nodded her head. Not wanting to provide any more details about herself than necessary, but having no false backstory to give. 

“And your mother?” 

“Quite the interest you have in our dear Phaere,” Shadowheart commented dryly. “Is this an interrogation?”

“Forgive me,” Jevran said. “The Absolute has put many interesting people on my path, but I have never met anyone quite like you.” 

Isra said nothing in return, uncertain in her ability to weave a story of deceptions like Astarion or Shadowheart did. Her method of dishonesty was usually one of omission. The best she could do was provide silence and hope it came off as some kind of pompous authority. 

They searched high and low, and once Isra found traces of the deep gnome Philomeen, she bid Shadowheart, Astarion and Jevran to go search a separate part of the crumbling temple for the sake of expediency. 

“I’ve found Philomeena’s trail, keep him occupied while Gale and I find her — enjoy the temple, Shadowheart.” Isra communicated through the tadpole. 

“Ugh, but he’s boring and a weirdo,” Astarion  offered back. “Can’t we just kill him?”

“Not yet, he may have information about Moonrise,” Isra said. 

They parted ways then. Her and Gale walked along in a comfortable silence, as they traversed through broken walls and around ledges that dropped into oblivion. If they did speak they kept their voices down, so as not to spook the fleeing deep gnome. To be so clever and escape she must have been cautious and flighty, they did not want to lose their chance. 

“That drow had quite the interest in you,” Gale commented quietly.

“I’m used to it,” she replied casually. “Everyone wants to know just what I am. Probably to figure out which insults to use.” When she looked over, Gale’s brow was furrowed, usually a sign he was trying to figure out a puzzle or conundrum. “In a good portion of drow circles I’m a tainted half-breed,” she explained, “it’s part of the reason my family left the Underdark to begin with.” 

“People can be inconceivably cruel,” he seemed to mutter to himself. 

Isra just shrugged. He was right. “I mostly get mistaken for a pureblood tiefling anyway,” she said, “and… well, being called hellspawn isn’t exactly nice but I’ve had less trouble topside than my father. The first time I saw someone cower and run from him I almost laughed. My soft spoken, prissy father who's never held a sword in his life, and some old bat was convinced he was there to pillage her village.” 

“What pish posh,” Gale said. “Ignorance is still alive and well, despite the wealth of knowledge both anecdotal and empirical, proving that no race of the material plane is more violent than another.”

“Not everyone can be as clever as you, Gale,” she said pleasantly. “You are top of the class, after all.” 

“While I am, admittedly, very clever, this boils down to something beyond stupidity,” he replied. 

“As usual, Gale, you are right.”

“The name you gave Jevran,” Gale said after a moment, “is it a alias you use often?”

“No,” she frowned. “It’s my mother’s name.” She took a deep breath, “there’s something about this place, it makes my skin crawl. I just wanted distance from it.”

Gale was silent for a moment, “well, while it is a lovely name, I much prefer Isra over True Soul Phaere.”

They found Philomeena after more climbing and searching deeper into the deteriorating temple. She nearly blew them and herself to pieces with some smoke powder in order to keep her freedom or die trying. Luckily, she was able to be talked down and convinced they were there to help her and the others. 

Isra did not blame her for running off after  providing them with some of the very potent smoke powder.  She had seen how the Duergar treated the deep gnomes, both living and dead. Self-preservation was a skill often necessary for surviving the Underdark, even if it meant burning bridges and breaking hearts.

 They met up with Astarion and Shadowheart again, Jevran in tow. Through the tadpole, they agreed not to tell him they had found Philomeena, since the other scouting group had found a couple satchels of the smokepowder as well. It wouldn’t hurt to keep some for themselves and Philomeena was one less gnome they had to ensure the safety of if she was long gone. 

“Well done,” Isra said pleasantly. “Go alert your superiors, Jevran. My  group and I will head back to the forge after we rest up.” 

“Do not linger too long,” Jevran warned, “Nere’s chance of surviving diminishes by the moment.”  

Isra’s eyebrow raised. “I’m well aware.” 

“Apologies,” he bowed. “I shall take my leave. May I ask one more question? Curiosity has plagued me since we met.”

She folded her arms. “Ask.”

“What house do you hail from?”

“My family is of mercantile class. We claim no house, only the name of Galaer, ” Isra stated plainly.

“Usstan kreth'el dosst sashin,” Jevran said, bowing his head.

“Dosst kreth'el  zhah izilted,” Isra nodded. “Farewell, Jevran. In Her Name.” 

“In Her Name.” 

They parted then and the group went back towards camp. Shadowheart was exhilarated by the find of the temple, despite her shock at how brutally all the inhabitants had been wiped out. Astarion had several things to say about Jevran, most of them unkind and informed them he tried to needle information out of them about Isra.

“I think he’s got a crush,” Astarion teased, “if you’re interested.”

“He does not,” Isra snorted. “I’m a half-breed who somehow outranks him — he wants to make sense of me.”

“So, was your mother a tiefling then?” Shadowheart asked.

“No, she was a drow,” Isra told her, “I get my tiefling heritage from my papa.” 

“So it was a lie? That your father was a drow?”

“No,” Isra shook her head. “My mother and father were married by arrangement.” 

“She stepped out, did she?”

“My father explains it as a mutual agreement, they were very close but they never loved each other – not like that, anyway,” Isra said. “My father met someone, my mother liked him and she wanted to give them a child. So her and my papa… well…” she let the insinuation trail off. “My mother did get sick, and after she died, my papa and father raised me.”

“Unusual family dynamic,” Shadowheart commented.

“Maybe to some,” Isra shrugged. “But we were happy, nonetheless.” 

Back at camp, there was a debrief of the day, a reminder that they had a few things to finish up in the forge and that a tough battle would likely be brewing the next day. They ate up a hearty meal prepared by Gale, and tried to settle in as early as they could for the day ahead of them. Lae’zel was on first watch, with the others getting things ready for the day ahead tomorrow just before they planned to sleep. 

“Halt!” Lae’zel commanded loudly. “Come no closer, or I will run you through.” 

The camp became so quiet the crackling fire was the only sound. Camp had been intruded on before by the likes of Mizora, but other than that it had been a relatively safe space free of any altercations. Hands reached quietly for weapons, eyes peering out into the darkness in the direction of Lae’zel’s interest. A voice came through, slightly familiar to some of them. 

“My name is Jevran of house Shobalar,” Jevran came out of the darkness into the light of the campfire, making Lae’zel lunge forward with a warning  growl. 

Even Scratch and Chickpea were on high alert, the owlbear cub’s feathers puffing up to make him appear larger. 

“Your name means nothing, istick, state your business ,” Lae’zel hissed. 

“Stand down, Lae’zel,” Shadowheart came forward. “This is our ally, the one we told you of.”

Laezel lowered her sword, but did not sheath it and waited expectantly. Isra was frozen in place, staring down the intruder like he was some kind of apparition. Jevran was a common name for drows, she’d met at least two on the surface and knew of more in her youth. House Shobalar, however, shook her. It was a surname she knew very well. 

The scar on his face called back sudden memories, buried deep and avoided at all costs. Blood under her fingernails, the tear of skin and a child screams of agonizing pain. 

“What’s the news, Jevran? Make it quick, I’m tired.” Astarion said boredly.

“Isra Galaer,” Jevran said. “I’m hurt you did not recognize me.” 

Confused silence fell over the camp and Isra felt like she was stuck. A rabbit in the jaws of a predator. Unable to speak, unable to move — just stare in horror. 

“Do you two know each other?” Karlach asked, “you didn’t mention it.”

“We are very old friends.” Jevran replied for her. “Come with me now, and I will not expose your entire group for the frauds you are: Blessed with the Absolute’s gift and turning against her.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Wyll spoke up, his rapier in hand, “you’re vastly outnumbered. No one is going anywhere with you.”

“Perhaps this then will convince you,” he produced a pouch, brown in color but dirtied with soot. The sparkle of the powder inside of it glinted; the deep gnomes smokepowder. 

“Shit,” Karlach ground out. 

“He won’t do it,” Shadowheart said casually. “An explosion of that size will kill you as well; you don’t have the stomach for it.”

“Fine,” he said plainly. He threw the pouch onto the ground, not close enough to the fire to ignite but the sparks coming off of it at risk of blowing them to bits.

A mage hand quickly snapped it up, flying towards Gale followed by a prestidigitation spell that swept the dust away with quick precision. Jevran’s hands were up in surrender, but his smile remained.

“I offer you then, a word of advice,” he spoke casually now having their rapt attention, “you travel with a devil spawn. Rooting it out serves us all: your safety and my honor.” 

“Our safety? How generous of you,” Astarion’s smile was all fangs. 

“I am no devil,” Wyll said. “You are mistaken.” 

“I don’t speak of you.” Jevran dared a step further. “I speak of her.”

He pointed at Isra.

Falduna l'Zif - Praise the Absolute Usstan kreth'el dosst sashin - I regret your loss. Dosst kreth'el zhah izilted - Your regret is appreciated.

Thank you for reading!

[mumms-the-word]

In Fathoms Below - Ch. 7

Ch. 7 - Getting Underway

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: A teensy bit of a filler chapter here. We do get to meet a new NPC character from the game though! Will it be one of your favorites? Probably not but I hope you like them anyway!

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“Astarion?” Karlach asked.

Shadowheart frowned. “Is that his name?” 

“Yeah. He told me on the submersible, before all the…” Karlach gestured vaguely. “You know.”

“I see. Well, yes, Astarion is missing. He must have slipped away during the memorial.”

“Damn,” Wyll said. “We should find him before he causes trouble.”

But Karlach shook her head. “Nah. Leave him. It’s probably the kindest thing to do, letting him go free like that.”

“You forget that a vampire’s diet comes from living creatures,” Shadowheart said. “If he can’t find anything down here, he’ll start to prey on us.”

“Then we’ll deal with that if that happens,” Karlach said. “Come on. Gortash wants us moving as soon as possible and those constructs are a pain to move when no one’s driving them.”

Gale looked over at that. “Constructs?”

“Yep. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Gale couldn’t deny a measure of curiosity, especially as he had noticed earlier that some of the cargo coming off of the cargo vessel was housed within wagons and carts. He’d thought it odd, at the time, since they had no mounts to drive or pull the carts through the Underdark, and it had taken teams of people with ropes and cords to drag the carts to shore.

Karlach led the way through the stacks of supply crates and barrels—many of which were smokepowder barrels, he realized, noting the red labels painted on their sides—until they reached a back corner of the cavern. There, standing in an odd little group, was a small herd of bronze, mechanical rothé, about seven in number.

Each of the rothé constructs were built just a bit bigger than the average rothé, which was already fairly sizable. Gale marveled at the craftsmanship that went into them as he approached one of them, studying the way the bronze metal plates that covered their outer casements interlocked and slid underneath each other, capable of a wide range of movement. Their faces appeared to be sculpted metal, entirely cosmetic, but with gem-like eyes that Gale suspected would light up and shine brightly outward to light the way forward. They weren’t alive or in motion yet, but as he bent to examine underneath one of them, he caught a glimpse of the intricate tangle of gears, cogs, and internal workings that would bring them to life. 

“Careful,” a new voice said, causing Gale to jump. He banged his head on the underneath of the rothé and swore. He heard Karlach smother a snicker behind him. 

“Ah,” the voice said. “My apologies. I was going to say you don’t want to be under the rothé once it's fired up, but I suppose it’s just as capable of harm without being animated.”

Gale backed out carefully from under the construct, rubbing the back of his head, to look around for the new voice. His gaze eventually fell on a gnome with tanned skin and dark brown hair swept back out of his face. The gnome had a handsome, pleasant face and steel-gray eyes, which were now regarding Gale with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. 

“Find anything to interest you under there?” the gnome asked, wiping his hands clean with a cloth from his belt. He was dressed like an artificer, wearing simple clothes but with a wide belt full of pockets and pouches to hold several tools and spare cogs and other items besides. He had a pair of goggles on his head, keeping most of his hair out of his face, and a simple iron band on one finger. A wedding ring, Gale realized. 

“Oh, uh…well, nothing I could make sense of,” Gale admitted. “I’m not much of a mechanic. But even I can appreciate the craftsmanship that went into these constructs. They must have taken you ages to create and refine.”

The gnome chuckled. “It helps to have a team when building something like this. But, yes, we’re rather proud of them.” He patted the metal hide of one of the rothé before holding up a gloved hand to Gale. “I’m Zanner Toobin, of the Gondian gnomes.”

“Gale of Waterdeep” Gale said, shaking Zanner’s hand. “I must say, I wasn’t expecting to meet any of the renowned inventors of Baldur’s Gate on this expedition. Though, given all I’ve seen so far, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.”

“The Gondians have been in partnership with Lord Gortash for some time now,” Zanner said. “As soon as Lord Gortash conceived of this expedition, he had us working on a variety of plans to make it happen. You’re looking at a fraction of what the Gondians have put together for this expedition alone, to say nothing of everything else we’ve built for his lordship.”

“Such as?”

Zanner hesitated, his gaze flicking to Karlach behind Gale and then back to Gale. “Well…that would be telling, wouldn’t it? A Gondian never shares their trade secrets, especially when some things are in the prototype stages. You understand, of course.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” Gale understood completely. Or at least, he understood enough to know that one did not speak of Gortash’s secret projects out in the open. It only fueled Gale’s curiosity more. 

Clearly Gortash had a vested interest in Nautera that went beyond the discovery of ancient history and buried ruins. Gale wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that Gortash might have a particular interest in the fabled power sources of Nautera, which could very well fuel and automate constructs such as these for various purposes.

But he supposed Gortash wasn’t the only one interested in Nauterran power sources. The mythallars of Nautera were simply part of its allure, part of its appeal, like a siren song for explorers, kings, and historians alike. Though the age of mythallars had long since passed with the catastrophic, though brief, loss of the entire Weave the moment that Karsus ascended to godhood, there was something still powerfully attractive about the idea of a lost mythallar still out there, perhaps still retaining some shred of its former power, so long as it could be found.

The stuff of legend and fairy tale, of course…but stranger things had been made real over the course of Toril’s history.

“I take it these constructs will be pulling the carts and wagons, then?” Gale asked, eager to move the conversation beyond awkward silence. 

“That’s the plan. If we can find enough drivers capable of controlling and steering them, that is. We…lost a lot of good pilots just now.”

Gale’s interest and enthusiasm for the constructs was doused by the reminder of what they’d lost. He couldn’t help but feel the pain anew, the guilt of what he’d done, or rather hadn’t done, and the cost it had brought. He looked at the rothé again, inert and lifeless, a testament to Gondian ingenuity. How many would they have to leave behind because his ineptitude with the dragon turtle had cost so many their lives?

“What does it take to control them?” he asked. 

Zanner looked at the constructs and then back at him. “Simple commands, like any mount requires, though you have to be holding the correct control wand or else you’re just commanding the wrong construct.”

“May I try?” Gale asked, all eagerness. He’d never gotten to personally control a construct before, though Waterdeep had plenty of constructs about, even in Blackstaff Academy. This was different—a mechanical wonder imbued with far less magic than the standard golem or animated statue. He couldn’t even quite understand what powered them, if not spellcraft. What turned the gears? What made it so that it understood commands? He knew better than to ask, of course. No Gondian would divulge such secrets openly.

Zanner chuckled at his request. “Well…why not? Here.”

He tapped a panel on one of the rothé’s hides, opening a compartment. Gale saw a glimpse of pink crystals and metal gears inside before Zanner pulled out a wand from within and closed the compartment. It was a thin rod of brassy metal, topped with a crystal matching those inside the construct, and fairly simple in its design. He handed the wand to Gale and gestured to the rothé.

“Just give it a tap with the wand, say ‘impero’ to activate it, and command it to move. If you get the hang of it, you can help me position them so we can rig them up to the carts.”

It seemed simple enough. Gale tapped the rothé with the wand, said the activation word, and watched as the rothé came to life. Its crystalline eyes shone with artificial light and the gears and cogs within began to turn and click against each other in a clattering, though muffled, mechanical drone. Though it was clearly ‘on’ and animated, it seemed to have no intelligence or free thought, as magical constructs sometimes did. It was just a machine awaiting orders. 

“Just command it to move?” Gale asked, turning to look at Zanner.

“Oh, uh, be careful saying—”

But the construct was already in motion, moving forward with a steady yet relentless pace—right off the carved pathways and toward a collection of stalagmites jutting up from the cavern floor.

Gale fumbled with the wand, unsure whether to point it at the rothé or not. “Er—left? Turn left! Reverse!”

Zanner lifted a hand. “You don’t have to—”

The construct jittered at the multiple commands, turning left and then halting, then taking an unsteady step back and then turning again. 

“Turn around?” Gale tried, only to burn with a bit of embarrassment as the rothé stopped again, and then began to spin in place, in a slow, perfect circle, one step at a time. Beside him, Karlach couldn’t hold back her laughter.

“Trickier than it looks, innit?” she asked, grinning.

Zanner gave a hesitant chuckle, watching the still-turning rothé. “Perhaps it would be best if I position the constructs to the carts. But I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it…should we need to train new drivers. May I have the wand?”

“Oh…of course,” Gale said. He handed the wand back to Zanner, his face still somewhat warm. He should have been better at that than he was…

“To me,” Zanner called to the construct, walking away toward one of the carts nearby. The rothé stopped turning and followed after Zanner. Gale didn’t hear the rest of the commands, but it was undeniable, the ease with which he spoke to and maneuvered the construct to align with the cart in order to be strapped to it. Under his command, the rothé seemed to walk and behave like any other rothé. 

Gale rubbed the back of his neck, glancing over at Karlach. “Maybe I’ll, ah…walk, yes?”

Karlach patted him hard on the back, nearly knocking the wind out of him. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not touching those things except to pick ‘em up and put ‘em down if Zanner needs it. Besides, we need you at the front. You’re the map man. The navigator. Remember?”

“Gale!” Gortash’s voice called out across the cavern space. He stood with Minthara and Lae’zel at his side, near a makeshift table that was little more than a few stacked crates. “Join us! We should chart our next path forward.”

Karlach nudged him with her elbow. “See? Go on, then, I’ll help Zanner finish up here.” She left him with another pat on his shoulder and jogged over to where Zanner was helping others fasten the rothé to a cart.

“Right,” Gale said, blowing out a breath. He rolled his shoulders, his back still smarting a bit from Karlach’s enthusiastic pat. “Map man. That’s me. I can do that.”

Or so he hoped.

He hoped the little trial with the rothé just now wasn’t a sign for things to come. If so, they were about to be hopelessly lost.

Pushing those thoughts aside, he left the constructs behind to join Gortash at the front of their half-formed procession.

——

They were very soon underway, having made a convoy of nine carts, seven rothé constructs, and just under fifty people. They formed an odd procession as they journeyed through the Underdark, with mechanical beasts pulling covered wagons or open carts full of supplies. Two of the constructs pulled two carts each, joined end to end with ropes and a bit of ingenuity. Other than the drivers, mostly Gondians, who sat on the carts holding the crystal wands and directing the constructs, most people walked alongside or behind, helping guide the carts across the often uneven rocky ground.

Though they were on the ancient roads toward Nautera, the roads themselves had not been maintained for millennia. In some places, there was no road at all, and they were forced to get creative with how they traveled. Good old-fashioned heavy lifting did the trick in most cases, but occasionally Gale made himself useful with a few well-controlled levitation spells. Other than that, he tended to stay near the front with Gortash, Minthara, and Lae’zel, the four of them making use of contents from the Nauterran Account, Lae’zel’s tir’su slates, and information from Minthara’s scouts, who scouted ahead, to make progress each day. 

They made it three days (or what seemed like days) traversing the Underdark before they hit their first real incident. 

They had paused for a rest after hours of walking the caverns and roads. Gale was sitting on a rock, reading over pages from the Nauterran Account, when he saw two of Minthara’s drow scouts approach her where she stood just a few feet over. Minthara frowned at their report before nodding and sending them away. She glanced over at Gale and beckoned him to her.

“Wizard. I have need of you.”

Gale closed his book and went to join her. “How can I help, Nightwarden?”

“My scouts have returned from their reconnaissance of the path ahead. It appears that there was a significant cave-in blocking the forward path. They tell me there are two potential routes forward around the cave-in, but aren’t clear on which is best. I’ll need you to return with one of them and see what you can discern, given what you know from that little book of yours.”

“I see. That shouldn’t be difficult.” Gale had anticipated things like this cropping up. After 4500 years, why would everything in the Underdark be remotely the same? He was more amazed they’d made it so far without things like cave-ins and alternate routes happening more frequently.

“Take Karlach and Shadowheart with you,” Minthara said. “We’ve been noticing some…suspicious activity of late.”

“Suspicious activity?”

“Nothing that need worry you, wizard,” Minthara said, feigning boredom. “Though if you are frightened, I can always assign more warriors to go with you. For your protection.”

“I can fight,” Gale said, a flicker of irritation coloring his voice. “Though it helps to know what I might be fighting so that I can adequately prepare.”

Minthara regarded him with faint interest before nodding once. “Very well. You have likely not noticed, but for the last three days we have encountered dead creatures, usually of no consequence, scattered along our paths. Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. Usually small things, lizards and the like. All of them drained of blood.”

“Ah. You suspect the vampire is following us, then. Astarion.”

“If he is, and if he so much as dares to show his fangs near one of us, rest assured I will drive a stake through his heart before he can so much as blink,” Minthara said, her voice low and dark. But then she straightened and appeared neutral again. “But so far he has not bothered us. If you see him during your scouting, however…”

Her implication was clear. But Gale wasn’t so sure he wanted another death on his conscience. Sure, Astarion was a vampire, but he’d had three days to attack them or start picking them off. Instead, he’d had the mental fortitude to resist his hunger and feed on small Underdark creatures. Gale wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly, but it was enough to make him hesitate.

“I can make no promises, Minthara,” he said. “But I’ll take your suggestion under advisement.”

She looked amused but didn’t argue. “As you should. Now go. Fetch Shadowheart and Karlach and meet my scout farther up the path. From there, the four of you are on your own until you find a way forward."

[mumms-the-word]

In Fathoms Below - Ch. 3

Ch. 3 - Expert in Gibberish

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: Kind of a slow chapter today, sorry friends. Also, today’s chapter touches on Gale’s history with Mystra, but I don’t want to pretend that my interpretation of the events here are at all Gale’s canon. BG3 doesn’t tell us when Gale was selected as a Chosen of Mystra or when he became lovers with Mystra. The year I picked is just something that worked for this fic. Remember, it’s all for fun!

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The view outside the windows of the submersible was an alluring gloom of wonder and mystery, eerily beautiful and unsettling. Moving through the depths felt a little like being suspended in a starless sky at twilight, when the night painted the world in shades of blue. Only this blue was much deeper and all-encompassing, stretching out in all directions, above and below. Every now and again, the shadowy crags of some undersea cliff would appear off to the side, just out of reach of the lights, blurry and indistinct, reminding Gale that he wasn’t suspended in an actual void; but otherwise, there wasn’t much to see. Just deep cerulean water, shadows of rocks, and the occasional school of silver fish darting out of the submersible’s path.

“We’re approaching two hundred fathoms below the surface, saer,” a gnome pilot said, watching the needles on a series of gauges.

“Very good,” Gortash said. “Level out and keep us moving east. I want to reach those trenches in less than a day.”

As Redhammer and the other pilots called out commands and responses, leveling out the submersible so that it no longer descended into the depths, Gortash turned his back on the view and clasped his hands together. “Now then, seeing as we’re well underway, I think it’s time we made plans. Gale, if you would join us?”

Gale, the other companions that he had met, and several more uniformed men and women he didn’t yet know gathered around the desk at the center of the room. By the time Gale had taken his place opposite Gortash, the desk and maps between them, they had a small audience of about thirty people, not counting the pilots still working around the perimeter of the helm.

“I trust you’ve had time to study that book, Gale?” Gortash asked, gesturing to the satchel that hung from Gale's shoulder and rested on his hip.

“Not as much as I’d like, but I haven’t ended my study yet,” he said, pulling the book from his satchel. He carefully opened the book, turning over the thick vellum pages until he landed on a break in the center. The right side was written in familiar draconic script, while the left page was written using more fluid, curling characters—Hamarfae, the script of the ancient elves. “The journal appears to have been written at two separate times, in two separate languages, though likely by the same author. The first half details the journey of a Netherese mage, an apprentice or colleague of the infamous Ioulaum of Netheril, as they arrived in Nautera before it sank beneath the waves. It breaks off abruptly about halfway through, however, and the second half picks up what appears to be decades later, with the mage attempting to locate Nautera beneath the sea. The first half can tell us much about the city before its descent, but the last half will lead us to where it is now. At least, theoretically.”

“So what’s the catch?” Wyll asked. “There has to be a catch.”

“Well, the last half is easy enough to read. It’s written in Loross, the language of the Netherese nobility and Netheril’s most esteemed scholars. Simple to translate, if you’ve studied it as I have. The issue lies with the first half of the book—it’s written in Seldruin.”

Minthara scoffed. “The dead language of faeries. How fitting."

Halsin flicked his gaze at Minthara, a frown briefly touching his lips, before focusing again on Gale. “The last sages who studied, read, or spoke Seldruin died out nearly two centuries ago. As far as I know, no one has made efforts to keep the knowledge of Seldruin alive since then. If you can make out even simple words, it would be more than impressive—it would be astounding.”

"Do you even need to?" Shadowheart asked. "The Netherese part has directions to where Nautera is now. The first half is just fluff in comparison."

Gale shook his head. "I disagree. The first half provides much-needed context for all the rest. And I can read some of it—the translation process is just a bit slow."

"You can already read Seldruin?" Haslin asked, looking astonished.

“Well, I’m hardly an expert in it, but I’ve managed to make some headway,” Gale said, unable to resist a bit of pride creeping into his voice. Cradling the book in one hand, he held up a finger as he began to explain, “And it’s actually quite simple. If you use the Loross as a kind of cipher, then look for loanwords between the two languages, identify the connections to archaic and modern Elven, keeping the different rules for conjugations and declensions and so forth in mind, you—”

He glanced up, in the middle of gesturing with his free hand, to find that most had confused or bored expressions. Karlach looked particularly lost and Minthara particularly uninterested. He cut himself off and cleared his throat. “You…ah, well, suffice it to say that I’ve been able to decipher several pages since obtaining the book. For example…”

He returned to the very first page of the journal and traced his finger along the first line of Seldruin, speaking the words aloud. A strange tingle, faint and almost imperceptible, buzzed at the back of his mind, and though the first words came out clunky and stilted, the rest of the sentence issued forth much more smoothly, as if he innately knew the language. 

He paused. That had never happened before. But then again, this was the first time he’d tried to speak the Seldruin out loud. 

He focused back on the text. “Roughly translated, it means, ‘I write this in the language of the Nauterrans, replicating their speech in the hopes that we might also learn to replicate their Art.’ I suspect our author began his account after he had arrived in the city. He must have been learning Seldruin from the Nauterrans.”

“Impressive,” Gortash said, yet his smile betrayed a different opinion. It was a smile like that of a patient adult viewing a child’s poorly drawn artwork rather than someone who had any real sense of the subject matter Gale was presenting. “But for now, what we require is not a lesson in linguistics, but a location to investigate. We don’t have enough resources to sweep the entire ocean floor for days without end.”

Gale tried to rein in some of his irritation. “Yes, well, that is where the second half of the journal comes in. Our nameless author appears to have tried to locate Nautera again, years after its disappearance. He discovered potential paths below the sea.”

“Ah, yes. Paths beginning here,” Lae’zel said, reaching over and pointing to an area of one of the charts, showing a series of trenches and crevices along the seabed.

He couldn’t help but be impressed. “Yes, precisely. How did you know?”

“The records of K’liir state that the last known entrance to Nautera lies in deep sea trenches east of Faerûn. These are the only trenches of any significance between Faerûn and Evermeet, according to your maps.” She looked a little smug as she straightened up. “Did you think we were merely wandering aimlessly through the sea?”

“How do your people know these trenches hold an entrance to Nautera?” Shadowheart asked, a bit of bratty petulance creeping into her tone. “Have they discovered the city already?”

“Of course not,” Lae’zel snapped. “But they discovered the remnants of ancient roads and bridges. The kind that would have connected Nautera to its sister cities on the other islands…or so it is believed. Somewhere in these trenches, there should be the ruins of two statues. No doubt built to ward off superstitious fools.”

“Or guide them to safe harbor,” Gale said. “According to the Nauterran Account, when Ioulaum and his fellow mages arrived, before the disappearance of the islands, they first saw twin statues that rose nearly one hundred meters above the water, flanking an entrance to a bay where ships could safely dock or anchor.” 

He turned the pages of the book to show a sketch of the statues. They looked like two elven figures, though built in a less elegant style than most elven iconography these days. Their features were simple, their clothing little more than geometric designs across their bodies. Each held one hand up level with their chest, palms facing outward, with the other hand held flat before them, palms upward. A welcoming gesture, one that promised open-handed generosity and peace. 

Gale laid the book on the table with the images of the statues visible for everyone to see. “When the author returned later, he found these statues broken and resting among the trenches. The entrance to the Underdark we’re looking for should be close by.”

He shot a surreptitious glance at Gortash, as if to say See? The Seldruin half is useful. But Gortash’s eyes were on the book on the table.

“So if we find these statues, we find the roads leading to Nautera,” he said.

“In theory, yes.”

“Is it just going to be lying at the bottom of the ocean?” Karlach asked, peering over Wyll’s shoulder. “The whole city?”

“No. It’s much more likely that it has been covered by rocks and other land formations and is somewhere in the Underdark now.”

“But if we’re approaching underwater, then wouldn’t the Underdark spaces be just as flooded with water as everywhere else?” Wyll asked. Across the desk from him, Minthara scoffed quietly, but it was Gale who continued to answer.

“Not quite,” he said. “According to this author, the curve and angle of the tunnels in the trenches are formed so that they should lead to an air pocket, and from there, into the Underdark. Think of it like this—the undersea tunnels function more or less the same way rudimentary plumbing functions.”

He reached for a piece of graphite and quickly sketched out a schematic of what he meant on a scrap piece of parchment, showing the curve of the tunnels and a simple bubble filled only partly with water.

Shadowheart turned her head to murmur to Karlach. “Wizard, linguist, plumber…hard to believe this guy is single.” Karlach snickered and Wyll, overhearing it as well, covered his mouth with his hand to hide his smile.

Gale tried to ignore her. “The point is, it’s been thousands of years since the islands disappeared, and Toril has seen a great deal of change since then. Not the least of which was the Spellplague and the Second Sundering.”

There was a kind of contemplative hush at the mention of the Second Sundering. The memory of it felt fresh, though it had begun almost a decade ago and ended four years ago. All of Toril had felt the effects of Ao’s sundering, rumored to have separated the world of Toril from the overlapping world of Abeir. Entire cities and civilizations vanished or blinked into existence, some of them all at once and others appearing slowly over time, as if the land were stretching a little each day. A number of wars and catastrophic natural disasters happened, like the Great Rain that lasted for days upon days, or various floating earthmotes crashing to the ground, or even a few stars falling from the sky. For most, the Sundering was no more noteworthy than the local war or strange event that happened nearby, but there were very few people who were left wholly unaffected. 

Though Gale hadn’t experienced much of a physical difference in Waterdeep at the time, everyone at Blackstaff Academy was following the events closely, tracking changes around the world. It wasn’t just the physical landscape that was changing; the fabric of the Weave was reforming and repairing itself from the damage of the Spellplague. Gods thought long dead were returning, some of them physically walking on Toril and gathering new followers, new Chosen. It was during this time that Mystra, who had been slowly revealing herself to her followers by whispering into their thoughts and dreams, had finally returned in full force.

The same year that the Sundering had been completed, just over four years ago, was the same year that Mystra had unveiled herself to him and took him as her lover, after years of whispering the promise of it in his ears and making him one of her Chosen. He hadn’t even made it five years as her lover before mucking things up and falling from her grace.

He pushed those thoughts aside for now. His melancholy wouldn’t help them find Nautera.

“Regardless,” he said, breaking the silence. “The world has changed greatly since the disappearance of Nautera, so it should be no surprise that the city is now buried. If we can find those statues, we’ll find one of the oldest underwater entrances to get us to Nautera, taking us through the Underdark and, gods-willing, to the final resting place of the lost city.”

“Then it’s settled,” Gortash said. “Gale, Lae’zel, you two compare your notes and work with our navigators to narrow the search for the statues. The rest of you, be on standby. I want all eyes on the lookout when we approach those deep sea trenches.”

Gale ventured a glance at Lae’zel, expecting to find more hostility from the githyanki soldier, but she merely regarded him with a cool stare. As the others dispersed, some of them leaving the helm entirely, she crossed her arms.

“Well?” she asked. “Why do you stare at me so?”

“Oh, I—no reason. No reason at all.” He cleared his throat and pulled out the chair, gesturing for her to sit. “Why don’t we make ourselves comfortable? It may take some time to determine anything useful.”

She didn’t move a muscle. “I can stand.”

“Right…” Gale hesitated for a moment before giving in and taking the chair himself. “Then we’d best get started.”

While the pilots continued to work around the helm under the watchful gazes of Gortash and Minthara, Gale and Lae’zel worked with a couple of cartographers and navigators to work out a location to investigate. Karlach, Wyll, Shadowheart, and Halsin remained in the helm, sitting or standing near the windows to watch the undersea world drift along, sometimes engaging in conversation with one another and sometimes lapsing into thoughtful silence as the hours crawled by. Down here in the blue depths, Gale lost all sense of time, though he noted the waters getting darker and darker.

Although Lae’zel was reluctant to hand over the slates she had with her, she did show Gale how to identify separate words in tir’su and briefly explained how the written language operated. Between the journal’s account of the journey as it would have been 4500 years ago and the somewhat more recent githyanki’s explorations in the same area, they were able to narrow down a few possible areas on the maps as viable locations to search. They marked these on the map of the sea floor.

“It’s curious,” Gale said, as the navigator picked up the map they had marked and took it over to Gortash to consult with him. “Why would the githyanki be interested in an ancient elven city?”

“The githyanki are interested in many things,” Lae’zel said. “Not the least of which are powerful artifacts.”

“Ah. So you’re interested in the lost mythallar as well.”

Lae’zel frowned. “I said nothing about—”

She broke off at the sound of a commotion outside the helm. They and several others in the room turned to see three figures struggling just beyond the open metal doorway. Gale rose from his chair right as they burst into the room—two dark-clad drow soldiers and a pale, white-haired elf held firmly between them.

The elf struggled and bared his teeth, revealing two sharp fangs. “Unhand me you vile—” He stopped as he noticed his audience, his red eyes widening. “Ah…oh dear.”

“What is the meaning of this?” Gortash asked, handing back the map to his navigator. Minthara made a signal with her hand and one of the drow kicked the back of the pale elf’s knee, causing him to grunt and crumple. His knees hit the metal floor with a painful thud.

“A stowaway, Nightwarden,” the second drow said, ignoring Gortash to address Minthara. “We found him sneaking around the supply room.”