#We're so back baby

[atsadi-shenanigans]

FSBE 23 - Judge, Jury, and...

You make a choice.

On AO3.

Holy shit. Holy god. What the fucking shit holy fuck jesus christ. That motherfucker’s guts hang out like gory silly string. Pawpaw looms over Curly, bored ass face except for the way his eyes now burn.

To her credit, or maybe not, Curly hesitates only a second. Then snatches up that axspear and buries it in his neck like she’s chopping firewood. More blood—weirdly dark and thick and Astarion flinches away—spurts out. Pawpaw’s head comes off. Flops over his shoulder, hanging by a strand of inside-out skin.

Gale makes a sound. Astarion’s lips part to show a hint of fangs, his pupils pinpricks.

But Pawpaw don’t. Even. Stagger. Takes the hit like a champ, if that champ was an unkillable Ohioan geriatric with his head cut the fuck off.

He raises his left hand. Tugs the axspear free. Tosses it to the side this time. And then lifts his head with his other hand and sets it wetly back into place.

The goblins ain’t the only ones to take a step back. Your guts go swimming like a bad morning after a Taco Bell run as Pawpaw’s neck stitches back together. A reverse John Carpenter sequence. Then he straightens. Breathes in deep through his nose.

Lifts his hands up in a double fist—

“Fuck!” you yelp.

—slams down through the top of Curly’s head. Her skull shatters. Bits of bone and brains and hair go flying. You hop back so it don’t hit your boots.

Curly crumples, dead before her knees give out. The two remaining goblins cringe as low as they can get while Pawpaw looks over at them, eyes dark and cold once again.

“Dispose of the others as you see fit,” he says in the same tone one orders an extra side of hashbrowns. Then he pauses. And that gaze finds you again. “Better yet, put that True Soul to use. You have more important matters to attend to.”

“Of course, my lord,” Swell says. Bows her head. “Thank you.”

Pawpaw marches off. Got cut in half. Decapitated. Treated all of it like it wasn’t more’n a messier-than-usual mosquito bite.

A goblin lies crumpled face down, the top of her head gone. There’s a piece of her scalp about two inches from your right foot.

You have to swallow a couple times.

“You heard the general,” Swell says. Like she’s seen spattered brains before. Like she already knows it looks like gray jelly, slick and pink with blood, and the reek of bowels releasing. “The goblins are yours. Deal with them however you wish.”

That air of violence wraps around her again, with Pawpaw fucked off. She’s got to be his right hand. Or left one. Nodding along in his presence, lording over others the rest of the time.

She cocks her head. Studies the shaking goblins and her gaze turns thoughtful. Cruel. “Here in the seat of the Absolute’s power, your authority over them is complete. They will obey any command.”

The air thickens. You sense nauseating pain, the idea of hands plucking up knives and plunging them into their own flesh. Peeling skin away from bellies as loops of intestines spill—

Lungs commanded to close. The burn for air, hands clawing at necks as vision pounds but their bodies will no longer obey their own will. Not their will, but yours. Hers. Her will, praise the Absolute.

Astarion makes an appreciative little hum.

You stop yourself in time from snapping at him. Asking what the fuck he thinks he’s doing. Them fish people fucking dissected him, but here he is, brainworm pulsing with twisted curiosity over inflicting worse on others?

That thought gets away from you. Not to the others, but to him. He jerks upright. A flash of…fear? Annoyance. And then nothing from him. He cuts you off.

“Report to me upstairs once you’re done,” Swell says. Gives the goblins what in other circumstances could be considered a lecherous grin.

Leaves y’all. And the two goblins.

“Please,” Short Shit says. His nose runs, upper lip slick with snot. “Please, you gotta help me. For old time’s sake!”

You want to ask him what “old times” is. Stopping him from torturing that gnome? Poisoning half his camp? Blowing up the other half? How in the hell did he get out, anyway?

“We been nothing but loyal!” he says. He’s maybe two foot tall. Hunches in over himself, making himself even smaller. Peers up at you.

He stinks of desperation. Fear.

That’s probably just Curly’s body voiding itself.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Shadowheart says with a sigh. Like one does before cleaning the cat box. Doing the dishes. Taking out the trash. An annoying chore. Kind of a gross one, but nothing out of the ordinary. Not like she’s talking about murdering two, helpless people. Or goblins.

“Come on, darling,” Astarion says. “You can even order them to do it. Nice and quick.”

To kill themselves. To cut their own throats or open a vein. To knife each other. Shit, you could probably command their hearts to just stop. They’d pass out in seconds. Barely feel much pain.

It’s what this place expects. Such casual murder. Gore everywhere and no one even bats an eye. Not even Gale.

What the fuck is wrong with everyone?

“Please,” Short Shit says and his voice is strung out with desperation, so much fear. It rips the air outta your lungs.

You can’t. You, who blew up their hideout, who lured cultists to their death-by-owlbear, who stabbed a hobbit to mincemeat. You can’t just execute these two. Even though they’re assholes who terrorize other people. It’s too…cold-blooded. And you’re aware of that irony.

But.

Morality is a process. A system. It shifts and changes as time passes and people change. Ain’t no clear line. Not really, despite what the farmstead stuffed your head with (even then, there was contradictions, you just wasn’t supposed to notice them or say nothing). There’s always an exception. Always a gray area. Always somebody who has to work out where that line falls.

You’ll draw a line here. With those two. You ain’t gonna kill somebody pleading for their life, groveling on the floor. Not even them.

“Guards,” you say. “Release them.”

A beat of silence. You can feel the incredulity of the others filtering in through the brainworms.

The goblins all but collapse. Climb to their feet, beaming at you like you’re the sun after a storm.

“Praise the Absolute!” Short Shit says. “And praise you, True Soul!”

“Mercy?” Astarion says, face twisted into a sneer. “You showed goblins mercy?”

“I show a lotta people mercy, in case you missed that,” you say point blank to his face. You’re pretty sure the real meaning hits him. He said himself most people would’a killed him when he tried to bite you.

His sneer dims a little. Still stays, though. “Ugh. The half-orc won’t like this.”

But the guards don’t come forward to meet y’all. Nobody shouts “seize them” or “fraud” or anything. The goblins all but trip over their own feet bailing out. Gale watches them go, a worried frown on his face.

Faerun fucking sucks. Everybody is an asshole.

Except Wyll. And probably Karlach, when she ain’t gushing over popping off heads. You kinda wish they was here, instead of the two edgelords and Gale. Who, honestly, sided with you when you suggested feeding cultists to an owlbear.

Jesus fuck, what are you becoming?

Swell went up the stone stairs to the right. Y’all start up after her, giving a wide berth to the crime scene Pawpaw left of Curly. Except Astarion, who squelches right through the pool of blood very deliberately. And very deliberately not looking at you.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Shadowheart says. She ain’t frowning or glowering at you, at least. Just looks solemn. “Your soft heart may spell disaster for us all.”

[bethfuller]

night spires.

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