Chapter Text
When Amma wakes up on the banks of a river, it’s daytime. She curses, the sound of it half-formed under her breath; her head pounds, and she hurts. She sits up, checks her person for injuries and belongings, tries to remember— and when she does, she staggers to her feet. She panics, frantically scans the beach for movement, and tries to elbow a blur in her periphery that turns out to be a burning piece of carapace.
Something’s wrong.
Mind flayers abducted her, and a githyanki saved her, and now the ship has crashed and she’s alive. That means the githyanki won. It also means that the githyanki didn’t kill her on sight for having an illithid parasite, so either they didn’t care that she was carrying a parasite— unlikely— or they didn’t know— which means the one that saved her on the nautiloid is probably worse off than her, just now, and the others were scared off or killed before they could destroy all of the infected. She should be nothing but a meat-colored splat on the cliffside, but something had caught her— something had kept her alive.
That mean’s something’s wrong.
You must find her, a long-forgotten voice says in her mind, and at the same time, the parasite wriggles just behind her eye. Her vision whites out and her head star-bursts with pain. When she can see again, she’s on the ground, clutching her temples.
Her palm presses into her eye socket on instinct, as if she could squash the parasite nestled within— she tries to take stock of the space it must inhabit, somewhere in the region of her ocular nerve. It feels wet and slippery between her eyeball and her skull. Carefully, she tries to probe it with her own mind, to pinpoint the voice it spoke with. All that happens is the worm tries once more to ram its fat head through the optic canal and into her brain. Tears and some kind of discharge she doesn’t want to think about drip down her nose. She squeezes both her eyes shut, scrubs her face with her sleeves, and breathes deep to calm herself.
She’s carrying an illithid parasite. She doesn’t know where she is. The rest of the caravan is either dead in Neverwinter Wood or dead somewhere nearby, so that paycheck is shot. She has nothing but the clothes she was wearing when she got abducted.
She stands again, takes some more steadying breaths, and looks around.
The flaming remains of the mind flayers’ ship are cracked open around her, oozing, smoking. She’s on a freshwater beach. It’s mid-afternoon. She inhales deeply through her nose and tries to smell anything familiar or distinguishing, but all she gets is river water, summer air, and charred flesh that has begun to rot. She goes to the river and touches the water; it’s cold. The plants are different, and the air is hotter, than it was near Neverwinter. Cliffs rise above her, all around, and she sees no buildings over their tall edges. Judging from the terrain, she could be anywhere from Tethyr to the Dalelands— though, she’s no ranger, and she’s certainly no guide. She doesn’t get paid for her sense of direction.
But she’s not dead.
She can find a way out of anything, as long as she’s not dead.
She starts hiking up the rocky slope to greener climes.
Soon, she finds the half-elf girl from the nautiloid, in one piece but totally unconscious. For a moment, Amma stares at her. Then, she glances around her feet, looking for a rock sharp enough to cut through the girl’s pack straps. With any luck, she can take it, sell it, and be on her way before the girl even wakes up.
She doesn’t have any luck.
“Wh…”
The cleric stirs, and her eyes flutter open. Amma nudges the side of her breastplate with her toe.
As she startles and recoils from the rogue: “W-what are you doing?”
“Just making sure you were alive,” Amma lies.
The half-elf doesn’t seem convinced. She sits up with a groan, then pulls herself to standing. Amma moves far enough away that her skull won’t get immediately bashed in by the cleric’s mace.
“I’m alive, yes,” she says, watching Amma nervously. “... Thank you for the concern.”
Then she frowns, looks down at herself, and around them at the carnage of the crash. “How am I alive..?” she mutters in confusion.
“Does it matter?”
She ignores Amma.
“I remember the ship, I remember falling… then nothing.”
She looks up at the rogue expectantly.
“f*ck if I know,” Amma says. “Any idea what happened to the gith?”
The girl shakes her head.
Great. Fantastic. Wonderful.
Amma says, “Well, I’m going to look for her. If anyone can set us right, it’s one of them.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I know so. She told me on the nautiloid.”
Amma starts walking again.
“Wait,” the half-elf says, trailing after her. “How do you know so? She could have just been lying, saying anything to get you on her side—”
“D’you know anything about githyanki?”
“Only that they’re from another plane—”
“Yeah, and they used to be enslaved by mind flayers. It’s like their whole deal. If anyone can cure us, it’s going to be them.” Then, glancing over her shoulder: “Unless you want to try your hand at brain surgery?”
The half-elf grimaces and says, “Not really, no. Point taken. Do you study—?”
“No. Ran into some once on a job. Now, let’s go. We’re wasting daylight.”
“We ought to look for other survivors,” the cleric says, falling into step beside her. “I can’t believe that it would just be us.”
“Sure. But if you slow me down, I’ll leave you all behind.”
“Your selflessness is truly humbling.”
“Your sarcasm is trite.”
They continue on in silence.
Up the hills a bit, Amma hears someone calling out for help. They don’t sound desperate, or injured— just annoyed. Another survivor, she figures, as she and the girl are still slogging their way through the wreckage of the nautiloid. The ship was hundreds of feet long, bigger than some of the dragons chasing it; and at the memory, she looks up to the sky, primal fear curling in her belly. But no, the blue expanse is streaked only with white, not red.
When she spots him, a few yards ahead, she tucks into a crevice and lingers to watch what he does. He seems alone, and he seems genuinely distraught.
Amma holds up her hand and mutters “Stay here” to the girl.
She picks her way through the wreckage until she comes up closer on his other side. He won’t see her coming, there. It’ll be to her advantage.
“Helloooooooo!” he’s calling. “Hello! Can anybody hear me?”
“I hear you,” Amma says, just behind him, and he spins on his heel. He’s a waifish-looking elf— pale, fine and polished, young.
Pain spirals from her eye again, and this time, it’s accompanied with an overwhelming sense of heat and light and terror. She and the elf both cry out, flinching, clutching their heads—
“YOU,” he snarls, and they’re both fighting for consciousness. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME—”
Amma manages to squint through the blinding pain just in time to see him lunge for her. A rock jams into her shoulder blade as he tackles her to the ground, and she cries out. He puts his hand over her mouth, and it’s cold.
“Shut up,” the pale elf hisses in her ear. He’s pressing her down with a knife to her belly. She snarls under his palm, but knows better than to press her luck— even if he’s bluffing, the blade is too close for comfort. He’s a royal-looking thing; pampered, sleepless. His eyes are red.
“I know you,” he says. He still looks frightened, underneath the glare. “I saw you on the ship, didn’t I? Nod.”
Amma snarls again, but nods, not taking her eyes off him.
“I knew it,” he hisses. “ You— and those tentacled freaks—”
Amma punches him in the ribs as hard as she can. He fumbles the knife and she slips it easily into her grasp. He recoils, and she’s ready to do this on her back if necessary, but he stands— she tracks him with the blade and gets to her feet as well.
“They took me,” she says sharply. The parasite turns. She sways, but stays standing as the pain threatens to overwhelm her— it pulses, and she sees the pale elf double over, dry-retching. She keeps the knife trained on him. “They took me. Same as you.”
He coughs. Wipes his mouth. He staggers a few steps away, puts his hand up and leans against the crust of the nautiloid. He coughs.
“Yes,” he mutters. “Yes, I— kaff— I can see that.”
Once he catches his breath, his demeanor changes entirely. He gives a gay little giggle and a wave of his hand.
“And to think, I was ready to decorate the ground with your innards!” He seems to think this is cute. “My apologies, darling—”
Amma does not lower the dagger.
“Here is what’s going to happen,” she growls. She speaks slowly, as if to a child. “You, and I, and her, all have a problem. And we need help to solve this problem. So we are going to stick together, and pool our resources. And once we solve this problem, we will go our separate ways, like nothing ever happened. Alright?”
His mouth twitches.
“Alright,” he says sweetly, and looks at her like she’s said the most interesting thing in the world. He extends his hand, as if to be kissed, and says, “Well, I’m out of wine and flowers, so I hope an introduction will suffice— my name is Astarion. I was in Baldur’s Gate when those beasts snatched me. And you are?”
“Not interested in making conversation,” she says, and starts walking.
“Now— now hold on, hold on—”
She doesn’t. He jogs a bit to catch up with her. She’s already starting to regret not killing him. The cleric catches up and falls into step easily behind them.
“These— these worms in our heads,” Astarion says, walking sideways and trying to catch Amma’s eye. “And those absolutely wretched things that gave them to us—”
“Mind flayers,” she corrects him, tucking his dagger into her belt and keeping her eyes staunchly on the trail. “Those were tadpoles. We have a week.”
“A week of..?”
“Living.”
He coughs. “And then it kills us?”
“No, we turn into mind flayers.”
Astarion laughs, shrill and loud, and Amma wonders how much gold he’s got in his pockets.
When they come upon a pair of tiefling rangers, and the githyanki strung up like a windcatcher, Amma is perfectly happy to resolve the situation without further violence— until one of the tieflings looks at her and tightens his bowstring, and says, “Move along, under-elf. Our business is none of yours.”
So she kills them both.
Neither of her companions intervene or comment, which she takes as a promising sign.
She searches the bodies for anything of use. One of them had a shortsword, which she takes; she throws Astarion’s dagger back to him, and he catches it with far more grace than she’d expected. There is no gold, but the girl had a silver locket that looked worth selling. The githyanki starts talking.
“Get me down,” she snarls.
“You know, in this plane, it’s common to say ‘thank you’ when someone saves your life.”
“You may as well suggest a wyvern bow to worms.”
“Alright, then, have it your way.”
Astarion is staring at the corpses.
Amma stands, goes to him, and presses one of the tieflings’ shortbows into his hands.
“You know how to shoot?” she says.
He’s still looking at the corpses. She gut-checks him with the bow. (Shadowheart smirks, off to the side where she’s cleaning gore off the head of her mace.) Astarion wets his lips and turns his attention sharply to the rogue; he’s twitchy, like a little bird. He scowls, and wraps his fingers around the bow, the touch settling just next to hers. He holds her gaze for a moment. They’ve been in the sun for hours and his skin is still so oddly cold.
“How hard can it be?” he says lightly. He looks like he’d love to test his aim on her.
“Harder than you’d think,” Amma tells him, and hopes he shoots himself in the knee.
Shadowheart calls softly, “Let’s go. These two look like scouts, there’s got to be a settlement nearby.”
Amma starts up the hill again. Astarion lingers.
“What about this one?” he calls after Amma. She turns, and he’s pointing to the githyanki caged above them. She looks ready to chew her way through the bars to get at Amma’s throat.
“She can join us when she’s found her manners,” Amma says, meeting the githyanki’s stare with coldness of her own.
“Fool,” the gith spits.
Amma’s mouth twitches. She turns her gaze to Astarion, and waits for him to follow.
He stares at the corpses for a long moment, looking rather sorry, and then he sighs heavily and keeps on walking.
Another hour later, the trail bends and hits a clearing. Astarion lingers in the trees; Amma continues forward. When she realizes that he’s no longer following, she turns.
“f*ck are you waiting for?” she calls— and an arrow hits the ground, just shy of her foot. She swears again and leaps back toward the trees. The girl looks amused. Astarion hurries to nock an arrow and return a shot, but he’s fumbling, so she hisses, “Give me that,” and snatches the shortbow from his hands.
Amma nocks and draws in a heartbeat, aiming across the clearing. There’s a rocky outcropping with movement on it. She lines up her shot.
“WAIT,” someone calls out. “HOLD FIRE!”
Amma doesn’t lower the bow. Astarion crouches behind her and nervously (uselessly) brandishes his dagger at the voice across the clearing.
On the rock wall, she can now make out a handful of tieflings. Seems they’ve found the camp. She inches further back into the trees. A red tiefling in scale mail leans over a wood railing and continues shouting.
“HOW MANY ARE YOU?”
Amma doesn’t move.
“Well? ” Astarion hisses behind her. “Aren’t you going to tell him?!”
“Feels like a trap,” she mutters.
“Oh, for the love of— THREE!”
Astarion sheathes his dagger and grabs her arm, dragging her into the clearing with him. The half-elf girl mutters something unpleasant, and follows reluctantly. Amma yanks her arm out of Astarion’s grip. He waves and grins broadly up at the tieflings.
“THERE’S ONLY THREE OF US, AND WE NEED SUPPLIES! PLEASE HELP!”
There is a sound of something heavy grinding against stone, and the ivy on the rock wall starts to part like curtains. The tiefling vanishes, and once they’re about even with the door, he blocks the shady gap behind the vines— a door, Amma realizes: a hidden door into an even more hidden sanctuary. He’s got a greatsword of his own stowed on his back. The door is open just enough for him to exit, and for them to enter— narrow, easier for one man to defend if necessary. He eyes them critically.
“Stow your weapons,” the tiefling says. “And keep them stowed. I’ve got enough trouble here already.” He looks them over again, brow furrowed. “What’s brought you here, of all damn places?”
“Shipwreck,” Amma says. “Went down on the river.”
The tiefling looks like he has doubts about that, but he doesn’t voice them. He stands back to admit them.
“Well, you can try your luck here, but I can’t promise you’ll find it much improving,” he says. “Welcome to the Emerald Grove.”
