#forgotten coast | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

spacebarbarianweird · 6 days

Text

The Dhampirs of the Sword Coast - Chapter 3

Part 3 of Astarion's daughter adventures and consequences of releasing 7000 vampires into the Underdark. After saving Tara from the smugglers, Alethaine finally meets her parents' friend, Gale Decarios.

Read on AO3

Link for Part 1, Part 2

Thanks @queenofthespacesquids for beta-reading!

The List of Chapters

Masterlist

Headcanons

Alethaine (High Elf/Necromancer) - age 25. Astarion's daughter. Lawful Neutral.

Ulsha (Half-Orc/Paladin) - age 26. Lawful Good.

Theris (Tiefling/Bard) - age 27. Chaotic Neutral.

Mierni (Human/Wizard)- age 14, Gale's foster son. Suffers with selective muteness. True neutral.

Alethaine jumps on the floor and faces the owner of the tower.

The archwizard of Waterdeep, Gale Decarios, is standing in front of her with the tressym in his hands.

“I suppose you are Alethaine Ancunin, my friend’s daughter? – He asks. – And who is this young man with you? Sorry if I've assumed his gender or age incorrectly.”

“This is Theris. I am afraid he has some prejudices against wizards”

“I don’t blame him, to be honest. If I weren't a wizard myself, I would be biased towards them, too, – He smiles wide. – I am happy to welcome you to my home, Alethaine – and finally talk to you. Last time your father visited he didn’t shut up about you”

“Oh?” Alethaine suddenly feels a wave of embarrassment. “Did he?”

“Of course! You see, I've recently gotten an interest in dhampirs, and as a man of science I couldn’t ignore the opportunity to obtain new knowledge first hand, – Gale shrugs, showing his unexpected guests the way out of the library. – Well, technically, second hand, since I interrogated your father about it. I must admit I used to think it’s not possible to manifest dhampir abilities at the age of five months old! But Astarion was very proud when I told him you are that peculiar. But I also would love to hear certain details from you directly. Both of you.”

Theris tries to hide behind Alethaine’s back which falls flat due to the height difference.

“I will not let you vivisect me! I will fight!”

Alethaine thinks Gale will be offended but instead, the old wizard laughs.

“You probably mistake me for someone else, Theris. I prefer arcana and theory, not butchering young… dhampirs. I welcome you to my home, feel free to make yourself at home.”

“Yes, you have nothing to worry about, children,” Tara yawns.

An hour later, Alethaine sits in the hot tub. The warm water relaxes her muscles and feet.

It feels nice.

Sharpened hearing catches the distant echo of the conversation. Gale interrogates Theris – how old was he when his dhampirism manifested? Were his parents tieflings? Does he drink blood? Does he know other dhampirs? Has he ever been to the Underdark?

Five years old. Mother was a tiefling. Sometimes he drinks blood but he feels bad after. No, physically. The bard has no morals! He knows Ulsha the Half-Orc. No, devils save him!

Alethaine submerges herself under the water. She doesn’t need breathing, and she curls in the fetal position on the bottom of the tub, allowing the water to cover her body like a blanket.

If she closes her eyes she can imagine it’s her home in Daggerlake.

Alethaine could lie like that for hours before the water turned uncomfortably cold and she had to get out of there. Water deafened her sharpened dhampir hearing, and she could relax in silence.

Suddenly Alethaine realizes there is someone else in the house.

She can hear Gale and Theris from below and Alethaine is also aware of Tara’s presence in the hall.

The tressym hisses, and the dhampir hears someone else’s embarrassed footsteps.

“My dear, I didn’t know we were hosting a Sea Elf!” Tara jumps on the edge of the bathtub. “Well, maybe your mother’s father was one of them? Though Tiriel never struck to me as a water lover.”

Alethaine sits up and wet hair sticks to her face. “I don’t need to breathe, that’s all”

“I know, I know. You, dhampirs, are peculiar creatures! Who knew saving seven thousand vampires could lead to such a drastic change in the Swords Coast demographics?”

“Is that sarcasm?” Alethaine gets out of the bathtub and puts a towel on her head. Her waist-length silver hair will take an eternity to fully dry.

“Maybe! But you know… vampires or not, they were still thinking creatures. Your mother is a true hero for saving all of them!” Tara jumps on the chair and Alethaine sees a dress and a bathrobe which were not there when she entered the bathroom.

Tara disappears, and Alethaine puts up the clean clothes. The dress is nice, probably made of much finer fabric than the dhampir has ever worn. The robe is fluffy and warm and Alethaine has a glimpse of a thought to steal it once she is ready to go.

Though stealing from a wizard is probably a bad idea.

When she goes down to the dining room, Theris is already there devouring an enormous plate of food. Gale looks absolutely unbothered – more than this, he looks like a scientist observing a specimen.

“Alethaine, sit down with us!” Gale waves at the empty chair in front of him. “Hope the food will be to your liking”

Alethaine stares at the plates. Well, either Gale has a very good cook somewhere in the tower, or the wizard himself spends his free time in the kitchen.

Everything looks fucking delicious.

Alethaine decides she has never had table manners and probably never will and starts eating in and starts eating in an even messier manner than Theris.

“If you don’t like it, just tell me,” Gale smiles.

“Honestly, sir, my father is a vampire, my mother can eat raw meat, and I’ve been adventuring for six years. I have very low standards,'' Alethaine answers with her mouth full. “If it hasn't burnt, I can eat it. And if it’s burnt, I can give it a try.”

“I was the camp cook back in the day. Your mother really had weird habits even in comparison to the rest. Well, she wasn’t from the Sword Coast, after all”

Suddenly Gale’s gaze becomes dreamy. He looks left and smiles, remembering something.

“Your parents…” he suddenly says. “They are… still together?”

“Of course. They moved to Luskan a few years ago”

“Not far away! I think I should pay a visit. Besides, I haven’t seen Tiriel for, let me think, 45 years. But I bet she hasn’t changed much”

Theris suddenly elbows Alethaine. “It seems like the wizard had a thing for your mother”

“What? No!” Alethaine probably responded much louder than she intended because suddenly Gale stares at her as if trying to see familiar features in her face.

“Oh yes, you mother… Well, I actually thought I would be in charge since, of course, I was the most competent of the whole gang! Me, a renowned wizard! Who else? – Gale chuckles.But you know sometimes you should let people do what they are fit at.

He is silent for a few seconds.

“Tiriel led us all through the pain, fear, and misery. Saved us all! Told me she would break all my bones if I tried to recreate the crown of Karsus and, hells, she was right – it’s not the power a man should obtain, – Gale looks away, reminiscing. – She made the Duke of Ravengard beg his only son for forgiveness… Dragged poor Shadowheart from the cult. Tiriel… She is one of these people who couldn’t care less about power, but she made us all fight for our personal freedoms. Me, your father, the rest of us.”

Gale chuckles.

“Well, Tiriel could have become the leader of Baldur’s Gate – people would love her. But she preferred to stay on the road, to do things she liked. Well sometimes I think what could have been…–Gale sigs. – But, honestly, your mother would have been bored in Waterdeep''.

Alethaine stares at Gale. So he did have a thing for her mother. That is definitely something new.

Gale notices that and smiles.

“Well, I will be honest here. Tirie caught all my attention. I made a mistake thinking that her friendliness and kindness were a sign of romantic interest. Tiriel was just kind to everyone, I wasn’t special. And when I finally got a grip and wanted to talk to her, she was already in your father’s tent, – he smiles bitterly. – Never thought I would be jealous of a vampire. But six months after I met your mother for the last time I saw how happy she was. How happy Astarion was with her. He was literally a different person. And, to be honest, he deserved it. After everything he’d been through.”

Alethaine looks at her plate. Her mother and that wizard? She can’t imagine that.

Suddenly she hears light footsteps.

“Mierni! Come here, say hello to Theris and Alethaine!”

A fourteen-year-old boy with dark skin and protruding ears enters the dining room. He wears a pair of trousers and a white shirt but his feet are bare.

Tara immediately rushes to him and starts bumping her head on his leg.

“Mierni, darling, put on your shoes – it’s rather cold here!”

Mierni shakes his head and approaches the table. His dark skin is rather pale as if he’d been dead for a few hours. Two fangs are visible on his lips.

Another dhampir!

The boy quickly grabs a meat pie and rushes up to the wall. In a few moments, he sits in a dark corner of the ceiling like a huge bat.

“Don’t be offended,” Gale says. “This is Mierni. He is a good boy, he just sometimes doesn't want to speak. But very talented! Can cast fireballs like a battle mage!”

“Mierni is going to be a fine addition to the Decarios clan!” Tara adds.

“Is he your son?” Alethaine asks.

“Yes and no,'' Gale sighs. “His mother is a storm sorcerer. She'd gotten it into her head that if she had a child with a vampire, he'd be the most powerful wizard in the world. She'd found an undead somewhere, more an animal than human, one of those poor things that had gone mad over centuries of captivity in Cazador's dungeon, – he makes a sip from his glass. – Unluckily, Mierni had no special innate abilities other than dhampirism. I'll spare you the details, but this child was mistreated poorly. Beaten, starved. I found Miernilocked in the attic, and he'd never seen sunlight before.”

“So we kidnapped him,” Tara says.

“I prefer the word adopted,” Gale corrected. “Mierni is very smart! And knows many more spells than I did at his age, Though, unfortunately, you need to be able to speak to pronounce the spells – and it’s an issue”

Alethaine looks up at the ceiling. Mierni turns his head and casts a wary glance at her. Human-dhampir probably doesn’t see a lot of people.

“Is he mute?” Alethaine asks.

“From time to time. Maybe he will want to talk to you, though.”

Alethaine stands up from the table and walks up the wall to sit close to the boy.

“My name is Alethaine Ancunin. And you are Mierni, aren’t you?”

He nods.

“What are you reading?”

He points at the hardcover. “Crests, flags, and banners of the Moon sea. Interesting?”

another nod.

“THERIS!”

A loud scream forces Alethaine to stir and she almost falls down from the ceiling. Mierni jumps on his feet pressing the book to his chest.

“Sir, whatever lies she is going to say, it’s not true, it wasn't me and it never happened!”

Standing in the doorway, a half-orc paladin is fuming.

“Ulsha” Gale approaches her. “Please, calm down.”

“I won't! Gale, I am sorry, but he is dangerous!”

“But he is my guest. It would not be nice of me to betray people I shelter”

“He’s a dhampir”

“So what? Since when did you dhampir have fewer rights?”

Ulsha looks up at the ceiling, and Mierni immediately jumps on the floor.

“Ulsha! I am so happy to see you!” he rushes to her, and the half-orc hugs him.

“I am happy to see you, little wizard.”

“I’ve finished the book you brought me!” Mierni shows her the heavy volume.

Alethaine jumps back on the floor. Theris stands behind her using her as a shield and Black Death squeaks.

“Don’t give me to her,” he whispers.

“Ulsha,” Gale invites her to the table. “I am aware Theris is a notorious troublemaker, but he and Alethaine retrieved Tara from smugglers. I suppose it’s enough”

“You don't understand!”

“I think I do Ulsha,” Gale’s voice sounds more stern, “Please. Can I ask what brought you here?”

“it’s personal”

“Not a problem, Mierni, show Theris and Alethaine the library.”

Mierni nods and grabs their hands.

The boy doesn’t shut up the whole way up to the library. By the time they reach the room, he suddenly realizes Theris is a tiefling and he starts asking to touch his tail and his horns and also asking what it is to be a tiefling.

Then he switches his attention to Alethaine - mostly to her ears, so different from his own.

For some reason, it doesn't annoy her. The boy is so innocent, so open-hearted that Alethaine decides she is going to kill anyone who would threaten him.

“You are a necromancer!” he exclaims. “I wanted to learn necromancy, but my father told me I shouldn't indulge in such dark sciences! Can you animate something dead?!”

‘Well, to animate something dead, you need to kill something first,” Theris chuckles.

Mierni rushes to the dark corner of the library and proudly brings a dead mouse. The animal has probably been dead for a few days.

Theris closes the rat’s eyes. “Don’t watch, my friend.”

Mierni places the dead rat on the floor and steps back.

“Please! Please!” Now Mierni sounds like a five-year-old who has found a new toy.

Alethain sighs and kneels in front of the tiny corpse.

Dark strings pierce through the tips of her fingers and connect to the body.

The dead mouse opens its eyes.

Alethaine feels the strings tense. Now the animal is all in her power.

“Climb his shoulder,” Alethaine orders and the dead mouse climbs onto Theris.

“Don’t do anything stupid!” Theris hisses still covering his living rat’s eyes.

Mierni laughs and picks up the dead mouse. “Can you teach me? I want to know necromancy!”

“I think Gale will kill me,” Alethaine smiles.

“He won’t!”

“No, Gale, I am not doing this!” Ulsha enters the library. Gale follows her. “I am not going to work with that… thing”

Theris bares his fangs almost indistinguishable from his tiefling canines. “Are you pointing at me or the elf?”

“Answer your own question.”

Theris shrugs. “Aletahaine, I’d be really offended if someone called me a thing”

“Shut up”

Ulsha shakes her head. “No. I told you it wouldn’t work”

“What is the problem?” Alethaine asks, putting the mouse to rest. The small body stills and Alethaine catches a pleasant scent of decay.

She still isn't sure if decay smells nice to her because she was born half-dead or because of her sorcerer's nature.

“You see, Alethaine, ever since Ulsha left the Underdark where she grew up among the vampire spawns, she’s wandered the Sword Coast, saving the less fortunate from their peril, true to her oath to - “

“Of devotion,” she finished. “I serve Lathander, the Morninglord.”

‘Morninglord? Is she insane?’ Alethaine wonders. The god hates the undead so much that he demands the slaughter of vampires and other creatures of the night.

“What’s so funny, elf?” Ulsha asks.

“Listen, I am not a woman of spiritual nature,” Alethaine explains. “But couldn’t you choose a god that doesn’t despise you for your mere existence?”

“He doesn't despise anyone,” she says sternly. “We, dhampirs, have a choice of which side to take. And I’ve chosen the light the moment I left the disgusting tunnels of the Underdark. But everyone makes their own choices,” Ulsha pushes the dead mouse away with her leg. “Some prefer to enforce their vampiric side. Bloodrinking and death worship.”

“I do none of that,” Alethaine comes close to the half-orc.

Gale takes Ulsha’s hand and offers her a seat. The half-orc obliges, but Alethaine physically senses the hostility coming from her.

“Returning to our matters,” Gale smiles. “It's difficult to be a sole adventurer – and people get suspicious when Ulsha spends too much time with them. Folks just don’t see a difference between a vampire and a dhampir and very few of them want to educate themselves.”

“So?” Theris gets impatient. He drums his fingers and frowns.

“I think you would work perfectly together.”

“I am not going anywhere with her,” Theris says.

But Gale doesn’t listen to him.

He keeps talking about some spellbook of old that was lost without a trace centuries ago. And he thinks he knows the exact location of the volume, and he doesn’t trust anyone but Ulsha to retrieve it.

“Ulsha’s oath forbids her from using dark magic. Besides, the Bowgentle of Silverymoon’s spellbook doesn’t lie in the open. You will need to break into the lair. I will pay you generously, each of you.”

“How much?” Alethaine asks, doing mental math. Gale definitely isn’t poor and retrieving a book of magic doesn’t sound simple. Besides, a wizard spellbook must be worth a fortune.

Gale chuckles. “I see you take after your father. Your mother would agree first. 150 gold for each of you. Yes, including you Ulsha.I doubt Lathander would want his paladin to die in poverty.”

“200,” Theris says. “The task is rather dangerous.”

“150, Theris, you are not the first adventurer I have to deal with.”

“Let me,” Alethaine approaches Gale. “ 250. You know we can always sell the spellbook.”

“No one will buy it.”

“Don’t underestimate my intimidation skills,” Alethaine bares her fangs.

Gale cringes. “Two hundred and twenty gold.”

“Agreed, and we take all the treasures we find.”

“I doubt you would know how to use all these artifacts, Alethaine,” Gale smiles behind his beard.

“Oh, trust me! I am full of secrets!”

… Hours later, when Alethaine stands in front of a stall with weapons, choosing between a longbow and a short sword, she laughs at herself for tryingto get more money from the wizard.

Well, she was taught not to sell herself too short.

“Do you know how to shoot arrows?” Ulsha asks as she prepares her armor.

“If I am an elf it doesn't mean I am an archer.”

“But do you?”

“Yes. I am an archer.”

“Great. Then you are in the back. Avoid getting in the middle of the fight, that’s my job. Do you know any healing spells?”

“I am a necromancer. It’s the opposite of healing.”

Theris switches the daggers from the stall. '`Wait, are you going to allow Ulsha to be in charge?!’

“She is a fucking paladin!” Alethaine takes the bow and the arrows. “Of course, she is going to be in charge and take all the blame if we fuck up. And we will fuck up.”

Gale places healing potions at the stall. “It’s very mature of you to understand there is sometimes just a much more competent person in the team than yourself. It took me days to finally put trust in your mother but I never doubted her choices after. So, maybe, we should have left Duke Ravengard to suffocate in his prison.”

Mierni, dressed in his traveling clothes, takes Gale’s hand. “I don’t want to go.”

Gale pats the boy’s head. “Mierni, you need to see the world outside my tower. Besides, even though you are mostly human like I, you are still a dhampir and you should be with your own kind to figure things out for yourself. Besides, what would a wizard do without their own stories about adventures?”

“But I like it here!” he pouts.

Alethaine looks at the wizards. Yes, they are more like father and son rather than one wizard and apprentice. Besides, he is only fourteen! When Alethane was fourteen she was afraid to go to the nearest village on her own and found a dozen excuses to stay home. She can’t imagine becoming an adventurer that young.

Besides, her own parents wouldn’t have let her go, that's for sure.

“It’s your home, Mierni, and you are always welcome to come back. But I don’t want you to waste your youth in the company of an old man.”

“Yes, Mierni,” Theris tugs the boy to himself. “You can waste your youth in the company of a necromancer and a delinquent bard.”

…They leave the city at night. Ulsha is in the front with her shield and a longsword, The paladin armors make her look much bigger than she already is. Mierni, who probably has never left Waterdeep on his own, whirls his head like a five-year-old on the market square.

“How the hell did you manage to persuade him to pay us more?” Theris asks as they walk along the Long Road in the direction of Amphail.

“Hm, two options. My own charms or he has flashbacks of having to deal with Astarion Ancunin,” Alethaine shrugs. The night makes her feel better - after all, she is a creature of the night as well.

Tag list

@tugoslovenka @marcynomercy @wintersire @vixstarria @not-so-lost-after-all @ashiro20 @theearthsfinalconfession @herstxrgirl @starlight-ipomoea @micropoe10 @astarion-imagine-archive @veillsar @elora-the-slutty-songstress @fayeriess @lumienyx @tallymonster @caitlincat-95 @tragedybunny @valeprati @lynnlovesthestars @marina-and-the-memes @waking-electric @ayselluna @connorsui @asterordinary @darkarchangel96 @locallegume @brainfullofhotsauce @coffeeanddonutscafe @my-queen-rhaenyra-targaryen @queenofthespacesquids @ednaaa-04 @dajeong @herdarkestnightelegance

19 notes · View notes