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slothquisitor · 3 days

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Morning reblog!

What Moves in the Dark: Chapter Eight

A post-campaign Baldur’s Gate 3 eldritch horror AU.

While waiting for leads to pan out, Liv and Astarion have very different means of passing the time.

Author note: a small content warning for this chapter, this chapter includes Astarion making some self-destructive decisions consistent with canon behavior. While everyone involved is definitely consenting, it is definitely not a good time for him.

Read from the beginning.

Read on AO3.

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Several days pass without word from either Astarion or Kharis, so Liv spends her evenings reading everything she can find on vampires. If she’s lucky, perhaps she’ll have some progress to show Astarion the next time she sees him. She oscillates between reading and notes and re-organizing the workroom. It’ll be undone the second Kharis returns, but for now, she has an area to do research and plenty of space to brew whatever potions and elixirs she must when stock gets low.

There was a time when she might have been grateful for the solitude, but as the days drag on, Liv wonders if she’d perhaps protected her peace these last six months a little too well.

Books and notes are scattered in haphazard piles she’s hastily rearranged. She shifted focus rather abruptly last night. There’s no chance that she’s going to accidentally stumble upon a cure for vampirism in the books she has access to between her and Kharis’ collections. But that was never her strength anyway. No, she thinks she can find a magical solution, a stop-gap if nothing else to give Astarion back the sun. Or at least she hopes so.

She’s startled out of her reading by an insistent banging at the shop door. It’s late, she’s had to recast her light spell at least three or four times now. The knocking continues as she carefully enters the shop proper, inching around the counter to glance out the windows to see who is at the door.

It’s a little embarrassing how quickly she recognizes the figure as Astarion, and even more embarrassing how incredibly happy it makes her to see that he’s here. She adjusts her sweater and smooths her hair that’s no doubt escaping from the bun she’d pulled it into in a fit of annoyance an hour ago. Then, she unlocks and opens the door.

“Hi,” she greets him with a smile that is immediately replaced by confusion when she realizes that he’s dragging a bound and gagged man into the shop.

“Lovely evening, isn’t it?” Astarion greets her cheerily.

“Uh…who’s this?”

Astarion looks at the man with a frown. “Funnily enough, I didn’t get his name.”

Liv represses the urge to roll her eyes and tries again. “Why did you bring him here?”

Astarion grins as if he knows he’s annoyed her. “He’s infected. I was just about to sink my teeth into him and drain him dry when I realized he smelled just awful. So I bound him up and brought him to you.”

She’s still confused. “For treatment?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, darling. For interrogation.”

Liv can’t help but laugh. “What makes you think he’s going to tell me anything?”

“You’re a wizard, can’t you just read his mind?”

Her stomach sinks. “Not as a general rule, no.” She’s never been very comfortable with the idea that she could violate someone that way, breaking into their mind.

Astarion puts a hand on his hip. “Well, I believe rules are meant to be broken. Besides he’s a Bhaalist, and I’m turning him over to the Fist anyway. He’s as good as dead, so you might as well question him about his blood and if he has any other murder lord friends still hanging about. Call it service to the city if your moral compass needs the justification.”

It occurs to her that it should be harder to agree to this than it is, but Astarion makes a good point, and she can’t quite keep herself from a new lead. “Can I try simply asking first?”

Astarion gives her a long-suffering look. “You can, but I don’t expect it’ll be very helpful.”

“Bring him in the back. We’ll sit him down for this,” Liv replies.

“Oh, it’s much cleaner in here,” Astarion comments as he shoves the man into the workroom and toward a small wooden chair near the fireplace.

Liv nods. “It’ll go back to chaos as soon as Kharis returns.” She approaches the bound and gagged man, crouching to be more on his level. “I’m going to remove your gag and ask you some questions. Your blood is infected with a disease that will likely kill you. It’s in your best interest to cooperate.”

Astarion makes a disgruntled noise behind her, but she doesn’t hesitate as she removes the gag. The Bhaalist immediately begins spitting threats and profanities at her.

“Charming. If you don’t help me, I will get what I need from your mind anyway.”

The Bhaalist begins to laugh. “My lord Bhaal will rejoice when I slowly bleed you dry and present your heart to him.”

“That’s quite enough of that,” Astarion says, replacing the gag a little more roughly than necessary. “Will you simply read his mind now?”

She knows the spell, of course she does, but she doesn’t like using it. She’s never been comfortable with the idea of breaking into someone’s mind, in sifting through their thoughts that way. And maybe it’s a flimsy justification, but if it helps them help others…It takes just a moment, but she casts it and suddenly she is falling down the connection to this man’s mind.

It is not a happy place. Blood-soaked, angry, full of religious zealotry and celebration of pain and death. She sifts through memories scarred by violence, looking for anything and everything that could be helpful. She’s aware of her voice in the room, asking questions so that memories and thoughts bob to the surface just within her grasp. She questions, looks for Guild connections and finds none, asks about other Bhaalists and finds none except those already dead and gone, only a single face of interest materializes. A meeting in a house in the Upper City….she doesn’t recognize the man, but the home is familiar to her.

“What in the hells were you doing at Caldwell’s home?” Liv asks. But she knows that the Bhaalist doesn’t know, it hadn’t mattered to him to know. This man hadn’t been important enough to sit in the actual meeting, so that’s just another mystery. She adds it to the ever-lengthening list.

“The Caldwells….we found the body of a Caldwell..along with an Oberon and Linnacker…their charred corpses were near the Guildhall,” Astarion says quietly.

“Killed by Bhaalists?” she asks.

“Besides me, they are the most dangerous thing down there.”

Liv lets the magical connection between herself and the man unravel. “He didn’t know why they were there or even that it was the Caldwell’s. He doesn’t know where any other Bhaalists are either.”

“How utterly useless,” Astarion says with disappointment and then slams the hilt of his dagger into the back of the man’s head. He slumps forward, out cold.

“What…why did you do that?”

“Because I didn’t desire an audience for our conversation. What else did you find while poking through his thoughts?”

“Very little beyond death and violence. He was in attendance at a meeting at the Caldwell’s home. They met with a man I didn’t recognize. Not one of the Caldwells, I’m sure of it.”

“That certainly complicates matters. The Caldwells in league with Bhaalists…”

“An infected Bhaalist,” she says. “That’s new. Doesn’t fit the pattern. Has the Guild gotten back to you yet?”

Astarion’s lips twist in disgust. “No. Which is quite rude, honestly. If I haven’t heard in another day or so, I’ll stop by myself. But when I do talk to them again, shall I bring up the Caldwell connection?”

“Certainly couldn’t hurt. Sorry, that wasn’t more helpful.”

“His mind sounded like an absolutely miserable place. I’m sorry you had to sift through it. Any word from Kharis?”

She shakes her head. “Not yet. Though, he might still be traveling. So I wouldn’t expect anything for a few more days at least.”

“What’s all this?” Astarion asks as he walks around the workbench, glancing through her notes and books.

She had rather hoped to have something more concrete before she shared anything with him, but he’s here and she wants him to know she’s trying. “Well, I did promise to help you with your condition, didn’t I?”

Astarion looks up at her, eyes narrowed. “These are all books about spell theory and Netheril.”

She walks around the opposite side of the workbench, leaning back against the opposite counter. “I pivoted a bit. I don’t think with what research I have access to I’m going to cure vampirism outright, but you talked about how the mind flayer parasite was infused with Netherese magic and it protected you from the sun. So, what if there was a way to replicate that protection with a spell?”

“The last people I knew who were messing with Netherese magic are either dead or only alive through the intervention of Mystra herself.”

“I’m not attempting to do Netherese magic, but rather understand what it changes about the Weave that would grant that sort of protection,” Liv explains but realizes from Astarion’s unchanged expression that he's not getting it. “Okay, think of it like this: if I ask you to draw something you might begin sketching a rough shape of the object, right? But another person might begin with guiding lines. Neither approach is wrong, but they are different techniques.”

“Alright.” He looks unconvinced.

“Netherese magic is just another technique for accessing the Weave. The magic is the same, but the access to it is different. Perhaps using some of their technique when crafting a spell of protection could replicate the effects of the tadpole. Spellcraft is a finicky business though, but I’ve got some ideas. I’m afraid they’ll require a bit of trial and error.”

Astarion seems to be considering what she’s said. “Well, aren’t you the clever one?”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s not a cure -”

“Don’t,” he interrupts, brow furrowing in discomfort. “Don’t apologize.”

“Just trying to be a useful wizard.”

As expected, he seizes on the light comment immediately. “You are a very useful wizard, and the least annoying one I know.”

“I should put that outside the shop: Least Annoying Wizard Found Here.”

“Helps balance out the most annoyingly devout cleric of Lathander, I think,” he says with a grin.

She can’t help but laugh. “It’s good to see you. Seems like you’ve been very successful with your contract.”

He sighs. “Marginally. It took me three days alone to track this one down in the sewers. Speaking of, it’s getting late and I should really turn him over to Devella and collect my reward.”

She buries her disappointment that he would leave so soon and tries to focus on the fact she’s glad he’s here at all. The Bhaalist is still slumped over in the chair. “I think I’ve got something to rouse him.”

“Good because I refuse to carry him to the barracks.”

The Bhaalist probably has a good three inches and at least fifty pounds on Astarion, she’d be surprised if he could carry the man all the way from here to the barracks, but she refrains from saying so. She dumps a health potion down the Bhaalist’s throat before replacing his gag and then helps both of them back to the door.

“I’ll be back in a day or two whether I’ve heard from the Guild or not.” Astarion pauses on the street, the moonlight glinting off his curls. He turns back to her as if he’s forgotten something, and he smiles. “It’s good to see you too.”

And she hopes he can’t hear the way her heart stumbles over itself.

***

It is evening in Baldur’s Gate, and Astarion is hungry. So, It isn’t really that much different than the last two centuries of his life, except that it is. Or at least he tells himself that coming to this tavern is because he can and because he wants to and not out of some ingrained habit. He tells himself that he’s here to be surrounded by people and not because he’s hunting. Because he’s not.

He has an iron grip on his self-control where it matters, and in this, it does. He will not be a monster. But the situation is beginning to get desperate, especially since he’d really been banking on draining that Bhaalist from a few days ago. He has a few options: simply ask Rolan or Rolan’s siblings for some blood, find a willing (or unwilling criminal) participant somewhere in the city, or go hunting for animals in some Upper City park.

Rolan and his siblings are out because he lives in Ramazith’s tower and that’s already feeling like too much despite the fact that he fastidiously avoids them all as much as possible. Especially since they keep checking in on him in Gale’s absence. Animals are…fine, but it’s been months since he’s had to subsist on animal blood and it feels like failing to go back to it now. Which leaves finding someone else in the city.

He’s kept an eye out for passing vagrants, but the streets have been obnoxiously safe despite Bhaalists attacking him and Liv. And he could ask Liv, of course. But he’s surprised by how little he wants to. He’s sure she’d be willing, and like Tavren would offer it willingly and without commentary or debt owed. But he wants to solve this all on his own…he doesn’t want favors or pity. So perhaps he simply should allow some of these flirtations he keeps entertaining lead somewhere. And if that somewhere means he gets fed, well, two birds one stone.

“Evening,” a quiet voice pulls him from his thoughts.

Astarion turns just slightly to see Percy has joined him at the crowded bar. “About damn time.” It’s been nearly a tenday.

Percy for his part, doesn’t seem bothered by Astarion’s less-than-enthusiastic greeting. “Why don’t we grab a table,” he says, accepting his drink from the barkeep and weaving his way through the crowded room.

Astarion follows him to a quieter section of the tavern, to a dim corner where they’ll be able to speak and not risk being overheard. Percy moves through the space comfortably, he has an aura about him, something that reveals confidence without quite inviting anyone to approach. There’s a distance between him and all these people, and Astarion remembers Nine-Fingers’ jab about his Upper City manners and it all clicks into place. Percy is a noble and he carries himself like it, though he doesn’t dress or act the part in a way that would reveal it to a casual passerby. Astarion wonders just how long Percy’s been slumming it. He’d guess a very long time.

“So, did you find any connections worth sharing?” Astarion asks as they sit down.

Percy sips from his drink and offers Astarion a grim smile. “Not as much as I’d hoped. Alfran and Moira were easy to link, of course, they knew each other. But they had no overlap with the dock worker or his mother.”

“None at all?”

“None. I need to know if any more of my people are infected. Have you found anyone else?”

“Funny you should ask, I did apprehend a Bhaalist who was also infected. Liv poked around in his head, and found that he had dealings at the Caldwells’, meeting with some man she didn’t recognize as being one of the family.”

“But it was definitely the Caldwells’?” Percy asks, eyebrows furrowing.

“She seemed quite sure.”

“Caldwells working with Bhaalists…that is…I’ll have to look into that.”

Astarion doesn’t hide his annoyance. “So you’re telling me that you’ve spent several days on this, and you have nothing to show for it?”

Percy’s eyes flash, but that’s the only sign that Astarion’s gotten under his skin. “Believe me when I say, no one is more frustrated than I am. Especially since it means I’m inviting you back to the Guildhall to help look for more people so that we might be able to solve this before it gets out of hand.”

“Ah, more time together, how lovely.” Astarion accepts that he’s not going to be eating tonight. “Lead the way.”

Percy laughs. “Not tonight. We’re certainly not heading there from here. You draw an awful lot of attention.”

“Do I?” Astarion asks with a grin. He hadn’t noticed, in fact, he’d very much stopped trying to notice attention or flattery for a long time. In the last decade or so, he’d show up and flirt terribly and take the first idiot willing to go with him back to Cazador. Actually putting in the work to seduce anyone had gotten rather rote, it all ended the same so why would it matter anyway? At least if he didn’t try then he didn’t have to feel bad when he led them to their doom.

Percy finishes his drink. “Enjoy your evening. I’ll be at the Guildhall tomorrow evening.”

“I’ll endeavor to look forward to it,” Astarion replies, but Percy has already stepped away from the table. In his wake, Astarion glances around the room and realizes that Percy was right, he has drawn a fair bit of attention. There’s an elven man drinking with friends over at a table across the way who keeps glancing toward him. Astarion meets his gaze, expects him to glance away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he holds the eye contact and smiles, inclining his head in clear invitation.

And before he can think better of it, Astarion goes over.

The man recognizes him as one of the heroes of Baldur’s Gate and asks if he really is a vampire with such sincerity that belies nothing beyond a passing curiosity. It is easy to tell himself that this man wants him because he’s a hero and maybe he does deserve a bit of worship. He did save the world after all. So when the man presses him against the wall, he lets it happen. The man’s kisses are hard, precise things that tell Astarion he hasn’t had nearly as much drink as his companions, though he can still taste the sourness of the wine on his tongue.

Astarion has been touched with many sets of hands over the last two hundred years. It’s been a while, his longest dry spell in well…ever, but it hasn’t been enough time to banish the memories of other hands, of other nights. He remembers telling Karlach once that he wished that everyone who had ever put their hands on him would have burst into flames; she'd said that she wished they could trade. But this man’s hands are just this side of reverent, firm and strong, but never asking for more than Astarion might want to give.

And that’s the whole reason he’s tolerated his attentions this long. His plan for this evening was never to land pressed up against the wall, the man’s thigh pressing between his legs, but it feels good to be desired. To have his flirtations returned. And he’s starving, and the man’s blood smells divine, and maybe that’s enough for tonight. Maybe hunger and desire are close enough to the same thing.

He hasn’t been with anyone since the nautiloid, since the whole tadpole business. At first, it was because his seduction attempts had failed, and later it was because he realized he didn’t have to use his body anymore. Since Cazador’s defeat, he’s been trying to reconnect that piece of himself again, the one that felt pleasure, that enjoyed sex. And he had enjoyed it, once. There had been a time when he had looked forward to the respite of getting lost in someone else, in touches that didn’t mean bruises, in pleasure that didn’t give way to pain. He had once tried to convince himself that an eternity of sex and desire and pleasure might not be so bad despite the penance he paid in blood. It hadn’t lasted, had instead twisted and turned into disgust and shame, and he hasn’t been able to get back.

He worries he never will.

But this man with the quick smile and the nimble fingers and sweet blood might be good enough. So when the man pulls back, his lips kiss-bitten red, and asks, “Your place or mine?” with all the confidence Astarion used to have, Astarion gives the answer he’s never had the freedom to give. “Yours.”

He has spent the last few months entertaining attention like this in some manner or other, savoring the thrill of saying no, in leaving a tavern entirely alone. But he tells himself that it is nice to be reminded he can say yes, that he can have these moments. Later, when they’re both naked and wanting, Astarion bites into the man’s neck; the man buries his fingers in his hair and moans into Astarion’s ear. The blood is sweet and full and good. The sex after is…fine, but sated on the man’s blood, it’s harder to feel any real desire, urgency, or interest. He doesn’t want this, but he’s here and he’s said yes to enough and this isn’t forever and maybe if he just stays and plays this out he’ll find some enjoyment from it.

This man is handsome and he keeps checking in, keeps asking what he likes or if this is good, and Astarion keeps saying yes, keeps nodding along and performing like he always has. This man is good and kind and wants Astarion to enjoy himself, and Astarion wishes he could. He has taken this man’s blood, so he feels as though he can’t leave now. He wants this to be fun . He should be able to go to a tavern and go home with someone beautiful and enjoy himself. He deserves this, and he deserves to not have Cazador take this away from him too. But his body keeps moving and he tells himself it is different from before. Astarion hasn’t led him to his death, just maybe a little one. This man will not end the night drained and trapped in Szarr palace. This man is not a victim, so Astarion can’t quite fathom why it doesn’t feel any different.

After, when the man finally falls asleep, an arm slung heavily across Astarion’s chest, Astarion feels nothing but relief. The performance is over; he can finally rest. Despite being fed, there’s a hollow feeling somewhere in his chest. He needs to be anywhere but here. He thinks he’d rather starve than do this again. So he dresses in the silence and slips into the night between the man’s breaths. He never even stirs. Astarion isn’t even sure he can remember his name; he knows he doesn’t want him to remember his.

The only thing he’s sure of in the darkness is that he is painfully and irrevocably broken.

***

When Astarion next visits the shop, Liv can’t help but note that he is more quiet, almost pensive, lacking some of his usual humor and theatricality. Liv tries for a joke or two as he enters the shop and earns nothing more than a few strained smiles.

“The Guild reached out and it turns out they can’t find a connection between our three victims,” Astarion says matter-of-factly as he steps past her.

The news is disappointing, but not surprising considering how many dead-ends they’ve found themselves facing already. “I see.”

Astarion waves the disappointment away with the back of his hand. “Oh don’t be so worried, I’m going back around later tonight to see if I can identify anyone else and give us more leads. Though my contact was very interested in the connection you made to the Caldwells.”

“Did they say anything about it?”

Astarion shrugs. “Just that he’d look into it. Seemed to worry him though.”

“Well, that’s something at least.”

Astarion holds out a small twine-wrapped binding of papers. “I didn’t come simply to bring you disappointments. After our last conversation I reached out to my friend Gale, and he kindly supplied me with all of his notes on Netherese magic and the tadpole that he took over the course of our travels.”

He’s giving her the notes from Gale of Waterdeep? “Seriously?”

Astarion shrugs. “It sounded like it might help you help me.”

She takes the papers and undoes the twine, quickly skimming the messy, but detailed writing and diagrams. The notes are a mess, seemingly scribbled on whatever paper was nearest when the writer needed it. “This is…this is great. It should be very helpful. Thank you.” And it might be more for him than for her, but there’s something about the fact that he thought about it at all that fills up something inside her.

“You’re very welcome, my dear,” he replies with a genuine smile that makes her heart jump. “I’m not meeting my Guild contact for another few hours, and I wondered…if I might stay here for a bit? I promise to stay out of the way of your work.”

He wants to stay…here? With her? “You’re always welcome here,” she says, unable to suppress the smile that stretches across her face.

He follows her into the workroom, sits himself down in the chair nearest the door, and pulls out a book. Liv is tempted to ask him more questions to see what has shifted this deliberate change in their friendship, but she’s just glad he’s here, and it’s clear he’s a bit unsure about it. So she returns to her work as normally as she can, but she does glance up every now and again to look at him. More than once she’s almost sure she catches him glancing at her as well.

“Is this really all you do with your evenings?” he asks after a quiet, but not unpleasant hour has passed.

Liv looks up from the notes she’d been examining. “Sometimes. Why?”

“You don’t have friends or family or lovers taking up your time?”

She smiles. “If my family wanted to spend time with me then I’d know the world really was ending.”

“Not on good terms?”

“No.”

“And friends?”

She sighs. “I have few of those these days. Truthfully, beyond Kharis I see you more often than almost anyone else.”

“That is…exceptionally sad.”

And maybe it is, but spending time with him has made her realize her own isolation and that perhaps she needs to change that, patch up friendships she’s distanced herself from. “I don’t know, you’re pretty alright.”

He looks absolutely offended. “Pretty alright? That’s all?”

“What about you? Are you suffering from an overabundance of friends?”

He sighs. “No. Almost all of them went their separate ways after the Absolute’s defeat, and I…well, two hundred years of being a vampire lord’s obedient puppet didn’t exactly give me a predisposition for friendship.”

She wants to ask more about that, those two hundred years he’s alluded to but rarely talks about. It’s not hard to guess that whatever it was like it was nothing good, that much she knows. But she’s not sure about the rest, and she is especially unsure if she should ask if he’d welcome the chance to talk about it or hate her for the curiosity. She just wants to know everything about him – the good and the bad.

“Do you…do you want to talk about it? I’m sorry, I’m never sure if I should ask about it or not.”

His eyes look so far away. “I don’t. Some other time, perhaps.”

“Alright.” She returns to her work then, trying to grant him space, sensing that he needs it.

A few minutes pass before he speaks again. “Is this all there is?” he asks, voice quiet.

“To what?”

“To life? To freedom? Is it all just…surviving? I don’t know who I am or what I want, and I feel like I keep trying to find it… keep looking for it and just keep coming up so empty.”

It occurs to her then that Astarion is lost, and then everything about him slots into place. His waspishness any time she’s ever drawn too close to the truth of him. Arriving here of all places looking for a way to walk in the sun again, but seeming unhappy about ever asking for help at all. His willingness to go with her had less to do with her convincing him it was the right thing and more to do with the fact he had nothing better to do, no real reason to say no. His pride and happiness when he arrived one evening letting her know he had a job, a direction, a purpose. Astarion might be a hero of the city, but that doesn’t mean he has anything figured out.

He is lost, but he came here. The realization knocks her off-balance a little, and she’s been quiet too long, Astarion’s eyes are skittering away from hers and he looks almost as if he regrets saying anything at all. “Don’t stop,” she manages.

His brow furrows as he looks back at her. “Stop what?”

“Looking.” She says simply, and when his expression gives way to confusion, she continues. “When I came to this shop six months ago, I didn’t know who I was either. Some days I still don’t…but I think it’s important to just keep looking and trying. That’s life.”

“And what, now you’re happy and content and this shop is your calling?” he scoffs, but it’s less out of meanness and more disbelief.

She laughs. “Oh, I don’t want to be here forever. Just until I have something worthwhile enough to submit to an academy to get the hells out of Baldur’s Gate.”

“You want to leave Baldur’s Gate? What sort of academy?”

“A research academy, magic or otherwise. That was my plan…until I severed ties with my family and they sabotaged all my connections. Now I’ve no one to vouch for me or my abilities and no one will touch me.”

“Is that why you wanted to help me? With curing my condition?”

She nods. “Some of it was that, yes. Some of it was the blood disease. And some of it was that you just seemed like you needed help.”

“So long as it’s not all charity, I can live with that, I suppose.”

She walks around the workbench so that she’s nearer to him, leaning back against it. “And you, what’s your plan? More contracts from the Fist?”

Astarion snaps his book shut, leaning back more heavily in the chair as he considers. “I was thinking I might strike out on my own, take a few independent contracts.”

“Ah, a bounty hunter then,” she crosses her arms.

He gives her a single-shoulder shrug as he stands. “Sounds a bit more fitting than a morally questionable hero anyway.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think you can be whatever you decide to be,” she replies.

He steps a bit nearer to her, and there’s still plenty of distance between them, but Liv can feel something charged in the atmosphere, something in the way he looks at her as if he’s trying to puzzle her out. She’s almost sure she wants him to.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Astarion asks, voice pitched low.

She’s not sure what he seems to be looking for in her face, but whatever it is she wants to give it to him. She’s just not sure if it’s reassurance or comfort or–

“Arrived at Candlekeep. The blood’s something they’ve never seen before. They’ve attempted to identify it and it’s not from this plane. Be careful and safe,” Kharis’ voice is full and clear as if he was in the room beside her.

She immediately steps away from Astarion so that she can concentrate, sending her own message along the connection she feels with Kharis. “Not from this plane? Where could it be from and how did it get here? I’m fine, keep me updated.”

Astarion sputters a bit. “What in the hells–”

She holds up a hand. “Quiet.” She waits for an answer for several moments, and when she gets nothing in response, she turns to Astarion. “Kharis sent me a message. He says whatever’s in the blood, it’s not from this plane.”

Disbelief and then frustration reigns on his face before he manages a joyless laugh. “Well, it couldn’t ever be simple, could it?”

#Astarion x liv #eventually #lol #slothquisitorwrites #what moves in the dark

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slothquisitor · 4 days