Chapter Text
Gale knew he must look mad, spending every precious moment of rest brewing potions as if they were about to face an army. But this was how he coped with reality, a habit he had picked up during his last adventure. The same adventure that, somehow, seemed to be happening all over again.
Still, Gale tried not to dwell on it. It wouldn’t help anyone if he spiraled into the depths of his own mind or melted down in the middle of camp. So he kept brewing, pouring the crimson healing potion into bottles. Yet his hands trembled, the shock still coursing through him, and more potion slipped over the rim than it should have. Red liquid spattered here and there, making their campfire embarrassingly look like the scene of a crime.
Fortunately, he and their designated leader had gathered plenty of Rogue’s Morsel along the way.
Gale glanced toward the farthest tent, where Shadowheart had set up camp. She looked exactly as he remembered, yet she might as well have been a stranger to him now. This was the Shadowheart from before the shadows had dispersed, the disciple still bound to Shar’s dark path. Cold and aloof, her eyes ever watchful and her lips pressed shut. She had spoken very little during their scavenging from the shattered nautiloid—except to their leader.
Unlike in his memory, this time Shadowheart was not their leader. That role now belonged to a white dragonborn named Tav, the one she was speaking to at the moment. A stranger who was oddly familiar, though Gale was certain the man had never been part of their journey before. If they had crossed paths, it could only have been in passing, like a fleeting glance at someone on a busy city street. And yet Tav’s ruby-red eyes were far too captivating to overlook. Gale was certain he would have remembered them anywhere. Unless, of course, his memory had been tampered with somewhere between his supposed death and this strange repeated event.
Gale had just returned to pour another bottle when someone suddenly sat on the log beside him. He startled, nearly spilling the entire contents of the ladle.
There wasn’t an ounce of apology on Astarion’s face as he spoke.
“Is this a wizard thing, or do you genuinely expect more bandits?”
“What do you mean?”
“This.” Astarion waved a hand over the neatly arranged healing potions in the box at Gale’s side. “You wizards are fragile, understandable, but this is a bit much, isn’t it?”
Gale huffed. Astarion rarely bothered to mask his feelings around him, not even the first time they met. He could still recall that unimpressed gaze after being dragged out of the portal— a wizard trapped in his own spell hardly inspired confidence . Even in the rattled aftermath of discovering he was somehow still alive, Gale was sure he had heard these exact words the second time around as well.
“We’ve seen a lot of traps, have we not? And those goblin corpses. Better to have too many potions than too few,” Gale said, then added casually, “And they’re not all for me.”
He didn’t look to see how Astarion reacted. Winning the rogue’s good graces would take time and more than a few friendly gestures. Instead, Gale wiped his hands on a rag and glanced into the pot. There was still a little potion left at the bottom, but no spare bottles.
“Would you kindly check if there are any more bottles in the supply sacks?” Gale asked.
Astarion looked as if he were about to say he would not, but then seemed to think better of it. He rose and began rummaging through the sacks and bags.
Then he stopped, staring into one of them. Astarion looked up slowly, his face unreadable.
Gale was confused. Then the truth struck him. He realized his mistake but it was far too late.
“Why,” Astarion said, voice low and flat, “are you keeping blood?”
“Oh!” Gale cursed under his breath. He’d forgotten he had slipped a flask of boar’s blood into one of the sacks when no one was looking. An old habit. When stumbling across fresh game, he’d carve meat for those who needed cooked food and collect blood for their resident vampire spawn.
It was too soon to bring their secrets into the open. That was why Gale hadn’t given it to Astarion. He simply hadn’t found a way to offer it without exposing the vampire spawn in the process.
“Well,” Gale began, “it would be shortsighted to waste anything. Out here in the wilderness, with no steady supply or coin, anything could prove useful.”
“Is that why you keep picking up random trash in the crypt?” Astarion drawled. “Oh dear, I don’t think wax and baubles will fetch us many coins.”
“You wouldn’t know that,” Gale mumbled, doing his best not to point out that Astarion too, had been rummaging about, pocketing every bit of silverware and ancient trinkets he could find. Then again, they would need every single coin eventually to buy scrolls, armor, anything that might give them an edge. The journey ahead would be longer and harder than anyone could imagine.
Astarion snorted. He pulled out a nearly empty wine bottle, sniffed it, then drained the rest in one go before handing it to Gale.
Gale accepted with a tentative nod, murmuring a prestidigitation cantrip to clean the bottle before pouring in the last precious drop of a healing potion. He made a mental note to see that this very bottle found its way to Astarion in the morning.
Gale could feel Astarion’s gaze still lingering on him, sharp and unblinking, it unsettled him more than he cared to admit. He was always nervous around the vampire spawn. He also happened to be no master of deception, and every heartbeat carried the risk of saying too much. Better to retreat to his own tent and put a wall of canvas between them.
But then Tav walked over, his eyes a vivid shade of red in the campfire’s glow. He was intimidatingly tall, with strong arms and a thick tail lined with wicked spikes. His crest rose in jagged ridges like a crown of thorns. Scales of pale white were marbled with strange rifts and tinged with faint red where they smoothed into a more resilient texture. His jaw looked powerful enough to snap a body in two, and the sharp claws on his hands only deepened that impression. Despite his massive build, his steps were near-silent as he approached.
None of that, however, was what truly troubled Gale.
What concerned him was the dense aura of shadow weave that clung to Tav, surely the mark of a shadow magic sorcerer, and how quickly he had earned Shadowheart’s trust. If Tav was another Sharran in disguise, they would have a hard time pulling Shadowheart back from the irreversible fate in the shadow-cursed lands.
The matter of his lost memory was another curiosity. As far as Gale knew, amnesia was not a usual symptom of ceremorphosis, even with Netherese magic at play.
“We will need someone to keep watch,” Tav said, his gaze shifting from the red-splattered mess around the campfire to Astarion. “Since we require little rest, it would be logical for the two of us to take the duty.”
“Actually, I’m going to propose taking this duty all night. After all this abduction and surviving a nautiloid crash, I need time to take it all in.”
Astarion spoke smoothly, every word wrapped in carefully crafted generosity and a too -perfect smile. It was all so obvious if one knew where to look. Gale watched the scene unfold as he quietly closed the potion box.
“And I couldn’t sleep anyway among all this dirt and wilderness. So you rest, I’ll keep watch.”
Tav tilted his head. On a dragonborn, it was hard to read expressions, too much hidden behind scales and ridges. But Gale thought he caught the faint curve of a smile. Not mocking, not quite warm, but something in between. “If you’re sure, I’d love that. Thank you.”
“The pleasure is all mine—”
“But if tomorrow you cannot keep up, that’s all yours.”
Tav said it with a lightness that passed for humor, but the gleam in his eyes was deliberate. Gale felt his shoulders stiffen. He was certain Astarion caught the edge beneath the words as well, though the rogue hid it behind an impeccable bow before retreating to his tent.
Then Tav’s gaze slid to Gale. “You used up all the Rogue’s Morsel?”
“Yes?” Gale straightened, cautious. There was no use for Rogue’s Morsel beyond healing potion was there?
Tav lowered himself onto the log, fingers flipping open the box Gale had just shut. “Were you trained in the School of Transmutation, or is that from past adventuring?”
“Evocation, actually. And yes, I’ve had experience before,” the exact same one, mostly. “What do you need? I just finished reorganizing our supplies, and I’d rather not repeat that.”
“I need a great deal. But first things first, can you brew an antidote?”
“Depends. Do you have Mugwort?”
“It’s in my bag. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.” Tav set the bottle down, something in his eyes deepening along with his voice. “Can I also assume you can brew a higher grade of healing potion?”
The question felt like a challenge. Like being a student again, tested under a master’s eye. “Yes. I can brew other potions, and elixirs too. You name it.”
“Alchemy and magic. A man of many talents, aren’t you?”
“Not to brag, but I did train under a druid before.” A particular archdruid, though Gale left that unsaid. He narrowed his eyes. “And I could say the same about you. Magic and knives? Not a usual combination for a sorcerer.”
The fight in the crypt had been brutal the first time. This time too, but the tactics were sharper, more precise. Tav’s keen eyes and commanding voice had driven them to act without hesitation. The result was overwhelming: they bore barely a scratch, while the bandits lay burning or choking on thin knife wounds.
The sorcerer’s magic was not to be taken lightly. Even weakened by the infection, it struck like a force of nature. And for those who dared to avoid his spells, there was always a knife waiting, ready to find a fatal point.
Tav shrugged “Who knows? Maybe I’m actually an arcane trickster.”
“You’re a sorcerer. I can tell.” Gale kept his tone flat, though the bitterness slipped through.
The fact that sorcerers had no need to study to wield magic always gnawed at him. That much he could endure. What stung more was how easily some of them could surpass years of study and discipline with little more than innate talent.
Tav smirked. “Still sulking that I managed to slip past your guard?”
Gale was. Because it was rare, painfully rare for anyone to be capable of breaching the fortress of his mind, even in a moment of unusual weakness. But that wasn’t the only reason, and he refused to dwell on something so petty. He turned to face the dragonborn directly. “Infected or not, it’s very impolite to slip into another’s mind without consent.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“After demanding I explain what you shouldn’t have seen in the first place?”
“Every infected I’ve met tuned the tadpole to me. To us.” Tav’s voice was steady, but there was a weight in it. “A flicker, seeing through each other’s eyes. Brief, but always there. But you? Nothing. No glimpse. Just words about being aboard the nautiloid and infected. You can’t fault me for being cautious.”
Gale studied him, measuring his tone.“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you’re hiding something.”
“Aren’t we all?” Gale exhaled, letting the question settle between them.
“Maybe not.” The corner of Tav’s mouth twitched, too slight to be called a smile. “I’ve lost my memories.”
“And for that, you have my sympathy,” Gale said and meant it. While he carried too many memories along with feelings he’d rather not examine, Tav had nothing but violent instincts and a constant headache. “Still not a reason to trespass in another’s mind. If this journey lasts, perhaps we’ll find trust. All will be revealed in time.”
“You don’t seem very worried about an unwelcome guest in our heads,” Tav observed.
“There’s more than one way to die in this world, a tadpole is just the more present and pressing.” Gale shot him a sidelong glance. “You’re very calm about our problem too. Even insist on stopping and making camp like this.”
Tav only smiled, offering no denial.
They sat in silence before the campfire after that. Gale lost himself in the flicker of orange flame and the scent of burning wood. It felt like only yesterday he had stared into a similar fire, pondering abstract possibilities that once seemed impossibly distant. Now the flames seemed to stare back, its glow catching in his eyes and leaving him more lost than before.
His hands did not stop shaking. The strange phantom pain coiled around his right wrist, the same one Tav had gripped and pulled.
The second time he had been dragged from a rune portal had brought no relief, only madness: an exploding of pain so overwhelming that it hollowed him out to numbness. Then came the light and air of the Material Plane, striking hard and sudden, leaving him reeling. It was like being ripped from an unending storm of agony, only to be thrown into another kind of chaos altogether.
He should have been dead. His next destination should have been the Fugitive Plane, condemned to wander nowhere for eternity. But even that fate had been torn from him.
Now he was here, unsure if this was a second chance or a wicked limbo with no end. Either way, all things must come to an end—at least for tonight. It should end with rest, whether peaceful or not.
Gale cleared his throat. “I’ll go to bed now.”
“Good night,” Tav said, his red eyes unblinking.
Gale nodded, then stood and made his way to his own tent.
Inside, it was still bare of the comforts he preferred. No shelves of books, no glassware for alchemical work. Only an old bedroll, an inkpot with a quill, and the two or three pitiful books he had scavenged from the crypt.
He changed and settled into the bedroll. It was too thin. The ground pressing unkindly against his back, and the lingering ache in his limb made every shift more noticeable. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was familiar.
Exhausted from the strange occurrences and the fight, Gale drifted into sleep almost at once.
Yet some restless part of his mind must have followed him, because the endless circling of thoughts on life and death bled into his dreams.
After an immeasurable stretch of black, no time, no place. The darkness began to retreat before a sudden flicker of light, sharp as a warning before thunder. Pain followed, splitting from his chest like a lightning strike, consuming him entirely. Then silence. Utter, suffocating silence.
The light returned, rising from the horizon—but it was wrong. It was red, and the ground beneath was wet and sticky. A blood moon hung in the sky, casting its insidious glow over a world strewn with corpses and rivers of blood.
Gale jolted awake, chest heaving, sweat running down his temples as if he had fled for his life.
And somehow, the first thing to rise in his mind was not the nightmare’s horror, but the dragonborn’s ruby-red eyes, gleaming like twin blood moons.