Chpt 14. Shovel
Trigger Warning: Shovel. Books made of face skin.
Am I dead at last? Everything is dark and I search myself for any sensation that might clue me in to my current corporeal state. No, this isn't the quiet embrace of oblivion. I feel something. Fingers weaving themselves into mine. I take a deep breath, calm, awake, aware. I hear dripping water echoing through a hollowed chamber as my head clears, then recall where I am. The cavern under the blighted village. I grip the hand holding mine and look over at the face staring back at me. Bex. She's still laying on her back, same as me, concern etched on her face.
I smile feebly. "Tell me I thrashed the wizard, and not just my dignity."
A moment passes, and I see a wily smirk spread across her face. With a snort, we both break out into laughter. What else can we do after the pummeling we just received?
"Holy hells!" she finally gasps. "I didn't think we were going to make it!"
I cough out a few more chuckles. "Unfortunately, we survived." With a grunt, I sit up, my head still swimming from the blast.
She pulls a new healing potion from her pack, drinking half and handing the rest to me. "What happened? That explosion? I don't think I can describe what I saw. You swung at the wizard and out of nowhere you were surrounded by this electric red haze, it was terrifying."
I down the potion quickly, feeling that breath of rejuvenation. I run my hand over my face, trying to wipe away the traces of my dazed state. "I'm not sure. Everything went dark the moment my sword hit the foul wretch." Another lapse. I try not to dwell on it; what's done is done. I glance over at her, trying to get my mind off it, "Was this your first battle?"
"With the undead, yes. I've helped my father with small ambushes when the Hellriders were there to back me up, but nothing like this. That was terrifying! I was not expecting the damned things to rise like that!" She finally gets to her feet. "A red wizard... What in the hells was it doing in a place like this? As far as I can tell, this was just a humble little village like any other before it was abandoned. Hardly a lofty conquest for someone like that. Besides, Thay is nowhere near here."
"No?" I grasp her hand as she reaches out to help me to my feet. "Strange indeed, although everything about those damned wizards is strange. Whatever he was doing, I guess it's a story for the gods, now." I look back at the pile of crumpled bones, half expecting them to reanimate. You can never be sure with magicians, especially ones who dabble in necromancy. I suddenly remember my curious find. Reaching into my pocket, I hand the parchment to Bex, "I did find something interesting. Look at this."
She unravels it, thoughtfully scanning the parchment. "A summon?"
"That's what I thought, too. Do we have the stomach to give it a try?"
"Of course! I love summons, I have one of my own, you know? I just haven't called her in a while. Danis isn't too fond of her. He's always been more of a cat person."
I lean back, playfully aghast, "You're telling me you don't summon a cat like a normal person?"
She smirks and punches my arm. I exaggerate a flinch and grab at my grievous wound. She shakes her head and hands the parchment back to me. Conjuring her meager power into her palms, she casts the spell to reveal a crab. Bright orange, a decent size, and docile.
I look down at it, completely caught off guard, then abruptly break into a fit of laughter. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at the crab; I just wasn't expecting..."
She crosses her arms as she waits for me to have my fun, "Go ahead, mock me! It goes to show how much I can trust your word."
"No, no, no... I swear." I wipe away a tear as I try to compose myself, "Oh gods... what's its name?"
Bex stoops down and picks her up. "Tansy." She lightly drums her fingers on top of Tansy's chitinous body, and the crab seems to like it. I don't know how I can tell; it just seems content with its lot.
I gingerly hold out my hand, "Can I see her?"
Bex looks startled, "Really? You want to hold her?"
"Of course! Unless you don't think she'd like it."
"No, here!" She swiftly shoves the crab into my arms, grinning.
I take Tansy into my hands. A cold, sandwich-shaped creature, with flexible cartilaginous joints and a fascinating exoskeleton. The tension she uses to maneuver her limbs from within the ridged structure of her body is honestly fascinating. She has the faintest scent of ocean to her. Her eyes sit on opposable stalks on her head, easily snapped off. She's so crushable; I bet the feeling of her body breaking in my hands would be wonderful. If I kept her alive, what would a vivisection reveal? I snap out of it as soon as I realize what I'm doing. I refocus and look from Tansy to Bex, and I feel a smile tugging at my lips. I quickly hand Tansy back before my thoughts drift too far, "She's fascinating, but... why a crab?"
Bex smiles up at me. "Fair question. Living along the River Road, I spent a lot of time along the banks of the Chionthar, playing with kids from the other caravans. One decided to show us his summon. It was a frog, and I was immediately drawn in. I asked him if he could teach me, and he did. It was simple enough; I'm not proficient with magic, but I was determined to learn. I chose a crab so that I could play with her in the river. The other kids loved her. On days when I was alone, I would sit with her, watching her pick through the sand and scuttle about. She would nestle herself in the bend of my leg, and I would sit in the water with her. Looking, listening, daydreaming." As the memories flick past, I see a sorrow crossing her face. "I miss those days. We all do, don't we? Childhood, where we didn't have a care in the world outside of our meager plights in life." She clutches Tansy, not just as an old friend, but as a harbinger of better times.
I watch her and give her space to sit with her memories. There's not much I can offer her in this moment. I don't have an inkling about my childhood; anything recovered seems to be more recent. Come to think about it, I don't even know how old I am. I feel mildly defeated, missing this opportunity to connect with her, and she senses my dwindling resolve.
She puts a hand on my elbow. "Are you alright?"
I'm pulled out of my pathetic episode of self-pity, "Yes. I'm moved by what you're saying. We need to capture those bouts of joy when we can." I tap her on the nose with the quasit parchment, and she swats at me, giving me a bratty grin. "Let's conjure ourselves a quasit."
Bex places Tansy down and watches as I draw the power from the scroll and cast the spell. Sure enough, in a spark of green light, a quasit appears before us. Like a profane monkey with unsettlingly large black eyes, no nose, and a down-turned mouth. She has straight horns, sharp teeth, a long tail, and pointed ears. Traits she shares with an ordinary Tiefling, but she's covered in bony spines, and her arms and claws are far too long. She's a putrid green to add to her repugnant form, with a cream belly, and flesh pink face and hands. She makes me uncomfortable. I like her.
She immediately begins screeching in a sarcastic tone. "SURLY MASTER ILLY DIDN'T CALL SHOVEL FOR ANY MISCHIEF, LIKE THE OLD DAYS. HE JUST WANTS HER TO WIPE HIS ARSE AGAIN!? SHOVEL WANTS TO MUR—" She gasps, startled, jumping back as she sees us. "Oh! You're not Illy..." She leans forward and begins to sniff me, "What's that? Why do you smell like that?"
I look at her confused. "What do you mean? Smell like what?" I grow a touch self-conscious of my smell, sniffing my cloak.
Bex wrinkles her nose, "You do have an odor coming from your cloak. I didn't want to say anything."
"Do I?" I check myself again and can't seem to get a handle on any strange smells.
The quasit shakes her head. "No. No. No stink. You smell like storms, and pain! Thunder! Lightning! You're one of those mad sorcerers!" She gags and waves her claws in front of her face, shaking her head. "Don't like it!!!"
I look over at Bex and she points at me with a shit-eating grin, "HA! I knew you were playing with me! That's why you could feel Ethel in the weave!" Her face suddenly shifts to a soft, almost placating smile. "I understand if you wanted to keep it a secret. I won't tell, I swear."
"I..." I look from her back to Shovel, "I didn't know."
She echoes me. "Didn't know? How did you not know?"
I pause and then hesitantly confess my plight. "I. Uhm. I don't have any memories of my past. Not many at least, I'm still piecing it all together."
She shakes her head in disbelief, "No memories? How? Did something happen?"
"I don't know, but I suspect it was some sort of attack with no clues of who would do it, or why. When I came to, I was lucky to have basic language and motor skills. I knew I was a Tiefling, and I knew my name. It seems like my memory loss was calculated, or that I'd gone through previous recovery before becoming cognizant again. Who knows. It's been a very strange experience overall."
Concern graces her features, and she reaches out her hand, gripping my arm, "How long has it been since you came back to yourself?"
I measure her demeanor. I don't think she realizes how good she is at getting information out of people. It's that goddamn face of hers, she looks far too kind and well intentioned. Could she use this information against me? Would it matter if she tried? ... "Two days."
She's taken aback, "Gods. Two days? How in the hells is that possible?"
I quietly shake my head, not speaking, but implying my cluelessness.
"Do you think it might be tied to Elturel? Something that happened to you in the hells, maybe?"
"Elturel sparks nothing for me, only memories of stories. I suspect I'm not from there."
"You're... not a refugee?" She lets go of my arm, as if the simple fact suddenly makes me less trustworthy. "Then who the hells are you?"
"I don't know." I'm surprised at how mournful I sound when I say it. "Hopefully I'll be able to find answers, but either way I am rebuilding myself. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise, I could have been a real bastard in my last life." I nudge her playfully, though the jovial deflection feels empty given what I know about myself.
She smirks once again but quickly returns to her tone of concern. "I'm so sorry you're going through this; it must be frightening."
Her comfort feels a bit performative, but I accept it all the same, "Frightening yes, frustrating more than anything."
She looks at me with soft amber eyes, caring and kind. It stirs something within me.
Shovel hops next to me, tugging on my cloak. "Enough jibber jabber! Master should try magic!" She swiftly looks around and scurries behind a crate, her cadence balanced and swift. Tansy watches this and decides in her little crab mind that following the abomination is a good idea, and scuttles after her. Shovel and Tansy peak out and watch me, curious despite the caution. "Shovel is ready."
With keen mischief I turn to Bex for permission. "Should I try it? This cavern is kind of small."
Bex laughs, "Do you even know what you could possibly do? Do you remember any cantrips? I don't know how it all works."
I pause and consider my abilities. "Cantrips. Right." I get vague images of thundering blades, bursting corpses, and... I hold up my hand and focus on the weave. Although I am attuned to it, my grasp on my abilities is frail right now. Slowly, red arcs of electricity climb up my arm, running up my wrist and over my fingers like ribbons. I look at Bex, "Hey, come here. Let's see if it's working."
Her eyes go wide, and she dodges me as I playfully grab at her, "No!" She laughs and I begin to chase her around the cavern, trying, but not really trying, to grab her. "S-Stop!!!" She finally turns and pushes me, and I can't help but laugh with her.
I look over at Shovel who is still staring, "Hey Shovel, come here." She releases a jagged squeal, "NO PAIN!!!" Ducking behind the crate.
Her fear seemed a bit too real, so I quickly release the electric arcs. "I'm kidding Shovel, you can come out. The magic is gone."
Tansy tiptoes out and makes her way back to Bex. Shovel refuses to come out. "NO. No want tricks!"
"Shovel." I carefully walk over to her, glancing behind the crate, hands out. "I swear, I'm not going to shock you. It's okay. Let's get out of this cave and back to reality."
She looks at me wide eyed, seeing that I'm disarmed. "Oh. OH! Master is good! Kind!" She climbs up the crates, being stacked two high. She's cautious but gets closer to eye level with me. "Master is missing secrets! Many secrets! Secrets Shovel knows." She's laughing, breathy and stuttering. "I will tell you all Illy's secrets." She says it with nefarious glee. "The mirror, there." She points her claw at a mirror laying flush against a wall, "There is a special prize inside, just tell the mirror Balsam is good for wounds!"
I look over at the mirror, "Funny, I didn't notice it before." I approach it, and as I do I feel the faintest hint of weave. I stare into the mirror and only see myself. Gods, I look like hell, like I've been clawing out an existence for decades. I probably have. Who knows how long I've been in limbo before coming to on that damned nautiloid. Bhaal only knows. I get a good look at the scar struck across my face. A clean slice, downward across my right eye. The eye itself has lost its infernal glow. How in the hells did it happen? Why is the eye that hides the tadpole so devastated, when my companions don't share the same kind of damage? I don't like my dimmed eye, and I try to blink and shake my head, as if my own willpower is going to make the glow return.
I stare at myself and try to gather any sense of—I feel a hand on my back. "Are you okay?"
I look down at Bex, having gotten lost in my own thoughts. "Yes, I'm sorry. This is my first time seeing my face. It's a lot to take in."
Bex furrows her brow and rubs my back. Her comfort is more than welcome right now. I honestly didn't know I needed it. Suddenly we see a blue light slowly fading into a haunting visage in the mirror, it appears with a quiet sucking feeling as it gathers strength to manifest.
The thing finally speaks, the voice is languid and echoes with an un-harmonic tone. "Speak your name."
A thinking lock, nothing too dangerous. "Vash Neel."
"I do not know this name, are you an ally of Ilyn Toth?"
"...yes..." That must be the name of Master Ily.
"What do you think of the Zulkir, Szass Tam?"
My hair stands on end, "One of the red wizards of Thay, he is a foul lich." The name makes me wary, although the prospect of his kind of power also gives me a pang of envy.
"You are no Zulkir. Tell me, how would one use Balsam Ointment?"
"For cleaning wounds." Standard medical knowledge.
"Correct, if you could see anything in me, what would it be?"
The answer to that could be almost anything. It's not fact based, it's an opinion, and who the hells knows what this damned thing wants to hear. I grow impatient and my eyes sharpen. "A smashed mirror so I can be done with these incessant fucking questions."
The mirror pauses, staring at me, thoughts churning in its little idiot head. It opens without another word.
We step inside and look around; it looks to be a hidden laboratory. Beakers, bottles, books, papers strewn about. Bex breaks away, looking around, Tansy in tow. A soft tapping noise echoes as her little crab feet dance across the stone floor. The air is stagnant and musty. It's deathly quiet. There are bones displayed like anatomical specimens. Above us hangs the structure of some large aquatic creature I can't recognize. Below is a makeshift operating table with a humanoid specimen already laid out. Its autopsy... of vivisection seemed to be interrupted. All that is left is a perfectly aged skeleton. I run my fingers across the exposed ribs, before noticing a book. I flip it open and begin to read.
6 Nightal, 1371 DR
I pay no service to the gods, but by some blessing, this village believes me and my apprentice to be simple healers. My tattoos are hidden, my red robes locked away, and my lab secured. I have not heard the word 'Thay' since we arrived and only my apprentice knows me as Ilyn Toth.
This place is not ideal for my research, but I can never return home - not the way I escaped. I'd be put to death, with worse to follow.
Worse to follow. Worse to follow death? The thought of killing someone more than once sends a rush of pleasure through me. I need to learn more.
The work here is simple and allows me to continue my research at night, but progress is slow. Reanimation seems easy, but restoring life? That prize eludes me. The tome contains the magic I need, but it fights me at every step. As does my apprentice. At least my familiar has made it easy to secure bodies without raising suspicion.
I glance over at Shovel who is teasing Tansy. The crab manages to clamp down on Shovel's claw in reciprocity. Shovel tries to pull away but only manages to drag Tansy along the ground, helplessly. Shovel, a little grave thief. Noted.
This will take time. Will the zulkirs find me before I can bring her back? I cannot say, but if they do come for me, they'll have to face the guardians I've raised.
Well... that explains the morgue. I guess he wanted to get buried in his robes. ...her. A helpless romantic or a doting son. Both notions are unsettling, to be so obsessed with someone.
I glance over at Shovel who has her foot on Tansy's... face?... trying to pull her claw free.
"Stop messing about, you two." Tansy lets go and Shovel falls over but quickly hops back to her feet. "Shovel, what is this 'tome' that Master Ily spoke of in his notes?"
Shovel's eyes go wide, "The book!" Her tone quickly shifts to dread. "Oh, the book. Fears. Many fears! Screams! Answers to dark forbidden questions. It's over there!" She eagerly points to a cell at the end of the room.
Bex walks up to me and shakes her head. "No. Everything about this is screaming Don't do it. We're not messing with that."
I give her a teasing smile before walking over and peering inside. A grotesque thing. A face is fashioned on the cover; the damned thing was bound in the tanned skin of some poor man's head. I follow the thread of logic. This book, in a cellar deep beneath an abandoned village, through a secret tunnel, behind a magic lock, and placed inside of a jail cell. I need it. I grab the bars of the door and jiggle it. Locked, of course, and not nearly rusty enough to break. "Shovel, do you know how to get this open?"
She claps excitedly, "YES! Oh, hopefully it's still there." She runs across to the other side of the lab, opening another hidden door. Inside is a small storage room, and on one of the shelves is a rusted key. She swiftly ferries it back to me. "Here! Here!"
Bex rolls her eyes and takes a step back from whatever chaos I'm about to sow.
I take it from her and slide the key in, hearing a satisfying click and it opens. Shovel runs in and throws her arms in front of me, "WAIT!"
I stop abruptly, "What?"
Shovel looks around, "They don't want you to have it." She points to either side of the interior of the jail cell. There are large gargoyle statues with open hollow mouths. Boobytraps. I look around and then see it; the book is sitting on a pressure plate.
I look down at shovel and grab her, and before she has time to complain I plop her down on the pressure plate while snatching up the book. Looking at it, it screams with yearning. It wants to be opened. What power is it hiding? I sense the magic in it, clear. It's pulsing with magic necrotic, powerful, and ancient. But it's not gentle, it's a magic that screams with jagged madness. Not unlike myself. Seems we are kindred spirits.
I turn with the book and look up at Bex who is clearly uneasy. I step out of the cell but suddenly hear Shovel calling for me.
"Wait Master! Shovel wants to come with you!" Her arms outstretched, grasping toward me like a frightened child.
"Do you?"
Shovel nods with a pouting lip.
"Okay, hop down."
She looks at both gargoyles and then looks at the ground. With a furrowed brow and resignation on her face she hops off the pressure plate and before her feet hit the ground she is engulfed in flames and vanishes.
Bex looks at me, stunned, "That was cruel! I can't believe you would do that to her; she only just got her freedom from whatever gods-forsaken plane she had been stuck on."
I wave Bex off, "She'll be fine. I'll call her back when we have use for her again." I walk up to her and show her the book, though I can't keep my eyes off it. It seems to be staring back at me with as much curiosity as I have of it. "Locked tight. What do you think?"
She shakes her head, "That thing can't be worth the trouble. Vash, it has a skin face for a cover."
A practical concern. "As a Paladin it's my duty to deal with such blights. I should hang onto it and not leave it sitting out like it is."
She coughs, "Right. Sitting out." Her tail swishing uncomfortably, she's not buying my excuse. "Do as you wish, just don't involve me."
"I won't." I finally remove my gaze from the book's amethyst eyes and tuck it in one of the larger pockets of my cloak.
Bex looks down at Tansy, giving her a little smile. "Good to see you, old friend. I promise to call again soon." At that she snaps Tansy back into oblivion, and we make our way out of the cellar.