The scent of wood ash mixed with the cold morning air fills Mina's lungs as she stretches her arms above her head. Beside her, a pot of brown liquid bubbles above the reddened charcoal, smoke bending her figure as she squats and lunges in place.
"When's the bread soup ready?" Meekah asks as she sits on a log, scribbling on the sand with a stick.
"Soon!" Mina shouts back as she stretches her thighs, "So where do you want me?"
"I'm thinking you stay in the grove", Meekah draws a circle in the sand: the Emerald Grove, "See what you can find about the druids and where we can find anything about Nettie. Astarion and I will check out the ruined village he found last night to look for more survivors."
"I'll be joining, too", Shadowheart stares at Astarion, who is occupied with brandishing his dagger.
"I'm staying in the grove!" Hestia raises her hand straight up.
"Sure", Meekah points her stick at Hestia, "Who else is staying at the grove?"
Mina looks around. Gale raises his hand politely, and so does Wyll.
"I spent the longest time in the grove, perhaps they would be more open with someone they recognize around", Wyll nods.
"Hey heeey!" Mina claps once at Wyll.
"I will also stay in the grove", Gale taps his lap, "The weave there is... I will also stay in the grove."
"Ho hooo! I mean-", Hestia coughs into her fist.
Meekah stares at the two girls, grinning exasperatedly while shaking her head, "You're so stu-dumb. You're so dumb."
"Come on, what are we, schoolchildren?" Astarion groans, wiping his nails with a handkerchief he pulled out somewhere, "Gods, let's go! I'm so bored."
"Ah ah ah", Mina tsk-tsks, "Bread soup."
"She's right", Shadowheart fiddles with her mace, "Bread soup."
"I call the granola", Meekah steps up first to the bag of oats Betty Girl is leaned against.
"I CALL- DAMNIT!" Hestia shouts behind her.
"Why can't you let me in? I literally saved the grove from the goblins!" Hestia yells at the druids at the entrance of the central hollow.
"Really?" The female druid with the fancy stick hat and leaves for clothes snaps as she points her sharp wooden stick at Hestia's floppy hat, "A little birdy told me, and I do mean a little bird, he's right there, he told me that you were the one flailing around screaming as everyone else fought."
"THAT'S NOT TRUE I SHOT SOMEONE", Hestia scrunches her floppy hat back down into her washed auburn hair.
As the battle rages on, Mina stares over the druid's shoulder into the inner circle. She could see an array of druids kneeling in prayer around an idol of what she assumes is Silvanus. The druids look small, lanky, fragile. If not for the fact that one is currently guarding the entrance as an actual bear Mina could understand why they seem so scared of a couple of goblins.
"Hey! No looking!" The druid raises her staff in front of Mina's face, blocking her view, "No. Being. This. Tall!"
The druid bumps her nose with the stick.
"Hey!" Mina backs up, rubbing her nose, "I can't help it!"
"Back off, no outsider comes in here without Kagha's-"
"Wait! Jeorna!" a smaller, gnome druid totters over, panting as he rests his hands on his knees, "Kagha wants to speak to them. Privately."
"I see. You! Kagha wants to see you", Jeorna points the stick at Hestia like it was Hestia's fault for not telling her the news.
"I know! I have ears!" Hestia flaps her large elven ears with her hands.
"You better watch your tone, outsider. We don't accept snotty remarks from city folk", Jeorna glares at her, then her eyes shift to Mina's.
Mina pouts back. Hestia turns around to Mina, exasperatedly before recognizing Mina's expression.
"That's not very nice…" Mina starts.
"NO!" Hestia points her finger at Mina, then pushes her from behind as the duo trudges into the inner grove, "Okay, we'll go! We'll go! Have a nice day!"
Hestia watches as the guards turn their backs on them, resuming their duties of protecting the idol from a bunch of refugees. She glares at Mina, who is still pouting.
"You can't fight the whole grove, Mina!"
"Not the whole grove, Hestia, just her."
"NO!"
"But she was mean to you, Hessie", Mina pouts even deeper.
Hestia softens, then digs her nails harder into Mina's shoulders, "SO? It's not like we're homicidal maniacs-"
"Ah my good friend!" someone calls out. Mina and Hestia turn in sync to a stout bearded man with a blue ruff collar doublet and a bigger, fancier, and floppier hat than Hestia prance towards them.
"YOU!" Hestia pushes Mina towards the pillowy man, "Mina, KILL HIM! He owes me money!"
"Wh-" Mina blinks and looks back at Hestia, fiddling her fingers, "Wait-"
"I REMEMBER NO SUCH THING!" The man yells back, flicking his chin up, tiptoed while dramatically pressing his hands on his hips.
"What in the hells are you doing here, Volo? Interviewing BEARS?" Hestia marches up into the famous writer's face.
"...yes?"
"WHATEVER! YOU OWE ME FOR MY PERFORMANCE. THAT IS CALLED A FAIR WAGE. EVER HEARD OF THAT? Mina, smack him for me."
Just as Volo was about to retort, Mina gently places her palm on Volo's shoulder. A physical touch is always effective in calming someone down, she remembers her father once said. The man freezes and stares up at her. Mina pouts curiously at Volo, "Volo, why do you owe Hestia money?"
"I-w-it was just a misunderstanding!" Volo squeaks, "Please, I will pay! I will pay! I just travel lightly!"
Mina looks back at Hestia, "See? Nothing wrong with being politer, Hessie. How much does he owe anyway?"
"Two-hundred fifty gold pieces", Hestia shouts back, her arms crossed, "Plus INTEREST!"
Mina blinks, "I could just give you that."
"I know, dingus, and I appreciate it but I want the CLINKING OF HIS GOLD!"
"Come now, let's not be too hasty", Volo chuckles nervously while raising his hands, "How about I gift you this ring and all of this other treasure I have gathered on my journey here."
He produces a variety of junk and trinkets from under his hat and places them in Mina's arms. Mina turns around, fumbling the loose baubles as they clatter to the ground. From the way Hestia is staring at the ground, Mina can see that her friend has given up on that two-fifty.
"I hate you, Volo."
Volo dusts off his hands for a job well done and life well preserved, “Well then! Now that we're even, might I interview the two of you about the battle that happened at the gate yesterday? With the goblins? There is no overstating my interest!”
Hestia kicks a pebble on the floor, gesturing wordlessly for him to continue. Mina smiles politely at Volo.
"How would you describe those goblins? Any distinguishing features? Any peculiar sizes?"
"They looked short, stumpy, green, about usual, you know? Had a booyahg and a bugbear." Mina nods.
"Yeah, ugly. Like your mum", Hestia grumbles.
Volo scribbles into his notebook with a quill pen, mumbling to himself, "Witnesses encountered standard mix of goblins… Oh! And the dragon they had marching through the gate... was it of the brass or silver variety?"
"Dragon? I didn't-" Mina starts.
"-oh yeah! There were fifteen bloody brass dragons and they were all digesting in your mum."
"Witnesses enthusiastic about multiple dragons..." Volo notes, scribbling voraciously on the paper. He flips a page, "Now, last question, when they were charging into battle, did the attackers rally to "the Absolute" when closing on the gate?"
Mina falls quiet, "The Absolute? I don't remember. Who's that?"
Hestia shakes her head, "I don't know that one either. I was too busy trying to not die. You're suggesting they have a new patron?"
Volo strokes his chin, "Curious, isn't it? I've interviewed one of the captives. She said they've abandoned Maglubiyet in favour of this newcomer. Quite the scandal!"
"...Your mum is a scandal."
The dead man stares up at the open sky as Meekah pokes a tree branch up his nostril.
"Welp, he's dead."
"It was quite the way we disposed of his siblings, too", Astarion checks the shine of his dagger as he stands over the cut remains of a man and woman, "And what was this Absolute they were talking about? Quite the subtle name of a hatchling leader."
"We could have kept them alive longer", Shadowheart puts her hands on her hips as she stands over the crouching drow digging out the wringling thing inside the old dwarf's nose, "Could have been some more information connecting this to the worms in our brains. True Souls, the man called us."
"Shouldna have tried to kill us after I said we were from the crash, I thought they were fellow survivors! Just… slightly more cuckoo survivors."
"They did say where the goblins are coming from", Astarion notes.
"Aye," Meekah nods, "Maybe they know more about the tadpoles than we would."
She feels a pull on the end of her stick, Meekah gently holds up the dead man's head as she slowly pulls out a mindflayer tadpole, still squirming and alive, penetrated by the stick.
"Ugly thing," Shadowheart utters, "wh-"
The worm's senses burrows into their minds. Meekah doubles over on the ground, her head throbs as the tadpole on her hand channels its last energy into the trio. Meekah's body doesn't feel like her own. Her arms reach out towards it. The tadpole in her brain squirms as it craves a friend. The barest thread of energy bleeds into Meekah's mind shortly before Shadowheart sends the stick and tadpole flying with one swift kick. Tadpole mucus scatters across the gravel path as the impaled worm is torn into a pile of illithid organs.
"You still here?" Shadowheart asks.
"What in the gods was that?" Astarion uncovers his ears and looks around for any lingering energy.
"The tadpole. It must have given off one last shot before it died," Shadowheart nods at the entrails down the road.
"Cunt," Meekah inhales, "Let's get outta here."
The road wavers up and down hills, the walls of the ruined village emerging from the crest of the last hill. The walk was quiet, aside from the occasional chirping of birds and rattling of leaves in the trees.
"Meekah's an odd name for a drow", Shadowheart decides to break the silence.
"It is", Meekah grins, bunting Shadowheart's shoulder with her fist, "Shadowheart."
"I heard drow are sensitive to sunlight, yet here you are, basking."
Meekah rummages through her satchel, producing a wiry pair of dark, tinted glasses. She puts them on dramatically, wiggling her eyebrows, "Sensitive. Not burning to a crisp. Am no vampire. Y'know, now that you mentioned it, I have been squinting less ever since... the nautiloid."
For a brief moment, Meekah could see Astarion face freeze before regaining composure.
Astarion flourishes, "Gods, who knows what else has changed about you since the ship grabbed us like ripe grapes. Maybe one of us will grow a tentacle tonight."
"Aye", Meekah nods, "And then you can finally- what the HELLS?"
Meekah stares down a dead boar lying on its side in the dirt. Its skin pale and skin shriveled up, as if all the blood had been drained from its body.
"It's... exsanguinated", Shadowheart's eyes widen as she points to the neck of the beast. Two beady red marks at the base of the neck, slotted deep within veins fang-shaped.
Meekah stoops down towards the body, lifting its head up to check for any more wounds or scarring. Aside from a few natural healed scars, it seems that nothing else could be the cause of death.
"I'm not the one carrying it to camp."
The warmth of candles flickers against Mina's face as she descends down towards the central chamber. The inner sanctum is dim and wet. Water drips down from ancient stalactites, trickling down the stone steps and echoing into the cavern. Hestia follows behind, counting the various baubles in her palm, grumbling something to herself that Mina can't hear.
"Look at this ring, Mina!" Hestia shoves the ring Volo gave in Mina's face, "It's BRASS. BRASS. I can't even sell this at a flea!"
"It's alright, Hessie, we'll find money some other way."
"He will p-AHHHHH!" Hestia shrieks as her foot slips on the wet stone steps, sending her leg straight into the air. Hestia instinctively catches herself midair, somehow, spinning and flipping herself right-side up as she soars through the cavern air, landing with a flourish in front of the party of druids and one tiefling child who have fallen silent.
"...How you doin'?" Hestia asks.
The entourage of druids did not care for an answer. Mina spots the druid in the back, her hair wrought into a tight bun, her face fierce and unnerving: She must be Kagha.
Kagha, Mina presumes, reverts her gaze back at the child. Hestia's performance not even worthy of a comment.
"Keep still, devil", Kagha calls the child, "Lest Teela unleash her bite."
"Calm, Kagha!" an elderly druid with tree branches wreathed into a crown steps forward, "We've returned the idol. There's no need for this sort of threat!"
"Why are you threatening a child?" Mina asks, tilting her head.
"She's a thief. A parasite. One who knows not the goodwill brought before her if it spat on her face", the woman glares at the snivelling tiefling child shaking in her boot, "She drinks our water. Eats our food. And this is what we get?"
"Hey, woah!" Hestia slides in, "Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. Let's think about this! Now, what she did was a truly foolish act. A real numbskull thing to do. But she's a kid. We've all been kids, right? You've been one, I know it. Who hasn't done something silly when they were just a little tot to impress your friends, right? And when someone get caught for nicking something, you don't put a kid on trial! What do would the grownups like you and I do? Bring her to her parents for a good scolding, right? Please. Let me bring her back to her parents and I'm sure they'll whip her right into shape. You know what I'm talking about, right?"
Hestia waits patiently at the snake, who to Mina's surprise, nods understandably and slithers off into the dark grass.
Kagha blinks, taking her time to really parse the flood of words that had just entered her ears, "I... Teela... very well."
She turns to the tiefling child, "Go."
The child runs off before Kagha finishes.
Mina pats Hestia's shaking shoulder wholeheartedly. The bard seems to relax just a tiny fraction.
"So, you're the ones who defended the grove from the goblins", Kagha steadies herself as the other druids wander off, "I have a mission for you."
Mina steps forward, "Hold on. Can we just talk about the fact that you were about to throw a snake at a child?"
"Does a mother bear not protect her cubs?", Kagha hisses, "I did what was best to protect the grove from thieving intruders. Regardless, you have proven yourself capable of persuasion"
She glances at Mina's branch-like tattoos running down her face, "And your bodyguard here seems able-bodied enough to hold her own."
Mina decides not to correct her.
"You need pay, do you not? Gold?", Kagha circles the two, "I could hear you outside of the chamber. Outsiders like you usually do."
Hestia chokes on her spit in response.
"What do you want?" Mina asks for her.
"I want you to get rid of the tieflings from the grove. Escort them out, convince them, however. It's Zevlor you need convincing. He's the thorn that refuses to be plucked. We the druids will pay you handsomely if you do so."
"N-" Mina starts.
"WE'LL THINK ABOUT IT! We'll think about it!" Hestia interrupts as she pushes Mina aside, "We'll talk to Zevlor."
"Hessie!"
"Then you best get to it", Kagha declares before turning and disappearing into the private quarters, leaving the two alone in the empty trial chamber.
"Why did you say that, Hestia?" Mina demands, "We're not pushing those people out."
"She said handsomely, dingus!"
"But-"
"I didn't say we were going to get Zevlor out, I said we'll let him know," Hestia taps at Mina's chest, "Also, what's she gonna do? They needed the whole cave to gang up on one child. You are at least the size of three children!"
"I just don't like lying about it, Hessie", Mina pouts.
"I was not lying. I was simply postponing a decision until the whole camp comes back, now are we going to the healer or not?"
The chamber door behind them opens. The two turn around, coming face to face with Wyll and Gale, who leisurely saunter down the steps before noticing the two girls staring blankly at them.
"WHERE DID YOU TWO WANDER OFF TO?" Hestia stomps towards Gale.
"We were just talking to this tiefling bard! She said she needed help with composing a song so we thought to come find you."
Hestia's shriek echoes across the chamber.
The cobblestone crumbles to dust as Meekah hops down from the ruined walls of what used to be an apothecary.
"Goblins", Astarion points through the leaves. About two or three on the roof, she sees. From roof to roof, they weave, before one of the archers' eyes lands on the pale beacon that is Astarion's face.
"Oi! You there! Weird white face!" The archer points, "Step out and I won't make the boys shoot ya!"
Astarion looks at Meekah exasperatedly. She shrugs in response. The drow woman steps out from the shade first, squinting her eyes behind the shades as she looks at the goblin archer.
"That's right", the archer smirks, "Alright, lads, let's-"
From Meekah's standpoint, she could tell that the goblin must be the squad captain based on the amount of rags she's wearing on her face.
"Another drow in daylight?" the goblin's eye widen through the gap in her hood.
"What's goin' on ova 'ere, boss?" Meekah hears another goblin shout over the roof.
"Hold it, boys! We got another one of the Absolute's!" The goblin archer turns to Meekah apologetically, "S-sorry, your- my lady. We won't make that mistake again."
"It better not happen again", Meekah tuts, "Show me where this other drow is."
The goblins disappear behind the roofs. Meekah turns to Astarion, wiggling her eyebrows, "Gray privilege."
Meekah waves Astarion and Shadowheart to follow her down the cobblestone path towards where goblins disappeared. In the distance is a windmill spinning its sweeps at breakneck speeds. For a brief second, a deep gnome, gray, tiny, and bald, appears at the apex of the windmill. He seems to be tied to sweep, going round and round the windmill.
"SOMEONE HELP ME!" He screams.
"I thought that was the wind", Shadowheart's eyes widen.
Standing on the road, Meekah could see a certain large, towering figure with long white hair sun-bleached into a distinctive blonde and gray color standing in front of a crowd of goblins. The figure, who was wearing navy blue chain armor with interlocking chainmail underneath, was waving her gauntlet-protected finger around in a lecturing manner at the crowd.
"No fuckin' way..." Meekah mutters, running towards the windmill, "NO FUCKIN' WAY!"
She leaves the two companions in the dirt as she sprints towards the tall drow.
"-and when you are the one tied up in the sweep, would you be laughing like you were moments ago? I implore you to think about that," Meekah could hear the tall woman assert sternly, "This sort of mistreatment is unkind, and will ensure reciprocal treatment in your near future, and-"
"HUSKA DUSKFATE!"
The armoured woman turns around, a barest thread of shock painted over her face, "Hello, sister-"
Meekah bunts her chest plate with a closed fist. The sound gives a light thunk.
"I thought you were dead, shitehead!"
"...I apologize, Meekah, I thought you would have found me anyway."
"You-wh- come here."
Meekah goes in for a hug. Her arms barely long enough to wrap around her little sister. Huska pats her back gently, looking around nervously.
"Sister, there are people watching us."
"I don't care. Hey, you!" Meekah peeks over at the goblins standing flabbergasted at the scene before them, "You gonna say somethin'?"
"N-no! M-my lady o-or your majesty!" The goblin in front was unsure to bow or curtsey.
"You better not or I'll rip your dick off."
As Shadowheart and Astarion come walking over, Meekah quickly breaks away from her little sister's grasp.
"So", she coughs into her fist, "What's the situation?"
Huska looks wordlessly at the gnome still spinning on the windmill.
"SOMEONE GET ME DOWN!" he cries.
"I had forgotten about him", Huska says as she turns to the goblins.
"Right!" Meekah claps her hands together, "Well, I'm sure you've already learned your lesson or should she lecture you all over again?"
The goblins look at each other. One of them looks at a pebble on the ground.
"Alright then. You're done here. We're takin' over. Go pray to the Absolute. Be nice to each other or I'll come find you. Bye bye. Fuck off."
Meekah waves haphazardly as the head goblin waves the rest of the patrol away before trudging off behind the ruined walls of the village. She pivots back to Astarion and Shadowheart, who has her arms crossed, staring at her quizzically.
"Lads, this is Hushpuppy", Meekah knocks her knuckle on Huska's chest plate, "She's a paladin and she'll kill everyone if you're mean to her."
Huska blinks before bowing stiffly, "Greetings. My name is Huska Duskfate. And... I hope it does not come down to that."
Astarion tries to suppress a smirk from his ashen, colorless, pale face, "...a pleasure. So are we going to get this down or should we just let him deafen our ears a little longer?"
The group stare up at the deep gnome, who has not ceased his screaming.
"ANYTIME NOW!" his voice whips past before growing faint as he returns to the top.