Prototype's Gate

"(Everyone report to me)," Alex commanded through the telepathic link.

"(I was sleeping,)" Lump growled.

"(Sitting, I want to see the surface. Can I bring the ship back up?)" Glut asked, his feeling of boredom leaking through the telepathic link.

"(I am burrowed close to the beach. I still have the bodies you told me to gather. They are mostly intact,)" Bullet replied.

"(Mostly?)"

"(I munched the little one's fingers.)"

Alex sighed. "Maybe I should raise his intelligence a little bit," he thought.

"(Can I bring the ship back to the surface?)" Glut asked again.

"(Not yet. The githyanki are inching closer to this location. If they find the ship, they would want to destroy it.)"

"(And why are you not killing them? You are more than capable enough to do so,)" Lump said.

"(Because they are organized. Someone is giving them orders. They already have a center of command nearby. Who knows how many troops they have?)"

"(More food for you to consume,)" Glut said.

Alex closed his eyes for a moment. Glut was right; he could easily kill all the githyanki in the area. The dragons would be tricky, but with his fire immunity, they would be no more than just some big flying lizards.

“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Alex thought, remembering this phrase he read a long time ago. They still had Lae'zel. If she failed to convince their leader, he would go all out.

"(Glut, use the trap door I told you about and meet me at the beach. My group will meet you there.)"

"(Understood,)" Glut replied, pleased that he was leaving the ship.

"(Dismissed,)" Alex commanded, ending the link.

He slowly walked out of the tent, feeling his comrades' minds awaken from their sleep.

"Good morning, everyone," Wyll said, followed by a big yawn. He still seemed tired, with dark circles under his eyes.

"What happened after I left?" Alex asked.

"Me and Zevlor tried to come up with strategies against the githyanki until morning."

"And?"

Wyll shook his head. "If they decide to attack us, we will lose. There's too much of a difference in power," he said grimly.

"But what if Zeus intervenes?"

"He would definitely tilt the balance in our favor."

Alex patted Wyll's shoulder. "We will find a way," he encouraged him.

One by one, everyone gathered around and started to serve breakfast.

"So, Astarion, ready to tell us, you know, about being a vampire spawn?" Karlach said, munching on a beef jerky.

All eyes went to Astarion, who froze for a moment.

"Fine, I will tell you, as if I'm the only one with secrets," he said, putting down the stale bread he was munching on and taking a deep breath.

"Cazador Szarr is a vampire lord in Baldur's Gate. The patriarch of his coven and a monster obsessed with power. Not political power or military power—I mean power over people. The power to control them completely. He turned me nearly two hundred years ago. I became his spawn, and he became my tormentor."

"How did you turn? Did he attack you?" Gale asked.

"Not him, no. A gang of thugs attacked me, angry about a ruling I'd handed down as a magistrate. They beat me to death's door. When Cazador appeared, he chased them off and offered to save me. To give me eternal life. Given that my choice was eternal life or bleed to death on the street, I took him up on the offer. It was only afterward I realized just how long 'eternity' could be."

"Not a good master, I take it?" Shadowheart asked.

Astarion clenched his fists for a moment before relaxing. "He had me go out into Baldur's Gate to fetch him the most beautiful soul I could find. It was a fun little ritual of his. I'd bring them back, and he'd ask if I wanted to dine with him. And if I said yes, he'd serve me a dead, putrid rat. Of course, if I said no, he'd have me flayed. Hard to say which was worse."

"That sounds terrible," Karlach said.

"This isn't about sympathy. It's about knowing what we might be up against. The mind flayers aren't the only monsters out there. And they might not be the only ones hunting us. Keep your eyes open and watch out for anything lurking in the shadows."

"We'll watch each other's backs," Wyll said.

"What more could I ask? Now, is that all?"

"Can we head to the creche already?" Lae'zel asked impatiently.

Everyone chuckled a bit, except Astarion, who was glaring daggers at Lae'zel.

"In a few minutes," Wyll assured the impatient githyanki.

Someone knocked at the church door.

Alex walked to the door and opened it, revealing a small figure clad in red armor.

"That's Zeus' companion, Glut," Karlach said.

Glut walked inside the church, stopping right next to the group. "I go together with you."

Wyll stood up and walked over to Glut. "We could use your help if things go sour."

Glut grunted.

After everyone was ready, they headed out east to where the creche was.

They had barely passed the ruined village when Alex stopped. "I forgot the ring of mind shielding at the church. I will go get it," Alex said as he turned around and ran back.

"He's fast. Should we wait for him?" Karlach asked.

"The githyanki are masters in the mind arts. If they decide to attack us—" Gale paused for a moment, looking at Lae'zel. "The ring could come in handy," he argued.

"Let's find some shade to rest under until Alex is back."

Alex hopped down from the stone bridge leading to the Emerald Grove and walked inside a cave. His eyes darted around the massive cavern, trying to locate the source of the feeling he kept having. He had passed by this cave a couple of times, and every time he did so, he felt the selunite energy inside him reacting to whatever was here.

Alex took a few sniffs of the air. He could smell a faint trace of blood. "This is where they killed Mama Owlbear," Alex said, walking deeper into the cave. The blood's scent was identical to the one at the goblin camp. The selunite magic stirred inside him. His head turned to the left; a few meters ahead was a statue of Selûne, at its feet a blue chest glowing with a faint white light.

He walked closer to the statue, noticing the offerings around it. "This must have been a shrine," Alex noted.

He crouched next to the chest and put his hand on it. It felt like he was dipping his hand in warm water. The chest was infused with selunite magic. Alex's insides shifted, absorbing the selunite energy. The energy was so little compared to the one inside the crystal he absorbed at the Selunite outpost that he felt like he was throwing a bucket of water into a lake.

The chest lost its luster, but he could feel a small trace of energy inside it. Opening the chest, he found inside a pendant. The pendant was simple, made of gold, with a square gem of light blue color. On its back were engraved words: "You're a novice no more, Robin. Only right you should carry a little of our Lady's light with you."

He put the pendant in one of his pockets. The pendant was clearly enchanted; it wasn't worth destroying. He raised his eyes and looked into the statue's eyes. "Strange." A moment ago, he felt like someone was watching him.

Walking deeper into the cave, he found the owlbear nest. Pools of dried blood and feathers lay scattered around. The dried blood wasn't just from the owlbears; some of it was goblin blood. Looking around, he found in a corner a single egg as big as a watermelon. Next to it was a simple hide armor.

"The embryo is dead," Alex noted, inspecting the egg. When he touched the armor, he felt a strange energy imbued in it so he consumed it . "I can feel the plants around me," Alex noted, looking at the roots poking from the ceiling of the cave.

"Bullet, come out," Alex ordered telepathically.

The ground shook. The landshark emerged from it and, like a dog bringing back a ball, he spat at Alex's feet two corpses. One was of Spaw, already showing signs of decay, and the other was of Boooal.

Flesh tendrils crawled from Alex's body and wrapped around the bodies, consuming them. Spaw had a mutation that let him live for so long. Strangely, his memories were blank, like someone erased them. Boooal was a simple redcap who tricked the kuo-toa into believing he was a god. Not even a faint trace of the strange bloody energy.

Alex was ready to leave when he noticed the way Bullet was looking at him. Alex walked over to him and patted his massive head a couple of times. Bullet smacked down his tree trunk of a tail a couple of times and dug back into the ground.

...

Alex tossed Wyll the ring of mind shielding. Wyll inspected the simple ring and looked around the group. "Who wants the ring?" Wyll asked.

Shadowheart didn't pay Wyll's words any attention; instead, she kept staring at Alex with an expression of disgust on her face.

"What's the problem, Shadowheart?" Wyll asked, noticing the way she kept looking at Alex.

"Did you find something on your way back?" Shadowheart asked.

"I found this pendant," Alex said as he showed her the trinket.

"This rubbish has Selûne's magic. At best, it's worthless. At worst... who knows? It could be cursed. Do not trifle with that moon witch or her trinkets. Only trouble will follow."

"I'm no scholar in religious matters, but from what I know, Selûne is a good-aligned deity," Gale intervened.

Shadowheart threw him a mean glare and turned back to Alex. Alex looked into her eyes for a moment, then back at the pendant. He was completely sure this pendant had no curse on it.

"I'm keeping it," Alex said as he put the pendant back into his pocket.

"Fine. Perhaps you could sell it for a couple of coins," Shadowheart said, clearly displeased by Alex's choice to keep the pendant.

"Again, who wants the ring?" Wyll asked.

"I say you give it to Karlach," Alex suggested.

"Why? Do you think some simple mind tricks could bring me down?" Karlach asked playfully.

"Wyll told me about what you did after you killed the paladins hunting you," Alex replied.

Karlach's smile faltered. "That was a one-time thing. Besides, after I installed that cage, I feel calmer."

Wyll walked over to Karlach and handed her the ring. "Better safe than sorry. We need you to think clearly."

"Fine," she said, putting the ring on her finger. "Happy?"

Wyll nodded. "Very."

...

When they stepped onto the bridge at the mountain pass, everyone fell to their knees except Alex and Glut. Alex felt a strong psionic presence linked to the party's minds.

"What's happening to them?" Glut asked telepathically.

"Someone or something is attacking their minds," Alex responded. He tried to link his mind to the rest of the party, hoping to raise some psychic defense.

"It feels like I'm trying to pierce a metal wall with a wooden splinter," Alex thought. Whoever or whatever was attacking them was in a whole other league compared to Alex.

Struggling, Shadowheart reached into her pouch and brought forth a mysterious artifact—a many-sided box of blackened iron, engraved with pulsating runes.

"Whatever that box is, it's emanating a shitload of psychic energy," Glut said, walking behind Alex.

The artifact floated from her hand, levitating in the middle of the group. It started to glow with a red fiery light, and after a couple of pulses, it emitted a big wave of psychic energy. As the dense psychic energy washed over the party, one by one, they started to rise back to their feet. After the psychic attack stopped, the artifact floated back into Shadowheart's hands.

Everyone was staring at Shadowheart. She looked at the artifact in her hands for a moment and raised her gaze. "Don't give me that look. I don't know what just happened any more than you do. We should keep going."

"The voice is gone—muted by this... gith relic. Why does a half-elf carry it?" Lae'zel asked.

"The artifact seemed to stop the voice. What is it?" Gale asked.

"I don't know... not exactly. All I know is it's important I get it back to Baldur's Gate. At any cost."

"Why Baldur's Gate?" Wyll asked.

"I suppose if we're to keep working together, I may as well tell you. I serve Shar." Alex could feel the amulet with the spirit of the monk stirring inside his pocket.

"It was kinda evident. The armor you have has Shar's symbols all over it, and you keep praying 'Shadows protect me,' every day since I met you," Astarion noted.

Shadowheart continued, not giving Astarion any attention. "My home is a secret cloister in Baldur's Gate. A group of us was sent to retrieve the artifact. Now I'm the only one left. I can't afford to fail. I can't tell you any more. This mission requires utmost secrecy—we all submitted to having our memories suppressed so that we couldn't betray Shar's confidence. If I reach my contact in the city, I'll have my memories restored. Until then, I have to guard the artifact with my life. There you have the truth, for all it's worth. Let's continue."

"A Shar worshipper? Not my usual quarry—nor my usual ally," Wyll said.

"This is out of pure necessity—pure desperation, in fact."

"How did you come into possession of that artifact exactly?" Gale asked.

"There is nothing more I can tell you. All I remember is that I have to get back to my contact in the city."

"I know those symbols—githyanki runes. Ancient as Vlaakith herself. You stole that from my people," Lae'zel said, looking into Shadowheart's eyes.

"Yes, and a lot of my people died in the process. I won't fail them, not after what I saw your kind do to them."

They kept staring at one another, the tension between them palpable.

"Enough, both of you. We need to work together," Wyll said, putting himself between them.

"For now. But any crimes against my kin will be answered for, in time," Lae'zel said, still glaring at Shadowheart.

"I just saved you. Keep that in mind, next time you want to air your grievances," Shadowheart replied as she stowed away the artifact.

"You said something about a voice. What was that about?" Alex asked.

"Oh, you don't have a tadpole, so you couldn't hear it. Someone or something spoke in our minds. It felt like someone was stomping on my head. It showed us a vision of three figures—the Chosens, leaders of the Absolute cult. It ordered us to help them search for something called 'the Prism.' It told us that if we do that, we will be worthy enough to stand beside them. In its presence," Wyll explained.

"And the Prism could be the artifact Shadowheart is carrying," Alex continued.

Wyll nodded. "I fear so. Whatever the Prism is, it is something very important for so many to be searching for it."

"Things keep getting better and better," Astarion murmured.