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troutberryspoon · 13 days

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Unhallowed Heart - Chapter 3: 'An Alliance Beckons'

Dark Urge/Enver Gortash

Third chapter and we get a glimpse of Bhaal's Ecstasy of Murder as Durge Villi experiences it. So, time for some warnings: blood, violence, murder, implied sexual gratification, addiction, etc.

Word count: 1657

Full fic on AO3

___

One hour later.

The Bhaalspawn stalked through the dark streets, each footstep carrying him blessedly further away from Enver Gortash’s mansion. Villi’s shoulders were hunched beneath his cloak, tension radiating from him in palpable waves.

Ah. He spied a fat slug making its ponderous, slimy way across the damp cobbles in front of him. He diverted his path to crush it underfoot. Even gave his heel an extra half-twist to ensure it was smeared into paste.

More. He craved blood. He craved what would come after the blood.

Gods damn that man.

Gortash was clever. He was shrewd. He had played the part of simpering admirer with patience and skill and Villi had underestimated him completely.

This was all Sceleritas’s fault. It would be a bath of boiling oil for the Butler this time.

But later. Later.

For now, the Lower City called.

In its twisting rabbit warren of tight alleyways and switchback streets, Villi found his quarry soon enough.

A young woman was huddled in a doorway, dressed in rags, her face prematurely lined by hardship and worry. On her lap rested the head of a young boy no more than eight summers old, gently sleeping. The woman hummed a lullaby while brushing her calloused fingers through the child’s curls.

How sweet. How touching.

How tragic it would be, if either one lost the other.

The woman looked up when Villi stopped and tapped his cane in front of her. Her expression was wary.

‘I’m not offering anything you’re wanting,’ she said quietly. ‘Please sir, let us be.’

‘I’d like you to hold this for a moment for me,’ he said, tipping the cane towards her.

The wariness never left her eyes, but the woman did as she was bid. Her hand left the child’s hair and wrapped around the ebony shaft. Villi wondered if she thought she could use it as a weapon against him.

Like a striking snake, his hand darted forwards, grabbing the boy by the front of his shirt and tearing him out of his mother’s grasp.

She shrieked. ‘No! STOP! Let him go!’

The boy awoke with a shudder, eyes wide, legs kicking while Villi held him aloft. The woman, now standing, froze when Villi placed the edge of his dagger against the child’s cheek.

‘I’m begging you. I’M BEGGING YOU!’

Villi pressed harder. Soft skin split. The boy and his mother both screamed as his blood began to run.

‘I’ll do anything!’ The woman’s voice was raw, as if her throat was filled with splinters. She still held onto the cane, knuckles white, but she made no move to use it. The difference between prey and predator, Villi thought.

‘Would you take his place?’ he asked.

‘Yes, yes! Let him go, please let him go! Please, PLEASE!’

‘Did you hear that, child? Look at me.’ He gave the trembling wretch a sharp shake. ‘Your mother is going to die tonight, and it’s all your fault.’

The woman moaned and sobbed. The boy cried so hard that he retched.

It was horrible.

It was beautiful.

Villi set the child down, turned, and pulled the woman close. ‘Bhaal awaits thee, Bhaal embraces thee, none escape Bhaal,’ he whispered tenderly in her ear before burying his blade in the yielding expanse of her abdomen. She dropped the cane the third time he stabbed her. She died around the eighth or ninth.

When his arm began to grow tired, Villi stopped and let the body fall. Then, using her blood as paint, he daubed his Father’s symbol on the ground around it. He stepped back to admire his work, and noticed that the boy was still there, still staring at the lifeless ruined thing that was his mother only a short time ago. Good. Let the memory burn itself deep. Let the boy hate Villi every time he saw the scar on his face in his reflection. Let him fear the day Villi would come for him too.

Bhaal smiled on the scene. Villi’s breath hitched. He felt the veil of invisibility slip over his form, prickling his skin as he disappeared from view. He left the boy in the alleyway as he headed north, seeking a place where he could be alone.

A delicious warmth had started to pool low in his belly. Villi rounded a corner and gave thanks when he found himself in a small abandoned yard. While he might currently be invisible, he couldn’t always stay silent when his Father’s gift flooded his veins.

The murder had been well received. Villi pressed his shoulderblades against a wall and tipped his head back, sighing breathlessly as every nerve sparked alight. The steel cables of tension that wrapped his neck tight started to unwind, his cares and worries slipping away one-by-one.

It didn’t happen every time he made a kill. The secret ingredient was love. If he could shatter someone’s heart, break someone’s mind and spirit, bereave an entire community because he had chosen to end a beloved person’s life, then he got a little treat. It had to be deliberate, too. Harrowing. Depraved. Cutting down an enemy on the battlefield didn’t count, regardless of how many orphans he made that way.

His body thrummed in pleasure.

‘Oh, fuck.’ His back arched, swept up in a climax of mind-numbing bliss. An escape, a release.

And Villi was addicted.

Afterwards he felt hollow and sluggish, but at least his mind was now calm. He could consider the alliance Gortash had offered over dinner.

Essentially, Gortash had figured out that the Bhaalists in Baldur’s Gate were rapidly running out of gold. Their influence was dwindling. They were at risk of becoming nothing more than stories parents used to scare their naughty offspring.

Villi knew his followers were feral. There was the sense that his arrival in the temple heralded the end times. He was the armageddon-watcher, made by Bhaal to be the last soul alive. Which meant that no-one seemed to be too concerned with keeping the books balanced. They simply murdered everyone in sight.

Over a main course of venison served with crushed swede flavoured with caraway, Gortash made this point; if they couldn’t source enough gold to raise the army needed to bring about the end times, how would it ever come about?

Villi felt seen. He had argued the same point at the pulpit countless times, but it always seemed to fall on deaf ears. Or worse, scheming ears. There were whispers that the Son of Bhaal cared more about coin than bringing death to the world.

‘But we need it!’

‘But you need it!’

Villi and Gortash had made the exclamation at the same time. As if they were in sync.

Just as Villi was starting to feel the stirrings of what could be a real connection for the first time in his existence, Gortash went and ruined it all by revealing that he was a devotee of Bane, the God of Tyranny. Bhaal’s sworn enemy.

Villi had stormed out before dessert had arrived.

The invisibility enchantment shivered away.

‘Hells,’ he muttered. He had just realised that he’d left his cane in the alley with the boy and his dead mother. If he went back to get it and the child was still there, he’d ruin the scene.

There was a ‘pop’. The stink of burned eggs. Sceleritas.

‘I believe you dropped this, Master,’ Sceleritas said, handing him the missing cane. The fiend took in the blood that covered Villi from his hair to his shoes. ‘I take it you’ve had a good night?’

‘Not really,’ Villi said. ‘I left dinner early. I was going to boil you for suggesting that I go in the first place.’

‘A wonderful idea! I shall get the fires stoked–’

‘I don’t have the energy. Did you know that Gortash is a Banite?’

‘You don’t say.’

‘Sceleritas. Did you know?’

‘Who is to say what is known and what is not…?’

‘So you knew.’

‘Yes.’

‘K’roklig.’ Villi groaned. ‘I don’t know what to do. Gortash knows we’re up to our tits in shit and he–’

Sceleritas cleared his throat. ‘Ahem.’

‘He can help us. With enough funding we could raise an army of Deathdealers and Unholy Assassins, but Gortash asks for an alliance in return. A sworn pact that we will do him no harm. If I decline the temple could collapse, literally and figuratively. I’ll fail my Father and we’ll fade into history. If I accept, am I betraying Him? Will He forsake me?’

‘Your Father sees what is in your dear, puckered heart. You don’t seek this alliance to defy Bhaal, you seek it to glorify Him. He will see. He will know,’ Sceleritas said, patting Villi’s bloodsoaked arm. ‘Trust your Butler. The plan hasn’t changed. It’s true, the Banite knows more about our current challenges than we would like, and the terms are steeper than we thought before. I still see no reason why you can’t go along with it - for now.’

After a few moments of thought, Villi nodded. ‘You’re right. I pray my Father will understand. When we’ve amassed enough power I’ll end Gortash myself. No pact can hold me forever.’

‘Exactly, my Liege. Your destiny dictates that no soul can be left alive. This alliance will be worth less than the rags I use to clean the brain matter from your boots. You’ll just have to play the part, for a while. Your suffering will bring glory to us all.’

‘Then it’s settled. I’ll send word to Gortash on the ‘morrow,’ Villi said. ‘Come, let’s head back to the temple. I’ve got a deep gnome’s forearm in the beetle tank, it should be clean by now. Would you like to assist me with the wiring? I was envisioning a new book holder for my study.’

Sceleritas looked up at him in rapture. ‘Oh, Master!’

‘I’ll boil you afterwards.’

‘You are too kind to old Sceleritas, Master. Too kind!’

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