Fan Fiction ❯ Demons and Paladins ❯ Regrets and Recriminations ( Chapter 2 )

Demons and Paladins

By: bsmart

Disclaimer:Why the hell am I writing this? Nobody reads them and they have no legal weight. It's a complete waste of time and bandwidth and yet I'm still typing. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and rate this fic NC17, for sex, violence and language, the good stuff, often all at once. This is a rewrite of the ending of Neverwinter Nights, an RPG for the computer. It combines Neverwinter Nights with the expansion Hordes of the Underdark, there's no Shadows of Undrentide, and no Deekin.

"…" Normal Speech

Chapter Two: Regrets and Recriminations

For the forth time in a row Aribeth spent the entire day running. Her amazement at the ability to do this bestowed by the chainmail that Mala had given her had wore off the day before, now it was almost routine, like spending the day walking. Like anyone who spent time in their life adventuring Aribeth had used elixirs that had similar properties to the chainmail she now wore, letting her fun faster and farther then normal but without being tired afterwards, she had even heard of things that gave the effect all the time but this was her first experience with it, and it was exhilarating, even her father's people couldn't run this far this fast. It did take a little more concentration then walking did but it still wasn't enough to take her mind completely off her situation.

In the space of six months she had gone from a paladin of Tyr, the wounded god's chief priestess in Neverwinter, champion of the city and soon to be bride of Fenthick to the blackguard who had cursed Tyr's name, brought Neverwinter to its knees, and become the scourge of the North. She would love to say it was all like a dream, that she had been mad when she had done it but she hadn't been, she knew it, she'd been completely lucid availing of all her faculties. She could remember everything so perfectly clearly. Neverwinter before the plague, a shining beacon in the untamed north, beautiful oaks adorning the open places of the city even in the deepest winter, the people happily going about their lives. She could remember the first Wailing Death victim she had seen, a teenage girl in the Beggar's Nest, even then looking down at the hollow eyed body of a girl whose spirit was long dead she had known that this would be their undoing. The months following would never leave her, the growing panic of the populace as more and more people fell victim and died, the appearance of Desther and his Helmites, and the city's slow crumbling into anarchy. She still remembered the day that the academy had opened its doors in the hopes of finding a champion and the purple haired girl that had caught her eye. The attack on the academy still sent a chill up her spine, the corpses of so many prospective saviors strewn about the halls, their blood staining everything red and she could still feel the twinge of hope she had had when Mala had strode out of the academy, covered in blood that wasn't her own. The search for the cure was a blur, a swirling mass of memories of Mala ripping her way through the city before finally returning the reagents for the cure. Then.... then Desther had betrayed them, all the time he and his Helmites had been "helping" they had really been spreading the plague, he ripped the cure from their grasp and made his return to Helms Deep. She supposed she understood Fenthick now, how he'd run off after Desther trying to get him to return and recant, to bring his friend back. Of course it had been Mala they had sent after them and she had accomplished her task with the same savage efficiency as everything else she had ever done, Desther was the only one of the false Helmites to ever be brought before a court in Neverwinter, he was the only one who survived the taking of it. When Fenthick was brought back by the city guard Aribeth had begged Nasher to pardon him, claiming that they all shared the blame for allowing Desther to have free run of the city, but her pleas had fallen on deaf ears. She could still see the fear in his eyes when he had declared that Fenthick was guilty but that it was her duty as the chief priestess of Tyr to proclaim it to the city and see the sentence carried out. It had been the first time in her life that she had disobeyed.

She had considered it a mercy when she had been sent north to Port Llast to hunt down the cult that had given Desther his power but it had only been the perfect breeding ground for the hate welling up inside her. Away from the city, from Nasher, away from everything she had had nothing but time to consider what had happened. For three months Mala and the others had searched for the cult and all during that time she had dwelled on her hate. Her hate for the man who had condemned her beloved, for the city that had demanded his innocent blood, and for her "Just" god who had let it all come to pass. When they finally tracked the cult down to Luskan her hate had turned to rage and she had sought out the very cult they had been sent there to destroy, and joined them. Maugrim had welcomed her with open arms and had brought her before Morag, Queen of the lizardmen Creator Race. Morag had spun a ridiculous tale or returning the lizardmen to their rightful rulership of the Faerun and she had promised that her servants would be well rewarded. Aribeth remembered looking into the eyes of the lizardwoman and she had known that everything she had said was a lie, a pretty sounding falsehood to bring fools like Maugrim to her cause, Morag didn't care what happened to them and she'd betray them in an instant, and Aribeth didn't care. She didn't care what Morag wanted or did, she didn't care about the pretty sounding baubles that she had been promised for her service, the only thing she cared about was that she would be able to make all of Neverwinter pay for what they had done.

She had done it too; her army had left a trail of death and ruin across the north the likes of which hadn't been seen since the fall of the Netherese. With her intimate knowledge of the city's defenses she had split Neverwinter open like a ripe fruits. She had known even then that Morag was only using her, that the army she led was simply a diversion, but she hadn't cared. Her army had been beating on the walls of the city core when Mala had fallen upon them. Aribeth remembered the perverse joy and despair that descended upon her when she began to hear of the bloody swath Mala was ripping through her soldiers, joy that the murderous band of thugs wouldn't outlive her but despair that Nasher still remained alive and cowering within his keep. Even with a summoned Balor Lord guarding the entrance to her command post Aribeth had known that Mala would find her, and she had, their duel had been quick and remarkably one sided but rather then slay her Mala had sheathed her swords and talked to her.

All the hate and rage in Aribeth's soul had came pouring out in that conversation and at the end of it she had been empty, resigned to her fate, but Mala had other plans. Rather then condemn or judge her Mala had simply coaxed her back, nudging her to the point where Aribeth had decided to return to the path of a paladin and turned herself over to Nasher. What little of her army had remained after Mala had savaged it was quickly routed when Aribeth had divulged all their secrets to Ahren Ghend and Mala had proceeded to slay Maugrim and Morag in turn.

Aribeth had been trying to reason out why Mala had turned her back to the ways of Tyr but she had failed every time. Everything about the demoness screamed of evil, rage, and hate, for the gods, for men, for everything and yet, and yet she had turned Aribeth away from the path she herself strode.

And now this.

The collar around her neck marked her as Mala's property, most people would probably mistake it for a necklace, a simple adornment and the symbol on the pendant that dangled from it would mean nothing to them. The second night of their journey Aribeth had asked what it meant, she couldn't see it, only feel it, and Mala had told her.

"It's the draconic rune for slave," her mistress had said with a smile.

Somehow Aribeth wasn't surprised. "And the back?"

"Property of Mala Intfia."

Even if it was written in a hand that few knew the pendant still weighed heavily against her throat. Her sentence was worn in plain sight; she only prayed that no one asked the crime. There was a certain irony to her new found bondage, the very first quest she had undertaken as a paladin had been to root out a band of slavers on the road to Charwood and ever since that time she had made it her own personal mission in life to end the barbaric practice where ever she found it. Aribeth still felt an urge to scream at Mala that she was no one's property and to spit at the demoness for even trying to claim her but those rouge thoughts were quickly quashed. Even as she had heard Nasher's proclamation that death would be but a mercy to her she had known it to be the truth, her enslavement to Mala was her true punishment, it was how she would truly pay for her crimes. There was always hope though because even as she was Mala's thrall there was an opportunity to perhaps do for Mala what she had done for her. A chance to turn Mala from the evil path she was on.

Her paladin's sullen mood wasn't lost on Mala, or that it had been going on for the last four days. She hadn't expected Aribeth to be in a good mood after everything but her morose attitude was really starting to annoy her and make her question her decision to take Aribeth. Actually it wasn't really much of a decision; Mala had realized that not very long after putting the collar on the half-elf. For the months that she had worked for Aribeth and then the ones when she had been working against her Aribeth had never been far from Mala's mind. Her initial impression of Aribeth had been the same as all paladin, self-righteous do-gooders willingly blind and oblivious of the real world, but she couldn't stop thinking about her, in fact when she had returned one of the reagents to Aribeth she had actually been giddy when Aribeth had thanked her for it. The time between the realization that her infatuation with Aribeth wasn't going anywhere and the chopping block had not improved Mala's attitude towards the world.

Aribeth and Fenthick's constant protestations of love had disgusted her almost as much as Desther had but when Fenthick had been executed she had gotten none of the joy out of watching the elf swing that she thought she should have. She had just felt badly for Aribeth, something Mala was not accustomed to. All through the campaign from Port Llast Mala had constantly been thinking about Aribeth, to the point that her pixie familiar Benali would crawl into her backpack anytime Mala would start to rant about the "self-righteous bitch".

The news that Aribeth had turned her back on Neverwinter and become a blackguard had thrilled Mala, not only was Aribeth no longer a paladin but she was sure that her allegiance switch would bring them into contact and conflict. Aribeth's side switching finally brought Mala's thoughts into a razor sharp focus. While scouring the Spine of the World for the Words of Power she had often gone to sleep with the same dream in her head. A dream of meeting Aribeth in combat, defeating her, and then dominating her, unfortunately the reality was turning out to be much less enjoyable.

Rather then defiant and proud in defeat Aribeth had been resigned, welcoming her death, it had been more then Mala could stand. Rather then take Aribeth then she had done her best to return some of the fire to Aribeth's spirit and some steel to her spine, and that had meant convincing her to turn back to her former, albeit disgusting to Mala, ways.

The news of Aribeth's impeding execution had worried Mala, but when she had arrived to see what would happen she had seen everything that intrigued her about Aribeth back in force and even though it was tempered by Aribeth's acquiescence to her fate it had been enough to light a fire under Mala, her Mistress' insistence that it would be a waste to let her die still ringing in the Dragon Disciple's ears.

'I'm going to have to do something about that,' Mala thought. She had given Aribeth more then enough time by her reckoning and it was time to bring back the Aribeth that Mala wanted, and with a sniff of the air an idea came to her.

******************

"Alright, we're stopping."

Mala's declaration caught Aribeth off guard. They had run from dawn to dusk every day so Mala deciding to stop a good half hour before the sun kissed the horizon was unexpected, though not unwelcome.

They had been moving along a small river since lunch time. Only a dozen meters or so across and maybe two at it's deepest point the river was just a tributary of the Aolic that ran through Waterdeep. The sparse pine forest that they had been passing through for the last day and a half had thickened up substantially since they had started along the river, leaving the bank the only viable path for someone moving at their speed, it was just too much work to try to move full tilt through the woods when the bank was so much easier. Mala had chosen to stop at a rift in the land where the river fell off a small cliff to a pool a few meters below.

Turning to her right and plunging into the water Mala declared, "We'll cross tonight so we don't have to run in wet boots tomorrow."

Aribeth had lived in the north all her life and that the water wasn't frigid was a shock to her. Even in Neverwinter all water in the open was ice cold, this river was just brisk, downright pleasant.

The west bank of the river was much like the east, a thick forest butting up against the river and they set up their meager camp quickly, just pair of bedrolls and a fire pit, which Mala easily filled with a roaring flame. The night continued to differ even more from their normal routine as Mala declared that she was hungry for some fresh meat and disappeared off into the woods after retrieving a wicked looking longbow from one of her bags and telling Aribeth to stay put.

Without realizing it Aribeth did as she was told without complaint and enjoyed the pleasurable shiver that ran through her. As the sun dipped lower and the sounds of Mala moving through the forest faded away even to her elven hearing Aribeth started to get restless. With this restlessness came a realization, 'I have absolutely nothing.' Four days of constant travel and going to sleep immediately every night had prevented her from realizing it but she had left Neverwinter with nothing but the robe on her back. Aribeth had never had much, and she had never lived opulently, making do with the few things she needed as a paladin and making her quarters in Castle Never comfortable, but now she had less then that. When she had been out on quests before she had typically brought a few books with her, taking quiet times like now to learn more and study the ways of Tyr for a deeper understanding of her god, but she didn't have any books right now, and her boredom was beginning to get the best of her.

Against her better judgment Aribeth picked up the bag that Mala had pulled her bow out of and sat it on her lap. The bag was stunningly normal, tanned leather with a drawstring mouth and a flap to cover it. A simple buckle to hold the flap tight and a strap so you could sling it over your shoulder or attach it to your belt and it was big enough to fit something the size of a head in. The buckle and a few of the pieces of metal work in the bag looked to be of a higher quality then you'd expect on such a utilitarian item but it was completely average in all respects. If you hadn't seen Mala stuff half her horde into it or pull a longbow from it you wouldn't think there was anything special about it.

Aribeth's nimble fingers had no trouble opening the bag, its buckle clicking softly when her fingers touched it and she easily pulled the mouth of the bag open but she couldn't see anything inside, literally nothing, not even the inside of the bag was visible. Thinking maybe the dying light was to blame Aribeth tilted the bag towards the fire but the inside of it was pitch black. Aribeth's suspicions about the satchel were confirmed when she easily put her whole arm into the bag without curling it up at all.

'A bag of holding,' she thought. Such bags were rare things, jealously guarded by those who owned them. In all her time Aribeth had never actually seen such a thing, she'd only read about them in books or heard a bard talk of them. 'You can put anything inside it that you please and there it will stay until you want it.' The problem was that in order to get anything out of the bag you had to know it was in there to begin with. The owner of the bag could up end it and command that everything stored inside come out but Aribeth was neither the owner of it nor did she know the command. 'Never hurt to try,' Aribeth thought, and she put her hand in again and pulled it out.

To her surprise it had worked, in her hand was one of the rubies that she had seen in Mala's horde. The gigantic stone filled the palm of her hand; to few but a miner or a jeweler it was just a red stone, a dirty bauble of little interest, unless that person had some dragon blood in them. Some of the stone would be lost when it was properly cut and polished but even if it was cleaved into quarters Aribeth was sure that even those pieces would dwarf the largest gems she had seen in the vaults of Neverwinter. Aribeth reached into the bag again and withdrew a cut diamond the size of a fig. Not a greedy person by any stretch of the imagination Aribeth still found herself contemplating what the gems were worth, not enough to buy the armor she was wearing but just one of them was probably worth enough to live on comfortably for the rest of her life. Her thoughts on the worth of Mala's possessions inevitably wandered to what Mala's newest "thing" was worth but before she could ponder what kind of price she'd fetch a bloody chuck of meat was dropped on the stone next to her.

Mala didn't acknowledge Aribeth's startled jump when she put the fruits of her hunt down, she just asked, "You like it? I'm partial to the ruby myself."

"It's impressive to say the least," Aribeth admitted, ashamed that she had been caught red handed plundering through Mala's things, that she'd been lusting, a very little, after a material thing, and that she hadn't heard Mala coming.

"You can have it if you want." The words hadn't left Mala's mouth before her face screwed up in confusion; she hadn't just given anything to anyone, ever.

"I didn't think possessions could own possessions."

There it was again, that disgusting willing aquiesence. "They can't," she snarled and snatched the gem back along with the bag and threw them both over to her bed roll.

Aribeth pointed at the meat, "Where's the rest of that?"

Mala waved her hand at the forest, "Out there somewhere."

Aribeth frowned, "That's wasteful, and disrespectful."

"In case you didn't notice, we really don't have time to sit around picking every little piece of meat off a boar and drying it. I got the best part anyway."

"Why are we in such a hurry?"

Mala paused at Aribeth's tone as much as the question, the look in the paladin's eyes wasn't entirely questioning. "What does it matter to you?"

"I'm just wondering why you're in such a hurry to get to Waterdeep, what difference is a few hours?"

'She's trying to get me to confess something,' Mala thought, 'but how would she know?' As far as Mala knew almost all of Aribeth's time in the service of Maugrim and Morag had been to the north and east of Neverwinter, Charwood was the farthest south that there had been reports of cultists. She supposed that there was no reason to think that Aribeth couldn't have heard something about Waterdeep, but it didn't seem likely. The few Waterdhavian soldiers that she had talked to hadn't said anything at all about anything happening in Waterdeep. "What difference it is is none of your concern, slave."

The mention of her status shut Aribeth up, just like Mala had wanted but there was no fury in her at being so summarily dismissed. 'Maybe the direct approach isn't going to work,' Mala thought. She had believed that if she rode Aribeth hard enough eventually she would crack, the half-elf girl would snap and stand up for herself but after four days there was still nothing, just that resigned obedience that Mala wanted none of.

Seeking a moment to collect her thoughts Mala retrieved her skillet and eating knife from one of her bags and set about preparing the meat, cutting it into manageable slices and throwing it on the skillet. Mala only gave the meat a few seconds to sear on the first side before just reaching into the fire and flipping it to the other side. After less then a minute in the fire Mala pulled out the hot skillet and sat it on a rock.

"Is that all the more you're going to cook it?" Aribeth asked as Mala picked up the first piece of meat with her bare hands and ripped off a chunk with her teeth.

Mala chewed a few times before swallowing. "Yeah, so?"

"It's not done!"

Mala swallowed another hunk of meat, biting off another and talking while she chewed. "Are you kidding, this is almost burned."

Aribeth could see the inside of the meat from where Mala had last taken a bite, only a few millimeters of the flesh had browned, the entire interior of the meat was still blood red. "Well can I cook mine a little longer?"

Mala shrugged and snatched two more pieces of meat off the skillet leaving Aribeth two and showing the pan and her knife towards the paladin. She just brushed off a spot on the stone and set her barely cooked meat on the bare rock while Aribeth gingerly picked up the hot skillet and returned it to the fire.

Aribeth tried her best not to pay attention to Mala as she ate whatever table manners the dragon-half knew had obviously been sat aside as she consumed the nearly raw flesh, savoring every juicy bloody bite. By the time her portion of the meat was cooked Mala had already scrounged up some more of their bread and ate it, leaving a chunk beside where Aribeth had been sitting, prompting a "Thank you," from her.

Mala shrugged and stretched, raising her arms over her head and sighing. On the way back down she spotted a bit of juice on the back of her hand and quickly sucked it off "Mmmm"ing happily. Aribeth had just begun eating when she decided on a new way to get under her thrall's skin. "I'm taking a bath," she declared.

Aribeth nodded, 'I could use a bath myself,' but then almost choked on her bread when Mala began to strip out of her armor and clothes right in front of her. The black and red easterling armor was carefully placed on her bed roll as was the chainmail that was under it. Mala's concern for her clothes was markedly less pronounced though as she stripped off the light linen pants and shirt she hand on and just threw them towards the river right along with her underwear and chest wrap.

"Oh that feels so good!" Mala exclaimed, a hint of the deep bass rumble and high pitched shriek of her ancestors joining her voice as she stretched out in front of Aribeth, her arms raised high above her head.

Like all their kind there wasn't a hair on Mala's body aside from her head but much of the natural smoothness and grace inherent in half-elves was gone from Mala. She wasn't a muscle bound fool like some male adventurers that Aribeth had seen but Mala was more muscle then curves. Aribeth didn't realize that she was staring until she jumped half off the stone she was sitting on when Mala's full sized wings erupted from her back, spreading across their camp like a pair of giant outstretched hands while her new tail slithered its way down one of Mala's legs.

Aribeth's staring didn't upset Mala at all, in fact she was used to her unusual appearance drawing the stares of people regardless of their persuasion, and it was exactly the reaction she wanted. "Do you know the last time I had a soft bed to sleep in?"

Aribeth latched onto the piece of idle conversation like a drowning woman, it gave her something to do besides stare as Mala stretched out. "When?"

"Beorunna's Well, they had a nice inn there." Mala crouched down and began to inspect her armor, pulling small pieces of debris out of some of the joints and giving it a good once over. "Nice soft bed...damn, that was what...four months ago? Five?"

Aribeth shook her head, "I wouldn't know."

"Sure you would, it was right after you joined Maugrim."

Mala's tone was jovial but Aribeth shuddered none the less. "Five."

Mala just continued on. "Yeah, five. Nice bed." Satisfied that her armor was fine Mala turned her attention to her own hygiene. "I'm gonna go get washed up, clean up my clothes too. When I come back you do the same."

After grabbing a bar of soap and her discarded clothes Mala left Aribeth and headed for the pool at the base of the waterfall. Aribeth thought that Mala's departure would give her some room to think, but it didn't. She was swallowing the last bite of her meal when Mala called out, "Bring that pan and knife down here and wash 'em up!"

With a resigned sigh Aribeth collected up the cookware and headed for the water. A couple of small bushes broke up the direct line of sight between the water and where she had been sitting so Aribeth hadn't seen any of Mala since she'd headed off so when Aribeth came around the bushes she paused for a moment to look at Mala.

The water the dragon-half was standing in only came up to mid-thigh leaving the rest of her exposed; Mala obviously didn't care how Aribeth saw her as she made no move to cover up. To Aribeth the most interesting thing about Mala wasn't the wings or the tail, it was the network of tattoos and scars covering her back, in fact the scars and tattoos were all over Mala, around her upper arms, down her legs; scars and tattoos where there had never been any before. In the middle of her examination the moon emerged from behind a cloud and illuminated the waterfall and pool with its glow. To Aribeth's surprise as soon as the moonlight washed over Mala all her tattoos started to glow a deep red and all the scars turned to silvery slashes across her body.

When Mala turned her head Aribeth couldn't look away. The markings continued onto her face, delicate red swirls across her cheeks with wide silver slashes over the tops of them, but it was her forehead that captivated Aribeth. Two blood red marks stabbed down across her forehead from somewhere up in her hair line, thin at top they thickened until right above her brow where the two cuts started to thin again but not by much, both of them stopped at about the bridge of her nose. What the marks meant Aribeth didn't know but she knew that they were important for some reason and that they had to do with the mysterious woman Mala had referred to as her mistress.

"Like what you see," Mala asked with a grin.

Just like that whatever spell had held her was broken and Aribeth realized just how long she had been staring at Mala as the moon vanished behind a cloud and the strange marks on her disappeared. "I...," Aribeth started to explain but she stopped when she realized she didn't have a good response. Instead she dropped down and started to furiously wash the skillet.

"You can stare all you want, I don't mind," Mala teased.

"I wasn't staring."

"Ha!" Mala stalked towards the shore on her hands and knees getting right up next to Aribeth. "Any poses you want me to strike for you?"

Aribeth did her best to ignore the dripping wet demoness in front of her and focused on washing the iron pan.

"What? No requests?"

"No." Aribeth kept washing.

"Spoilsport." For the next few minutes Mala returned to the task at hand, even if her decision to take a bath was partly just to taunt Aribeth she wasn't going to pass up a chance to be clean. Aribeth had been quiet when she had first come down to the pool, quiet enough to sneak up on a normal person even if there hadn't been a small waterfall thundering away a few meters from them, but Mala wasn't normal, not by a long shot. The combination of elvish and dragon blood in her sharpened all her senses to a razor's edge, letting her know that Aribeth was nearby. Crawling up to her had been more about getting as deep into Aribeth's scent as possible then it had been about trying to get a rise out of her. The sweet tang in the air that Mala had smelled and tasted told her everything she needed to know, the rest of the smells told her something else.

Aribeth had just finished getting the remains of their dinner off of the knife when Mala told her, "Strip."

"What!?" Aribeth demanded indignantly.

"Strip off your clothes and get in here, you reek too, you need a bath." Aribeth was on the verge of a righteous tirade when Mala ordered her again. "Out of that armor and those clothes now. I am not going to sit here and smell you all night if I don't have too."

Mala's tone helped to remind Aribeth of her position in their group, the same as the skillet she had just washed, a thing. Aribeth glowered at Mala as she peeled off her armor but rather then stare Mala went right back to washing herself up, leaving Aribeth to think un-paladin like thoughts at the back of her head.

It took all of Mala's will power not to just sit and watch as Aribeth took off her clothes, after putting up with Aribeth's sulking for the last four days Mala desperately needed a reminder of why she was tolerating it. Still she didn't look, she wanted Aribeth angry, 'Righteously indignant is what she'd call it,' not creeped out or confused, she'd save that for later.

When the first wavelets lapped against her legs Mala knew that Aribeth was in the water and it was time to leave. When she turned around Aribeth was shivering as the water crept up her legs, the paladin obviously lacked the natural resistance to the elements that Mala enjoyed and rather then refreshing the water was just plain cold to Aribeth. In the half second it took Mala to toss the soap to Aribeth and stride past her on the way out of the pool Mala did her best to memorize every bit of Aribeth. Hips that were far wider and breasts that were far larger and fuller then a normal elf's, 'Never did go for the adolescent boy thing most elf girls have going on,' Mala thought. Her skin was pale but no deathly so and it contrasted nicely in Mala's opinion with the thick honey brown hair that only adorned Aribeth's head. 'Elf blood is good for something,' Mala thought with a smirk.

Why it bothered her that Mala hadn't paid her any mind Aribeth didn't know, but it did bother her and she didn't like it one bit. Mala had only tossed her the soap and left with barely a glance in her direction. Something caught Aribeth unawares as it softly hit the back of her head and she turned to see her and Mala's clothes floating in the water.

"When you're done with your bath clean those up to and set them on the rocks near the fire to dry, and hurry up. We've still got a long way to go."

************************************

Omake

by psianogen

In a vast hall lit by hundreds of candles, sits a brooding woman on a throne made of oily black stone. Her features are highlighted by the roaring fire next to her, over which a large haunch of meat is roasting. Turning her green eyes, that even in the well lit hall seem to glow with an unholy fire, upon the viewers she says, "I am Mala Intfia. Many of you know me as the person that saved Neverwinter several times." She pauses to give a mocking smile that shows off her sharp fangs, "Some of you know me as the person that killed one of your relatives for being annoying. I'm here tonight to talk about the importance of relaxation. After a hard days work of laying waste to a village for slighting me, I need to take a break."

Picking up the length of leather from her lap that is connected to something off screen she continues, "What helps me to relax is this," she pulls the leash and drags a very embarrassed half-elf, dressed in a chainmail version of a harem girl's outfit, into the picture. "My very own half-elf slavegirl, Aribeth de Tylmarande."

Clearly looking like she would love for a passing dragon to swoop down and eat her, the paladin tries her best to sink through the floor.

Leaning forward Mala locks her eyes with her audience, "Now, you are probably saying to yourself, 'I'd really love one of those, but I'm not quite ready to intimidate a Lord of the Realm.' I'm here to tell you that you don't need to, it does help though. Honest Charl's Slave Emporium is the answer to your needs."

Smiling nastily she continues, "Yes, he has everything from a half-orc to work your fields to a halfling wench to wash your back." Pausing to glare at the redfaced woman she continued, "Even the occasional half-elf paladin if she doesn't stop whining about all the people she killed. So, visit Charl's for all your slavegirl needs."

========================================================= ===

Author's Notes

Acknowledgements:

The freaks on my LJ who just kept reading this.

Notes:

1) I know jack shit about D&D, the geography of Fearun, all of that, this is a pure NWN story so anything that wasn't specifically mentioned in the game is pretty much made up by me. If you have any info I'd be happy to try and make my story fit in better with the Forgotten Realms.

2) Soap has been around for a long time, and in bars, not to much of a stretch to imagine the have it in Faerun.

3) If you think I'm completely off the deep end with Aribeth's portrayal just remember that while she was a central character in NWN she had very little in the way of speaking or character parts, you were left to fill a lot of it in. Also play HotU and turn her into a Blackguard when you meet her, the explore all the dialogue options after the Mimic snatches your clothes. Yeah it's evil Aribeth but it's still Aribeth.

Feedback: bsmartfanfic@yahoo.com

www.livejournal.com/~bsmart

You don't need to tell me I suck, I'm well aware of that.