Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Letter 16


Something strange happened this cycle…

It has been quite some time now since I put some Balor blood
into the bloodstream of Valshar’s demon-spawn pet.
I could see some behavior changes but nothing too extreme…

Earlier this cycle I took her to the duergar compound for some training.
I think she is still very unworthy of these enemies. Way too fragile…
It would be entertaining to see her in trouble however.

She seemed to be distracted… all training long.
Putting herself in danger while talking to midair.

Her sloppiness and incompetence annoyed me beyond anything…

Then things went very blurry Adin…
I remember duergar…many of them… my spells failing,
which is highly strange on its own.
Darkness clouded my vision, then my mind.
I was out…

When I regained consciousness there was a demon in front of me!
Wings, glowing eyes and all.
There was practically nothing left of that girl I had to babysit.



It seemed to have killed those duergar and thus… which I will never admit to anyone of course…

saved my life.

Seems this Balor blood had a bigger effect than I believed myself.
An interesting surprise indeed.

Unfortunately, the changes did not last.
There seems to be something else inside that girl I can’t put a finger on.
She calls it a she…

I will observe closely…

Letter 17

I was wandering through the Underdark last cycle...
I had made some kills and looted a few valuables...
when suddenly I heard a soft singing.
I could not make up the words.
It was pitch black,
a difficult darkness to penetrate even for my eyes.
I followed the direction the singing was coming from,
relying almost completely on my ears.

After a while I could make up the shape of a ragged old woman.
Ancient, wrinkled... Illythiiri,
must have been close to 900 or 1000 years old by the looks of her.
She was picking mushrooms as far as I could tell.
Mumbling a wordless song.
After observing her from the dark and making sure she had no company
I approached her asking what she was doing there all alone.
How did she manage to survive for so many years, I did not dare ask.

She did not speak to me, just turned around and smiled a half toothless smile.

I was about to dismiss her as a crazy, probably demented old witch,
but as soon as I turned around to walk away she spoke to me.

'You were never and will never be a true member of the Yath you know... You will never belong to her'

I turned around taking my dagger out of my belt. Those were killing words...
Malla Lolth wanted me to.

When I confidently stabbed at her, expecting a swift, effortless kill,
she instead quickly grabbed my wrist in an iron grip.
Way too strong for a woman her age or condition.
I could not move and a cold sensation tingled up from the dagger down to my arm and body. I could just stare at the old woman in disbelief.

Her smile dropped and her red eyes turned dark, as if black smoke had taken them.
I stared those pools of void...of nothing...of blackness.
There was no wind in the tunnels but the hair of the old woman started to swirl as if moved by a strong breeze.



I could not move..I stood there as a statue,
my arm in her grip, her dark eyes locked on mine...

In that moment she spoke again to me. Her lips didnt move...

'She is but a stubborn chaotic child compared to her. There is no way back...You are her chosen'

Her words were as thunder in my head.

A dark, purple energy blast came from her hand
launching me back against the wall behind me.
When I felt my body sliding down from the wall
I could make up black tentacles coming out of the ground,
engulfing the old lady, then darkness... I lost consciousness...

When I woke up... all I found around me was darkness...no trace of the old lady...

Her words still hammered in my head

'you are her chosen'

What does that mean...It can mean everything...it can mean nothing...
It could all just have been a dream...If only I had ever dreamt...

I found my mother's dagger in front of me. The red spider clearly visible on the hilt. The metal however...had been blackened, as if turned into darksteel.


I feel lost Adin...

I wish you were here... I miss you so much...
To admit that is to admit weakness.
I know you would look down on me. I failed you.
It is as if I almost feel your eyes burn on me.
Hear you almost thinking...


Weakling...

Letter 18



I had a conversation with a new arrival here in Sshamath.
He called himself a Nomad. Said he most likely would not stay and pass through.

When I watched him in the eyes I knew it would never happen.

She told me of him...

He would stay...


and I have to say...
He reminds me a bit of you...
in a way...

Letter 19


She keeps refusing to tell what I want to know.
She almost changed again last cycle.
My patience is over. When I inquired who she was…she attacked me.
Her brain must have been shut down at that moment.
Attacking me…is deadly.

At that moment I could not care less she was Valshar’s pet.
Touch me and you wished you were never born!
Even that…is something you know, Adin..

I struck her down.
I gave her one last chance to tell me who
this she was that protects her against him…

Him as in the demon I let in to her. Somehow it seems to want to kill me after first saving me.
I like to meet this Him face to face. Better than this…she…
She refused again. No one refuses me…

I dragged her down to the school of Mages and left her chained to the wall in her cell.

I will make her talk…

One way or the other…

Letter 20


I think this time I've really done it...
I really messed up.

It is not like me to act without thinking.
To run off into the unknown, but I had the urge to.
I could not stop myself as if I was not in control.
A mistake that will cost me dearly I fear...

I took the new one out for training that cycle.
As I heard myself explain things I could hear you through the words.
The same words as so many years ago when you spoke them to me.

Those goblins didnt stand a chance. I toyed with them so he could ambush them from behind. He did well Adin.

Then I saw it again in the distance.
Faint, but there... A small, red glow.
The cycle before I saw it as well and it escaped me.
This time it would not! I forgot about the jaluk I was teaching.
His existence as a distant memory pushed away.
I only saw that red glow.
Not even the black fog that started to swirl around me as I rushed off to that light.

I came close to it. So close!
I could almost feel its presence.
A black shape rushed out past me.
I barely saw anything and I intuitively swang my sword.
I hit metal. At least it sounded like it.
I ran after it again but my next blow hit nothing but darkness.
And only in that moment I noticed that all around me was darkness... Pitch black.
The same blackness I encountered when meeting that old jalil.

I cursed as I realised I ran into a trap.
I closed my eyes to concentrate.
There was nothing out there to see anything anyway.
I heard footsteps, likely Illythiiri foodsteps far away.
That must have been that jaluk.
I felt something else too, closer...much closer.

The air was cold and I heard my own heartbeat in my ears as I stood there listening.
It was circling me. I felt it, more than I heard it.
A red glow penetrated my eyelids and I opened my eyes.
I stared right into the creatures eyes.
Just eyes...red and glowing. Black shadows swirling around it.



I could not do anything else but stare for what felt like ages.
It was as if I forgot who I was, what I was doing there, and where I was.
I dropped my shield to the ground.
I could not stop it.
I was aware of what I was doing and I screamed to myself in my mind
to stop but it was like watching someone else doing it.
Unreal...

I saw how my left hand stretched out towards the eyes, trying to touch them.
What the hells was I doing!



I felt something at my left side.
My mind told me it was pain.
But it felt so distant...so faint.
I distractedly acknowledged I could not breath.
I wondered why... not even panicking.
All was just...numb.

Things happened fast all of a sudden then.
The pain became a searing pain and reality came back to me.
I staggered backwards, away from the eyes.
My legs collapsed underneath me.
My hand went to my side and I felt my own dagger,
embedded into me to the hilt.

I tried to stay awake.
If I had fallen then...I would have been lost.
The thing still stood there...watching me as I fought a lost battle with myself.
I heard laughter, female laughter.
The same laughter I heard that cycle when I met the old jalil.

I lost...and darkness took me.


I remember flashes of a jaluk face, the one I was teaching.
Someone dragging me away.
Someone screaming at me.
But I was so far away... I did not want to come back from it.
Let me stay where I am right now, I thought.
Silence, bliss, darkness.. don't take me out of this!

Cruel realitly came nevertheless.
I woke up in pain.
Feeling my body battered and crushed.
I didnt realise I was in such a bad state.
He tried to heal me. It helped.

My wounds were cured.
All but one... He had pulled the dagger out and I could see it next to me.
That black dagger with the red ruby spider.
The one she changed... I touched my left side and almost screamed out of pain.
A blackened wound I could not even heal with my most powerful spells.

If I don't find a way...I might join you soon Adin...

I might join you soon...

Letter 21

My wound became a burden to me.
I had to keep healing myself and it drained a lot of energy from me.
Nothing divine could heal it as far as I know of,
and I tried a lot by now.

Two cycles back I simply collapsed...
Not even my healing helped and the wound started bleeding again.
I could feel life slipping away from me.
At that particular moment I thought I would indeed finally join you.
My mind finally at ease...Lost to everything...

But that stubborn jaluk did not want to let me die.
He managed to get me back to the city.
I tried to tell him to get me to Valshar.
Perhaps he would know something about the wound.
Even if it would mean a risk to expose this weakness I was in right now.
If I didn't, I would surely die anyway.
I think he got my rambling, since when I opened my eyes again
I knew I was in the halls of the phantom wizard.

Darkness came again...

This time when I came back I noticed I was on a table.
A table in the school of necromancy.
I heard voices around me.... jalukvoices.
One of them was Valshar's. He told me to drink something.
Something that smelled extremely bad and remember I just wanted to get away from it. Hands grabbed me and they forced it down.
The taste of it took me right out of my slumber,
out of the safe darkness that clouded my conscienceness.

I wanted to throw up but I couldn't...
It's taste was so horrible I could not even breath for a while.
I could not stop coughing either...
This is by far the worst thing I ever tasted in my life.

As bad as it was, it did help me and I felt better.
I slowly became more aware of my surroundings
and I noticed that next to me on the table was that Tiefling of his...
Hot with fever and seemingly asleep.
I guess my last experiment took a bit too much of her...



Me... so close to that creature...
we touched even! Valshar sure has a cruel sense of humor...
I jumped from the table as they gave her a potion as well.

I inspected the wound on my side.
It was almost gone. A dark spot remained.
Could it be I was healed?

I asked him but he said I had been marked. Marked...
The dagger that the old jalil changed had been touched by shadowmagic.
He could not heal me... only keep its magic at bay.
He told me I had to drink that same bad tasting cursed potion on a regular basis
if I wanted to keep the effects of the wound to a minimum.

Curse him for giving it that taste!
If I ever find out he did this on purpose...
I swear Adin...even if it will cost me my life...

I'll kill him for it...

Letter 22



He asked me to come to a meeting.

My head wasnt really into politics that cycle, I have to say...

The wound on my side just doesnt fully heal.
I can live with it...but I still feel the pain.
I fear it will be time soon for another nasty potion...
Curse him...

I need to find out why they marked me...
and even more important... who...
It feels like I hit a dead end as of now.
It frustrates me...

And right at this moment he asks me to attend a meeting.
Some rivvils wanted our aid.
Rivvils...inferior creatures.

We met them at the school of necromancy,
these "humans"...

One of them, I remember.
Oh I really do! Vex...Xas...that was his name...
I met him once in the tunnels as he has been a guest before.
But more than that, I know him from my newly acquired pet.
She mentioned him as her lover...

It gives me such a laugh fit, Adin...lovers...
Who would love anyway? It only creates weakness...
No...simply use... satisfy your lusts...
but love?

What madness...

If he only knew his little girl was sitting on a chair blocked to the ground,
bound in cold iron chains right now.
Hmm...xas...about right above where he sat.
Quite amusing indeed.

The negotiations went as could have been expected.
They need our help with something..
It would bring us some benefits to give them this aid.
Perhaps they get lucky...
But it will cost them dearly...

I noticed some certain looks he gave me.
Perhaps he remembered our chat from the past?
Don't get too distracted little rivvil man.

And xas...if you only knew what I did to your pretty girl.
I wonder if you could keep it to mere looks...

Letter 23


I try to forget you Adin...
The Goddess knows I do.
With all my might.
Sometimes I actually do succeed and you are vanished from my mind.
No trace to be found. Lost to me...

I wish I could keep it that way. But you do return...
Like now...

How many years has it been now...20?..30? maybe longer since that cycle...
The cycle you went to her ...

You know I had to do what I did. You left me no other choise.
You called it upon yourself!
When I look down on my dagger...her dagger...
I can still see the image of your blood running down from it...
clouded in black mist at the edges...but very clear in the center.

Your blood...

I write you still... I will continue to do so I fear...
A weakness and a sin, but...
I miss you... I wish I didn't but I do...

There must be a way to forget you completely.
Perhaps I did find a method...

He reminds me of you in a way but in others he is very different indeed...
He kissed me...
And no...I don't think he realizes many that did,
don't walk away with their lives...

I'm sure he will be a nice entertainment.
Perhaps a bit longer than a cycle like the others...

But one of the best lesson's you taught me...
is to never let anyone come close to me...

Ever....Again...

Letter 24

Rituals...
Oh sweet rituals...
I have done many..I have witnessed many.
One more gruesome than the other.

Unfortunately I only witnessed at this one.
But to think I was the pebble that started the events towards this ritual...
ah, that makes it all the more interesting to watch!

He wanted to help her, my little pet.
Drive the demon out of her by performing a ritual.

Little did he know it would cost him probably everything...

He came to the school of necromany, asking if he could take Vala with him.
For an extreme price I agreed...

He had some strange ritualistfemale with him.
Unfortunately, after Jar'laste played with the woman during my pricenegotiations,

she died...

I can't blame him too much, these rivvil are just extremely weak.
A jalukapprentice of the school said he could do some form of exorcism as well.
Probably much better than that rivvil filth anyway.

We went down to a temple under the school of necromancy...

There, I saw a Demon and a woman,
standing each at a side of an altar.
They appeared to be Vala's father and mother...
At least, that's what she thought...

I looked back to the jaluk and I noticed he was just as confused as I was...
Something was wrong here.
Nothing of the ritual had been performed...
Yet..there they stood...

A huge demon appeared behind us.
Even I had to swallow once at the sight of this huge creature.
He was the one who took possesion of Vala all along.
Eliphas, The demon lord...

Both the demon and the woman at the altar fell down. Into nothing...
They never excisted...never had...
No mother, no demon..no nothing!

Something so cruel, I could have invented that, Adin.
The expression on Vala's face was priceless!

He came to claim what was his...
Vex's soul... his bargain was made...
Vala was no longer...'possessed'.

He towered above Vex, draining his soul from his body.
Then he left..as sudden as he came...
Leaving the soulles body of Vex on the floor.



What a fool to struck a deal with demons...
And most of all, this one in particular.
He got what he asked for...

As for Vala...I wonder if the girl can handle this,
now that she even lost him, her mother...
and in a way even her father.
If she kills herself...I don't care...
I kind of expect she will...
She is kivvil after all.

Letter 25

History seems to repeat itself...

My hands color red again...

Not a scream, not a word...
Not a single sound he made.

I have to give him that...Adin...

I pushed him down to the ground
as my black knife sought its path through his heart.
My eyes, locked with his.
Slowly I could see life leaving those eyes.
I watched untill there was nothing left but a hollow stare.

I should have felt something, anything!
But the only thing I felt was emptiness...

I lifted myself up, watching his body one more time.
Then I left into the darkness...

Yet another, dies at my hands...

Letter 26

Something is rising...

The darkness is darker...

However, many secrets that have been hidden to me,

slowly start to reveal themselves. I can feel it...

The pain in my side,
the wound that just never really wants to heal,
seems heavier to carry with each cycle.

I know his name now, Adin...his plans...what he is after.
The mists lift...

Many do not realise the threat Sshamath is in.
My pawns are set in place however...

I hear her voice in my head...
I am still mostly unaware of what she wants from me...
I only know I need to put things in motion...

Now is the time...