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

Pounding on the bar, a few pieces of grubby parchment in hand, a half-elven patron hollers in the direction of the barman and waves said parchment in his direction. "Oi pal, pass this on fer me won't ya? Heard somethin' about gold or somethin' an' well, I wrote about me adventures for them Light-Peoples."

"Useless!" Llywelyn roared with rage, throwing a chair to the side where it clattered noisily against the ground. "Utterly, deplorably, lamentably useless!"

Auric Blackmore stood leaning against the bedroom door. His arms folded across his chest. His masked face unreadable. "So we didn't get the response we were hoping for." His broad shoulders rose and then fell in an uncaring shrug.

The two men were in Llywelyn's rented room, top floor of the Bearded Mermaid, where they'd just received and counted the entries they'd had turned in for their storytelling contest. The counting hadn't taken long: Only two people had bothered to submit stories.

At Auric's words, Llywelyn flipped a table.

Tin cups and plates scattered across the wooden floor and spilled their contents in a gelatinous mixture of liquid and food. Judging by the dents in the flatware, this wasn't the first time they'd seen the one-eyed man's anger. Auric, for his part, didn't react at all.

"Damn it!" The man called Crow returned sharply, straightening from his aggressive, table-flipping crouch. The masked man arched an eyebrow at the one-eyed man. "Damn it." Llywelyn repeated, voice steadier.

"It's not a big deal. It got our name out there."

"It's not about the name," Llywelyn complained, his frustration giving way to disappointment. His voice sounding tired. "There's magic in these stories." The darkly-dressed man made his way to his bed, where he knelt, clutching the two stories he'd received close into his chest. They crinkled comfortingly against his armor. "There's so much power here."

Auric shifted slightly against the door. "What did you expect?"

Llywelyn buried his bearded face against the parchment pillow he'd formed with the paired stories. One described a misadventure at sea. The other the destruction of Triel.

"I'm giving them each a bag full of money for participating," Llywelyn decided.

"We said we'd only pay out if we received more than three stories."

"It'll be from my own funds, then."

Auric watched the man in silence for a moment before he turned to leave the room without a word. Undoubtedly concluding that there was simply no talking to Llywelyn while he was in one of these moods.

It was a reasonable conclusion.

Llywelyn, for his part, smiled down at the stories with an eerie sort of fondness. He had wished for more. He had use for more. But two? Two was a start. Two would breed four and four would make eight and eight would . . .

Yes. Yes. All was going precisely according to plan. The one-eyed man laughed.

And meanwhile, the posters left hanging in their sundry homes? The contest was over, and they would soon be forgotten. Over time they would be ripped down by tidying proprietors, or covered up with newer, more recent news or announcements. But Llywelyn had no care for such things. For the first step was always the hardest, and now? Now it had been taken.

And the road led straight to paradise.