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

It took until the aging paladin was on his deathbed to finally tell L’ryte the tale. Sir Dalton had been on a pilgrimage to redeem his now fallen and forgotten Knightly Order of Tyr. The season had been stormy, forcing Sir Dalton to the highways from his usual lowland route.

In the highlands he encountered a great sorm, with numerous bolts of lightning criss crossing the sky. Climbing above to avoid the increasing rains, he spotted two figures on the path he had just left, below.

As the lightning illuminated the sky Sir Dalton saw that the travellers were a young couple. The Man pushed a cart with too many wares left on it for the market day to have gone well, and the woman’s arms cradled a young tar black haired babe. Their faces were desperate from the storm and whatever trials their rural life afforded them.

The thunder was too loud for Sir Dalton to shout, and he didn’t want to startle the couple into a dangerous flight should he simply begin descending, so he waited and watched as they took shelter beneath a slight outcropping of stone.

Suddenly, a crash of sound and light the likes of which the aged paladin had never heard before blasted outward from all directions. A single streak of blue-yellow dashed toward the outcropping and blasted it apart. In the clear light of the lighting strike and explosion, Sir Dalton saw the babe thrown from the mother’s arms to near the cliff’s edge.

The aftermath was just as chaotic. Deafened, Sir Dalton began sliding down the steep and rocky side. As he drew clower he saw the man utterly killed by the blast, lying blackened near the now in splinters cart. The woman was somehow uninjured and had rushed over towards her babe, but was holding it far away from her body. Her face was a mix of shock and pain as she turned towards the blackened corpse of her husband and revealed the babe’s appearance. Even decades of blood and righteous conquest didn’t prepare him for what he saw then.

The hair that was once black was now heavenly white and the eyes radiated a strange white glow. Wounds and burns covered the babe’s body, but somehow it was still alive, crying endlessly.

The woman’s desperation took hold as she saw her husband’s corpse. If she noticed Sir Dalton she made no sign of it, even as his order’s scale male glimmered in the remaining lightning. Sir Dalton at the time knew not how desperate and broken the woman was, who must have believed her son to be dying from the massive burns that covered his small body.

She shook her head as desperation took hold, and in quick movement grasped a dagger hidden in her robes and readied it high against her own babe’s burned and mangled chest.

Already rushing forward to Lay his Hands upon the babe, Sir Dalton shouted towards her: “Stop! I can save it! You need not take it’s life!”

Shocked by the sudden presence, the woman recoiled and held her burnt child outward in her left hand while she kept the dagger raised, it’s pointed end ready to end the baby’s suffering.

“Don’t you see him? Don’t you hear him? He’s dying! My poor baby’s dying! It’s a mercy to end it here, he’ll never recover from such wounds! Just listen to him! He’s in such pain!”

Sir Dalton was hesitating, and he knew it. Her back was against the cliff’s edge and her desperation was reaching a head. Any step forward might cause her hand to fall, or worse, she to take her own life as well by stepping back.

Her hand was quivering as he thought of calming words, but it was too late -- he saw the movement of the blade as it reflected the crashing light and forty years of training moved the paladin’s body.

Sir Dalton drew his longsword, took a double step forward, slashed outward -- throwing his sacred weapon behind him as it drew the woman’s blood, and caught the baby as the woman fell lifeless into the valley below.

Kneeling after the maneuver, Sir Dalton prayed to Tyr and power surged through his hands. As he healed, the child didn’t cease crying and the magnitude of what Sir Dalton had done began to dawn upon him.

He had killed the boy’s mother.

Revulsion at his own actions took hold as he noticed the boy’s new form. His skin was near golden and his hair was now white. The glowing in his eyes had stopped but they retained their ghostly appearance.

Sir Dalton had heard of Aasimars, and identified the boy as such. The paladin took a deep and shuttered breath before taking the babe into the shelter of the outcropping. Rummaging through the cart for a blanket, he found a toy labeled “L’ryte” and his memory suddenly flashed to his slaying of the mother.

He pushed it aside and dedicated himself then to the boy’s future. He knew that his order would lie disgraced, but perhaps through the child some redemption could be found.

Sir Dalton spent the next 16 years training L’ryte in the ways of Tyr. It was obvious from an early age that the boy had been called to some higher service and so Sir Dalton engaged it with full abandon.

The two traveled extensively, ending up near Waterdeep. Despite Sir Dalton’s dedication his age was catching up with him and his health began deteriorating significantly. It was as Sir Dalton died that he told L’ryte the story of how the two came to be.