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

The smooth, flat stone skipped six times across the still waters of Lake Mulsantir before dropping into its depths, leaving a trail of ripples in its wake. Dark green eyes, still possessing the sparkling innocence of childhood, watched the stone’s journey and subsequent disappearance from the shore of the gargantuan lake. Iskra Golondini, a human girl quickly approaching her sixth year of life, ran her small and thoroughly filthy hand across the short stubble that sprouted from the top of her head. Though she greatly enjoyed the sensation of the hair brushing against her palm, she knew it meant another trip to the village barber was quickly approaching once her mother had the time. Even for a peasant family of low birth and simple means, by virtue of being Mulani – and not a slave – it was considered deeply improper to allow one’s hair to grow past the scalp.

As she continued to run one hand rhythmically back and forth across the bristle-like stubble, the other hand’s fingers were at work examining the next stone cradled in its palm. She felt along the surface of the flat rock, noting differences in weight and texture. Even when at play with an activity that all children across the realms with access to water and rocks enjoyed, Iskra’s immensely powerful mind could not help but make more of so simple a game. She was attemping to find the optimal weight, shape and surface texture for skipping rocks, while also introducing variables such as throwing technique and type of stone, having a wide range to choose from thanks to the nearby mountain range that marked her Tharch’s border with the wilds of Rashemen. She had spent the whole day with her experiment, having gradually become singularly obsessed with finding the perfect rock. So far, she had skipped two hundred and fifty three stones across the surface of the lake, categorizing the results in the running tally she kept in the deep vault of her mind.

The day was growing long and her arm was quickly nearing exhaustion. As she readied it for her two hundred and fifty-fourth throw, however, the unmistakable call of her mother’s voice carried over the short, gentle hills that flanked the shore of the lake. “Iskra? Iskra!” came the call, the little girl’s features pinching into an annoyed scowl, for she knew it meant that her experiment was to be left unfinished. Secretly she was glad for it, though, as she dropped her arm to the side and allowed the stone to drop at her bare feet.

Mizri Golondini was a simple woman, fairly plain in appearance as well as temperament. She lacked the striking, serpentine beauty common to Mulani nobility, and her pregnancy with Iskra had done few favors to her figure. Still, she possessed a certain grace and a calm disposition, a disposition which was put to the test when her daughter’s bald head crested the hill and she caught sight of the filthy mess the child had made of her clothes. “By the fires of Kossuth, girl!” her mother exclaimed as Iskra came running up, “the hogs at play in their sty are cleaner than you!” Mizri’s anger abated when her daughter skid to a halt to take in the mess she was covered in, a look of shame washing over the child’s features. She did her best to hide her budding smile, masking it behind an exaggerated sigh of exasperation as she pulled the child towards her in a comforting embrace. After leaning down to place a kiss at the top of Iskra’s head, though, her scowl returned when she tasted the shore mud that the girl had been rubbing into her hair. “Blech! You somehow taste worse than you look! Off you go, straight to the wash room!” With a gentle swat to her bottom to spur her along, Mizri tugged at the hem of her roughspun farm dress to keep it from getting muddy like her daughter’s, the plump woman moving after the child as Iskra sprinted like the wind in the direction of their home.

The Golondini house, like the family which inhabited it, was warm but fairly plain and unremarkable. Any who toured the three room wooden house, sparsely furnished with only the essentials, would have little trouble in guessing that the family were farmers. It was a plain farmhouse, one of several similarly unremarkable wooden buildings that constituted Iskra’s village on the outskirts of the larger town of Surzula, where they hauled their crops to market and bought their supplies. Every other home in their village were also farmers, even the barber – who also served as their unofficial mayor. The role was unofficial because her village was claimed as a part of Surzula, even though several miles of wild terrain separated them from the furthest border of the town proper.

Iskra’s father, Jored, was seated at the worn wooden table in the largest room of the house which served as the family’s kitchen, dining room and living room, trying to make sense of a document which had been delivered to their door this morning by a rider from town. He was an immensely strong man, possessed of the type of strength born from a lifetime of relentless physical toil afforded to a farmer. He was not an educated man, however, and was only able to barely read with great struggle. He was running his roughly calloused hand against his cleanly shaved scalp, his brow furrowed in frustration, when the front door exploded open as if a hill giant had kicked it open, causing the hulking man – and the dog sleeping at his feet – to jump in fright. A diminutive frame of filthy clothes and flailing limbs came barreling into the common room, and one glance at his daughter told Jored that she had been playing at the lake again.

“By the Hells, girl, are you mad!?” her father bellowed as Iskra attempted to sprint past him and into her room. Instead, her father had reached his hand out and halted her charge without even a grunt of exertion, though running full force into his unyielding hand very nearly took the wind from her tiny body. Gulping in air as she struggled to regain her breath from the run home, Iskra could only look to her father in silent confusion as to the source of his anger. When her father scowled and pointed behind her, she could only wince when she followed his gesture and saw the muddy footprints she had tracked into the house.

“Sorry, daddy!” was all she could gasp out, doing her best to summon the sheepish smile that reliably softened her father’s heart and got her out of the trouble she was always getting herself into. Unfortunately, perhaps due to her exhausted delivery, the performance was unconvincing to her father and he only scowled in return. “Where’s your mother? She went out looking for you hours ago.” Without allowing her the time to reply, Jored waved the question away and continued. “Never mind that. Hurry and go wash up, you stink worse than the outhouse! Before you go, though,” he said, again halting his daughter as she moved to obey, “tell me what this says.” Iskra leaned over the edge of the table as her father rotated the delivered notice so that she could read it, ignoring the deepening scowl on Jored’s face as he caught a fresh whiff of the stench radiating from her.

Her eyes lit up as she quickly scanned over the document, a look that her father did not miss as he watched for her reaction. “Well?” he asked, his tone hinting at growing impatience, for he had struggled for an hour and had only barely dented the first sentence. “We, and the rest of the village, are summoned to the road at noon tomorrow, there is to be a procession!” came her excited reply. Jored was considerably less pleased in the interruption to the day’s work, but he knew better than to disobey a document bearing the official seal of his lord, the Tharchion of Surthay.

The following day, Iskra stood in front of her parents, part of the throng of villagers who had gathered as ordered to line both sides of the lone road which ran alongside the banks of Lake Mulsantir, north through the town of Surzula and beyond. She wore her nicest dress, as did her mother and the rest of the village women, a basket of assorted produce from their farm cradled in her arm. Other villagers carried similar baskets filled with flowers, baked goods, and other gifts. They waited obediently, for even though the notice they all received gave no mention of which direction the procession would be coming from, they all knew. This exact situation had played out countless times in the past, even for one as young as Iskra. A summons to the road could only mean one thing, that an expeditionary force from the armies of Thay was marching north in another incursion against the hated savages of Rashemen.

They did not have to wait long before the vanguard of the approaching army became visible in the distance, or more accurately the sun’s glint against their finely polished plate mail armor and the deep red of the banners they marched holding aloft. “They are coming!” came a shout from a villager running up from the south, alerting the assembled peasants to what they already knew. A wide smile spread across Iskra’s cherubic features, for despite the routine nature of these military processions, she was always in awe of them as they marched through her little corner of the world. She had never traveled farther from her home than the market of Surzula, her father taking her with him last year to assist in the haggling over their harvest once her remarkable talents with numbers and finance became clear. This year, other villagers had approached Jored seeking her assistance towards similar ends in exchange for a small percentage of the profits, much to her father’s delight. Now, seeing the powerful forces gathered from all over the sprawling nation of Thay, Iskra’s heart could not help but swell in pride and awe at the display.

The vanguard troops, Mulani one and all, passed through the assembly with trumpets blaring and the army’s heraldry held high. Though when they first came into view, nothing could be seen on the large red banners, upon arrival to the village the symbol of some noble house could be seen embroidered in brilliant gold thread on each of the banners. Iskra did not recognize the noble sigil, which told her that this was an army from another province, called a Tharch, of their nation. As they passed, the villagers dutifully cheered for the marching legion, passing out the contents of their baskets to the soldiers, who accepted the gifts without acknowledgement or thanks.

The elite vanguard marched on and beyond the gaggle of peasants, Iskra’s heart swelling with pride at their crisp footsteps in perfect marching sync throughout the formation. Her heart sank, then, for next in the long procession was the disposable shock fodder. A random assortment of armed slaves and representatives of the more savage and bestial races, mostly gnolls and orcs, marched past. Every one of them wore the melancholy expression of the doomed, for each one knew their lot was to be the first into battle and the most likely to die. There were no gifts for these rabble, not that the slave drivers who maintained the marching pace with shouts and liberal use of their truncheons would have allowed it. The drivers were Mulani men as well, though the stoic pride and discipline of the vanguard elite was replaced in them with a seemingly permanent sneer of abject cruelty.

The shock fodder formation came on and on, a river of slaves that seemed to have no end. Then, finally, a full hour later came the rear of the procession, Iskra’s favorite part of the whole event. There, riding atop fine horses and each surrounded by a diamond formation of heavily armored Thayan Knights, were three Red Wizards. Each wizard cut a truly majestic vision atop their steeds, the afternoon sun’s light reflecting in sparkling brilliance against the gold circlets that ringed their heads, giving them the appearance of angelic halos. The crowd erupted into an almost frenzied, howling cheer as the wizards approached them, looking down from their horses with an imperious gaze. As those around her whooped and shouted praises to the masters of Thay, Iskra instead stood there with mouth hanging agape, staring up at one wizard in particular who rode in the center of the line.

The woman who held Iskra’s attention was heavily tattooed, even by the standards of the Red Wizards. The entirety of her face, head and neck was a spiraling web of impossibly complex arcane calligraphy. Iskra could tell that the mystical runes meant something, that their positioning relative to one another and perhaps even in relation to the woman’s body, held some hidden importance. To her untrained and uneducated eye, though, all of that was lost to Iskra, leaving her only with a look of stupefied awe and a magnetic draw urging her to worship at the feet of the omnipotent being before her.

Before she was even consciously aware of what she was doing, the child had ducked out from under her mother’s hold on her shoulder. Mizri, though Iskra was wholly unaware at the time, was likewise enthralled by the female Red Wizard, and oblivious to her daughter’s movement. Iskra found herself merely paces from the wizard, her eyes never once breaking from the red-robed form, when reality came rushing back to her in the form of the tip of a longsword pressed to her throat. She realized that she had come too close, and upon crossing some invisible but understood by all threshold around the Red Wizard, the Thayan Knight nearest to her had drawn his blade intending to cut down the trespassing child.

The cheers of the villagers froze in their throats, Iskra hearing the anguished gasp of her mother as Mizri’s enchantment likewise was ripped from her and she realized what was happening. Iskra could only stammer incoherently as her thoughts rushed to gather and rebuild into a semblance of rationality. Even as the rear procession came to a halt, and despite a subconscious impulse to fall to the dirt and grovel for forgiveness at her transgression, Iskra instead found herself instead raising her arm up to the woman atop the horse, whose mesmerizing ice blue eyes were now fixed in an unrelenting gaze upon the girl. In her hand she held a piece of fruit, the plumpest, juiciest plum from their orchard. This provoked a low snarl from the Knight, and Iskra could feel the tip of his blade pushing through her skin and a small trickle of blood seeping down her throat to stain the white lace at the neckline of her dress.

Just as tears began to well in her eyes, the hand cradling the plum trembling in fear, came her salvation. The Red Wizard reached out, placing a gloved hand on the heavy steel pauldron of the Knight. The man retracted his blade instantly, looking from Iskra back to his master. The woman spoke a whispered command to the Knight, pausing a moment to look once more to the shaking girl before sitting back up in her saddle. The Knight sheathed his blade, and with a tenderness made rather awkward by the fact he had just been about to kill her, took the plum from Iskra's outstretched hand and delivered it to the waiting magus.

The wizard took a bite of the plum, her eyes never leaving the child, a look of subdued pleasure coming over her features with a muted smile as a trickle of juice escaped to drip down her tattooed chin. Wiping it away with the practiced precision and effortless grace that spoke to her upbringing within the nobility, the mysterious woman turned to resume the journey north. Just as she was about to prompt her mount into motion, however, the woman fished a small spherical object from the satchel hung at her hip and tossed it into the hand of Iskra which was still held out, the girl having remained motionless since the plum was taken by the Knight.

The impact of the object turned Iskra’s stare from the woman to her hand. In her palm was a strange spherical stone, though what sort of gem it might be she had no way of knowing. It was the brilliant yellow of the sun, and shone with the inner glowing light that spoke of a magical enchantment. Dumbstruck, Iskra looked up once more, fumbling for some way to express her gratitude, but the wizard was already riding on without a second look, taking another bite of the juicy plum. Released at last from the commanding aura of the Red Wizard, Iskra collapsed to her knees where she stood in the dirt road, her eyes again fixed upon the magical gem. She did not even register it when strong hands, the hands of her father, grabbed her by the waist and effortlessly pulled her away.

Two months had passed since Iskra’s encounter with the Red Wizard, yet nearly every day since then the events played through her mind as if it had just happened. She could vividly remember the hypnotic eyes of the robed woman, the magnetic force that drew her in like a moth to a flame. She could also remember what came after when she got home, her mother’s crying and her father’s stern words. They knew that she knew better and would not have gone up to the magus of her own accord. Mizri likewise reported a similar entrancement, confirming their suspicions that their daughter had fallen under some magical effect. Still, her parents needed an outlet for the overwhelming emotions that come from almost witnessing their child’s murder, and since they could not voice their complaints to the Red Wizards, Iskra instead was left to shoulder the burden of blame.

She did not care, though. To her, the entire ordeal was made well worth it when she went to bed every night gazing into the glowing depths of the gem that the regal wizard had given to her. She was strictly forbidden from leaving the house with it, her parents fearing she would lose such a precious gift or become a target for robbery. For once, Iskra did not even consider disobeying the wishes of her parents, for to her the gem was the most precious thing in the world.

It was a perfect autumn day, the weather ideal as it always was thanks to Thay’s magical climate control. Iskra was in a field playing a game with some of the other village children. In the distance was her father, loading their harvest into the wagon. Today was the day they would travel to Surzula to sell their crops at market. Normally, Iskra would be helping her father get ready for the journey, but Jored had decided that since she was to be responsible for haggling a price with the merchant who usually purchased their crops, it would be best if she was rested. Of course, rather than sleep in, Iskra used the unexpected time off to run around outside with her friends.

She darted right, then abruptly pivoted and bolted left in a zig-zag maneuver meant to confuse her pursuer and buy her a precious moment or two to widen the distance between them. Sprinting away, Iskra could hear a growl that she knew belonged to her friend, Balgred, or Bal for short. He was an unusually large, oafish boy, perhaps owing to his Rashemi heritage on his mother’s side. His father, who was also named Balgred, had been a soldier in the armies of Thay. On one of the invasions into Rashemen that he had played a part in, the older Balgred was allowed to keep a Rashemi woman he had captured as his wife before eventually settling into the life of a farmer in Iskra’s village.

Such an arrangement was almost unheard of among the Mulani nobility, or deeper into Thayan territory. The Mulani people as a whole tended to be fiercely proud of their heritage, and any “blemish” to that pedigree through siring children with other peoples carried a deep cultural taboo. It was a little different among the rural peasantry, however, and particularly so in the frontier Tharch of Surthay. Cultural norms were considerably more relaxed here, and it was rather difficult to cling to ideas of one’s supremacy while shoveling pig manure.

Despite this more relaxed and tolerant environment, children do have some innate qualities during their development regardless of the environment, one of which is a nasty tendency to pick on other children for being different. Balgred, as a result, had to put up with almost relentless torment form the other children while he was still small, up until he hit his first major growth spurt and quickly came to tower over the other children of the village. Fortunately for his former tormentors, Balgred was possessed of an exceptionally gentle and kind disposition, another inheritance from his mother. He and Iskra had become fast friends over the past year, once she reached an age where he considered her no longer a baby.

Here on the battlefield of their imagination, however, these good friends were mortal enemies. The game was Zombie Tag, a simple game of tag but with one twist – once a child was tagged, they became one of the zombies and joined forces with the one who tagged them. The goal was simple in theory, to be the last child left “alive”, though it was no simple task to make it to the end once the horde had grown large and outnumbered the remaining survivors. Balgred was selected to be the first zombie, as he often was, and now he was after Iskra.

She did her best to suppress the giggle bubbling up her throat as she left Balgred behind, hearing him cursing to himself as he ran to rebuild his momentum in chasing after her. He was a large boy, with much longer legs than her, so could quickly outpace her in a straight race. He was also very heavy, though, and possessed of the awkward coordination of a growing body still getting used to itself. That was the key to her strategy, for while she could not hope to outrun the boy, she could out-maneuver him.

Just as she was secretly congratulating herself on the masterful evasion, that maneuverability was put to the test. Two other “zombies” had lain in wait for her, leaping out from the berry bushes they had hid behind. Lurching her body violently to the left, she tried to channel her forward momentum into a spinning dodge as the pair dove at her. She felt a hand swipe against the hem of her dress as it fanned out with her motion, which fortunately for her had been decided at the start of the game as not counting towards a tag.

She heard the two children collide with each other in the botched tackle, their cries of surprise again soliciting a giggle from the girl. Just as she was about to run off, though, she heard the voice of Bal from behind her shout “Got you!” The boy was premature in warning Iskra of her doom, however, for the early warning allowed her to react by ducking low as her friend’s meaty paw swiped harmlessly overhead, followed shortly by him barreling past her. He stood a full two feet taller than her, and so in that split second of reaction time his shout had given her, she was able to calculate a high probability that the giant boy would likely try to clap her high on the back, close to her neck.

Feeling good and congratulating herself on another successful dodge, Iskra arched her back and bowed her knees, seeking to propel herself forward and continue on with the game. Her elation came crashing down, however, when just as she was about to sprint off she felt a grip on her bare ankle. Looking down, she saw one of the boys who dove into each other had crawled over and grabbed her foot, looking up at her with a triumphant grin. Iskra could only huff in annoyance, but she knew she was fairly caught.

Taking a moment to pout about her defeat, the girl was getting ready to run off into the field as the newest recruit into the zombie horde, when a shout carried over from far away. “Soldiers! From the north!” Iskra felt her stomach drop as her eyes grew wide at the news, any thought about the game immediately vanishing as her mind once more thought back to the red-robed woman. She sprinted off, not in search of children to add to the ranks of the imaginary undead, but instead to the side of the road to get another glimpse of the Red Wizard.

Iskra was the first one to the road, but the shout had a similar effect on all who heard it and put a sudden end to the children’s game. They all came running up to join her in awaiting the arrival of the returning army. The excursions into Rashemen were usually brief affairs, usually raids for slaves or plunder, but this army had been gone for two whole months, considerably longer than normal. Iskra bounced on her heels, wringing her hands in excitement, eager to join her fellow villagers in cheering the returning heroes.

A silence formed over the gradually swelling crowd as the soldiers drew near enough to see clearly. Gone were the noble banners held proudly high, the blaring trumpets sounding the call to battle and glory. Gone, too, was the huge majority of the army. In their place came the battered, shambling remnants of the elite vanguard, their formerly pristine plate mail armor covered in evidence of a battle gone terribly wrong. Barely a fifth of their previous number was present for the return home, though they seemed to have fared better in that regard than the slave legion. Of the thousands of slaves, gnolls and orcs who had marched north for the glory of Thay, not a single one was now present for the retreat south, making for a far shorter procession than the one from two months ago.

Iskra watched the shattered army stumble on past her in horror and disbelief. How could this happen? What disaster might have befallen such a seemingly invincible army to cast it so low? The other villagers watched on in silence as well, some bowing their heads in silent prayer for the countless dead. As the procession’s rear approached, Iskra realized with deepening despair that she saw no mounted figures riding within a protective formation of Knights.

A glimmer of hope sparked to life in her heart when she caught a glimpse of a heavily tattooed head bobbing along with a limping stride, hidden behind the tight formation of the few surviving Thayan Knights. That hope was dashed moments later, however, when a brief gap in the formation allowed Iskra a glimpse of the sole surviving Red Wizard. She recognized him as one of the other two that had rode north along with the enchanting woman. She wanted to cry out to him, to beg for the wounded lord to tell her of what fate had befallen the army and the woman she adored. Even from a distance, though, she could see the seething hate and rage etched in the twisted features of the surviving wizard, and despite her anguish she knew that any question from a peasant would only provoke him to wrath. She did the only thing she could in the moment, turning and fleeing from the road towards her home, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.

The rest of the day came and went. Iskra spent most of it crying into her pillow, then when she had no more tears to shed she simply stayed up throughout the night, staring into the warm glow emanating from the gem. Her mother had come to check on her from time to time, doing what little she could to comfort her daughter’s grief and to try to get her to eat something. Iskra’s mind was singularly transfixed on the memory of the woman in red, however, her hero who she would never see again. She would not be turned away from her sorrow, spending the night ignoring the plate of food her mother had left at the side of her bed.

Jored was up early the next day, cursing his luck. Of all the days for an army to retreat, why did it have to be on market day? Once he heard the news of the procession, he had known that day was a wash. He did not relish the thought of sharing the road to Surzula with a lordling likely looking for some hapless victim to heap his anger upon. Jored was considerably older than his daughter, and this was not the first defeated Thayan army he had seen. Armies had marched north for as long as his father’s father could remember. For decades, if not centuries, Thay had attempted to conquer Rashemen, meeting only temporary success or outright defeat every time.

He had decided that he could not afford to lose a second day to bad luck, however. It was typical in Surthay, when an army marches home in defeat, for everyone to observe a week of mourning to honor those who had died in service to Thay’s glory. Jored knew that he could not wait that long, however, for his crops would begin to spoil by then and be worth a fraction he might otherwise fetch for them. Unwilling to sacrifice a year of labor at the altar of some foolish noble’s blind greed and ambition, the burly farmer had vowed to take his produce to market today. All that was left for him to figure out was what to do about his daughter, for Mizri had told him that she had not stirred from her bed or touched her dinner.

Iskra heard the low creak of her wooden door as it slowly swung open, and from the heavy sound of the footstep entering her room she knew it belonged to her father. Despite lying awake nearly all night she had already been awake for some time, staring once more into the depths of her magic gem. Though she did not turn over to look at him, the faint yellow glow carried over her upturned side like the cresting rays of the dawning sun, telling Jored that she was awake. The large man studied her prone form, struggling to think of a way he might rouse her to the day’s task.

A moment later he took a full step into her room, barking at her in a gruff tone. “Get up, girl! The dead do not care for your tears, nor do they benefit from them. But we need you, our family needs you, in town today!” Iskra’s body did not stir, and all that met him in response was an oppressive silence. Seeing plainly the pain she was in, Jored sighed to himself and closed the distance to her bed, pulling a nearby chair with him to sit at her side.

His voice softened noticeably as he lay a gentle hand on the back of her shoulder. “I know you’re hurting, daughter. That you weep for the wizard who gave you your magic gem.” Feeling Iskra’s slender shoulder tense under his hand told him that he was right. “She was kind to give you that gift. Kinder than most I’ve seen.” He paused, for even in the privacy of one’s home, it ran against one’s survival instincts to even suggest some doubt on the notion that each and every Red Wizard, the undisputed masters of their homeland, were benevolent and just, one and all.

Fortunately he did not have to think long on how to backtrack on his last remark, for Iskra turned over in her bed to look at him. She was cradling the gem in her cupped hands as one might hold a baby bird, as though she was afraid it might break if she squeezed it. Her face was a mess, covered in snaking trails of salt left over from countless tears that had come and gone. She was crying once again, lurching forward to bury her face into his lap, her shoulders heaving in silent sobs. Jored, not particularly adept when it came to matters of the heart, could do little other than pat her on the back.

The sun was nearing its midday zenith by the time Jored had finally managed to coax her out of her room. Iskra had driven quite a hard bargain in acquiring her cooperation for the journey to Surzula. A full month off from having to do her chores! Further, to sweeten the deal, Jored had to give her permission to take the wizard’s gem with her to town – to comfort her on the long ride, she’d claimed. By the time they were finally underway with the wagon wheels creaking beneath them, Jored could not help but feel as though he was the first of Iskra’s victims at the negotiating table today. At least, he thought while glancing across the carriage bench at his daughter as she gazed off into the distance, he dearly hoped he was not the last.