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

They say places, like ghosts, have memories.

Everything that touches them leaves an etching, no matter how subtle. Many of them are mere specters lingering silently just beyond the senses, like the remnants of a fading dream passing from memory in the moments after waking. They linger as a distant echo, unnoticed and forgotten by all, until some innocuous thing stirs the memory, a tide receding to reveal the imprint of something normally hidden from view, witnessed most often only by the stars and wind.

"You... You reminded me who I used to be."

The garden north of Baldur’s Gate was deserted tonight, its greenery swaying gently in a summer breeze, dancing to the song of crickets for an audience of none. A star-riven sky shone through the wispy tendrils of drifting clouds, in tandem with a pink moon low on the horizon bathing the scene in a soft, ethereal glow. Torchlight along the parapets of the city walls in the distance accented the silhouetted horizon, moving with the patrols keeping their vigil in these troubled times.

A horse nickered from the other direction, stamping its foot from within a corral, startling a raccoon that was crossing by the fountain. It reared up onto its hind legs, sniffing at the air in the direction of the sound, nose twitching as it wrung its paws together by the silent fountain. Once satisfied that there was no threat, it hopped onto the nearby wooden bench, inspecting the area for any sign of something one of the city’s citizens might have abandoned the previous day for it to scavenge.

The seat, it noticed, was warm.

”Without you here… I don’t want to be here.”

The wind picked up, rustling the leaves clinging to the marble columns of the gazebo surrounding the foliage. The raccoon darted off, unbothered by its failure to find an easy meal. The pale mirror of the still water in the fountain distorted the pale moonlight’s reflection as ripples silently echoed throughout the pool.

There was the old adage, the question of the tree falling in a forest with no one around to hear it. Whether such things were dependent upon being observed was something that perhaps no mortal mind could truly answer with any certainty. And just the same, paradoxically, had there been anyone around this garden tonight to witness the way the wind almost sounded like voices conversing, faint and faraway as they were, perhaps they might also wonder if it had truly happened.

"...chance I don't know that I deserve at a price I don't know if I can live with..."

The greenery stilled. A cloud passed over the moon, dimming the pale glow over the fountain in shadow. The water continued to gently ripple, slowly calming to stillness again through the fading echoes of the wind that had disturbed it. A whippoorwill’s droning cry sounded from the woods far to the west, repeating its plaintive cry without response.

"I promised you..."

A blanket of stillness fell over the garden. The droning chirps and hums of the insects dulled to a whisper as the moon’s reflection on the fountain’s pool solidified, wavering ever so softly with the lingering ripples. Time seemed to stand still, this moment frozen, as though the garden were locked away in another realm, tucked away in the corners of memory. Teardrops lost in rain.

Then another gentle breeze rustled the leaves again. The empty bench was still warm.

”Your memories… aren’t your destiny…”

A young woman once stood before the temple shrine. She folded her hands, bowed her head over a heavy heart.

"Broken Lord.... hear my prayer. I'm.... I'm desperate. I don't know where else to turn right now."

She drew in another breath, shakily, then exhaled more steadily, wiping a tear from her eye as she continued in her murmured prayer.

"Grant me the... the strength to persevere."

"Guide me through these trials before me. Take my burdens on your shoulders and help me to live up to my promise."

"Be w-with...."

She swallowed, her face twisting a bit before she managed to go on.

"Remember his sacrifice at the end of his service, whenever that may be. Honor him as a martyr in your image, that he took my p-place.... i-in... in...."

A shudder overtook her and she covered her face with her hands, and began to weep softly.

"F-forgive me, Sabyn... Gods h-help me... Make m-me strong..."




"It won't bring your family back. No one will learn anything. You'll only be branded as a monster.... and for what?"



"Then let us help you.”





"...There's a monster in all of us, Kassux. The only thing that sets us apart from the real ones is what we choose to do about it."


”It never gets any easier.”



”. . . . .”







The same woman came to the temple many times. She always offered the same prayer, the same supplications, and yet each time she departed, not once did she leave with a lighter burden. Yet her prayers became increasingly sterile over time, the words eventually losing their weight, her eyes shedding fewer tears with each visit.

The final time she came to offer her prayers, there was only one witness to the way she trailed off midway through, unbeknownst to her. And for all she knew, it was not any of the gods.

Her folded hands lowered as she lifted a solemn, unmoved countenance to peer at the shrine that seemed to mock her in its silence, several moons even before the gods themselves were known to fall from their heavenly seats, shrouding the world in chaos.

The young woman stared in equal, measured silence right back, a hint of dejected defiance deep beneath her blank, distant eyes, her prayer incomplete.

As she turned to abandon this ritual she had kept up for a year since it happened, she only muttered a single phrase under her breath.

Once a focal point of merriment and joy in Baldur’s Gate, the posh Lewd Lyre north of the Wide market now stood silent, dim glows in its windows looking forlornly out through the droning rainfall pattering on the merchants’ stalls as they went about gathering and securing the wares they could not peddle before darkness fell. None of the few people out braving the dismal weather tonight gave the building so much as a second glance, barely noticing the way it loomed over them, a silent reminder of better days.

The bricks of the building’s edifice, built out of the city’s interior wall separating the East Gate district from the Palace District, timeless in their warded stillness, shed the rainwater like tears. Its gaunt face continued to watch the dwindling crowd retreat to the safety and warmth of their hearths and families, blissfully unconcerned with the haunted echoes the bricks held back.

The rain could fall forever, and it may never carry away the taint that stained the stonework.