The rain in Luskan was the type that had given up and just decided to be miserable. It clung to everything, making the whole city smell like a wet dog that had rolled in fish guts. Inside The Drowned Rat- a tavern somewhere within, things weren't much better. The air was so thick you could carve your name in it. It was perfect, or so a silver haired man would think.
He was making a silver coin dance across his knuckles, a little island of sharp, white-haired contrast in a room full of sludge-colored drunks. He was bored. The barmaid, a woman who looked like she gargled gravel for fun, slammed a mug down near his elbow. "Drink up or piss off. You're scaring the regulars."
He shot her a grin that was all teeth. "Scare people? Come on lady, Look at this face. This hair. I'm exotic. Shit, I should be charging people extra just for looking at this devilishly handsome face."
"I'll charge you extra if you don't stop staring at Grol's crew" she grumbled, nodding toward a booth shrouded in shadow and bad intentions.
"The lumpy one with the nose job? So his name is Grol… Sounds a lot like Troll… Looks a lot like a Troll… Very fitting." X leaned forward conspiratorially, voicing his thoughts uninhibited as if merely gossiping with an old friend.
"Does he have a good personality at least? Maybe he's packing down there. Otherwise, he's a living proof life is unfair. Too damn unfair" He says, pretending to cry exaggeratedly.
In the booth, Grol and his two goons were hunched over something wrapped in dirty cloth. It was putting out a low, nails-on-a-chalkboard hum that was making his fillings ache. The air around it seemed to shimmer, like heat off a road. Bingo.
"That's the kind of personality that gets people like you tossed in the harbor with their pockets full of rocks" the barmaid warned.
"With my luck and looks, I'd be in a bed of seashells with a mermaid the moment that happens." X let his coin fall flat on the bar. The sudden smack of silver made Grol's crew look up. Showtime.
He sauntered over, weaving through the tables with a loose-limbed grace that was almost insulting. He didn't stop at their table; he slid right into the booth next to Grol, slinging an arm around the brute's thick shoulders.
"Grol! My man! You look stressed" X said, his voice chipper as he attempts to move his arms along Grol's shoulders. Almost as if meant to massage him. "Is it the demanding hours? The low pay? Or is it the eldritch horror you've got over there that's trying to teach the local rats to sing opera?"
Grol shoved him off. "I don't know who the hell you are, but you've got about five seconds to become someone else, pretty boy."
X's grin widened until it looked painful. He started to laugh, a high, unhinged cackle that scraped at the nerves. "Ah so you think I'm pretty? I'm flattered. Can't say exactly the same about you. Five seconds you say? What is up with that generic timer anyways, Is that like the standard for random NPCs? Because my boss," he tapped his temple with a long, pale finger as he spits gibberish the three men can't seem to comprehend. "He's more of a 'right now' kind of guy. No wiggle room. Terrible for scheduling."
One of Grol's goons started to stand up. X didn't even look at him.
"Sit down, chunky. The adults are talking."
He was still grinning when he reached for his collar. A hiss-click echoed in the sudden silence as pure lustrous black plates flowed over his face, locking into a featureless mask. A single, crimson line of light pulsed vertically down the front.
"Okay," the synthesized voice from the mask chirped, jarringly upbeat. "Performance review time!"
Kerberos was in his hands. The twin pistols looked like pieces of a nightmare, all sharp angles and dark metal. They didn't boom. They cracked.
CRACK. The goon who'd tried to stand up was launched backward, a perfect, smoking hole in his chest. He hit the wall with a wet crunch.
CRACK. The other goon shrieked as his sword hand was neatly atomized at the wrist.
X tutted, the sound tinny and digital. "So aggressive. I'm reporting this to HR. This is Harassment!."
He hopped onto the table, his boots splashing in spilled ale, and snatched the humming, cloth-wrapped stone. He shoved it into a pouch on his belt, the maddening hum cutting off instantly.
Grol just sat there, frozen, his hand halfway to his own weapon.
"Ah see that's your shining point! You're smart. Life isn't so unfair after all. Tell you what, Im gonna give you a good reference and severance package" X's masked head tilted as he speaks more gibberish, an outlandish statement most people in this world would fail to comprehend. He seemed to consider it for a moment. "Let's see.. I'm thinking… Darkness."
He shot the lamp.
The room plunged into chaos. By the time someone got another light source going, the booth was empty except for two groaning smugglers and a pool of spilled ale. The white-haired lunatic was gone.
He materialized in an alley two streets away, leaning against a rain-slicked wall. The mask retracted with a soft sigh, and the manic energy drained out of him, leaving a hollowed-out stillness in its place. The high was over. The crash was here.
He stared at his hands, which were rock steady. They always were. He remembered Elaine grabbing his wrist once, right before a raid. "Your hands never shake #$%&#($%, It's creepy." The name felt alien now, a word from a different language belonging to a dead man. He remembered the warmth of her fingers, the calluses on her palm. He remembered the look in her eyes, something more than just a captain checking on her lieutenant.
He squeezed his own wrist, but there was no warmth. Just damp leather and the cold reality of the here and now.
A familiar, invasive pressure bloomed behind his eyes. Not a voice. Just pure, cold data. The universe's most annoying pop-up ad.
X snorted. "Excessive force is the best kind of force."
A beat of silence. Then, the follow-up.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going" he muttered, pushing himself off the wall. He pulled up his hood, the motion weary. The rain didn't bother him. Nothing much did anymore. "Don't get your cogs in a twist."
The road south from Luskan was a ribbon of mud and misery, but it eventually bled into the paved stones of the High Road. Trade caravans, trudging from the northern mines of Mirabar down to Waterdeep, were a common sight. X watched them pass from the shadow of his hood, seeing the same weary dwarven guards and sharp-eyed human merchants he remembered from another life. The names on the caravans were different, the sigils new, but the game was the same.
He finally sought refuge at an inn called The Last Hearth. The name was apt. It stood alone at a crossroads, a bastion of warmth and light against the encroaching wilderness of the High Forest. Inside, it was everything The Drowned Rat wasn't: clean, loud with laughter instead of brawls, and smelling of roasted boar, pipe smoke, and wet pine. A fire roared in a stone hearth big enough to roast a cow in.
X took a seat in the darkest corner, a habit he couldn't shake ever since he was…brought back. From here, he could see the whole room. He watched a halfling family count out their coppers for a meat pie, their children listening wide-eyed to a musician in the corner strumming a jaunty, familiar tune about a three-legged owlbear. He'd heard the same song two hundred years ago. Some things, it seemed, were too stubborn to die.
A young serving girl with straw-colored hair and a nervous energy approached his table. "Something for you, ser?"
X let his hood fall back, revealing his face. He gave her a lazy, practiced smile. "You guys wouldn't happen to serve some Eggs benedict, wouldn't ya?"
The girl stiffened, The name of the food sounded rather fancy and the man was well-kempt and handsome. She didn't know how to respond, in fear that this man might be a noble.
"I'm kidding. Don't mind me. Give me your best seller, and an ale that doesn't taste like it was strained through a goblin's sock." He smiled, a practiced motion that seems to charm everyone in its vincinity.
She blushed, flustered by the sudden, intense charm and the starkness of his appearance. "Yes, ser. Right away."
He watched her scurry off. The inn's main door swung open, letting in a gust of wind and a blast of cold air. A group of four strode in, shaking the rain from their cloaks. They moved with the easy confidence of people who lived and died by the sword and spell. Oh, an adventuring party. X's eyes, which had been lazily scanning the room, snapped into sharp focus.
There was a wisecracking halfling rogue, a quiet elf poring over a scroll even while he walked, and a stout dwarf whose shield was scarred with the marks of dragon claws. But it was their leader who made the air catch in X's throat.
A human woman, tall and rangy, with practical leather armor cinched over a traveler's tunic. Her dark hair was tied back in a messy, functional knot. She slapped a rolled-up map onto an empty table, her voice cutting through the tavern's hum.
"Alright, listen up." she commanded, her tone brooking no argument. "Pip, you're on watch first. Elaine—Elaine—no, not her name. Baelin, you double check the rations. I don't want another 'surprise, it's all weevils' incident."
As if the world itself glitched, the name almost made him flinch. But it was her posture, the way she rested her hand on the pommel of her sword, the sheer, unyielding competence of her presence.
The inn melted away. He was in a tent, the air smelling of canvas and old parchment. Lamplight flickered across a campaign map, illuminating the face of his captain. Elaine. Her eyes, dark and intelligent, met his across the table.
"The intelligence says their main force is here," she'd said, her finger tapping a crude drawing of a fortress. "But you think it's a feint."
"It's too obvious," the ghost of his own voice replied, younger, more earnest. "They're trying to draw us in. The real threat is the pass to the west."
She studied him for a long moment, then a slow grin spread across her face. It was the smile she saved for when he was right. "The pass it is, ^#^$&@$. I'm trusting your gut on this." She clapped him on the shoulder, her hand warm and solid. "Stay sharp. I need you."
He blinked. The memory dissolved, leaving a bitter residue. He was back in The Last Hearth, his knuckles white around his empty mug. The halfling rogue, Pip, had noticed his stare and trotted over.
"See something you like, friend?" the halfling asked, his tone cheeky. "The captain doesn't usually go for the pale, brooding type. Tends to break their hearts. And their noses."
X slowly raised his head, and the haunted look in his eyes was replaced by a lazy, amused smile. He looked at Pip, then let his gaze slide past him to Baelin, who was now watching their exchange with a raised eyebrow.
X pushed his chair back, stood, and walked directly toward the adventuring party's table. He moved with a fluid, confident glide that somewhat drew the attention of the nearby patrons. He bypassed Pip completely and stopped at the head of the table, his gaze fixed on their captain.
"Forgive the intrusion." he said, his voice a smooth, charming baritone. He gave her a slow smile that was pure, practiced performance. "Your friend here was just giving me a friendly warning. I have to ask though. Have we met before? You seem… familiar."
The captain didn't blush or look away. She met his gaze with unimpressed steel-gray eyes and took a slow sip of her ale before answering.
"Wow." she said, her voice dry as dust. "Straight to the classics. I haven't heard that one since a viscount in Amn tried it on me last spring. Is it making a comeback?"
Pip snickered into his mug.
X paused for a bit, before letting out a short, genuine-sounding laugh, completely unfazed."Can't blame a man for trying." He winked.
He leaned a hand against the back of an empty chair, making himself comfortable in their space. "You wound me. Truly."
"You'll survive." The captain replied, though the corner of her mouth twitched. Her hand subtly readying to hold the hilt of her sword. A testament to her senses as an adventurer.
"What do you want, stranger?"
"A name to go with the face I'm apparently not the first to recognize" X said smoothly, his red eyes glittering with amusement. "And to satisfy my curiosity. It's not every day you see someone walk into a room and own it without saying a word. That's not a skill you learn. It's one you earn."
The compliment was delivered so sincerely, wrapped in the package of a flirtation, that it momentarily disarmed her before returning to her senses. She studied him for a second, her expression shifting from dismissal to appraisal.
"Baelin," she said finally. "And this is my crew. Now you have a name. You can go."
"A pleasure, Baelin." X said, giving a slight, almost mocking bow. He straightened up and tossed a gold dragon onto their table. The coin spun, catching the firelight before settling near her mug. It was enough to buy a round for the entire inn. "For your trouble. And for the entertainment."
He turned to leave.
"We didn't get to ask for your name." Baelin called after him.
X paused at the door but didn't look back. "Most people don't." he said, his voice once again just for himself. He pulled his hood over his head and stepped out into the night.
In the sterile quiet of his rented room, he leaned his forehead against the cold wood of the door, his eyes squeezed shut. The charm, the smile, the easy confidence—it all fell away, leaving behind a man trembling on the edge of a two-hundred-year-old memory. He had asked if they had met before. And the universe, in its infinite cruelty, had shown him the face of a ghost.
The lock on his room clicked shut, a sound of finality that did little to silence the noise in his head. The charm, the smile, the easy confidence—it all sloughed off him like a snake's skin, leaving him raw and exposed in the sterile quiet. He leaned his forehead against the cold wood of the door, his eyes squeezed shut.
He crossed the room and laid the two halves of Kerberos on the worn bedside table. The lamplight gleamed on the impossible, non-Euclidean angles of the metal. The cleaning kit was a familiar comfort. He worked with an economy of motion that was hypnotic, dismantling the pistols into their core components. Wiping down the conduits that pulsed with faint, internal light. Polishing the casing that was always, unnervingly, cool to the touch.
It was an orderly process. A predictable one. You take it apart, you clean it, you put it back together. No ghosts. No memories. Just function. It was the only prayer he knew.
Once Kerberos was reassembled, gleaming and perfect, he sat on the edge of the lumpy bed. Time to check in with the big man upstairs.
"Alright, boss" he muttered to the empty room. "I'm here. Lay it on me."
He didn't need to speak, but the habit was ingrained, a small rebellion of personality against the cold, silent machine he served. He activated the interface, and the world dissolved.
For a moment, his vision was filled with a wireframe grid overlaying the simple room. Then came the data stream, flowing directly into his consciousness. It wasn't text. It was pure, unadulterated information, a cascade of schematics, probability matrices, and geographic vectors that his mind had been rewired to comprehend.
An image materialized in his mind's eye. Not a photograph, but a living, moving schematic of energy. It looked like a tree, ancient and massive, but woven from threads of pure, vibrant green and gold light. It pulsed with a slow, powerful rhythm, like a living heart.
More data scrolled past. The treant, a guardian of a hidden grove, had somehow transcended its nature. It wasn't just alive; it was a fountain of life itself. Its song-a form of primal nature magic was causing a localized hyper-acceleration of growth. Plants flourished, animals healed from grievous wounds, and the very air seemed to hum with vitality. A pocket of paradise.
X felt a cynical smile touch his lips. Sounded like a nice place. So what was the problem?
The smile vanished. A tumor. That's what Primus saw. Not a miracle, but a statistical aberration. A bug in the system.
The directive was accompanied by a single, stark image: the beautiful, glowing tree of light, now gray and lifeless, crumbling into dust. The objective was unmistakable.
X stared at the opposite wall, the data stream fading from his vision, leaving only the cold, hard mission parameters. Kill a singing tree because it was too damn good at its job.
He let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh, devoid of any humor.
"You've gotta be shitting me." he said, the words rasping in his throat. He'd killed cultists, monsters, warlords, things that bled and screamed and fought back. Now his divine patron, the ultimate being of order, wanted him to play lumberjack to a magical paradise.
He thought of Elaine. She'd fought wars to protect groves like that, to give people a corner of the world that wasn't soaked in blood and misery. She would have stood guard at the edge of that grove and dared anyone to harm it.
And Primus wanted him to be the one to burn it down.
For the first time in a very, very long time, the weight of the job felt heavier than the weight of his past. A slow, unfamiliar anger began to smolder in the hollow space in his chest.
He stood up and walked to the window, pushing aside the rough curtain. The first light of dawn was breaking, painting the underside of the clouds in shades of bruised purple and grey. The colossal, dark mass of the High Forest loomed on the horizon.
Primus's logic was perfect. Flawless, even. A cancer had to be removed. But X was a flawed mortal himself, at least his life before. the most beautiful things were the most beautifully flawed.
He remembered his own life-the real one, the one that had ended in a muddy ditch. He thought of his crew. Kael's stubborn refusal to ever retreat, a flaw that got him killed. Finn's reckless curiosity, a flaw that led him into a trap. Elaine's fierce, unwavering loyalty to her people, a flaw that made her stay and fight when she should have run.
"Alright" he whispered to the dawn, his brows slightly creased. Perhaps it was from the light or the subtle anger that he himself, doesn't know that is slowly culminating.. "Let's go see this tumor for myself."