DISCLAIMER: I am not Gary Gygax or Ed Greenwood

Prologue

Belshazu gloated as he stepped through the portal in Stygia. It was his most dearly kept secret and precious resource. It was only of the very few portals that was semi-stable and reached into another planar wheel, although it wasn't much of one.

Imagine. Only having three planes and those only separated by good and evil? Where was law and chaos represented? Where were the elements? The forces of life and death?

No. The overgod there was obviously lazy. Why else could he have been preying on souls there for so long without being caught?

How he loved stealing souls from alternative prime material planes. It was particularly satisfying when the souls had never even heard of the Abyss. As it was he considered it only fair since they had a hell. Of course it was against divine law, but he hadn't risen to the rank of glabrezu by following rules.

Besides why should he limit himself? The pansy devils restricted themselves to bargaining with fresh souls. Soft and weak. Using cheap tactics to try and hide the fact they're naturally inferior.

He growled as he remembered the last time I fought in the Blood War. The swarms of arrows and rows of spears. Cowards. Too scared to face him and die the way they should. So lost was he in his memories he barely noticed as he took a familiar path a stepped through another portal into the Bone Castle.

The drop caught his attention and he reflexively activated his ring of flying. He glanced warily around to see if anything inside the enormous cavern had spotted him. As he glided down the portal he came through shrank in size until it was one of innumerable glowing dots in the ceiling.

Belshazu paused as looked down. Actually, while since he was here he might as well steal a few more from the Wall of the Faithless. It's not like they're going any good slowly dissolving in there. Why they might actually be grateful for his heroic rescue.

Laughing as his own joke Belshazu teleported down to the massive translucent wall. His two massive upper arms tore at the wall, digging deep into it's oozing substance. His lower arms held the sack open as he shoveled in souls until it was overflowing.

It was the sound of hoof beats that alerted him.

Here in the realm of the dead only one creature makes that sound. Spectral Riders, the undead cavalry that ceaselessly patrol along the Wall of the Faithless. One on one they weren't a match for a true demon such as himself, but they fought much like the cowardly devils.

Cursing Belshazu closed his sack and started running. If he was lucky he'd be able to make to a portal before too many of them arrived. He felt hopeful when only a half dozen rounded the corner. Looks like he won't take too much damage before escaping.

How he longed to turn around and slaughter the pathetic undead chasing him. He wanted to rage and fight, to stand victorious over their mangled bodied. He couldn't afford too though. More would be coming. A fight would delay him.

Already he was tensing in anticipation. Reminding himself that he needed to ignore the puny blows and keep moving. So deep was his concentration that only instinct caused him to dodge.

He didn't avoid it entirely. The lance scraped along his side, actually managing to wound him.

He lost control.

Belshazu reared back and roared. A nightmare! Myrkul was using flying cavalry now. It was only the one and he was determined that it was going to be one less then he had before.

He braced himself when the aerial lancer came around for another pass. Just when the lance reached him his upper arms lashed out. His pincers closed around the legs of the nightmare and the horse faded into smoke even as it screamed.

The rider tumbled to the ground and he took great pleasure in stepping on him and crushing him into the ground. Serpents made from bones tore trough the ground and attempted to engulf him.

He struggled upwards, his pincers easily cutting serpents in half as he attempted to fly away. He still couldn't teleport, not if he wanted to keep his stolen souls. Besides there wasn't any point in trying to avoid attention now.

The first of the cavalry had reached him and he growled as he charged through them. His greater bulk and strength easily allowing him to toss them aside.

Belshazu cursed when a missed strike tore open his bag. He hesitated but more spectral riders were showing up and soon liches would follow. There wasn't any point now.

Bitter and enraged he fled, never noticing the swirling pool of wild magic that erupted behind him, consuming the souls he left behind.

O oooo - ooo - oo - o - O - o - oo - ooo – oooo O

For Authrar Harpell life was good. She had the wind in her hair the scent of something new and exciting before her. That would have been normal twenty years ago when she was adventuring, but she was almost forty now and long since retired. Further, she wasn't riding a horse but sitting inside her tavern.

Of course Authrar was a Harpell so tavern might be understating it. As far as she knows it was the only purely magical festhall in the realms. Everything edible was generated magically. Mostly from a multitude of items imbued with various Create Food and Water spells.

Early in her career Authrar had noticed each region had it's own version of the Create Food and Water spell. The fair was always fairly simple, but the variety between them was what captured her attention. A few years later along with a ton of research and the Ivy Festhall was born.

Authrar had sunk the majority of her not inconsiderable fortune into her setup so she was quite proud of it's success. The best part from her point of view was the abundance of magical items created an area of high magic. Which was why her lab was located inside the basement.

It was there that she conducted her experiments. While she was primarily obsessed with food by no means had she escaped the Harpell tendency towards wild magic. She just had a predilection towards trying to eat all over her odder results.

This time though she wasn't attempting to conjure some exotic tasty beast. No she was trying to find her husband. The idiot had the gall to banish himself! And just before the annual family meeting! He knows she hates showing up alone! How dare he run away. Again.

Determined to summon her wayward husband back and force him to do the accounting, Authrar carefully worked through her latest ritual. The past three had failed, but the spent magic lingered in the air. Eventually something will work and then she'll be able to gloat about foiling his latest escape attempt.

Authrar chanted fervently as she struggled to focus the ever increasing energy into the ritual circle. This time it was sure to work. She was not about to let him win again.

When the circle started glowing she grinned. Looks like third no, fourth times the charm. Suddenly the circle pulsed and the magic surged throughout the room.

Authrar cackled, it looks like the ritual was working even better then she anticipated! Now all she had to do was record the results. Maybe she can make her husband do that?

The explosion caught her completely by surprise.

O oooo - ooo - oo - o - O - o - oo - ooo – oooo O

I don't remember much of what happened after I died. Maybe it was the shock of actually dying. All I remember was sudden blaring of a truck horn, drifting somewhere and then fear.

A massive figure appeared in front of me. Easily a dozen feet tall with vaguely goat-like face. I actually thought he was the devil. I may also have said that part out loud.

He was definitely not happy about that. I didn't catch much from his rant. I didn't speak whatever language he was using, but I recognized a few words. Tanari. Baatezu.

And I thought no way.

A closer look showed he had four arms. The upper two ended in pincers and the lower two were much smaller and looked almost human. He also had hooves instead of feet. And I realized what I saw.

Glabrezu. A demon from dungeons and dragons. One of the stronger ones too.

Either I have a problem with keeping quiet or he can read my thoughts. He actually chuckled and patted me on the head when I realized what he was. And then I panicked.

Demons only steal souls for one reason. Fuel. Fuel for lots of different purposes but none of them good for the actual souls.

Sadly my powers as a disembodied spirit were horribly lacking. I think I wiggled in his grasp. Maybe. It didn't help that I was not basically a head mounted on the body of a short squat worm.

Yep. I'm a soul larvae.

My struggled accomplished nothing and I ended up being shoved into a sack full of other soul larvae. Being stuck inside a confined space filled with gross writhing forms was not fun. It almost seemed like some kind of weird torture aimed as phobias.

No light, trapped in a small space and covered in bugs. Yep, of such things are nightmares made.

I don't know how long I spent inside the sack. I dreaded arriving even as I wanted to hurry up just to get out. Of course when it does open I'm not freed. No, more souls are piled on top of me along with a disgusting mess of what feels like rubber cement.

When the sack is torn open moments later I leap for joy. Then immediately try to flatten myself to try and hide. All around me are various undead. In the distance I can see an enormous castle made from bone.

Great. I'm in Myrkul's realm and since I didn't worship any of the faerun gods I'm going to be enslaved or used as building materials.

Even though it caught me by surprise I welcomed the explosion of chaotic energy that erupted from beneath me. At least things can't get any worse.

O oooo - ooo - oo - o - O - o - oo - ooo – oooo O

Authrar woke up to the sound of groaning. Not only was she making that annoying sound but so was the room. Horrified realization had her spitting out a passwall as fast as she could.

Pressed as she was fort time she cast it directly beneath her. The magical pit formed just in time to swallow her before her festhall collapsed.

Safe inside the magically generated space Authrar took a moment to grieve. The ritual was working. She could feel it. The only reason for it to have failed was if Barlaam had died.

She was a widow now.

Absentmindedly she dimension doored to just in front of her building. She glared at what she saw. The emergency levitation charms were supposed to support it in case of something like this. Either she didn't use enough or the explosion destroyed some of them.

The building, instead of collapsing, had just sunk down. Now her beloved festhall was partially buried. There wasn't even a door that was usable anymore! And of course seen had seen first hand that the basement was gone.

Widowed and homeless all at once.

Just great.

Annoyed Authrar climbed through a window. Noting while she did so that she was still very stiff and sore. Surveying the building showed that the actual tavern wasn't too bad. Mostly just things knocked over. It was good that it was early. At this time of day only Adanac would have shown up.

"Hey! Adanac! You alright down there?" She really hoped so. Killing the only son of the mayor would be bad for business, accidentally or not. Not to mention he was her little brother.

Family was important. Even if they were boring and normal.

"What in the nine hells happened?" Ooh. That's not good. Adanac usually had the same stoic temperament as their father Darnthel. He only starts cursing when he's really really angry.

"The tavern collapsed. A ritual I was attempting blew up." She hurried on. "Barlaam ran off again. I wanted to summon him back for the annual gathering."

Adanac sighed. He could easily see what had happened. Barlaam was notoriously reclusive and hated anything that even smacked of a party. Authrar liked crowds and always tried to bring her husband with her. Not for the first time he wondered how they had ended up together.

When he saw Authrar climbing through the window, he paused. "Are you sure you should be doing that in your condition?"

Authrar looked genuinely confused before looking down in shock. Adanac felt a headache coming on. Considering he saw her pretty much every day and the leather armor she insisted in always wearing, he was confident she wasn't in the advanced stages of pregnancy yesterday or probably even a few hours ago.

"Hey look at that! I knew Barlaam wouldn't just leave me alone! He really was the best!"

Adanac groaned again, this time in mental pain. Only in his family could finding themselves suddenly pregnant not be a cause for alarm.

Authrar didn't pay him any attention. She was happily humming to her stomach and the baby inside. She was going to be the best mommy ever!

O oooo - ooo - oo - o - O - o - oo - ooo – oooo O

I'm not sure what I expected the explosion to do, but this most certainly was not it!

It actually makes me wonder if a diety is mocking me. Why? Because sitting in front of me was a character creation screen. And not just any screen, but the one from Baldur's Gate.

I'm not sure, but I really hope I'm not going to be a bhaalspawn. That...would not be good. Specifically because pretty much all of them end up dying. And the one I know did survive was the main character of the game.

That game was hard. Sure I loved it to bits and played it through multiple times, but I remember reloading a lot.

I stare at the screen for quite awhile before I notice movement. It's numbers. Counting down. Crap, i'm on a timer.

I quickly select male. I was born male and definitely thought of myself as male. Not changing that.

Race though. I rarely played as a human in DnD. The other races just had too many advantages for me. There were also all those racial classes. I was very happy to see so many options available. I was a bit sad no race with a level adjustment were available, but I guess drow would probably be a bad choice in case I was spawned in a drow city instead of Candlekeep.

I went with sun elf. I love their boost to intelligence and if I am born in a community of them, Evermeet is pretty safe.

The next option was favored class, which let me know I was definitely not using second edition rules. Which was good because it's been a few decades since I had used them.

I of course went with wizard. Casters for the win! At least if I survive long enough. Still, the opportunity to weild actual magic was too much to pass up.

My alignment was already selecte and I couldn't change it either. I guess it's based off my personality though since Neutral Evil is usually what I play as. My only real complaint is that paladins are going to be annoying to deal with.

Now is where I intend to use the bulk of my time limit. Ability scores. And it's set up just like in the game. Ironically the initial spread is the very standard spread of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. So it was looking more and more like I might be a Bhaalspawn. Which I really hope isn't the case. Depending on how it works I could end up a toddler facing Sarevok. Which would be suicide.

I press reroll like mad. Just in case I really need to max my ability scores. Or at least as many of them as possible. I keep an eye on the timer but it actually doesn't take me too long to get numbers I can live with.

It's nowhere near maximum, but it's close enough for me. Strength was my lowest at 13. Constitution was the second lowest at 16, but only because of the racial modifier. Dexterity, Wisdom and Charisma were 18 and Intelligence was the highest at 20.

It feels a bit odd using strength as my dump stat but there is absolutely no way I was going to do that with charisma and piss off everyone I meet. I have to live there after all. Friends would be nice to have.

The skills page let me know I was using third edition rules. Even better I had a lot more points than I anticipated. As in I already had points in almost every skill. And many of them were way higher than the skill cap.

I guess remembering my past life really makes a difference.

Interestingly I notice I don't have any points to spend. I wonder if this means skills are actually just a representation and not nearly as important. Something to consider later on when I have tie.

Appearance and voice where incredibly complicated so I just used the default settings. After all with a charisma of 18 it isn't whatever I end up with will be ugly.

I was a bit annoyed I wasn't allowed to pick my name. I guess I can always change it when I grow up. And that was the last screen. I can't wait to see where I spawn.

And then my world dissolved into red.