I beat BG2 for about to fiftieth time before I wrote this. I had been meaning to write a BG2 fanfic for a long time but for some reason I haven't gotten around to it until now. I think it has to do with the fact that I didn't know how to make the story my own before this.
There will be very little of the original dialogues from the game. I've written my own since, it's more fun to read and write that way. I'd appreciate some reviews, to let me know how I'm doing. I'm the only person who has read this story and its hard to critique yourself.
Disclaimer: Baldur's Gate and its trademarks are strict property of Bioware and Black Isle. I do not, nor ever will own them.
In that dank prison, devoid of mercy or any semblance of love, Lia gave way to despair. The pitter-patter of the water dripping off the walls, onto the stone floor was like an elegy, constantly reminding her that at any moment he could be done away with her.
She didn't know his name but she knew his face. His awful disfigured face that haunted her dreams. He was the only contact with a living or close to living creature, for at least, in months or weeks…perhaps even years. She didn't know. Continuous torture, fear and pain had made it all a blur.
She did remember one person. His name didn't come easily to her but when it did she looked on it with hate and disgust: Gorion. It wasn't really his fault that she was here. It wasn't exactly his fault that he had died, that would be Saervok's.
He had been like a father, teaching her things that she would've otherwise never known. He taught her how to be a good person; she believed his teachings and had even tried living them.
There was, however, one thing that he had not let her know. She was the spawn of an unholy union between a mortal and Bhaal, god of murder. If she had known would things have been different? Probably not, she thought dismally.
She didn't know why she hated him. The more she thought about how kind he had been to her, raising her and putting up with her tantrums, the more guilty she became.
When she had first been kidnapped and taken to this damnable place she had toyed with the fantasy of being rescued, most of the time she imagined Gorion resurrecting from the dead to save her. When he didn't come, she became angrier. She knew that he was the wrong person to direct her anger at but if not him then who else was there to?
She
could fault herself. She hadn't been strong enough to keep from
being captured. She thought she had been a strong warriorr, even if
there was room to improve. She had taken down ogres and…her
half-brother. She had fought long and hard to keep from being
captured. She tried. What more could she have done?
Her captor,
the man whom performed her daily tortures, didn't seem real enough
for her to hate. She hated what he did to her but she couldn't hate
him. He was nameless, emotionless like a figment of her
imagination or a phantom from one of her nightmares. He frightened
her, there was no doubt about it but there was a sense that none of
it was existent. Like she was living a dream…
She wasn't. The cold knives, cutting into her flesh, always jolted her back to reality, painfully reiterating that this was not a dream. This was her fragile, tortured little reality. He made sure that she remembered that he could end it with a simple swipe of a knife or utterance of a spell, and no one would ever know or care.
Imoen would care if she died, if she wasn't dead herself. Jaheira, Khalid and Minsc might too. This was the first time since her capture that she had thought of her friends. Were they alive? Were they okay? She tried to make herself worry for them but her own survival seemed more important. These selfish thoughts caused her to go into another fit of guilt.
This wasn't how she had been taught to behave! She had been taught to always put others before herself. But did anyone truly put others before themselves? Gorion did, she thought, thinking back to when Gorion died…to save her. She shook her head in disgust: he had shown himself to be an idiot to sacrifice his life for her: a selfish woman.
He probably thought that he would survive. He probably had an ulterior motive, one that benefited him. Every one did. She knew this for certain. Even she, who claimed to be a good and just person, had ulterior motives. She kept these locked and hidden away in her heart, never letting even so much as an utterance of it escape her lips.
She sank to the ground, trying to ignore the slimy, oily substance that she sat in. The slimy liquid coated her clothes and body. She felt even dirtier and miserable than she had before. She pulled her legs close to her body and rested her chin on her knees.
Her cheeks were wet and her vision blurry. It took her a moment before she realized that she was…crying! Had her captivity made her so weak? She wiped her tears away with a grimy finger. The old Lia wouldn't cry. The old Lia would have stood up to her captor and escaped. The old Lia, however, had been killed by the torture, leaving a wretched, scarred little girl. Once her sturdy exterior had been stripped from her she was vulnerable, easier to torture, easier to make scream, easier to scare.
Tears didn't mean that she was weak; it was just a way of coping. It calmed her a bit. She felt better and her thoughts became less bleak.
Where was her captor? He always came around this time for his…experiments. The longer she waited, the more anxious she became. Could he purposefully be dallying with her torture today? Perhaps he was seeing how she would react?
A shriek of pain made its way to her ears and then dissipated into nothingness. She heard many types screams from her cage; Screams of pain, of insanity, fear and anger. She had made many of them herself whenever he would come. Perhaps he had forgotten about her while he was busy with another experiment.
It isn't right, she thought angrily. Then, realizing the irony of this statement, she began to laugh. Here she was, captive in the middle of Toril's equivalent to hell and she was saying that something like her captor forgetting to torture her wasn't right. Nothing here was right.
She was probably a lunatic, a little thing like that making her giggle until she cried. But who was really there to care? Who was there to call her crazy? Who was she to be able to tell if her mind was lost?
She heard the pounding of footsteps echo in the halls, leading to her prison. She forgot a breath. He hadn't forgotten her after all.
The heavy wooden door opened slowly. He stepped through the open doorway. She closed her eyes, even after seeing him almost every day she still couldn't bear to look at him without gagging. The way his face was sewn to his head, the threads interlacing with flesh, was vile to behold.
He seemed to notice this and grimaced slightly, the closest thing to outward emotion she had seen from him. It made him frighteningly human.
He carried under his right arm his usual box of well-used knives of various sizes. They were always clean to prevent infection, no use killing your prisoners when they were still of use.
He soundlessly set the box of knives on the wooden table beside her cage. It had become ritualistic.
The ritual began when he would set the box of knives on the table. Then he would cast a spell on her so that she couldn't move; that part she hated most. It made her feel like she was suffocating, the same feeling she got from cramped spaces. He would then open her cage, yank her out and, begin cutting into he skin wherever he saw fit. After he was done, he would stitch and heal her wounds, throw her back into her cage and walk away. Sometimes she wondered where he went after he was done with her, other times she would rather not know.
No words were ever exchanged between them; there was no need for them. Breaking the silence with something other than a whimper or a pain-induced scream felt wrong.
This time, however, he did not open the box of knives. He only turned to stare at her, his face unreadable. Her eyes avoided his putrid face and instead made their way to the bare, stone wall behind him.
She tried to force her heart to hate him but she found it to be in vain. He showed no emotions, no hatred, compassion, sadness, envy…nothing. How could she hate something that couldn't hate her back? He was like a thing, an intelligent thing but still a thing. She shivered, it was freezing, the cold seemed to worsen with his stare.
"One day you will learn…" He began. His voice betrayed nothing if he felt anything. "One day, god-child, you will learn to be at your full potential of power."
She stared back at him, getting a full view of his face. She winced at the sight but did not turn away. He had broken the familiar flow of things with his words. What did he have in mind for her?
"But for all the power you may earn, remember this: I will always control you. Even if you escape and run fifty-thousand leagues away from this place, I will still control you." The words hung in the air. "Even if you manage to kill me, my memory will hang in the back of your mind for the rest of your life. Thus you will always be in my control." There was no passion or anger in his voice, he simply said this as if fact.
Lia stared up at him. Her mind went blank…numb. Her feelings stopped. A strand hair fell onto her face, blocking her vision, but she made no movement to brush the hair away.
"You are worthless, god-child. You are worthless, pitiful, broken, weak, selfish…and you hang on even still to the idea that maybe, just maybe, you will escape and see, once again, the light of day, free and unburdened by my torture…but my memory will always be there. Your friends…" His voice trailed off.
"My friends…" She said dully. She knew she had friends but thier names, their faces, just didn't come to mind.
"Your friends blame you, god-child. The druid woman, Jaheira, thinks that if you weren't so weak, she wouldn't be here. The girl, Imoen, blames you as well. She hates you for your evil lineage. Without it, she wouldn't be here. The man, Khalid…he blamed you, when he could draw breath to do so. If he had never met you, then he wouldn't be here. The ranger, Minsc, blames you. For without your cowardice, he wouldn't be here. Without you, they wouldn't have to live and die with thoughts of me and this place lingering in their minds.
"If Gorion had never saved you, allowed you to bleed and die with the rest of the Bhaalspawn babes then their lives would be so much better. They secretly wish that you had died that faithful day. They think that you should have to suffer this sentence," He made a quick gesture towards the unopened knife box. "Alone."
In a few sentences this man, still a stranger in her eyes, summed up her deepest fears. He talked of things that she had never been told before but knew in her heart. How could he know all this? What he said rung true in her ears. She was weak. She was selfish. But most of all, she was worthless. She began crying again and she quickly wiped her tears aside, not wanting her captor to see, but soon gave in. What was the point? If she had no respect for her own strength, how could she expect to make her torturer have respect?
He watched her display of emotion closely; one could say that he was interested if he had been another man. On him, however, he was simply watching blankly. It was strange how easily she was broken with a few well-chosen words.
A shrill noise filled the air. It was so sudden that Lia jumped against the bars of her cage, causing it to rattle and shake. She held her eardrums, waiting for the deafening sound to stop.
Her captor stood still, unperturbed by the damnable noise. "The alarm…someone is here…" He mumbled. As if on cue, the door burst open. A man tumbled in; the twin daggers tied onto his right hip clanged together, the sound echoing through the room.
He pulled them out of their sheaths, their sharp edges reflecting the torchlight. His red and black attire consisted of a hood, which he had pulled over his head, so that his hair wasn't visible.
The alarm stopped. Now, Lia could hear the man's footsteps as he walked towards her captor, brandishing his daggers threateningly. Already the words to a spell danced on her captor's lips, his hands crackled with magical energies.
She got a good look of the man, knowing well that he wouldn't survive. Her captor, just from the rare brief shows of power that she had just glimpses of were frightening…and deadly. She gave the man at most a minute more of life.
While inside her cage, she wasn't scared of the impending battle. She was safe there, cut off from the rest of the world. She was a spectator, a role that being born a Bhaalspawn didn't normally allow. She liked it. There was a sense of security, yet she still got to feel the exhilarating sense of adventure. But when the fighting would end, she would go back to having no role other than 'experiment'. She dreaded it, quietly wishing the fight between the two men would last forever…
It didn't. Her captor released his spell; a green ray of light shot from his fingers and struck the man in the stomach. He dropped his daggers and fell to his knees, clutching his stomach. He was surrounded by a green fire. He screamed in agony, his skin peeled away, revealing bone and turning to ash before her eyes.
Lia bit her bottom lip and looked away. She did something that surprised herself though. She looked back. The sight of his agony was strangely…beautiful and yet disgusting at the same time. She disgusted herself.
Her captor stepped over the smoldering ashes of his victim. He walked through the doorway and was gone, gone to see if there were any others. No doubt that if there were, they would meet the same fate as the man.
Lia laid on the floor of her cage, on her back, her hair becoming coated in the same slimy substance as her clothes. She turned onto her side, her cheek now coated.
Despite this, Despite all she was forced to go through or all the thoughts swimming around in her head, she fell asleep, a welcomed retreat.
The door opened, Imoen lightly stepped through, her hair, once red, was now brown, caked in layers of grime, and stringy from disrepair. Her clothes, once well-cared for, were tattered. But the most startling change in this girl was her eyes. Once they had a sparkle, an irrepressible glitter to them, now they were dull, over brimming with sadness.
"I think-I hope-this is where he keeps Lia." She whispered softly.
She glanced around, her stolen torch illuminating the room's dark corners. The light however, revealed bloodied saws that hung from the ceilings from chains. She shivered and looked away, resisting the urge to put out her torch. The dark was more welcomed then the light.
In the middle of the room, beside a wooden table, she saw a cage, Lia's cage…but where was Lia! She panicked, until she walked closer and saw that Lia was there, only lying at the bottom of the cage, asleep.
Before they had been captured, Lia could only go to sleep on a cushy, feather bed. That had caused many problems when they had gone on their first adventure…after Gorion died. Jaheira would continuously scold her for her "pampered ways" saying that as an adventurer she needed to get over it…but she never did, until now…maybe. On the road, she had many sleepless nights; always grumpy in the mornings.
Imoen's lip twitched a bit, as if she were about to smile but she frowned instead. Things changed…Lia changed, most of the time it was for the worst. That was what he had told her. Something gripped her heart and refused to let it go, it was a mixture of fear and defeat. Would things ever be the same? Something inside her said no, something said that it could only get worse from here. She believed it.
"Lia," She said, opening the cage's door. It could be easily opened from the outside, allowing anyone to come in and free the prisoner within it. Her captor must've not been so much of a genius. Then again, how many people ever managed to get to a point where they could free the prisoner?
She opened the cage's door and got onto her knees. She shook Lia as hard as she could, much harder than she meant to, but if she were like the Lia she remembered then she would be able to take it. Lia was the strongest person she knew.
Lia groggily opened her eyes. Someone had opened her cage and come inside. She jumped up and was about to crawl over the stranger and run but before she could, the stranger looked up, straight at her eyes. It was a woman that much she could tell.
"Lia, it's me, Imoen." The woman said. How could she be forgotten? She knew she looked different but not that different.
"Imoen…" She repeated, as if reminiscing. It all came back to her, every single one of her memories came back in a painful flood.
"Lia, you remember me don't ya?" She desperately tried to grasp for something from her former life, something that wouldn't change. Lia sensed this and it annoyed her. Imoen should know better than to lean on her. Lia could barely lean on herself, having Imoen lean on her too would cause her to cave in.
"Imoen…how…did you…escape?" She said croakily. It had been a long time since she had used her vocal cords for more than one or two words.
"There was fighting, they paid no attention to me. They…hit my cell and it opened, and then I escaped." She explained, trying to remember. "Lia, we got to get out of here. This place is no place for us...not with him around." She shuddered.
Lia sat down on the floor. She would get hurt if she left. People would try to hurt her. Here, while she was tortured, she wasn't killed. Life was guaranteed here. People out there would try to kill her. She was too weak to stop them.
Imoen stared at her. "Lia, come on! I don't want to be here! Come on before he gets back." When she saw that Lia didn't make any effort to move she went on to say, "Come on, say something! Don't make me leave you."
"No." She said firmly. She didn't want to die. She needed protection and this was the only place that would give it to her, a bhaalspawn.
"I don't want to leave you here. I couldn't live with myself. But you are making this difficult! Things can only get better from here, if we leave." She didn't believe any of it but she needed something to prod Lia out of her cage. Why did she have to be so damn hard-headed?
Lia was silent for a moment. "I'm coming." She said finally. "Where are Jaheira, Khalid and Minsc?"
Imoen's face twisted when Lia had said Khalid. "Jaheira and Minsc," she said finally. "I have an idea of where they might be…."
Lia stood shakily and walked from her cage. It had been a long time since she had walked more than a few steps. Her cage was so small.
Imoen watched her, silently. She hopped up.
"We need…weapons." Lia said.
"I know where we can find those. Let's just go…"