Author's Notes:
This is cute, and fluffy. With a tiny bit of gay.
It starts off slow. Have to get the background information out of the way first, of course.
As for your daily dose of SPAM, if you are a member of Facebook and have played Baldur's Gate, I made a Facebook group called The Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, and it is very sad with only nine members, so you should totally join. If you don't have Facebook, you should make one and join the group anyway. And play Baldur's Gate.
And if you ask, I will rant about Mask of the Betrayer.
O.
Having a party that mostly consisted of trained warriors and magic-users always gave Grace some peace of mind in the thick of battle. It was nice, she figured, not having to micro-manage her teammates.
As Grace would run to fight an enemy, she always knew that Khelgar would be right in front of her, sprinting damnably fast for someone with such short legs.
Casavir would always be behind her, ready to heal her if necessary but more so complimenting her own fighting style with his, watching her back.
Neeshka would always slink into the shadows, to emerge behind her opponent with two daggers to their back.
Bishop and Grobnar, oddly enough, often fulfilled the same party requirement – they would stay back, Bishop sniping enemies from afar (usually those that Casavir had on the last legs of life, of course) and Grobnar would sing. They also defended the magic casters, Elanee and Qara, from any enemy that got too close.
So as Grace sprinted into the room Zeearie held Shandra captive in, her broadsword out, she expected this to be the case. And for the most part, it was. Khelgar sprinted off to the other side of the room with a loud war-cry that made some of the githyanki run from him (after which he gleefully hunted them down). Elanee and Qara stood back and flung spells while Grobnar sang.
And outside of the room, Casavir and Bishop were having an argument.
"I am disgusted to be associating with you!" Bishop declared heatedly, clearly upset about something, "Do you have any idea how weird that is for me to say? That's a paladin line right there!"
"Bishop-" Casavir looked like he wanted to ram his head into the stones of this structure.
"How can you? Just, just, how can you?"
"It's a matter of personal taste, Bishop. How many times do I have to say that?"
"It is not personal taste," Bishop spat Casavir's words back out at him, "It's a matter of knowing good from evil! And you are evil!"
"That's not even close to being funny, Bishop," Casavir deadpanned.
"Oh, what, because I'm," Bishop held up his hands and made quotation marks in the air, "'evil' I don't know evil when I see it or something? You'd give me a run for my money. I'm surprised Torm, Tyr or whoever the hells you worship hasn't smited you already."
"It's 'smote,'" Casavir corrected automatically.
"See! Wrong again!"
Meanwhile, Grace and Khelgar found themselves fighting off about three times as many githyanki as they could rightfully handle alone. That's not to say that Grobnar wasn't boosting them with a delightful (off-key, Grace sourly noted) song of champions, or that the magic-users weren't flinging spells, but there was still a damnable lot of githyanki.
Grace felt an arrow go through her plate mail and into her back, shot off by a gith.
"No, it's definitely 'smote,'" Casavir replied, "I think I would know that better than you."
"Okay, okay, fine, whatever. But if you honestly, honestly think that bacon is better than sausage, then I don't know if I can redeem you."
"Are you purposefully choosing these words just to make me feel guilty, or were you a paladin in a past life?"
"I'd like to think in a past life I was a person who appreciated the delicious taste of sausage and waffles, heathen!"
"Would you two shut up and get in here?" Qara shouted back at them, standing in the doorway.
Grace ripped the arrow out of her back, biting off a cry. She drew a spare longsword out from the sheath at her left hip, as she was unable to use her left arm, but as she turned around, a much larger dagger-like object plunged into her back and she was forced down, hard, her head cracking against the floor of the chamber.
"Grace!" Elanee cried, rushing forward.
Neeshka backstabbed the gith that had gotten Grace from behind as Khelgar finished off the last of the gith, his own body covered in gaping wounds.
Qara, not wasting a moment, began using her remaining magics to destroy Zeeaire's defensive portal.
Elanee's hands lit up with healing magic, but she had to abort her attempts when Zeeaire threw off a spell of her own at her. Elanee dodged in time. Grace, for obvious reasons, did not.
"I know that bacon is terrible for me," Casavir admitted, "due to grease, but sausage? What part of the pig is that from? And pancakes are so light, fluffy and delicious!"
"Sausage is obviously from the good part of the pig," Bishop retorted.
Elanee came to the door. "Casavir, Grace's down, I'm out of healing-"
The two men sprinted past her, going so far as to get caught in the door. They pushed their way through the door, both running to Grace's side.
Khelgar inflicted the killing blow on Zeeaire.
Casavir brought Grace's head into his lap, softly chanting to activate his own healing magic.
"You're all idiots," Shandra observed from her cage.
The Sunken Flagon was more crowded than it had been during the entire duration of Grace and company's traipsing around Neverwinter. That suited Bishop just fine, allowing him to still get drunk while not standing out in a crowd.
He watched as Khelgar planted a ham-sized fist into the midsection of a particularly rowdy patron. Duncan, smiling, walked over to talk to the dwarf – Bishop was able to pick up the word 'bouncer' from Duncan's lips.
He took another drink of ale.
He wouldn't admit it, but he was worried about Grace, the only damn woman to, despite all of the threats, like him. Genuinely. It made him a little wary of her mental capacities, but she seemed normal enough.
Even Bishop had to admit that, if Grace had any idea how Casavir was acting, he wouldn't fault her for liking him.
During the six days, Casavir knelt at Grace's bedside and prayed to anyone he thought was listening, particularly Grace's divine patron, Lathander. During the nights, he sat on the edge of her bed, war-hammer at the ready, and prepared himself for the attack he was certain was coming.
"If only he did this sort of thing when Grace is conscious," Neeshka admitted, sitting next to Bishop, "Then all of that sexual tension would so be gone."
Bishop snorted. "Yeah right. Maybe she'd go for him, but he would still act like he's gay."
"Nah, not gay. Sexually repressed. He's so sexually repressed I'm surprised he hasn't exploded."
"Or is so sexually repressed he hasn't just gone around and turned into a prostitute," Bishop added.
Neeshka sighed at that. "Oh, paladins. They're crazy."
Bishop let out a half-hearted snort.
"So, if I get my facts correct," the tiefling continued, "then the reason that you two weren't involved in the fight that Grace nearly got offed during was because you were arguing?"
"Yeah."
"About?"
"Something very, very important."
Neeshka gasped, looking over Bishop's shoulder at something. Bishop turned around.
Her dark red hair messed and falling to her mid-back, Grace shuffled through the room dressed in a pair of pajamas, her eyes still closed. "So I would like some food," she said to her uncle.
"Good morning Grace! Welcome back to life!" Duncan gushed. "Sure, sure, sure, I don't have anything for you for breakfast, on account of the fact that it's night time, but – hey you, stop making eyes at my niece – here, some nice cockatrice for you!"
"Thanks." She sat down at the bar with her plate of food.
"Hey you!" Neeshka said cheerfully, walking over and sitting next to the paladin, "How're you feeling?"
"Like I got shot, stabbed, burned and my skull cracked, but otherwise okay. Oh, and I'm hungry." She started eating. "Get the gang together, please. We need to talk."
Bishop felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.
The 'gang', as Grace called them, huddled together in Grace's recovery room. It was very clear that Casavir hadn't shaved in six days.
"Hi Shandra, how are you?" Grace asked.
"Better than you," the farmer replied, "But Khelgar's filled me in on why I'm here and everything, so… I guess I'm just hanging around."
"Okay, that's fine. Welcome to the team, I guess."
"For the record," Bishop said, calling attention to him, "I'm placing a pot on how long the farmer girl lives. Closest guess without going over gets the money."
Any retort Shandra could come up with was cut off with a loud knock on the door.
Without waiting for an answer, Sir Nevalle came into the already-packed room. "Which one of you is Grace?" he asked, his voice commanding attention.
"Who the hells are you to be just bargin' in here like ye own the place?" Khelgar demanded, axe at the ready.
"I am one of the Neverwinter Nine," Nevalle retorted.
It seemed as if Bishop had something he wanted to add, but Grace chimed in, "I am Grace. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I come from Lord Nasher himself," Nevalle replied, still warily glancing around the room as if he wanted to make sure no one touched him, "Lady Grace, you have been accused of the murder of an entire town."
"You can't murder a town," Neeshka pointed out. "You can raze a town, slaughter the innocents of a town, but you can't murder a town."
"Yet," Qara said gleefully.
"… right," Nevalle said cautiously, looking at Qara as he did so, "From the sounds of it, you have some town-razers," he looked for Neeshka's nod of approval, "but you, yourself, are a paladin, are you not? I highly doubt you are guilty."
She nodded. "So who's accusing me of this?"
"You're taking this awfully well," Shandra whispered to her.
She shrugged. "My vision's blurry and I'm hallucinating still. Right now I see six Nevalles and only one of them is wearing a shirt. I'm not taking anything seriously."
Shandra smiled to herself as she decided to see what Grace was seeing.
"Luskan," he sneered.
"Luskan," Bishop sneered along with him.
"Luskan," came the sneer of a nasally voice in the hallway.
"There are things I scrape off the bottom of my boots I respect more than Luskan-"
"Luskan."
"Luskan."
"-but in this instance, they're right; Ember is gone, and you were there last."
"Have you noticed that the more you say Luskan the less real it sounds?" Grobnar chimed in cheerfully.
"No, no, say it with more hatred in your voice. Luskan," Bishop instructed him.
"Oh, okay! Grrrr, Luskan!"
"Standing behind me in the hallway is a mage named Sand who will help you try to collect evidence to exonerate yourself; after, of course, you speak to Sir Grayson and are knighted. As a squire, you will be exempt from low justice and thus Lord Nasher will be your judge and jury."
"I think I'll be fine," Grace replied, a little dryly.
"Nevalle, if you wouldn't mind moving your exceptionally well-toned derriere out of the way so that I might introduce myself?" the voice in the hallway chided.
Nevalle sighed and moved into the room, coming to stand next to Shandra.
"Well, it looks like we have a packed crowd in here," Sand said appraisingly, poking his head into the room.
"Hi Nevalle," Shandra said sweetly. Nevalle blushed.
"As Nasher-Lite has pointed out, you're going to need to speak with Sir Grayson and get knighted. Afterwards, we will proceed to Port Llast and gather evidence. I will, of course, come with you," Sand said airily, "and we will proceed from there."
Grace nodded in understanding. "All right, everyone but Casavir and Bishop, get your things together and we'll head out."
Casavir's eyes were huge.
"Bishop, Casavir. I understand that two of you hate each other, but until you can work through your mutual hatred, you're not going anywhere with me."
"But I want to adventure," Bishop protested, "I joined up with you because of all the fighting we get to do."
"And I almost got killed because you two were bickering,"
"About something very important," the two of them interrupted her in perfect unison.
"I'll bet."
"Grace, I'll work toward finding some harmony between them," Elanee volunteered.
"Thank you, Elanee."
Later that very same day, the aforementioned left the Flagon.