Path of Evil Ch. 00 Prologue Pt. 01

This was inspired by the Path of Evil Module for NWN2—little besides character names and abilities are used.

This chapter has no sex, but the second part of the prologue does. I'll try to keep splitting the chapters like that so folks looking just to fap can find the material they want and those looking for story can get that too.

The keep was in ruins. One half of its gate hung from a single rusting iron hinge, leaving an easy passage into the inner courtyard, not that such a passage was required. There were a dozen holes in the curtain wall, permitting easy access to the courtyard. Thurith couldn't tell at a glance if the holes had been punched in the wall by force, or if the locals had merely scavenged the walls for building materials. Either way, it was perfect for his purposes. He'd just have to deal with the current inhabitants.

Kvas appeared behind him, the gnome could damn near disappear, even without the ring of invisibility he'd picked up in the Muzad. With it, he was impossible to find, until he put a blade or an arrow in the target. In the time since they'd left Neverwinter, he'd blossomed from a cruel, if reckless thief, into an assassin with few equals in Faerun. "Well?" Thurith asked without turning around.

"It's a clusterfuck in there, fiends, undead and drow in there."

"Three factions fighting over a deserted keep? Is there something I should have heard about this place?" Thurlith asked, glancing at Caracin. The wizardess was the best educated of his group and she'd suggested the keep as a more permanent base of operations.

"No. Everything is unsettled, and not just on Faerun, the planes and the Underdark are in flux as well, which leaves a lot of pieces scrambling at loose ends as their players were killed."

Thrulith snorted to himself, he may have prayed, when he could be bothered, to the Grandmaster of the Lanceboard, but the wizardess's view of the world as a game was...wearing.

"How are they disposed?" Tan asked. The tiefling ranger was cold as ice, despite his fiery heritage.

"Well, the drow bitch I saw getting dragged up into the light by a whole squadron of imps, shedding armor and screams equally seemed pretty pissed, though I bet the imps were—"

"Kvas." Thurlith said quietly.

"Drow down below, must be a way into the Underdark down there. Undead in the cellar and first few floors, then the fiends up top. Being able to fly helps, I guess." Kvas shot a nasty look at Caracin, who made frequent use of the fly spell to keep herself out of the way of battle, though her spells killed more of their enemy than his blades, the diminutive psycho didn't respect anyone who didn't relish the feel of an enemy's death.

"Drow...been a while since I got to split an elf," Mu'tasin muttered, fingers tapping his chest, halfway between the handle of the greataxe slung over his back and the cock swinging between his legs. The half-orc lived to fuck and to fight. Service with Thurlith had brought him plenty of the latter, but he'd mostly been on his own for the former. Though, with the coin the sorcerer brought in, he had been able to sample the charms of every whore in every town they'd passed through (if not for the favor of his god and his own considerable healing talents, he'd have been dead of disease years earlier).

"I hate the undead. They don't squeal when you stick 'em." Kvas countered.

"Can't say that about the drow." Mu'tasin countered, adjusting his belt ostentatiously.

The two of them fell to bickering about whether drow were better lays than surface elves.

"These devils may now something about my...visitor." Caracin interrupted. Silencing them. "I would...speak with them."

Even Kvas shuddered at the intensity of her voice. Her hatred of devils was well known and she was a creative woman with access to spells that could do damn near anything. "Tan?" Thurlith asked, making the vote official. He was in charge, but his companions had grown mighty in their travels, courtesy cost him nothing and smoothed feathers that could easily grow ruffled.

"We have gained influence and allies, artifacts and wealth, a base of operations would help with that. The location is good. Close to the roads, but not on them..."

"It's three to one, Kvas." Thurlith noted.

"Fine, but I get first choice of quarters once we clean them out."

"Done. Now, what sort of forces are we looking at?"

"I only looked in on the undead, I ain't playing peek-a-boo with the damn drow, or demons, devils and whatever, they got all that nasty magic shit to cheat." Kvas said.

"Caracin, look in on the other two. Tell me about the undead."

"Lots of the meaty ones and bony ones, as well as the green ones. I thought I saw a couple of the see-through ones too. None of the bandaged ones, at least—"

"Wrong climate for mummies." Caracin noted.

Thurlith shot a cool glance at her and she got back to her crying. She believed she was smarter than him, but his power was not to be underestimated, even if he squandered it on necromancy and his attempts to activate the dragon blood which flowed through all sorcerers.

"Was it a lich, or a necromancer in charge of them?" Tan asked.

"I don't think it was either. I watched 'em drag an orc slave of the drow...so I'm thinking what do a bunch of meaty ones want with a live orc? Maybe they wanna eat him or some shit? I ain't missing an orc screaming." Kvas nudged Mu'tasin, but the half-orc ignored the jibe. "They dragged him to a door, opened it, threw him in then waited. You know how dumb the undead are, dumber even than orcs." Mu'tasin tried to slap the back of his head, but the agile gnome dodged easily. "So I sneak in, all invisible like. I'm only a minute late, but he's dead and white as a sheet, not that puke green color they usually are. Looks like someone stabbed him in the neck with needles or some shit."

"A vampire." Tan noted.

"Vampires ain't real." Kvas said, then looked at his comrades. "Are they?"

Thurlith nodded ruefully at his oldest friend in the world. Neither of them had a chance to learn much (except how to fight and who to trust) growing up in the Beggar's Nest in Neverwinter. Thurlith had taken the opportunity to repair his lack of knowledge. Kvas hadn't.

"One, or a nest?" Mu'tasin asked.

"Hard to believe this area could support a nest." Thurlith pointed out.

"Shouldn't be a problem then."

"Indeed not. I have some ideas for that..." Thurlith said, his voice trailing off. The innate power of a sorcerer had served him well as a child of the Beggar's Nest. As a would-be ruler, he needed more than that and so had devoted himself to mastering necromancy and freeing the power of the dragon trapped within his blood. Rather than follow the traditional routes of apprenticeship, study and mastery, he'd chosen to steal his knowledge and murder those who tried to bind him to apprenticeship contracts and force him to learn at the pace of a...well it wasn't nice, but a Kvas.

Though he lacked the focused power that made Caracin so dangerous, he could kill with a touch and his power was not limited to words on a page, you could not strip him of it by stealing a spellbook.

He turned to the wizardess whose eyes were closed as she focused on the tower. It would be some time before he knew what forces the other factions had, but the fact that a single vampire and the undead it could control were giving the other factions a fight made it clear that his party could probably have defeated them all by just marching in the front door and massacring their way up to the top and down to the Underdark. But then he would have a keep full of corpses and no one to clean it up. Besides, what fun would that be? Well, Kvas's sort of fun, but—

His train of thought was cut off, by Tan twitching. His hands flashed in the battle sign they'd learned over their time adventuring together. Something was coming. Something invisible. It was flying, but the tiefling ranger's senses were heightened to absurd levels by his own experience, heritage and the equipment he was wearing. Even without the additional spells Thurlith cast on him each morning, he would have noticed the approaching creature.

Thurlith let his hands fall to the wands hanging from the heavily enchanted belt around his waist. As he took a step back, undoubtedly drawing the eye of their observer, Mu'tasin's hands swept through passes and mumbled prayers calling down his god's favor. A shimmering shape appeared in the air and as it started to turn towards the keep it shuddered, an arrow slammed into each wing. A decidedly feminine scream came from the shape as it tumbled to the ground. Tan and Kvas began to argue good naturedly about which of them had been faster, as the sorcerer sped forward, his spells were geared for close combat, as were his skills.