Ch3 - The Gang

The Sword Coast

The landing was rough, metal scraps flew in every direction, nautiloid tanks blew up near me and Shadowheart's pod was on the verge of shattering. Yet despite the obvious danger I was nothing but was a spectator, someone who had no danger imposed on them and I could leave whenever.

Finally though, the floor fell through and (I'm gonna use Shart for Shadowheart because it's easier, but for proper scenes I'll use Shadowheart) Shart's pod slammed into the shore. "You okay?" I fly down to ask her. Her pod door flies open and once again she falls out. "As good as I can be I suppose, though thank you, I didn't get the chance to say it properly but I would be worse off if it wasn't for you."

"Yeh of course no problem, I'm glad you're okay." Suddenly, I hear footsteps approaching from behind. I turn around and see a gleaming white dragonborn with distinctive red eyes and a longbow on his back.

"Were you two on the nautiloid as well? I thought I was the only survivor for a moment there" He seemed to suddenly concentrate on something for a moment before shaking his head.

(A/N - Ascended mind applies for future knowledge and revisited knowledge only)

I didn't recognise him from the game, and that's despite how much I played it since it was released. Pushing the thoughts aside for a moment I could only shrug, oh well, must be a random character. "Well I'm Charles, a ghost. And this is Shadowheart a cleric" I smile to him.

We introduce ourselves for a moment before walking along the coast finding the sigil, the locked door and the intellect devourers. We begun sneaking up on the intellect devourers but unfortunately, one noticed me floating awkwardly above it.

[Illithid ally activated]

'Master!'

'Master!'

'Master!'

Wait a minute, is this related to the boon I got? It seems that since these serve the illithid as food or servants, they serve me the same. I knew it was good but I didn't expect to see it paying off already.

"Guys don't worry about sneaking anymore, I forgot an important detail" I tell Shart and Durge.

"Charles what are you doing? We were going to… crush and slice them!" Durge responded, giving a bit too much emphasis on certain words.

"Well, I forgot to mention, I kind of made a weird deal with some high-up illithid, so now they're not aggressive to me" I gesture to the little guys stupidly bumping into each other, they're kind of adorable.

"Deal? You made a deal with the illithid!?" Understandably, Shadowheart was furious, I'm almost scared to know what Lae'zel will be like.

"Well I died, as you can see." I put my arm through my spectral body. "But I was given the choice, since I read the library of my village, I can sacrifice my knowledge to the illithid, in return the village lives. Or they will just eat the brain of everyone in my village, so I picked the obvious one." I continue making stuff up about why they're friendly and why I'm dead until they're convinced.

****

We continue our journey, I decided to kill an intellect devourer and placed it in my now spectral travel bag. To be studied later of course. We travel up the beaten path to find a skinny pale man with pure white hair looking into the sun. I go first, surprising him with my lack of footsteps, so I accidentally surprise him.

"AH! Oh my word, you startled me!" The man caught his breath and looked at me, from this I could make out the finer points of him. Bite marks on the neck, fangs, blood red eyes and literally dressed like a victorian vampire. I have a sneaking suspicion that this man called Astarion, could be a vampire.

"Sorry about that, we just came from the nautiloid… I'm assuming you did too?" Astarion looked me over with curiosity and oddly enough, sympathy.

"Did you, uh… cease to be from the crash?" He awkwardly breached the subject.

"Nope, just been like this for a little while now. I was passing by in Avernus when I saw it go by and decided to help. Anyway I'm Charles…" Once again we do introductions and he winds up following the group.

Further up the path, we enter the crash landing area with a mind flayer trapped under some rubble. I waste no time and use [Withering touch] on it, placing the corpse in my inventory to dissect later. Further up the path we see an arm sticking out the sigil.

"Hey let me uhhhh…" Durge awkwardly walks forward, almost salivating before snapping out of something and bashfully moving away.

"Right don't know what that was about but… Do you need help getting out of this rock?" I ask to who is obviously Gale of Waterdeep.

"A hand if you don't mind" He responds.

I hesitate to grab, my touch is extremely necrotic. But as a ghost I have some function of telekinesis, utilising that I grip his arm and shoulder firmly to pull him out the stone.

*pop*

Out popped a man looking to be in his early to mid thirties in a purple wizard robe, a quarterstaff and sporting a clean beard.

"Hello, I'm Gale of Waterdeep" Gale the wizard introduces himself. He doesn't seem to care or even notice that I'm literally a ghost, just generally a friendly guy who's seen enough weird stuff to not even care. We finish our pleasantries before journeying on to see Lae'zel caught in a trap by some scared tieflings.

"She saved so many lives today and now she's being captured?" I mumble, yet the tieflings still hear me.

"W-what? But she said she'd gut us if we showed her mercy." The male tiefling responded. He is however extremely correct to be scared as that is something she would do.

"Look, you guys leave, leave her to us and we'll make sure she doesn't hurt you, deal?" I sighed before offering them the deal. Fortunately, they accepted, leaving us alone with a suspended Lae'zel.

"You okay there? I'm getting you down now" I float up and use [Withering touch] to decimate her floorboard. "So, thank you for landing the nautiloid firstly. I get it must have been a hard fight, a good fight though"

"A ghost? What obsession binds you to this world that still allows you to free me?" With no pleasantries, she dives straight into asking me questions.

"I don't really have one, just died recently, and now I wander, it's pretty cool." I give her two thumbs up and bite into the spectral banana in my bag. Once again we recruit a new member, against Shart's will though.