Hey-ho Webbies,
Okay I think we have established that I post once every year or two. I’m not going to apologize. I have a happy and healthy eight and five year old, and write more on my long format stories.
So I’m busy.
And not sorry.
Okay maybe a little sorry.
Now that that is out of the way. The short story today is based on a character I made up for a D&D game. Just a little bit of her back story. To be clear this is not for profit. I do not own the Zhentarim, or any Dungeons and Dragons rights. Those are Wizards of the Coast and yadda-yadda more boiler plate. Please don’t sue me!
Without further ado…
It wasn’t like the other healings she had done. Filling up with the golden light of the Sparkling Wit was something that had always felt safe. Her skin would pop and fizz with his amusement, with his pleasure that she was helping her community. Sure BB’s community in the outer city of Baldur’s Gate was human whores and half-elf urchins. But they were good people just trying to get by in a world run by bigger folk.
This healing wasn’t like that. Hours before dawn in her little rented room came the tell tale ratta-tat-tat of someone who worked in the night. Someone who needed her help. Leaving Vex asleep on her pillow, dreaming of cheese, BB peered through a slit in her door. Outside she saw two human men holding a third bleeding figure between them. She only recognized one.
“Wort?” She whispered through the door. The “boy” she had known a mere half dozen years before had grown into a bony, hirsute man. Wort’s eyes darted to his larger companion. The beast of a human only grunted, and looked pointedly at the being slung between them.
“BB? Look, I know it’s been a long time, but please open up! I got a friend who needs your help! Please?” Shrill notes in his voice mingled with the smell of blood.
“Of course, Wort.” She immediately agreed, keeping her dagger in her fist as she opened the door.
“Don’t mind the knife. I always keep one in my hand for night clients, you’ll remember that Wort. You were one of the best window boys we had around here. And it wasn’t that long ago. Six or seven years at tops. But I suppose that you were only fifteen or so when you left to try your hand in the lower city. Old Helm said you were getting ahead of yourself I remember. Just lay him over here on the table lads. Yes sir, old Helm was sure you were going to fail as you hadn’t gone through your growth spurt yet and young boys are always better at window jobs. Were you on a job when this happened? No, no, don’t tell me. I know not to ask, and I don’t want to know…” And in such a manner did the tiny gnomish cleric let the three men into her small room. Directing them to the long low table she kept for just such occasions.
Prattling on as she was wont to do, she checked over the injuries of her patient, barely pausing to take a breath. A large animal had torn his arm part way off. The flesh between his neck and shoulder had a few good bites in it too.
“Hand me that clean cloth there Wort. I need to see how deep this neck wound goes and if there is anything stuck in it. There is a good boy. There’s one time Shandri Greywood’s second youngest stepped on a horse shoe nail. Nasty things. Went straight into her foot. I pulled it out of course before healing, but I guess that terrible pick pocket distracted me unb9rg9. No style whatsoever. Anyway the tip had stayed in and I healed it up with the thing still inside. Stupid rookie move on my part. Gave them back all the money they had ‘donated’ to me, and rehealed the foot after cutting it out. I’ll still shout nail behind her every now and then. Makes her jump and giggle every time. Your friend here looks good though. Nothing inside. You do remember about the donations. Right, Wort? Got to put food in my mouse’s belly you know. May not be able to save the arm, by the way. I should be able to heal him so he’ll live though. It’s just like that one time with the Half orc brute that…” A heavy thud of a fist on the table next to BB’s patient startled her to the point of silence.
“You will save the arm.” Wort’s companion commanded. “He has need of both of his hands for his… talents.”
A familiar old fear from her time on the streets as the smallest and tiniest of the urchins crept in to settle in BB’s chest. Her head automatically nodded to stop the big man from hitting her.
“Talents. Right. Well, can’t waste those. I bet he’s a forger. Looks really bookish. Someone like that would need both hands right? Well, let’s just go and do that then.”
Kissing the resin pommel stone flecked with gold leaf on her dagger, she whispered her pray in gnomish to the Watchful Protector. Instead the fizzy feeling across her skin there was a deep sinking in her chest. A prickle at the back of her neck that told her to run, that this man had no time or temperament for her pranks. Still the healing light filled her hand. The divine power moved down to encase the man on the table before floating off into tiny bubbles of light leaving him whole and BB exhausted.
She watched in the quiet as the man’s eyes fluttered open, and he started, barking in a stern voice, “What happened?”
“Guard dogs Sir. Made of spirits they were. I tried to warn you, but I got you to a healer. The best! BB’s worked with a whole bunch of crews before Sir. Knows how to keep her mouth shut about important stuff.” Wort assured the man almost as fast as BB herself would have done.
The man in blood stained robes sat up from the table with a grim scowl on his face. Lifting a hand to Wort as he glared at the bruiser with them. “She’s chatty,” The bruiser answered the unspoken question. “But stopped herself from asking us what we were doing. She healed you better than Igan ever could. Your arm was damn well half off.”
“A problem?” BB’s patient asked. The prickles on the back of BB’s neck got steadily worse.
The big stranger peered at her with dead eyes for a long moment. “No sir. An untapped talent perhaps.”
“Ah! Now that is something I can appreciate.” Finally the blood-soaked man turned his eyes on BB. Inside their amber depths she could swear she caught a hint of dragon’s flame. “May I know the name of my savior then? I believe Wort said your name is BB?” His commanding voice had turned to smooth honey.
“Carawick Brightbubble Garogel. But everyone around here just calls me BB.” She gave him a tentative smile. “Sir.” She added belatedly.
A cool breeze blew in from the open window, causing everyone’s hair to flutter except the man staring at BB. His hair stayed as still as the grave.
“I’m afraid Carawick, that I have left my purse with the dogs. I will pay you in something far greater however. Go to any open business under the Zhentarim banner and tell them Lord Charilyn owes you a favor. They will get you anything you desire. Does that sound agreeable?”
BB almost swallowed her own tongue. The Zhentarim? The bosses who beat out protection money, and were now a “upright” organization. The tiny cleric quickly agreed.
“Of course. Most generous of you, but are you sure you want me to use your name? I don’t talk about my night clients. It’s just not right.”
The man’s smile widened even further. “Tell the whole city if you wish my dear. Let everyone know I survived the little trap set for me. Now I believe we should take our leave and let rest my dear Carawick.”
With that he stood with astonishing grace, leaving his blood pooled on BB’s table, and swept out followed by the large guard.
“Wort?” BB asked in a trembling quiet voice.
“He’ll keep his word BB. Anything you want. But trust me, think hard before you collect. When they know what you want then they have you. I’m so sorry.” And with that the wiry man she had once known as a boy left.
It was only three days of fitful amber-eyed nightmares later that the harper agent had found her. Did she want to do something positive? Something to make up for healing one of the most underhanded sorcerer’s in the Zhentarim?
BB answer’s filled her skin with pops and fizzes once again. “Yes.”
Keep surfing Webbies, and may all your imaginings be fertile!
–Zenbry
