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blackjackkent · 5 months

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OK, Hector needs a mental break and I don't think we can pursue that thing for Balthazar without passing the point of no return so let's head back out into the Shadowlands and progress some other quests for a bit. We'll finish scouring the Shar temple and move on into the Gauntlet when everything else is cleaned up.

(Hector, in my head, deeply objects to characterizing the REST of the Shadowlands as a mental break either, of course.)

Moving southward from the temple entrance, our first available plot point is the House of Healing, where we're hoping to find something we can use to wake Art Cullagh up and learn something about Thaniel.

Like everything else around here, the place is in a right state. Lots of big corrupted branches growing through windows and into the roof, and everything dark as hell.

Luckily we have our pixie buff so we don't have to worry about the dark so much but it's still pretty unsettling.

There's also someone talking inside, and their dialogue is not doing anything to ease the unsettling vibe.

O.O; I don't like the sound of whatever is going on here.

We enter through an upper floor window but there's not much up there other than a few locked chests, so down we go to see who's making with all the creepy.

Pivoting the camera into the side room before going in, we see this little tableau:

Almost more concerning is the name of the person doing all the talking, who from this distance looks either skeletal or like he has some kind of weird extendo-arms or both:

Thorm, you say? As in Ketheric Thorm?

[sigh] Oh boy, here we go.

Quick look around the rest of the building before going in to confront him. There are a number of documents around which, I assume, go back to the original onset of the darkness corruption (which if I recall correctly was something like a hundred years ago?). It seems that Malus Thorm was in charge of the house of healing around then as well.

And he was (and probably still is) a prick.

Based on other stuff we've learned so far I'm going to guess this was a Selunite hospital before Thorm got hold of it. >.<

And.... oh shit. Wandering into a side room we find two more of our missing tiefling friends. :(

We know Kormira, and her husband Locke who is equally dead in the next bed over. These are the parents of Arabella - the girl we rescued from Kagha's snake back in the Grove. :(

The lady standing over them is named "Sister Lidwin." She looks super undead and is about to get a major talking to, possibly in the form of a quarterstaff to the face.

She's mumbling to herself as they approach. "Don't call the doctor yet! I've got potions...sutures...I know I can do this..."

She starts at the sound of Hector's footsteps, turns abruptly and stares at him - "stares", as her eyes are covered by a thick sheathe of leather and cloth. Her skin is pale, marked with sigils, and mottled with blue necrosis. "Oh," she says vaguely. "You're a patient. This is the children's ward. Triage is back that way."

"That's Arabella's father," Shadowheart says grimly, confirming what we already realized. "Or...*was* Arabella's father..."

"Was" indeed... Hector swallows; as they've drawn closer, the stench of rotting flesh becomes apparent. His stomach churns sharply and he has to take a moment to steady himself. "Why are you treating a dead body?" he asks shakily.

The nurse tips her head as if perplexed. "Not dead," she says, her tone drifty, distracted. "Merely medicated. To ease the pain."

(A/N: Hector has several different deception options here - one monk-specific and one cleric-specific - to agree with Lidwin that the tieflings are not dead. I'm not at all clear on why he would want to do this. Who is he deceiving? Lidwin herself? Or his companions? Anyway, even if we knew why, Hector hates lying, so we won't take those.)

"The patient's definitely dead," he says bluntly. "Been dead for a while, judging by the smell."

But Lidwin just shakes her head firmly. "The patient is asleep. The sedative is quite strong, you see."

Hector blinks at her several times slowly, and then looks at the dead tieflings on the bed. There is no point in arguing this; he's not sure the "nurse" is even conscious of the situation. But damn it to all the hells...these people deserve better than this horrible, rotting grave.

He mutters a prayer to Selune, that she might shepherd their souls to somewhere better. It is all he can do for them for now.

#bjk plays baldur's gate 3 #hector carlisle #well this is upsetting #need to leave it here for right now but more tomorrow

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