Excerpt from CH 3 of Corvus: Where Baldur's Gate Forgets to Breathe
“There – do you see it?” Astarion asked gesturing with his free hand. “It’s my favorite little hideaway. A place where Baldur’s Gate forgets to breathe.” Luna squinted her eyes, though as they neared, the shape of it became more apparent. An old tomb, half crumbled away. They neared and, as loathe as he was to admit it, a part of him was excited to show her. He guided her carefully through rubble, beneath cracked columns and a façade that had fallen to the earth centuries before even he was born. When they reached the interior of the small complex, Luna’s breath left her in an awed gasp. The room was circular. A large opening in the half-collapsed roof let in silver rays of moonlight that reflected on the white petals of an innumerable number of moonflowers. Vines covered the entire abandoned tomb. From the columns to the old statues of long forgotten gods, to the open sarcophagus that had been raided eons ago by fools desperate for treasure. Luna stepped away from him, eyes scanning the room. “Oh…oh wow.” “Is that approval I detect?” “You…have…no idea…” She moved deeper into the room, pausing next to a small bunch of moonflowers in bloom. Their aroma was sweet, intoxicating, and even more vibrant the closer she stood to them. On one of the flowers sat a small black spider. Astarion watched as she extended her finger to the creature and, for some unfathomable reason, permitted it to crawl onto her finger. “Ipomoea alba...” she whispered. “…and they’re still in bloom…gods, that’s magnificent.” ------------ “So…how did you find this place? Off-the-beaten-path seems like too generous of a description for this place. It’s…more than that, for sure.” He sighed. “Well. When you spend two centuries in the dark, give or take three months, anyway, you…sometimes wander. And, with senses like mine, on a warm summer night when the breeze rolls in through the harbor, if one catches a whiff that isn’t quite rotting fish carcass, one tends to investigate.” His eyes moved to the moon overhead. Night was fading faster than he would’ve liked, his time with Luna with it. “Some nights…when my master was none the wiser…I’d spend what time I could here. Hiding, I suppose. I learned far too early in my enslavement that hiding wasn’t ever a good option, though. The consequences alone…I wouldn’t recommend them.”
