The Sorceress of Ramazith's Tower - Chapter 38
Early Morning Coffee
Fic features Lia/Gale, chapter mostly focuses on Bex/Danis Chapter words: Approx 4000
Lia wakes early - it's the start of Cal's last day in Baldur's Gate! After waking next to Gale, a welcome sight she's quickly getting used to - and a short adventure in sheepishness - Lia heads out for a nice cup of coffee and to chat with Bex and Danis before they open their shop for the day.
Lia learns about the hellish first date the pair had, and that sometimes, true love does move a bit faster than some others might wish. Especially in a crisis.
[Read Chapter on AO3] [Read Story on AO3] (content notes: mentions of pregnancy [Bex], general canon-typical discussions of violence and challenges faced in Avernus)
The sun rose slightly faster with each new day. However bright the sun’s light, however, today’s light would always carry with it a shadow.
Cal was ‘leaving the nest’. By the time the sun set on this day, he would be with Lae’zel and the Githyanki in the Astral Plane. Lae’zel’s demonstration last night had shown that she was able to travel to Elturel, negotiate a peace treaty, and have her soldiers dismantle her and her brothers’ childhood home for every abandoned memento in just a matter of hours. Cal had already warned them this would be a longer trip – but what accomplishments could he – and the gith – work while gone.
The first light of dawn was already beginning to peek through the bedroom as Lia awakened from the best night’s rest she could recall in years. If I’d known how comfy this bed was, I’d have taken it for myself months ago. She looked in front of her, noting the back of Gale Dekarios, whose guest room she had once again taken over for the night. Especially with us taking over the tower from Rolan, we need to work out logistics here.
The thought did a small waltz her mind. ‘Us’. ‘Gale and I’. ‘Beloved’. These were the new words that had entered Lia’s life lately that she’d found herself ready to claim. Others would still represented a challenge, a moment of hesitation. “Sorceress”, “First Enchanter”, “Aunt”. Adding to the pile, the word ‘healer’.
Shar’s influence upon the shape of Lia’s magic had left permanent effects, first and foremost among these had been the sustained ability to heal. Healing magic not influenced by primal magic, the raw magic of nature itself, generally required a measure of divinity to enact – and however ironically, the Goddess of Loss’ influence had left Lia having gained the one type magic she’d always wanted most – the ability to heal. To return and snatch away from that very same loss that Shar craved.
The kind of magic that, had she possessed as a teenager, she could have used to save her mother. Or, without Shar’s influence, maybe her family would still be here.
Unfortunately, life is an endless series of what-ifs, and ever-practical, Lia had a full day of what-was’ in front of her. A quick pop in to see Danis and Bex. Magical training. A ceremony recognising her and Gale as the lead mages of the city – an idea that would have sounded absurd just weeks prior. Tavaria had wanted to place an enchantment on the tower’s garden to aid in its regrowth after she departed. And at day’s end...Cal.
Perhaps most dauntingly than the magic or the shifting dimensions of her own life was knowing that in the coming days she’d be standing without either of her brothers for the very first time. Cal, her twin, was heading off with his now-wife Lae’zel and their son to the Astral Plane, to start preparations to form a creche in the ruined out former location of the Sharran cult that had so utterly twisted the shape of her life, of their lives.
The bigger surprise – and that’s a statement when the first surprise is your brother marrying a githyanki and joining her people in war against Vlaakith – was Rolan. He was just going to walk away. From the tower. From Baldur’s Gate. From everything he’d spent the past several years of his life striving towards. Everything he’d suffered under Lorroakan to take as his own.
From the day he’d moved in the week before his tenth birthday, her brother had been ‘head in books’, studying to become a renowned wizard. Everything in his life had been in direct service...to the role he was now freely abandoning.
When faced with the choice between a wizard’s ambition and unquenchable desire to study more, learn more, do more, and to do so from a seat of prominence and respect vs. the unmet need and dissatisfaction of the woman he planned to call ‘wife’; Rolan had chosen his fiancée.
“My brother loves Tavaria more than he loves magic.” As her face tried to blend into the warmth of the pillow once more, a slow but joyous grin crept across her face.
Her eyes turned towards Gale. His messy brown hair, tinged with the occasional bit of grey that drove her wilder than she'd ever dare admit. Gods why did aging have to make men look so distinguished. Lia traced the rise and fall of his chest with every slow breath; followed the trail of soft hair that started on his chest and trailed downwards.
She'd never expected to feel this way about a human.
After taking a moment to drink in the presence of her lover, that impossible man still soundly asleep, Lia crept out of the bed. Cladding herself in the small locket that had been in the box of her mother’s possessions that Lae’zel had returned to Lia, outfitted with a flowy hunter green robe that had been a gift from Tav…from Tavaria…Lia tip-toed out of the room and quietly closed the door, not wanting to wake Gale.
Noting the hallway was still a little dark and slightly chilly for her liking, even with fairly strong dark vision, Lia pulled an unlit torch from a wall. Rather than light the torch with a fire spell, however, she instead cast ‘Light’ upon the physical torch itself, causing it to glow in a radiant blueish-white glow that illuminated the entire room even more vividly than the often unstable light of a torch. Lia’s recent experiences had given her an unease with the shadows that had placed themselves above the warmth and peace a proper fire-lit torch might bring.
Peace, however, was not to be Lia’s this morning as an altogether too familiar static tingle washed over her. In a start, the torch, unlit but still aglow, fell to the ground. Where Lia had stood prior, a full grown sheep once again was now present. The chain of the locket had allowed it to remain mostly affixed to Lia’s sheep form, however she found herself removed from the flowing green robe.
With an annoyed bleat, the sheep began making its way down the hall towards the stairs. At the stairs, it followed the contour of the wall down, slowly and carefully, hooves quietly clicking against the opulent stone floors.
Reaching the portal, the sheep passed through into Sorcerous Sundries. Carefully making its way down, the Rolan illusion automatically activated. “Greetings, valued customer.”
Much as she had once witnessed with one of Gale’s projections, the Rolan greeting holo had apparently had a new message added on, which overlaid itself atop the normal sales pitch.
“This illusion has noted that the entity which triggered it is in the form of livestock. In the event the triggering party is my sister Lia, please tap your hoof or foot-like appendage upon the floor three times.”
The sheep carefully tapped three times against the stone, being careful to avoid other movements lest they overcount. “Hello, Lia. Please find the appropriate spell to reverse the change in the box below. It will teleport to you now. Once you have it, please study the diagram.”
A curled piece of papyrus appeared in front of the sheep. It contained a diagram on how to tap on the coloured stones in a particular pattern. Starting from the top left, the diagram noted one tap on the top-left stone, designated S. The next was on the top right, designated H. Two taps on the bottom right – E, then a tap on the bottom left – P – to conclude. S-H-E-E-P. The animal in front of the hologram let out an annoyed snort, then tapped the stones. Upon hitting P, the sheep suddenly became awash in a rush of pink magic, and it’s form began to glow and reshape. Within moments, Lia was back to normal – albeit wearing only the locket.
With an annoyed sigh, the tiefling woman quickly grabbed a stash of underclothes she had stashed under the counter after the first sheep incident – and was less angered by the sheep than the puzzle. “Gale helped him design this, didn’t he? Mrag, the goal needs to be to get me to stop acting so sheepish, not to torment me when I do.”
Still at least grateful for the counterspell, she thanked the hologram of her brother and came around the desk. Finding a small box, her name carefully written in a tag hanging from the bow, she pulled it out from behind the counter, then turned back towards the Rolan illusion.
Moments later, ‘he’d’ summoned a brand new staff with an orange orb mounted in place by gold, which ran down to the body of the staff, which alternated in twisting ribbons of black and thin streams of gold.
Opening the box was a brand new mage’s robe, olive green with gold embellishments. The design was similar to the robe that Tavaria had gifted her (which itself was based upon a gift Alfira had given Tavaria), but favouring the earth tones dominating most of Lia’s wardrobe. Walking towards a mirror, she checked the fit. It was a little snug in the exit for her tail, but that would be a fairly simple alteration.
For as useless as she herself was with a needle and thread, she knew that Tavaria had, among other things, served as her friends’ resident seamstress during the Absolute Crisis, supposedly even managing to convert a robe that had been for Wyll – at the time a warlock – into an outfit for the significantly slighter Shadowheart.
“You wouldn’t figure the former Chosen of Bhaal for a seamstress, but then again it DOES involving stabbing something repeatedly with a sharp object. Honestly, it tracks.” Lia’s observation amused the empty room, and chiefly herself.
Suddenly the thought registered across Lia’s face that soon she’d need to get things mended or altered elsewhere. Her best friend was moving out right alongside her brothers. Maybe Tavaria could teach her the absolute basics of mending before she left, to not leave her completely in the lurch.
The metal of the door creaked open as she wanted to get a feel for the temperature; determine whether heavy winter clothing would be needed. The air felt mild to her skin, at least by the standards of midwinter. She grabbed her new staff and took off for an early morning walk.
As Lia reach her destination, the smell of baked goods and some sort of pungent brew filled the air. The latter smelled strange to her – like someone had over-roasted a vegetable or bean – while the former smelled purely divine.
Though the store was closed, same as it had been yesterday, Lia could see Bex and Danis through the window and tapped on the glass. A moment’s hint of annoyance on the couple’s face was immediately replaced with joy at seeing Lia outside – and so early. Bex made her way as swiftly as she was able to the front entrance and unlocked it.
As Lia slipped inside – and into an increasingly careful hug – Bex turned and locked the door behind her. “Twice in less than a day. Our early batches aren’t quite ready yet, but I’ve got some day old cookies if you’d like.”
Lia grinned a toothy, freely given smile. “That’d be delightful, Bex.”
As Lia tried to reach for her coinpurse to pay, neither Bex nor Danis would hear of it. The latter protested. “We’ve been over this, your money’s no good here, you know that.”
Lia, almost ritually, began a counterargument. She’d made a couple thousand gold just off of the fight against the Sharrans. Rolan had taken the hundreds of thousands of gold belonging to Lorroakan. Lae’zel and Cal were senior generals of the Gith and had access to their war treasury. Gale was loaded. They had the money.”
Bex handed the cookie, still with a hint of softness and wrapped in a fine paper. “So much coin you made sure we got out of the mudpit, into a proper home, AND got to open our dream. Lia, we could give you AND Gale – and any kids if you and that new man of yours go that route - a free cookie every day for the rest of your lives and not even begin to repay any of the rest of you. It’s the least any of the three of us could do.”
“Kids…by the hells, Bex, Gale and I are still in that ‘getting to know you stage…speak of, how far along are you now anyway.”
“Six months. Right after that foolishness with the Absolute was over, and you, your siblings, and that sweetheart Tavaria got us set up in our new home. Gods Lia, it’s all moving by SO fast. I still remember when Danis and I first met.”
Danis signalled that he could get by for a few minutes without her, and Bex pulled up a chair and sat down, extremely content to be off her feet for a few minutes.
It wasn’t even the kind of storybook romance that existed in cheap copies in any general merchant, but if anything spoke to the couple’s bond, it was that.
Lia had known Danis for years – he’d existed in the periphery of Lia’s circle when they were younger; he’d even met then-teenaged Tavaria a couple of times when the young child bard had been a temporary resident of Elturel.
Danis’ younger sister knew Bex and knew she was single, and pleaded with her to go out with Danis, even if just the once as a pity date. Bex had relented, and agreed. Elturel had increasingly shown signs of rising prejudice towards tieflings by then - but the pair found a nice restaurant delighted to serve them. They’d talked for hours before realizing it was late. Entirely too late to be a lone tiefling woman walking home in Elturel, Bex notes.
Before Bex continued, Lia realized that she’d never heard the woman mention when the story occurs.
“Oh, you’ll find out in a minute. Now, hush you.”
Bex lived closer to the restaurant and had been sufficiently charmed by the wholesome Danis that she’d offered to let him stay with her – in the other room in her small home, mind – but at least within the safety of her home. The pair was awakened hours later to the sound of armageddon itself.
“Shit. No. Do NOT tell me your first date was…”
“The Descent.”
The Companion, the ever-watchful protector of Elturel against the undead, had turned black; had turned into a portal that pulled fractured remnants of the city into the first of the Nine Hells themselves. Horrified, they could see imps and cambions already swarming as the restaurant they had eaten in across the way had been turned to rubble in the carnage.
----
Lia noted that her late mum’s house in the Western Docks District had suffered too much damage to be lived in any more. Lia noted, grabbing hold of the locket around her heck, that Lae’zel had apparently managed to broker peace with Elturel late last night. Any tiefling who wished to return would be allowed, and could reclaim their old homes.
“Ha! Honestly, doubt we’ll see that many takers. A lot of us got set up here real nice, thanks to you, your brothers, and Tavaria – and most of the rest are doing great in Reithwin. Still, it was nice to be offered.”
“Right? Wouldn’t go back if they offered. Baldur’s Gate pinned a fancy title to my head, suddenly Elturel wants me back? Hells no, fuck that and fuck them. Still though, it’ll be in the papers tomorrow. The Grand Du...Wyll...is having a big ceremony with Lae’zel and Cal right before they leave. He was in on it, Wyll was. Gobsmacked the hell out of the three of us and Tav..aria last night, it did. They came back with a bunch of old stuff of ours, and of our mum’s. Including Rolan’s old magic books, a note from mum to me, and apparently an old locket of hers, this one here I got on.”
“Gods, that’s...that’s beautiful Lia. And it was just sitting there, in the rubble of your house? Which a small army of githyanki raided and brought back? That’s…” “Ridiculous, innit?” “The most absurd thing I’ve ever heard, and if I hadn’t met Lae’zel I wouldn’t believe it.”
Lia held up her hands in apology. “I just realised I interrupted your story Bex. Keep going. Avernus was...a bad time, but I’ve met the two of you and I think this is going to be a whopper.”
Danis turned from the nearly done baked goods to remind Bex about ‘the devil’.
A devil had offered Danis a deal – become his servant, and he would personally return Bex to this plane and guarantee that no harm, nor any premature illness, injury, or death would come to her.
By this point – an hour in the hells might as well have been worth a year in the regular plane - the pair knew they were clearly in love. Instead of the Devil’s deal, Bex had noticed a piece of sharp metal caught in one of the many fires that raged across the city. As Danis stalled the devil, Bex picked up the iron shard, and ran it through the devil’s back hard as she could and pierced whatever approximated it’s heart. It collapsed in true death – a devil’s death in Avernus is always it’s final one.”
“Holy damn! Way to go Bex! So wait, you two knew it was love the minute you wound up in Avernus together?”
Bex pat Lia on the hand. “Knew we’d need to stick together anyway, he was cute, he was kind, and he was great at keeping the devil talking while I ran it through. Honestly he was pretty much everything I ever wanted in a man. Anyway, we kept surviving Avernus together, and when Elturel was returned, knew we’d strike out on the road together. He proposed to me at the same time the non-tiefling Hellriders were trying to force us all out of the city at sword-point.”
“You two are delightful, but Avernus was gone for just a few weeks. Longest bloody weeks of my life, aged me ten years, but it was weeks all the same. How’d you know?”
Danis sat some warm muffins on the table, cautioning the two women they were still too hot, even for a tiefling. He then noted that “we’d literally been to hell and back, Lia. At least one of them anyway. We’d survived it, together. I knew the second I watched her run that devil through that I wanted to marry her; by the time we got back from Avernus I knew I never wanted her away from my side. Gods, that time in Moonrise that I…best not speak of that, actually.”
Bex suddenly realized a secret existed between she and Danis. “Lia, what happened at Moonrise.”
Danis let out a loud breath, then nodded at Lia to tell her.
“Bex, he BEGGED Tavaria and Gale and Lae’zel to make sure you got to Baldur’s Gate safely. Escort you in person, have you travel with them, whatever it took. In the moment he thought it was the end, the only thing he wanted was to make sure you were okay. All four of us, we were hours away from our ends at the hands of that damned necromancer, and all he could think of was keeping you safe.”
Bex beamed a knowing grin. “Of course he did. You know it’s interesting, because I was there the night after they rescued your brother, Tavaria and her friends, and were planning to raid the tower to get the four of you back. I trusted her to do what she could, though I didn’t have a lot of hope, but what surprised me was him.”
Lia looked confused for a moment before answering her own question. Gale.
“I don’t understand a lot of what they were talking about, but I know that look, Lia. It was on Tavaria’a face too as she worried over a half-drunk Rolan who’d nearly died in the shadows. Come to think of it, I think the gith had the same look. The same look I saw on Danis’ face in Avernus. Gods, Lia, I know that time was a nightmare for you...but I’ve never been prouder of Danis.
In the fires of Avernus, the pair had grown bonded. Always keen to let another do the fighting when necessary, but Danis would be damned, quite literally, before he’d let a single cambion touch Bex.
It was the same defiance and concern for her that had led to him standing with Lia, Cal, and Lakrissa against the Absolute Cult months later.
Danis interjected once more. “And then my love, my impossible love, she sent your impossible loves to rescue you. First Tavaria rescuing Rolan from the Shadows. Then Gale and Lae’zel charging in with a head of steam to save you and Cal. And Dammon went running after Karlach when she had to go back to Avernus. Love makes fools of us all, but that we sit here in a city we own a house in, in a business we own, with you the new First Enchanter – with a story like that, I’ll make myself a fool every time. “
“Speaking of fools in love, Cal leaves today. My baby brother, married if you can believe it, and there’s something I’d like to do for him.”
Lia passed on her knowledge of the fried dough with cinnamon they’d encountered in the upper city. “Now, I’m not saying ‘rip it off’, but I think there’s something there.”
Bex thought, brainstorming. If the Upper City dough sticks were deep fried to an almost crispy level…perhaps some type of ring shape. She had a sugary frosting she wanted to try out. If they made circular almost pancakes, they could cut out the centre bit before frying. Flash-fry the rings, then the cut-out leftover “holes”. Frost them or apply sugar or spices or whatever.
It’d need to be workshopped and tested, she reassured Lia, but there was a solid idea there without necessarily ripping off the upper city. She’d need a better name that “dough rings” though. “We can work out the name later. We’ll plan on a test batch at noon, and if it works we’ll bring a few dough rings to Cal’s going away party.
Lia was exuberant. Danis encouraged Lia to try this brew he’d recently learned how to make. “It’s got a few names. Kaethae or kaeth, others just called it ‘coffee’. You won’t believe where I got the recipe, Lia. Go on, take a sip. It’s hot, though.”
Carefully, Lia tried the drink. Her eyes shot open. The nearly black drink had a strong, bitter taste. In an instant, even just after a small sip, she felt slightly more alert, possibly just due to the taste. “People actually drink burned bean water?”
“Apparently there’s a spiced version that’s big in Amn – and apparently in Waterdeep it’s become customary to offer to put cream or sugar into it. I’d imagine that improves the taste somewhat. We’re planning to test it out in Waterdhavian style or plain, and if it catches on, we might try other styles too.”
“Honestly, there’s a certain appeal to trying things from Waterdeep. Keep working on it.”
“Considering who we GOT the Waterdhavian recipe from, that’s surprisingly on the nose, Lia”. Bex noted. “Talked about it while helping with some of the dinner preparations.”
That man. That impossible man.
Bex gave a slightly annoyed nod. “Personally wish he’d kept that recipe to himself but what are you going to do? Really, though, Lia – questionable choices in drinks aside, he’s devoted to you. When you…when you were otherwise indisposed for a couple of days, he was beside himself. We sent over some food a couple of times per day. I know you’re still figuring each other out, really, but I think there’s something there. I really do. I could easily see you walking around in this condition” she noted, gesturing to the baby clearly growing inside her “the two of you are great together. You’d make amazing parents. Or heck, if not the old fashioned way, maybe a couple of adopted kids underfoot?”
“Bex, I know Gale and I have hung around each other a long time, and I know you and Danis had a...short but eventful...courtship...but Gale and I just aren’t taking it that fast. We’re dating, but marriage? Kids? Don’t think so. Besides, if we DID have kids, since apparently I’m a sorcerer and he’s a wizard, damned good chance the kids…”
“Ah so you HAVE thought about it!”