Another question since I’m reading your fics again!
Is Sceleritas important to Valas? You know, besides being a butler to his unholiness.
He is, though not without a fair amount of contempt! Valas relies on him for the practical things, finds him a source of fascination for his ability to be killed again and again, and is pleased by his fawning. There's no true affection there because he sees Scel as so far beneath him, but that's the way it should be in Scel's eyes, too, no complaints from hs god-given butler about that. I think he'd miss him if he disappeared. (Pre-canon Valas at least.)
carmen loves the temple of bhaal. no matter how good she's managing her trips in and out the city. she'll turn to sceleritas like [frustrated sigh] i can't wait to be home
Some self-shipping doodles. Two I almost fully used some pose references, one partial, the the forth was fully without any refs (aside from pictures for designs for the characters).
Not bothering to draw over digitally so take the messy pencil doodles.
Context: this is a memory within a memory, making the narrative voice for this portion pre-canon Mara despite the triggering event occurring in late Act 3, which is why she wonders how she forgot something.
[Yes, I fucking took a screenshot shot of Sceleritas with godsdamned puppy eyes]
Mara believed that Bhaal was with her from birth—or rather—creation, and only confirmed that fact when Sceleritas first appeared and took her from a cold lakeside in the Underdark, where the fourth family she'd been handed off to had abandoned her to die. In retrospect, she hardly blamed them, she had murdered the three who came before.
She had never asked herself why the butler turned up then, except to take her away from fools who didn't appreciate her talents, and to help. Why he came was nowhere near as relevant as the one, horrible truth she learned.
Bhaal hadn't always been there.
His love had filled her with joy, and those moments, when she was very young, had overshadowed the truth of his long absences. If she prayed, he listened, but the price of his ear was blood.
Always.
Small offerings were unworthy. Little lives did not move him.
Spilling her own blood angered him.
An icy lash, striking her back with his disappointment.
It left no marks, only an extreme sensitivity… to cold.
How had she forgotten?!
She ached for years without him, as the gnomish novelty adopted by a human couple who had hoped she would have clever fingers and a strong work ethic, that she would use hands lovingly sculpted to wreak divine, murderous havoc in order to tinker, to invent, to… create.
How revolting.
In the early years, Sceleritas had visited often, reminding her of her obligations, and praising her vicious kill-count of small animals as a glorious beginning, and a satisfactory means of satiating her fledgling Urge. Because of him, Mara was the only five-year-old at the orphanage in Baldur's Gate who could already read and write, which had ensured a swift adoption. She also became a skilled pickpocket under his tutelage, practicing snatching a coin from various places on his person. He taught her how to make sleeping potions to give to her foster parents so she wouldn't get caught training with him.
The butler also aided her in becoming a better murderer. He taught her where a cut would disable movement in different-sized humanoids, how to conceal a body whilst emphasizing that it was only for now. He instructed her on how she must follow the instinct within but also temper it with caution—until the time was right. These were the secret ways to praise her father, and would change greatly once she reached her age of majority.
Mara had learned by the age of eight that she could bat her lashes at a vagrant no one would miss, offer a chunk of fresh bread, salt pork, or a juicy apple, and they would follow her to a dark alley. She was ever so small and appeared quite non-threatening; the look of shock on their faces when they saw her blade flash never ceased to delight her in those days.
They rarely thought she would truly hurt them.
The ones who did? They had been much more fun to kill.
A slaying felt amazing, but when a fight led up to it? It was even more satisfying.
The thrill… lingered.
Her kills had incorporated swift strikes relying heavily on her size and age inspiring underestimation.
Very rarely, she had erred. She had chosen her prey unwisely.
The first time was enlightening, and it stayed with her, an echo not fully hidden behind the forgetfulness of murderous bliss.
It was twilight in Baldur's Gate, 1222 DR, and the yellow of early autumn had just begun seeping into the leaves of shrubberies. Near the harbor in the Lower City, Mara was flitting back and forth between little stalls that sold slightly damaged food cargo, the fading light weaving orange snakes through her raven black, red-tinged hair. She knew she was being watched, although the one who did so tried to hide it. Even from a very young age, she possessed a hyper awareness of such things. An instinct not merely for survival, but for… out-witting, outpacing, and out-maneuvering, be her challenger foe or friend.
Victory was very important to her. Important enough that she occasionally took unnecessary risks, ignored the advice of her butler, and tested herself against odds no child should have emerged from unscathed.
The man who watched wasn't a long-term resident of the broken-down places in the Gate. Under his dirty, patched, brown coat, his shirt wasn't nearly as stained as it ought to be. His trousers were worn and filthy, but were quite free of the expected rips and snags. His boots were scuffed and muddy, but neither the toe, the vamp, nor the soles had a single hole to speak of. The brimmed hat pushed back on his forehead was only slightly damaged. His stringy blond hair wasn't dirty enough, his uneven, patchy goatee too free of ale-stains and dried bits of food, his pale skin not yet reddened and weather-cracked, and his eyes simply too clear, though he attempted to hide that fact by letting his lids droop often. He had a twisted right foot that he dragged when he walked, grunting softly, but it was either a very recent injury, or a ploy. Again, his footwear had betrayed him. The wear didn't match his movement.
Mara had tested her hypothesis by offering a human boy around her age a silver piece she'd stolen off a shopkeeper earlier that day to catch her a cat and drop it from a short ledge to spook the man who watched her. As she suspected, he jumped as the feline screeched its irritation, and he neither favored the right leg nor did he show any signs of pain when he walked on the foot untwisted.
A plethora of reasons Mara should have chosen a different target revealed themselves in hindsight. He could have been a Fist, a Guildsman, or worst of all, the type whose disappearance would be noticed.
She did not recall if any of those thoughts occurred to her at the time. What mattered was the confrontation she knew he wanted, the challenge his eyes promised. She doubted that she even paused for a moment to contemplate why his eyes followed her in a similar fashion to the way hers moved among those the butler had deemed her lessers, which—if she was honest—he applied to everyone, his fiendish self included.
As the stalls packed up, she waited, secure in a hiding place she could see out of, but no one could see into. Once they'd left, she watched the man's shoulders slump as he glanced about. She knew he was looking for her.
The false vagrant was more dangerous than others because he expected her to fight. Even then, she loosely understood that adults who killed children existed, but her Urge displayed no such selectiveness. It wanted to kill… everything.
Mara should have feared the man, but she didn't. Much like her, he didn't look or act like he meant any harm, and only her keen instincts had alerted her to his aberrant behavior.
She darted out from her hiding place silently, then approached him along a path suggesting she was coming back from the direction that the vendors had all gone.
Evil would be far less effective if it possessed some ontological quality that rendered it unable to pass undetected amongst supposed “decent folk.”
“Hey, Mister?” she began, her eyes large and innocent, clutching two, mostly unbruised apples against her narrow chest as she swayed on her feet ever so slightly.
“Hello, there, little apple-bearer,” he answered in a whispery voice a human child would've strained to hear, but her ears detected every syllable flawlessly. Nevertheless, she stepped closer. Because he wanted her to. He asked, “What has brought your attention to me?”
Mara swallowed, feigning concern as she continued her ruse, “It's… going to be dark out any minute, and… I'm late getting home. W-would you walk with me… just until I get to the streets with more lanterns?”
He dipped his chin and set his clear gray eyes on her as he accused, “Well… aren't you a naughty little apple?”
“I am not!”
She stamped her foot in convincingly childish indignation, scowling at him.
The man leaned back, grunting as he moved his twisted foot. Then he answered, “Naughty little apples tell lies. You're a gnome. You can see better in the dark than I can.”
Her eyes widening again, she stumbled over her words on purpose, “W-well… yes, b-but… I'm small. Just because I can see what's hiding in the d-dark… doesn't mean it… can't hurt me. B-but if you don't want to help, I… I can…” she swallowed again and set her jaw as she declared, “I can make it alone.”
Mara turned away from him slightly, as if to leave, but he couldn't let her go.
“I didn't say I wouldn't help,” he intoned softly.
Whirling, she exclaimed, “Really?!”
“Really,” he replied, smiling at her with a mouth full of unbroken, mostly straight, white teeth. “I can't move very fast, but I will look after you.”
“Slow is fine with me. My legs are short,” she chuckled. As they left the harbor region, she offered him the apple in her right hand and asked, “Wanna share? You can have the nicer one. For your help.”
“Thanks,” he nodded, taking the fruit from her left hand instead. She noted how intently he watched her face as he did so. He added, “You should have the nicer one.”
“Okay then,” she shrugged and took a bite of the apple she'd offered to him, looking him dead in the eye as she did. As they walked, she chewed her bite thoroughly, swallowed, and then inquired, “So… I'm not naughty anymore?”
“I wouldn't say that,” he drawled, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. He crunched into his apple and mumbled with his mouth full, “It's good.”
In a conspiratorial whisper, Mara confessed, “I think the bruised ones taste better.”
With that, she stepped ahead of him into an alley that was almost pitch black. She heard the splat of him spitting out the bite onto the street.
“Couldn't agree more…”
His whispery voice reached her ears at the same instant that he seized her, covering her mouth tightly as he lifted her off her feet, pinning both her arms with one of his.
Two partially eaten, bruised apples rolled into the light.
The man had expected her to fight.
He wanted her to, but only at first.
And Mara fought.
As he moved along the wall as if he, too, could see in the dark, she wiggled her arms, pounded and clawed at his waist with no real comprehension of what the hard thing poking her buttocks through her clothing even was other than a knife hilt she'd somehow missed, let alone what he meant to do to her when he reached wherever he planned to take her. At the time, she only knew that she would not permit him to spoil her offering. His life was hers. He just didn't know it yet. She kicked backward at his knees with the heels of her boots, elbowed at his ribs and craned her jaw open, trying to bite his hand. Then she pushed her right arm in front of her and bent her knee, straining for the knife in her boot, but she couldn't reach it.
“If you stop fighting, little apple,” he sputtered into her ear urgently, his heart hammering between her shoulder blades, “it will only hurt for a moment…. Then you'll like it… I promise you will.”
What was going to hurt?
No one was allowed to hurt her.
NO ONE!
With her darkvision, she could see that he was trying to take her into an abandoned alchemy shop. She'd snuck inside it once before. There were iron cages in the basement for exotic creatures whose feathers, scales and claws could be harvested for potions and spells.
She would not be locked up!
Mara went limp in the man's arms, and he stumbled just a little at the suddenness of it, but it was enough. She flung her head backward with every iota of strength her tiny body could muster. It didn't make him drop her, but it shattered some of his teeth, and in the process, she accidentally came very close to knocking herself unconscious. The back of her head was bleeding.
He had somehow managed to get his hand back over her mouth faster than she could yell, even as he growled unintelligible curses through his broken face.
Mara had no idea what he might do to her, but she knew one, very crucial thing with building terror.
Her blood had been spilt. Her veins were ice.
Father was angry.
She couldn't move her mouth enough to speak, but she tried, and the moment the name fully formed in her mind, she dropped out of the horrible man's embrace onto rickety wooden planks, her thin limbs clacking together like tree branches in a sack.
Mara held the back of her head, turned and looked at him over her shoulder. He just stood there, utterly dumbfounded, his arms limp as blood ran down them from his shoulders, his fingers twitching slightly. His goatee was almost entirely crimson, his front teeth snapped in jagged halves. The sight curled her lips into a smile. It wilted a little when she noticed that his hat had fallen off, and she saw what she'd missed—what would have prompted her to choose a different tactic to lead him away: subtle points at the tops of his ears.
A half-elf.
He could see in the dark almost as well as she could. And he could not be put to sleep by poison. Neither could she when she'd already drunk the antidote, but he'd ruined the surprise!
Even before she saw the dapper gibus appear over his shoulder, she knew who had answered her. He'd expertly cut the tendons in the man's arms, just as he'd taught her how to do. Sceleritas Fel rose to his full height behind her victim-turned-attacker. Unhunched, her fiendish butler was slightly taller than him, his gnarled hand empty of a blade as he cranked his head back by his stringy blond hair and caught his jaw with his other hand, also empty.
Of course! One severed tendon alone was not enough to fully disable an arm. Anger or fear could push the victim past pain and wrest away control. Sceleritas had sliced the tendons front to back, but left his daggers in the back of the shoulders.
Clever butler.
She'd almost chuckled to herself as she remembered him calling this technique: “rendering the sacrifice practically armless.”
“How dare you say such things to milady?!” he hissed. “You shall not touch her. You shall not even know her name!”
As her delightful manservant held the half-elf's jaw, he squeezed the pressure points until his mouth dropped open. Sceleritas shoved his fingers inside and yanked his tongue, making him gag.
Mara stared into terrified, pleading gray eyes as Sceleritas sliced out the half-elf's tongue, took an ample bite, chewed it, bloody spittle dripping down his chin, then spat the masticated muscle onto his forehead with a wet splat.
“Churl! Unfit to be my feces!”
Still holding her attacker by hair that threatened to rip from his scalp, the butler snarled as he buried the blade in the half-elf's groin and left it there. A scream gurgled around the stump in his mouth, choked and agonized. Sceleritas kicked the back of his knees and he dropped, sobbing as saliva and blood bubbled down his chin, a dark red stain spreading between his legs.
In his sweetest tone, the butler encouraged, “Come quickly now, dearest Mistress, before he bleeds out!” He beckoned with one, clawed hand. As she slowly stood, a bit woozy, he offered fervently, “His life is yours to take!”
Staggering slightly, Mara walked forward, knelt, drew her knife, and brought it up under the half-elf's chin. His eyes were glazing over as a little bubble popped in the blood filling his still open mouth. She snatched his goatee, sawed the tail off, flung it at his feet, and pointed out, “You grow an ugly beard.”
To Sceleritas, she instructed, “Lower.”
“Yes, my liege,” he replied with a sharp-toothed grin as he shoved the half-elf down until he was sitting back on his knees.
He whined helplessly, eyes tearing up, as the dagger's pommel struck the floorboards.
Stepping very close to him, Mara looked down her cute little nose into his face as she vowed, her eyes wild with the unshakable faith of a child who knows no better, “No matter how many you have slain, I will slay more!”
As she dragged her blade across his throat, she chanted, “Father awaits thee, churl. Father embraces thee, churl. None… escape… Father!”
She watched the life leave his eyes, and all at once, everything about him that had been hideous was now… beautiful. Moonlight shone through the broken planks of the roof, glittering on his tear-soaked cheeks, and making the blood look like fine silks. Every smudge of grime was a brush stroke. The fistful of coarse blond beard in the pool of blood beneath him was a wondrous prop. The one spot on the hilt of the dagger that the blood had missed caught the light just right.
Clumsy work, yes, but every death crafted in Father's name was… art.
“Bladework most brilliant!” the butler simpered.
Murderous exhilaration crested within Mara and she giggled, wild and free. Then she stumbled and almost fell down.
Sceleritas dropped the corpse in a heap, lunged and caught her in his arms. As he sat down with her on his lap, he exclaimed in dismay, “Oh, dear me, rotted one! Your miserable butler has misjudged the severity of your wounds!”
She felt him moving her hair around and she grunted in pain. He moved one hand up, holding it out a short distance in front of her face.
“Here you are—to bite or stab, at your pleasure, for I must remove a tooth from my dear lady's skull, and… it might pinch.”
Still reeling with the bliss of murder, she felt only the tiniest discomfort as the butler diligently freed her skull of fragmented, foreign calcified matter. Then he draped his large, bony hand over the back of her head gently and whispered, “Vis medicatrix!”
Warm, healing magic spread into her and she sighed.
“Your Sceleritas shall discreetly dispose of the refuse for you. This time. We must get you back to your temporary estate, my lady. You will be missed.”
Mara turned in his lap, leaned her bloody head on his chest, curled her knees up on his legs, and then pulled his right arm tighter around her as she rebutted quietly, “Not yet.”
After a few moments in which the only sound was her breath, the rustle of fabric as the butler stroked her back, and the wind softly rattling a loose roof tile, she looked up at him with wide eyes and asked, “Sceleritas?”
“Yes, Mistress?”
“Thank you… for coming when I called you.”
“I exist to serve you, my tainted angel,” he cooed. Then he scolded sweetly, “You need never thank me!”
“Well… I want to,” she insisted. “You are the vilest of the vile.”
Sceleritas made a small hoh noise and marveled, “How you make a fiendish, black heart flutter with your praise!”
He grinned down at her, his pinched, nigh lipless mouth nought but crooked fangs, a true terror to any ordinary child, but to little Mara, it was a sight fit to make her weep.
From sheer joy.
(I headcanon Sceleritas's “Butler of Bhaal” class as simply a re-branded cleric of Bhaal, Trickery Domain. That's why he has healing spells.)
