Chapter Text
Sometimes—when the son of murder had little interest in subtlety and instead had the fervent idea of exhibiting his worship—he targeted upstanding members of society. In Baldur’s Gate your choices for those sorts spanned far and wide but the concept of a 'cities protector' was one to be eagerly expunged.
Marco Silvern was one of the more popular senior officers that partook in restoring law and order to the city. He was a stern older man, nearing retirement, and he was one who took great interest in solving the recent spree killings that instilled fear into many within the city. Although the man had not gotten very far in deducting the causes of these murders his assumption that it was majorly the work of one very disturbed serial killer was a correct one and Durge wanted to reward his conclusion with the truth delivered to him first hand.
‘Would you like another round?’ Durge asked as they had both finished their pints. They were in the Elfsong, an evening like this one was bustling with punters and all other kinds of rowdy individuals. He made sure he had rented a room upstairs earlier in the day; he had told one of his cultists to do this for him and they passed him the key amongst the crowd whilst he was ordering drinks for his targeted officer.
‘No thank you,’ Marco answered. ‘I’m still on duty.’ He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘So what is this information that you have for me? Mr…’
‘Mr Gerring,’ Durge said, simply pulling out a name at random from his head. He was dressed in ordinary clothes and had let himself go without shaving for the week.
‘Right, Mr Gerring; you said that you might have some information about the recent killings. Please,’ he implored, ‘anything that you might know can potentially help us catch this individual.’
‘Yes, you see Mr Silvern I have only been staying at this tavern for a short while. I was getting ready for rest in my quarters last night and as I was undressing I dropped one of my silver rings,’ Durge waved his hand in front of the Fist officer to show this same ring, ‘it rolled under my bed so naturally I went down to find it, and as I was crawling under the bed I noticed something most disturbing.’ Durge placed a brown paper package onto the table and slid it over towards the other man. The officer unwrapped the package in front of him and as he spied its contents the warm façade on his expression dropped to show what was now concern as he realised he was holding a severed finger. He quickly re-wrapped it with the brown paper and almost slammed it back down onto the table.
‘You should have brought this straight to an officer when you found it!’
‘I tried! But would you believe it the lady I ran to—and don’t take offence to this but she wasn’t very personable—scoffed at me! She told me there’s all sorts of shenanigans happening here at the Elfsong; but I remember reading about one of the recent murders in the papers, It said how the victim was found with no fingers and well… call it paranoia but I say it’s premonition. I think the other fingers are still there… in my room somewhere!’
Marco looked at him with worry, the old gentleman was stroking his beard as he was listening to “Mr Gerring” recount his tale. He seemed to sink into silence for a moment as he was considering his options and after a short while he stood, taking the package in his hands, and he asked, ‘Can you show me to your room? I will need to search your quarters — we can arrange another room for you with the innkeeper.’ Marco was incensed at the lack of reaction from the other Flaming Fist guards, this was exactly the kind of thing he was telling them to look out for. But he was hardly surprised, he supposed. It was a difficult enough job to get the Flaming Fist to act orderly, getting them to be responsive to signs of a notorious killer was another challenge entirely.
Durge sprang up and with a smile he had to try and ensure wasn’t too excessive he ushered the senior officer to follow him to his room.
His room wasn’t too shabby. Far from the more expensive options offered here but it was homely. Durge waved in the officer eagerly as he unlocked the door. His room was situated on the second floor at the very end of the main corridor. It was still early in the evening and consequentially it was quiet; the only noise was carried from downstairs.
‘So it was under the bed where you found the first finger?’ the officer asked and peeking into the package he seemed to mutter confirmation to himself, ‘the index finger…’
‘Indeed,’ Durge responded as he shut the door, ‘I was crawling on the floor at the right side of the bed.’ And he pointed the exact spot out to the man.
‘I see.’ Marco Silvern inquisitively kneeled down on this spot, and with one hand he began to push away the bed. It wasn’t a heavy bed just a single mattress on a thin metal frame and so it moved away from his push quite easily.
This private distraction, enclosed in this room, was, of course, the opportunity that Durge had envisioned in his mind once he decided to do this. The officer was clad in his armoured uniform but he was sporting no helmet. So as the moment began to arise—Marco with his back to the Bhaalspawn and looking down at the floor—Durge had already unsheathed his dagger. It only took an instant to submerge the blade into the back of the man’s head and as Durge forced it in up to the hilt red blood spattered across the crown of his grey-white hair. He was still momentarily transfixed in his earlier position but after Durge gave the man a short tap with his boot he keeled over, now lying in an almost foetal-like position. No exasperation or cry escaped from the old officers lips as he died, just a short gasp of shock. Durge yanked out his dagger from his head taking bits of bloodied brains with it. Then he lifted the man, threw him onto the bed, and got to work.
It was in the dead of night, inside another rented room in the same hallway above the Elfsong, that a group of four individuals—three of which sat amongst a heavy wooden table—deliberated back and forth on matters of business, as people are oft to do during unscrupulous meetings. One of them was a well-dressed dark haired man, stocky and somewhat indiscernible, and he began to talk as if he was merely conducting to an audience completely beneath him. An air of boredom washed over him.
‘I’d say it’s about time we closed this deal.’ He slid across the table a large bag and left it in front of his customer. A shrewd halfling with only one eye stretched open the bag from its elastic and sank her one-eyed gaze inside. An eyebrow lifted as she spied the contents.
He was dealing with Zhentarim. The arms dealer was intimately aware of their love for traps; it was almost as much as their desires for riches and splendour — and those specific needs were only sanctioned in this kind of work with the comeuppance of ones enemies.
‘Just how effective are these?’ She asked, still peering into the bag.
‘You really need ask?’ he scoffed, ‘Oh I can lend you all my assurance but I trust your expert can do so on my behalf.’ He gestured towards a rowdy and older looking gnome that was sat beside her. As she passed the sack to the gnome in question the arms dealer relaxed and lent back into his chair, raising his legs to rest onto the hard table-top.
‘What do you think, Wilbert?’ she addressed her partner who was now resting what looked to be a small spigot in the palm of his hands. He stroked a finger along the side of the metal.
‘These are gas trap components,’ he said, ‘most arduous to set up but when activated I’ve seen them suffocate a room with over fifty people.’
‘And in such a short space of time,’ the dealer added.
‘How many are in there?’ The tinkerers one-eyed partner asked.
‘When fully assembled, a dozen. If you sign the contract I can provide another bagful. And each and all completely reusable if your mages know what they’re doing.’
She glanced at her partner who was now fiddling further into the bag. ‘Looks to be correct,’ he confirmed.
‘I am nothing if not an honest man.’ The dark-eyed gentleman slid a white sheet of paper across the table and placed a pen on top. ‘Sign and I can assure you there will be plenty more to come; at my prices you’ll be able to afford it.’
Keen interest dripped across the halfling women’s face as she read the terms of the contract. But one thing still hampered this. ‘We are tempted, Gortash. But one problem remains — you’re too good. Undercutting our current suppliers will make things end badly for both of us.’
He waved his hand away in an irritated motion, ‘I can assure you they won’t be a problem for long; all I need is a little commitment and I can wave off this threat.’ Gortash’s warming words seemed to placate the halfling and for a moment he seemed confident she was about to commit pen to paper, that was until they heard a shrill and terrible scream seemingly emit from out in the hallway. Gortash’s thug, a half-orc woman, that he had placed by the door exited the room and swifty re-entered, leaving the door open.
‘What’s going on?’ Gortash asked, irritated.
She peaked her head out into the hall once again and returned, ‘seems to be a lot of commotion at the end of the corridor. A woman has fainted.’
Her boss sighed and got to his feet as he noticed more individuals rushing past the open door. As he entered the hall curiously he noticed a small gathering of people by the last room in hallway. He lingered between the doorway for a moment and, once returning into the room, was about to slam the door shut. This was until, to his immeasurable frustration, the two Zhents had seemed to declare the meeting adjourned and hastily said their goodbyes. When Gortash hurriedly asked the halfling when they would next meet she cried out that someone will come to him soon. The two partners left and went on their way down the stairs to exit through the tavern. Gortash cursed.
After signalling for his half-orc to gather their things he too was about to head back home until another array of cries garnered his attention.
‘Murder!’ someone shouted.
‘Oh my goodness! I’m going to be sick.’ another added.
He saw a man distantly in the room, now bent over and vomiting. For some reason he found himself intrigued, so he leisurely wandered down the length of the hallway and asked the small group of people gathered at the door what was happening.
‘They’ve found a body!’ an older woman said and unfortunately for Gortash she was tugging the end of his sleeve. ‘An officer has been brutalised! Oh it’s awful.’ For a minute he was concerned she might even rest her sobbing face onto his chest and so Gortash swiftly brushed her aside and entered the bedroom.
It was a disturbing sight, he hadn’t seen so much blood since his days in the House of Hope. He shuddered somewhat at the recollection. As he walked further into the room he noticed the recognisable Flaming Fist uniform. The body looked to be a man’s, splayed out on his back across the bed. But that was all that could be seemingly identified. Gortash realised with some repulsion that the man’s face was flayed, completely and bloodily removed with no remaining skin or fat clinging onto the red flesh. And this wasn’t some barbaric hack-job either but rather the intricate work of twisted precision. It was as if the officers face had been carefully peeled in one continuous motion.
He had heard about a recent surge in killings, he wasn’t oblivious to change in activity on the streets. Baldur’s Gate has always had its infections of murderous lunatics but this felt like more sophisticated degeneracy, maybe even ritualistic. He took another lasting image of the corpse and then took himself away from the scene.
‘Come, let’s get out of here.’ He signalled to his half-orc servant and the two of them went out back into the night.
‘Oh masterful work milord! Please, do describe the looks on their faces as they found the officers face posted to the front door of the barracks! I’m just dying to know.’
Durge was bored of his butlers inane questions. ‘I don’t know, Sceleritas. I didn’t stick around to watch,’ he spoke as he peeled off his bloodied clothes and carefully folded them into a neat little pile by his feet.
‘Tis a shame that you were not gratified by their cries.’ Sceleritas stood at a similar height to gnomes but was a monster of completely different breeding. His face was pasty white, sunken and gaunt, his mouth with thin and grimacing sharp razors for teeth. His eyes were a beady unnerving shape and all the colour of his eyeballs were blood red. Furthermore, a monstrous beak protruded from where an ordinary nose should sit. Durge thought he was pretty, but he would never, ever, admit this.
‘I’m sure it is but I’ve got more important things to do.’ Durge looked down at his now naked body; they were standing in his bed chambers and as daylight now rayed it’s light upon the city the Bhaalspawn was now preparing to unwind in the depths of the underground temple.
‘I’m filthy,’ He observed.
When there was no response Durge raised his voice in anger.
‘Sceleritas!’
The little scamp jolted at his words. ‘Oh? Yes milord?’ It was as if he had been yanked out of some vivid daydream. Dreaming about his masters escapades no doubt. In his surprise his butler had almost fallen backwards onto his bottom.
‘Run me a bath you wretch,’ Durge spat at him and the butler sprang into action, immediately wording his apologies, trying to placate him with pleasantries. Durge slapped off his minions hat and subsequentially laid a broad smack onto the side of his now exposed head. Sceleritas whimpered and upon his masters commands to ‘shut up’ he scampered off to run his holiness a bath, not before fetching back his hat.
Durge felt the waves flow over him as he submerged his body completely into the scalding water. Soon the officers dried blood rinsed away into pink waves. He felt scattered, as if part of him was unsatisfied with his hunt this night. In actuality everything had gone according to plan, but his current bloodlust was not sated. The old officer put up no fight, a child could’ve shanked a dagger into that measly, ageing, skull of his. Sure, what came afterwards was more complicated, but the taking of life — the intimacy of expunging ones breathing, living, body was short-lived and thus underwhelming. Durge had felt his fathers warm embrace only as a gentle caress. He would desperately need to take more life from the earth as each day passed. He wondered, as he began to feel his lungs tighten, still underwater, if his needs would ever be satisfied.
He rose back above the water in a breathless state of frustration. He was alone in the bathing pool, as everyone knew to keep well away from their leaders private matters. Leaning back against the wall of the bathing pool, with his elbows perched over onto the floor, he reached for a small bell that he always made effort to keep beside him. He pinched hold of it in one hand and gave it a gentle shake.
‘You rang, milord?’ He appeared in an instant.
‘Yes. Be a star and kindly fetch me one of the prisoners, anyone will do. I’m not yet sated.’ To his command Sceleritas had rushed from his side and only moments later the little creature had somebody new brought. Durge glanced at them side on as they entered the room. Sceleritas was gripping onto the arm of a plain looking woman, dressed in rags and seemingly dazed and unaware she was being led to the slaughter.
‘That’s adequate, now begone,’ he said. He waved away his butler and whistled for the woman to come closer, as she did he turned and reached out, clutching his hands around her shins, and the killer threw her into bath with him, leaving a tremendous splash as the waves jolted up into the air. He shortly commenced the drowning, hoping that his only God would find the act as gratifying as he did.