#act2

Ruh Roh, Shaggy...

Warnings:

Other parts: The list, Prev part, Next part

(3rd person POV)

Minthara held the rag over your lower face tightly. Sure, she was right in thinking you'd call for help, but this was still quite mean of her.

You tried kicking her legs from within your compromising position, but your efforts were fruitless.

The woman held the rag tighter in response; you could feel the oxygen getting less and less.

Your muffled screams and protests were heard only by the drow woman before the lack of air got to you.

You felt an arm encircle your waist as you went slack, the world blurred into a black void as your senses gave out.

---------

"Y/N, sweetheart. Wake up."

A soft voice sounds, and your head feels strangely light.

Your head seems to be on something warm and soft. The lack of any threatening presence you'd grown used to over the past days confuses you greatly.

You open your (e/c) eyes slowly to see... To see your mother.

The woman smiles down at you warmly as your head lies snugly on her lap. Her soft hands card through your hair, just as she did when you were a wee kid.

"There you are. Oh, how I've missed you." She somehow makes her smile even warmer.

The place you're in surely doesn't remind you of home, though.

You seem to be on a floating rock, surrounded by even more floating rocks. The sky was a strange pink, purple, and blue. It doesn't even feel right to be here.

"Am I.. Is this a dream?" You ask quietly, still confused about what's happening.

"Not quite, dear. You're in the Astral Plane. Or, well, your consciousness is. I had to speak to you, darling." Your mother explains softly, her fingers still tousled in your (h/c) locks. The same beautiful shade as hers.

"You're... really my mom?" You ask hesitantly. With all the crazy stuff happening, you at least dared to ask that instead of giving in to the comfort and relief you feel upon seeing your mama.

"Of course, my little Y/N. There's only one of me." She reassures. Your mother sure is being a bit overbearing with the nicknames. Then again, she must have missed you a lot.

"What about the fight at Moonrise towers... Am I dead?" You ask. You must sound incredibly naive right now, as an uncharacteristic amused smile makes its way onto your mother's face.

"Not dead, honey. I reckon you're asleep. But for now, just focus on mama, yes?" The woman caresses your face.

You nod along with obedience you'd long thought lost. You're a teenager, for the gods' sake!

"Theres something very imprtant going on right now, Y/N." Your mother starts, helping you sit up so you could face her properly.

"I've been protecting this plane for a while now, dearest child. I've been summoned to protect the fate of Fearun. But it is a losing battle." Your mother sighs deeply, more defeated than you've ever seen her.

"The tadpole in you... You must have felt it before; it's been attempting to transform you." She continues, her finger coming dangerously close to your eye.

"I suppose so, do you have one too?" You ask in concern, the last thing you needed was your mother turning into a hivemind serving mindflayer.

"No, dearest. But I've been keeping yours from turning you. The same goes for your companions. You're our only hope of winning this battle." The woman answers, tracing your jawline affactionatly. Strange, your mother had never encouraged your adventures.

"I know you must feel its pull, to let it strengthen you. Your instincts tell you to resist it — but my child, you must let it help you. I will keep it from consuming you." She promises, holding both your hands.

"But that's- How did you even get involved with this?" You frown, confused and put off by your mother's strange behavior.

"You ask too many questions, my child. You trust mama, don't you?" She asks with a pleading look.

You nod reluctantly at first, though it quickly turns into a full nod. Of course you do. You love your mother.

"Good. Then indulge in these powers, darling. They're our only hope. You're my only hope." Your mother speaks. It's silent for a second before a large explosion sounds from a faraway skull-looking island floating among the rest.

"I must go now, Y/N. They need me. Be good." The woman kisses your forehead before disappearing into the astral plane, leaving you on the floating rock.

You feel something pull at your skull harshly, and before you know it, you're back in the dark little closet, Minthara having pushed you behind her as someone rattles at the door.

"Gale, blast it open, I don't care." Lae'zel growls from behind the door.

"What if they're in there? Make Astrarion lockpick it." Gale protests.

"Uhm, we're out of lockpick sets, wizard." Astarion huffs.

"If you complain anymore, I'll rip the bones out of your pinky so you can lockpick with those, you bloodsucker." Lae'zel retorts in turn, earning an offended gasp from the vampire.

"Calm down, let's just bust it down. Y/N, if you're in there, move to the back." Karlach suggests as you hear something slam into the door.

The already rotten wood gives out immediately, and Karlach is quickly met with Minthara's greatsword.

"Don't try, everyone in this godsforsaken tower is dead." Jaheira speaks calmly. You look past Minthara at the sound of the new voice.

Minthara hesitates but remains in front of you. Her weapon was held in a defensive manner.

"Is that the kid?" Jaheira points at you. Your beat up party nods in certain unision.

"This child belongs to the Absolute; you barbarians will not be taking them." Minthara announces. Her red eyes narrowed at your friends.

"We had them first, hand them over." Lae'zel practlically lunges, barely held back from a strangle.

Minthara seems to be thinking over the disatvantage that she has, it's one against nine... That's a doomed scenario even for an experienced warrior like herself.

"I will abide by your request under one condition." The drow starts seriously. Now you're curious... Maybe that she can get away alive? Or some crazy blood sacrifice-

"I wish to stay alongside the child until they are properly trained." Minthara announces her singular.. very strange request.

Your expression mirrors that of your friends, as you all stand in relative confusion at her words. That's the last thing you were expecting.

Half the people there seem to be considering it, while the rest (cough cough, Lae'zel) seem ready to snap the drows' neck for even daring to ask that.

"Fine enough, you could tag along, but we expect you to fight alongside us; we will not tolerate dead weight." Gale says with the most confident tone he can muster.

"Who does this man think he is, to talk to me like so?" Minthara practically bristles at Gale's audacity. Cultural differences, you suppose.

"What he says stands for all of us." Shadowheart adds her two cents.

Minthara narrows her eyes but reluctantly lowers her weapon, pushing you to stand next to her and in sight of your party.

"We have a deal, then." Minthara sighs half-heartedly. Clearly, the drow is distrustful of your band of misfits.

You already regret missing these people as Halsin looks about ready to jump you to tackle you into a protective hug, Wyll's already scanning you for wounds, and Lae'zel seems to still be seething.

For whatever reason, Astarion is attempting to play a nonchalant nobleman and failing badly at it.

"Are you alright, Y/N?" Karlach asks you, just in time to stop herself from placing a hand on your shoulder. Once again, forgetting that she's hot as hell, literally.

"Uh.. yeah." You nod awkwardly. It was a disorienting experience to go from seeing your mother to being back in the utter chaos that you call a friend group.

"What have they been doing to you here, cub?" Halsin asks in worry, actually placing his large, and currently bloody, hand on your shoulder. You almost cringed at the warm and sticky texture.

"Sword training." You shrug, half in an attempt to get Halsin's hand off.

Halsin hums in acknowledgment, keeping his hand on your shoulder a bit tighter.

The party had started making their way through the tower after a while of asking you about your stay here. They were convinced you'd been tortured. Having said that they checked the cells in the basement first to search for you.

The newfound silence and the barrage of corpses around the place were off-putting. Most people didn't seem to care. Even Minthara didn't spare her fallen comarades a second glance.

Once you had trudged up every last staircase of this damned tower, you found none other than Ketheric Thorm. He seems unfazed by the fact that his soldiers had been wiped out.

After a long speech you couldn't bother tuning into, he summoned undead warriors to dispose of you all.

Though before they could do much, an aasimar dropped down from the sky, going at Ketheric with absolute fury.

An aasimar... here? You'd never even seen one before. This is bonkers!

"The Nightsong, Y/N. She was stuffed away in a Sharran temple." Gale explains like the fact geek that he is. Then again, the explanation didn't bother you for once, as you hadn't a clue what your party was up to while you were here.

"You've all been to a Sharran temple?" You ask in slight bewilderment as the aasimar mows down from the sky and takes down Ketherics henchmen one by one.

"Yes, Shadowheart was ecstatic." Astarion scoffs as if he's still bitter about being involved. The black haired woman nudges his side harshly in response.

"Stop chatting, we are in a fight!" Jaheira, as you've now been introduced to, reprimands the party. A twisting vine bends to her will in an attempt to attack Thorm.

You hear some grunts of acknowledgment amongst the group as they turn their focus back to fighting.

In the end, Kehthric was forced to retreat to the north-east tower, the stone erupting in a mass of gross flesh. The structure fully encased the gooey-meat like interior.

Mindflayer business, you hadn't a single doubt about that.

The flesh tower was even worse when you were in it.

You don't even get why in the gods' names you had all decided to come here. You were ankle deep in brain mush, there were little brains with limbs crawling around, and it stunk badly.

"This stuff is gross, seriously." You echo what Astarion had whined about moments before, expecting the same eye roll of a reaction. Though your complaint gets met with an apologetic smile from Wyll and Karlach upfront.

"Just a bit longer, Y/N. I feel there's something important down here." Wyll speaks gently. You're honestly gotten quite annoyed with him; he used to be quite chill, though he's resorted to the same patronizing tone as Halsin over time.

Wylls 'intuition' was indeed correct... as you found Mizora, Wylls' demon contractor, in a gross flesh cage. The slimy membrane separating her from freedom was seethrough enough to make her frightened expression known to all of you. Her attempts to hide it were rather pathetic.

"Mizora..." Wyll sighs in distaste. The demon gives a smug smirk back. Pleading to be let out in the least pathetic manner she could muster.

Shadowheart adds in some whispers to Wyll that make the man smirk in turn.

A deal was made for... whatever reasons. You honestly don't know. Lae'zel was busy interrogating you about your stay at Moonrise Towers. Minthara all but glaring at the back of the Gith's head as she insinuated that the drows' care of you was less than pleasant.

The flesh tunnels continued on until you found an underground spot, housing Ketheric and a now recaptured Nightsong.

You had really thought this would be a fight you could shine in, you've been practicing a new spell, you see.

But no, you were left outside the room with Astarion.

My ideas were dry for the end part, ya'll. I don't really like explaining the existing story I'm sorry ToT! Idk play the game.

How I imagine the emperor made up his plan to play your mom. Groomer boss #1.

Also I might try to write a real book in August, I'll see. Also Artfight is such fun! I got 3 attacks and I'm freaking out!!!!

Will now work on asks Xd.

"honestly, i thought i was fully prepared for the threshold in store, stay your pretty eyes on course. i guess i never really faced my fears before. so stay with me because. my body's on the line now, pull the blanket tight now. i can feel the light shine on my face.

My body's on the line now I can't fight this time now. ”

“i thought i was fully prepared for the threshold in store”

Viktor knew he would die young and had been battling death for all his life, he thought he was prepared to die but isn’t truly.

“i guess i never really faced my fears before” Could be interpreted as many things. Viktor although he knew he would die young did everything to save himself, even argumenting himself with the hexcore. By trying desperately to search for a solution he never confronted the fact he simply would have died.

“my body's on the line now, pull the blanket tight now. My body's on the line now I can't fight this time now.”

honestly pretty self explanatory, viktor’s body has always been on the line, always been fighting for life. He might be transforming into the Herald and by doing so fundamentally changing his body, putting it on the line.

As for the blanket it could be a reference of the blanket jayce gave him when they had the “ divorce” . Also a blanket his usually put upon a deceased person…

“I can feel the light shine on my face” him in the intro:

“Did I disappoint you?

Will they still let me over?

If I cross the line?”

I see this as viktor asking jayce if he is disappointed in him, seeing what he is become and what he has done (although not conscious of it, maybe he realized later). “Will they let me stay over” could be referred to a lot of things, piltover for once, zaun for second, and all the other characters for third. Will they let him live there? Will they let him live at all? If he crosses the final line of becoming the Machine Herald.

“Take a seat

But I'd rather you not be here for

What could be my final form

Stay your pretty eyes on course

Keep the memories of who I was before”

Again, very self explanatory. Viktor wouldn’t want his best friend to see him as an unemotional machine that in the name of the “glorious revolution”, his final form, doesn’t respect others rights. Since he can’t stop jayce to see it tho, he invites him to take a seat. To see the monster, and to remember who he was before: the silly, sassy and ambitious scientist jayce got to know over the years.

The true Viktor that now is gone.