First Snippet/WIP of 2026🖤
HELLO EVERYNYAN!!!
I'm alive, and I'm slowly but surely hacking away at chapter 16 of CIBG!!! Numerous friends tagged me on wip and snippet posts in the past few months and I'm sorry that I haven't been able to share much, but I finally have more to share, and I'm very excited for this chapter, so I hope you enjoy!! Thank you to the lovely people who have tagged me recently, @strixamans @njuta @alliskit @rubyeyebabybat and @roguishcat ! Thank you to everyone who has not given up on me🖤 AND OF COURSE, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!🖤🖤🖤
When Jaheira told him Minthara was a difficult person, Astarion hadn't exactly known what she meant. It is with an incredible degree of irritation that he realizes now that Minthara is a difficult person because she is, in fact, quite similar to him in the way she operates her business. He will have to thank Jaheira for this one later. "Are you sure, then, that there isn't anything else you can tell me about her?" Minthara asks him as they stand side by side under the rain, right outside the abandoned warehouse a forty-five minute drive north of the city. It's dark, and Astarion isn't happy about the state of his hair. "Just like I told you the other six times you asked," he says through a forced smile, gritting his teeth, "Yes, I'm sure." "Hmph." Astarion wonders if the drow ever smiles. Or feels any emotion other than annoyance. "This is where they congregate," she says, lowering her voice as they start walking toward the building. There doesn't seem to be any lights on inside, but he also knows that Araj and her minions would not need any. They're hiding, after all. "The chemist is preparing something. A potion." "I could have told you that without any of this," Astarion whispers. Minthara stops in her tracks abruptly to shoot him a furious look, almost making him run into her. "I've been familiar with the inability of jaluk to listen for a long time, but you seem to go above and beyond in that regard, lordling," she spits. Great. He's paying to be insulted in Undercommon, now. Before he can retort, the sound of different voices coming from the entrance to the warehouse freeze both of them in place. Minthara, as difficult as she can be, is also quick, and crouches under one of the windows on their lefthand side, gesturing for Astarion to do the same. He hides next to her, ears perked up. As Minthara told him on their way here, there are a lot more questionable things going on in there than Araj extorting a few lowly vampire spawns for her own sick fantasies. If she is right, then— That vile wretch is building an army. The voices start quieting down. "Do you know what kind of potion she's preparing, then?" "She has your lover's blood, does she not?" Minthara asks back. The word lover rings in his mind— not… unpleasant. New. He's had lovers, more than he can count. But Lark… Just that morning, when she asked him to not bury things— and burying things has been all Astarion has ever known— what exactly was he about to tell her?
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