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In the still dark, early morning hours, you wade through the deep puddles plastering the alleyways of Baldur’s Gate. You could choose easier, more traversable paths, but these dark, shadowy corners are where you move most efficiently. And efficiency is what you need and absolutely cannot miss at this time. Besides, the dirty water slowly soaking you from head to toe does not bother you in the slightest.
After turning another corner, you do stop, however, with an exasperated sigh and take off your slowly falling apart shoes and nonchalantly throw them at the feet of your assistant loyally trotting behind you. You continue to walk, now finally undisturbed.
When you arrive in front of a small, tucked-away house deep in the Lower City, your march through the now almost-flooded streets finally finds its end. You move towards the door; its once bright red paint turned a dull brown over the years of this place, withering away with seemingly no one to care for it. A simple wooden sign with the carving ‘Caldor Langley’ engraved in it is pinned to the door with a nail.
What lies behind a name?
Caldor Langley—a half-elf, son of an elven mother and a human father. Both passed early in his childhood. He refused the orphanage, turning to the streets.
Caldor Langley—a man who barely made a living with the odd jobs he pursued. And yet, after years of spending his nights under the stars, he made enough to purchase a humble abode in another borough of the city not long ago.
Caldor Langley—a name not known in the city. A name no one in a crowd will turn for. Not entirely unlike yourself. Perhaps that is why you chose him? Or was it truly just the right circumstances at the right time?
Caldor Langley—a name that you now carry as soon as you step inside.
It was a stormy night, you think to yourself, reminiscent of the one right now, when you watched him through the bedroom window. When you waited hour upon hour for him to succumb to sleep, when you carefully broke open the lock, when you stalked through the rooms without making a single sound, when you took him out with a single slash and twist of the dagger, directly piercing the heart through the back, when you eagerly bore witness to his last moments.
The anglerfish possesses a modified dorsal spine that mimics a worm or smaller shrimp—a lure to attract its prey.
Caldor Langley—now part of your aggressive mimicry.
You wring out your wild mane while your assistant hurries to fetch a cloth to dry yourself, but then—
You catch it immediately as you spot your unorganised desk set up in your office through the corner of your eye. Instantly, you are on high alert. You perceive even the tiniest detail through the sharp slits that your pupils have morphed into. You hear the heartbeat of your assistant just as clearly as if it were your own, and your own is ringing in your head like war drums. You smell the sweet scent of the thing even five metres away, and you are sure you could smell it from far, far further.
There, neatly placed next to a stack of papers, sits a basket filled with all sorts of fruit, a colourful bouquet of flowers to the side, and a small note sticking out of it.
The anglerfish has no significant natural predators in those dark depths they reside in. That is, until man decides he desires to know the specimen up close. What is the anglerfish’s mimicry to man? Do you know that something greater desires to know you up close?
A name bears great meaning to one. You can change, pretend, even wear the name of another as tightly as a second skin, but there always exists a word that is akin to the call of ‘You’.
Not Caldor, not Langley, not The Dark Urge, not Zeke, but—
Esteemed Ezekiel,
I believe congratulations are in order! Your recent successes are not being missed, I can assure you.
Regards,
Counsellor Enver Gortash
You finish reading. You cannot help but take note of the fact that mangoes and melons and bananas are your favourites, and that is exactly what is present in the basket. You drop the note as your hands start trembling. Your body is not your own as you drop with it.
Still, nothing deters your perceptive gaze.
Precise, cursive handwriting.
The way the ink dried—written with the right hand.
And then it doesn’t take you another second to realise that the ‘pattern’ on the card is not printed but drawn on.
The scent of faint residues of magic hidden in the lines now assaults your senses as you move the tip of your finger along the lines.
As sudden as your fall, you rise again and almost stumble on your sprint to pull out a book from the shelf behind your desk. Magic is not something you yourself utilise, but you are more well read on the practice than a good portion of some sullying the title of ‘wizard’ still.
These runic markings do one simple thing: hide the effect of another spell. Your assistant, who knows better than to disturb you during your work, beckons your call, as you now have need for him. You show him the page of the book, the card, instruct him on his task in your way—speaking is not something you are capable of as of now. It is not something you need in moments like these.
A hit to the back of his head with the book after his befuddled expression lasts longer than you have patience for seems to do the trick, and he dispels the effect, revealing a ‘message’ spell in written form as the patterns morph into nothing but numbers. To you, however, these were never numbers as soon as you could make out the vague shape of them—these are coordinates.
You do not take the time to put your coat back on as you storm out of the house and back into the thundering rain. It does not seem that it will let up anytime soon, but dawn slowly approaches during your aggressive prowl through the streets. Your steps are heavy, louder than you’d like, louder than your norm. You still tremble. Oh, how you hate this feeling. Your skin burns. Bile builds up in your throat. You swallow it down. You keep going. If you stop for a second, you will fall to the dirt, and you need to keep going at all costs. In this rain, it would be impossible to tell that the relentless downpour isn’t the only thing wetting your face at this moment. You swallow it down. You keep going. That is what you do. Always did, always will.
When you stand in front of your target destination, the intricate lock protecting the door is an ant under a wild stampede to you—you pick and yank it down after mere seconds. It crashes into pieces as you smash it against the wall. Desire to do to others what has been done to you. Desire to fight through and against fear. Fear—that is precisely what this is, no matter how much you may pretend otherwise.
Parting the dark clouds, the sun now shines high through the window as it illuminates the exhibition in the room you enter. Warm light fills it, makes the rage in your eyes bear that marvellous, bright red even more. This light turns them utterly indistinguishable from a roiling blaze. This light nearly blinds you, but you keep going.
A simple wooden sign with the carving ‘Caldor Langley’ engraved in it gives the exhibition its title.
You first get captured by the eyes on display, swimming in a jar filled with a yellow, translucent liquid. A letter next to it goes over the details of the piece thoroughly: his eye colour, his eyesight, how he was prone to bursting minor blood vessels in his right eye. You do not take your time to read further and move.
The liver is in bad condition. Langley was an obvious alcoholic.
The kidney, he only possessed one at the point the exhibition was created—one can assume he gave it away for coin based on the neat cut it was seemingly extracted from, is better off with only mild damage.
His skin and muscles are displayed separately in a high glass casing. He was malnourished, typical for men of his background, and had several scars covering his entire body. He possessed the blood type B positive and suffered from an iron and vitamin B12 deficiency.
A sketch of the heart’s puncture wound is in addendum to its condition, presuming, describing, analysing your exquisite technique.
The true heart and jewel of the piece shimmers in the rays of the sun hitting it—the brain. Precisely sliced into halves, the different hemispheres are displayed right next to each other, with the report placed between them. You do not read it.
Something else caught your attention instead. You attempt to swallow your fear again, but it sticks to your throat and chokes you like the grasp a king has on his land. You cough, you spit, you hurl out a blood-curdling scream that has been ripening inside your lungs.
A simple wooden sign with the carving ‘Ezekiel’ engraved in it.
You fall down to your knees. Splinters burrow into your skin as you clench the sign in your fist. Sweetest, bloody nectar freely flows onto the floor from your aching wounds.
Not Caldor, not Langley, not The Dark Urge, but Ezekiel.
The sun now shines through the window on the west end of the room. Your hands are torn apart by the wood. You have stopped screaming when your voice gave out, but it is agonising. And yet, your eyes are red and swollen—nothing in this moment could be more agonising to you than to blink, to take your eyes off the masterwork.
Do you know that something far greater desires to know you up close?
Lighting the room with a dark orange for the last time, the sun is beginning to set. You keep going.
Let me know you, Ezekiel.