Into the Fire - Baine

CW: blood/injuries

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Into the Fire Part I & II


The party seems to have returned returned from Avernus and immediately gone their separate ways.

The Grandmaster delivered the news ‘It’s done. Heilesna is dead.’ in a tired voice before shutting himself in quarters, Baine’s dragonborn friend Ghesh is making vague noises about heading out but seems reluctant to actually do anything beyond sitting around and throwing sticks for Frankie to chase around the yard. No sign of the quiet half-elf Traavor or Sunday and her eLk, nor Daisy or Taffeta for that matter, but Sweet is taking no news as good news and assumes they’re alive, if not well.

The Master of Horse watches silently as Baine carries bucket after bucket out behind the stables, his movements slow and stiff. 
The Grandmaster had had a far-away look in his eyes and looked like he needed a solid night’s sleep but not much worse for wear - that was his standard look anyway. Baine however, was covered in blood. Head to toe. Like someone had dumped a pitcher of the stuff on his head.

She cocks her head as he shuffles back and forth in front of where she’s sat watching him, trying to discern how much of it is his and how it came to be on his outside instead of his insides. There’s a visible cut near his temple, she knows they bleed a lot without having to be too deep. He’s limping as well, trying to keep his weight off his right leg. She suspects he’s hiding a slew of injuries under the banged up plate.

After seeing him dump the fourth bucket of ice cold water into the large tub he’s working to fill she rolls her eyes and heads to the kitchens. When she comes back a little while later, a steaming cauldron on one arm, Baine is stood next to the now full tub and fumbling with the buckles on his armor. She wordlessly dumps the boiling water in with the cold, eyeing him through the cloud of steam.

“You’re going to give yourself pneumonia, you idiot.”
She looks at where he’s pawing at a clasp with his left hand, making very little progress. “Come here. You’ll be at it all night at this rate.”

He glares at her half-heartedly before dropping his arm limply to his side and sighing, turning slightly to give her access.
She makes quick work of it, trying her best to unstick the different parts of armor from where they’re clinging to his blood-soaked gambeson. He thanks her quietly and starts working on his garments with more success. She takes a few steps back, leans against the stable wall and crosses her arms, pointedly not leaving.

“Trying to catch an eyeful, there, Sweet?” Baine makes an attempt at his usual banter but it falls flat, his shaking hands and somber eyes betray him.
“I’m making sure you don’t drown yourself in that tub,” she replies. “Don’t worry pretty boy, you’re not my type.”
“Breaking my heart, you are.”

As he starts littering the ground with his blood-spattered clothing, Sweet’s frown deepens. Every inch of skin he reveals is mottled with bruises or dried blood, freshly healed but angry looking cuts scattered across his body. He's going to be adding to his already impressive collection of scars by the looks of it.

Finally bare, Baine awkwardly clambers into the tub on his good leg and sinks down into the water, hissing at the sting. After a moment he relaxes, sighing loudly again and slowly lowering his massive shoulders. He fishes a cloth out from somewhere in the water and starts scrubbing methodically at his tender limbs, his eyes somewhat glazed over but calm enough.

Sweet doesn’t push, doesn’t ask questions. Baine has the biggest mouth in the Crimson Fist, she figures once he’s done processing whatever just happened, he’ll tell her. She settles in and waits.

The water in the tub turns a murky brown around him as more and more of Baine’s skin return to its usual light green shade. He eventually gets to his right leg and lets out another pained hiss. He raises the leg out of the water and props it up against the edge of the tub, inspecting a wound that has re-opened. He pokes at it gingerly and curses under his breath.

“Got a knife on you, love?” he asks over his shoulder.

Sweet pulls a dagger from her belt and walks over, handing it to him hilt first. He takes it and pokes at his calf a little bit more before gritting his teeth and carefully beginning to carve out something lodged in the solid muscle. Blood pours from the fresh cut and drips into the water for a long moment filled with Baine’s laboured breathing as he digs out an arrowhead that must have broken off from the shaft it had been attached to. It falls into the palm of his hand and he rinses both it and the dagger in the water before handing them to Sweet.

She sheaths the dagger and inspects the arrowhead. “Hobgoblins?”

Baine leans back into the murky water and nods. He undoes his long braid and runs his fingers through his hair, letting it wrap around his shoulders like a cloak. He chews the inside of his cheek for a moment and Sweet thinks ‘Here we go’. She crouches down by his feet, one arm on the side of the tub and looks at him.

The dark eyes that look back at her tired and sad. Baine sniffs once and scratches at the mark on his temple.
“Hell fucking sucks, Sweet.”
She lets out a snort, glad to see some of his usual spirit returned. “Yes, it’s not a holiday resort, Baine. People don’t go there for fun.”

He smiles at her weakly and his eyes go a little distant again. “Yeah. I get that.”

When he doesn’t continue she reaches a hand down and flicks some of the dirty water at his face. “Hey. Stay with me, big boy. That kind of dwelling doesn’t help. Out with it. What happened?”

He blinks a few times, scrunches his nose against the spray of water but doesn’t argue. Instead he nods a little, takes a deep breath and starts talking.

“The Burning Keep was on literal fire. Gotta appreciate their dedication to the brand. Oriloki dropped us about 20 miles out and it’s all red dirt and a red river and bones in the sand, fuckin’ hell. We wander about for a bit, avoiding the demons and devils getting into scrapes along the river. A tiefling rocks up with this insane kind of cart that was like driving itself somehow. We chatted with her for a bit and got some information, before Sunday promptly smashed her brains out to tie up the loose ends. Shook Traav up pretty badly, don’t think he’d seen the ruthless side of her before.”

Sweet nods slowly. “Makes sense. You have to do some horrible things to make sure you stay alive sometimes.”

“Yeah, don’t think he was prepared for it is all. But there we was, a flaming castle up ahead and a legion between us and Heilesna. Not looking very promising. So, we turned tail and went to inspect the river - shouldn’t have done that. Daisy touched whatever red stuff was in it and got messed up in the head. Proper gone. Could barely speak. Think Sun and V-man called it ‘Feeblemind’?”

Sweet grimaces sympathetically.

“So now we need a cleric or we’re stuck in Avernus. We need allies. The bestest and fastest way was right up the river, some skirmish between demons and devils. We head on over there and help out the devils with Sunday acting high and mighty like she owns us. It was a quick fight and they appreciated the help. Got an in with some ambitious lady who’s up and coming in Avernus and we went off to see if we could strike a deal with her. Cos that’s what you do with devils. Make deals.” He shakes his head a little and scratches at his temple again.

“She’s called the Sanguine Rose. Again, dedicated to her brand. She’s like seven foot, crown of roses on her head, long blond hair and massive wings. Smoking hot, in a creepy way.” Sweet looks like she’s inclined to agree. “Her setup was very fey-wildy, but like… dark. The Ethereal Respite, she called it. We present our case, more or less. And then the haggling started. What did we have to offer that she could possibly want, yadda yadda yadda, on and on it goes, who wants to sell their soul and serve her for eternity, you know the drill.

We go back and forth and round in circles and I just got impatient, you know?”

His voice goes small and defensive and Sweet’s eyes widen. “Baine. What did you do?”

“I offered my services. We came there to do a job and she had the means to make it happen. I was so fucking over all the talking and the back-and-forthing and it wasn’t anything too bad. I offered her two years of service in her army.” His eyes take on a bit of a shine and he starts blinking rapidly.
“But that’s not the problem, Sweet, the real problem is that for some reason the boss man decided to take the hit for me, or something. I don’t even fucking know why, but suddenly he offers her twenty years if she leaves me out of it. Such a bloody hypocrite, when we were up the mountain it was all ‘I wouldn’t want you to make a deal for me, Baine’ and then he goes and does that? I mean, what the fuck-”

Sweet holds up a hand and cuts him off. “Baine, stop. Shut up. That better not be the final deal. Did the Grandmaster sign a contract for that?”

Baine shakes his head, looking a little sheepish.

“No, no he didn’t. Sorry.” Sweet lets out a slow breath. “No, I wouldn’t let him. I made my own counter offer. Ten years for the both of us. In five years time. That, along with sorting out a guy that’s been causing her trouble and she fixes Daisy and drops us right on top of Heilesna inside the Keep. Before we get a chance to head out and fucking finally fight something though, she tells us some conditions have changed and that the years we have to serve are now a grand total of five. Five years, in five years time. Everything else in deal stays the same.”

“Why? What changed?”

“Dunno. But we read the contract and there was nothing different in it apart from the time we had to serve. And that’s what we both ended up agreeing to in the end.”

Sweet bites her lip, thinking hard. “Five years, in five years time. Yes? A lot of things can happen in five years. To that contract. To her.”

Baine nods, his face hard and determined. “Yeah, that’s what I’ve been thinking as well.”

“Alright. That’s a problem for the future then. What about the hobgoblins? How did you end up looking like you walked through a meat grinder?”

Baine’s face takes on a distinctly sullen, petulant quality. “It was that guy who’d been giving her trouble. L’zeth or something like that. Calls himself the Bitter Breath. Go clear his operations and come back and she’ll take us to the Keep. He had a decent number of highly trained hobgoblins under his command, guarding the ruins he’d shacked up in.

We set up a decent distraction and lured most of them out of the building that Bad Breath was in but enough of them stayed to give us trouble.”

He sinks a little lower in the tub, hunching in on himself. “I was useless, Sweet. Went down immediately. Rholor’s Death Ward brought me back up, and Daisy healed me but they kept knocking me down before I could get a chance to fight back. Varis made some noise about how I ‘held the flank’ but all I really did was nearly die in what turned out to be a strategically sound place.”

He pauses and his lower lip trembles a little. “I couldn’t see ‘cos I was down for most of the fight but I’m pretty sure Sunday actually did die. Like, she kept getting back up because the girl is insanely powerful but I think in the end she eventually stayed down and Varis had to bring her back. And then he had to scrape me back together as well.” He lets out a small, derisive laugh.

“Fuck, if I wasn’t so angry with him for that deal I think I’d be in his quarters right now, moaning about having let him down.”

Sweet gives him a no-nonsense look. “Well, that wouldn’t help either of you. I don’t claim to understand exactly what your..” She gestures vaguely in the air, “..dynamic is, but I think he’s got the brooding side of things down. I hate to admit it but I think your abysmal lack of respect for authority helps keep him grounded, and if you ever tell anyone I said that, I WILL steal your dog, Baine, do you hear me? I will steal your dog and never give him back.”

That gets a real, regular laugh out of Baine, loud and genuine. Sweet smiles back at him.
“You made it back, Soldier. That, in itself, is a victory.”
She reaches a hand out and pats him on the leg propped up against the side of the tub and he yelps loudly in pain.

“Well done,” she tells him.

“Oh my god, you shit.”

“Come one, you’re turning into an orc prune.”

“Will you carry me to bed, Sweet?”

“I wouldn’t even if I could. You’re naked and still bleeding.”

“I can’t believe you. No love in that cold, cold heart of yours. Here, grab us that healing potion in my bag…”