[Gale leaves Waterdeep to die, and wakes up in what could have been his own bedroom.
More happens in between, of course. A Mindflayer ship in the sky, waking up in a chamber with a searing discomfort behind his eye, seeing a few other figures trying to fight their way out. The ship exploding, a last-ditch effort at a weak portal, inky blackness as the spiraling fall renders him unconscious. And then the room, so discomfitingly familiar when he jolts awake that he feels dizzy.
The house is -- strange. It's familiar: sprawling manors are a copper-a-dozen in Waterdeep's wealthier wards. Trollskull, long abandoned with a bar tended by some unseen spirit, or the uneasiness of the Cassalanter estate, in the days when Gale still held enough status to warrant an invitation. But this place has a presence those houses don't: something closer to the thrumming hunger that still lingers in his chest. Alive but not quite alive. Aware with an uncomfortable, single-minded need.
There's people too, too many, all unknown, and some sort of party. The clothes he finds in the closet are nice enough, a sweater in a pattern reminiscent of the signature Waterdhavian style and simple trousers.
But the noise, and the mystery of his arrival, and the myriad other unknowns are swiftly overwhelming, and it drives Gale to find the sorts of places on the grounds he might be left to his own devices as he tries to get his bearings. There's no shortage of hedge mazes for the wealthy in Waterdeep, either, a novelty he has never quite understood, but his confidence in his own ability to navigate is stripped away by inches every time it seems like something shifts around him.
A voice from what feels like nowhere makes him jump, and Gale presses a hand to his chest instinctively as he whips around to find the source. His thumbs massage restlessly over whisps of purple creeping up from the collar of his sweater.]
I -- yes. [He laughs, a little awkwardly.] I was overconfident, I think. It's more convoluted than it looks. I suppose there's some relief in knowing it's not just me. [With an air of practiced brightness:] I'm Gale, of Waterdeep.
a-maze-ing
More happens in between, of course. A Mindflayer ship in the sky, waking up in a chamber with a searing discomfort behind his eye, seeing a few other figures trying to fight their way out. The ship exploding, a last-ditch effort at a weak portal, inky blackness as the spiraling fall renders him unconscious. And then the room, so discomfitingly familiar when he jolts awake that he feels dizzy.
The house is -- strange. It's familiar: sprawling manors are a copper-a-dozen in Waterdeep's wealthier wards. Trollskull, long abandoned with a bar tended by some unseen spirit, or the uneasiness of the Cassalanter estate, in the days when Gale still held enough status to warrant an invitation. But this place has a presence those houses don't: something closer to the thrumming hunger that still lingers in his chest. Alive but not quite alive. Aware with an uncomfortable, single-minded need.
There's people too, too many, all unknown, and some sort of party. The clothes he finds in the closet are nice enough, a sweater in a pattern reminiscent of the signature Waterdhavian style and simple trousers.
But the noise, and the mystery of his arrival, and the myriad other unknowns are swiftly overwhelming, and it drives Gale to find the sorts of places on the grounds he might be left to his own devices as he tries to get his bearings. There's no shortage of hedge mazes for the wealthy in Waterdeep, either, a novelty he has never quite understood, but his confidence in his own ability to navigate is stripped away by inches every time it seems like something shifts around him.
A voice from what feels like nowhere makes him jump, and Gale presses a hand to his chest instinctively as he whips around to find the source. His thumbs massage restlessly over whisps of purple creeping up from the collar of his sweater.]
I -- yes. [He laughs, a little awkwardly.] I was overconfident, I think. It's more convoluted than it looks. I suppose there's some relief in knowing it's not just me. [With an air of practiced brightness:] I'm Gale, of Waterdeep.