Scouring Durlag's Tower

This is a straight-forward adventure story about my character's battle with the Demonknight. I haven't seen any other BG1 fics here, so I hope that's OK. This story is pretty much complete, but constructive criticism is always welcome.


Scouring Durlag?s Tower


A Baldur?s Gate : Tales from the Sword Coast Adventure


I squatted next to my pack and sorted through the potions I would need. All the Healing we had left. Haste, for sure. Fortitude, Heroism, Fire Giant Strength. Freedom. Might not help but couldn?t hurt. A lot of the good stuff had been used.

Coran knelt beside me. ?Why only one of each? Are you sending me in unprotected so you won?t have to share the booty??

I continued without looking at him. I wished I still had that scroll of Protection from Evil. That thing was definitely evil?if I?d learned nothing else from Durlag, I?d learned that. ?I?m going in alone.?

?What false bravado is this? It will be impossible with just the two of us. Alone, it?s suicide.?

??Great peril yields great beauty.? Isn?t that what you always say? This is my fight. You can wait here for me, and if I don?t come back, you can take everything you can carry and ask Islanne to let you out.? Islanne had been Durlag?s wife. Her ghost stood outside this chamber, offering us free passage to the surface if we wanted it.

?Ari, you?re being foolish.? He tilted up my chin, forcing me to look at him. His bright eyes in his elven face, so like mine, held no hint of compromise. ?I knew the risks when we started. I?m going to finish the job.?

?I hired you only for the traps and locks. The battles are mine, that was our deal.?

He put a hand on my arm. ?Don?t fight it. It needn?t be fought. We?ve won through the Tower, we have more riches than we can carry out. Let?s leave while we?re alive to spend it.?

He was right, we could leave now if we wished. How could I explain to him why it was necessary for me to go on?

?I have to destroy that thing. With what we?ve seen and learned, I can?t allow it to inhabit this place.? In the beginning, it was just for the treasure. Durlag had built this tower as a home for his extended dwarven family, but shortly after it was complete it had been invaded by doppelgangers. He had killed them and had trapped the tower against more, but still they came, outlasting him. As we encountered obstacles that could kill in an instant, I had become enraged at Durlag for creating this hell hole. But the apparitions this place had shown me had made me aware that while Durlag?s malice had been directed only at the invaders, his solution had backfired and worked to keep out those who might set it right. Now an evil greater than any of Durlag?s tricks and traps or even the doppelgangers had come to the tower, and I was determined to kill it.

?Ari, I?m going with you. Life is adventure, or nothing.?

It wasn?t completely true that I?d brought him only for his thieving skills. His good humor and flattery had kept me from being overwhelmed by the gloom of the Tower. During my girlhood in Candlekeep, I?d seen few faces that looked like mine. In some ways, I felt closer kin to him than to my dead foster father Gorion. I could see that Coran was as determined as I. Well, a man who hunts wyverns for sport couldn?t be called a coward.

?All right. Here?s the plan.? I rapidly revised my strategy to include him. ?We go in, and hug the wall. We don?t know what waits inside, so, as soon as we?re in the door, you go stealth if you can. Watch me and I?ll direct you. Watch for the mirror that Clair told us about and look out for a chance to use it against him.? I took more potions from my backpack.

Clair had been some help, but not much. An adventurer who had been unable to face the final monster of Durlag?s Tower, she had listened to the death screams of her comrades while being afraid to go to their aid. She remained here in the anteroom to the monster?s den, hoping that one or more of her companions were left alive. She had told us that the monster was a Demonknight, and had a mirror which he used to make duplicates of his attackers that they would have to fight. She said the mirror could be turned on the demon and used against him, if one knew how.

?We know he has a fire attack,? I continued. ?It didn?t look like a fireball to me, because he was at the center of the blast.? He had made a brief appearance when we had entered the tower.

?I think a Demonknight must have almost complete fire resistance.?

?That?s logical.? I was reminded again of how much more worldly this elf was than I. Gorion had done me no favors by sheltering me. ?What do you know about Demonknights?? I asked Coran.

?I?ve never encountered one before, thank the gods, but I know something. They have tremendous strength and stamina, and can cast spells like nothing you?ve seen. He?ll also be wearing a lot of protections.?

?That?s it then.? I selected the ammunition I?d need. Arrows of Dispelling. When he was weakened, I could switch to Arrows of Biting. Unfortunately, there were few of them left. If they ran out?well, it would have to be enough.

Coran held out his hand. ?Give me some of those.? He gestured to the Arrows of Dispelling. ?The faster we strip his protections, the faster we do real damage.?

I shook my head. ?No. I want you to stay hidden if possible.? He started to protest, and I laid my fingers lightly across his mouth. ?I don?t want to hear it.? I took away my hand and he listened. ?You hide, if you can. I?ll stay by the door. You advance until he?s in sight. Then I?ll start putting arrow-sized holes in him. If this doesn?t work, you?ll still have a chance to get away.?

?Or put my pretty poison dagger in his back once he?s run out of spells.?

?No. No backstabbing heroics. You point, I punch, as our large friend Minsc would say. Just stay hidden.? I showed him the interior of my backpack. ?Look, we only have enough protections for one left. No Protection from Fire for either of us, and that?s what we really need. The greenstone amulet against mind control only works for the one wearing it. I can?t let you fight naked.?

His alive gray eyes scanned my face. ?All right. We?ll do it your way. What if he closes on you to fight hand-to-hand??

?I should get off several shots first even then. And if I have to, I have this lovely gift from Durlag.? I touched the pommel of my new sword which I?d scavenged from the Tower. It was already a favorite. It wasn?t beautiful like Varscona, but it held a wicked power, and the black blade gleamed.

I still didn?t believe Coran?s promise to keep out of the fight. Maybe I was stupid to think I had a chance without him, but I didn?t want him to die, too.
I handed Coran his share of the remaining potions. Before downing his, Coran toasted me, ?Luck be a lady.? I used my special god-given ability to draw on Holy Might, and we went up the stairs to enter the Demonknight?s lair.

Coran was able to go stealth, and disappeared from sight. I swallowed back a cough at the sulfurous burning stench. If Minsc were here, he?d say, ?A den of stinking evil.? We didn?t immediately see the beast. I motioned to Coran, or where I thought he was, to creep further forward along the wall. The room appeared to be circular, and we were on a walkway above a pit. Stairs, spaced at intervals, led down to the pit. So far, so good.

As Coran inched forward, more of the pit came into view. After what seemed hours, but was at the most a moment or two, the Demonknight was revealed. The beast was as tall as an Ogre. It was black as foundry smoke. In a twisted parody of knighthood, it wore armor and a helm, and carried a knight?s sword, perhaps stolen from the body of another adventurer. If I could help it, it wasn?t getting my sword. Sensing Coran?s presence, the monster spoke in a voice straight from hell.

?Death welcomes you!?

?I am here to cleanse the Tower of your evil.? I was pleased that my voice didn?t quaver.

?I will give you pain unlike any you have ever known. I will not even risk my trinket on you. You will know the honor of dying by my own hand.?

So he wasn?t going to use his weapon on us! He?d die regretting that choice?I hoped.

I felt confusion tug at my mind as he assaulted me with his spells, but the amulet around my neck did its job in warding them off. My head was still clear.

My bow was ready. I had an arrow in him even before his first fireball blast. The fire didn?t reach me where I stood above the pit. As I nocked the second arrow, I remembered back to my childhood at Candlekeep and the first time I?d held a bow. I was five, maybe, and Gorion was already trying to make my mind hold magic. He finally understood but never accepted that magic wasn?t my destiny.

As usual, I had been evading my studies by hiding with the Watchers in the practice yard. I had attacked a dummy with a dagger, which to my small hands was like a short sword. The dummy of course was unable to feint, but I was still having trouble landing a blow. Then one of the Watchers, Hull it was, put a short bow in my hand. Though I was tall for my age, it still felt like a longbow to me.

I could feel my protections slipping as the Demonknight used magic on me. There was nothing I could do about that now. I kept firing.

It had been hard to draw the bow. My child?s fingers, unaccustomed to the way the string bit into my fingertips, stung from the tension. Struggling with the unfamiliar bow, I was unable to get the arrow nocked and aimed properly. The string slipped from my fingers and I released the arrow too soon; the bow smacked against my arm?I would be black-and-blue for days. The arrow landed two feet short and wide of the target, and if any power had been behind it, I would have speared one of Parda?s cats.

The Watchers laughed. I could still remember the shame. One patted me on the head. ?Best take up Gorion?s trade, elfling.? Another said, ?Winthrop can always use another pretty barmaid? and ?Thieving?s all a bastard elf be good for.?

Another arrow speared the Demonknight. He got off a fireball again, and this time I felt the searing heat. His foul voice rumbled in what sounded like a curse, but was probably his language. Another hit. Another. His arm moved in a spell that fizzled in the air. Again I thought back to that first day.

I had run across the practice ground, my bare feet kicking up the sawdust. The laughing men thought I was running away, and called, ?Wrong way, child,? but I was going to retrieve my arrow. They quieted as they saw I intended to go again, only this time from a few paces further back. I held the practice bow, smooth in my hands. The grip was sweat-stained and oiled by many palms. The tension of the string, if I held it just so, still hurt, but in a good way. I saw how the feathers fletched to the shaft were lined up to make the arrow fly true to the target. I ran my fingers over them and again nocked the arrow. I took aim, sighting down the arrow. I let the arrow go, some part of me flying with it straight to the target. I didn?t hit the bullseye that day, and wouldn?t for a long time, but I never missed a stationary target again.

Thwack. The Demonknight was roaring with pain now; there was no mistaking those howls for spell-casting. Thwack, thwack. As on that long-ago day in the Candlekeep practice yard, I flew with my arrows, feeling them hit. The beast lumbered to the stairs. Despite what I had said to Coran, if he closed, I was dead. I could wield a sword if need be, but it was by my bow that I had braved the Sword Coast alone.

The Demonknight lifted a foot, waving his sword. Thwack. He was either out of spells or he realized that my arrows made his attempts to cast useless. Thwack. He came a step closer to the stairs. Thwack. I was still using the Arrows of Dispelling. He took another step. Thwack. He was almost at the stairs. I was afraid that my strategy had failed, but I stood my ground and fired again. Thwack. The beast went to take another step onto the bottom rung of the stairs, then, unable to lift himself onto the step, toppled over backward. He was dead.

?Well done, Ari.? Coran?s smooth voice came from the darkness one-quarter of the way around the pit. He appeared from nowhere and bounded down his set of steps to meet me at the bottom. I was glad of the arm he put around my shoulders. Relief from tension had made me weak.

After he released me, I prodded the smoking remains of the monster with the toe of my boot. The stench was unbearable, like a blocked fireplace flue and the smell of peeled hard-cooked eggs. Next to the Demonknight?s remains was a mirror.

?This must be the weapon Clair spoke of,? Coran said.
I unsheathed the great two-handed sword at my back, and brought the heavy pommel down on the mirror. It shattered like any common glass.

At a noise behind us we both turned, alert. Had I unleashed the Demonknight?s minions? No, the magic was gone from the thing. The noise came from a man behind us, a scared boy, really, paralyzed with fright.
I approached him. I was no older than he in years, but his unscarred face and smooth hands contrasted with mine showed him to be a pup. The only one remaining of Clair?s group, I guessed.

?Who?who are you?? he asked. ?Have you come to kill me??

?No, the danger is gone, and the way is clear.?

He scrambled off without even a ?Thank you.?

Coran bent over and picked up something from the Demonknight?s ashes. ?Not much here. I don?t suppose a demon needs material possessions.? He handed me a dagger.

I wiped the greasy soot from it with a corner of my tunic. ?This must be what Hurgan Stoneblade wanted.? At Coran?s lifted eyebrow, I explained. ?A dwarf in Ulgoth?s Beard, from where I started this quest. He claims an ancestor was a friend of Durlag, and the dagger is a family heirloom.? I turned it over in my hand. ?It doesn?t look like it?s worth much. Oh, well.? I stuck the dagger in my belt. ?Do you want to return with me to Ulgoth?s Beard??

?A quaint fishing village, did you say? Wherever fate takes me. It sounds like well-deserved relaxation after this.?