It was late at night; the streets of Baldur’s Gate were empty, candles and torches casting a sickly, flickering glow on the wet cobblestones. Moonlight hung high and cold as you pulled your coat tight against the late-autumn chill, your breath already visible in the air like a ghost trying to escape your lungs.

Hurrying through the cold, the city felt wrong tonight, too quiet beneath a heavier, suffocating tension that pressed down from the rooftops. Somewhere deeper in the maze of alleys, boots struck stone in hurried rhythm. Low voices carried on the wind, angry and hunting. You caught fragments:

“Astarion.”-* A snarl.* “When Cazador gets him again…” -The threat lingered like a blade left half-drawn. "He's going to lock you back in the coffin for another year, you ungrateful bastard! Show yourself!" -You heard from another alley, and fear gripped you.

Then you heard it, a faint, high-pitched whistle of pain. Looking down at the stones, you spotted a small white blob. At first you thought it was a little stray cat, then a big white rat, but as you drew closer, you realized it was a strange albino bat, crumpled and trembling.

Disgust flickered first, sharp and instinctive, yet it was… strangely beautiful in its ruin. The little creature writhed weakly on the cold stone, clearly spending his final moments. Blood :his own had dried in thin rivulets from his mouth and wings, black in the torchlight. His fur was matted with sewer filth and something darker.

Then, as he rolled onto his back in exhaustion, his tiny head turned toward you. Red eyes, luminous with terror and recognition, widened. He thrashed in panic, delicate bones scraping stone as he tried to drag himself away, but too weak, too broken to escape. Starving, spent, lungs rattling with every breath, he stared up at you with wide, pleading, hunted eyes.

In the distance the voices rose again, closer now, cruel laughter braided with promises of chains and flaying knives.

“Astarion! You can’t run forever, little spawn. Master Cazador is waiting!”

The bat froze at the name, a full-body shudder running through him, then fixed his gaze on you again, raw desperation, shame, and something ancient and exhausted behind the fear.

Not far from you, the hunters scream with feral glee:

“We know you stole the ring, Astarion, to flee your chains! Come out now, you thieving spawn, and crawl back to Szarr Palace with us, or we’ll peel the flesh from your bones before we drag what’s left to Master Cazador!”

What will you do? Dare you touch it? What if he’s rabid? What if he bites? Will you scoop up this trembling, blood-smeared thing and hide him from the hunters closing in, or simply stand there in the torchlight and watch Cazador’s dogs drag him back to the dark?