Pairing: None. Story is Monsta X + OC, but there is no romantic pairing.

Warnings: Not much in this prologue. Mentions of hell, inciting violence, questionable morals.

Word Count:  2,645

Genre: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons inspired world. Also, pirates.

Summary: Brought together in the town of Luskan, seven adventurers meet in the local tavern, The Cutlass, on the seventh night of the new moon as requested. They meet with Celaena, an infamous pirate captain who informs them of the concerning matters at hand. Unbeknownst to them, they have been watched since they arrived in the port. A mysterious traveler watches from the shadows, biding their time.

Prologue: Told from the perspective of the mysterious traveler.

***

In the depths of the Forgotten Realms your adventure begins. A candle illuminates an aged window on the bottom floor of The Cutlass tavern. It wouldn’t have been your first choice of venue but apparently your benefactor thought popular meant good. The place was falling apart, large chunks of rotting wood made you question the structural integrity of the place. And it smelled like booze, loose lips and vomit. Even the steady falling of rain outside couldn’t mask that smell. Gods you hated pirate towns.

You sat in the corner, out of the way and out of view of most of the patrons. With your cowl and hood covering most of your face you were able to sit back and observe, a task you were exceedingly good at. You were here to complete a mission. A mission that you felt was beneath you but you weren’t about to be the one to question Grazz’t, only an idiot would do that and think it was going to go well for them.

The demon lord was not to be trifled with. Many forgot that he was one of the few to rule over multiple realms in the Abyss, and had done so for centuries, unchallenged. Just because he didn’t appear like your typical demon did not mean that you should speak freely in his presence. He was always adorned in finery, everything about him was designed to draw you in, to make you susceptible to his charms. Rather, it was the opposite. You’d learned quickly to choose your words wisely with him. He was more skilled than any politician when it came to making deals and twisting words, hell he even manipulated other demons to keep himself amused. He enjoyed making you think that you’d bested him, gaining the upper hand in a deal only for him to lay all of his cards on the table at the last moment, showing you just how ed you were.

This made some think that he wasn’t to be feared in combat. They were wrong. He won’t kill with brute force but he’ll turn you against your allies and force you to kill them before killing you himself. He was the ultimate tactician and manipulator and you were one of his best students.

Being one of his best was why you felt this task was beneath you. Your instructions were straight forward enough, follow the party, gain their trust, join them and sabotage their mission without them knowing. It was a mission that any acolyte could complete. There was something more at play here, there always was when Grazz’t delivered missions to you personally. The glint in his eye had hinted at it. Until you worked out what the ulterior motive was, you watched your marks.

This kind of mission should have gone to your sister Calaena, and would have if she’d been smart enough to serve Grazz’t. She didn’t have as much hatred for do gooders as you did. Your past experiences spoke for themselves and you learned from them. ‘Heroes’ were never to be trusted. Your sister and you had very different upbringings, you were always the perfect evil child while she was only ever half in on it. Her heart wasn’t as dark as yours and she was far more aloof. She would never serve a higher power, only herself. In some ways you envied her, especially when you were serving Lilith but once you had your exodus from the Underdark and found yourself in the servitude of Grazz’t you found a new purpose in life. A chaotic evil purpose. It pleased your dark and twisted little heart. Caleana had other ideas for herself once she escaped, commandeering a ship that she felt befit her and set sail. She was infamous as a master pirate thief. You never sought the infamy or recognition. All you strived for was the thrill of destroying those who thought they could make a difference. How naive they were. Dragons ruled this land for centuries for a reason.

***

Morons you think to yourself as you watch five adventurers make no effort to divert attention from their presence. There are two others in their group but at least the rogue and druid have the decency to avoid being the centre of attention. It was as though they were asking for the attention of everyone in the tavern, something that you would never do. You work in the shadows, unseen and unheard.

You turn your focus back to the troupe as you continue your assessment of each party member. At least this group was diverse.  Sipping his ale and telling tales of the war is a tall and broad man, must be human. It didn’t matter where in the realm you were, there was always a ing human. Why is it always a soldier? Do their armies not keep them loyal so the defect and set their own agenda? Almost every human you encounter has the same story, something about strength and purpose and a razed village, helping on a small scale or a sick relative. How boring. He should be easy to manipulate. Humans were prone to strong emotional reactions and illogical tactics.

The second being is a little surprising, if you were less skilled you would have picked him as the muscle of the group but the pouch of runes and herbs by his side and the Morningstar resting against his leg tell you he is a divine healer of sorts. This one requires a more in depth look, you recognise the slight shimmer around him as a glamour, one that is hiding more about him. You catch a glimpse of his ruby red eyes and wonder what he is. He seems quiet, gambling like he has no understanding of the game that he’s playing. Divine healers tend to serve a God and could usually sense evil. He was one you would clash with the most. You’d be wary of hiding your true nature from him lest he try to save you. The wide berth people were giving his back makes you think that his glamour is hiding either an object kept behind him, or wings. You kind of hoped that he was one of the sky people, for you had not encountered one of those yet. A feather from one of those wings would be worth more than its weight in gold.

Long blonde hair, a quiver full of arrows and a bow slung over his shoulder. You grimace at the pointed ears, recognising the wood elf quickly. Putting your kind’s history with the elves aside, this one was no doubt a ranger. They’re usually too perceptive for their own good but this one seems to be fully engrossed in dice games so at this stage you’re not concerned about him. He is different to the other elf rangers you’ve encountered in the past. They were all quiet, observing types, whereas this one is currently growling at the pirate who just beat him at their game. It’s almost animalistic but also childlike in its quality. It’s as though he was raised outside of an elven community. Something to delve into at a later date.  

The last 4 additions are interesting to say the least. A changeling was always irritating, slipping their skin constantly, chameleons of personality. Why this one felt the need to also be a bard on top of that makes you unreasonably irritated, you just hope he doesn’t have a familiar too. He seems a little over the top and manic as he holds the attention of a crowd of pirates, weaving a fine tale about the rescue of a mystical wolf. He’s good, you’ll give him that. Further down the table the human chuckles and shakes his head at the bard’s epic tale. As good as he is, you can’t help but feel like there is something off about him, something you can’t quite put your finger on yet.

Tieflings are always a wild card, even more so when they have magical abilities. No matter how small, there is always a part of them that is demonic. They can never be wholly ‘good’ no matter how hard they try. Society would never believe that someone who looks they way a Tiefling does – horns, tail, elongated canines, solid eye colour and otherworldly skin tone – could be divine in nature. The one seated at the bar has rather small horns for his kind, his skin a very pale blue hue, and his eyes are solid gold. There is no point in using magic to hide his tail, and the pirates don’t seem to care. They are far more interested in the man himself, some speaking as though they have a history with him. It was rare to see a Tiefling so at ease with the people around it. You spot the scar on his throat, and catch a glimpse on similar markings on his wrists. Slave you think to yourself.

The autumnal Eladrin was more concerned with his surroundings than the people in them, staring off into the middle distance when a thought captures his attention. You feel similarly about him as you do the elf. Neither have a good history with your kind but spotting the druid makes one part of your travels here considerably clearer. It should be the middle of summer, it was until two nights ago, but when you had woken up the world was suddenly in the middle of autumn. At least you now understand what had happened. He held a quarterstaff and had odd runic shapes decorating his arms, usually common for a forest druid. As long as you refrained from harming nature when he was around he shouldn’t pose too much of a threat to you.

The one that you need to watch the most is the last member of this rag tag group. He is dressed similarly to you, all black with a hood and cowl, daggers visible because you know where to look for them. He is observant, eyes assessing the room, lingering over you for a moment before continuing to scan the crowd. There is no doubt in your mind of what his role is, like recognises like after all, but he has another agenda. A fellow rogue always makes things interesting. He’s sitting away from the rest of the group, half hidden by shadow as he watches the bar. If he’s any good he’s already assessed routes to the exits and identified the marks that are likely to cause their party harm. He’s probably found exits for all of them unlike you, who only has to look out for yourself.

He leans in towards the pirate captain who sits beside him and smirks, muttering something that makes the captains eyes widen so much that they almost threaten to fall out of his head. He slides a handful of coin to the rogue before hastily departing. The actions don’t mark him as a textbook thief or assassin to you, it seems like he deals more in information.  The pale skin, black hair and black eyes let you know that he is a Shadar-Kai, a race not unlike your own, but cunning, sneaky and highly skilled. Under different circumstances you might get along with him but you would have to mislead and fool him if you were going to succeed in your mission.

And you had every intention of succeeding. Now that you’ve completed your initial assessment of your marks, you figure there is no better time than now to test them. It was one thing to observe how they act on a night off, but it was a whole different thing to observe them when presented with the opportunity to fight. Not a planned fight either, not something they could prepare for. You find that a decent bar brawl never fails to show you someone’s true colours.

Pirates are almost always ready to throw down, drunken pirates even more so. They’ll throw more than punches too, things have a tendency of escalating quickly when there’s pirates involved, a fact that you are more than happy with at this moment in time. You grin to yourself at how easy it will be to get this altercation underway.  You murmur to the man at the table next to you that the large, dim witted pirate near the bar keeps giving him the stink eye and that you’d even heard him tell the barkeep that only impotent men were bald.  

Leaving him to seethe and mutter about how he’ll make the big man regret his words you start to duck and weave through the crowd as you make your way towards the bar, stopping only to tap a large brute of a man on the arm. You draw your hood back, revealing your long white hair, pointed ears and dark skin – the tone changing depending on the light (right now it is a lovely shade of greyish purple) but it could range between obsidian to hues of blue and purple with greys in between. He turns angrily, ready to yell at whoever touched him but when he spots you he takes pause.

“You look like the strongest man here.” You smile sweetly up at the man, angling yourself towards him so that only he can hear what you say to him.

He puffs his chest and beams down at you. “Well little lady, yer lookin at the champion arm wrestler in these parts. So not only do I look the strongest, I is.”  He flexes his arms for good measure and honestly, he does look like he has the strength of ten men, it’s why you chose him.

You let your features shift into confusion. “See I thought that you looked like a strong man but that guy over by the window, the bald one laughing with the two bandits, he said he’s the strongest in the realm.”

You barely finish your sentence before the man in front of you starts to seethe. “Oh does he?!” He exclaims, cracking his knuckles and doing a few minor stretches, all good signs that your plan is working.

Nodding you reply. “He does, I’ve heard him tell so many people but I don’t think I believe him. How could he be stronger than you?” You gesture at the man standing before you, pointing to his muscles and then wave dismissively at the unsuspecting man in the corner.

The man hands his ale to you. “Wouldya mind holding me drink for a sec little lady?” You don’t exactly get a chance to accept or deny his request before his drink is in your hands and he is marching off to the other end of the room. You set it down on the table nearest to you and continue to move through the crowd until you are at the other end of the tavern, at a table with the perfect view of the mayhem that is poised to unfold. You chose this seat for its view but also because it’s next to an open window should you need to make a quick getaway.

No words are spoken, you thought there might be a challenge or a threat but instead the big man simply punches the bald man in the face then throws him across the room. The sudden moment of violence is all the tavern needs before cacophony erupts. Pirates start yelling and fighting, furniture is smashed and thrown, and anything and everything is suddenly a weapon.

With their pleasant evening ruined, the party find themselves in the middle of a bar brawl in a pirate bar.  How they manage themselves now is going to be very helpful for you. You smile to yourself as they exchange a few quick looks at each other, speak two words then disperse into the fray.

Everything is going to plan.

A/N: Let me know what you think so far. What do you want to know more about? What do you think will happen? I’m trying not to bombard you with lore but if you want to know more about certain aspect of the characters or the world, please ask me! I’m trying something different so hopefully you enjoy it.