Chapter Text
Breaking news! Respected Local Journalist found dead
Close friends and colleagues report that the cause of death is from enduring another pointless meeting, filled with meaningless platitudes, and administrative double-speak that could have been an email! Baldur’s Gazette management responds back “our thoughts and prayers are with the family during this difficult time.”
Tavora, investigative journalist for the rapidly approaching bankrupt journal-Baldur’s Gazette, couldn’t hold back an un-lady-like snort at the fake story pitch scribbled on her very official notepad.
This earned her an exasperated glance from editor-in chief Eustace Bram running their strategy and book-keeping session at the end of the day and work week. Tavora was about to smile impishly back but stopped short when she noticed Eustace’s sagging shoulders, how many bags were under his eyes, and the disheveled suit with plenty of wrinkles, coffee stains, and loose-hanging tie. Fine . She would keep her delightful musings to herself and stare out the window into the familiar sights of the city she’s called home going on five years now.
Outside, Baldur’s Gate, Utah, stretches out in its contradictory sprawl of piety and corruption. The street below is a clash of gleaming, corporate sterility and the stubborn remnants of old industry, all set against the imposing backdrop of the Wasatch Range. Downtown is newly manicured, the kind of faux-heritage gentrification that Gortash calls “urban renewal.” Polished brick facades, artisanal coffee shops with pretentious names, and boutique storefronts that cater to tourists and well-paid tech transplants. A mural of the city’s “values” stretches across one of the newer buildings—faith, family, prosperity—painted in gaudy gold leaf like a warning. And then, there are the shadows. The cracks in the façade. The alleyways where the old city still exists, where the unhoused linger despite aggressive relocation efforts. Up upon the hill across the street, a megachurch looms like a fortress.
Ooh! That would make for a killer story beat when our journal makes the big leagues and I get promoted to political correspondence . Pipe-dream? Maybe, but who cares? If her team could actually get out from under the oppressive boot that is their local government and they stopped censuring any hint of dissension: National news, hell even Netflix would eat that shit up! Plenty of one-liners ready for press release and further spotlight on the issues that ACTUALLY matter.
Tavora sat up, knees hunched over the conference table in her squeaky office chair, while her right hand fervently scribed her description in the inspiration journal jostled out of her team’s portfolio and the left hand propping up her sharp chin. The boiling over tension that rippled across the sterile business space suddenly reduced down to a barely noticeable electric hum as Tavora’s favored ball-point pen worked its magic.
Wah wah wah, subscribers are down, wah wah wah, Mayor Gortash is threatening to freeze us out at City Hall, wah wah wah, public safety is Mayor Gortash’s chief concern and pieces that remind our citizens of our finest innovations in crime-fighting and detecting technology could rally our numbers. Copaganda snore-fest.
"Tavora. If you’ve got something more important to think about than the fact we might not have a goddamn paper next month, by all means, share it with the class." Eustace tapped his foot, arms crossed while he directed his ire her way.
The newsroom murmurs around her, the sounds of reality filtering back in. But the truth is, she never really left. She’s just seeing things no one else wants to.
Tavora barely flicks her gaze away from her narrative note-taking. The weight of Eustace’s words drags her back, but only halfway. She exhales slowly, more resigned than apologetic, and then—because she’s the news room’s black sheep, because she’s spent too long playing this game- she plants her feet back down under the table and feigns the most dignified posture she can muster at the tail-end of an eight hour shift with the most respectful courtesy she could pretend to extend to Eustace.
Clearing her throat first, Tavora clasped her hands together and leaned forward with both elbows on the table earning an eye-twitch from the editor-in-chief. Amused chuckles arose from Bex and Felice sitting to her left and right as they actually sat up and got their phones ready for whatever drama was about to go down. Would Tavora finally get fired this time?
"Sorry, Eustace. I’ll make sure to look more devastated next time. Wouldn’t want to disrespect the funeral procession,” Tavora sneers but is far from over as she approaches the head of the table and hijacks control of the meeting away from their boss. If he fires her for this-oh well. That severance package should at least help with the last two months of overdue back rent that her landlord Jaheira had been harping on about.
"I was just thinking about how this city eats people alive."
"How if you dig too deep into the wrong stories, you end up ‘reassigned’ or blacklisted. How Gortash’s people keep their hands clean while their enemies disappear. How whole communities are quietly erased while we run ‘balanced’ articles about the pros and cons of human rights."
“How you can see leagues of downtrodden women and children walk into that megachurch a couple blocks, up the hill, and never see them again.”
"I was wondering if we’re actually broke, or if it’s just easier to pretend we’re starving than admit we’ve already been bought."
The room does not breathe. Tavora scans the faces of her boss and peers with eagle-eye precision. Daring anyone to challenge the truths she just dropped but secretly hoped her bravado would be supported if Eustace ever actually did grow the balls to publicly terminate and shut her up.
Eustace’s face tightens. A muscle jumps in his jaw, his fingers flex against the tabletop. His anger is carefully contained, controlled like a bomb waiting to go off.
Giles Rashall, Senior Political Correspondent looks away, lips pressed together. He’s heard worse in private, but he wasn’t expecting someone to actually say it in the open.
Tessa Voss, Social Media Editor, swears under her breath, already thinking about damage control.
Rami Thorne, City Beat Reporter looks like he wants to crawl under the table. He’s new, he’s just trying to keep his job, and this is not the level of controversy he signed up for.
But then—
Felice Dunbar, Crime & Courts Reporter, and Tevora’s ex is smirking behind her coffee cup, dark eyes flicking to Eustace to see how he’ll react. She lives for moments like these. Finally, there’s Bex Riggis, photojournalist, Tavora’s work wife and best friend who actually leans forward, grinning . She looks at Tav like she just threw a lit match into a gasoline spill and Bex wants to see the explosion.
The silence stretches, tightens, suffocates . The newsroom outside the conference room is still buzzing—phones ringing, keys clacking—but inside, it’s a battlefield .
And then—Eustace exhales. Long, slow, measured. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, level, and dangerous.
"Get out."
Not an official termination. Not yet. But a warning. An order to leave before she does something even more reckless. Before she says something she can’t take back.
Felice lets out a quiet "Shit." Bex murmurs "Legendary." under her breath. Verity, her co-investigative partner, silent until now, finally looks at Tavora, eyes flickering with something like alarm.
The silence that follows is thick and heavy. Tavora doesn’t react right away. She doesn’t storm out or argue. Instead, she lets it sit. Let them all marinate in the discomfort of hearing the truth spoken plainly.
Then, with a slow exhale, she pushes back her chair. The worn-out wheels squeaking against tile in protest are sharp in the quiet.
She stands. Rolls her shoulders like she’s shedding something—maybe the last of her patience, maybe the pretense that she still cares about the politics of this newsroom.
As she turns toward the door, she catches Verity’s worried stare. The slight shake of her head. A warning: Don’t do this. Not like this.
Tav ignores it. Instead, she throws Eustace one last look over her shoulder—something unreadable, something not quite defiant but too steady to be regretful.
"Hope you don’t mind if I start freelancing."
And then she’s gone, out of the suffocating boardroom and into the chaotic hum of the Gazette’s bullpen. Phones ringing, printers wheezing, reporters murmuring over half-finished stories—life moving on, oblivious to the battle she just lost.
She’s halfway to the exit when she hears it—the whisper of a conversation just barely caught in passing.
"Yeah, the Church of Shar’s PR team finally sent a response—stonewalling, obviously."
“Denying they ever had a member named Nocturne, must be some lunatic desperate for her 15 minutes of clout.”
“Gortash and the city police claim they are “looking into it” and that “the safety and freedom of speech of all our citizens, no matter their religious beliefs or sexuality will be upheld.”
The words hit like a slow-churning fuse catching fire.
As Tavora walks past Felice’s desk, her sharp-eyed colleague casually shifts a manila folder into view.
CHURCH CULT OF SHAR – INTERNAL INVESTIGATION
Felice doesn’t look up. She doesn’t acknowledge Tav. But the placement is deliberate. A quiet, unspoken invitation. Tavora ignored the twisting sensation in her gut at the way her heart fluttered and nostalgic mind betrayed her senses. No, she could not afford to go down that path.
Almost as if sensing the hesitation and reasons behind it, Felice stood and made her way to the office restroom but not before giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and a half smile.
Curiosity won over and before she could psyche herself out, Tavora ripped the folder off Felice’s desk and stomped out into the now setting sun as the rest of Baldur’s Gate main street swelled with the transition between day-end shifts and evening home rituals. She pulls up her hood, pops in an airpod, and allows the relaxing dulcet tones of her favorite true crime enthusiast-Cruella Devella.
Devella and Tav (and Felice) both share a morbid fascination with the psyche of cult leaders and the delicious moment they know they are cooked when the authorities close in.
“Ritual stabbings, blood baths, and offerings of high profile targets to their devilish god in the flesh: Bhaal through the enigmatic Sarevok family. How did so many well-mannered and well-raised youths get swept up in this short-lived murder cult? Follow along with me on today’s episode of Devella’s Deep Dives…”
As Tavora resumed her walk to the bus stop, a cold realization settled deep into her stomach causing her heart to start pounding. I just quit my job and on my work family. How in the fuck am I going to explain any of this to Jaheira now??
Arriving at the bench a couple blocks away, Tav collapsed before realizing the manila folder still clutched tightly in the crook of her arm. The folder containing intel that her ex and her sources uncovered about this secretive religious organization, The Church of Shar. Right. Impending nervous breakdown about how she is going to avoid homelessness would have to wait.
Tavora allowed herself a couple of deep breaths while Devella continued to infodump on the formerly active Church of Bhaal into her ear though the content mattered little-just the familiar episodic structure was enough to counter the intrusive thoughts weaving through once the adrenaline from her dramatic walk-out started to dissipate.
A beat later, Tavora opened her eyes and let the folder open. Clipped photos of the highly secure church atop the hill overlooking the city, reddit threads, potential suspected names in leadership, and finally what made Tavora’s eyes widen and breath catch: a freshly printed interview with the timestamp from just yesterday evening between Felice and a recently escaped victim who was a former member. Of course Felice would have found herself once again rescuing strays and making herself a huge target. Felice didn’t exactly know the meaning of self-preservation.
Now, Tavora would have to find just how much shit Felice found herself in. That, she decided was the reason for her resolve to investigate this cult personally. Definitely not because of the bubbling joy filling her lungs and ecstatic anticipation sparking through her finger-tips, nor because of the rush to her brain awash now in different chemicals than strictly cortisol.
This folder may not contain much in a tangible sense but its potential could be just big enough to take the true-crime world by storm. Topple down the corrupt organizations and these fattened cows in charge of Baldur’s Gate’s citizens . And my name at the center of it all.
Tavora flipped through the folder with all the urgency of a drowning woman clawing for air.
Each page she scanned was another tug deeper into the undertow: clipped news articles about missing persons, grainy screenshots of now-deleted Reddit threads titled things like "Where Are They Taking Our Girls?", and police statements so sterile they stank of whitewash.
Her fingertips paused over a spreadsheet Felice had mockingly titled "Shar’s Charities and Their Living 'Miracles.'" Columns of names, dates, neighborhoods. Almost all of them women. Young.
Some with a little red marker scribble in the margin: Known LGBTQIA+. At-risk youth program.
Others simply had the word "Relocated.”
Relocated to where?
The pit in Tavora's stomach widened into a hollow chasm.
She knew these euphemisms. Had written enough fluff pieces for City Hall to recognize the glossy lies.
Relocation was what they called it when they shut down tent cities and “assisted” unhoused populations into private, untrackable institutions. Relocation was a disappearing act.
She thumbed back through the packet, pulling out another document — a glossy flyer, professionally printed.
“A New Dawn of Faith:
An Invitation to All – This Saturday
The Church of Shar Welcomes You.”
She stared at the shimmering gold font stretched across a photo of the megachurch, framed by blue skies and doves mid-flight. At the bottom, in fine print:
“Featuring testimonies from our newly blessed initiates. Free food, childcare available.”
Her first instinct was to scoff. Her second was to check the date. Tomorrow.
Perfect.
An opportunity to waltz straight into the lion’s mouth, armed with nothing but a reporter’s instinct and a bad attitude.
A vibration against her thigh pulled her out of her grim reverie. She pulled out her cracked phone.
Bex: You alive? Eustace was still in office, door locked when I left. Sounded pissed and a little scared on the phone with someone. Please tell me you didn’t slash his tires or something stupid…or at least not without me there to watch. We’re all going to the Blushing Mermaid later for drinks. You in?
Tavora half-smirked, thumb hovering over the keyboard, but didn’t answer.
Instead, she thumbed open her notes app and started cataloging what she knew.
Cold, clinical. The only way to keep her brain from screaming.
- 57 reported missing within last 18 months, mostly women ages 17–32.
- Last seen near Church properties.
- “Rehabilitative” programs listed, but no public audits or accountability.
- Church of Shar holds immense political influence, thin ties to Gortash’s public safety initiative.
- Tomorrow’s open event = potential first in-person surveillance of their active players.
Tavora snapped the folder shut and tucked it inside her battered messenger bag, feeling the brittle corners bite into her ribs. The evening air had cooled, the scent of rain flirting in the distance, and the city's neon glare flickered on like a stage being set.
Next steps: Go home, chug the last monster in the fridge if her power hasn’t been shut off yet. Prepare for this open event and go in undercover tomorrow to talk with an initiate under the guise of someone interested in joining. Then, track down the brave interviewee and see if their answers corroborate the other materials in this folder. From there, future Tav will have to worry about relocating or get the story hook she needs to convince some independent newspaper/press outlet to hire her.
Her heart drummed a nervous rhythm in her chest. Fear and exhilaration fought for dominance.
This was it. The first thread of the sweater. Pull hard enough, and the whole thing might just come apart. Or it might wrap itself around my throat.
Either way — she was already in.