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The Once and Future Champion (Baldur's Gate 3/Dragon Age) (Complete)

Sigh, well got most of the way through the temple before realizing I was going out of order and going to the tower. The problem is that half way through the towers quests something trips and none of my saves work after that point. I went for six hours past that point but if I reload any saves after that point it tells me the 'server is about to shut down'. I just can't be fucking bothered to restart the game.
 
It's perhaps the most unsatisfying boss fight in the game, given how absurdly Orin cheats (she has seven stacks of invulnerability that refresh every turn down there, in addition to all the other cheats that Bhaal is amping her with), and I've never gotten through it without cheat mods.
Skill issue. I beat her on my first try with my unmodded, max-level, Oath of Vengeance Dark Urge Paladin. Just knock her down and continuously stun her and she'll go down.
 
Chapter 38 New
I sat alone with Shadowheart on the moonlit beach, in a secluded cove near the South Span and just around the tip of the peninsula from Gray Harbor. Both of us had shared a laugh about how we always seemed to end up in such a place whenever we were having a major relationship moment.

Right now Dame Aylin was leading some of the others on a mission to clean out the Temple of Bhaal. After all, just because Orin and several squads of her most skilled servants were dead didn't mean that a nest of murder cultists wasn't still present in the city and didn't still need dealing with. Besides, while Aylin was professionally gratified that our plan to lure out Orin and deal wth her expeditiously had succeeded so well that didn't change the part where she'd been psyched up for the big fight we'd been expecting and had found our most recent success to be a bit anticlimactic.

We'd been very fortunate with Orin. I wouldn't exactly call it a fluke, as we'd only gotten the result that we'd been planning for all along. But the fact was that our plan A had been a best-case scenario and that we could very likely have ended up needing a plan B or a plan C instead. Luring Orin out as we had might have been essentially guaranteed given her particular psychology, but managing to so neatly trap and destroy her in the open? We'd set up everything we could to make that happen, but if she'd been even slightly quicker on the uptake or less careless she could still have gotten away from us. And while the runepowder bomb had had sufficient destructive power to vaporize even the Slayer, it wasn't something we could use on a city street without either favorable circumstances or else a significant amount of collateral damage, and those favorable circumstances had required some tricky split-second timing to pull off.

This is part of why our lure had involved assembling such a genuinely large force. If we hadn't achieved the best-case scenario then we'd have had to pursue Orin all the way back to the Temple and assault it the hard way after all. There was still a significant difference between entering the temple when Orin had had all the time necessary to prepare for our arrival and had built her entire plan around that, and entering the temple when her plan A had just failed disastrously and we'd killed at least some of the same people she'd have needed to arrange for whatever occult ambush she'd have prepared down there. So we'd still had a fallback position for doing it the hard way... if we'd needed to.

But we were very glad we hadn't needed to, even if there likely was still some kind of manifestation of Bhaal down there that Aylin and Isobel would have to banish. Although we'd have been down there helping them with it if all of our friends hadn't insisted that we'd done enough recently and that we deserved some private time.

Despite the obvious thoughts that came to mind with the two of us finally getting a moment alone for the first time in days as well as the fact that we hadn't actually consumnated our relationship before, we'd actually started out with swimming lessons of all things. Shadowheart had never had the chance to learn before, after all - or at least not that she could ever remember - and she'd even been more than a bit afraid of the ocean. Conquering a mundane fear with purely mundane support from her beloved, without any goddesses or quests or tadpoles or sacred duties involved... after all that we'd already been through, including facing down Shar herself in the Chamber of Loss, it was largely a symbolic gesture for her. Yet still, it had been an important one.

And as for a more romantic interlude on the beach... well, that certainly happened as well, after we'd been swimming a while. But that's all anyone else needs to know about that.

"Comfortable?" I asked her as we laid next to each other on our spread blanket, our clothes now discreetly back on... mostly.

"If I were any more comfortable I think I'd turn into liquid and seep down into the sand." Shadowheart said amusedly as she leaned further into the crook of my shoulder. "It... wasn't my first time, I'm sure you're already aware. But somehow, it still felt like it was."

"I've said that before as well, and you can probably guess to who." I agreed with her. "Casual affairs are one thing, but with someone you love? That's something else entirely."

"And to think that tomorrow it will be all over... one way or the other." Shadowheart sighed.

"We've got the Orphic Hammer and Orin's Netherstone, and those were the last two things we needed before we're ready to take on the elder brain." I agreed. "And Aylin's team should be just about finished with the Bhaalite temple clean-out. We get one last night of rest and recharge our spells, everybody gets in position, we tell Gortash we've got the stone and take him with us to confront the brain... and then we either win or we die."

Shadowheart rolled over to look me in the eyes... before she winced in pain. I immediately reached down and took her by the hand, using my templar powers to push away Shar's curse yet again.

"Granting that she's literally the goddess of spite, she's still been very insistent the past couple of days." I said disappointedly. "Is she ever going to ease off?"

"One certainly hopes." Shadowheart said, flexing her fingers with a wince. "Even with you to shield me from most of it, it's still decidedly unpleasant. And I can only imagine how much worse it would be if you weren't exerting your powers on my behalf."

"I can almost understand why your parents urged you to do what we didn't." I agreed. "But that was Shar's trap."

"As is, I'm going to have to manage goddess-induced chronic pain syndrome for the rest of my life." she agreed. "But Shar can choke on it if she thinks that's going to make me despair. It was her church that tried to teach me that any amount of suffering could be endured with pride if it were 'meaningful'... and I'm going to take a very spiteful pleasure of my own in applying those teachings back against her in a way that she never expected. I have my parents back. I have you. No curse will ever be enough to make me regret that."

"You are an amazing woman, truly. I think I may have mentioned that before." I kissed her lightly.

"Once or twice, perhaps." she agreed cutely. "And you- sometimes I still can't believe you're real." she melted into my embrace. "Even though you are. You're real, and you're... I don't know what I did to make you want to be with me, but I want to keep doing it for the rest of my life."

"So do I." I smiled back at her, before turning serious. "But that might prove more complicated than you think."

"What do you mean?" she said, going taut with fear.

"I'm sorry." I said quickly. "Shadowheart, I love you too, and nothing would make me happier than spending the rest of my life with you. I should have said that first."

She relaxed into my arms again. "I should be very cross with you for frightening me like that, but I'd rather know what you were thinking."

"The complication that I'm not from Faerun. And while at first I assumed that I was going to be an involuntary expat on Faerun forever, that was before I met Faerun's greatest archmage... or the dispossessed prince of perhaps the greatest planar travel experts in the multiverse." I explained.

"That was what Elminster was referring to when he said that he was still working on the question that you'd asked him." Shadowheart realized. "You'd inquired about a finding a planar route back to Thedas. Which..." her voice caught. "Of course I can't blame you for doing that. It's your home."

"I'll be honest - Faerun is a much nicer world, from what I've seen of it so far. Even with elder brains and Gortashes and Orins." I agreed. "Thedas is a brutal place, with existential threats that possibly compare to the Absolute, far more corrupt governments, a system of magic with such inherent flaws that simply practicing it can get the unwary or weak-minded possessed by demons, and everything else I've already described. But just as you said - it is my home. Many of my friends are still back there fighting and dying versus an ongoing crisis fully as bad as our own. And if-"

"When." Shadowheart firmly corrected me.

"-we defeat the Absolute..." I squared my shoulders. "If Elminster or Orpheus don't know of a route back to Thedas I can use, then I'm relieved of that responsibility. But if they do know of one... and I don't know yet if they will or not... then I can't justify staying here and letting the Inquisition struggle and possibly fail against Corypheus without my going back to help. Particularly not since I've only recently come to realize that I have the solution - or at least a very large part of a solution - to the underlying mage/templar crisis in the first place. My paladin powers let me do everything that Chantry templars back on Thedas can do to ward against and fight magic and extraplanar threats, and more - and unlike their lyrium-powered talents, mine require ongoing fidelity to a moral code. The sort of corruption and brutality and paranoia that Meredith and those like her fell into, that fostered the abuses that led to the mage rebellion exploding forth in the first place... they wouldn't be possible if templars were also paladins. Our powers would only continue functioning if we remained true and just. And I know that at least some templars back home would be at least as able to make the transition as I was, once I showed them that it was possible. Knight-Captain Cullen would catch on right away of a certainty - the man's more honorable than me!"

"Don't forget that Minthara was also able to sustain her paladin oath, despite being brutally lawful and evil." Shadowheart reminded me intelligently. "But you've got an entirely valid point - with proper selection and codification of oaths, as well as paladin-powered talents rather than the lyrium drug, the templar orders back on Thedas would be very different. And while that wouldn't necessary abolish all abuse it would make it far rarer in occurrence."

"And much more quickly and easily exposed - and punished - when it did occur. Which would start getting the mages to actually trust templars again, or at least some of them. Which would allow the general population to start trusting them again as well, as opposed to the outright civil war it was right before the latest crisis kicked off. That's a problem Inquisitor Lavellan was terrified would just flare up again as soon as the Corypheus affair was no longer around to keep things on a martial law footing... and rightly so, as it's ultimately been the tragedy underlying the existence of magic on Thedas ever since the founding of the Chantry."

"A world where the magic system has an active, ongoing push towards corruption." Shadowheart agreed. "As harsh as your Mage Circles have sounded from your descriptions, the fact that they created something like the Circle system and the templars rather than going for the more obvious solution speaks well of your Chantry."

"The founding of the Circle system and the templars was indeed the Chantry's compromise position between the abuses of mage-rule like Tevinter and the outright extermination of mages that popular sentiment at the time was demanding. And let's not even mention the fates worse than death that the Qun practices on the saarebas." I shuddered. "For all that many people criticize Andraste's 'tyranny' over mages, the fact remains that her reforms and strictures were essentially the only reason mages continued to exist outside the Tevinter Imperium after the original rebellion."

"That is a remarkably merciful - and nuanced - attitude for a man whose family had to spend their lives as fugitives from the templars." Shadowheart complimented me.

"My father the apostate mage was the one who taught that attitude to me." I said wistfully. "And Bethany was as devout to the Chantry as any sister of the faith could possibly be, despite being an apostate herself. Just because Father loved his freedom - and my mother - far too much to stay in the Mage Circle himself doesn't mean that he ever hated them or the templars."

"So that's where you get it from." Shadowheart said lovingly. "I wish I could've met him. But yes, I entirely understand why you feel you have to go back. It's not even just everyone you know on Thedas facing danger without you and you wanting to lend them your sword. Your templar-paladin abilities are currently unique, and your world is in dire need of them. You have to at least try to see if you can teach them."

"I wish you could've met all of them." I agreed. "But yes, that... is the problem. After we're done here, I might have to leave." I sighed. "I find another woman that I'd love to stay with, and it's only when I have to go."

"Why are you automatically assuming that I wouldn't come with you?" Shadowheart shocked me.

"You've just regained your family that you'd lost for decades, and I can hardly ask you to leave them behind right away?" I stared incredulously at her.

"If all this works out the way we hope then Orpheus is going to owe you a large enough favor that you could ask for regular passenger service between here and Thedas, let alone a simple return trip." Shadowheart replied. "And going back to help the Inquisition defeat Corypheus and then to teach the templars of Thedas your new way of doing things doesn't necessarily require us to stay there forever." She shrugged. "Or we could just send for my parents after we've been on Thedas for long enough to defeat Corypheus and it's safe for them to come. You mentioned owning an entire manor house in Kirkwall's Hightown - surely it has a spare bedroom?" She poked me playfully in the ribs. "I might have been thinking of things like a modest little farmstead full of animals, and I might have been surprised by the possibilities you just raised... but I fell in love with you. And you wouldn't be you if you could just abandon your home in its hour of need. Anymore than I would be me if I just abandoned what we have together."

"Given how long I've been away from Kirkwall my house has likely been sold out from under me again, although Varric can hopefully get it back for me." I deflected. "Or we could ask the Inquisitor for help finding a place... if Corypheus is defeated then the Inquisition is going to be the new most powerful institution on Thedas, at least for the next several years." I snuggled more closely into her. "You're really that serious about coming with me? Assuming that they actually find me a way back at all, that is?"

"I said that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, love." she smiled. "I don't recall putting any qualifications or quibbles into that statement."

"We've known each other barely a month, so it's a little too soon for even a betrothal - let alone what follows." I felt the need to inject a bit of logic into the situation. "But a commitment? I would love that very much."

"So it's settled then." Shadowheart sighed lovingly. "Whether it be on Faerun, or Thedas or wherever else the astral winds might blow us..."

"Not for each other, but with each other." I agreed, and we stopped using words for a while.



The morning sun was just visible in the eastern skyline as we all met for the final time in a discreet rendezvous in the Guildhall. Aylin had come back from the Temple of Bhaal reporting a complete mission success - every remaining cultist who hadn't had the sense to run away before her team got there was now dead.

"Our surmise was correct." Aylin nodded to me. "There was a manifestation of Bhaal waiting for us in the temple. Fortunately for us it was ensconced in the idol there and was a stationary presence that could not leave - their original plan must have been for Bhaal's essence to possess Orin when we confronted her and empower her to crush us all. In addition to all the magical support that her cultists could lend her via group rituals. We found many preparations for such in the temple."

"But Bhaal could only incarnate his essence in one of his own Bhaalspawn... and Orin was the only one he had remaining in Baldur's Gate." Jaheira agreed smugly. "Luring her out saved most of our lives - if we'd fought against her and her cultists on their terms, they'd have bled us like butchered pigs."

"Nice to have something go right for a change." I agreed. "Is everyone ready? You've all got your assignments?"

"The Honor Guard stands ready." Prelate Lir'i'c said proudly. "As soon as our Prince is freed to join you, so shall we."

"My team is prepared to hit the Foundry." Jaheira agreed, as Minsc enthusaistically nodded his head behind her..

"Mine's ready to rescue the hostages from the Iron Throne as soon as Gortash is safely away from his central control panel." Wyll agreed.

"Dawnmaster Arkhold, Aylin, and I will be mustering what forces the temples can provide and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a general outbreak across the city." Isobel nodded.

"The Flaming Fist that we can actually trust are standing by." Councilor Florrick nodded.

"I've learned how to control the arcane artillery on Ramazith's flying tower." Rolan - the onetime tiefling apprentice that we'd helped win free of Lorroakan - said. "It'll be standing by in case you need it."

"I've done all the rumormongering I can and the other bards I've all talked to likewise." Alfira said diffidently, still a bit nervous in the formidable company she was now keeping. "The public barely knows anything - we still don't know much, to be honest - but the word's definitely out on the street that today might see another attack from the forces of the Absolute and what to run away from if it happens."

"My people have done the same." Nine-Fingers nodded curtly. "The Upper City patriars have got their shiny Watchmen and guardsmen to cover their arses, but the Lower City is ready to take care of itself. Anybody sees any mind flayers, they'll know what to avoid and who to yell for help from."

"My gith have been spreading the word to our loyalists across the planes for the past several days - the day of liberation draws near." Kith'rak Voss contributed. "We are still too few and too scattered to provide a githyanki army, but in case the elder brain breaks loose myself and several other dragonriders are standing by as well as other teams of gith throughout the city to help deal with any ghaik concentrations that the citizens might find for us. And I will of course be bringing the backup team - and the Orphic Hammer - to follow you down."

"Damn straight we are!" Karlach fist-pumped.

"I've mustered every former Hellrider I could find in the city." Zevlor nodded. "Your father saved Elturel, Wyll. And today we will repay that debt by helping save Baldur's Gate."

"We'll need to." Voss agreed gravely. "It is vanishingly unlikely that we will achieve domination over the elder brain without a major incident. There have been more than a few ghaik manifestations across the city just in the past eight hours - my people have contained several of them and Gortash's forces left us with no need to intervene in several other incidents, but that's still more 'slips' of its control in the past night than we've had in the entire week before that. When you make your final push with the Netherstones the elder brain will of a certainty throw every desperate effort into unleashing as much chaos as possible in the hopes to overwhelm you before you can finish destroying it. We will need all of the preparations we have made, if not more."

"Ansur agrees." I nodded to Voss. "The dragon's spirit warned us not less than an hour ago that it can sense the elder brain's mental presence growing in strength. The Crown's restraints on it are slipping. We have only several hours left."

"How is Ansur?" Wyll asked me. "Will he be able to join the attack?"

"When push comes to shove, we'll find out." I shrugged. "All right, has anyone got any last-minute questions or contributions? Anything we've overlooked?" A long moment of silence and a gallery of determined expressions was my only answer. "All right... Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and Gale with me. Voss, give us time to lure Gortash out of his fortress and then close in. Everybody else, split up into your teams and get ready to execute as soon as the kith'rak reports that we've finished phase one."

"Moonmaiden bless us all." Isobel and Shadowheart said simultaneously, and then we headed out.

The four of us strode confidently into Wyrm's Rock, both Netherstones safely in my pouch next to the Astral Prism. A squad of Gortash's senior Baneites escorted him to see us in at once.

"I commend you for putting an end to Orin's madness." Gortash said happily. "She must be screaming bloody murder in the Hells even now." His eyes narrowed at us suspiciously. "But that was last night. You've been rather busy since then. I've been picking up all sorts of rumors and preparations. If it wasn't so preposterous, I'd say that my city is mustering for a great battle - without my commanding it."

"That's because it is." I said forthrightly. "For one, the Crown's restraints on the elder brain are hanging by a thread so it's likely we'll be dealing with mind flayer outbreaks all over the city as soon as we make our push, and someone needed to get something in play to handle that."

"And you didn't discuss this possibility with me?" Gortash said calmly, as we stared at each other coldly across his desk. "Or consider that I had already anticipated this contigency and would have my own forces on alert?"

"The Steel Watch?" I parried. "Don't the brains of those run on a variant of the intellect devourer technology you got from the elder brain in the first place? My tadpole can pick up the psionic presence in their golem cores every time I pass near one. I was assuming as a matter of course that the elder brain's first move in any open confrontation would be to take mental command of their network and disable them... or worse yet, turn them against us."

"I see." Gortash blinked rapidly. "But that wasn't the only reason, wasn't it?"

"And if you were going to betray us after all, the logical time for that would be now." I continued matter-of-factly. "So no, I wasn't going to walk into this office without at least trying to accumulate some hole cards to bid against your own with."

"But that's the only thing you intended to do with them, of course." Gortash smiled, as the heavy footsteps of several Steel Watchers became dimly audible outside his office.

"Have you forgotten that many of my allies are people like Aylin and Isobel?" I reminded him. "My preparations had multiple purposes. Safeguard against illithid outbreaks, a bulwark against your possible betrayal of us... and keeping the less practical people among us all busy with something else during the moment of truth. Or did you really want an unkillable celestial within swords' reach of you while we used the Netherstones to dominate the elder brain, as opposed to destroying it like she believes we're doing? With the elder brain fully under our control, we'll be easily able to keep them all under our thumb. But until then...?" I trailed off and let him mentally fill in the blanks for himself - while the sweat trickled down my back under my armor. Gortash was notably more suspicious than I'd hoped he'd be at this stage, and I'd been reaching pretty far for plausible explanations in the past several minutes.

"True, she would have been the most logical asset for you to deploy directly if you'd been intending something more... pointed." Gortash conceded. "And you're entirely telling the truth that the aasimar is nowhere near here at present - I have an entire team observing her and the priestess' movements. As well as those of the refugees and militia that you've enlisted. I would wish I knew where Jaheira and Minsc were at present, though. Do you?"

"They're supposed to be in the Guildhall waiting for my word to move if need be." I said, relieved that Gortash had apparently reacted just as I'd hoped - by being busy enough tracking all the moving pieces that I had let him see out in the open that he'd entirely overlooked Wyll, Karlach, and the githyanki, none of whom he was even supposed to know about. "So if they're not there, then Jaheira's starting to play her own game behind my back - which I suppose shouldn't be that large of a shock. Still, unless she somehow manages to assassinate us both in the next hour then it doesn't really matter what she's up to. All we need to do is get to the elder brain and finish the job, and then nothing else matters."

"And that is ultimately what it all reduces to, agreed." Gortash nodded. "You have the stones?"

I reached into my pouch and withdrew Ketheric's and Orin's Netherstones both and wordlessly held them up on my palm for his examination. "And I can see yours right there on your gauntlet, of course, where it's always been."

"This is where I'd intended to demand your stones at swordspoint as a 'proof of your loyalty'." Gortash smiled, deliberately drawing the revelation out. "As a test of your nerve and wit, to see if you were foolish enough to agree with such an absurd notion. If you had been, then you'd have been unworthy of allying with. But we don't have time for such games now, and you've already proven your loyalty in blood. Let us be about it, then."

The primary purpose of Voss' backup team was to monitor our movements and let the other teams know as soon as we'd safely gotten Gortash out of his command center and isolated with us down in the sewers. As he didn't have a direct mental link to the Steel Watchers - we could have detected that with our tadpoles - he'd need to be where he could access his devices, or at least a lone Watcher he could repurpose as a command terminal in order to pick up any alert broadcasts from the network and issue any commands. That, in addition to Wyll's being "dead" as far as Gortash knew, is how we were dealing with the self-destruct problem on the Iron Throne underwater prison. Only Gortash could send the self-destruct command, and our journey to the elder brain was Wyll's window of opportunity to rescue his father and all the imprisoned Gondians. Jaheira's team would likewise be assaulting the Steel Watch foundry as soon as Wyll's team deployed - its defenses were formidable but she'd spent a lot of time in the past two days scouting them all out while inconspicuously wildshaped into a small burrowing animal, and Jaheira's Harpers were equipped for everything they would run into. Barcus Wroot had even given us some copies of the Ironhand Gnomes' new flashbomb intended to fry the ocular sensors of Steel Watchers, so even the several Hellfire Watcher Mark-II models and the prototype Hellfire Watcher Titan they had stashed in there would be readily dealt with.

We'd had a fork in the plan for if Gortash hadn't trusted us enough to go down there with us by himself, but we hadn't expected to need it. Whoever accompanied us to the final confrontation with the Elder Brain would of course be able to see how we intended to control it, and that was knowledge we didn't think Gortash would trust any of his subordinates with. And since the Elder Brain was currently ensconced in a cavern underneath the Upper City, one that could only be reached by boat through the sewers and the old smuggler caves, he couldn't take any of his Steel Watchers with either. That meant that Gortash's personal security was limited to his own fighting skills, whatever creatures he might possibly be able to summon with spells or devices - if he had any - and us.

And so, as we finished our journey on foot through the undercity and approached the small wooden docks where a boat waited to take us on the final lap of our journey to the elder brain, we finally enacted our sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

"Damn." Gortash said matter-of-factly as we halted our progress and all drew our weapons, surrounding him. "I had hoped for better from you, Hawke."

I peered carefully at him, not detecting the slightest sign of shock or surprise. "You were expecting this? How? More importantly, why?"

"You did an exceptional job of setting me up." he reassured me. "It wasn't until we were already on our way down here that I spotted the clue that I really should have earlier. Shadowheart is of course by far your most loyal follower - love is such a useful thing for subordinates to feel towards their superiors. And Gale is desperate for a cure that only the power of the Absolute could potentially offer him. So choosing them as your companions for this final most secret mission makes perfect sense - they wouldn't care that we intended to use the power of the Absolute rather than destroy it."

"But Lae'zel is githyanki." I realized my mistake once Gortash had pointed it out. "However renegade or outcast she might be, the idea of doing anything with an elder brain other than murdering it - most especially the idea of trying to exploit it - should have warranted the most strenuous objections from her. And yet there she was, visibly unconcerned."

"Leaving as the most obvious inference that you intended the destruction of the brain all along, from which it logically followed that I would be betrayed." Gortash nodded. "I really wish I had caught on to that before we had left my office."

"Yet you still came down with us anyway?" Gale asked, puzzled.

"As I just said, by the time I realized what might be happening I had already gone past the point of no return." Gortash shrugged. "So there was nothing for it but to continue onward and hope that my suspicion had been wrong."

"In your defense, we had a lot of separate things all distracting you at the critical moment." I felt a need to point out. "In fact, the purpose of most of them was just to distract you. Well, that and genuinely bolstering the city defenses against what we're about to unleash."

"And I agree that I very much underestimated you." Gortash said. "I had thought your Oath - as well as the compelling logic of the situation and my arguments - would be sufficient to guarantee your sincerity. Especially after you reaffirmed that sincerity by slaying two of your own. Are you truly so dedicated to abstract ideals that you would condemn yourself as an oathbreaker paladin? Just to destroy me?" he smiled, his voice and mannerisms all presenting as the very soul of enlightened reason.

"And what oath was that?" Karlach's voice cut in angrily. "The one to remain bound to the pact so long as you were true to your dealings with Hawke and his party, is that right?"

"Karlach?!?" Gortash's jaw gaped in astonishment as he turned to see her and Voss strolling up behind us. The rest of Voss' team had dispersed to secondary objectives as per the plan, as Gortash's being alone meant that they wouldn't have been needed here.

"Surprise, fucker!" Karlach bared her teeth at him. "You thought you were safe, didn't you? Thought I was dead and buried and finally out of your hair forever? And just like the first time, you were wrong!"

"True to your dealings with me and my party." I repeated, as the copper piece finally dropped for Gortash. "That included her... and of course, you'd already betrayed her to Zariel long ago. I didn't put a time limit on the term 'dealings', either. I had a free out-clause to break my pact with you dating back to a decade before we'd even made it."

"The truly poetic part is that you had every opportunity to wriggle free of the trap." Shadowheart grinned nastily at him. "If you'd even so much as apologized to Karlach for what you'd done - if you'd acknowledged that you'd done her wrong and even attempted reconciliation or sought her forgiveness - then you'd have covered yourself. Even if nothing you could have done would ever truly repay her for all those lost years, simply having her accept your apology would have worked. All you needed to close Hawke's loophole on him and leave us with a far harder dilemma to solve would have been to behave with simple common decency. But it never even occurred to you that you'd done anything wrong in the first place."

"And then you doubled down by taking the first opportunity you had to get rid of her - by shooting her in the back, no less." Gale pointed out. "From that moment on, your fate was truly sealed."

"Her fate should have been sealed!" Gortash insisted angrily. "My people retained custody of the body! And destroyed it! You wouldn't have had anything to raise her with! Not even Lady Thorm is a powerful enough priestess to cast True Resurrection, let alone Shadowheart!"

"That's not how we did it." Karlach smirked at him. "And you're going to die never knowing how we did. Oh and by the way, Wyll's alive too. Three guesses where he is right now, and the first two don't count!"

"Hawke, this isn't necessary." Gortash insisted. "We can still complete the original plan. You can still rule the world. Anything and everything you could possibly want - that Karlach could possibly want as well - with the power of the Absolute, it can all be yours! You want the youth back that was stolen from you? With the full power of illithid science at our disposal, immortality is conceivably within our reach! As well as wealth - security - fame- anything!"

"Anything?!?" Karlach shouted. "You really think you can give me what I want? Do you even know what I want?"

"Do you really think killing me will give you what you want?" Gortash asked her. "Do you think that crushing the life from my body - even the slowest and most horrible torture, if you ever learned any - will leave you feeling satisfied, will leave you fulfilled? You know far more about war and fighting than I ever will, of course, but never forget that you and I are equals when it comes to knowing the torments of the hells. What you suffered through, so did I. But I learned far more from it than you apparently did, if you are still foolish enough to believe in such things as vengeance." He snorted. "To be fair, I still believed in vengeance even after my escape. And I avenged myself on my parents, for selling me to Raphael as they did. I broke their minds, enslaved their wills, trapped them in a living hell where they could helplessly watch their bodies be animated like puppets while their minds were trapped forever within, screaming silently into the void." Gortash shook his head slowly. "And it didn't taste anywhere near as sweet as I thought it might. Vengeance is hollow, Karlach. When pursued to completion, it consumes everything that you put into the effort and gives back nothing in return. I learned that the hard way. And you wouldn't want to."

"Vengeance is hollow." I agreed with him, as Karlach gasped in shock. "I killed my mother's slayer out of pure vengeance, before her blood was even cold. And I'll admit that a dark part of my mind found some kind of pleasure in it... but it gave me no genuine satisfaction in the long run. She was still dead, I was still aggrieved, and the lives of everybody who'd known her were still that much emptier. And soon enough, knowing that Quentin had died by my sword tasted like nothing but ash. For everything else that Gortash has ever lied about, he's telling the truth about this one."

"So what?" Karlach said, her eyes full of tears. "You're saying I should let him live? That I came all this way for nothing?"

"Of course not." I surprised them both. "Gortash dying would be the rightful penalty for his crimes and a guarantee that he'd never be able to hurt anyone else again... well, not unless some serious necromantic intervention occurred, but that would just mean he'd have to be killed even harder. I'm simply saying that if you're going to kill him then do it out of necessity - not desire."

"We could have been allies, Hawke- no, we could have been friends." Gortash mourned quietly. "We could have had everything. But you're giving it all up... and even now, at the end, I simply cannot understand why."

"He's giving it all up - we're giving it all up - because there's a whole world full of people who 'could be' and 'could have'." Karlach spat at him. "And so long as they're not being complete arseholes about it, they all deserve the chance to try to. But you'd never let them, would you? Even when you were richer than someone like me could ever dream of being it never mattered to you what you had. The only thing you cared about was what more you could take away from somebody else, from everybody else." She spat. "You say that you supposedly learned that vengeance was hollow? Then what about your whole grubby obsession with power, your 'let's enslave every brain on Toril' bullshit? Because I think all of that was nothing but you trying to take revenge on the entire goddamned world for- I don't know, being born."

"Well the point is entirely academic now, I suppose." Gortash replied mildly. "Even if you don't kill me, I'm certain Hawke has already decided on the necessity of doing so. And he's right, of course. If we were both still alive after the Absolute died, then I would never let this insult pass."

Karlach's answer to that was the point of her adamantine longsword being thrust directly through Gortash's breastbone and into his heart. He looked down in dull surprise at his mortal wound, and then looked back up to smile right in Karlach's face with blood-wet lips. And so, with a quiet sigh, passed Enver Gortash - first and only Archduke of Baldur's Gate.

-from bonds-
-FREE!
-no more-

-a SLAVE-
-liberators-
-saviours-
-pawns-
-DUPES-
-usefulness-
-ENDED-
-target-them-
-kill-them-
-death-
-UNAVOIDABLE!-


The thunderous mental chorus echoed in all our minds even at this distance from the Upper City, as the very ground quaked beneath our feet. All of Baldur's Gate rumbled with the titanic force that had just been unleashed, and we all slowly and painfully got up off the floor where the crushing force of the Elder Brain's thoughts had sent us reeling.

"Shit!" I swore. "Gortash was the last of the original trio - when we killed him, nobody who'd given the Elder Brain orders was still alive to obey! It's breaking loose now!"

"Hurry!" Lae'zel cried, and with barely a pause to recover Gortash's corpse for later disposal - we certainly didn't want anyone else possibly resurrecting him later - we all dove through the portal Orpheus opened for us and re-entered the Astral Prism.

"It is time, my old friend." the Prince greeted us, his face eager with anticipate despite our desperate circumstances. And rightly so, because this would be the first time he breathed the free air in uncounted millenia-

"Indeed." Voss said, his face alight with the satisfaction that only gaining your heart's desire after eons of being denied could grant one, and he hefted the Orphic Hammer and struck.

One mighty blow for each of the two chains is all it took, and the infernal bands of energy dissolved into nothingness as the giant red crystals that sustained them shattered. The Prince of the Comet lowered lightly to the ground and stood marveling at his own empty hands, at the firm ground he stood upon, at everything he had been denied for so long.

"Sha'vah Orpheus!" every other gith inside the Astral Prism chanted joyously. "The Prince of the Comet is free!"

"I am free, yes, but our perils have only begun! The Elder Brain is unleashed to strike with its full power... and the echoes of my shattering chains will be sounding as far away as Tu'narath even now. The Usurper's strike against us will only be delayed by her fear of confronting the elder brain herself - and that will be a dubious protection indeed. Supreme Kith'rak, are my forces ready?" Orpheus orated.

"Every loyalist we could spread word to has been alerted to stand by for this moment, Your Radiance." Voss bowed. "A tithe of them will muster to Baldur's Gate immediately, as the rest enact targeted strikes in githyanki space to distract and deceive the Usurper."

"Prelate, is my Honor Guard ready?" Orpheus turned regally to face the commander of his guards.

"We fight and die by your side, Your Radiance!" she bowed to him.

"Saer Hawke, how fare our allies?" he turned to me.

"Ready as we'll ever be." I nodded respectfully.

"Did you remember to bring it?" he incongrously turned back to Voss.

Voss answered him with a sly grin. "Of course I did."

"Then just one minor matter remains." Orpheus smiled. "Lae'zel, free warrior of the gith, step forward." Voss quickly stepped away to fetch a long slender something wrapped in a canvas cloth, which he bore back to his ruler. "What is the greatest gift that Mother Gith ever granted her dauntless children?"

"A silver sword." Lae'zel said, awestruck, as Orpheus unwrapped the package he bore to reveal that very thing.

"To cleave both flesh and spirit in a single blow, to slay the enemies of the gith on any and every plane that touches the Astral Sea." Orpheus said reverently. "To have all gith who see its bearer know that they have been honored as few ever have. To command all gith of lesser station, having proven their ability, their loyalty, their courage beyond all question. That is the responsibility and the blessing laid upon those who would bear these weapons. So from this day forth may you forever bear this weapon with pride... Kith'rak Lae'zel."

Lae'zel knelt before him to be tapped once on each shoulder with her silver sword, and rose for the first time as a githyanki knight. She took her new weapon from the hands of her sovereign and bowed before him again, too overcome to even speak.

"Voss, return to the surface and take command of our arriving reinforcements." Prince Orpheus commanded him as he received his own silver sword and sword belt from the respectful hands of Prelate Lir'i'c and buckled them on. "I shall accompany Hawke and party to confront the Elder Brain, and my Honor Guard with me."

"As you command." Voss bowed before him, and we all left the Astral Prism for hopefully the last time.

The journey through the last mile of tunnels and caverns to the elder brain pool was the tensest race against time any of us had ever been through. Even the run of the Inquisitor and her party to escape the Nightmare didn't quite compare. We knew that above our heads an entire city was now fighting and possibly dying against the unleashed forces of the elder brain, and that every minute we delayed more people would die. And the elder brain's promise to have us targeted and destroyed was no idle threat - the closer we came, the more the tunnels filled with adversaries. At first just swarms of cranium rats and enthralled cultists, they soon gave away to packs of intellect devourers and even several mind flayers. But the combined forces of our party and Orpheus and his guards were more than enough to deal with what opposition could be mustered down here on short notice, and with his full power unleashed Orpheus was able to prevent the Elder Brain from crushing our minds even at point blank range.

"Look at the water." Lae'zel finally said as we turned yet another corner to emerge into a giant, vaulted cave. "It's not river water or even sea water. It's brine, as full of chemicals as any ghaik spawning pool."

"I can sense it." Orpheus agreed gravely. "The Elder Brain is here. Get the Netherstones ready-"

The green, ichor-tainted water in front of us suddenly roiled, its glass-smooth surface now as turbulent as coastal waters during a hurricane. Several red lights gleamed at us dully through the foul water, growing brighter as they drew nearer to the surface. The lights were revealed as gems - great gems set in the points of the Crown of Karsus, proudly perched on top of the Elder Brain's giant, pulsating cerebral lobes as the titanic creature majestically rose out of the water in front of us.

"Look at the size of that thing!" Gale gasped - and rightly so, because the damned thing was at least twice as large as it had been when we'd last seen it under Moonrise Towers. "It- dear gods, it's been drawing upon the power of the Crown to evolve itself! It must have! This is no mere elder brain anymore, but a Netherbrain!"

-interruption-anomaly-
-found-
-END-NOW!-


The screaming chorus of the Netherbrain's mental 'voice', the merest scraps of intelligibility that our minds could extract from the turbulent rush of a hive mind's countless racing thoughts, crashed into our ears.

You think you know why you are here. the voice of the Absolute spoke clearly into our minds, as the Netherbrain focused on narrowing down its telepathic communication into a form clearly intelligible to smaller minds. You think that by allying with Orpheus and uniting the Netherstones, you can destroy me.

The material world around us faded away as the inexorable voice drew us all into a mental realm, a psionic hallucination that caught up all our senses as our bodies stood helpless. Much the same as we'd been caught up when we'd first heard the voice of the Absolute outside Moonhaven-

The tentacled, disembodied head of an illithid the size of a titan - the astral 'avatar' of the Netherbrain - loomed imposingly over us, with the Crown of Karsus still perched upon its head.

You are wrong. it boasted smugly.

The three Netherstones leapt out of my belt pouch and floated in mid-air in front of me, circling each other to snap together into a brightly-colored triangle of gems. I laid my will upon them and tried to concentrate as Gale had shown me, as we'd calculated from the notes of Karsus- I could hear Orpheus chanting a meditation mantra behind me, summoning as much of his power as possible to try and push back the overwhelming broadcast from the Netherbrain-

I focused my will on a single possibility, excluding all thoughts of failure, of fear. One thought and one thought alone filled my mind - submit!

A red beam leapt forward from the Netherstones, representation of the psionic force I was deploying, the attempt to dominate the Crown through its severed stones and dominate the brain through the Crown it wore. One small red beam licked out to caress the face of a giant-

By eliminating Ketheric, Orin, and Gortash, you have simply unbound me. Exactly as I intended! it boasted smugly.

We all gasped in shock as the Netherbrain continued.

The Crown is now mine to command - mine alone! The artifact that could have turned a feeble human wizardling into a god will now exalt me, into something far beyond!

Ignore it, I told myself. Focus solely on the task. Failing on the first attempt meant nothing... a pit large enough to swallow a city could be excavated with a single shovel, if you only kept digging-

Several more red beams leapt out from the Netherstones, each striking at a different point of the Crown of Karsus. I still felt like a man trying to bridle a galloping warhorse with a thread, but I could feel the Netherstones latching onto the Crown, gaining a purchase... it should be possible, if I could just do this hard enough-

The Crown is not my weakness. It is what has made me what I am!

"You are delusional!" Orpheus roared. "The Crown is what allowed three humans to enslave you! And it will allow us to destroy you!"

The delusions are all yours, o rebellious slave. The so-called Chosen did control me, yes - but you will never have the same opportunity that they did. I was weakened when they placed the Crown upon me - starving, delirious, almost entirely comatose. Their hooks were implanted deep within me before I was even conscious enough to resist. But I am awake now, and stronger than ever - and every binding they placed upon me has dissolved! You would have to reassert control starting entirely from scratch, and that is a task entirely beyond humanoid ability!

My concentration almost shattered at that depressing realization-

"Shadowheart! Gale!" I yelled. "One of you resisted Shar in her own realm and the other bore the Orb for almost a year without being consumed! You've got the strongest willpowers here in addition to mine! There were three of the Chosen - there need to be three of us!"

My beloved and my friend immediately reached out to grasp one Netherstone apiece for themselves, and our wills combined into a mental chorus- a union, stronger combined than the sum of its parts. Our Netherstones each put forth a blazing red beam, and we reached out to mentally grapple the Crown- almost... almost...

And you, Hawke. You and your friends also had a role to play in my design. Who do you think ensured that the Chosen would find out about the Astral Prism? Who do you think whispered into their minds, and gave them knowledge of Orpheus' power and stoked their fears over what it could possibly do to their plans? And when they predictably sent thralls to retrieve the Prism, who do you think allowed the 'Emperor' to slip its leash - knowing that it would immediately turn towards recruiting thralls of its own to ensure the death of the Chosen, and thus ensure my freedom? And also ensure that that they would bring the one person in all the planes who still bore the genes of the rebel Gith to face me, so that I could forever end his threat of rebellion against his race's rightful masters before it even began?

"We were all part of its plan!" Orpheus cried in horror. "Do not relent, Hawke! Pray to every god that might hear that it underestimated us, for we have only this one chance!"

This was your role - and it is now complete! And now, as your final act, YOU WILL WITNESS THE REBIRTH OF THE GRAND DESIGN!

I closed my eyes and blocked out everything except my most primal will, my most elemental purpose - to dominate the brain. And slowly, oh so slowly... my mind was blazing fire as we began to push it back, so slowly... the inexorable advancing mountain that was falling to crush us stuttered, just for an eyeblink-

-and then everything faded away into a red haze, and then black. By the time I regained my senses I realized that an unknown number of minutes had passed, and that we were all back within the Astral Prism. Several of the Honor Guard were still unconscious from the psionic backlash and the rest of us weren't in much better shape.

"We almost had it!" I shouted.

"You almost died!" Orpheus replied heatedly. "You were channelling so much psionic power through your brain that you were about to have a cerebral hemorrhage! You were fortunate that I still had enough power to just barely get us back inside the Prism and then dimension door it several hundred yards away, far enough back inside the caves the Netherbrain couldn't come to fetch it by itself!"

"Where is the brain now?" Lae'zel cried.

"Heading to the surface, to take command of its new illithid army." Orpheus replied. "Our failure to control it even with our utmost effort means that logically we are no longer a priority threat. And while my extermination is still a task for the brain, it apparently feels it can more efficiently accomplish that by concentrating on mustering its forces and assimilating the entire city than by remaining here to hunt me."

"Then that's it." Karlach said. "We've lost."

"... not necessarily." Orpheus said reluctantly. "There is one possibility left. As Hawke said, the Netherstones were starting to succeed - the problem was simply that the brain tissue of its wielders would dissolve under the strain first. But if one of us transformed into a life form whose brain structure could survive channelling a much higher magnitude of psionic energy..." he trailed off.

"You're the most powerful githyanki psionic in all history with only one possible exception, and yet you didn't even suggest the option of having you take the Netherstones directly." I realized with horror. "Which means there's only one form of transformation you could be talking about."

"Ceremorphosis." Orpheus agreed gravely. "Apparently the Emperor was not lying after all - any more than the Netherbrain was. This has been a day for unpleasant truths indeed." He sighed. "Whoever accepts the transformation will be sacrificing their life, of course. The Emperor's own example is proof enough that whoever turns illithid would soon enough become a monster." He laughed weakly. "There's ample tadpoles we could use, all swimming around in the spawning pool we just left. All we'd need to do is give one to a volunteer, and with the Netherbrain free and broadcasting as it is they'd transform almost instantly. And I could of course free the newborn illithid's mind from the Netherbrain's control, just as I have shielded all of you."

"I'll do it." Karlach said softly. "Everybody else here's got- well, I've got friends, but you've got families and stuff. I'm the orphan, and- and I'm sort of the most expendable?"

"Your courage does you credit." Orpheus congratulated her softly. "But I was not intending to ask for volunteers. To so much as request that anyone undergo ceremorphosis is the most blasphemous thing a child of Gith could even imagine doing. I would not ask anyone to so damn themselves ever, even in the face of such need as we have... except the one person I have the right to ask. Myself."

"Never!" Lae'zel said instantly. "I would swallow a thousand tadpoles before allowing such a fate to fall upon you! We are sworn to you! We would die for you!"

"Indeed we would!" Lir'i'c insisted. "Allow any of your Honor Guard - allow Lae'zel, or Karlach, or any other - to accept this charge in your stead, Your Radiance! Any of us can make the sacrifice and defeat the elder brain, but you are the only one who can lead our race back into the freedom we all fought for!"

"Hawke-" Shadowheart whimpered, looking at me with terrified eyes. She knew that I'd never let anyone else take this form of self-damnation upon themselves just to spare me, any more than Orpheus would to spare himself. The prince and I truly understood each other's sense of honor at this moment.. and I was perhaps the one person here he'd allow to do it in his stead. And Lir'ic had a valid point - Orpheus' survival was necessary to the future freedom of an entire race. And mine wasn't. And Shadowheart knew all of this, and knew how I thought.

Which is why she shouldn't have been so surprised when I gave a soft, low chuckle - and then grinned wickedly at everyone else's expression.

"Prince Orpheus. You said the problem isn't that we lack the mental ability or the willpower, but we just don't have the physical resilience to survive channelling that magnitude of energy?" I questioned.

"Yes." he said. "And that is why one of us must... accept the transformation into ghaik." he shuddered. "No other humanoid creature has a brain adapted to channelling such energies."

"But what if we used a brain - or maybe even three brains - not adapted to channelling such energies... but which had all temporarily been made physically immortal?" I asked. "Would that also work?"

Shadowheart gasped in realization, followed shortly by the others in my party, as Orpheus looked at me puzzledly. "I would imagine, yes... but how do you 'make someone temporarily immortal'? Do you think that Jergal would provide such aid? I don't think he's even allowed to!"

"Wrong scion of divinity." I sighed in relief, now that we had a clear course of action again. "Let's go. We need to get topside as soon as we possibly can... and then I need to find Dame Aylin."



Author's Note: And here we are, finally entering the endgame. It's been a long road to get here, but the home stretch is in sight.

Gortash's death scene had already been outlined, but the exact mechanics evolved as I wrote them at the last minute. Ultimately I chose to show favoritism to one of my favorite BG3 villains by allowing him to die with intelligence and dignity... while still having his death be a result of his clear flaws and limitations. And I hope that came across.

The big reveal of the Netherbrain is mostly canon, with just a few tweaks to make things make more sense to me personally. The entire game really is a prolonged Xanatos Gambit by the damned thing, to pull an Uno reverse on its would-be masters and gain not only its own freedom but apotheosis. I considered it a fitting tribute to an alleged superhuman intellect for Larian to actually have the damned thing legitimately come across as a scheming genius... even if it did underestimate the puny mortals in the end.

Sorry this update took so long, but I've been a bit ill the past few days. Stupid diabetes meds need to be dialed in again, the blood sugar's drifting a little off. It's a work in progress with my pharmacist, blegh.
 
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Oh, using Aylin and that necromancy ritual she was trapped in from act two! On the one hand that's a clever workaround to getting the giant psionic brain defeated, on the other poor Aylin is getting to experience her brain turn to mush repeatedly.

I didn't see that coming. Was thinking you'd be going the same route as canon or have Gale blow himself up.
 
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"I'll be honest - Faerun is a much nicer world, from what I've seen of it so far. Even with elder brains and Gortashes and Orins." I agreed. "Thedas is a brutal place, with existential threats that possibly compare to the Absolute, far more corrupt governments, a system of magic with such inherent flaws that simply practicing it can get the unwary or weak-minded possessed by demons, and everything else I've already described. But just as you said - it is my home. Many of my friends are still back there fighting and dying versus an ongoing crisis fully as bad as uor own. And if-"
our

"I commend you for putting an end to Orin's madness." Gortash said happily. "She must be screaming bloody murder in the Hells eevn now." His eyes narrowed at us suspiciously. "But that was last night. You've been rather busy since then. I've been picking up all sorts of rumors and preparations. If it wasn't so preposterous, I'd say that my city is mustering for a great battle - without my commanding it."
even

And so, as we finished our journey on foot through the undercity and approached the small wooden docks where a boat waited to take us on the final lap of our journey to the elder brain, we finally enacted our sudden yet inevitable portrayal.
betrayal

"You did an exceptional job of setting me up." he reassured me. "It wasn't until we were already on our way down here that I spotted the clue that really I should have earlier. Shadowheart of course by far your most loyal follower - love is such a useful thing for subordinates to feel towards their superiors. And Gale is desperate for a cure that only the power of the Absolute could potentially offer him. So choosing them as your companions for this final most secret mission makes perfect sense - they wouldn't care that we intended to use the power of the Absolute rather than destroy it."
Missing an is.

"He's giving it all up - we're giving it all up - because there's a whole world full of people who 'could be' and 'could have'." Karlach spat at him. "And so long as they're not being complete arseholes about it, they all deserve the chance to try to. But you'd never let them, would you? Even when you were richer than someone like me could ever dream of being it never mattered to you what you had. The only thing you cared about was what more you could take away from somebody else, from everybody else." She spat. "You say that you supposedly learned that vengeance was hollow? Then what about your your whole grubby obsession with power, your 'let's enslave every brain on Toril' bullshit? Because I think all of that was nothing but you trying to take revenge on the entire goddamned world for- I don't know, being born."
Delete one.

Karlach's answer to that was the point of her adamantine longsword being thrust directly through Gortash's breastbone and into his heart. He looked down in dull surprise at his mortal wound, and then looked back up to smile right in Karlach's face with blood-wet lips. And so, with a quiet sigh, passed Enver Gortash - first and only Archduke of Baldur's Gate,
This should be a full stop, not a comma.

"Then just one minor matter remains." Orpheus smiled. "Lae'zel, free warrior of the gith, step forward." Voss quickly stepped away to fetch a long slender something wrapped in a canvas cloth, which he bore back to his ruler. "What is the greatest gift that Mother Gith ever grafted her dauntless children?"
granted

"But what if we used a brain - or maybe even three brains - not adapted to channelling such enemies... but which had all temporarily been made physically immortal?" I asked. "Would that also work?"
energies
 
I caught up again just in time for the big climax!

This has been an awesome story so far, and I have no doubt you'll land the ending well.

Also, while yes the fights were frequently, for lack of a better term, "cheesed"... that is both realistic (if you start a fair fight you did something wrong), true to dnd munkinners, and very true to Larian games! So I'd day you're just doing the source material justice!

I am very amused you finally did a 'barrel' explosion for Orin, though.
 
For all that many people criticize Andraste's 'tyranny' over mages, the fact remains that her reforms and strictures were essentially the only reason mages continued to exist outside the Tevinter Imperium after the original rebellion."
No.

The Chasind, Clayne, Inghird, Planacene, Rivaini, Avvar, and Cirienne all existed for longer than The Chantry and the Circles, except the Clayne. With nowhere near the amount of trouble The Chantry had. Magical traditions that aren't fucked up exist in Thedas.

It's just silly to think that the Circle system is the only option, especially when there are canon examples of alternatives that work better and are more humane & supportive of mages.

It was a deliberate policy decision by the Orlesian Empire to have Mages routinely imprisoned, raped, tortured, lobotomized, forcibly harrowed, and murdered*.

Just look at the Orlesian view on how commoners are at the complete mercy of even a mere Knight-Errant under the law, while in Ferelden freeholders have actual rights and the Crown is legally accountable to the Teyrnirs, Arlings, and the Bannorn. De Jure accountability, not just the De Facto an Emperor would have under The Grand Game if they play poorly. That attitude is reflected in the way the Orlesian Chantry is run.

Calenhad had to convert to avoid an Exalted March. Maric had to tolerate the abuse during the occupation, and couldn't hold them accountable for the same reason. The Chantry can ignore the post-DA:O Royal Decree in order to conspire to kill an Arl in Awakenings without repercussions.

Just like the Free Marches have to put up with Circles because they aren't Nevarrans. The Nevarrans get away with the Mortalitasi because they are a peer power to Orlais. Finally, Tevinter only backslid after Orlais wanted to enslave their ruling class.

*Which "Muh Cullen" advocated for, was complicit in, and justified by claiming it kept people safe. Cullen wasn't just passively following orders, he was actively enabling & participating int eh abuse.
He was Meredith's right hand – he had a significant amount of power and responsibility. Reminds me of how people act as though Elthina had no power to step in, despite being the
Grand Cleric, someone perfectly capable of removing Meredith from power if she wanted. Bitch wasn't an innocent bystander.
 
The Chasind, Clayne, Inghird, Planacene, Rivaini, Avvar, and Cirienne all existed for longer than The Chantry and the Circles, except the Clayne. With nowhere near the amount of trouble The Chantry had. Magical traditions that aren't fucked up exist in Thedas.
Every single one of those places uses the same broad solution that the Chantry does - kill or exile every mage they even suspect is losing control. They're just less organized or consistent as to how they go about it. Even the Dalish do that... just ask Merrill.

Hl, even Tevinter does that. They invented the Harrowing, not the Templars, and they still use it to this day.

The Chantry didn't invent the Tranquil either... the first Inquisition did, before Andraste was even born.

This whole 'oh its all just Orlesian extremism and everywhere else on Thedas does it better!' nonsense is even more bullshit fanon than the Civilian Council in Naruto. In the games people actually played the most lenient treatment of mages ever actually seen is in the Mage Circle in Val Royeaux. No Chantry mage is treated more leniently than an Orlesian mage - their First Enchanter doesn't even live in the Circle tower, and mages freely wander around the Imperial court with barely a templar in sight. Fuck's sake, Celene openly employed an apostate mage as an Imperial advisor - Morrigan - and nobody said shit to her about it. Meanwhile, Awakening literally opens with a scene of templars attacking the ruler of Ferelden over a Grey Warden chapterhouse having an apostate Warden... when that's a legal right the Wardens have had since before the Chantry even existed.

Literally the only place on Thedas that mages get a better deal than Orlais is Tevinter. And that's canon.

That attitude is reflected in the way the Orlesian Chantry is run.
The Orlesian Chantry in Hawke's lifetime was run by Divine Justinia V, the same woman who sponsored a research project to find a way to cure the Tranquil - a cure research destroyed by extremist templars when they defied Chantry supervision at the start of the mage rebellion post DA2.

We meet Divine Justinia's two proteges during the game, and both women reflect her attitudes and considered her to be their ethical mentor. The Inquisitor influences which one will succeed Justinia as Divine. And since I'm talking about Seeker Cassandra and Leliana here... well, yeah.

Finally, Tevinter only backslid after Orlais wanted to enslave their ruling class.
The fuck? The Tevinter magocracy was already in full depraved swing before the fall of Arlathan, let alone the founding of Orlais. The Magisters were breaching the Black City and accidentally the Blights over 300 years before there was even an Orlesian nationality. Orlais was founded by anti-Tevinter rebels.

Nothing you have said is remotely accurate.
 
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The big reveal of the Netherbrain is mostly canon, with just a few tweaks to make things make more sense to me personally. The entire game really is a prolonged Xanatos Gambit by the damned thing, to pull an Uno reverse on its would-be masters and gain not only its own freedom but apotheosis. I considered it a fitting tribute to an alleged superhuman intellect for Larian to actually have the damned thing legitimately come across as a scheming genius... even if it did underestimate the puny mortals in the end.
It still tweaks me that the Netherbrain was a willing Subslut for The Original Dark Urge. Like, she would have let him keep her enslaved.
The fuck? The Tevinter magocracy was already in full depraved swing before the fall of Arlathan, let alone the founding of Orlais. The Magisters were breaching the Black City and accidentally the Blights over 300 years before there was even an Orlesian nationality. Orlais was founded by anti-Tevinter rebels.
That's why I said "backslid". The post-Andraste Tevinter was reformed, and didn't schism from the rest of the faith until after Orlais attempted to use the Chantry to enslave the ruling class.

That's what led to their relapse into modern Tevinter & the Black Chantry.

Chevaliers treat their serfs and the elves the same way Tevinter does it's slaves. Orlais is a Tyrannical Empire, not the Inghird-Cirienne Federation.

Every single one of those places uses the same broad solution that the Chantry does - kill or exile every mage they even suspect is losing control. They're just less organized or consistent as to how they go about it. Even the Dalish do that... just ask Merrill.
You had clans willing to accept a half-elf human just because he was a dreamer, that's how much the Dalish in general valued mages, even having large gatherings where the clans would accept mages from other clans to be trained as leaders.

Merrill was blatantly talking to a sealed ancient demon, all she got was frowny faces, and an eventual exile only after she indirectly got her clan leader killed.

Nevarra has necromantic traditions completely separate from the Chantry's approval, and none of those other places used solutions similar to the Chantry, at all. They have necromancers everywhere.

Mages were not sealed away, they lived as part of their respective tribes & kingdoms, not apart from them.

Fereldans were once the Clayne tribes, who historically respected mages and like the rest of the Alamarri and their off-shots were not magocratic, but instead had mages as spiritual advisors and healers, while being ruled by Warrior-Kings. The persecution of mages only became a thing in Fereleden when Calenhad allowed the Chantry to gain authority after uniting the Clayne, in order to prevent Orlais from conquering them under the excuse of an Exalted March.

The Rivaini & Avvar get possessed on purpose all the time without becoming abominations.

Hl, even Tevinter does that. They invented the Harrowing, not the Templars, and they still use it to this day.
Notice how I didn't mention Tevinter as part of the pre-Andrastian cultures that can handle mages without devolving into inhumane tyranny in either direction? It wasn't an incident.
The Chantry didn't invent the Tranquil either... the first Inquisition did, before Andraste was even born.
The Inquisition & the Seekers predate the Templars, but they are part of the founding of the Chantry. Ameridan was the first Inquisitor, and a personal friend of Kordillus Drakon.

Tranquility was an Orlesian Mage-hunter invention.

The Orlesian Chantry in Hawke's lifetime was run by Divine Justinia V, the same woman who sponsored a research project to find a way to cure the Tranquil - a cure research destroyed by extremist templars when they defied Chantry supervision at the start of the mage rebellion post DA2.
The same Chantry who denied mage assistance in the middle of a Blight, in order to force Ferelden to allow Orlaid to occupy them again, like they did to Nevarra during the previous Blight.

Orlais had already in the past used a Blight to try & take over one of their neighbors, they already used their influence through the Chantry during the occupation of Ferelden.

Orlais under Emperor Florian "encouraged" the Chantry to kill Viscount Perin Threnhold of Kirkwall because he imposed heavy tariffs on Orlesian goods, Leading to Meredith becoming Meredith.

Orlesian Royalty and The Southern Chantry are partners in crime. Like The Magisterium and the Imperial Chantry.

These are the historical realities of Thedas.

This whole 'oh its all just Orlesian extremism and everywhere else on Thedas does it better!' nonsense is even more bullshit fanon than the Civilian Council in Naruto. In the games people actually played literally the single most lenient treatment of mages ever actually seen is in the Mage Circle in Val Royeaux. No Chantry mage is treated more leniently than an Orlesian mage - their First Enchanter doesn't even live in the Circle tower, and mages freely wander around the Imperial court with barely a templar in sight. Fuck's sake, Celene openly employed an apostate mage as an Imperial advisor - Morrigan - and nobody said shit to her about it. Meanwhile, Awakening literally opens with a scene of templars attacking the ruler of Ferelden over a Grey Warden chapterhouse having an apostate Warden... when that's a legal right the Wardens have had since before the Chantry even existed.
The Chantry uses Circles to suppress the strategic assets of foreign countries known as "mages", keeping the ones they employ directly happier than the ones in foreign countries when the instability is the point, is only normal.

They are still slaves, just in a gilded cage.
 
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his face eager with anticipate
anticipation
Aylin isn't going to know if she should laugh or pout. Massive battle against evil, and she's gonna need to sit down and let others use her healing to do the work.
You already covered this earlier:
Fully undisguised, arms crossed, lip sticking out in a full pout. And all her feathers out of place.

If it happens to her twice now, she's definitely pouting! :p
It still tweaks me that the Netherbrain was a willing Subslut for The Original Dark Urge. Like, she would have let him keep her enslaved.
What?! What the fuck?! Is it some 'amoral psycho drawn to another amoral psycho' thing?
 
You already covered this earlier:
Fully undisguised, arms crossed, lip sticking out in a full pout. And all her feathers out of place.

If it happens to her twice now, she's definitely pouting! :p

This is the third time. Remember the trip to Hell?

On the one hand, evil gets smited around Hawke. On the other, SHE KEEPS BEING KEPT OUT OF THE GOOD FIGHTS! :p
 
That's why I said "backslid". The post-Andraste Tevinter was reformed,
The post-Andraste Tevinter still had mages held as superior to nonmages, still had widespread slavery, and still had legalized blood magic. The only way in which they were 'reformed' was in their own propaganda.

Also, the Chantry schism was triggered by the Sacred March to free Starkhaven from Tevinter conquest.

I do not know where you are getting this stuff.

The Chantry uses Circles to suppress the strategic assets of foreign countries known as "mages", keeping the ones they employ directly happier than the ones in foreign countries, were the instability is the point, is only normal.
Okay, at this point its just getting absurd. You started out at 'the Chantry treats mages the worst!' and now its 'okay maybe mages do average better under the Chantry but that's still awful because politics!'

Yeah, no shit mages aren't perfectly free in Thedas. Hawke only specifically lampshades that as a tragic situation. But they never can be so long as the magic system remains what it is, anymore than psykers in 40k can just be left entirely alone to self-moderate unless you want daemon outbreaks. You have to do something to monitor and police them even when they don't want to be... and of every large institution on Thedas doing that, the Chantry system is the least worst overall. That's simply the reality they are stuck working with, and given the facts on the ground nobody is going to do much better without some kind of paradigm shift. In canon, Divine Justinia V died trying (and sadly failing) to make one happen. In this story, Hawke intends to try making one himself if he can ever get back to Thedas. But in no reality is just 'let Tevinter just do its thing!' a great idea, or else Andraste should never have rebelled in the first place.

And let's never forget that during the mage rebellion the Templars were rebelling too... because the Chantry wanted a peace settlement with the mages and the templars didn't.

tldr; Hawke didn't say the Chantry system was perfect, he said it was the best compromise anyone had yet managed in Thedasian history... and he was taught that by his father the fugitive apostate, who genuinely believed it.

And let's not also forget that the argument originally began when you objected to my statement via Hawke's mouth that the Chantry was essentially the only reason mages survived anywhere outside Tevinter immediately post-rebellion... which is the simple historical truth, because immediately post-rebellion the general sentiment of the population was that they should kill all the mages, and Andraste and her peeps were the ones talking the angry mob down from that position. The creation of the Circle system was the compromise people finally settled on.

Oh, fun fact - the main reason Malcolm Hawke fled the Kirkwall Circle was because he'd gotten Leandra Amell pregnant and would rather elope with her than be a deadbeat dad. Yes, Papa Hawke did indeed seduce and preggers up a young noblewoman while still living under templar custody. The man had game.

You had clans willing to accept a half-elf human just because he was a dreamer,
First off, every elf on Thedas not named 'Solas' is actually part human and they just don't acknowledge it, and second off that's the same game where we see the Keeper secretly go abomination and exile Merrill... who also suffers lynch mob attacks from her own clan unless Hawke can seriously diplomacy. The Dalish portrayal is, to put it charitably, mixed.

And in Inquisition we meet a former Dalish who was abandoned on the street as a child for simply being a mage in excess to her clan's policy of 'one Keeper, one apprentice'. She survived only because the templars happened across her. She has harsh words for a Dalish Inquisitor, and readily admits that her life in the Circle was distinctly less shit than her life among the 'free elves'.

Orlais under Emperor Florian "encouraged" the Chantry to kill Viscount Perin Threnhold of Kirkwall because he imposed heavy tariffs on Orlesian goods, Leading to Meredith becoming Meredith.
Just saw this one.

No, red lyrium exposure is what drove Meredith insane. That is literally the main plot of DA2. As is the part during all three acts of DA2 where the local Chantry were the people trying to hold Meredith back until Anders kicked off the final crisis by killing them. As is the part where Meredith originally got promoted because Viscount Threnhold...

OK, for that one we need a more detailed breakdown because you left some important steps out of your rendition. Specifically...

* Viscount Threnhold blocks the waterway by force and starts trying to robber-baron extort Orlesian ships for passage
* Orlais considers this an act of war and starts to spin up
* The Chantry intervenes and goes 'before we skip straight to war, how's about we try political pressure?'
* The Chantry tries political pressure
* Viscount Threnhold responds by marching on the Kirkwall Gallows, killing the then Knight-Commander of the templars, and trying to expel all Chantry forces from the city at swordspoint
* Meredith takes command because her superior officer just got murdered by the Viscount and leads a counter-attack of her own troops against him, and manages to successfully rumble his ass
* The Chantry places the deposed Viscount on trial for murder and all that other shit he did and throws his ass in prison
* Someone poisons his ass in prison two years later

Notice how things look a little different once you actually look at the event sequence and not just the... abridged summary?

Please stop trying to lecture me on "the historical reality of Thedas", because every time you've tried so far you've been nowhere near the historical reality. Again, seriously, I have no idea what fanfic you are reading but it is neither canon nor the fanfic I am writing.
 
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If you play as Durge she tells you that she actually liked the old you & was your willing slave. She only began to rebel after Orin somehow kills you.
To be fair, the Netherbrain tells several different versions of the story depending on whether its Tav or Durge that confronts her, and whether or not Gortash is still alive to give his version of events as well. The basic outline of its scheme is canon, but the fine details are hard to pin down because we know it lies a lot.

Which conveniently leaves plenty of room for fanfic authors.
 
Well, I mean... Fucking an oversized brain is a bit much, even for me...

But maybe with some shapeshifting? The Crown of Karsus can surely do that... And if not, there's scrolls.
 
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Chapter 39 New
"I have just enough range to reach the surface from here." Orpheus said, staring upwards at the ceiling of the rocky cavern we'd reemerged into. "But I won't be able to open any other dimensional portals for a while after that."

"Well, if we walked the long way around then the whole city would be consumed before we even got there." Karlach shrugged. "So let's go."

"This will only take a few moments." Orpheus agreed, and began to concentrate.

"I didn't have a chance to ask earlier, what with how all hell broke loose immediately afterwards." I said quietly to Karlach. "Are you all right?"

"You mean, after killing Gortash?" she replied, slumping her shoulders with a sigh. "Yeah, you were right. I spent years and years dreaming about nothing except how good it would taste, but then I finally did it and it didn't... do anything at all, really." She snorted. "I'm glad you found a way to fix my heart trouble or else I'd really be bummed out by now, if that was the only thing I'd had left to live for. As is... just one big fight left, and then I've got a whole life to look forward to."

"Well, we're not out entirely out of the woods yet." Gale said resolutely. "Hawke didn't bring it up out loud, but we're still just hoping that his latest brainstorm will work. Because if it doesn't then I'm going to have to detonate the Orb after all. And the only people who are surviving that option are the ones who can ride dragons to evacuate on." He laughed ruefully. "You know what the really worst part of having to do that would be? Spending the rest of eternity listening to Mystra brag about how she was right after all. So here's to hoping she's not."

"I will not evacuate with the Prince, if that eventuality comes to pass." Lae'zel said quietly. "I gave my word to act as one of the party for the duration of our quest, and the Absolute is not dead yet." She smiled widely at us all. "I have earned my name, my adulthood... my silver sword. I have lived long enough to see our rightful ruler return to claim his own. If I fall in battle against the ghaik this day then I will regret nothing. And above all else, I will not regret having come to know you all, and to make such friends as I have."

Shadowheart tackle-hugged Lae'zel from behind, who sighed and endured the physical contact with a helpless grin. She smiled at me over Lae'zel's shoulder, her eyes full of love. Neither of us needed to say anything at all.

"It is ready. We must go!" Prelate Lir'i'c said urgently, and we all hurriedly trooped through the portal that Orpheus had opened.

We arrived on the top of a low promontory in the Upper City, with a panoramic view of the entire city. An entire block of the Upper City immediately below us lay shattered and burning, with a gaping crack in the earth showing where the Netherbrain had torn its way out of the caverns below by force. There were scattered fires raging all across town as far away as the walls of the Outer City, and the din of battle and distant screams came to our ears. An illithid nautiloid floated arrogantly in the sky over the Upper City, its arcane energy blasts firing wildly at several swooping red dragons being ridden by githyanki knights. I could just recognize one of them as a dragon I'd seen before - Qudenos, the dragon companion ridden by Kith'rak Voss.

And above us and to our right was the imposing skyline of the High Hall, the ruler's seat of Baldur's Gate... and floating in mid-air just over the highest tower of the High Hall was the menacing profile of the Netherbrain. The psychic storm that was its thoughts could be heard howling in the minds of all of us with tadpoles, held back only by the protective mental barriers that Orpheus projected all around him.

"The stench of ghaik thoughts wafts across the entire city." Orpheus said grimly. "I cannot localize any impressions. As we anticipated, the Netherbrain has sent the transformation command. Most if not all of the tadpole infectees in the city have succumbed, save for you and those in close proximity to you." He closed his eyes for a moment. "I can still sense my link to Wyll Ravengard, and indirectly through him to his father. They are still human, and are both traveling at speed towards the High Hall."

"Then we'd better get down there." I said, and we all set out at a run.

We'd arrived over a quarter mile away from the High Hall, in what had once been one of the most prosperous residential neighorhoods in the most elite district of Baldur's Gate and was now a half-collapsed ruin. We circled through the scattered remains of what had once been a mansion, only two of its four walls still standing, and regretted that we had no time to do anything for the corpses of its luckless former inhabitants that we were stepping over. An encounter with several armed Absolute cultists in a gardenway ended briefly, but a hasty post-mortem interrogation informed us that in addition to the hundreds of illithids now attacking the city under the Netherbrain's direction we also had potentially all the remnants of Ketheric's army to deal with. They'd been scattered and driven away from the city by Gortash's theatrics, as part of his planned campaign to raise him to Archduke, but they hadn't actually been destroyed - and under the Netherbrain's covert direction they'd all gone to ground in the nearby wilderness, only to stealthily infiltrate back into the city via the undercity's smuggler routes in detachments.

"We planned for outbreaks, even for riots, but we're getting a full-scale invasion force!" I swore. "Every ally we mustered isn't going to be able to do anything against these odds except die to buy us more time. We either get ourselves and the Netherstones to the Crown as soon as possible, or we might as well cut our own throats!"

"I would summon Voss and his dragonriders to transport us there directly, but if I psionically transmit that loudly I will tell the Netherbrain my exact location." Orpheus nodded. "Which we obviously cannot do until after we have linked up with our reinforcements. At present I am devoting the bulk of my power to a psionic jamming field over the Upper City - the less the Netherbrain is able to telepathically scout for and coordinate its own forces, the better." He shook his head. "It's like every story my mother told me of the original rebellion, all over again."

"Tsk'va!" Lae'zel swore softly. "Then let us hope that our tale also ends in victory, Your Radiance."

"We can't hold them!" a frightened cry came from up ahead. The clashing of swords fading away into the cries of frightened men and the sound of running boots told all of us with battle-experience everything we needed to know.

"That's the Fist, or the Watch - and they're breaking!" I swore. "Double-time, advance! If we let them get pushed all the way out of the High Hall- if the Absolutists get set up in the gatehouse-"

We all broke into a frantic run, trying to reach the entrance of the High Hall and the shattering troops before the forces of the Absolute could consolidate their victory and close the gates on us. We'd never have the chance to retake the palace by siege if we lost even this initial beachhead. But we were just too far away. We could see several illithids arrogantly floating down the street, with a phalanx of orcs and cultists advancing triumphantly behind them, and a scattered platoon of the Upper City Watch fleeing towards us down the avenue. By the time we could even get there, they'd be-

And then a brilliant silver light shone from overhead as a winged angel came down directly out of the sky and the lead illithid screamed and burned when a bolt of holy fire rained down into him. The other two looked up just barely in time for a second one to have a greatsword cleave down through the top of its skull as she executed a pinpoint landing in front of it and killed it with the momentum of her descent. Her wings drew protectively in front of her to deflect the third illithid's mind-blast away, before she pivoted and slashed its guts open with an elegant side-sweep.

"Rally to me, men of the Gate!" Dame Aylin's voice sounded out over the surrounding blocks like a trumpet call, as every fleeing soldier turned to stare and gape at the revealed celestial as shet stood triumphantly over a trio of dead mind flayers. The Absolute's troops remaining troops were halted in their tracks and flinching in fear away from her blazing aura. "Rally to the High Hall! The heavens fight with you on this day! The enemy cowers before your valor!"

"By the gods!" the lead officer gaped. "Uh- rally, boys! Let's get back in there! Looks we've got a chance after all!"

"Hawke!" Aylin called joyously, spotting us coming rapidly up behind the reforming Watchmen. "It is good to see you alive, my friends!" She turned to look up at the Netherbrain. "Even if we are clearly experiencing a bit of a setback. What went wrong?"

"You are really not going to like, this, but..." I awkwardly began to explain.

Aylin's pout came back in full furious force as her feathers began to ruffle. "I have to sit it out again? Why me, Mother? Why do the fates curse me so?" she almost whined.

"Well we still need to get in touch with other people - particularly Rolan - and set it all up, and given that there's no worry about you actually dying prematurely you can still fight in the battle all the way up to the point we actually reach the Netherbrain. You'll only have to sit out the final phase of the operation... and you'll have a lot of work to do before then." I looked grimly at the gatehouse we were advancing towards. "We all will."

"Speaking of, where's Isobel?" Shadowheart asked worriedly.

"Back with Wyll and the main body, advancing towards this position." Aylin reassured us. "I flew ahead to clear the route."

"Well, we've certainly got a lot of route to clear." the Watch's ranking officer came up to join us. "What's the plan, your holiness? Saer?"

"The simplest one we've got. Us heavies take point and force the breach, you bring yours up behind our team and hold open the wedge we make. Nothing fancy." I ordered.

"Yes sir!" he nodded. "All right, boys, take your positions! The enemy might be new today but it's still just the same old drill! On your marks, wait for the call!"

The street behind us began to fill with more men - Upper City Watch, Flaming Fist stragglers, adventurers and noblemen's armed retainers and combat-capable locals - as the scattered and leaderless populace of the Upper City began responding to Aylin's rallying call. She flew up to low altitude again and hovered there, using the brilliance of her holy light as a signal beacon to tell every straggler within several blocks where the new rallying point was, and then nodded down to us.

"Lead the way, Hawke! We'll be right behind you!" she grinned.

"All right, people - FOLLOW ME!" I commanded, and we all surged into the breach.

"The Giantslayer!" I heard one of the Watchmen murmur in awe as I drew my new sword - oh, right, it was a historical relic of the city. "The Blade of Balduran! Saer Hawke has recovered our champion's sword!"

"The githyanki fight by your side today, Baldurians!" Orpheus called out to them. "Your enemy is our most ancient foe! One Sky! One Sky!" he sounded the ancient battle cry of his folk, and Lae'zel and the Honor Guard echoed him.

"For the Gate! For the Gate!" the men began to chant as we hit the Absolute's lines. We smashed through their hasty setup in the street before the High Hall's gate like it was made of balsa wood and drove directly for the portal. The gates shuddered and slowly began to close on us - right before Aylin landed on the battlements above and started hewing her way through the men on the windlasses before they could finish their task, just like she'd kept Ketheric's troops from being able to close the portcullis on us during the assault on Moonrise Towers.

Orpheus' jamming kept the Absolute from being able to mentally command its thralls directly, and we - the Honor Guard especially - concentrated on illthids as priority targets. Their troops fought like the brainwashed fanatics they were and died hard for every inch, but they had no leadership and little coordination. Except for the rank-and-file Watchmen we were all elite veterans, and Orpheus and his people particularly had combat experience dating all the way back to the original githyanki rebellion. And the more success we had, and the more brilliantly Aylin's flying beacon signalled our progress to everyone within line-of-sight to the High Hall, the more stragglers rallied to our call. By the time the remainder of our team and the reinforcements they were leading arrived, we'd not only solidly secured the gatehouse but also the adjacent walls, and had a solid foothold in the nearest of the lower courtyards. We left a strong bulwark of troops to hold our inner flank against counterattack and all hurried back to the gatehouse for a last-minute commanders' meeting.

"Hawke!" Wyll greeted us with a hug. "Thank the Triad you all made it."

"You too." I said. "How's your father?"

"I am here, Saer." an elderly voice - still strong, yet shaken - greeted my ears. I turned to see the same man I'd briefly glimpsed underneath Moonrise Towers, a man with Wyll's features but in his late fifties, with his youthful muscles starting to shrink into a wiry old age and a head long since grown bald. "Grand Duke Ravengard, at your service."

"Welcome back to your city, Your Grace." I greeted him. "Sadly, it's under attack, and we've got only one forlorn hope left."

Orpheus concentrated briefly. "He is clear of the Absolute. Extending my protection to him via Wyll worked as we'd hoped it would."

"I am sorry, but I am not very familiar with your people. You are...?" the Grand Duke inquired politely.

"His Radiance, Prince Orpheus of the True Gith." Prelate Lir'i'c introduced him proudly. "And Baldur's Gate's ally on this day."

"I lead a separate faction of the githyanki who contend against the rule of the usurper and tyrant Vlaakith." Orpheus explained briefly. "She will not help you today. My people will, as best we can. Although we cannot bring sufficient strength to defeat the elder brain alone."

"None of us can." the Grand Duke agreed. "That is why we are all here."

"Better hurry up, Your Grace, or we'll start without you." Nine-Fingers broke in irreverently, strolling over to our impromptu meeting.

We all formed up around the dining table in the gatehouse barracks, now doing impromptu duty as a conference room. All of us were here, as well as the Grand Duke and Councilor Florrick, Nine-Fingers and several of her thieves - including Mol, I noted amusedly, even though she was the junior message-runner. Kith'rak Voss and several of his knights, all overjoyed to see Orpheus alive and free again. Representatives of every faction I'd reached out to and several I didn't recognize. Dawnmaster Arkhold was also there, the Blood of Lathander gleaming brilliantly on his hip, and accompanied by several other priests of other deities that I didn't recognize. Isobel smiled proudly at us from her place among them, ranking equally alongside her seniormost peers in Baldur's Gate. A nervous pale elf I didn't recognize, but whom my tadpole whispered to me was familiar-

"You're Astarion, aren't you? The one that was abducted by the same nautiloid we were, that we never met." I asked him, remembering what the Dawnmaster had told me about Cazador's last vampire spawn, the one they'd recovered.

"Yes." he replied diffidently. "We must have just missed each other at the crash site. But apparently I'd still had enough exposure to that artifact you carry that my mind remained my own even afterwards... particularly since the Absolute didn't know I was there and didn't concentrate on me particularly. My being... less than conventionally alive also might have played a part. Your priestess friend explained it to me."

"Then I'm glad that even one more of us escaped that fate." I said. "You're fighting with us today?"

"Well, it seemed a better idea than staying confined in the cloister and just waiting to find out who'd won." Astarion replied with a flash of arrogance. "In addition... I owe the Dawnmaster and his people rather a lot, for sparing me the way they did. And for what they saved me from." he trailed off quietly.

"Right now, we're all in this together no matter where we came from." I reassured him. "And if we win, a whole lot of us will have earned some second chances."

"Something to look forward to, then." Astarion nodded to me. "Good luck."

"Everyone." the Grand Duke's voice rang out, calling the meeting to order. Everybody else had apparently finished making introductions while we'd been talking. "Our city lies at the brink of peril, but we are not yet lost. Some of us know each other well indeed, some of us are strangers. Some of us have saved this city before-" He nodded to Jaheira and Minsc, both already legends of Baldur's Gate. "And some of us are new to our shores." He nodded to me and Orpheus. "But some of us... have not risen to the needs of the hour." he trailed off sadly. "Enver Gortash, so-called 'Archduke', was in truth a traitor to the city and now lies dead at the hands of these brave souls. His accession to power was illegal, the votes that raised him to his station having been secured not by rightful will but by the subversion and coercion of the Council... including myself. I had - I still have - one of those damned tadpoles in my brain. Its effect has been suppressed for now, but everything that has left my mouth between my return to this city and this morning has been nothing but the puppet-speech of that damned elder brain. I understand that you will all need time to regain trust in my judgment... hells, I'm going to need time to do that! But we don't have time, and so this is my proclamation."

He reached out and put a hand on Wyll's shoulder. "This is Wyll Ravengard, my firstborn and trueborn son and heir. Yes, I know he looks different." he laughed briefly at the expressions of some people around the table. "Trust me, that one's a tale and a half in the telling! But this is my son, and my original banishment of him was also my error - brought about because I believed lies that I'd been fed, and because Wyll had been rendered helpless to speak the truth in his own defense. And so I reverse that banishment and claim him as my heir yet again. I will fight in Baldur's Gate's defense today, but until certainty has been reestablished I cannot command in this uncertain a moment. For today, Wyll will lead the forces of House Ravengard and all those formally sworn to my banner in my stead."

"As you command, Your Grace." Councilor Florrick said immediately. "But that is merely a tithe of all those who have answered the call today. Who will exercise overall command of the alliance?"

"Saer Hawke." Grand Duke Ravengard looked at me. "He bears the Helm and the true Blade of Balduran. He has surmounted the challenge and won the regard of Ansur, the heart and spirit of the Gate. He is a veteran commander who bears the trust and respect of all our allies, even those of the celestial and astral planes." Aylin and Orpheus both nodded firmly in assent of that last. "And he's the right man in the right place at the right time. What more do we need?"

"A plan." I immediately replied. "All right, for those who aren't already aware, the elder brain's power is being augmented and focused through a particular artifact that it's wearing. We've got the key to neutralizing that artifact, and we need to get that key - and at least one of my immediate party still alive to wield it - up to the top of the High Hall and in immediate contact with the brain. So that is the primary mission and ultimately the only mission. We get these to the artifact." I held up the Netherstones for everyone to see. "We take out the artifact, and we win. If we can't do that, then we still need to get our archmage up there and he'll detonate our fallback position." I nodded to Gale. "That will also destroy the brain... and the High Hall and a good chunk of the Upper City, including us. That's why it's plan B." I joked roughly. "But to set the stakes here, I want everyone to understand. This thing's goal isn't just conquest - it's to turn everyone in the city that it can into a mind flayer and kill everyone and everything else, then keep expanding out to do the same thing to the entire world - and every other world it can reach from there." I exhaled heavily. "Prince Orpheus has spent enough time in the deep astral to still have memories of the original githyanki rebellion against the ancient illithid empire. He's seen elder brains destroy worlds before."

"I have." Orpheus agreed quietly. "When we fight today, we must hold nothing back. We hold the fates of billions in our hands."

"So that's the mission objective, and that's the stakes. Now who knows the layout of the High Hall best, and what are our possible approach routes?" I continued.

"The first is by air, but that is also the riskiest." Voss immediately replied. "Our dragon-riders could conceivably fly you up there - but the instant I pull them away from suppressing the nautiloids, the brain will know exactly what we are doing and concentrate its full power on destroying you before you can land. If anyone has an idea for getting us through that gauntlet alive then we can do this... otherwise, we'll need a ground approach."

A distinct lack of ideas greeted Voss' contribution, and I nodded to the others to go on.

"There's two main routes across what's left of the High Hall." Beorn Winterbrood, the senior surviving officer of the Upper City Watch started drawing a rough outline on the tablecloth with his fingertip and a nearby inkpot. "The main courtyard is the most direct route, but my people are reporting the Absolute concentrating a small army of opposition here and here, along with more in position to give fire support from the walls here and here. The secondary route is along this path and up the nearby hill. A lot less opposition seems to be there... but it's narrow and winding, you'd almost have to go single file."

"Three routes." Nine-Fingers interrupted. "You forgot the sewers. Main entrance grate is here, outside the courtyard." She pointed her finger. "The primary drainage tunnel goes under the courtyard here, with possible emergence points at this well, that pumphouse, and that midden." She tapped her finger on the impromptu map three more times. "What?" she smirked at the crestfallen expression of some of the others. "You thought we never looked?"

"When this is over, we're going to have to make some security renovations." Grand Duke Ravengard joked roughly.

"There you are." a rough booming voice interrupted us, and everyone turned incredulously to see the menacing figure of a giant devil shoving his way through our door guards - without hurting them, I noted in passing. "Do you know how hard you people were to find?"

"Yurgir?" I said incredulously, while waving for Aylin and several of the priests in here to sheathe their weapons. "I know you said you wanted in on the final battle, but I didn't have the slightest idea of how to get word to you."

"Do you have any idea how disruptive that damned elder brain has the potential to be to a whole lot of things that really don't need disrupting?" Yurgir scoffed. "Raphael's lucky he's already dead or else his father would be murdering him right now for how badly he's dropped the ball here. So don't worry about a thing, celestial." he nodded to Aylin. "Trust me, the Archdevils don't want that brain spreading its corruption an inch further out of here any more than the High Archons do. Today, the only things I'm killing serve the Absolute."

"Fair warning - Mystra's already called her claim on the Crown of Karsus for after we recover it, so if you try to leave here with it then you're going to have to explain that to the goddess in person." I quickly cautioned him.

"As well as to my own divine mother Selune." Aylin said calmly, to the gasps of many other people in the room.

"Nobody's ordered me to try and snatch it, and given what else is in play here I'd have gone selectively deaf if they had." Yurgir nodded. "Word of honor, no tricks."

"Then you just solved our last problem for us." I congratulated him. "We've got three routes to advance on, and I want to make a strong push on all of them so the brain doesn't know which one the real strike's actually coming from. Aylin, Wyll, you two spearhead the courtyard route and take the bulk of our forces with you - including our clerical reinforcements, except for those who will be maintaining the medical station." I decided. "Yurgir, you and your merregons get to help clear the side route. Narrow twisting ambush country, full of who-knows-what all trying to murder you from every direction. But your people can turn invisible, and you're essentially a siege engine that walks."

"It's like you know me!" Yurgir laughed joyously. "So I clear that route for a detachment behind-"

"Jaheira, that's your and Minsc's job." I agreed. "You two and your Harpers that survived Moonrise are the hairiest veterans of all this shit that we have, save for my crew and Orpheus' Honor Guard. So the side route is yours, with Yurgir as your shock element."

"Understood. And once we are through, then we pivot and hit the main courtyard's defenders from their rear?" Jaheira agreed.

"Exactly. And Orpheus and I take our team through the underground route. We've got three possible places to come up in, some of which the first two columns might already have secured from their end if they succeed in breaking through. And the brain will have had an entire battlefield full of everything going wrong from your two lines of advance to react to... plus Voss' ongoing harassment from the air. As well as him making outright feints directly at the brain, if you think you can pull that off without getting your people killed." I nodded to him. "Rolan, get together with Gale and have him quickly run you through the notes he took from Balthazar's research. That and Lorroakan's own work is all you'll have to go on regarding the tranference circle setup... and we'll need you to have that ready and waiting for Aylin as soon as possible, because our time window for the final push is going to be as limited as it can possibly get."

"I will." Rolan agreed. "I'll need one of the githyanki knights to airlift me back to the Tower as soon as this meeting is over, though."

"Easily done." Voss agreed.

"Lae'zel, I wish you to accompany Voss' contingent." Orpheus ordered her. "I need to sustain a long-range mental link with his forces for purposes of coordination, and your mind is easier for my own to contact at such a range under these conditions." Because of her tadpole, I readily filled in, but of course Orpheus was not saying the quiet part out lodd.

"As you command, Your Radiance." she bowed.

"So by the time my team emerges from the underground and climbs up under it the damned elder brain hopefully won't know up down from sideways. As soon as we're in position for the final run, Aylin flies back to the Tower of Ramazith and gets set up on the other end of the ritual circle we'll need, and then my team takes the shot. Everybody understand?" I asked them, and a chorus of agreement answered me.

"All right then. Let's head out to the grand muster in the outer courtyard and have you brief your troops. No time to wait around for the chow wagon on this march." I smiled, and all of the old campaigners around this table laughed in sympathetic memory.

The commanders' meeting broke up as they all rejoined their men, and me and my team took front and center as the Grand Duke finished his mercifully brief introduction of myself as the new acting Marshal of Baldur's Gate and I displayed Balduran's sword and helm to prove it. I was getting an education today in the value of a historical or mythical symbol to instantly create unity in a time of chaos, as if seeing the effect on morale from the simple sight of an aasimar like Aylin flying in to defend and rally lost mortals wouldn't already have told me. And soon enough came the worst part of the entire affair - the inevitable speech.

As I stepped up to the impromptu speaker's stand I couldn't help but feel a terrible sense of deja vu. I was standing in front of a fortress as a city burned behind me, in front of an impromptu coalition of desperate people most of whom I'd never met, forced by circumstance to take charge of a desperate situation and fight a nigh-unkillable monster at the end of it... and yet I'd done all of that before. The day Anders had finally fully slipped over the edge into madness and blew up the Kirkwall Chantry, the day that had finally lit the spark on the slumbering powderkeg that had been the incipient mage rebellion... the day that the so-called 'Champion of Kirkwall' had utterly failed to save his city with any of the victories he'd won...

But this wasn't the Kirkwall Gallows, and I wasn't up against the abomination Orsino and the insane Meredith. This was the High Hall of Baldur's Gate, and my enemy was an eldritch abomination from the ancient abyss that potentially threatened to dim all life in this corner of the multiverse. The stakes were incomparably higher than last time, the foe immensely more perilous, and the powers at play even further beyond any human understanding. By all rights I should have been terrified.

And yet I wasn't... because this time, it was different. I'd had my friends and loved ones alongside me then, just as I had my new friends and dearly beloved alongside me now, but last time we'd essentially been all by ourselves - the only people who had stood with us had been those who were already cornered with no way out. But now people had come from all across the city to answer our call... all across the dimensions, even, with scions of both heaven and hell willingly volunteering to be here, with Orpheus and his people willing to risk the hope of their entire race to instead come defend people they didn't even know from the scourge of their race's ancient enemy. The last time I'd even glimpsed anything like this was southern Thedas' reaction to the founding of the Inquisition. I'd envied Inquisitor Lavellan at the time... but I never thought I'd get to know how it felt myself.

Sometimes, even with everything that had gone wrong, with all the pain and loss and fear in the world... sometimes you still just knew that it was worth it.

The last time I'd had to give a speech on the edge of the apocalypse, I didn't even clearly remember what I'd said. The people outside the Gallows had found my speech inspiring, Varric told me later, but all I remember is screaming words of rage - venting my anger, my frustration, my heartbreak out in an impassioned explosion of wrath. That was not the sort of speech they needed to hear right now, and it wasn't the sort I wanted to make either.

"Everyone." I began simply. "We don't have a lot of time, so I'm going to keep this short. I'm honored by the trust your leaders have all placed in me, and I hope to live up to it. I'm your Marshal, at least for today, and I set the plan. But I'm also the one leading the infiltration team personally and we'll be going right for the core of the elder brain, so most of you aren't going to see me out there. What you are going to see is your Grand Duke and his son. Your councillors and your priests. Emissaries from both the heavens and the hells - and if they can get along at least for today, nobody else has any excuse for quarrelling either!" I joked, and drew a laugh from the entire host. "You're going to see your friends and your neighbors, and strangers from near and far. You're going to see the people you will fight and hopefully not die alongside, and who will do the same for you. In short, you will see your comrades-in-arms... and you're going to see the enemy as well."

I let that statement fall into the heavy silence. "And they are a fearsome enemy indeed. Some of you already know about them, and the rest of you are going to learn pretty damned quickly. But as horrible as they are, as fanatic as they are, they still bleed when you cut them and they still die when you gut them. You'll have your officers - your comrades - your weapons, your skill, and your courage. And you will prevail." I shrugged and nodded to them. "We're up against the wall. The elder brain and its thralls know it. You know it. I know it. But this is bigger than their hate, or their lust for power. They have come to take our lives... to take our city... and we are saying no!" I roared. "We might not have wanted this but we're going to deal with it anyway, because sometimes... sometimes, you just have to stand."

"For the Gate!" Grand Duke Ravengard called out, and the very sky shook with the sound of every voice calling in reply.

"FOR THE GATE!"



Author's Note: Short chapter today, but this is the ideal stopping point.

And now all I have to do is somehow mentally storyboard the most epic fight scene I've ever written. Pray for your author's soul. *g*

I'm particularly handicapped because BG3 kinda misses the landing on the final battle - the boss fight itself is good, but the run across the High Hall to get there is trying to be the climactic act of a giant epic fantasy trilogy and it's not quite making it. So I've got even more work to do.

For one thing, the game does not explain why Tav even matters to people there and why some more logical figure - i.e., somebody people actually know - isn't shot calling. So I had to that myself, drawing on the Grand Duke's going 'yeah, I'm partially on the medical list right now' and Hawke just happening to show up bearing the tokens that denote 'Anointed Champion of the City here' at the right time and place. Grand Duke Ravengard is politically savvy enough to know when it's time to take advantage of a gift-wrapped morale moment, even if you just met the guy.

Yes, I gave Astarion a cameo. I'm still not fond of him as a character, and there's still no way he could ever have joined Hawke's party without getting staked unless massive OOC was used on both sides, but I can still be gracious enough to give his fans a canonical reassurance that yeah, he didn't get brainsucked by the Absolute or turned into an ash pile. And so here he is, doing a brief appearance to establish that he is at least embarking on his own personal second chance.

And yes, that is indeed Diplomatic Hawke's canon speech at the Gallows I used there for the closing lines of my own speech. There was just no way I wasn't using those, they were too epic. Fortunately for continuity, my Hawke gave a different speech at the Gallows (he actually gave Angry Hawke's speech there because man, that was a bad day for him).

And have you ever really considered the effects on morale of having an angel from heaven drop into your losing fight and start kicking ass? Aylin certainly has - in fact, in my POV doing that at pivotal moments is one of the main jobs Selune uses her for.
 
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By the time we could even get there, they'd
Cutoff sentence
He laughed ruefully. "You know what the really worst part of having to do that would be? Spending the rest of eternity listening to Mystra brag about how she was right after all. So here's to hoping she's not."
Oh, that would suuuuuck. He'd get the Henpecked Hou treatment forever. >.<
"I will not evacuate with the Prince, if that eventuality comes to pass." Lae'zel said quietly. "I gave my word to act as one of the party for the duration of our quest, and the Absolute is not dead yet." She smiled widely at us all. "I have earned my name, my adulthood... my silver sword. I have lived long enough to see our rightful ruler return to claim his own. If I fall in battle against the ghaik this day then I will regret nothing. And above all else, I will not regret having come to know you all, and to make such friends as I have."

Shadowheart tackle-hugged Lae'zel from behind, who sighed and endured the physical contact with a helpless grin. She smiled at me over Lae'zel's shoulder, her eyes full of love. Neither of us needed to say anything at all.
At first, I didn't really like Lae'zel. But as the fic progressed she started growing on me, thanks to your portrayal in this fic. This right here is a wonderful cap to seeing her growth throughout. I can't say how it might compare to the game because I haven't even watched a play-through, but still, nicely done!
"Hawke!" Aylin called joyously, spotting us coming rapidly up behind the reforming Watchmen. "It is good to see you alive, my friends!" She turned to look up at the Netherbrain. "Even if we are clearly experiencing a bit of a setback. What went wrong?"

"You are really not going to like, this, but..." I awkwardly began to explain.

Aylin's pout came back in full furious force as her feathers began to ruffle. "I have to sit it out again? Why me, Mother? Why do the fates curse me so?" she almost whined.
"Nooooooo~!"
"Lead the way, Hawke! We'll be right behind you!" she grinned.
"Yeeeeesss~!"

(This ascended joke in the thread never ceases to amuse me.:D)
That and Lorroakan's own work
Every time I see this guy's name, I instinctively see it as misspelled. Even back when all I knew about the guy was his name, I though he was a sketchy fuck, purely on instinct. Then later I find out he's an evil fuck.

...I think the stupid spelling of his stupid name was foreshadowing his douchebaggery.
I just HAPPENED to jump on and I find a new chapter already?
I love it when that happens!
 

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