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

[cliffc999]

"Go! I'll cover you!" I shouted, as the towering demon-spider, at least five times the height of a man, that was the current form of the demon Nightmare confidently advanced towards us.

"No, you were right!" Loghain protested. "The Wardens made this mistake! A Warden must-"

I bit off my immediate reply, almost choking to death on the temptation to accept his offer. The former Teryn Loghain, now a Grey Warden, had once almost doomed Thedas to death at the hands of the Fifth Blight when he'd chosen the middle of a Maker-be-damned war against the darkspawn to betray and murder his king and try to steal a throne. He'd done everything he could to stop the Hero of Ferelden from defeating that Blight anyway in his stubborn refusal to believe it was actually a Blight, he'd only allowed himself to be drafted Grey Warden at the very end of that mess as an alternative to being executed, and he'd labored away in obscurity and shadows ever since until he'd joined the Inquisitor and myself on a mission to stop this be-damned king demon from corrupting all the surviving Grey Wardens with blood magic. More than almost any other man in Thedas, Loghain mac Tir could fairly be called a perennial screw-up and human disaster area who'd brought ruin to practically everything he touched, and who would entirely deserve to die even just to partially make up for his sins.

However-

"A Warden must help them rebuild!" I gasped out, knowing that with all of the senior Grey Wardens who had already died or been irreversibly tainted by Tevinter-spawned madness the former marshal of Ferelden was one of the very few Grey Wardens left with the command experience and leadership skills to have any hope of rebuilding the order, especially with the current crisis facing all of Thedas I turned and snarled at the demon Nightmare, the otherworldly partner of the undying Tevinter lord who'd caused this entire mess and the sole thing keeping the majority of his demon army yoked to his will. "That's your job! Corypheus is mine!"

"Hawke-" Inquisitor Lavellan sighed softly, sadly, as our eyes met and we nodded to each other. Both of us knew the weight of too many decisions, of always being the right person in the right place at the wrong time, of being responsible for everyone... just as we both knew which one of us had to carry on the fight elsewhere and which one of us was going to end their fight today. I felt all the weight, all the weariness, leave my shoulders and leave behind nothing but a strange peace as I reached out to clasp the leader of Thedas on her shoulder and give her a firm grip, an acknowledgement, a wordless reassurance that she would be the one to succeed where I had failed.

"Say goodbye to Varric for me." I quietly requested, and she gave a slight nod. And then I turned away again and readied my greatsword, charging out to meet the demon's rush and forcing it to turn and defend against me, allowing the other two their chance to run past it and into the portal that would let them escape-

"Failure of a man." the Nightmare sneered as its counterblow hammered me to my knees. "Failure of a Champion. And failure even in this."

I grinned back at it through bloody teeth as I saw the silouhettes of my two comrades leap into the portal back to the material realm and it closed behind them. "Really? Looks like a success to me!" I pretended to gather my strength for a mighty shove, then deliberately went limp and rolled away and under its belly as the Nightmare slightly overbalanced against my lack of resistance. I converted my roll into a kneeling, rising slash into that very same underbelly as the giant spider roared in pain.

"Stay or flee, the end is the same! Doom at either my hands or his!"

The spider lifted a tree-trunk of a leg and smashed it down, splintering the stone on which I was no longer standing.

"You know she's going to close that rift." I mocked it. "You'll be cut off from Corypheus, from Thedas, from all the demons he's summoned there. He won't be able to control them, and that entire part of his plans will fail. And even if you get back in contact with him later-"

"You will not be here to see it." the Nightmare snarled at me as I resumed my stance and stared at it over a gap of a dozen paces, slowly circling around...

"Tell me something I don't know." I eye-rolled.

"You will not die today." it replied levelly.

"... all right, that is a surprise." I raised my eyebrows. "But not a welcome one, I'm sure! Up for a spot of torture, then?"

"Do you know what your greatest fear is, Champion?" it mocked me.

"I damn well should, seeing as how you've been reciting our fears to all of us throughout the entire trip here!"

"Oh, mortals are so deliciously full of fears, all of you. Great fears, trivial fears, large and small I know them all." the Nightmare gloated. "But at this particular instant two fears rise the greatest in your mind, and your death is neither of them. At this moment you welcome your end, not fear it, for it represents a final end to your pain."

"You said two fears," I tried to draw it out, reflexively continuing the conversation as I had so many many times before. After all, the longer you kept them talking, the less you kept them fighting. And seeing as how we'd already discussed that one of my fears is that it would take its own sweet time killing me-

"And you fear never seeing your friends again." it finished.

"Considering how many of them are already dead, you're going to have a tricky time arranging for that." I said. "Even in this Maker-damned dream realm I'll die eventually after you finish with me. And then at least-"

"Such a small imagination for such a small being." the Nightmare laughed. "There are many, many realms beyond your little world of Thedas and the Fade, little man. Even I have never seen them. Even I am a tiny thing basking on the shore of a great eternal ocean, when considered against the scope of all reality. But you are less than a tiny thing, you insignificant little mayfly speck. How will you fare, I wonder, if I cast you into the depths that lay beyond even the Fade, beyond even my knowing? What will await you there? It will be a puzzle I will never solve, that I can only wonder at." it continued calmly, as my blood chilled further and further. "But one thing will be certain; whatever awaits you out there, you will never see anyone you loved ever again. Not even in your hoped-for afterlife."

"Dear Andraste." I involuntarily gasped, paralyzed with shock at the revelations I had just-

"Ahhhhhhh, there we are!" the Nightmare's hollow laughter filled the entire world. "That moment when all defiance is lost, when all heroism eventually fails! That I could bring you to this state before I banished you is revenge enough, even with all that you have cost me!"

"Well, at least never seeing anyone in Thedas ever again means I'll be rid of you too, you overgrown carrion-feeder!" I mocked it. "And that'll be enough to make up for all the rest!"

"Insolent little- Begone!" the demon shouted petulantly, and with a primal shout and a burst of power that taxed it to its very bones I was catapulted away from it, flying helplessly away with the breath knocked from my body as if by the club of a giant. I rocketed away from the Nightmare, away from the rocky platform drifting in the Fade that we'd been fighting on, away from even the distant sight of the Black City that was always visible from anywhere in the-

And as everything turned to silver, I blacked out.

---

Fire!

I was lying facedown on a strange warm floor, made of some odd substance that felt like carved horn, only wet. But that wasn't what had brought me snapping awake, the sulfurous stench in my nostrils was. I weakly scrambled to my knees, then my feet, feeling oddly dizzy and weak-

A searching glance around the room brought me no answers. I was in a dimly-lit space, a large oval room with a rounded vaulting roof, and a wide shelf running around the perimeter of three-fourths of the room halfway between the floor and the ceiling. The architecture was like nothing I'd ever seen before - parts of it looked alive, and all of it was built to odd angles and rounded corners with menacing spikes, out of materials that were neither stone nor wood nor metal or anything else I could identify. This was certainly no work of men or elves or dwarves, or even qunari. The Nightmare had promised to cast me into realms unknown and beyond the world or even the Fade, and it certainly had-

The floor rocked side to side beneath my feet, almost sending me scrambling, as a muffled inhuman roar sounded from somewhere outside the room. Even after the pitching subsided, now that I was alerted to it faint tremors of movement came to my feet, and a- through a small gap torn in one wall I could see clouds rushing past outside, or billows of smoke. And with that clue all the subliminal impressions came together for me- we were moving, the entire structure. I wasn't in a room, but a compartment. This was a ship of some kind, although certainly not sailing on any water I was familiar with-

I stepped carefully towards the opening torn in the wall - the bulkhead - noting with absent horror the corpse of a strange purple tentacle-faced demon of some kind, its bluish-purple ichor staining the deck. A glimpse outside brought me no sight of land or water, just billowing gray smoke-clouds that this skyship was somehow flying over, with a distant angry red glow coming through from beneath the clouds as if we were flying over a volcanic region-

I shook my head and deliberately drew a deep breath into my lungs, trying my best to shake off this damnable weariness and weakness. And yes, I'd been fighting a pitched battle for the past several hours, then lost a fight to a demon lord and been tossed into what sounded like another universe entirely, and been beat all to hell throughout, but I shouldn't be this weak-

First things first. I was still wearing my armor, but all my weapons and equipment were gone. There were empty black pods, made of the strange alien material, evenly spaced all around the rim of most of the room - a broken-open one, apparently jarred open by whatever impacts had been striking this vessel, stood right behind where I'd woken up to tell me that I had been in one of these pods but had been freed by that impact. A quick search of the room revealed that all the other pods were empty, some strange carved gray tablets on a nearby workbench I couldn't even begin to understand, several bottles of what I hoped were healing potions in a nearby chest, and several more corpses like the purple demon I'd just stepped over. There'd been a battle fought in this ship very recently - one that was still ongoing if the occasional distant sounds I could hear and thudding impacts against the hull I could sense were telling me the truth - and several dropped weapons littering the floor from that battle. I scooped up the serviceable-looking steel greatsword as the weapon I was most familiar with, idly noting that it looked so ordinary in its construction that I could have bought its twin from any blacksmith in the marketplace, and hoped that its familiarity meant I would find other familiar things here too.

"Right." I spoke aloud, comforting myself with the sound of my own voice. "If this is a ship, hopefully it'll have lifeboats. And if anybody's still alive, they'll be rushing for them. So, follow the noise-" I turned towards the room's only door and, bared blade in hand, set out. "I wonder who'll try to kill me first, the crew or the boarders?" I sardonically mused.

Although this place felt solid in the way that the material realm did, not having any of the subliminal sense of being in a dream that being in the Fade always possessed, the very next room made me feel like I was still stuck in a mad dream. The next room looked like some insane mage had been using it for a dissection laboratory - it disturbingly reminded me of things I'd seen in Quentin's lair - but I almost jumped out of my skin when the one vivisected corpse laying strapped to the surgical chair began moving and talking to me in my head.

"Help us! We are trapped!" the disembodied voice called.

"What in the Maker are you?" I demanded, staring at the corpse of a male elf the top of whose skull had been cut off just above the ears, and whose exposed brain was still pulsing as the corpse itself twitched-

"Yes! You've come to save us from this place, from this place you'll free us!" it chanted.

"First you tell me what 'this place' is." I demanded.

"We are in Avernus, the first of the Nine Hells." it replied matter-of-factly, and my blood turned to ice.

"This is a demon ship?!?" I screamed.

"No!" it protested. "We do not belong here, we are trapped here! The devils are our enemies!"

"Then how-" I began, and decided to focus on more immediate priorities. "Is there a way out of here?"

"The helm!" it chanted desperately. "The helm controls the ship! We must go to the helm!"

"And whose ship is this?" I pressed.

"You must free us!" it demanded. "Before they return! We must go to the helm!"

"And what are you?" I tried to refocus it.

"A newborn. Born from this husk." it said placatingly. "Free us!"

So whatever this thing was- the things that ran this ship were- they consumed people to hatch their children?

I raised my blade and cleaved downward, chopping the exposed brain in half vertically and listening to it squeal and die. Whatever these things were, them and the devils who populated this hell could devour each other for eternity for all I cared. I'd just try to find this ship's helm myself and get out of here.

The exit at the far end of the laboratory led to a curving corridor that led around the outside of the ship, on what was the port side judging from our direction of movement. However, the ongoing battle had torn a large piece of the entire outer hull away, leaving the walkway almost entirely exposed on one side. My stomach churned as I looked out and down over a vast, wide expanse of red and glowing terrain, covered by clouds of sulfurous smoke, as this impossible skyship soared rapidly above them. Lots of little moving specks in the distance barely showed the outline of bat-wings as they wheeled around menacingly in the distant sky. Truly this was a vista worthy of the 'Nine Hell's indeed-

A glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye brought me instantly to combat readiness as a slim, feminine figure in silvered half-plate leapt down from a perch above to land about ten feet in front of me. She was humanoid but clearly not human, with a narrow greenish-yellow face, almost reptilian except with an entirely human-appearing little snub nose instead of a snout, and pointed ears. I had no idea who or what she was, but her agility and the ready stance she immediately fell into when she landed showed her to be an expertly trained warrior, and the bared longsword she menaced me with showed that-

"Abomination!" she hissed as she coiled to strike at me. "This is your-"

I gathered my energy and focused it into one of the earliest maneuvers I'd learned, a leaping overhand smash, and closed the gap between us before she could begin to react and brought my greatsword down with both hands to batter her weapon aside and send her sprawling flat on her ass.

"Perhaps not the best choice of words." I said wearily to her as she stared cross-eyed at my sword tip, held steadily a foot in front of her throat as she lay there on the deck. Her sword had been knocked several feet out of her reach, she had no other weapon that I could see, and- wait a minute.

"You're not wearing a scabbard for that blade." I noted. "You snatched it up off the ground, just as I did with this one. This isn't your ship, then?"

"Pah!" the strange lizard-woman spat. "How ignorant of my people can you be, to even suggest such a thing? The ghaik are our mortal enemies, and have been for all of time!"

"But you're not a devil, either." I guessed out loud. "Wonderful, we're not only in the middle of a battle on a burning ship, but it has at least three sides-"

And then a strange twisting burst loose inside my head as my vision blurred. Her eyes and mine met, and a series of disjointed mental images flickered irresistibly through my vision- myself drifting through a silver void, a large horrifying-looking vessel with its profile like a giant version of those purple tentacle-faced demons - the ghaik, she called them? - scooping me up, myself helpless in a pod, suddenly seeing myself through her eyes as she lay trapped in the pod adjacent to mine, one of the ghaik floating into the room to study us dispassionately, and it reaching into a small nearby tank to withdraw two horrible little tadpoles that it-

I flinched and looked away as the pain of being stabbed in the eye suddenly flared in both my memory and hers, and we both sensed each other's thoughts as if it were our own.

"Skva'al!" I heard her curse. "You are no thrall of the ghaik! Together, we might survive!"

"What did they put in our heads?!?" I demanded, as I stepped back unsteadily and lowered my sword. She rapidly got back to her feet and recovered her own.

"Parasites." she spat. "The tadpoles are how the ghaik reproduce. If left in our heads long enough our skulls will warp, our mouths will split, our faces burst open-"

"And our minds will be gone forever and their spirits will be possessing our bodies." I said resignedly. "In our world we called such things 'abominations'."

"A fitting name for such foulness." she agreed. "But if we can escape this realm and return to my people quickly enough, there may still be a cure!"

I doubted that, seeing as how there had never been any cure for demonic possession in the history of Thedas that I'd ever heard of. Then again, I was no longer anywhere near Thedas-

"One of the little brain-creatures that I met said that it needed to get to 'the helm', so it could steer the ship out of here." I told her. "I'm hoping you know where that is?"

"Yes." she agreed. "A ghaik vessel of this type can travel between realms, between planes. That it has not already left Avernus means there is no one left alive on the bridge to direct its flight. But If we can get there-" She cut herself off. "The bridge of this vessel is on top of the hull. We are currently on the lower left side."

"Then we have a lot of climbing to do." I said. "Come on, forward looks to be this way." I took charge and began heading down the walkway, in the same direction that the ship was heading. It took only a few steps to bring us around a curve of the corridor and into a large chamber-

"I'm assuming those are the devils." I said, as we saw the several little bat-winged horrors with glowing eyes stop feeding on the dead and dying - I noted in passing that the dead included people as recognizably human as myself as well as the tentacled ghaik - and turn to face us, screeching in anger.

"Imps!" she agreed, raising her blade. "Now fight, warrior! They are upon us!"

Apparently even in the Nine Hells there had to be junior devils to do the scut-work, because the strange woman and I scythed through them pretty quickly. This strange weakness - possibly a result of the infection currently jammed in my head - kept me from utilizing some of my more powerful maneuvers, but I was still able to draw multiple imps in close and then cleave them all with a single whirlwind attack. The warrior-woman I was partnered with seemed to favor a more sword-and-shield style, and was thus handicapped by not having a shield available right now, but still proved entirely competent enough with her blade to bring down two imps of her own.

"Grab one of those crossbows." I ordered her as I followed my own advice, and then did a hasty check of the fallen looking for anything else useful. Another potion and some loose gold coins - after all, assuming I escaped this hell dimension alive then I'd still need to be able to afford my next meal wherever I landed, it had been hours since lunchtime - entered my pockets, and after a lot of strenuous climbing up a pair of ladders we reached the top deck and continued our journey forward. We came out of the corridor into a room with multiple of those strange reclining chair-benches each holding an unconscious person hooked up to some kind of machine, and another pod like the one I'd been trapped in off in the corner next to a low table.-

A scream of terror from inside the pod brought my examination to a halt and had me running over there to see who needed help. I peered in through the transparent window in the front of the pod and my breath left my lungs as if I'd been gut-punched by an ogre at the sight of those delicate ladylike features, that short black hair, those pointed ears- how on Thedas had she gotten here-?!?

"Let me out!" the strange elven woman begged, and the complete lack of a Dalish accent in her voice shook me free of my shock as I realized that this was not Merrill. Still, the resemblance was uncanny - on a second glance I could see that even though her hair was an identical jet-black and in almost exactly the same cut, her beautiful face was more slightly rounded in the cheeks and entirely free of the Dalish vallaslin tattoos and her ears less pointed.

"Hold on!" I reassured her, and looked at the sides of the pod for anything resembling a catch or a latch. After nothing turned up there, I tried pressing on the control panel on the nearby table, but nothing happened.

"Leave her! We have no time for stragglers!" my companion said ruthlessly.

I turned to look at her incredulously. "You didn't fancy your chances of taking the bridge alone, but now you want to turn down help?" I tried to reason with her.

"You were already free and armed, a proven warrior! She is a helpless burden and delays us when we have no time to spare! Would you wish to remain on this vessel until it crashes?" the alien woman replied.

"Go on ahead if you like your odds better that way, or wait for us here." I firmly ignored her heartless argument and turned back to the elven woman. "I can't find the latch. Did you see how they sealed you into this pod?"

"There's a key!" she said breathlessly. "It goes in the panel over there- one of them must have it!"

"Wait here, I'll be right back!" I promised her, and after a hasty search of the bodies in this room and the adjacent one I finally found a likely-looking object - a strange carved stone that looked to be the exact same size as the empty socket I'd seen on the control panel. My warrior-companion visibly fumed with impatience but still waited for me to be finished with my 'fool's errand' rather than risk her chances alone in this place.

As soon as I placed the carved stone in the socket the parasite in my brain twisted again, and I felt a wordless connection snap to in my brain as my mind linked with the alien machinery that controlled the pod. I floundered for an instant before I realized that I needed to will the pod open, and as soon as the intention formed in my brain I felt something in the parasite - or beyond the parasite? - respond to that intention. A demanding, imperious presence. An Authority.

I/we commanded, and the machines obeyed.

"At last." the young elven woman gasped, as the pod opened and she fell forward out of it to land on her knees. "Thought... I was done for..."

"Here, let me help you up." I said, reaching down. She reached up and gripped my forearm firmly in her warm little hand, and I let her hoist herself back to her feet as she did a little pull-up on me. She was rather heavy for such a petite elven woman, with a fair amount of dense muscle on her slim frame, although some of that was certainly the weight of her finely-made black-and-silver breastplate-and-chain.

"Thank you." she said politely, before turning away to search for the rest of her belongings. A strange polygonal artifact with silver runes was eagerly snatched up off the table to be hurriedly stuffed in her backpack, and then the well-worn mace lying next to it was picked up and placed back in the sling clearly intended for it on her belt. I was more than a little curious as to what that artifact was, but decided that now was not the best time to raise the subject.

"Our impatient friend says that she knows the way out of here." I greeted our new elven friend. "Care to join the party, at least for the duration?"

"If you've got a way out, then absolutely." she agreed quickly, and and stuck out her hand in greeting. "Shadowheart." she introduced herself.

I smiled at her and shook her hand. "Hawke."

---

Author's Note: I have no plan for this one, I never have any plans for any of mine, I just write when an idea actually sparks the muse. Which nothing has in a long, long time. So hopefully I'll be able to go the distance, or at least a good long way, on this one.

And yes, this is default appearance Male Two-Handed Warrior Hawke. As for his personality... well, you've already seen the intro to it, the rest you'll get to know as the story progresses. But yeah, the story is 'He did the sacrifice/stay-behind in Inquisition, and then we go non-canon as the Nightmare demon decided to blow him into the deep Astral plane beyond the Fade because that's how I'm going to handle the DA/BG3 crossover element.' As far as exact crossover mechanics, like any other TTRPG fanfic I write exact game mechanics will be a thing I only pay attention to when they help make my plot work and the rest of the time it's fudge factor city.

 

[cliffc999]

"Be careful." Shadowheart leaned over to whisper softly in my ear as our companion strode ahead of us down the corridor. "Githyanki often make very uncertain allies."

"She said that the masters of this ship had been her people's enemies since time immemorial." I reassured Shadowheart, noting in passing that 'githyanki' was apparently the name of the alien warrior's people or tribe. "That will have to do for now."

"At least that much was true." Shadowheart agreed. "How much further?" she quickly called out to our still-nameless ally as they stopped to look back at us suspiciously.

"The helm chamber should be just beyond this hatch." she replied curtly, her eyes narrowing at how closely Shadowheart and I were standing to each other. "I would suggest that our strongest warrior take the lead."

"Wise choice." Shadowheart agreed with her immediately. "After you!"

"I believe she meant me." I gently corrected Shadowheart, and at our companion's curt nod I stepped into the lead position. I swung my shoulders back and forth to loosen up a bit and shifted my grip on my greatsword as we stood just outside the still-closed hatch. "What can we expect in there?"

"If any of the ghaik still live, then this is where they will be." the warrior replied. "Have you ever fought one before?"

"Never even heard of them before today." I replied matter-of-factly. Shadowheart remained silent.

"Then know that they are terrible foes indeed." she continued passionately. "A single glance is all it takes for them to unleash a mental blast that can stagger even the strongest warrior, and one that fills an entire cone of space for a dozen paces in front of them. A clutch of their tentacles around your head is immediate death, as your skull is split open and your very brain tissue devoured. If they have a chance to concentrate their powers of the mind then they can deceive your senses or dominate your very will. They are intelligent, manipulative, and utterly merciless."

"They have a weakness, I hope?" I sighed.

"They are slow and lack agility." she matter-of-factly replied. "And they tend to practice physical combat far less than mental, as they prefer to have enslaved thralls fight for them. To fight ghaik, one must get past their slaves, close the distance quickly, and attack relentlessly and without fear!"

"Berserker charge and hope for the best. Got it." I husked out frustratedly.

The ship suddenly lurched and the deck tilted beneath our feet.

"Oh, what now?" Shadowheart shouted frustratedly.

"We are crashing!" our mysterious companion replied in a panic. "Something has damaged the drive!"

"Inside! Now!" I barked, slamming a fist into the hatch controls and charging inside as soon as it began to open.

The scene that greeted our eyes as we charged into the helm chamber was a more phantasmagoric nightmare than anything I'd seen in the Fade. Several large red devils, looking vaguely like red-skinned qunari only with giant bat-wings, were locked in combat with a pair of the tentacled purple ghaik. As we drew to a shocked halt, the warning we'd been given about how deadly the ghaik's mouth-tentacles were as proven as one of them managed to draw close up behind one of the devil-men as they turned to watch us enter the room, and with a single horrible clutch the wet squelch of their skull being holed through in multiple places and their very brain tissue pulped reached our ears. The ghaik that had killed them took one step towards us, only to suddenly turn around and face the screeching, flying charge of several imps as they flew around and past it, buffeting its head and drawing blood with their claws. One of them managed a lucky strike to the ghaik's neck and it went down in a gush of purple blood, while it's companion behind it knocked two more devil-men sprawling with that 'mental blast' that we'd had described to us. The victorious ghaik then turned to look at us, and I felt the parasite in my head briefly twitch as its eyes met mine.

Thrall. the arrogant-sounding voice boomed hollowly in our minds. Connect the nerves of the transponder. it ordered us, apparently not realizing that our parasites did not yet dominate our thoughts and we were not yet slaves. An imperious wave of its hand towards an eldritch device set at the far end of the room, several tentacle-cables hanging loosely from it where they'd been torn loose from their sockets, showed us what he meant by 'the transponder'. We must escape. Now.

"Do it!" our companion's voice whispered hatefully from behind us. "We will deal with the ghaik after we escape!"

"Behind you!" I called out to the remaining ghaik as one of the devil-men it had knocked down rose to its feet behind it and drew it's flaming greatsword back for a cruel blow. Warned just in time, the ghaik dashed forward out of reach and turned around to face it's opponent, resuming their duel.

"Go! Go!" Shadowheart cried, and the three of us broke into a dead run. The few remaining imps all screeched and flew to block our path, but I cleaved through the two in the lead with a single sweeping blow and that put enough hesitation into the rest that the women flanking me on either side cut their own opponents down while barely breaking stride. We carefully stepped wide around the two battling menaces and advanced towards the front of the chamber, pausing briefly to deal with a second line of imps standing between us and the transponder.

The sound of a body hitting the deck behind us told me that one of the two murderous abominations we'd just bypassed was no longer among the living to distract the other one. The warrior kept running towards the transponder without breaking stride, but Shadowheart stopped as soon as she realized I was no longer moving forward and had instead turned around to guard are rear. The glowing, eldritch eyes of the surviving ghaik met mine as I raised my blade, anticipating the words that were about to leave it's 'mouth' even before they were spoke.

You are no longer required. it announced pitilessly, and it stepped forward to kill.

"Hyaaah!" I yelled, powering through another one of the flying leaps that two-handed weapon wielders on Thedas had long since mastered as part of the common style and taking the ghaik off-guard - people in this world didn't seem to know this maneuver - as I closed the distance between us far more rapidly than it expected and bringing my blade down in a single flashing cut. The ghaik barely raised one of its armored forearms in time to block my blow, and then forced me back a step with a terrible strength of limb that our new friend hadn't had time to warn me about. I recovered almost instantly and began a series of quick, sweeping slashes-

The distant clang of my sword hitting the deck brought me back to my senses, as I shook off the momentary blackout that the damnable ghaik's mental blast had knocked me into. Although it had no recognizable mouth, merely that damnable tooth-lined hole surrounded by all those deadly tentacles, I could swear the filthy thing was grinning at me as it leaned over to-

"Back off!" Shadowheart cried, and the ghaik staggered back as her mace tagged the side of its head. I used its vulnerable moment to roll away and to the side as quickly as I could, abandoning my dropped weapon as I frantically looked around for-

I spotted what I was searching for - the magical flaming greatsword that the devil-man who the ghaik had just been fighting had dropped as he died. My new greatsword's magic flames sprang into being as soon as my hand grasped the hilt, and as I came hurriedly to my feet I saw that Shadowheart had not rushed in recklessly, but had instead stepped back out just as quickly as she'd gone in and was now keeping just enough separation to remain a threat-in-being while not drawing close enough to be vulnerable. And her cunning distraction worked, because the ghaik had to fatally split its attention between the two opponents flanking it on either side for just long enough-

I split its spine with over four feet of fiery eldritch steel before it could finish turning away from her to face me again, and as we exchanged a wordless nod of thanks we both quickly looked around for any remaining enemies - none, thank goodness - and then resumed our frantic dash towards the front of the helm chamber.

"Can you get it working again?" I urgently asked the nameless warrior as she cursed in alien tongues and hurriedly struggled to grab and reconnect the flailing tentacles.

"If I am not further delayed with asinine questions!" she spat frustratedly. "Is the ghaik dead, at least?"

"Not unless they can live without backbones." I reassured her. "We haven't got very long before we hit the ground-"

"Almost there!" she reassured us, and then a sudden massive lurch of the crashing nautiloid sent me to my knees and sent her sprawling away from the transponder entirely as she was flung into Shadowheart and knocked them both down. A flicker of movement drew my eye up, up towards the top of the panaromic viewport that let the normal helmsman of this ship see where he was steering, as - dear Maker, that was a dragon!

The dragon's head peering balefully down through the gap high up in the window was only about half the size of the High Dragon we'd fought in that damned quarry once, but it was still large enough to be downright terrifying. But the really frightening thing was the rider that I could see, sitting securely in a saddle high up on the dragon's neck just behind the head - a male knight in elaborate plate armor, with a flat pseudo-reptilian face. A 'githyanki', the same as our new if uncertain ally, but-

My attempt to cry out that we had one of his fellow soldiers with us, that we weren't with the ghaik, fell silent in my throat as the rider's face firmed with a hateful mask of decision that I'd seen many a time back in Kirkwall. That was the expression of a templar, and a fanatic one at that; a man who had decided that his opponents were not humans to be fought but filth to be cleansed, that it was better to slay a hundred innocents rather than risk one guilty man escaping. His dragon responded to whatever wordless command he gave it, and I saw it's nostrils flare as it drew a deep breath to inhale-

The hell with that! I decided, and shook off my shock to lurch forward towards the transponder, grab the last pair of loose tentacles that I could see, and with a horrid lurch ram the two ends together as solidly as I could and hope for the best.

The instant the transponder's reconnection was complete the crashing, diving nautiloid immediately surged up and forwards with a blare of power as the engines resumed operation. The sudden change in our thrust was enough to knock the dragon loose from the hull, and before they could circle around for another attack I felt the nautiloid wrench as the engines surged even harder and the entire view outside the window suddenly changed in a brilliant, searing flash of energy. Whatever mysterious engine let these ships jump between the worlds had just engaged, and the glaring red sky of the Nine Hells faded from our view to be replaced by a glimpse of a starry sky and a bright, peaceful-looking moon-

And then something further back towards the aft of the ship exploded, and our level flight ceased and we resumed crashing.

As my feet left the deck and I floated horribly in mid-air before slamming off the ceiling, the ship now descending so violently that we were in freefall, I lost track of the two women. The lurching, spinning, crashing nautiloid slammed me around like a pea inside a tin can that was itself rolling down a steep staircase, and I frantically reached out with flailing arms to grab anything I possibly could. One of my hands managed to snag one fo the tentacle-cables that had been connected to the transponder, now torn loose again by the latest impacts, and I desperately tried to pull myself along the cable hand-over-hand so that I could reconnect it and stop our-

I turned my head just in time to avoid being knocked unconscious by a flying piece of debris, but the impact still caught me enough to loosen my grip and send me flying out the side of the ship and into the empty air. I very briefly marveled at the sight of a green, pleasant countryside from an altitude high enough that no man on Thedas had ever seen such a height before unless they'd been a mythical dragon-rider, and then bitterly laughed at the sheer irony involved. I'd been cast out of my very world by a vindictive demon lord who wanted to condemn me to live forever exiled from everyone I'd ever known, and now I'd die as helplessly as a baby bird falling out of its nest before so much as an hour had passed for me in this new realm. And just to be the perfect icing on this latest bitter cake, I was going to die doing what I'd done so many weary times before in my life - promising to lead others to safety, and then leading them only to their their deaths.

I kept my eyes open, resolute, refusing to flinch, as the distant ground beneath me expanded rapidly. The darkness on the distant horizon gave way to moonlight reflecting off a river almost directly beneath me and the fires of a large encampment some miles away, with a forest and some low bluffs just adjacent to the river. I briefly thought about trying to angle my fall so that I'd hit the water, then gave it up as a futile thought given that with a fall from this great height my death was certain whether I hit a mountain of rock or a mountain of pudding. I determinedly refused to flinch as the ground rushed towards my gaze as I fell headfirst to earth, and-

-with a glow of magic around me I instantly stopped short in mid-air, impossibly without the slightest jar or shock, as I hung only several bare feet above the ground. A desperate look around for what the hell was going on now had me incredulously spot the glowing purple eyes of a ghaik, imperiously looking around as it silently floated several feet above the sand of the beach some thirty feet away from me. I scrabbled desperately for a weapon, any weapon-

And then the magic suspending me cut out, and I fell to the beach and collapsed.

---

I woke to bright sunlight in my eyes, the smell of fresh air, and the gentle murmur of the waves.

"My head," I moaned, feeling like an eighty-year-old man with the swollen joint disease. I'd been beaten, battered, stabbed, knocked about, and fought multiple battles any of which would have exhausted the average warrior - and then I'd been exiled from Thedas to do it all over again. And then I'd been in a crashing-

I hurriedly reached up to grasp my head and make certain that I still had an unperforated skull. One of those horrid ghaik had... saved my life? And then simply walked away from me, despite my lying helpless and unconscious before it? When I'd already seen how quick they were to mercilessly turn on even who they believed to be their own loyal slaves the instant they needed to jettison some baggage? How did that even make sense? How did any of this make sense?

I slumped back down onto the sand and remained sitting there cross-legged for I don't even know how long, trying to think of a single damn reason to not just lie back down and wait for the inevitable. I was alone in the middle of a wilderness on a world I had no knowledge of, with a parasite stuck in my head that would turn me into an abomination in Maker only knows how soon, and with the only person who'd even hinted at a cure for it lost and certainly dead in the nautiloid's crash. I could see large chunks of wreckage from the ship scattered down the beach and a pillar of smoke rising up over a low bluff from perhaps a mile ahead to mark where the main crash site had been and bespeak as to just how violent it had been. The Nightmare's threat had come horribly true - I was adrift in a world with absolutely no one and nothing. The people who'd trusted me to lead them, however briefly, were both-

I was just so damn tired. Lothering, Kirkwall, Ferelden, the Free Marches- Maker, even Skyhold, however briefly that had been. So many places had promised me a new home to replace one that I'd lost, and so many had been lost to me in turn. My name was a byword for persisting against all odds in at least three kingdoms, but that persistence hadn't earned me a single lasting victory in any one of them. Would it really be so sinful to just-

I could almost imagine a pair of faint, teasing voices on the wind as Bethany and Carver wordlessly asked me if they'd ever given up trying. And if they could manage that, then why couldn't their big brother?

Because you're not here. I mournfully reminded their ghosts, and then with a muttered curse forced myself to an unsteady pair of feet anyway. My new greatsword was lying impossibly close to me for something I'd lost while I was falling, as if someone had found it and then left it laying barely half a dozen feet away. There was also some flotsam and jetsam laying around not from thecrashing nautiloid but apparently fallen or thrown overboard from passing ships - and I managed to find a few useful supplies in amongst all the odds and sods and miscellaneous junk. A quick taste of the water - fresh, not salt - confirmed what I'd glimpsed in my fall. This was a river, not a sea, even if the river was wide enough here that I could barely see the other side. The lay of the terrain only gave me one direction to walk in, as I hit a low cliff wall or water in any other direction, so I yielded to the inevitable and began trudging slowly through the sand. As I ducked underneath an outcropping of rock and came out the other side, the beach widened in front of me. I startled as I saw a corpse, miraculously intact with no visible wounds or pool of blood, lying in the sand a short way in front of me - a corpse dressed in black-and-silver armor-

I scrambled forwards, stumbling and getting to my feet several times, to arrive at her and be confronted by the impossible sight of Shadowheart lying peacefully on her back in the sand, her mace laid in the sand alongside her just as neatly as my sword had been. The slow rise and fall of her chest made me burst out in an incredulous laugh of delight as I realized she was alive, that some mysterious magic must have caught and broken her fall just as it had mine. I barely restrained myself from grasping her by her shoulders and pummelling her awake, choosing instead to prudently remain just out of reach and slap one palm hard against the sole of her foot.

"What-" she startled awake, as the old soldier's trick for waking up a sleeping man in the barracks without getting yourself punched worked yet again. Her hand frantically reached down for a weapon that wasn't there as she scrambled back and up on her knees, to halt our eyes met and her mouth twitched in a shock as elated as mine.

"You're alive!" she gasped. "I'm alive! How- how is this possible?" she begged me.

I hurriedly brought her up to speed on everything that had happened since we'd been separated in the crash, including my brief glimpse of the mysterious rescuing ghaik, as I helped her to her feet and we then recovered her mace and searched the wreckage - and the several human corpses, whether of unlucky locals or dead ghaik-thralls from the nautiloid we didn't know yet - for anything useful.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" I asked her. "Because I don't."

"I didn't see enough on the way down to have more than the vaguest notion." she replied. "But the label on one of those shipping crates we found adrift in the tide line said that the intended destination was Elturel, and that's a name I recognize. It's a city on the Chionthar River, a couple hundred miles inland from the river mouth. So if that's the Chionthar-" she nodded towards the river we were walking alongside. "Then at least the nautiloid made it back home to Toril before we crashed."

"Your home, perhaps." I acknowledged her with a matter-of-fact nod. "Because unless you've heard of a continent called Thedas, or kingdoms called Orlais, Ferelden, or Tevinter, then it's not mine."

"Oh." she realized. "The nautiloid ships of the mind flayers sail on the Silver Sea, the astral realm that touches countless worlds. You're not from my homeworld at all." She blinked in puzzlement. "Wait, if that's true then how are we speaking to each other?"

"Good question." I realized, not having had the leisure at any earlier point to actually stop and wonder at the sheer implausibility of meeting people from another universe entirely that still spoke recognizable Common Tongue. "And I'm not even going to try and guess at the answer until we're somewhere much more conducive to leisurely philosophizing than here."

"That's a very practical attitude." Shadowheart agreed readily. "Especially given the little monsters we've got in our heads that are slowly killing us from the inside out. First things first - we've found some supplies but we still need shelter, and most of all a healer."

"We?" I smiled at her welcomingly. "Not that I have any objections, but-"

Shadowheart quirked a brief smile back at me. "We need each other, and we both know what's at stake. I can't think of better company." she trailed off cheekily.

"Can't argue with that reasoning." I agreed with her. "Do you know how long we've got left? Or anything about curing them?"

"Powerful healing magic, which I certainly can't cast." she answered me. "As for how long we've got- it's anything but my particular field of study, but if I remember the lore correctly then we're talking only days, not weeks."

"And the only person who said she knew where we could get a cure is either dead in the crash or left us both behind on the beach without a backward glance." I groused.

"Yes." Shadowheart agreed. "Githyanki are almost as cold and ruthless as the mind flayers they fight. They haven't got any patience with other races, and once you're no longer of immediate use to them then they haven't got any mercy with you either."

"So it would seem." I nodded. "How far do you think it is to the nearest city?"

"My home city of Baldur's Gate is at the mouth of the Chionthar, on the seacoast." she said. "And given how wide the river is here, we're certainly not upstream of Elturel..." she mused. "But I've no idea which one we're closer to right now."

"Two hundred miles is slightly over eight days' march for soldiers in good condition on good roads." I thought out loud. "Cut that in half - because neither city was easily visible from the air as we fell, so we're clearly in the middle distance between them - that's an estimate of four days' march. Know enough about the local geography to guess what might be nearby?"

"Good deduction." she complimented me. "Especially since if I recall correctly the only forested terrain on the Chionthar is almost halfway between the two cities." she continued.

"Then we'd better get started." I said, looking at the river and marking the direction of the flow. "Downstream is that way, so that's west to this Baldur's Gate. Let's go."

"Wait." Shadowheart said, briefly reaching out to clasp my forearm and stop me. "Before we go-" She drew a deep breath and continued softly. "I wanted to thank you again. For freeing me." She paused awkwardly and continued even more softly. "It would have been all too easy for you to just leave me in my pod, but you didn't. I'll remember that."

"Any time." I reassured her, and we set out on our way.

As we drew towards the far end of the beach we spotted a couple of freshly dead corpses laying in the sand, with still-red blood spattered around them to testify that they'd died here, and recently. Both of them were dressed like villagers, not soldiers, and had no weapons or armor. A fishing pole still clutched in one dead fist testified as to what they'd been doing here-

"These were just fishermen!" Shadowheart said, kneeling down to professionally examine the bodies. "And these are claw marks, but not normal ones."

"What sort of animal goes only for the throat and leaves no wounds on their arms or legs?" I agreed with her. "That's not an animal attack but from some kind of intelligent beast. A magical one."

"Probably one of those horrible little brain creatures the mind flayers kept on their ship." Shadowheart agreed. "They had claws just about this size. These poor folk were just out here trying to catch some food when the crash occurred-"

"This tells us two important things." I realized. "First off, if this attack really was done by one of those brains then the main part of the ship hit the ground softly enough that there could still be survivors from it. And second-"

"There's some kind of village or settlement nearby, within walking distance." Shadowheart realized. "Well, that gives us somewhere to go."

"As well as something to watch out for." I agreed grimly. "Keep alert on the march."

The cliff at the far end of the beach turned out to be the wall of some type of small fortress, with a tiny battlement dozens of feet above our head and a small archway with an ancient and weathered door built into the cliff face. The door was locked when we tried it, and we were already on an urgent errand, so we simply left it behind and took the pathway leading up off the beach and into the first major clump of wreckage from the crashed nautiloid. Sure enough, several of the little brain creatures - which turned out to have four long clawed legs they ran around on, when they weren't busy being stuck in a dead elf's skull - tried to ambush us, and I needed some fast sword work to keep the first couple from landing on our heads. But as the last one turned and fled from us, Shadowheart made my hair stand on end when she burned it down as it fled with a hastily muttered spell and a golden energy bolt flung from one hand.

"You're a mage!" I said, startled. "And just when were you going to mention that?" I pressed her suspiciously. Not that I really had anything against apostate mages, my own father and younger sister had been apostates after all, but a man liked to have a bit of warning!

"Cleric." she corrected me, looking confused at my obvious suspicions. "And why, is that a problem?" she challenged.

"Magic is magic, Church-sanctioned or not." I replied. "And while I don't necessarily agree it has to be sanctioned by the church, I still acknowledge it's always something to be cautious with."

"I'm thinking were having more than a bit of a cultural clash here." Shadowheart said. "There's nothing unsafe about magic - oh, there's certainly a lot of unsafe things you can do with magic, but the same applies for any other type of weapon. But so long as a spellcaster has proper training, it's as safe as anything."

"Even the best-trained mages in Thedas are still occasionaly taken by the Fade." I said. "That's why the Mage Circles are always guarded so heavily by the templars. And even apostate mages have to be very careful to regulate themselves, or that's how abominations happen."

"Magic... is something inherently unsafe in your world? Is that what you're saying?" Shadowheart tried to puzzle out. "Even when it's cast under strict religious supervision?"

My hurried explanation of exactly how magic and the Fade worked in Thedas left her shocked to her core, as she'd never even heard of any conditions such as that. The idea that the barrier between the material and astral realms could be so weak as to make involuntary demonic possession an always-possible risk for any magically-capable person was as far outside her mental universe as the abolition of slavery would have been for a Tevinter Magister.

But on my part, I was ten times as shocked to find out that in this world the gods would actually answer prayers. Despite the strict monotheism of the Chantry it's not as if the concept of a pantheon of different gods for different spheres of life was entirely unknown to me - after all, that was how the Dalish elves of Thedas did it - but no elf had ever actually received an otherworldly answer to their most impassioned worship any more than any Chantry priestess ever had. The Chantry taught that the Maker had long since turned away his face from the world, their patience finally exhausted at the incorrigible sins of mankind, but-

"The idea that you can call on your gods for aid, and they will answer." I said, as full of wonder as a small child. "That- that's absolutely inconceivable to anyone from Thedas. Do you have any idea how very privileged, how blessed you are to know this joy?"

"Actually yes." Shadowheart blushed briefly. "I've been a priestess my entire life, and my goddess has always been the greatest comfort to me. Often the only one, at times." she trailed off diffidently. "There must be something very different about the astral space near your particular plane of existence, that not only warps it's relationship with magic but also cuts it off from the outer planes and the divine."

"The Veil." I realized. "But that must mean-"

"I'm thinking it's time for a bit more of that practical attitude right now." Shadowheart chided me. "We are burning daylight, after all."

"You're right." I agreed embarassedly. "But it is still a practical question to ask if your goddess is willing to give us a bit of help right now."

"I've already asked her, and no answer." she admitted with her own bit of embarassment. "Not that that's very surprising, seeing as how I'm still quite a junior priestess after all. Mother Superior might be able to call for divine intervention and actually get it, but I'd be shocked to the tips of my toes if I ever managed to. And my own healing spells are far too minor to deal with something like what we've got in our heads right now."

"So we're still back at hopefully finding this nearby settlement and some shelter there, and a more powerful healer - or at least some directions to where we can find one." I agreed.

"The crash has wiped out any tracks we could possibly follow." Shadowheart groused.

"That old building or whatever we glimpsed from the beach - whether or not it's still in use, someone used it once. Which means that there'll be a path of some kind leading to it from wherever the nearest settlement was. If we take that path we'll head back towards the river and probably up around to the top of that bluff - we check out whatever's there and where it might lead us." I decided, and we resumed our march.

---

Author's Note: I think I'm going to be getting quite a bit of mileage out of Hawke's culture shock at going from Dragon Age to Dungeons & Dragons.

Hawke's super-moves are actually a standard part of the warrior's kit in Dragon Age - he hasn't even used any high-level ones yet. Yes, what's normal for fighters in DA is basically medium to high-level kensai monk bullshit in 5e. That's going to be fun for me to carry over, even in a loose adaptation.

And yes, I am dealing with the question of 'how the hell can Hawke even talk to anybody without translation magic if he's from a completely different alternate Prime?' by just ignoring it. I've got a story to be getting on with it so heck with it, we'll just D&D right over the whole thing. *g*

And damn, it's amazing how incredibly long a video game can stretch out to if you actually try to narrate it in text. I may have to start skipping over minor encounters.

 

[cliffc999]

I frantically battered the darkspawn to the ground, desperately scything forward through them with a flashing charge and greatsword sweep that focused my internal energy in just the right way to cleave the foe even slightly outside the actual arc of the blade with the sheer pressure of the blow. When we'd gone up the pathway from the wreckage of the nautiloid the absolute last thing I'd expected to find in this new world of Toril was a trio of genlocks, but although my heart had frozen solid at first sight of them the reflexes that had carried me through a thousand battles drove me forward in a frantic rush to destroy them before Shadowheart could walk unawares into the danger.

"Keep back!" I yelled desperately at her. "Don't let their blood touch you, it's tainted!"

"Hawke?" she asked me, her voice thick with puzzlement. "Are you all right?"

The blurriness left my vision and I drew a series of deep panting breaths, leaning on my sword tip as I braced it on the chest of one of the fallen-

"Darkspawn. If you catch the Taint, you turn into one of them. Like the parasites in our heads, only from their blood-" I tried to explain.

"Hawke." she remonstrated gently with me. "These were goblins."

I flinched with shame as a second, more searching look at the little monsters I'd killed revealed that while they did look quite a bit like genlocks at first glance, there were multiple distinct differences. Their eyes were normally colored, their teeth were more human-shaped than the needle fangs of darkspawn, their faces narrow and skulls less rounded, their dark red blood smelled just like human blood and not anything like the Tainted ichor of darkspawn-

"Sorry." I apologized. "On Thedas-" I shook my head. "The darkspawn are perhaps the most terrible scourge we ever knew. Endless in number, untiring, implacably hateful of all other life... and worse yet, intelligent and organized underneath their Archdemons. And I already mentioned the Taint." I reminded myself that I was on another world, quite likely in another universe entirely, far beyond the furthest reach of the Fade, the Black City, or the Blight-

"And they look like these?" she said understandingly.

"The commonest type of darkspawn do, yes." I nodded. "And these 'goblins' are-?"

"A common type of humanoid. Hateful, and relatively intelligent and organized, but with nothing demonic or tainted about them. They're simply little tribal savages, raiders on isolated settlements and naught more." Shadowheart explained. "I wouldn't want to be caught unawares by them, and certainly not taken prisoner by them, but any veteran warrior can readily defeat most goblins even at several-to-one odds." She chuckled a bit. "As you just proved."

I shook off the last vestiges of my combat flashback and resisted the temptation to take the conversational out she'd just given me. "My apologies for-" I paused and reached for words. "The last darkspawn Blight on Thedas destroyed my hometown and forced our family to flee as refugees.. and-" I drew to a halt. "We lost both my younger siblings."

"Dear Lady of Loss." Shadowheart winced in sympathy.

"My brother Carver died during the retreat from Lothering. My sister Bethany died of the darkspawn taint when we had another encounter with them almost a year later. Mother and I-" I shrugged the painful memories away. "And that's not germane right now." I finished firmly.

"These goblins looked to be stragglers from a larger band, seeing as how they'd stopped to loot the wreckage here." Shadowheart obligingly turned away to practical matters. "Let's see what they found."

As it turned out the dead goblins had a near-complete set of camping supplies on them - and clean supplies and of apparent human manufacture at that, not goblin-stuff. Apparently the nautiloid had been carrying stores of such things for the use of the mind flayers' human slaves. We distributed the most useful bits into our packs, and Shadowheart picked up a small round shield for herself to compliment her mace, and we continued onwards in silence.

And just a little ways further on the sight of a man's disembodied arm sticking out of some type of spark-shooting purple magical vortex barely raised an eyebrow from our two increasingly jaded selves, seeing as how we'd already been having far too eventful a morning and were still bottoming out from the adrenaline surge of our recent combat.

"A hand? Anyone?" a man's voice called out urgently from within the... magical hole was the best description I could find for it, somehow unaccountably stuck in a nearby rock face and emitting from some sparking purple runes.

"Is this the sort of magic that's safe to touch, or am I going to get zapped?" I asked Shadowheart, and she knelt to peer more closely at it for a bit and then shrugged at me.

"I'm fairly certain it's safe," the trapped man tried to reassure me. "But I'm wedged in here a bit tight, and really could use a bit of leverage to help wiggle out please?"

"Hang on." I sighed wearily and reached forward to grab the flailing hand and pull. Fortunately, it only took a bit of muscle and some good leverage to get him moving, and soon enough a tall, handsome brown-haired man in slightly dusty purple robes and clutching a staff in his other hand flopped forward out of the hole and landed heavily on his knees. As soon as he was free the magical vortex faded and left behind an elaborate, yet entirely quiescent, circle of faintly-glowing runes etched into the rock.

"Hello!" the man said cheerfully as he heaved himself to his feet. "I'm Gale, of Waterdeep. Apologies, I'm usually better at this."

"At magic?" I queried the obvious wizard, after both Shadowheart and I introduced ourselves.

"That too." he smiled disarmingly. "In my defense, though, I don't usually try to spellcast while falling to my death hundreds of feet through the air. It was intended to be a simple Feather Fall spell to cushion my landing, but it interacted badly with that runic circle over there." he nodded at the rock face.

I nodded understandingly, because Gale did have a entirely valid point that a magical fumble was entirely forgivable given the desperate conditions he was working under. "Then you were on the nautiloid as well?" Shadowheart chimed in.

"Wonderful, that saves me many an awkward explanation." Gale nodded. "And if you were there, then I assume that you too were on the receiving end of a rather unwelcome insertion in the ocular region?"

"Couldn't have phrased it more repellently myself." I replied amusedly.

"And the insertee we speak of? The parasite? Are you aware that after a period of excruciating gestation it will turn us into mind flayers? It's a process known as 'ceremorphosis' and let me assure you, it is to be avoided!" he finished passionately.

"We're already searching for a healer for ours. There's at least some type of settlement nearby, but we don't know exactly where." Shadowheart informed him.

"But we do have an intended destination, I hope?" Gale probed earnestly.

"A little ways down that path is some type of old or abandoned structure, we glimpsed it from the beach." I nodded down the dirt path we'd already been taking. "We're hoping to pick up the trail from there."

"Then lead on!" Gale said cheerfully. I noted inwardly he was being a bit forward with his assumptions, but then again the logic of survival was just as clear for him and us as it had been for Shadowheart and myself. We were all condemned to a horrible death if we didn't get our parasites removed in time, and so for the duration we all needed each other.

"What was that, anyway?" I nodded towards the glowing runic circle. Not that I was particularly interested in strange magics, at least not when I was already this busy, but if it was possibly dangerous-

"Oh, that? It's just a travelstone." Gale assured us. "You find them in some parts of northern Faerun. Most scholars think they date back to the ancient Netherese Empire, although there is a competing theory that they're a lost elven magic-"

"The practical part?" I grinned at him, recognizing a true scholar's fascination with a lecture topic when I saw one and knowing that this bid fair to go on all day if he wasn't interrupted.

"After a person has attuned themselves to the travelstone, they can teleport back to it at any time provided the attunement is still in effect and they aren't more than a significant yet still distinctly finite distance away." Gale shocked me.

"Wait, just like that?" I marveled. "Teleportation is such a common thing here? Then how is that anyone still builds roads or uses ships?"

"Hah, no." Gale grinned at me. "As I mentioned, the secret of their manufacture has been lost for centuries. Also most of them don't work anymore, and even those that do still work seem to be active only on some unknowable astrological schedule." He looked back briefly at the nearby travelstone. "This one's fully operational though. Never thought I'd get to see one in operation, particularly not from the inside. Apparently they're not always fond of gravity-based magic cast too closely to them."

"If it's working then shouldn't we attune ourselves to it?" Shadowheart asked. "It would be a useful method for recovering our position if we got lost in this wilderness, if nothing else."

"If you think it's safe." I agreed with her, and after a brief period of experimentation led by Gale we managed to finish this 'attunement' process - largely just a matter of touching the rune and concentrating on it in a certain way - and proceeded onwards.

As we proceeded through a low stand of trees towards the small clifftop where we'd seen the structure, we saw that it appeared to be some type of ruined chapel. The top floor had almost entirely collapsed and worn away, leaving only a couple of freestanding walls and empty pillars. However, the much more recent construction of a hastily-erected timber pole-and-boom being used as some type of improvised crane to hoist up a large broken segment of stone pillar, along with several crates and bags scattered about, bespoke of a recent expedition to this site... and one that was likely still here.

"Hello the encampment!" I politely called out as we drew within easy earshot. "Three travelers to approach!"

"Boss! We got company!" a rough-sounding voice sounded faintly in reply, and by the time we finished coming up to the camp site we were met by a motley array of three individuals, in rough common dress and holding bared steel - or a wizard's staff, in the case of the one woman with them. The bowman was a human and the wizardess an elf, although their leader was of a race unfamiliar to me - as short as a dwarf but only half as stout, with a narrow face and pointed ears vaguely like an elf's.

"Bugger off! This lot's ours!" the apparent leader snarled at us.

"Easy, friend." I said, my empty palms out and my sword still slung on my back. "We're not out to rob you."

"Now if only the opposite were true." Shadowheart muttered darkly from behind my back.

"A fine tale, my friend." the leader mocked us. "Don't like the odds now that you've seen them, have you?"

Seeing as how the odds were even I did my best not to roll my eyes at his overconfidence. "If you could tell us where the nearest settlement is, we'll just head there and leave you to your labors." I tried to reason with him.

"Sure you would, and then come right back after dark and try it with daggers in our sleep!" he sneered. "I know your kind all too well!"

I looked around more carefully and thought a bit. "I only see a couple of you, and erecting that crane and doing all this digging looks to have been a larger a project than that. And none of you were laboring as we drew near. Your lookouts for a larger band, aren't you?"

"Got it in one, friend." the leader sneered. "One shout from me and all the lads will pile out and run you through!"

"But you're not shouting yet." I noted. "So you're clearly not bandits, you're an honest expedition with a purpose." All right, that last one was definitely just wishful thinking seeing as how this scruffy lot were as obviously bandit-like as any men I'd ever seen, but I was trying to be diplomatic here. "And we have no desire to interfere with that and compromise your safety, we're just a bit lost after our ship crashed and trying to find some shelter."

"Lost little travelers," the leader mused as several of his men tried to hide involuntary grins, and I sighed inwardly. A far less experienced person than any of our party could already see where this was going, and I simply was not in the mood for it. "Travelers who might be willing to pay a bit for a safe escort, then?"

"Well, if this is a negotiation, then of course I'll be willing to make you a very generous offer." I smiled as disarmingly as I could as I slowly and non-threateningly idled forward and to the right, as if I were just nervously pacing while trying to marshal my thoughts. "Because we're all peaceful and reasonable men here-"

And as I drew near enough to where I'd been carefully edging towards quickly as I could I pulled my greatsword off my back, strained the full power of my shoulders and hips into a sideways cut, and chopped my flaming sword directly through the vertical beam of wood holding up the improvised crane with a single powerful stroke. The crane, boom and all, came crashing down and the suspended pillar smashed directly through the flagstone courtyard and into some type of dark and empty catacomb below.

"-and we certainly wouldn't want any unpleasantness." I grinned wickedly at them, my blade confidently held before me in both hands while off to the side Shadowheart had her own mace and shield out, holding a blocking position in front of Gale as he dramatically lit the tip of his wizard's staff with flame. Not that I'd had a chance to actually discuss this strategy with them, but they were both clearly experienced enough to pick up on an obvious cue.

"N-no." the little man stammered. "No sir, we certainly wouldn't want that. Let's get the hell out of here!" he cried out, as he backpedaled furiously away.

"But what about the rest-" one of his men protested as they fell back with him.

"Leave 'em! We've got to look after ourselves!" the leader shot back, and as soon as they'd opened up a sufficient distance between us they all showed us their backs and took off running for the tall timber.

Shadowheart whistled softly, staring at the fallen ruins of the improvised crane as she stepped towards me. "Goddess, you're strong. I've never seen anything like that from anyone smaller than an ogre."

"It's just about putting the total power of every muscle in your body focused into a single linear strike all simultaneously." I explained. "Not much use as a technique against anything substantially smaller or faster than a tree, given the wind-up it requires, but it works just fine on things like ogres." Not that whatever they called 'ogres' here were at all likely to be the same thing as the larger darkspawn I'd fought back home, but I'd already made that mistake once today.

"That one chap mentioned 'the rest'." Gale pointed out. "I wonder how many are still down in there?" he nodded towards a set of steps leading down to what had apparently been a cellar door back when this chapel or whatever-it-was had still been standing, but which was now the outer door of the lower levels of this place.

"Do we even need to go down there?" Shadowheart asked.

"It's getting late in the afternoon." I looked up briefly at the lowering sun. "I've got no idea how far it is from here, and this is the best shelter we've found yet. Also, we don't want this lot coming out behind us and possibly hitting us wherever else we camp."

"No we don't." she wearily agreed. "Still, it's been a long day already."

"Which is why we're going to try talking first." I walked down the steps and thumped my first hard on the door. "Hello in there!"

"That you, Gimblebock?" a scared young man's voice came muffled through the door. "What's going on out there? What was that noise?"

"If your friend 'Gimblebock' was a short little man with pointed ears, then I'm afraid he's taken off down the road and left you here." I amiably called back. "Now we need to talk."

"I-I'm not allowed to speak to strangers!" he stammered out. "Be off, or-"

"Call your boss." I calmly interrupted him. "I'll wait right here."

"Who are you and what do you want?" a gruff man's voice called out a short bit later.

"We had a bit of a disagreement with the men you left to guard the entrance, but they're all right." I said disarmingly. "They just decided it would be better if they moved off down the road a bit. Now-"

"You're only getting in here over our dead bodies!" the bandit leader called back belligerently.

"Friend, you're either here because this is a nice place to lair, or it's got good loot." I reasoned with him. "Except if strangers have found it - which obviously they have - then it's no longer a nice place to lair, now is it? As for the loot, you can keep whatever you've found so far."

"Except that that's sweet bugger-all!" he shouted back. "This whole damn trip's been a bust, and now we've got a strange crew muscling in on us? Shove your sweet talk up your arse, this patch is ours!"

"Would you like to trade stories about who's had the worse day?" I snarked back at him. "And if you had a back door out of there, you'd already be using it. You're trapped down there, friend. So does this have to get unpleasant, or would you like to make an arrangement that means nobody has to get hurt or to go away empty-handed?"

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on." he sneered.

"We've already discussed how this isn't useful to you as a hiding place any longer, and you just mentioned that you haven't had any good looting here. So here's my deal. I'll put you on to a better looting opportunity nearby and let you all go peacefully to enjoy it for yourselves - even to link back up with Gimblebock and the ones who deserted with him, if you still want them - and in return, you give me and my band these ruins."

"Why would you even want it?" he asked me suspiciously. "What's your angle?"

"Do you even care, so long as you're not missing out personally?" I shot back. "And look, I'll even give you a bit up front in earnest. Did you hear that crash last night?"

"We heard something." the 'boss' said musingly. "Felt like a god-damned earthquake, too."

"Are you familiar with what a 'nautiloid' is? The flying ships the mind flayers use?" I continued.

"Heard of them a bit." the bandit leader agreed. "Wait, you're not saying-"

"That was one of them crashing." I confirmed. "All sorts of strange things from beyond the stars, just lying there in the rubble for the taking. We've already had our pickings there, as much as we could readily lift, but there was still quite a bit left. Sounds like that gleaning that would be a better score for you than these disappointing ruins, doesn't it?"

"... it sounds good, but I'm still not seeing what you get out of this." he replied quietly.

"We've already marched a damn long way today and had at least one battle, and while we're still fresh enough to fight some more we don't really want to march or fight much further. And the sun's getting low. So the emptier these ruins are, the better it is for us - all we need is the shelter for tonight."

A brief pause and some low mutterings through the door made my hopes rise, as the bandit gang in there were seriously considering my offer. "All right, it's a deal. We clear out of here and leave what's left for you, you give us the directions to this crash site. Now how do we manage this so that neither side gets rooked?"

"I'll move most of my people away from the entrance back into the woods, you won't even see them." I promised, and I could hear Shadowheart giggling behind me as she caught on. "It'll just be me and two of my men to guide the way. That's enough I can still take you - you personally - with me if you try anything, but nowhere near enough for us to try anything."

"... we'll take it." the bandit leader reluctantly agreed. "All right, you get most of your people back and have three only waiting at the top of the stairs. We'll be out in a few minutes."

Good to their word, the remainder of the bandit gang started coming out single file as soon as they saw their way was clear, and I amiably pointed them back down the path we'd come up and gave them directions to the crash site. Whatever intentions they might have possibly had of double-dealing were visibly put by the wayside when they got a good look at the wreckage I'd left of their crane, and soon enough they were down the road without further incident.

"Cleverly done." Shadowheart complimented me as they finished moving out of earshot. "And a good thing for us. We might still have won at those odds, but after all the fighting we've already done today-" she sighed with weariness.

"You've a real gift for negotiations, particularly of the more mercenary variety." Gale agreed. "I wonder, what exactly did my new friend do for a living before he came here?"

"I'd been a nobleman, actually." I surprised him. "Although one of the people who worked for me had been a pirate captain for years before she moved ashore and gave it up. Mostly gave it up." I admitted. "If you fight alongside someone for long enough, you learn at least a bit of their language."

"Handy skill." Shadowheart nodded.

"And you're right that these ruins look like the best place around to fort up for the night, particularly given that I feel like my feet are about to fall off." Gale added. "Let's make sure those bandits didn't miss anything down there when they were clearing it out and then bar the door from the inside."

We each lit torches from the supplies the bandits had left behind and did a quick search of the ruins. A weathered plaque on the wall contained an archaic inscription that Shadowheart could just barely translate as a prayer to a god named "Jergal, the Scribe of the Names of the Dead", who apparently was not a god in common worship any longer. These ruins had apparently the basement layer of an old and now-forgotten temple to this god, with commonplace things like a kitchen, storerooms, and one chamber that had apparently been the temple library. I was bemused to find that I could read the books written in common tongue just as readily as I could understand the local language, and I shoved several of the local histories and commentaries into my pack to help me get acclimated to my new home.

"Here." Shadowheart said, looking at one of several candelabras mounted into the wall. "Look at the scratches on the wall next to this. This turns." She reached up and pulled it, and the grating of stone told us of a secret door opening nearby.

"There's a sub-level beneath this one." I looked down at the hidden stairway that had been revealed. "That must be where that locked door we saw at the bottom of the cliff, the one by the beach, was leading into. It'd be about the right depth."

"A mystery to explore tomorrow." Gale said. "Because I'm about ready to drop."

After making sure the door to the outside was barred and the secret door was wedged shut from our side so we didn't get any unpleasant middle-of-the-night surprises - and also after barring the door to the one storeroom that now had a roof open to the sky, because that was where the wreckage of crane had fallen though the courtyard into - we got a fire going, cooked ourselves a hearty meal, and settled down to rest. Shadowheart used one of her spells to fill an empty barrel full of water, and after using it for cooking and drinking we rolled it into an adjacent room so we'd each have privacy for a hasty bath, or at least a scrubdown.

"Are you sure this is wise?" Shadowheart asked me, as we both sat at a table in the former refectory of this temple waiting for Gale to finish. "Every single hour brings us that much closer to a horrible death."

"I agree, but after a near-death experience last night and multiple battles then and today, and no proper rest in between-" I shook my head. "Trying to explore and fight while exhausted is another good way to find a horrible death. We need at least some proper food and rest before trying to go further."

"You're not wrong." she conceded. "But we can't spend too much time delaying either. We need to move on at first light."

"I'm also hoping to find a map in these ruins." I explained to her. "Even if it's as out of date as the rest of these ruins, if it marks the position of this temple in relation to any of the cities you already know then we can find out whether we're closer to Baldur's Gate or Elturel right now. Because time is pressing, and we can't spend any of it walking in the wrong direction."

"I hadn't thought of that." she admitted. "How far in advance were you planning this?"

"Only when I saw that there was a library down here." I answered. "Sadly, there weren't any maps in there when I searched it. But now I'm thinking that it'd be worth at least an hour or two of our time to explore the sub-level tomorrow."

"It's possible that there's more documents down there, but not likely." Shadowheart said. "What makes you so sure?"

"Those bandits funded an entire expedition and came a long way to explore this place specifically." I said. "Men like that don't fund expeditions like that unless they really believe there's a very profitable treasure to be excavated. If they hadn't already been frustrated from having searched these ruins for Maker only knows how long and finding nothing, I'd never have been able to talk them out of here." I thought out loud. "Which means they didn't find the secret stairway, which is likely where whatever they were looking for was hidden. And while we've all talked about finding a powerful healer to help cure us they're probably not going to do it for free, so-"

"We need to at least make a quick attempt at exploring down there and hopefully find enough of a treasure that we've got something to pay them with." Shadowheart realized. "I really didn't think that far ahead." She quirked a grin at me. "With a strategic mind like that, you must have been a very powerful nobleman." she flattered me.

"I wish." I burst out sourly "Everyone's always said I was a natural leader, but I never seem to lead anyone to anywhere but-" I waved one hand helplessly at the empty air. "Nine Hells, just look at us now!"

"You already mentioned your siblings." Shadowheart said with a commiserating sigh. "I'm guessing that it didn't go well after that?"

"No." I spat bitterly. Not any of it. Maker, I ended up stick in the Fade - the Silver Sea, you called it - at least partly because I didn't give a damn any longer whether I lived or died. And one of the party had to sacrifice themselves anyway to hold off the demon long enough for the rest to escape, so I figured why not me? The rest of them still had jobs to do, people who needed them, but I-" I broke off.

"This sounds very much like a tale you don't want to tell, but need to." Gale said softly, having come up behind us as we were talking. "No pressure, friend, none at all... but if you want to unburden yourself, we're here."

And with that, it all quietly burst out of me. Growing up as the eldest child of three, with our parents a runaway noblewoman of Kirkwall and the fugitive and apostate mage she'd unaccountably fell in love with. Our simple upbringing as villagers in the town of Lothering in Ferelden, and Father's passing from an illness. My having to be the man of the family until the Fifth Blight came and the darkspawn horde destroyed Lothering and almost everyone we'd grown up with, and our family's desperate flight into the wilderness pursued by darkspawn. Carver's death as he fought to keep Mother from being crushed by an ogre, and our not even having had the time to bury him before having to flee further. The miracle that rescued us and let us live to seek passage by ship to Kirkwall, the city of Mother's birth, only to find that the noble Amell family she'd been born into had lost all their wealth and station and been reduced to one destitute and dissolute uncle, her brother Gamlen. Myself and Bethany fighting and clawing at every opportunity we could find in Kirkwall's streets and lower districts, meeting Varric, our desperately hiring on to Bartrand's expedition into the Deep Roads, and Bethany's helpless death down there from the darkspawn taint those tunnels were filled with-

The sheer emptiness that was living in Kirkwall, as the more wealth and fame I acquired and the higher I rebuilt our family fortunes the emptier and bleaker our house became. Mother's death at the hands of that serial-killing necromancer, the qunari menace that had ultimately been brought down on Kirkwall by Isabela's theft of their sacred relic, Aveline's own success at becoming captain of the guard but the necessary distance that drew between her and my more "gray" activities, Anders' descent from kindly healer into mass murdering lunatic as the spirit that had possessed him drove him further and further into madness - the intolerance and paranoia of the Templars, the poisoning of the body and soul that was the red lyrium menace, Merrill's growing obsession with restoring the ancient eluvian artifact and the demon that tempted her every step of the way, our estrangement when I did my best to save her from that doom by smashing the eluvian, the war between the mages and the templars breaking loose that had us fighting as friends for the last time but no longer lovers- Orlesian plots, qunari intrigues - and that damnable moment where my blind foolishness had doomed Ferelden, when the ancient magister-turned-elder-darkspawn Corypheus tricked us into freeing him from his ancient captivity and then left me blind to the catastrophe I'd unleashed when he'd somehow returned from death after Varric and I had slain him and dropped an entire dungeon on him-

I came to the end of the sad, pathetic tale as I recounted how I'd been determined to help the Inquisitor defeat the menace that I'd unwittingly loosed on Thedas in the first place, and how in the end I could do nothing but try and die to give them a chance to run.

"And that's the tale of Garrett Hawke." I breathed out tonelessly, having gone numb from the sheer emptiness of letting it all out at once. "The illustrious Champion of Kirkwall, who could defeat any opponent and yet still lose every war. So perhaps you might want to choose another leader for this party, now that you've heard my track record."

"If I hadn't already been told that the gods had abandoned your world, then I'd have known it from how unfair your tale was." Gale said forthrightly to me. "From all that you've said you only did what any good man would be expected to do, and did it better than almost anyone. And I'm certainly no leader, no tactician, even if I am no small scholar. Someone's got to keep us on track, and I'll trust you to do that and do it well."

"I-" Shadowheart stared almost numbly at me, visibly overwhelmed with what she'd heard. "I- am really not good with comforting words." she breathed out. "That's not a thing I've ever done much. But I know - I've seen some of the things that prolonged cruelty can do to others." she visibly struggled to express herself. "How if you drown a person in pain for long enough, and pervasively enough, they can start to believe that they... deserve nothing better." She trailed off with a sharp breath and a wince. "But that's not always true, Hawke. And I can't even begin to make myself believe that it should be true for you." she finished firmly.

"Thank you." I said quietly. "That- that means a lot. I'll try my best to live up to your confidence in me." I promised them weakly.

"And with that, I think it's time we all turned in." Shadowheart deliberately eased the moment. "You go wash up and get your rest. I'll take first watch."

---

Author's Note: There's a fast-travel system in the BG3 game, but there obviously isn't one in tabletop D&D. So I could either ignore it, or I could BS up an explanation for why it was there. I hope that 'Netherese travelstones' suffices as an explanation.

And yes, my Hawke has had an absolutely shit life. Then again, even the most optimistic Hawkes still get an absolutely shit life. But hey, at least he's starting to make new friends!

 

[cliffc999]

Even though we rose early with the dawn, the hours of sleep did us all a world of good. The remnants of the temple refectory even gave us a hearth in which we could cook ourselves a hot breakfast, and much refreshed we set back out.

The temple crypts at the bottom of the secret stairway were fairly small, and had been deserted for so long that there wasn't even any mold or dampness - the still air carried only the scents of dryness and dust. The large wooden doors leading to the deepest crypt were locked, but we found the key in a nearby sarcophagus guarded only by a few elementary traps. Also in the sarcophagus was a spear made out of a strange metal, one that Gale said was clearly magical. As I already had a magical greatsword I offered it to Shadowheart, but she decided to stick with her more familiar mace-and-shield combination.

Still, though, this clearly wasn't a large enough treasure that anyone would fund even a minor expedition to come all this way and fetch it, so after unlocking the vault doors we preceded into the depths of the catacombs.

"Odd." Shadowheart said, examining one of the robed corpses littering the floor. Whoever had died in here had done it so long ago that the only thing left of their bodies were withered scraps of desiccated skin clinging to bony skeletons. "They're dressed like scribes, but they're all armed. What were they writing that was so controversial that they were prepared to die defending it?"

"More to the point, what made their enemies willing to bury them alive with it?" I thought out loud.

"You can tell that just by looking at skeletons?" Gale questioned me.

"There's no broken or even chipped bones on any of them, and their robes might be rotting away but don't show any tears or slashes." I pointed out. "So they clearly didn't die of battle-wounds." I paced over towards the large opening in the far wall that led into a small cave system nearby. "Look, running water." I pointed at the creek burbling happily away across the cave floor. "So they didn't even die of thirst, but of hunger. And starvation takes weeks to kill, not days."

"There's a ladder over here." Shadowheart said, looking up at the ceiling of the cave where a small shaft leading upwards through the cave's roof had a set of rungs sticking a short ways down out of it. "And this lever here, it must lower the ladder. These men were down here long enough to starve to death when they had an escape route right here!"

"That doesn't make any sense." I said. "The attackers might have settled for just locking that door from the outside and leaving the people trapped in here to die rather than coming in after them, if they didn't have enough men to like their odds of going head-to-head with desperate men fighting like cornered rats in a basement. But if they had enough troops to put in a full siege of this place for the weeks it took for these last few defenders to die, then they had more than enough to just come in and do it the quick way."

"I think you might be a bit narrowly focused on only the mundanely possible explanations, Sir Hawke." Gale rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Because now that you've pointed it out, these corpses do present a distinct anomaly in their presence here. One that can't be readily explained by any conventional tactical choices."

"Ugh." Shadowheart rubbed the bridge of her nose frustratedly. "How did I not see it right away? Armed corpses left mysteriously laying around in a place they have no business laying around in means only one thing. Necromancy."

We all drew together in a defensive formation as we warily eyed the dead bodies. "So you're saying it's a trap. As soon as we touch whatever the owners of this crypt don't want touched, those corpses get back up and try to kill us."

"Very likely." Gale agreed with a sigh. "And they're almost certainly also set to go off if we start trying to destroy the bodies while they're down."

"I don't suppose you could just fill the room with magical flame or something?" I asked him, knowing that a suitably powerful wizard back home could have done just that.

"Ah, if only you'd caught me on a better day." Gale said embarassedly. "Unfortunately, ever since our illithid friends so incosiderately jammed one of their larvae into my cerebral cortex my magic's been a bit off. I can still cast the simpler spells in my repertoire, but it's going to take me a while to get back any advanced usage."

"I've noticed the same with my magic." Shadowheart agreed ruefully.

"Hrm." I mused out loud after I'd taken myself through a brief weapons drill. "I thought my timing being a bit off yesterday was just because I was exhausted, but you're right. The knowledge is all there, even most of my reflexes, but it's not coming together like it normally does. As if I'd been out of practice for months, not just days."

"Our nervous systems aren't entirely the same as they were last week." Gale analyzed. "And it only takes a very subtle shift in the activity patterns of the brain to require a significant adjustment to get back to the peak of performance."

"Well in the meanwhile, we've still got this immediate problem to solve." I rubbed my chin thoughtfully. "If you can't throw a big fireball, can you still do a little one?"

"Easily." Gale said, curling his fingers one by one over his open palm and materializing a small ball of flame within it. "I can do a cantrip this simple all day. But I'm not exactly going to take out a charging pack of undead warriors with it."

"You won't need to." I reassured him. "Not when there's an entire barrel of lamp oil still upstairs with the rest of the supplies that bandit expedition abandoned here."

And so we destroyed almost three times our number in undead warriors while barely needing to swing a sword. I simply chopped the head off of one of them while it was laying there inert, then waited until all the rest had finished rising up in response to my attack and let them follow me back out of the room and up the staircase to the upper level. And as soon as we had them all packed in tightly on the narrow staircase, Gale simply flicked his flame-bolt cantrip down the stairs and ignited the barrel of oil we'd carefully prepositioned at the chokepoint, and that took care of that. Some conjured water from one of Shadowheart's own minor spells took care of the fire hazard afterwards, and we had the entire crypt free to explore at our leisure.

"I wonder if this was the treasure those men were after?" Shadowheart said, looking at the eldritch tome we'd found locked and sealed in a room adjacent to the skeleton-trapped crypt. Nothing we'd tried had even begun to open it until she'd used her clerical powers to channel some divine magic through the lock, at which point the tome was revealed to be a high sacred artifact of Jergal. According to Shadowheart, recording the names and dates of death of the departed was a sacrament for Jergal's clergy, however commonplace or obscure the dead might have been - and the many volumes of such names we'd found in the library upstairs certainly bore that impression out. But this tome was a Book of Dead Gods - a tome in which the passing of lost divinities from Faerun's ancient past to the recent present had all had the dates and circumstances of their fading written out in a single spidery hand, by what must have been one of Jergal's highest priests or most sacred scribes.

"I can think of scholars in Waterdeep who'd pay a chest of gold for a rare find like that." Gale agreed. "Unfortunately, we're a long way from Waterdeep. So unless whatever powerful healer we hope to find likes to collect rare books-"

"There's still one more chamber to explore." I said. "Not that I've found the door to it yet, but if you look carefully at those corner walls over there you'll spot that there's some space unaccounted for behind them."

"Secret door hopefully means great treasure beyond!" Gale agreed enthusiastically, and after a brief search we found the hidden switch that opened up a small hidden chamber. Most of the chamber was filled by one giant and elaborate sarcophagus, larger even than the one we'd found the magic spear in, and a small chest in the corner with some magical potions and scrolls that we readily added to the treasure pile.

"Here lies the Guardian of Tombs. Through knowledge comes atonement." Shadowheart translated the plaque on the sarcophagus. "A 'Guardian of Tombs'? I'm not familiar with any lore pertaining to that. Gale?"

"Afraid not." he shrugged. "So, who wants to do the honors?"

I narrowed my eyes and looked at them both. "As if we don't already know who the two of you are going to make do all the heavy lifting." I grumbled at them affectionately, and then reached out to firmly grasp the lid of the sarcophagus and-

And the instant my hands touched the lid, magical green flames lit up in low braziers spaced all around the sarcophagus despite the complete absence of fuel or igniter. We all sprang back in alarm as the lid unaccountably kept moving, smoothly sliding back away from us with the slow, inexorable pace of an advancing glacier. A tall, thin figure covered in the dried gray flesh of a long-dead corpse yet wearing entirely pristine robes showing not the slightest trace of wear or rot levitated up out of the open sarcophagus, staring majestically down at us as it floated just below the ceiling.

As it floated forward and down we all backed up almost to the far wall - not that it was very far away - and hurriedly drew our weapons and set ourselves into a guard position. It made no hostile reaction and raised no weapon, despite having a long staff - of incongruously plain wood, no elaborate arcane tool - slung across its back.

My nerves were screaming at me, and only the epic embarassment I'd felt at my flashback yesterday kept me from falling into another one - except that this time it would have been nothing as harmless as mistaking goblins for genlocks. No, now my mind irresistibly kept drawing the comparision between current events and what in hindsight had been one of the very worst days of life - the day that Varric and I had inadvertently freed the ancient horror Corypheus from his imprisonment.

Like Corypheus, this lich-thing was impossibly tall, towering at least a full foot above me - and I was not a short man. Like him, it was nothing but dead, dried flesh stretched impossibly thinly over a walking skeleton. Like him, its eyes were filled with a terrible age and an inhumanly penetrating gaze-

But the closer I looked, the more I spotted the differing details. Corypheus had been an ancient darkspawn, and like all their kind brought the darkspawn taint with him wherever he walked - an offensive, corrupting musk that you could almost smell in your mind, even when it wasn't in your nostrils. This thing floated through the room as if were entirely ethereal, not even there - there was no aura, no psychic force, just a quiet smell like old dry paper. Corypheus' flesh had been twisted and corrupt, an ugly meld of the color of dried blood and rotten meat - this ancient undead's flesh was dead and dried but also smooth and symmetrical, with its gray flesh elaborately filigreed with beautiful patterns of gold inlay, even up to and covering its skull. If I hadn't seen it levitate and walk, I'd almost have thought it an elaborate work of art, a collaborate project between a master sculptor and a goldsmith-

"So he has spoken, and so thou standest before me." the ancient intoned in what was almost a chant, the cadence of its words as steady as the ticking of a clock and its tones so measured, so formal, as to bring a measure of calm to the room via sheer lack of passion alone. Which was yet another contrast from Corypheus, whose words always carried an undertone of snarling hatred even when he was pontificating most calmly. "Yet your name has been recorded for only a single day. What a curious way to awaken."

"Who's 'he'?" I grasped at the only part of that last statement that seemed to make sense.

"An arbiter of certain matters." the ancient being replied with glacial patience. "But that is not important now. I have a question for thee, Garrett Hawke. What is the worth of a single mortal's life?"

What? I blinked confusedly, hurriedly looking to both of my companions to see if they had any idea what was going on here. Because honestly, what the hell sort of question was that? It definitely said something that the part where it somehow magically knew my name was actually the least confusing part of the last several sentences.

Unfortunately, neither Shadowheart nor Gale seemed to have any more clue about what was going on here than I did. Furthermore, the intensity of the being's gaze being directed towards me made it rather plain that he was only asking one of us, so as we reluctantly lowered our weapons my thoughts raced to try and scramble for an answer-

I rapidly discarded the idea of asking this thing for clarification, or of just refusing to answer its question. It didn't seem malevolent at first glance, but it didn't seem very benevolent either, and I was almost entirely certain it was powerful enough we did not want to fight it. But I had the distinct sense that giving some obvious platitude of an answer, such as 'All life is infinitely precious' or some such, would be rejected as merely an obvious platitude. Saying that would also be rank hypocrisy on my part, because I was a warrior by profession with all that implied. Giving the opposite answer, that no life really meant anything in the face of an immense and uncaring universe, would be an even worse idea for obvious reasons. Life and its worth was far too complicated to sum up in a single sentence or phrase, or even a book, and every single mortal was living a different life under different circumstances-

"That is a question each single mortal can only answer about their own life, and only when at its end." I answered it confidently.

"Oh, if only the others had thought as such." it mused enigmatically. "Very well." it continued gently. "I am satisfied. We have met, and I know thy face. We will see each other again at the proper time and place. Fare well." it concluded dispassionately, and then turned and left the room without a single backward glance.

The silence echoed behind it for over a dozen heartbeats before I sputtered "All right, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!?"

---

By the time we shook off our confusion and left the tomb, the ancient whatever-the-hell-it-was was long gone. Part of me couldn't help but angst over the idea that I might well have yet again let loose another primordial undead horror to go ravage the world, but my logical mind kept reminding me that this couldn't possibly be the same sort of situation as Corypheus. That monster had been sealed in the bottommost depths of an entire dwarf-built trap dungeon whose sole purpose had been to confine him for eternity, and it had taken us days worth of effort to elaborately unravel all the traps and protections - and an even more elaborate scheme on the part of Corypheus' servants to manipulate me and Varric into doing it. While this thing had simply been lying in what was a completely unguarded root cellar by comparision, with no locks or seals on its tomb at all - Gale couldn't even find any traces of residual warding magic that had ever been on that sarcophagus. By all appearances that lich-thing had simply chosen to lay down in a tomb and wait for centuries to get up and trade its strange riddle with the first person to actually touch the lid, restrained by nothing more than the honor system.

"Through Knowledge comes Atonement." Hmmm. Perhaps it was being punished? Ordered to wait - possibly by those mysterious 'others' it had mentioned disagreeing with? - until someone discovered it and showed any intent to set it free? But if it wasn't magically bound to that task then it was obedient enough to comply with such strictures without being forced to, which meant it was hopefully under enough discipline to not be an indiscriminate scourge.

It had better be, at any rate. Because I already had more than enough desperate and dangerous questing to be getting on with, just to get these damned parasites out of our heads before they turned us all into brain-eating monsters from beyond the stars. So if the world turned out to need saving from that ancient lich-thing as well then the world was just going to have to rely on somebody else for the immediate future. And whatever 'proper time and place' that thing and I were supposedly going to see each other again was hopefully a very long way off.

Unfortunately, while we'd done a fair job of finding treasure in these ruins we still hadn't found anything that would tell us where we were. So after we were done exploring we warped ourselves back to the travelstone where we'd originally met Gale and took the other turn, the one that we'd bypassed on our way to the ruins. Because even if we hadn't found a map the logic that originally compelled us to visit those ruins was still valid. If people had built a temple there then pilgrims and worshippers had to have a way to reach there, and while the nearest settlement had almost certainly not existed that far back the main road between Elturel and Baldur's Gate still had and so at least one of the paths leading away from the temple would eventually reach there. And if settlers had built a village nearby in the interim, they'd be much more likely to build it near an already-existing path than not-

"Voices up ahead." I quietly warned the rest of the party, as the distant sounds of two people conversing came to us from around a corner. We came around the path and between a pair of low rocks to see a pair of red-skinned, horned humanoids - they looked vaguely like the devil-men I'd seen on the nautiloid, only slim and of humanlike build instead of the hulking menaces there and with far less malevolent features and no aura of infernal power - dressed in leather armor and armed with hunting bows staring up at a man-trap that had been rigged over the pathway, a snare that had caught a familiar someone by her ankle and left her hanging helplessly upside down over six feet above the ground.

"Zorru was right," the male humanoid was saying to his female companion. "Face like a toad and twice as ugly."

Get me down from here! an angry mental voice sounded in my head, as the parasite in my skull twitched slightly in resonance with her own. Because the person caught in the trap was the same female githyanki warrior who'd briefly aided Shadowheart and I on the nautiloid, then taken off on her own as soon as we'd hit the ground.

Say "please". I thought back amusedly along the same mental 'circuit' she'd somehow opened between us.

NEVER! she 'screamed' indignantly.

"That thing's dangerous. Leave it here for the goblins to kill- hey, who are you?!?" the hunter's companion said, as they both turned to notice our arrival.

"Well met." I smiled at them disarmingly, as the three of us kept our hands clear of our weapons. "Catching anything?" I nodded up at the trapped githyanki.

"We found her caught in this trap." the male hunter answered. "And she's the same type of whatever-it-is as a band of them that recently attacked our friend Zorru and killed most of his patrol."

"They're called githyanki." Shadowheart offered, staring coldly up at the trapped one. "And I'm not surprised that they murdered your friends. They're too often like that." her lip curled scornfully.

Don't you dare! the githyanki mentally screamed at us. Remember what grows in your skulls! Remember that I alone know where you can find the cure!

"Is your village nearby?" I asked them. "And do you have a healer there?"

"We're refugees, friend." the male hunter corrected me. "But we're currently camping at a druid's grove just a little ways from here. The lead druid is supposed to be quite the powerful healer indeed."

"Sounds ideal!" Gale said relievedly. "Could we trouble you for an escort to your camp?"

"Well-" the female hunter trailed off, looking up at the trapped githyanki.

I shook my head. "Leaving her here for the weather to finish off is even worse than cutting her throat in cold blood, and if you were the type of people to do that then you would have done it already without stopping to debate." I sighed. "And I'm not going to do that either. So I suppose we'd better just cut her down."

"But Zorru-" the male hunter said.

I shook my head slightly at Shadowheart's wordless glare of This is a bad idea! and continued onwards. "I don't know much about her people, but are they really so much of a monolith that every single one of them is an accomplice to every crime of every other one? Men don't work that way. Elves don't. And I very much doubt your folk do either." I temporized right over the fact that I didn't properly know what the name of their race was.

"No." their leader agreed. "But how do we know she wasn't one of the individual ones that attacked our friends?"

"Because she was with us yesterday." I explained. "We were all prisoners on that nautiloid ship you might have seen crashing the other night. We got separated yesterday while exploring around." I glared up at the trapped githyanki. "But all's well that ends well, right?"

A wordless snarl of frustration was the only reply.

"Do you have many traps like this around your encampment?" Gale asked brightly in an obvious distraction.

"They're not our traps, but the goblins'." the female hunter said. "Little bastards have been scouting around for days trying to find our encampment. You're lucky you didn't run into one of their patrols."

"Actually we did." Shadowheart replied, before turning to me. "Are we really going to be bailing our rash... companion... out of the consequences of her own actions again?" she remonstrated.

The grating of githyanki teeth was clearly audible to us all even at this distance.

"If she can act with a little more discipline from now on." I stared grimly up at my captive audience. "Because rushing off on your own after we got separated was a very bad idea. You were lost in the wilderness with no idea of where you were and probably not that much experience in the Faerunian environment, and you left behind potential native guides and extra swords to proceed alone through hostile country. Without even any supplies, let alone reinforcements. Does that all begin to sound as foolish as it actually was now that I've listed it out loud?"

"Yes." she hissed through gritted teeth. "I-" she exhaled heavily. "Perhaps not all of my recent choices were... tactically optimum." she conceded like pulling teeth. "Would you cut me down now?"

I am still NOT saying it! she followed up mentally.

"Thank you." I said politely, and went to go find the other end of the rope trap keeping her up and help lower her to the ground.

"You dare set yourself up as my leader?" the githyanki fumed to me as soon as her feet touched the dirt. "You might as well suggest a wyvern bow to worms! Amongst my people authority is earned only by proven deeds!"

Maker, it's like I'm back talking to the Arishok. I grumbled in the privacy of my own thoughts. Because the uncompromising militarism and arrogance of githyanki manners was very much reminding me of the qunari at this moment.

"Then why do you offer me only words and not deeds?" I shot back, more than familiar with the rhythm of qunari negotiations by now. "I've saved your life twice already, once on the nautiloid and once right here. The very least you can do in return is help save ours from these parasites."

"You... are not entirely inaccurate." she conceded reluctantly. "Very well, we have an accord. I will fight alongside you as one of your warband for as long as we both still need each other, and lead you to my people so we may there be cured. After that much is done then we go our separate ways."

"Done." I agreed. "Come on, our new acquaintances are taking us to their settlement. There's supposed to be a druid there, a healer."

"As well as this 'Zorru', who can tell us where he encountered others of my people and thus give us a lead towards the nearest githyanki creche." she mused out loud. "Yes, this is a valid course of action."

"I'm glad you approve." Shadowheart said icily. "Just remember - you gave your word to act as one of the party from now on. Don't you dare break it."

"You dare insult my honor?" she rounded on Shadowheart angrily. "A warrior of the Gith? I should-"

"Ladies." I spoke over both of them firmly. "We're all in the same boat now, so let's not rush to toss each other overboard." I looked at Shadowheart first, because she had been going a bit out of her way to pick a fight-

"All right." Shadowheart lowered her eyes. "Allies for now." I turned my 'angry older brother' glare towards our githyanki friend before she could say anything to break the mood.

"It is as she says." the githyanki muttered. "I am Lae'zel, of Creche K'liir. Know that you have made a valuable ally this day."

After we all finished introducting ourselves - the two hunters were named Damays and Nymessa, of a people called the 'tieflings' - we fell in behind them as they led us back towards the druid's grove. I wordlessly handed Lae'zel a canteen, because she had to be thirsty as anything after hanging there for who knew how many hours, and she grabbed it and drained it without a single word of acknowledgement before handing it back. I began to wonder at how young she might be by her people's standards, because what I'd been told was a warrior race engaged in a generations-long struggle wouldn't seem to have this much room for impractical pride unless she personally had little field experience so far-

"Shouting up ahead." Damays said worriedly. "We're almost at the grove, but something's wrong-"

"Double time!" I called, and we all broke into a run. We passed another travelstone and came out into a small clearing before a stone cliff-wall about fifteen feet high and topped by a crude wooden battlement. Several more tieflings stood on top of it, looking down at a small party of human warriors shouting up at them from the ground. All of them were shaken and sweating, as if they'd just run a desperate race, and their unbandaged wounds and the goblin arrow still sticking out of one of their shields told me what they'd been running from.

"Open the gate!" the leader of the human party screamed.

"Nobody gets in!" one tiefling called down from the battlement. "Zevlor's orders!"

"That pack of goblins will be on us any second!" the man screamed back.

"But I can't risk-" the one tiefling replied.

"THEN LOWER A DAMNED ROPE!" I shouted at him as we ran up to join the other adventuring party. "We've got two of your scouts trapped out here with us, so get us in that way if you can't risk opening the gate!"

"Fetch a rope! Quickly!" someone called from up above us, as we all fell into a battle line with the others.

"Quick thinking there, friend!" the leader of the adventurers called out to me. "I'm Aradin. We get out of this alive, I'm buying you a drink!"

"Pale ale's my favorite." I said back to him cheerfully, as the yelping of some unfamiliar type of beast started sounding from the path entrance across the clearing. A pair of goblins riding two misshapen monster-wolves burst into the clearing, followed by a squad of goblin infantry running behind them.

"Dammit, not enough time!" I swore. "KEEP YOUR HEADS DOWN UP THERE, THEY'VE GOT ARCHERS!" I shouted as the goblins grinned evilly at us where we stood trapped with our backs to the wall. They lazily settled themselves into a battle line of their own and began to slowly advance across the clearing towards us, holding their fire until they got into easy bow range-

"Gale, have you got anything that blinds or flashes?" I called to him quickly. "Cast it before they turn us into archery targets against this backstop!"

"Fog Cloud!" he called out in immediate reply, and the rear line of goblins were obscured just before they had a chance to start firing at us. A few arrows still flew blindly out of the mist, but hit no one. Shadowheart took the opportunity to cast a quick spell of her own, a blessing of some kind, and we felt extra strength and steadiness of hand flow into us.

"They're off-balance! CHAAAARGE!" I called out, and took off towards the wolf-riding vanguard at a dead run. Gale hung back with the female bowman of the adventurers and the two tiefling hunters, who began to support us with cantrips and arrow fire as the rest of us hit the goblins' main force head-on.

I sprinted out ahead, making myself the vanguard and the most obvious target, and then did a powered leap directly over the heads of the two wolf-riders as they focused on me and left them skidding helplessly through our front lines to come to a halt barely fifteen feet in front of our bowmen. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed Gale casting a spell that bathed wolves and their riders in a cone of flame from his outstretched hands and left them stumbling backwards and screaming in painly, only to be helplessly shot down by the archers. The fog cloud dissipated as soon as Gale turned his concentration to his next spell, but it had done its job of delaying and confusing the remaining goblins just long enough for us to close the gap, and we hit them in a flying wedge.

"H'taka!" Lae'zel screamed a joyous battlecry as she gathered some type of magical energy around her and did a twenty-foot flying leap of her own to get ahead of me and engage the apparent goblin leader where he stood in the midst of his archers. I left her to the job of gutting him while I covered her vulnerable flank with a quick slash, sending another goblin reeling away, and then the rest of us caught up and piled on as the remaining infantry had to drop their now-useless bows and hurriedly grab for their clubs or axes. Shadowheart cast a spell of her own that struck the goblin's own spellcaster with a brilliant energy bolt, ruining whatever spell they were attempting in mid-cast, and then followed up with a relentless series of blows with her mace. I spun into a wide sweeping whirlwind cut, bringing another pair of goblins down, and then turned to face the furious charge of one of the wolf-things as it broke away from our archers and made a lunge at what it had hoped would be our undefended backs.

I switched to the Bulwark stance, which used properly focused internal energy and balance to make a defending warrior nigh-impossible to knock down or push against their will, and set myself to receive the enemy's charge. The wolf-thing yelped in surprise as it unaccountably failed to shift my feet so much as an inch despite being three times my mass and hitting me in a full charge, and the battering it took as it ran full-on into the flat of my blocking greatsword broke off several of its fangs and dislocated its jaw. I took advantage of its shock to split its skull from scalp to jawbone, noted that the two wolf-riders and the other wolf-thing were already dead and our rear line had taken no apparent casualties, and then returned my attention to the main battle.

"For the Gate! For the Gate!" Aradin's voice came to me with a heartfelt battle cry, a necessity in a confusing melee like this to avoid being accidentally spitted by one of your allies, and I witnessed him and his partner flanking and trapping a pair of goblins up against one of the nearby boulders with a smoothness befitting long-practiced teamwork as Lae'Zel and Shadowheart, their animosity put aside at least for the moment, did the same with almost equal smoothness against the goblins' other flank. I did a hasty head count, matching still-standing and fallen goblins against the number of them that I'd carefully made sure to note before we began our counterattack-

"Two of them got away!" I cried out. "We've got to get after them before they bring the whole damn tribe back here!" I broke into a frantic run, heading as desperately as I could for the distant figures I now glimpsed at the very other end of the clearing as it frantically ran for the same path they'd taken to reach here-

"Damnable roaches!" a stranger's voice called out, and an eldritch blast flew down to strike one of the fleeing goblins directly between its shoulder blades with a bolt of green fire and send it crashing to the ground. With a dramatic leap a dark-skinned man dressed in an elaborate red-and-black doublet and brandishing a rapier leapt almost ten feet down from the high rock he'd fired his mage-bolt from to land impossibly lightly on his feet menacing the other goblin, which had fearfully turned to face him rather than also get shot in the back. Our new ally had apparently raced along the top of rock wall on our right flank all the way down from the battlement by the gate to cut the corner on the fleeing goblins to intercept them-

"Provoke the Blade-" he proclaimed dramatically as he batted the goblin's clumsy swing aside with a flourish and a parry, only to immediate cut over into a swift riposte. "-and suffer its sting!" he finished, as his rapier drove directly in under the last goblin's breastbone and out through its spine.

"Neatly done." I complimented him as I drew to a halt nearby. "And that's the last of them, thank goodness."

"You did good work yourself." the arcane warrior nodded back to me. "If you hadn't so swiftly organized a counter-attack, the Grove would have been in the gravest danger." He finished wiping his blade clean and sheathed it, and then extended his hand to shake. "Wyll, the Blade of Frontiers."

"Hawke." I introduced myself, and we shook hands. "You live here?" I asked as we strode back towards the other.

"Just visiting, same as yourself." he replied cheerfully. "Although given all the dark and dangerous things that have been menacing these good people lately, they need all the help that they can get."

"Is that the last of them?" a new tiefling, older and dressed in full warrior's armor, called down to us from the top of the battlement.

"Looks to be, Zevlor!" Nymessa the hunter called up to him.

"Thank the Gods, that was too close." this Zevlor replied. "Open the gate! We've got to get them all inside before more goblins come!" A section of the rock wall began to slowly inch upwards as the tieflings on the battlement began hauling on a pair of windlasses - apparently these 'druids' had hid the gate to their hideaway by disguising it as part of the rock formation.

"Tempus' blade, we came through that barely by the skin of our teeth." Aradin greeted me as we drew up alongside and filed through the open gateway. "If you hadn't come along, we'd have all been in for it. You've more than earned that ale."

"What were you thinking, leading the goblins here?" Zevlor said challengingly as he hurriedly came down a nearby path to meet us just inside the gateway. "And where is Halsin? What the hell happened?"

"Ease off!" Aradin said belligerently as the two of them faced off. "Fat lot of help you and all your useless tieflings were, sitting up there just watching us almost get shot full of holes-"

"We just finished one battle, and you want to start another one?" I interrupted them firmly. "Stop letting the blood race and just breathe."

"Sorry," Zevlor said, taking a step back and exhaling heavily. "But the leader of these druids left with Aradin's expedition here and now they're coming back without him, and with a pack of goblins on their heels to boot?"

"We didn't ask him to come!" Aradin burst with frustration. "He invited himself along, damn well demanded it of us! And he wasn't the only one we lost! There was a small army of gobbos in there, not just the little band we'd been told to expect! When they hit us it was all any man could do to get himself out, and those that fell behind-" He trailed off. "There was only three of us standin' at the end, and dozens of them. What the hell were we supposed to do except run? Drop dead just for your convenience?"

"Damn." Zevlor swore. "No, not that-" he shook his head. "But without Halsin to speak for us, I'm afraid the druids won't let any of us stay here. This is all such a mess!"

"You got that much right, at least." Aradin agreed. "Look, me and my lot? We're pulling out. There's barely any of us left, and some of us are wounded besides. And our whole quest's a lost cause now, with that army of gobbos sitting right on top of the prize. So to hell with this whole mess, we're getting back to Baldur's Gate before those goblins finish cutting this place off." He turned to me, and reached into his pouch to toss me a coin. "Sorry I can't stand you that ale I owe you in person, but as soon as I can see to my people's wounds a bit we've got to get right back on the road. You and your team are welcome to come with us if you want - you're all damn good in a fight, we could use you."

"We've got a quest of our own, and we can't leave it." I explained to him. "Good fortune to you on the road."

"You too, mate." Aradin nodded at us, and he and his two remaining companions turned and left.

"I'm Zevlor," he introduced himself to our party after Aradin and his team had headed off. "I'm the leader of these refugees. Welcome to the Emerald Grove... at least for now."

"Do the druids have any healer other than this Halsin?" I asked him. "We're definitely in need of one."

"His apprentice, Nettie, should be able to see to you." Zevlor assured us. "Her workroom is in the Grove's underground chambers, you can find the entrance to them in the center courtyard across from their big sacred idol. I'd take you there, but I've got to go get a working party organized to clean up those bodies and at least try to hide some of the trail they left here so when the rest of their tribe comes looking for them, we can at least buy some time before they find us."

"It's all right, I'll show them the way." Wyll contributed obligingly, and as Zevlor went to go take charge of his people I turned and led our group deeper into the Grove.

---

Author's Note: Well, I got my BG3 configuration running again, but I lost all my saved games and am having to redo it from scratch. Oh well, that's what super easy god mode mods are for.

The further in we more I find myself diverting at least slightly from 'video game' logic. For example, you find Lae'zel in some elaborate suspended cage, not a trap that goblins would believably be using in the field. That's presumably so that things were easier to animate, but I don't have to worry about animation budget or physics modeling so I get to do what I want. Likewise, the tiefling hunters just tell you where the Grove is but don't lead you back there, because videogame logic has to account for 'Players who do the encounter and then go run in the opposite direction to do half a dozen sidequests or pick berries or whatnot before actually going to the next main quest location'. Likewise, there's no way in the crypt to recognize in advance that 'these bodies are totally lurking undead', although you could in theory set up your barrelmancy in advance anyways.

The 'losing power' effect of the tadpoles is BG3 canon - it's the explanation for why every party member in the game starts at level 1 and has to levelup from scratch, despite some of them having backstories as veteran adventurers. Gale in particular is explicitly an archmage in his character history, and one talented enough to have drawn the personal attention of Mystra besides, and yet he's level 1 same as the rest of you at the start of the game. So the game covered it with 'the tadpole infection basically dropped negative levels on everyone and they had to slowly work them off over the course of the game', and the same is happening here.

As for Astarion - spoiler alert, the party is not recruiting him. The story logic is that they simply went the other way from where you initially meet him, and he's not going to be hanging around for days until they possibly go back there. The Doylist reason is because every time I play BG3, Astarion gets the fucking stake. It's not even that I hate his character - every Youtube I see of the guy is entertaining as hell, and I know all about his tragic backstory. It's that I can't not roleplay my MC, and none of my Tavs could ever possibly have any reaction to 'You wake up at night in camp and see the guy leaning over you with his fangs out' and possibly have any other reaction than "He gets the fucking stake". Even my Durge isn't going to hold back. (Especially my Durge isn't going to hold back.) So rather than deal with that whole thing, Astarion simply gets to go off on his own just like if the party never recruited him in game.

 

[cliffc999]

The Emerald Grove was a clever mixture of simple architecture and natural defenses. The porticullis we entered through was actually a reinforced wooden gatehouse, died gray to simulate rock and then carefully overgrown with vines. You had to approach quite closely to the rock face it was set into to realize that it actually was an entrance. These druids certainly liked their privacy.

Behind the porticullis was a narrow cut between rock formations that led into a small series of caves adjoining a peaceful glade, with a large idol representing the god of nature that was worshipped here mounted in the center. As we looked down into the glade from a high path adjoining it I spotted barely-visible wisps of arcane energies gathering and flowing around the idol, pulsing in time with the chanting of a small circle of druids who were all surrounding it in some elaborate ritual.

The caves were crowded with dozens of tieflings, living in improvised shelters and hasty tents or just sleeping on the ground. A communal kitchen had been set up in one cavern, but it was clearly of recent construction and used only those implements which could be carried on pack animals. Between the sheer rawness of the set-up and the mixture of quiet despair and suppressed panic that suffused every low-faced conversation, marked every person's face as they fell warily silent at our approach and watched us walk past, I didn't need Zamsyn's mention of his folk being refugees to tell exactly what was going on here. I'd seen exactly the same gathering of lost souls piled up outside the gates of Kirkwall, as all the folks who had tried fleeing the Blight in Ferelden to seek safety in the Free Marches had found out that the Free Marches didn't want any part of them. And if we hadn't been able to prove that we were members of an old Kirkwall family trying to return home, with a still-living relative in the city to vouch for us - and if I hadn't indentured myself for a year to raise enough money to pay a hefty amount of bribes - we'd have been stuck out there with them for a lot longer than a few days.

So I took several moments out as we passed to stop and ask needless directions from one person, to dip out a bit of food at the tieflings' soup kitchen, and to trade for a new dagger at their smith's. I even happened across a tiefling boy trying and failing to pick the pocket of one of Aradin's mercenaries as they were finishing up their packing, and needed a quick bit of diplomatic intervention to save our would-be thief from a thrashing. I still wasn't certain that the sob story he pitched us of the man's favorite locket reminding the boy of the one his dead mother had worn was true or not, but it certainly convinced the locket's owner enough to let it go.

What I was actually doing, of course, was taking advantage of these conversational opportunities to spread some rumors - or more precisely, some counter-rumors - throughout the crowd. My own refugee experience had left me keenly aware of how a desperate crowded of stranded folk could go from despair to panic in the blink of an eye under the wrong circumstances, and the knowledge that some type of battle against the goblins had just been fought outside the gate was visibly spreading through the compound at the speed of gossip even as I watched. However, apparently no one had made any systematic attempt to inform the refugees of what had actually happened, so I took that task upon myself. As one of the primary participants in that battle it was of course natural that people would ask me what had happened, and I left them reassured that it had merely been a goblin scouting party that had made it close to the gates but which had been successfully cut off and destroyed before a single one of them could report back. And so we proceeded onward, leaving behind a crowd significantly less likely to start a riot than they might have been a few minutes ago.

"That was nobly done," Wyll complimented me as we reached the passage junction that led down to the central courtyard. "You have a definite air of command, Hawke. Were you a man of rank back home?"

"Several ranks, actually." I chuckled softly. "Army sergeant, sellsword captain, expedition leader, landed lord - it's been a varied career."

"Then there must be quite a tale indeed behind how you ended up on that nautiloid." he grinned at me.

"How did you know about the nautiloid?" I looked at him suspiciously. Because I certainly hadn't mentioned that to him in the brief time we'd been acquainted-

Wyll's expression became grave as he turned to look me in the eye... and a sudden mental shivering resonated in my brain, as it echoed the mental signal from his own. He too bore a mind flayer's parasite.

"You as well?" Gale said incredulously. "Were those illithids working double shifts?"

"How I ended up sharing the same fate as you good folk is a long tale, some parts of which I'm not at liberty to tell." Wyll assured us. "I made it to the grove only a little over a day ahead of you. Their leader, Halsin, had recently left with the expedition whose survivors you fought alongside at the gate- I'd been doing my best to aid these refugees until he returned."

"And now-" I began, only for us all to be distracted by a sudden shout nearby.

"You!" Lae'zel had left our group to go loom menaciningly over a scared young tiefling man who was at present was trying to burrow through a cave wall with his shoulderblades to get away from her. "I saw how you tried to flee as soon as you spotted me! You have fought one of my kind before, haven't you? Are you this 'Zorru' of whom I've heard? Are you?!?"

"Please don't hurt me!" he begged her. "I haven't done anything!"

"Lae'zel." I cut off her words firmly. "Are you trying to get us thrown out of here?"

"I am trying to save our lives." she spat back at me. "Have your brains turned to mud and oozed out your ears? Have you forgotten how dire our need is already? We must locate the nearest githyanki creche, and this witless fool refuses to cooperate!"

"Would you give any cooperation to someone trying to threaten it out of you so crudely?" I belabored. "Or would your pride as a warrior forbid it?" I tried to turn her own militaristic logic back on her.

"But- he is clearly no warrior!" she protested.

"And you are clearly no diplomat." I cut her off, and then gently shouldered her aside. I ignored her hiss of fury as I turned to our unlucky wallflower and gave him my best charming smile. "Well met. I'm Hawke, and you are-?"

"Zorru." he quavered. "Why- why is she here?"

"We're lost, and she's trying to find her way back to her kin." I explained reasonably. "And you apparently saw others like her recently. Now, I apologize for her horrible manners-"

"I certainly do not!" Lae'zel tried to interrupt, and I rounded on her as firmly as I could.

"Lae'zel!" I barked. "Not two hours ago you gave your word to act as one of the party and already I'm getting a mutiny!"

"Mutiny is only conducted against superior officers! Who says you are mine?!?" Lae'zel argued.

"The rest of the party." Shadowheart's interruption chilled the air. "Gale and I have both acknowledged him as our leader. And that means you're outvoted." she finished cattily.

"I- this is- fine!" Lae'zel sputtered uselessly. "Just get the location from this witless teeth-ling already!"

"It's pronounced 'tiefling'," I corrected her amusedly, before turning back to Zorru.

"Are her people all like that?" he asked me nervously, edging around to my opposite side from Lae'zel. "So harsh and cruel?"

"I'm trying not to make any hasty judgments." I non-answered. "Now, would you please tell me what happened the last time you met one of her people, in your own words?"

"We were up scouting near where the Risen Road enters the mountain pass." he quavered. "There were two of us, me and Yul, and we'd almost made it to the bridge a little ways past the roadside inn, Waukeen's Rest I think it was called. I don't know exactly what happened." his voice fell as his eyes stopped focusing on us, as he began revisiting the horrible moment in his head. "They saw us before we saw them. First I knew they were there, one of them had come out of nowhere and jammed his blade straight through Yul's belly, front to back. I saw him go down, I saw several more of them step out from where they'd been hiding- and then I took off running."

Lae'zel opened her mouth, then shut it as I threw her a meaningful look. "Did you have your weapons out? Could they have thought they were under attack?" I probed.

"We were holding our bows as we marched, but didn't have any arrows nocked." he explained. "And they didn't challenge us or anything, just leapt out and had at us."

"That... is not usual behavior for one of our patrols." Lae'zel said confusedly. "Something must have gone wrong."

"You- you're not going up that way yourself, are you?" Zorru asked us worriedly.

"Not immediately," I looked at the rest of the group. "We've got to see the healer here first, at the very least."

"Maybe it'll go better for you than it did for us, if you've got one of their own along to speak for you. I don't know. But- look, that's all I know. Can I go now?" Zorru pleaded.

"Thank you." I said, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. "And listen... I've been the one who survived a patrol gone wrong as well. Several times, even. Being alive when your friends are dead always feels like it's your fault, but it still feels that way even when it's not. You said it yourself - you didn't abandon your partner. He was already dead and you fell back only because you were hopelessly outnumbered."

"I ran like a coward." Zorru moaned. "Sometimes it feels like I'll always be the one running."

"Not unless that's who you choose to be." I reassured him. "Talk to Zevlor if you don't believe me, or one of the other experienced men. They'll say the same thing."

"I will." he breathed out heavily, squaring his shoulders a bit. "I- thank you. I didn't want to talk about it, or even think about it- but thank you."

"Any time." I nodded to him, and we left Zorru to his thoughts as we continued onward.

"Do the people of this Fay-run always coddle their weak so?" Lae'zel asked me as we marched onwards. "In my creche, one whose nerve failed so badly when under fire would have been relegated to thrall duties forevermore. A failure of courage in a single man can potentially doom an entire company!"

"Which is exactly why good soldiers need to help foster the courage of their fellows whenever they can." I pointed out the gap in her reasoning.

"Hrm." she wordlessly acknowledged, and said no more.

As we drew near to the entrance to the courtyard we saw several druids standing there on guard, and blocking the entryway. Several angry tieflings were confronting them, the woman in the lead almost hysterical with rage while her husband tried to hold her back.

"Let my daughter go right now!" she was screaming at the guard in the center.

"She's a thief, hellspawn!" they sneered contemptuously. "And you will wait for Kagha's judgment! Now get back!"

"Arrgh! Let me through you magreshem, or I swear I'll rip your damned throat out!" the enraged mother shouted, and with a primal roar the druid standing on the left shapeshifted into a bear. My hair stood on end at this display - back home in Thedas it was rumored that the Chasind barbarians had mage-shamans who could shapeshift into animals, but I'd certainly never seen one before. And although the bear-druid seemed to maintain the full reasoning powers of the man it had been, given its intelligent behavior, the sight still understandably intimidated the small group of angry tieflings into breaking and running back up the stone steps and away from the courtyard.

"You!" her husband called out to Wyll as they ran into us coming down. "Can you help us, please? They've got our daughter in there, and they're talking all sorts of madness!"

"What happened?" Wyll said, rushing over to the couple. We followed after him.

"It's our fault." the woman moaned. "The druids said they were going to toss us out of here as soon as they finished their ritual, and I ranted out loud about how I wish their damned idol would fall into the sea and get lost so they couldn't ever finish. Only our little Arabella got it into her head that she should actually try doing that, and-" She shook her head. "But she got caught, and with Halsin gone that damned Kagha is the one running everything, and now she's got my little girl locked up in there doing demons know what to her!"

"Look, they won't let any of us refugees in, but you're not refugees." her husband continued. "And you were already heading down there. Can you please talk to these druids? Get them to not do anything rash, at least?"

"We should-" Shadowheart cut herself off mid-sentence. "Do you really think we should get involved?" she asked me reasonably. "What with how tense the situation here already is, and our own life-threatening dangers that only seem to multiply every time we turn around?"

"I'm certainly not going to start any new fights over this, you're right that we've already got more than enough to worry about." I reassured her. "But if there's a child in danger, I can't not at least try to put a word in."

"Certainly not." Gale agreed, and Wyll vigorously nodded alongside him. "Let's just hope those guards are as sympathetic to the 'not a refugee' line of reasoning as our good couple here hopes they are."

"You! Step back!" the chief guard glared at us as we drew close. "No one is allowed past!"

"We need to consult Healer Nettie on a matter of urgency." I asked them reasonably. "May we be allowed in for that much, at least?"

"No! We've had enough of you outsiders-" Another druid ran up at that moment and interrupted her. "Jeorna, a moment. Kagha has sent word - she wishes to speak to this one."

"Very well, you and your party may pass." Jeorna said reluctantly. "But be on your best behavior! We'll be watching!"

"Is this normal behavior for druids?" I asked Wyll as we headed towards the stone door and the passage to the druids' subterranean quarters.

"No." Wyll said. "The worship rites of Silvanus the Oak-Father are about maintaining the balance of nature, not the paths of good or justice, but the vast majority of druids choose largely to focus on nature's more nurturing aspects. This isn't typical of my experience with them at all."

As we entered the antechamber of the druids' quarters, a large wolf - one of the several normally-wild animals that we'd seen wandering around, as even the druids who didn't shapeshift seemed to keep bonded animal companions the same way rangers did back in Ferelden - took a casual sniff at us, from its position by the door where it had been standing like a sentry, and I turned around in shock as Shadowheart fell back with a cry. The woman who'd managed to keep a steely composure even in the midst of a desperate battle against mind flayers while we rode a crashing airship through the Nine Hells had fallen into a terrified, shuddering crouch, her face gray with panic and her eyes wide and staring at nothing. "Goddess protect me-" she moaned incoherently.

I immediately stepped between her and the wolf and gave it a wordless stare of Would you please go somewhere else?, and it took the hint and padded silently away as I knelt down alongside her. I'd seen more than enough people in battle-shock to know better than to touch a panicking person, so I simply made myself a comforting presence close by but not too close. "Shadowheart?" I said firmly, but in a low tone of voice, trying to give her something to orient on. "Are you all right?"

"I. Hate. Wolves!" she moaned, visibly fighting for self-control with deep breaths, in and out. "And I don't care what you say, my fear is hardly irrational when you see the fangs on those things!" she half-babbled as she rose shakily to her feet, and I along with her.

"How long have you felt this way?" I asked her.

"As far back as I can remember." she admitted. "Since I was a small child. I-" she stopped and looked challengingly up at me. "Look, I'm all right. You don't have to coddle me!"

"Shadowheart, you didn't mock me when I mistook those goblins for darkspawn the other day." I tried to cheer her up. "So why do you think I'm going to mock you now? We've all got the one thing that brings up the worst memories for us."

"How did you know-?" she blurted out, before shaking her head ruefully and recovering. "You're a very insightful man, Hawke. I'm going to have to watch myself." she quirked the corner of her lip. "But thank you- for caring." she trailed off warmly. "I can usually do better than that. It was just the surprise, my suddenly walking right into one of them when I'd thought I was in a safe place. If we get attacked by any wolves out on the road I can face them down, I've done it before. Just... I'd prefer not to do it alone, if possible."

"Don't worry. You won't have to." I reassured her, and we continued on.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" a terrified child's voice was begging as we rounded the corner, and we arrived to see a young tiefling girl of about ten crying and trying not to curl up into the fetal position while she was surrounded by several angry druids. The apparent leader, who I presumed was this 'Kagha', was a tall red-heared elven woman in apparent middle age, with her narrow face drawn up in an arrogant, self-righteous rage worthy of Templar Knight-Captain Meredith at her worst.

I had to restrain myself from lunging forward as Kagha's animal companion, a giant serpent of some kind at least a dozen feet long and at least as thick as my leg, reared up and bared fangs the size of daggers in Arabella's face.

"This is madness, Kagha!" one of the other druids importuned the red-headed elven woman. "She's just a-"

"A what, Rath?" she rounded on him with an angry peroration. "A thief? A poison? A threat? I will imprison this devil, and I will cast out every stranger."

"Thief? Poison?" I challenged Kagha, stepping up to them both. "What's this girl's actual crime?"

"Girl?" Kagha sneered, turning to face me. "You mean parasite. She eats our food, drinks our water. Then then steals our most holy idol in thanks! Rath, lock her up." she turned to him imperiously. "She remains here until the rite is complete!" Kagha then leaned over Arabella menacingly, forcing her back against the low stone table in fear. "And keep still, devil." she murmured menacingly. "Teela is restless." The snake half-circled Arabella with another twitch of its coils and hissed, causing her to yelp in fear.

"I thought druids revered the balance of nature." I rushed to try and reason with Kagha before she did something that would start a fight. "What is balanced about so harshly punishing the folly of the young?"

"Don't presume to teach me about the ways of nature, you meddling sellsword!" Kagha sneered. "We cannot be expected to nurture a threat at our bosom! An example must be made!"

As I watched her eyes flicker aside to note the reactions of Rath and the others to her posturing, I began to realize what was going on here. I'd already heard that the leader of these druids was the now-missing Halsin, and that Kagha had only stepped up to take temporary charge in his absence. An ambitious underling, unsure of her position and believing that she needed to make the strongest possible first impression-

"You've already more than demonstrated your authority." I reasoned with her. "Now it's time to reassure those under your authority that you are as wise as you are resolute... and not everyone will see the wisdom of imprisoning a child." I lowered my voice to the least challenging yet still not vacillating tones I could manage. "Declare her guilt, then pardon the girl into the custody of her family. Everyone will know what the Grove will not tolerate, and I very much doubt that anyone will attempt such a thing a second time."

"Yes!" Arabella begged. "Please, I'm so sorry! I'll never touch anything without permission ever again, I promise!"

Kagha's eyes and mine met in a wordless contest of wills, and after another flickering glance from side to side, she blinked first. "Very well! Rath, take this brat back to her people and make certain that they all understand there will be no mercy next time. Go!"

"Yes, Kagha!" Rath acknowledged her hurriedly, and then rushed to get Arabella and himself out of the room before anyone changed their mind. I heard Shadowheart painfully draw a breath, and when I turned around to see if that damned wolf had come back I noticed that there was no wolf, but she was wincing in pain and gripping her hand as if it were painfully cramping. I could only look for a moment though, because I still had an angry elf in front of me-

"Druid Kagha, my name is Hawke." I introduced myself after letting the tension ease for a moment. "Your guard Jeorna said that you wanted to see me?"

"I did." she bit off frustratedly. "Not that I wanted you to- but what's done is done. They tell me that you led the defense of the gate against the most recent goblin attack, and that you were instrumental in saving the Grove from discovery."

"No, I think we still need to talk about what was almost done!" Wyll interjected passionately. "What sort of monster threatens a child so viciously?"

"Yes, you would say so, wouldn't you?" Kagha mocked him. "I know your kind. You see only villains and victims. But when a viper bares her fangs to defend her brood? You would call her monster, but I call her mother." She imperiously dismissed his concerns. "But we have reclaimed the Idol of Silvanus and the Rite of Thorns has resumed! When it completes, the grove will be sealed and safe! Free from harm, and free from outsiders."

"And this requires ejecting all the refugees?" Wyll importuned her. "There's a goblin army gathering out there, and it blocks the road between here and Baldur's Gate! And they're mostly civilians, and even their fighting-men are largely militia at best! If you force them to go, they'll perish out there!"

"And my people will perish in here if they stay!" Kagha replied. "Which is why I wanted to speak to this man in the first place!" She turned to me. "You clearly have great skill at both fighting and commanding. I want you to take charge of these tieflings, because their current leadership isn't doing anything except whining and pleading to stay here. If you can get them organized and then find a way to get them past the obstacles on the road then we can both get what we want. Otherwise, they must leave as the ritual completes, ready or not, because when the Rite of Thorns is complete then the earth will rise up and the Great Vine will flourish - and the wrath of Silvanus will scourge all from the Grove who do not belong here! The sanctuary of the Oakfather will be only for his true faithful, and no one else!"

"Exactly how long will this ritual take?" I asked her wearily. Because at the rate this conversation was going I had less chance of convincing Kagha to give safe refuge to outsiders than I would have had of convincing Meredith to free all the mages in the Kirkwall Gallows, so barring a miracle-

"Not long. Several days at most - exactly how long depends on what that damned brat's interruption has done to the sacred cleansings or not. So you'd better not waste any time." Kagha declared.

"I can't even begin to promise anything until after I've spoken to Zevlor." I told her. "But I'll definitely keep your time limit in mind."

"See that you do. Now get moving!" she dismissed us, and then left to go back outside and supervise the ritualists.

"So much for your vaunted diplomacy." Lae'zel said darkly.

"He saved Arabella from an extreme punishment at the hands of a sadistic fanatic, that's still a victory." Shadowheart defended me.

"There is something wrong with that woman." I agreed. "Stealing a sacred idol from a group of priests is hardly a blameless action, but there's such a thing as a proper degree of punishment for the circumstances."

"Quite so." Gale nodded. "That girl wasn't innocent, but that's hardly the same thing as being guilty."

"This 'Healer Nettie' we were here to see? Perhaps we should do that sometime today?" Lae'zel reminded us archly, and with a nod of acknowledgement we set off. 'Nettie' turned out to be a young dwarven woman in an adjacent workroom, who had just finished casting a healing spell on a wounded bird when we found her.

"Can I help you?" she said, turning to us as the exhausted bird peacefully rested behind her on a stone table.

"Do you know anything about ceremorphosis?" I asked.

"You've got a parasite in you?" Nettie drew back worriedly. "A mind flayer parasite?"

"Yes." I nodded. "We were told that only a powerful healer can hope to safely extract one."

"Follow me." Nettie said, heading across her workroom towards a blank wall, which turned out to be some type of magically sealed secret panel that she opened with a brief use of a magical golden circlet worn on her head. Inside was a stone bench covered with alchemists' paraphernalia, handwritten notes, and several opened tomes, while shelves around the walls of the room held more books and carved stone tablets. Another workbench nearby held the corpse of some type of strangely-colored elf, with skin so dark blue they were almost black, whose condition and the surgical instruments surrounding it showed that it had been undergoing an autopsy. So, both a library and a research laboratory-

"Sit here." she patted a low stone bench adjacent to the table, as she rummaged for something on the workbench. "Right..." She found what she was looking for - a small, neatly pruned branch with several thorns sticking out of it - and brought it over to me. "Let's have a look at you," she said, gently pulling my head down so she could stare me in the eyes. "What are your symptoms?"

I described what symptoms I'd had so far - which were barely any - and she nodded in acknowledgement. "What's that branch for?" I continued asking. "Because it's not for treatment - if curing one of these tadpoles was as simple as some type of herbal preparation, then people wouldn't be so afraid of them."

"It's from a rare type of thornbush that's deadly poison." she acknowledged matter-of-factly. "Because if you start to transform into a mind flayer on me here, then I'm going to need to stick you in the arm pretty fast."

"... fair enough." I acknowledged.

"And this is very puzzling." Nettie mused. "You said that it's been in your head almost two days by this point, yes? But that means you should already be having a screaming headache by now. Aches in the joints, fever- Oakfather, your very skin should start peeling in just a day or two more!"

"Your knowledge is accurate." Lae'zel complimented her. "That is the same progression of symptoms we all studied as crechelings. It's why I have been so impatient with the dilatory progress of certain traveling companions. And it is certainly anomalous that our transformations are not proceeding on the usual schedule."

"Which is still a worrying mystery, even though it's saving our lives right now. Do you know what's happening?" I asked our healer.

"Barely a clue." Nettie shrugged ruefully. "You're not the first one we've seen with one of those tadpoles in your head - that drow over there had one too." She nodded towards the autopsied corpse. "He attacked Master Halsin out in the woods several days ago, and they brought him back here to try and figure out what was going on. From everything Master Halsin was able to gather more and more infected people are just coming into this region, and we've no idea where from! Where did you say you picked up this tadpole?"

"I was abducted - we all were - by a mind flayer nautiloid. The same one that crashed nearby. We were all infected while we were on it." I explained.

"Then that just raises more questions." Nettie swore. "Because these other sightings I've been talking about? They're from before that nautiloid ever coming here. And the way your tadpoles have somehow been altered - Master Halsin examined the one we pried out of that dead drow's head, and he said that some kind of powerful magic had been used on it to inhibit the normal transformation. That's why he left with that expedition to that ruined temple nearby, the one the goblins are all forting up in. All of the sightings we've had of strangers are around there, so he thought he could find the answer there."

"So to sum up - we don't have to worry about transforming into mind flayers on the usual schedule, because some powerful force is holding our tadpoles in remission." Gale said. "But we have no idea what it is or why it's doing it... or when it might decide to switch off and let us all sprout purple tentacles after all."

"Exactly." Nettie agreed. "You've got some extra time, hopefully substantially more than you'd normally have, but nobody can say exactly when it'll finally run out. And I can't get your tadpoles out of your heads for you, at least not while you're still alive. I might have just barely been able to do for a normal infection, but contending with whatever strange magic's all mixed up with yours? Master Halsin might have that kind of power, but I certainly don't."

"And so of course he was the one lost in the goblin lair." Shadowheart said ruefully.

"Do you think it's possible he's still alive?" I asked Nettie reluctantly.

"I've no idea." she said. "I'd like to think I could feel it if he were dead, but it's not something I can check. We've tried sending animals and birds in there to scout the way for us, but they keep dyin'." Nettie's eyes widened. "But you could get in there, maybe."

"What, just walk into an army of goblins?" Shadowheart asked sarcastically. "You certainly have a flattering idea about our prowess, but no."

"I don't mean you taking them all head-on." Nettie said. "But has it occurred to you that your tadpoles' little trick of sharing thoughts occasionally is certainly how those infected folk are all recognizing each other? And I'm sure the infected folk are also working with the goblins - that one certainly was!" she quirked a thumb at the dead dark elf. "You could just walk in there, and they'd just accept you for one of their own!"

"That is a very clever idea... but it's also a tremendous amount of 'what ifs' and blind guesses, and it's certain death for all of us if you guessed wrong about any part of it." I said reasonably.

"But it is an option," Wyll said hopefully. "Powerful magic is mixed up with our tadpoles. A powerful something is assembling a substantial force nearby, with people like us working with forces that would normally never cooperate with humans and elves so well. I think Nettie's right, it's all connected."

"And I think Hawke's also right, the only way for us to find out for sure involves our total massacre if it turns out we're wrong." Gale said.

"Wait." Shadowheart narrowed her eyes consideringly at the dead elf. "There is one thing we could try..." She turned to look at me. "I know you're not always comfortable with strange magic, but could you stretch your practical nature to tolerate summoning the voices of the dead?"

"You can cast that spell?" Nettie asked Shadowheart, visibly impressed. "I've heard of it, but never seen it done before."

"Not quite." Shadowheart admitted. "But do you remember one of the items we found in those ruins? That odd little amulet from the chest in the same room as the big sarcophagus with that- rather odd skeleton?" she temporized.

"And that lets you speak to dead people?" I sputtered.

"It took me a while to match its description to something I'd read about but yes, I'm almost certain this is the Amulet of Lost Voices." Shadowheart said, pulling the item in question out of her pack. "And if so, then dead men actually will tell tales."

"Let me get this straight. There's magic - relatively commonplace magic, at that - that can breach the barrier between the worlds of life and death?" I asked incredulously.

"Oh no." Nettie waved away my concerns. "If you want the sort of magic that can do that you're talking priestly magic barely a step south of a full divine intervention. But what your friend's talking about is just... stimulating the residual memories, as it were. Briefly animating just an echo of the spirit that used to be in the body, divining what traces of information were left behind in the corpse when the spirit itself has long since moved on."

"That almost makes sense." I said. "And if it's not actually tormenting the souls of the damned or anything, then I suppose it isn't too much odder than the average run of magic. All right, give it a try."

Shadowheart nodded and then pulled the amulet's chain on and over her head, then grasped it firmly with both hands and concentrated on the corpse. My hair stood on end as the dead dark elf's eyes snapped open and glowed an eldritch green, and the corpse then floated up off the table several feet in the air.

"I can only ask a few questions before the magic runs out, so we'll need to pick them carefully." Shadowheart said.

I prompted her with the most important question, and she echoed me. "Where did they put the tadpole in your head?"

Silence. "He... doesn't understand the question?" Shadowheart asked confusedly. "How can he not know that he has a tadpole in his head?"

"Where and how did you first become able to hear other people like you in your mind?" we tried.

"Moonrise... Towers..." the corpse whispered eeriely. "Initiation..."

"Why did you attack the druids?" Nettie suggested, and Shadowheart repeated.

"Minthara's... orders..."

"Who is Minthara?"

"Drow... My matriarch..."

"Where can we find her?"

"Ruined temple... with the goblins..."

"Who does Minthara serve?"

"The Absolute..."

"That's it." Shadowheart exhaled wearily as the green glow faded and the corpse thumped down back to the table. "We're not getting anything more out of him."

"Moonrise Towers." I thought aloud. "Is that a place anyone here has ever heard of?"

"It's an old castle several days' travel away from here, west up the Risen Road and on the other side of the mountain pass." Nettie said. "But the lands around it are cursed - nothing growing, nothing alive, lots of undead and worse. Nobody's lived there for decades at least."

"How could anyone garrison a substantial force in such a place?" Lae'zel wondered out loud. "How would they themselves not be struck down by this curse? What would they use for food and water?"

"And who or what is 'The Absolute'?" Gale wondered out loud. "Because that is a remarkably grandiose title for someone to give themselves."

"Anybody who could call themselves something like that with a straight face has got to be an out-and-out megalomaniac." Wyll agreed. "This is starting to sound like something a lot larger than just a handful of unlucky people who got abducted onboard a mind flayer ship."

"I think the most important thing is that 'initiation' our dead friend mentioned." I thought out loud. "He didn't even know how he was changed, he just knew that he'd been 'initiated' into something and given powers of the mind thereby. Which means Nettie's theory is probably right - the mental connection these tadpoles provide is how they're identifying each other as being 'initiated'."

"Oh no." Shadowheart moaned, already familiar enough with my thought processes to see where this was heading.

"Which means we're going to have to risk going into that damned temple after all." I agreed with her ruefully.

---

Author's Note: Oh my God there are so many people to talk with in the Emerald Grove! I'm amazed I was able to get as far as I did in this chapter. If I hadn't ruthlessly skipped past some possible interactions we'd have barely made it to the door! As is, triaging through So. Many. Possible. Sidequests. is still going to be a series of tough decisions, especially since some things get kinda fucked if you don't do enough sidequests.

And this is where we really start to go off-script now that we're not stuck with game logic but can start freelancing. Hawke is an advanced Persuasion build Dragon Age character and thus insightful enough to pull off dialogue checks that in the regular BG3 game you need Detect Thoughts to be able to make, and minor NPCs actually get more dialogue, and we can have more than three party members along simultaneously.

I also get to rewrite dialogue. For example, in-game Shadowheart just straight-up says 'Arabella made the mistake of getting caught, we shouldn't risk getting involved', when she obviously didn't say that so bluntly here... but of course my Shadowheart is getting more than familiar enough with Hawke's thought processes to know how not to completely alienate her audience, and unlike the videogame I have infinite flexibility in how my NPCs react to different contexts.

Oh, and the Amulet of Lost Voices is found in-game in the chest in the same room as Withers, and it lets you have free Speak With Dead spells for the entire game even all the way back at level 1.

 

[cliffc999]

Despite our newfound resolution, we did not set out immediately. For one thing, we still had to figure out what exactly we'd do in the goblin lair after we infiltrated it. But more importantly, right now we needed to drill.

If there's one thing I'd learned in all my years of adventuring it was that while developing individual prowess was how a person prepared themselves for adventuring, improving their teamwork was how small adventuring parties prepared themselves to defeat larger groups of monsters. And unlike soldiers or city guardsmen, adventurers were almost always outnumbered - there was simply no way around that when you were marching through hostile territory without available reinforcements. And while we'd instinctively been falling into a fairly effective rhythm so far, I wasn't going to depend just on instinct alone. The battle at the gate alone proved my point; if Gale hadn't happened to have just the right spell prepared, we'd have been facing a line of archers in the open without shields. Even my stunt of baiting the wolf-riders into charging too far ahead from their support and then leaving them vulnerable to our missile troops in the rear line wouldn't have worked if they hadn't been quick enough on the uptake to know which targets to concentrate on first, and I hadn't had an opportunity to explain the tactic to them ahead of time. So while I'd still not hesitated to take the gamble - after all, it's not as if we were overburdened with other options at that point - we could just as easily have lost that battle as won it.

For all that Lae'zel really didn't seem to understand how effective morale-building and team bonding worked - at least for humans and demi-humans, presumably her attitude was not considered especially disruptive among her own people - she was still entirely correct that a single failure of self-discipline or communication at a critical moment could potentially doom an entire team. So when I quietly approached her and asked for advice on what training drills would be best to use for our group in the limited time we had available, she eagerly contributed some suggestions. Of course I was already thoroughly versed in weapons skills and military tactics, but I wasn't familiar with all the potentials of the combat magics that they used here. And while I had no doubt that Gale would be willing to lecture me on the topic for hours if I asked, and I must just take him up on that offer later, he had no military experience and so wouldn't know what to focus on as the most immediately useful topics. Lae'zel's people, however, were much like the qunari in that they were a highly regimented society where every able-bodied member underwent lifelong military training - but unlike the qunari, they fully embraced magic as being as useful a weapon as swords and had spent a lot of time studying how best to integrate it into even squad-level combat. Lae'zel seemed to have absolutely no experience at teaching, though, and very little patience for it, so things went much more smoothly when I took what she was showing me and then adapted it for the rest.

Our intended training exercises immediately went live fire, though, when the deserted beach we'd hoped to use for our maneuvers turned out to be infested by ugly bird-women monsters with a hypnotic voice that Gale explained were 'harpies'. At least we'd arrived in time to save one of the tiefling children from being trapped by them, and they went down fairly quickly to our barrage of cantrips and missile fire. We then spent the next several hours learning more about each other's individual capabilities and working through some basic exercises to get familiar with each other's rhythm, as well as rehearse some simple tactical options such as 'response to ambush', 'skirmish line', 'cover the retreat', and so forth. Shadowheart was visibly uncomfortable with how readily Lae'zel fell into a self-appointed role as the effective squad sergeant to my officer, but had enough self-discipline to keep any catty comments to herself. After I noticed this I made sure to consult Shadowheart afterwards on a few useful points of lore related to her own specialty; reassuring her that I valued both of their opinions seem to calm her down a bit. Wyll turned out to be legitimately formidable in close combat and with a useful number of arcane warrior tricks of his own but had apparently spent his career mostly fighting as a lone wolf, so I had to treat him almost like a novice when it came to learning how to keep even a loose formation and instinctively stay clear from your teammates' lanes of fire.

The child we'd saved had invited us to come talk to his 'friends', and so we did that after we'd finished our training. I was surprised when his 'friends' turned out to be a budding junior thieves' guild comprised of urchins and orphans who'd fled along with the other refugees. Their leader Mol was a tough girl who was almost woman-high, an eyepatch-wearing charismatic rogue who reminded me of a teenaged tiefling version of Isabella, knives and all. She certainly didn't bring Isabella's experience to the job, however - I had to patiently explain to her that keeping up with the usual cons and lifts of a thieves' guild was a bad idea when you didn't have an exit strategy, because until and unless the refugee caravan made it to Baldur's Gate their only two choices were to either stick with the rest or commit suicide by trying to take her little children's crusade through that many days of rough country alone. I could at least partly sympathize with Mol's position - she'd ended up leader of these dispossessed children, only some of whom had actually been her old street gang back in Elturel and the rest orphans and stragglers and the lost who'd attached themselves to her on the way, and so she had to maintain a facade of confidence to keep the whole pack of scared children from falling apart in mob hysteria. And you couldn't be a leader if you didn't have a goal to be visibly leading your people towards, and 'keep up with our usual thieving operations and try to build a stake for setting up in Baldur's Gate' was the only one Mol had been able to think of.

I did my best to patiently work with her on brainstorming a couple of things her group could do to help the refugees, not prey on them, because if they kept pushing the limits the way they had been then eventually they'd have ended up all pitched out of the encampment on their backsides, children or not. I definitely wished that I could just tell them to stop stealing for a living, and I certainly would have if I had the slightest belief Mol would ever listen, but having had Isabella as a friend had taught me that no matter what new opportunities life offered them some people would simply never haul down the pirate flag more than temporarily.

"Look, if we're going to shut down alternate business for a while then we're going to need something to make up for it." Mol replied after I'd finished my explanation. "So I've got a proposition for you."

"And that would be?" I said as non-commitally as I could.

"Take me with you." she shocked me. "As part of your adventuring party. Just for the duration, mind, not permanent, but the share I'd earn there would more than help set my people up."

Lae'zel proved that she'd at least begun to learn how not to step on a moment when she confined her scorn at the very idea of a teenaged street urchin accompanying us into the goblins' lair to an epic eyeroll and no verbal comments. Honestly, I couldn't help but agree with her there. "Having taken down the occasional goblin or not-" I tried to reason with Mol.

"It was a hobgoblin Mol killed by herself, not just any old goblin!" one of her followers indignantly chimed in.

"-you're still not exactly the sort of veteran sellsword that gets hired for jobs like this." I continued.

"Yeah, but you need me." Mol shot back. "I can see you've got swords a plenty, and a wizard and a cleric, but where's your stealth? Where's your tools? Haven't got anyone for scouting and lockpicking, have you?"

"They've got me." Shadowheart broke in, to my considerable surprise. "What, did you think you were the only one who ever grew up rough? I was already a fair hand with a set of picks or a trap kit back when I was younger than you."

"Then how's about you show me your tools, hmm?" Mol smirked up at us, and Shadowheart glared back indignantly. "Haven't actually kept your hand in in ages and ages, have you, not ever since you started going to religious school?"

"I'll make you a counter-offer." I broke in. "Sell Shadowheart your best set of picks-"

"Second-best, like hell I'm giving up my personal set." Mol interrupted.

"-and give her as much of a refresher course as you can manage this afternoon, and I'll pay you in good coin." And after a reasonably vigorous haggling session the deal was done, and Shadowheart stayed behind to help re-educate her fingers in some old skills while the rest of us continued with preparations elsewhere.

By this time it was getting to be afternoon, so after a hasty lunch we all split up to cover more ground. Shadowheart was off getting a refresher course in 'adventuring skills' from Mol, Wyll had gone off to see if any of the druids would be willing to quietly contribute some aid or information to us behind Kagha's back, and Gale and Lae'zel had been sent to go replenish our supplies in the refugee camp's traveling marketplace. That left me to go consult with Zevlor and get brought up to date on what he he knew about the strategic situation we faced.

The first thing Zevlor did was finally show me where the hell we were, because he had a set of excellent maps for the region. My surmise that we'd landed almost halfway on the Chionthar River halfway between Baldur's Gate and Elturel was correct; we were closer to the Gate than to Elturel, but by only a little over a day's march. We were on the north bank of the Chionthar, several miles off of the Risen Road that had been constructed as the main trade route between the two cities. Over a century ago there had originally been a settlement in this region, a large village called 'Moonhaven', but its surviving population had abandoned it and left things to fall into ruin after the village had been repeatedly raided by marauders from whatever dark forces had cursed the land around Moonrise Towers some decades ago. Now the only signs of civilization in the reason were the Waukeen's Rest inn and the tollhouse adjoining the Risen Road where it went through the nearby mountain pass, and the Emerald Grove community of druids.

As it turned out the tiefling refugees were all from Elturel, which had expelled all tieflings from the city after some recent tragedy there they referrred to only as 'the Descent' that had apparently been caused by a massive outbreak of infernal magic of some kind. Fiends and humans could apparently have offspring together - and didn't that thought just put my hair on end again - and the resulting half-breeds were called 'cambions'. As it turned out, the devil-men I'd seen onboard the nautiloid had been cambions. Tieflings were much more closer to human stock but still had superficial cambion-like features due to distant cambion ancestry or ancestors who had been exposed to other infernal magics; apparently this was considered sufficient cause by their once-fellow Elturans to suspect all tieflings of being in active collusion with infernal forces and forcing them all to flee just ahead of a potential pogrom.

And that sounded foolish even to me, a near-total stranger to Faerun and a refugee myself from a world where the slightest trace of demonic taint so often led to catastrophe. My half a days' experience with the tiefling encampment was still enough to tell me that they were as human as anyone else under their skin; overhearing them all talking about their fears, their hopes, their concerns, even simple gossip was all as entirely familiar and homelike as any crowd of people at a market day in Kirkwall would have been. The Elturans' concern might have been entirely justified about true cambions - just the glimpse of them that I'd had personally on the nautiloid had been enough to let me sense the aura of demonic malevolence they seemed to go around actively wreathed in - but Zevlor and his people just felt like people.

At any rate, the main crisis facing the refugees was that reaching Baldur's Gate from here of a necessity funnelled directly through a terrain chokepoint - the nearby mountain pass - and the goblin encampment was too close to the route between the grove and the pass. The goblins had not yet amassed a large enough force to completely cut off the terrain - small parties could still hope to make it to the pass, particularly if they went off-road - but a large and slow-moving column of civilian refugees, many of them not even with mounts or wagons, couldn't possibly hope to get through quickly or quietly enough to avoid discovery. And once the goblins knew that such a large juicy target was available to be caught out in the open, the refugees would be dead meat.

"And from what our scouts have been able to find out, the longer this drags out the more goblins show up to join them." Zevlor sighed as we both stared down at his map table. "They've already gone well beyond what a single goblin tribe, even a large one, can amass. Someone or something is assembling an entire horde. And when they get large enough-"

"They've already almost found the Grove once." I agreed. "The larger their forces get, the more patrols they can push out more extensively. Discovery is only a matter of time." I rubbed my chin. "Your own scouts have probably had to step down operations with the losses you've been recently taking, but the druids have magic that lets them speak to animals. And even shapeshift into animals themselves. Have they shared any of the results of their reconaissance with you?"

"Ever since Kagha took charge, they've stopped forest patrols almost entirely." Zevlor groused. "She's concentrating all of the druids in the Grove to help defend the walls and speed up the preparations for this damned protective ritual she's obsessed with."

"That's certainly short-sighted of her." I nodded to him. "Even if she has absolute faith in her protective ritual, she still can't afford for the goblins to find and assault the Grove before she finishes it. She should at least have people out to interdict and ambush any goblin scouts who get too close."

"And yet she's not, and so witness your own battle yesteday." Zevlor nodded. "I don't have enough fighters to even hope to assault the goblin fortress directly, and the druids won't help. Your idea of infiltrating their fortress disguised as 'initiates' is the only chance we've got."

"And we're still trying to figure out what we could possibly do in there, assuming we got in there." I said.

"Assassination." Zevlor immediately suggested. "A horde of multiple tribes only stays together if there's a powerful or charismatic leader compelling them to stay together. Without them to rally around they'll scatter back into their own tribes and stay there; goblins' infighting with each other is often as savage as their raiding of other races."

"That dead drow mentioned a drow matriarch called Minthara." I nodded. "So that's one target at least."

"There'll likely be at least one other, their chief shaman or priest." Zevlor nodded. "Possibly more. But yes, without any strong dominant figure to rally and organize them the goblins would all scatter back to their own territories soon enough, and then the way would be clear for us. If only Kagha would see reason!"

"We've still got several days." I reassured him. "Hopefully we'll have figured out a way to pull it off by then."

"Hopefully." Zevlor agreed. "I can't send any of my people with you; I need them all to interdict as many goblin scouting parties as possible to help keep the Grove safe, especially if the druids are no longer helping with that. Do you think you'll be able to pull it off in time?"

"I'll want to test our 'initiate' theory at least once before I try it on the main goblin fastness." I thought out loud. "That will be our first task."

"Well, if there's anything we can do to assist you with it, please don't hesitate to ask." Zevlor offered.

We all met up for dinner and to compare notes. Wyll brought the disturbing news that several goblins had been caught and killed in the druids' underground escape tunnel, their secret back way out of the enclave. Apparently they'd followed a careless druid back from a herb-gathering expedition. Fortunately, there'd only been a couple of them, and a hasty interrogation with the Amulet of Lost Voices produced the welcome news that the goblin patrol that had followed the Grove's hapless gatherer back hadn't thought to send one of their own as a messenger before all trying to confirm for themselves whether or not the tunnel really did lead into the Grove.

"Still, the second near-miss has put the druids into a state of panic." Wyll said disappointedly. "Even the ones who might have originally been willing to provide us a little support behind Kagha's back are now wondering if she was right after all. 'Letting the outsiders come in here is the only reason the Grove is in danger, send them out to die and seal up the Grove and that's the only way!'" he sarcastically mocked.

"But the main reason the goblins are getting so close to finding the Grove in the first place is because this Kagha pulled in all the druidic patrols who were previously making sure no goblin could get within several miles of this place and live!" Lae'zel could see the military logic as readily as I could.

"Even more than you know." Shadowheart agreed. "This is largely forest country here. In this sort of terrain and with a safe haven to sortie from, a sufficient force of druids and all their nature magic could hold off anything short of a conquering army." Her eyes widened. "Isn't it convenient that the person whose decisions largely contributed to the threat becoming so immediate in the first place is having the fear that immediate threat inspires now solidifying her grasp on power here?"

"Oh come on." I facepalmed.

"You've a very suspicious mind, Shadowheart." Gale opined. "The idea that Kagha is working with the goblins is absurd!"

"She's not saying Kagha is working with the goblins, she's saying that Kagha is trying to take advantage of an already existing crisis to make her own separate power play - at the worst possible time, in the stupidest possible way." I explained. "Remind me to tell you about a man called Teryn Loghain sometime, and how he had a similar idea back home and almost doomed the entire kingdom of Ferelden in the process of trying."

"But what can we do about it? How do we even know this suspicion is true?" Wyll asked.

"Well, I did just spend an afternoon re-learning some old burglary skills of a misspent youth." Shadowheart smiled. "So I could use an opportunity to test those skills before I risked them in the heart of a goblin dungeon or such. I wonder, what might an irregular search of Kagha's quarters turn up?"

"Your neck on a chopping block, given how wary of intruders and outsiders these druids have become." Lae'zel said darkly. "And ours along with yours."

"It's a risk, but so's everything else in our lives right now." I said. "And there's no point in us doing an extremely risky mission to end this goblin threat to the Grove and the refugees if some other treason ruins the Grove behind our backs while we're doing it. Shadowheart, do you really think you can get in there without being caught?"

She smiled confidently and whispered a few indecipherable words, and suddenly her form blurred out in a flare of magic... and reformed into the image of a tall, red-haired elven woman with a harsh, narrow face. A close and searching examination still turned up some marginal differences between her and Kagha, but it would certainly fool anyone who wasn't either extremely close or else already actively searching for imposters.

"Unfortunately it doesn't do anything to change my voice," Shadowheart said with Kagha's face, "so I won't be able to talk to anyone. Still, if we can just make sure that she's elsewhere at the time then any druid who happens to see me walking into her quarters will simply think Kagha went back to fetch something of hers... and given what a cheerful personality he has, I can't imagine anyone here rushing to make any conversation with her that she doesn't invite herself. And once I'm inside her rooms, we'll see what I can find."

"Disguise Self?" Gale said wonderingly. "That's not a clerical spell. How do you know it?"

"It's in my goddess' domain." Shadowheart explained simply as she reverted to her normal appearance. "So, when do you think we should do this?"

"As soon as possible." I said. "The later the hour gets, the more likely it is that Kagha will retire to her own quarters and stay there."

Despite the tension produced by the thought of us trying this and failing - and thus getting expelled from the grove at best, if not mobbed by enraged druids - the operation, such as it was, went off without a hitch. We already had been given access to the central courtyard and the druids' quarters underground earlier today, and nobody had revoked it yet. Kagha soon enough emerged from her quarters after finishing her own dinner and went out to spend some time supervising the evening shift of the ongoing ritualists as they continued on with their 'several days' of ceremonial cleansing and preparations. As soon as the coast was clear Shadowheart stepped inside as if she were going to consult something in the library, with the intention of doing a quick shift of her face and then stealthily raiding Kagha's room as soon as she had a moment alone. The rest of us remained in the courtyard, ready to delay Kagha with whatever diversion we could think of if she made to go back inside.

After a very tense few minutes, Shadowheart emerged into the courtyard from the underground section wearing her own face again and we all relaxed. As soon as we found a quiet cave off in the back of the refugees' section, she brought us up to date.

"She's definitely conspiring with someone." Shadowheart said, reaching into her pouch to bring out a ragged sheet of paper. "I found that in a lockbox in her quarters."

The ragged sheet of paper had a few words drawn on it a very rough hand, almost as if someone had slashed the paper with an ink-stained claw rather than a pen. Oddly that seemed to be a stylistic choice, not a necessity, as the little sketch map next to the message had been drawn more conventionally and in a very steady hand.

Kagha.

Swamp-docks. Tree. Meet me. Alone.

Olodan.

"None of the druids who live here is named Olodan." Wyll said. "So whoever she's conspiring with, it's someone outside the Grove."

"I'm presuming the map is why you risked taking this note instead of just memorizing the contents and leaving it there." I asked Shadowheart.

"Exactly. We'll need it to find whatever meeting site this 'Olodan' referred to." she nodded back.

"If I remember Zevlor's area map correctly, these swamps are to the south of the goblin fortress, at the end of a little tributary river that runs from the swamp to the Chionthar proper." I thought out loud. "And we wanted to find an isolated goblin patrol anyway, to test our 'initiate' theory on before we risked the main fortress. We could combine two errands at once by heading that way."

"A bit closer to the fortress than we wanted to go on a first acquaintance, but either we'll get that far without meeting a patrol first or we won't - and then we'll know either way, of course." Shadowheart agreed. "I assume we're staying in the Grove tonight?"

"I'm tempted to try stealing a march, but if we're not risking immediate death by ceremorphosis any longer then we can afford to take a little rest when we need it - and out of all of us, only Shadowheart has elven nightvision anyway." I decided. "We set out at next daylight."

"One last night before we set out to test our fortune." Wyll said dramatically. "I'll stand the first round!"

Nobody wanted to be hung over for the mission so we adjourned the drinking session after only a couple of tankards, and then each scattered to finish up personal business or just find a small recreation or two before it was time for bed. I began to head back towards the beach where we'd trained this morning, hoping to just spend some quiet time sitting in the moonlight and thinking, when Wyll caught up to me from where we'd all gotten up from the table.

"Hawke. If you please, I need a word." he began diffidently.

"Something wrong?" I asked him, mildly surprised at this lapse from his usual cheerful confidence.

"Do you remember how I told you that how I ended up on the nautiloid was quite the long tale, some parts of which I wasn't at liberty to tell?" he opened.

"Go on." I encouraged him.

"I wasn't abducted by the nautiloid." he surprised me. "I'd already been in Avernus before the nautiloid arrived there, pursuing a specific target. An Advocatus Diaboli, a champion of the Blood War - a savage, remorseless slaughterer of innocent souls, the devil Karlach."

I mentally noted down the unfamiliar terms as things to ask Shadowheart or Gale about later and nodded for him to keep going. "Hunting in the Nine Hells. Dangerous work."

"There was a time I tussed with hill giants without breaking a sweat." he boasted proudly. "This tadpole has significantly reduced my powers as much as it has yours or Shadowheart's. But yes, my patron had warned me of the danger this Karlach presented and tasked me with bringing her to justice. I almost had her cornered when the nautiloid you were on entered Avernus... and she escaped me by fleeing onto it."

"So you pursued her onto the ship-" I followed along.

"And there we were both overwhelmed and infected by the mind flayers." Wyll continued. "Karlach escaped me in the crash, and is out there threatening the good folks of the Sword Coast even now. Her powers are almost certainly as reduced as mine are by our infections, but even that small mercy won't prevent her from leaving a river of innocent blood across the land. I must find her and stop her before she kills any more!"

"If you want to split from us to pursue your own task-" I offered.

"No." Wyll said. "I'm only guessing that she's as reduced as I am. Who knows the details of how ceremorphosis affects devils, as opposed to men? I'm asking for your help."

"I'm certainly no fan of demons or devils preying on the innocent." I passionately agreed with him. "But Kagha's ritual will place all these innocent folk in deadly danger if we haven't won at least some type of victory against the goblins before then. I can't turn away from the strict time limit they face now to search for a trail already gone cold. I have to prioritize."

"I suppose you do." Wyll agreed disappointedly. "And I gave my word I would come with you, and I won't go back on my word. But if we do see any sign of Karlach's trail out there, then please tell me we can at least spare an attempt at following it?"

"Of course, if it's possible to." I agreed with him.

"Thank you." he gusted with relief.

"You mentioned a 'patron'. Who are they?" I asked him.

"A powerful figure... and one with a very keen interest in their own privacy." Wyll temporized. "I've sworn an oath to say no more."

We said our good-nights and I continued on with my walk to the secluded beach... only to find out that someone else had had the same idea.

"Hawke." Shadowheart smiled briefly. "Can't get enough of me?" she continued cheekily from where she'd been sitting on the beach meditating.

"I just wanted to sit and look at the moonlight for a while." I said, settling down on the sand a companionable distance away from her. "But I'm certainly not objecting to the company."

"I'm not exactly a fan of moonlight." Shadowheart chuckled softly. "But I do enjoy a nice, quiet night, so moonlight or not I'm finding a bit of it here."

"And just taking a moment to breathe." I agreed, stretching my shoulders out as I rolled my arms back and forth trying to unkink my back. "Gods, it's been a rough couple of days, hasn't it? And with at least several more to come."

"To say the least." she nodded, and we peacefully felt the silence for a short while.

"You mentioned several more days to come." Shadowheart slowly continued. "And it's true that we've still got a ways to go on our quest, and that's assuming we're not given any more surprises at the next step. But what if this were our last night together?" she mused idly, looking up at the sky. "What would you say?"

"That I'd be sorry to see you go." I replied automatically. "We haven't known each other long, but you've been a good friend."

"Thank you." she said quickly, turning her head briefly. "And... I'd temporarily forgotten that you were a castaway even before the nautiloid crashed. Of course you're not certain of where you'd go next, after our quest was done." she mildly criticized herself.

"And you?" I asked her. "Where will you go after we're done?"

"Baldur's Gate." she replied. "There's someone there waiting for me, and I have... responsibilities."

"Earlier today you mentioned growing up an urchin like Mol, without a family." I thought out loud. So if she hadn't had a family, then who was she speaking of like family- and then an alarming possibility suddenly came to my mind. "You're not married, are you?" I blurted out.

Her snorting laughter answered that question even before her words did. "No! Goddess, what a ridiculous thought!" she fought through her chuckles. "And yes, I'm an orphan, but even orphans are still sometimes raised by someone. In my case, that was the temple."

"That's right, you're a priestess." I acknowledged. "Of which god or goddess?" I asked curiously.

"The goddess of privacy, among other things." she put me off gently. "It's- I'm not allowed to discuss much of the details with outsiders."

"All right." I accepted that - for the moment.

"I'm sure you'll land on your feet." Shadowheart reassured me. "Look at all that you've accomplished just recently! You're a natural adventurer, and Faerun is a land where adventurers have been making their fortunes for centuries."

"You could come with me." I offered. "After all, a good adventurer needs a party, and every good party needs a cleric."

"Thank you." she smiled regretfully at me. "But no. I was on a mission for my temple when I was abducted, a very important one." she explained. "And as soon as I can get myself cured of this damn tadpole, I'll need to be getting back to it."

"To bring them that artifact?" I asked her intelligently, turning to look her square in the face.

"What artifact?" she drew back defensively.

"The little one shaped like a polygon with silver runes, that I saw on the nautiloid." I said as diplomatically as possible. "The one so important to you that you grabbed at it even before you moved to secure your lost weapon, while surrounded by deadly danger in the depths of the Nine Hells."

"Damn your insighfulness!" she swore viciously, rising to her feet and taking a step away from me. I rose to match her, quickly, but kept my hands open and my body language nonthreatening. "Why couldn't you have just not seen anything?!?"

"I'm not going to take it from you!" I rushed to reassure her. "I don't even know what it is! I was just asking!"

"I wish I knew what it was." she blurted, her hand relaxing back from where it had almost been grabbing for her mace. "There was a whole group of us sent after it. I was the juniormost. And- the only survivor." she trailed off sadly.

"You already heard what I said to Zorru about that topic." I reassured her gently. "I'm certainly not going to question your courage, not after you've proven it so many times."

"No amount of courage justifies failing my goddess." Shadowheart replied flatly.

"You haven't failed her yet." I comforted her. "Now come on, sit down and relax."

"Sorry." she said. "I just- I'm not used to- ah!" she cried out in pain, and urgently clutching at her one hand with the other.

"Are you all right?" I asked her urgently. "I've noticed you cradling that hand several times before. If you hurt it in the crash, why didn't you ask Nettie to take care of it this morning?"

"It's not that." Shadowheart said, her voice heavy with pain. "It's- an old wound. Just- something I have to live with." She slowly relaxed as the spasm of pain passed.

"Does it hurt very much?" I asked her gently.

"Quite a bit, actually." she retorted with rueful sarcasm. "But I'll be all right. This just- happens, from time to time."

"I can't imagine what, but if there's anything I can do to help you with that, you know you only need to ask." I offered.

"I know." she smiled briefly at me, and we sat back down and let another quiet minute grow.

"So... the githyanki?" I took a shot in the dark as gently as I could. "Is that who your team 'recovered' the artifact from?"

"Why am I even surprised at this point?" she moaned softly, crading her chin in her palms. "Are you an oracle, Hawke, or do you just read minds?"

"No, I just happened to notice that my very practical-minded friend didn't hesitate to accept help in a crisis from every passing stranger who offered any - except from our one stranded githyanki, who she argued against trusting at every opportunity and did her best to drive away from the group several times." I thought out loud.

"You are positively insufferable at times, do you know that?" she chided me.

"I won't tell Lae'zel if you won't." I offered her. "And if she could recognize it by sight, she'd certainly have reacted to it on the nautiloid. I just wanted to make sure the topic was raised ahead of time, because the last time I invited a woman with a bit of a rogueish background into my adventuring party and it turned out that she was carrying a stolen relic from an isolationist, arrogant warrior race with her, it started a war." And then I segued into a brief explanation of the whole mess involving the qunari relic, the Arishok and his invasion force, and how Isabella hadn't told me for years that she'd known the entire time why the qunari were so obsessed with staying in Kirkwall. "So if there's anything you can tell me about your mission to 'recover' it in the first place, I'd appreciate it if you did that sometime before we ended up in the middle of a githyanki invasion or suchlike."

"I very much doubt we're going to get one of those." Shadowheart reassured me. "But there's honestly not much more I can tell you - as I said, I was the juniormost member of the team. I barely got any mission briefing at all - I don't even know who stole it or what githyanki fortress it was kept in. I was just part of a team intended to pick up a 'githyanki artifact' at a rendezvous and help carry it back to the temple at Baldur's Gate. And then an illithid nautiloid showed up and they tore through us, and the last man standing tossed the artfact to me and told me to run-" She sighed. "And then I woke up in a pod and you helped me out. I was terrified the artifact had been lost, until I saw it with the rest of my gear right there next to me."

"Which doesn't make any sense." I thought out loud. "If the illithids were after the artifact too, then how did they not recognize it when they found it on you? But the idea that they just showed up by coincidence is absurdly unlikely."

"Even more unlikely when you consider that the githyanki eventually showed up chasing the nautiloid as well." Shadowheart agreed. "I'm just glad that they seem to have lost the trail ever since we jumped between planes to get away from them."

"Have they?" I asked her. "Remember, there was at least one githyanki patrol sighted in the nearby mountains recently, and you heard Lae'zel say that their behavior was unusually aggressive even for githyanki."

"Oh joys." Shadowheart moaned. "Yes, let's definitely not let any of them know about our little passenger."

"One catastrophe at a time." I agreed, and we settled down to watching the water quietly flow past us and burble. "Well, so much for relaxing on the beach."

"If it helps, I'm a little relaxed." Shadowheart replied impishly, before her face fell into much more serious lines. "Because this morning... even with the party all together, I was still alone with all of this. And now I'm not. And that helps, it really does." she assured me.

"Even when I'd lost everything else, I still had the people I cared for." I nodded, staring up through the stars and into the trackless beyond. "So when I was cast into the Silver Void and I thought I'd lost all of them as well..." I looked her full in the face. "I was very glad to find that I hadn't."

"Exactly how many of those ales did you have?" Shadowheart deflected with a return to her usual cheerful sarcasm.

"Enough that one more wouldn't hurt." I followed her lead. "Care to join me?" I questioned.

"I might like to... sometime." Shadowheart answered the question I hadn't asked. "But we've got a very busy day tomorrow."

"That we do." I accepted, as I rose to my feet. "Good night, Shadowheart."

"Good night, Hawke." she smiled up at me from where she sat on the sands, and I left her in the moonlight.

---

Author's Note: Ugh, thinking of meaningful chapter names is turning out to be such a pain. Heck with it, I'll just change 'em to plain numbers.

I only found out just now that the healer in the grove is called 'Nettie'. The whole time I'd played the game I'd thought she was 'Nettle', even with subtitles turned on. I've gone back to earlier chapters and corrected it.

I also belatedly realized that if I'm not recruiting Astarion then I really should have gone with Rogue Hawke. Fortunately, while Shadowheart has the Acolyte background in the main game she had the Urchin background in Early Access... which gave her Stealth and Sleight of Hand proficiencies, and thus making her a useful backup locks-and-traps person if you didn't have Astarion in rotation. So, I just rolled with that. Because yeah, if you don't have at least one party member who can pick locks, you miss a lot.

Disguise Self does not let you impersonate specific people in-game, but that's a limitation of the game engine. You can use it for that purpose in D&D. Shadowheart has access to Disguise Self as a Ritual spell through her Trickery domain.

I came this close to actually making Mol a party member, as I had a nice opportunity here to depart from the canon rails, but decided against. If I'm already tempted to prune the list of permanent party members down just so I have a manageable number of characters to write, then the last thing I need is to start throwing new hirelings into the batch. Also, she doesn't have a tadpole.

Shar's portfolio includes secrets, so amusingly she actually is the goddess of privacy - from a certain point of view.

And the exact backstory of how the hell Shadowheart ended up with the artifact really isn't gone into in game beyond a few spoilers I hope the Internet was not lying to me about, so I rode the USS Make Shit Up for the rest.

 

[cliffc999]

We set out early the next day through the druids' secret tunnel out of the Grove. Not only was the tunnel exit closer to our destination than the main exit was, but we lowered the risk of our being spotted entering or leaving the Grove as much as possible.

The concealed passage exit let us out a short ways east of the ruins of Moonhaven, in the low ravine that held the creek we'd noted yesterday on the map. Moonhaven was of course built on the intersection of several of the larger dirt roads in the region, so I'd readily spotted that it would be a natural terrain chokepoint for the goblins to put a forward outpost to help coordinate their search parties from. We thus resolved to avoid it for now while we looked to test our luck with a goblin patrol somewhere else further out in the woods, where they'd have no reinforcements easily available if our trick didn't work.

Which is why we were surprised when the first 'patrol' we ran into wasn't of goblins but humans. We'd only traveled maybe half a mile down the trail when we came across a young man and woman, both of them kneeling over the body of a older man and frantically trying to staunch the bleeding from his wounds. "No, put pressure there!" the young man was saying to his companion desperately.

"Edowin? Edowin, hang on!" she tried to rally her fallen companion. "You can't die, you're-"

"Look out!" the young man cried in alarm as he spotted us rushing forward. The woman was unarmored and dressed like a farmer but the young man was wearing a chain shirt, and they were armed with a mace and a sword respectively. The older man on the ground was dressed in finery, and a broken spear handle with a missing point lay next to him, presumably a casualty of the same battle that had wounded him so.

"Not another step!" the woman continued as they both drew their weapons and fell into a guard stance - him with at least some professional training, and her as if she'd only started learning how to swing that mace last week. I was about to say something reassuring when a glowing magical brand suddenly erupted into view on her cheekbone as soon as my eyes fell upon her face, and I felt something deep within me shiver in response.

"Wait!" the wounded man gasped weakly, as he rolled his head over to look at us with an effort and I was still momentarily dumbstruck with shock. "He... He is-"

And then my shock deepned at the outright writhing in my mind the instant our eyes met, as the tadpole in my mind shivered and forged a mental connection with him. I saw/heard/felt the man's thoughts - he knew he was mortally wounded, and he was afraid for- for his siblings? My heart wrenched as I looked down at what was clearly the older brother of these two, his last thoughts being both a frantic terror and a desperate hope-

Brynna. Andrick. Protect them. he begged me mentally.

"Edowin, lie still!" Brynna ordered him. "You'll-"

"He... is a True Soul." Edowin whispered, doing his best to smile at his siblings as his lungs filled with blood. "You-" His voice trailed off as his eyes shut for the final time.

"Edowin? Ed! Please!" Andrick begged.

"He's with the Absolute now." Brynna reassured her surviving brother with a serene calm I honestly found more than a bit eerie, given that her oldest brother had just died at her feet.

"Brynna. Andrick." I greeted them both by name, and they stood bolt upright and faced me like recruits snapping to attention.

Wonderful. I mused. On the one hand, our theory that the enemy used the tadpoles for identification apparently just had confirmation fall right out of the sky and into our laps. On the other hand, I'm facing a pair of armed religious fanatics who are probably going to start swinging as soon as I say the wrong thing and expose myself as an imposter. and while I'm certain I could kill them both easily- I nodded inwardly to myself, acknowledging the truth that I simply didn't want to. While these two certainly weren't Carver and Bethany, and were servants of our enemy besides, I didn't have the heart to disregard a dying man's innocent wish under these circumstances.

"How much did Edowin teach you of the Absolute?" I finally risked a bluff.

"He didn't have time for much more than the basic catechism, True Soul." Andrick answered briskly. "The Absolute is the new goddess, who will rise up to sweep away the corrupt old order and remake the world."

"Her True Souls, like you, are her chosen ones - you speak with Her voice." Brynna continued, her voice low with awe. "You have the power to enforce Her will on others, like Edowin had. And when the Absolute's crusade has succeeded, her True Souls will rule the world with peace and order."

... if I had a silver piece for every time I'd heard that same script from a group of cultists, I could pay off Varric's bar tab! I inwardly facepalmed.

"Good, then he at least covered the most important parts." I non-answered.

"We were reporting to Edowin, but without him I'm not sure-" Brynna said. "I suppose we're assigned to your squad now. What are your orders, True Soul?"

"What were the original orders for Edowin's squad?" Lae'zel broke in.

"They pulled in every team they could from neighboring regions, for a higher priority here." Andrick explained. "We were searching for fugitives - survivors from the nautiloid ship that crashed near here several days ago. The Absolute wants them brought to Her - at any cost."

"We don't have any description of the survivors," Brynna continued - which I'd already figured out, seeing as how neither of them had begun to recognize us - "but they had to have been wounded in the crash, so we've been searching for blood trails, people with mysterious injuries. That was the only clue we had to go on."

"Where were you originally assigned before your team was sent here?" I asked.

"Moonrise Towers. We'd been lay followers of the Absolute in Baldur's Gate- Edowin had only been initiated several months ago." Andrick explained.

"Then return to Baldur's Gate and wait to be contacted." I decided. "If the crash survivors haven't received medical attention by now then they're dead, and the only place they could have received any is that armed encampment the goblins have been scouting for. Neither of you look to have much military experience, so you wouldn't be very useful for either that kind of reconaissance or the assault phase. The Absolute isn't wasteful; you'll serve better in an urban role."

"One moment." Shadowheart asked. "Edowin's wounds - what inflicted them? Were you attacked?"

"A damned owlbear did it." Andrick swore viciously. "Of all the useless things- we'd just gone in to check the cave nearby as a possible hiding place for those survivors, and it turns out we walked right into its bloody lair!"

"My condolences." I assured them both. "Now clear the area; this operation is entering a new phase."

"Of course sir!" Andrick nodded. "We'll depart at once."

"You should have just killed them." Lae'zel confronted me as soon as they were out of earshot. "They were armed, they were enemies- they have seen our faces! What reason did you have to hold back?"

I opened my mouth, then closed it. "Sentimentality." I admitted. "I was once the oldest of three siblings, desperately trying to keep them all alive. I wasn't going to be the reason Edowin failed to do that... like I did."

Lae'zel glared at me briefly before nodding matter-of-factly. "Then at least you are not lying to me." she replied evenly. "And I already did not expect groundlings like yourself to have fully the same steel as true gith warriors. This particular act of mercy is unlikely to threaten our mission; that is adequate for now."

"Did anyone else see something odd glowing on that woman's cheek, or was it just me?" Wyll queried, and after a hasty comparision of notes we all agreed that we'd seen something, and our tadpoles had instinctively responded to it.

"It wasn't the same sort of resonance that we've felt from other people with tadpoles, but it was certainly something." Gale analyzed. "This cult of the 'Absolute' is apparently putting a magical mark on at least some of its lay worshippers, the ones not 'worthy' to be 'True Souls', so that they can still be identified."

"Also perhaps to make them more subservient." I thought out loud. "Brynna was the branded one, her brother Andrick was not, and her emotional reactions seemed... different from his."

"What sort of madman would be using mind flayer technology to try and build themselves a network of fanatic worshippers hidden amongst human society?" Shadowheart questioned. "Because while the most obvious thought would be 'mind flayers', they've never tried anything like this before that I know of."

"Nor I." Lae'zel conceded. "The ghaik are too proud to build the illusion of a god to deceive their slaves into following. To do so would require first admitting that they are too weak to simply force the obedience that they desire. But for anyone other than a ghaik to delve so deeply into their secrets is insanity. Such attempts inevitably result in nothing but the ghaik eventually infecting and possessing those who try!"

"The more layers we peel, the more rotten the onion smells." I complained. "Well, we've had a successful result in our first test, but I still don't think that means we should go charging directly into the depths of the goblin fortress just yet. That conversation could have gone very differently if they'd been the slightest bit more suspicious."

"The village?" Shadowheart suggested. "If the Absolute has recently called in human reinforcements from neighboring areas of operation, then not everyone will be familiar with everyone's faces. Our tadpoles should be enough identification for all of us."

"And the goblins can't be attacking all strange people on sight without at least having their sentries challenge and identify them first, or else Edowin and his siblings wouldn't have been able to pass by Moonhaven on their way here." I agreed. "So we'll try checking out the village next. But before we do that... Shadowheart, how often can you use that amulet?" I asked her.

Our attempt to do a post-mortem interrogation of Edowin was momentarily interrupted when the tadpole in his head turned to be still alive even after he died, and it reached out to my tadpole and tried to mentally compel me into extracting it from his head and saving its life. I focused my will and allowed the damned thing to believe it was going to be saved, right up until the point it crawled back out of his dead eye socket and I crushed it in my fist. I dimly heard a dying squeal in my mind as it perished, along with an overtone of... disapproval?

Questioning Edowin's corpse with the Amulet of Lost Voices turned up the knowledge that he had also been infected at Moonrise Towers, just like the dead drow back at the Grove. He gave us no details about the Absolute when we asked save that she was an 'almighty goddess' of 'irresistible power'. However, we also turned up very disturbing piece of information that while the Absolute desperately wanted any survivors from the nautiloid crash, that was for purposes of interrogation. The search effort's true target was a weapon that the nautiloid ship had been carrying, and that the Absolute assumed had been spirited away by a survivor from the crash because it had already failed to be found in the wreckage. What weapon we had no idea; the existence of 'the weapon' had been revealed only in the answer to the last question we'd asked, and the magic had run out before we could follow up.

Shadowheart and I wordlessly exchanged a look behind Lae'zel's back at that particular revelation, because we didn't need tadpole telepathy to know the conclusion we'd both immediately leapt to; that 'the weapon' was almost certainly a little polygonal artifact currently hidden in Shadowheart's belt pouch.

Our thoughts hung heavier on us than our packs as we headed back up the trail to rejoin the main road that led to a small stone bridge high over the creek-filled ravine and into Moonhaven. Even from a distance we could see that while most of the buildings were still mostly standing the wood was rotten, overgrown with mildew, and with sagging walls and collapsing rooftops all over town. This place had clearly been abandoned for at least several decades. However, it wasn't abandoned now, as the silouhettes of a pair of goblin sentries posted on the highest rooftops were just visible to us even from our position several hundred yards outside the village walls.

"No smoke means no campfires." I mused as we all carefully studied the village. "Which means they haven't settled in because it's midday and an actual encampment would have at least one fire going for the cookpot. But by the same token they've got lookouts posted, so they're not just passing through."

"Keeping watch while the remainder of their unit searches the village?" Lae'zel thought out loud. "Although what in those ruins could still be worth sending search parties after is beyond me."

"You're giving them too much credit, because you're both too used to dealing with large, well-disciplined forces." Wyll contributed. "Even with mysterious cult masters and mind-affecting tadpoles in the picture goblins will still be goblins. And the only thing goblins like even more than killing is looting, so that's likely a raider band that's stopped for some easy gleanings - not a task force."

"Then let's try the open approach." I said, and we drew up in our march formation and, making no effort to conceal ourselves, headed across the bridge.

"Dead tieflings. Dead goblins." Shadowheart noted the several bodies strewn nearby as we crossed the bridge. The bodies were no longer stiff but had only barely begun to smell; they were maybe a day old. One of Zevlor's patrols had taken casualties here. As we drew nearer to the village's main gates just on the other side of the bridge, I saw that Wyll's estimate of the goblins' relative lack of discipline had been accurate. Their lookouts were doing a desultory job, and didn't begin to spot us until we had almost reached the already-open gates.

"Over there! Surround 'em like!" a female goblin bellowed orders as she climbed up on the rooftop to our right to join her lookout there.

"Identify yourselves!" I interrupted her with an authoritative bark.

"Wot?" their leader goggled incredulously as the several goblins each to our left and right laughed from their rooftop perches. "You is stealin' my lines, berk!"

"You dare speak so insolently to a True Soul, goblin?" I glared at her... and with those words I felt something go click in my brain as my tadpole awakened. I saw a brand identical to Brynna's brand flare to light on the goblin leader's cheek - except that this time my intuition told me that I wasn't seeing it with my eyes, but with my mind. I felt a power awaken in me, and surge... a glimmer of a sense of something larger, something vsst, as my mind and my voice filled with an eldritch Authority.

"I told you to identify yourself." I commanded, and I felt the goblin's will crumble in the face of my own. I heard several of my companions drawing a shocked breath behind me, but I kept my gaze focused on the goblin leader's...

My stomach spasmed in a brief moment of nausea. I broke out in a cold sweat. I had the momentary impression that my mind was a small fish swimming in a great ocean, and suddenly the wake of a leviathan swimming past had sucked me into its current-

"Booyahg Haysa, commandin' this squad, sir!" she snapped to attention, and every goblin within view lowered their weapons.

"Report." I ordered her, shaking off my momentary distraction.

"Uh- nothin special's goin' on? Sir?" she added confusedly.

"How long have you been in this village?" I probed.

"Since- this mornin', sir! We wuz- we wuz searchin' for clues to what the Absolute wanted us to find, yeah!" she visibly strained for an answer. It appeared that Wyll had been right on the money with this theory that the goblins here had been slacking off from their assigned task for a looting break.

"Any results?" I asked calmly.

"Not- not yet. But I'm sure we'll-" she frantically tried to explain.

"Get back to work." I growled as if entirely uninterested in the affairs of goblins, and all of the goblins except for the posted lookouts immediately scattered all over the village, trying to look as busy as possible.

"There was more than just commanding mannerisms making that goblin obey you." Shadowheart asked worriedly, pitching her voice low to keep any goblins from overhearing. "What was that?"

"Apparently Brynna's statement that True Souls could 'speak with the authority of the Absolute' was more than just cult rhetoric." I replied. "When I concentrated hard on trying to convince her I was a True Soul, my tadpole responded."

"Psionic influence." Lae'zel said worriedly. "A power of the ghaik. But-" she peered warily at me, one hand on her sword. "You show not the slightest change in feature! Not even the color of your eyes has shifted! Such powers do not develop in one infected until after the physical aspects of the change are almost complete!"

"Nettie said that some powerful magic had been used to alter our tadpoles, to inhibit the normal transformation." Gale thought out loud. "Any force with the power to do that could in theory also force certain parts of the ceremorphosis to occur while stopping others."

"You mean our minds are being altered even while our bodies remain unchanged?" Shadowheart gasped in horror.

"The goblins are starting to get curious." Wyll warned us.

"North gate." I picked at random. "Let them think we just stopped for a moment to discuss which was the best way to proceed, and now we're moving on."

There was another stone bridge on the north road out of Moonhaven, crossing a branch of the same ravine and creek that we'd crossed coming in from the east. At the far end of the bridge the road stopped, blocked off by a rock face, and a T-intersection gave us a choice of routes both north and south. South led us back towards the Grove, so we took that. The dirt road split again, and a horrific odor came to our nostrils as we came to the latest intersection. Rounding the curve gave us a clear sight as to why.

"Gnolls." Shadowheart said, looking at the several large, hulking corpses of hyena-headed humanoids strewn all over the path, looking as if they'd been hacked at by an enraged ogre with a greataxe. "Very thoroughly dead ones."

"How can the corpses be that rotten when the blood hasn't even dried yet?" I said, because while thickened and with the flies already thronging to feed off of it, the copious amounts of blood the gutted and dismembered gnolls had left soaking into the landscape was still fluid.

"They smell that bad even when they're alive." Wyll pointed out, before he went taut like a hunting dog spotting a scent. "Wait a minute." he leaned over one of the corpses. "This one's been burnt as well as hacked. The fur is singed all over! Could it be...?" He reached down and started to carefully examine the ground away from the immediate battle site, before pointing at what was clearly the blood trail of a wounded person - a person who bled an entirely different color of blood from the gnolls.

"Do you smell that?" he said, as he bent over to more carefully examine the blood spots. "Devil blood! The stench of Avernus! Karlach was here! We have to find her!" he begged.

I very briefly explained what Wyll had told me the night before about his own quest to the others, and since we were already here and our main reconaissance had already gone so well this morning in such little time, we readily agreed that we could now turn to the hunt.

Karlach had apparently been hurt substantially in their battle because I'd very seldom seen anyone leave that much of a blood trail for that kind of distance and still be walking at the end. On the other hand, they were clearly a damn tough opponent because they not only had gone all that way, but judging by the footprints had been still setting a fairly good pace even at the end. Still, with the wounds they bore they'd need to stop to rest sometime, while we were all fresh, and they only had a several hours' lead on us. And they either had no skill at woodcraft or no desire to conceal their blood trail, so following it was merely a matter of keeping to the path. So after a mile or two more, we eventually caught up to her where she was sitting by the side of the creek with her back propped against a tree, some bloodied rags wrapped around her ribs as an improvised bandage.

"One horn. The stench of Avernus. Advocatus Diaboli!" Wyll challenged her with a horrible intent, drawing his rapier as he completely violated any chance of stealth by stepping out to openly challenge here.

"I'll be gods-damned." she complained in an incongrously female voice as she rose to her feet with a grunt of pain. Seeing her standing for the first time put a prickle of alarm down my back... although robustly and abundantly female in shape Karlach was also a mass of muscle standing at least six inches taller than I did, and I was the tallest member of our party. I'd seen qunari with a less muscular build, if not by much. Her skin was as red as many of Zevlor's tieflings, and she had a large corkscrew horn coming out the left side of her head, with a broken-off stub on her right showing where a matching one had been. The many scars criss-crossing her arms and legs and torso, as well as the giant patches of gnarled and horny skin where she had clearly been burnt in the past and only partially healed, told a tale of someone who had been fighting in literally hellish battles for years.

"The Blade of Frontiers. Thought I'd shaken you for good. That'll teach me to underestimate you." she greeted Wyll, before looking up briefly to take in all of us as we came up behind Wyll. "And you're clearly not underestimating me either, not with all the help you brought this time! I'd be flattered - if you weren't so hellbent on gutting me."

"You won't escape justice this time, monster!" Wyll snarled at her. "Any last words?"

"Here's two - Back! Off!" she howled in a voice that mixed rage and agony, and her skin began to erupt in hellish flame. "If you lot want my head, then you're trading in at least three of your own to get it! Just- just go away!"

"Wait." I put one hand on Wyll's arm as he was about to lunge forward. "No matter what your patron said, this doesn't add up! Since when do remorseless engines of hellish slaughter ask for time-outs?"

"It's a trick!" he shook me off angrily. "She's a devil, a champion of the Arch-Devil Zariel's army! Countless innocents will die if we let her deceive us!"

"I can explain, please!" Karlach pleaded. "It's a whole situation, but-"

"You served Zariel." Wyll practically snarled. "That's enough to condemn you!"

"I didn't have a bloody choice!" Karlach shouted back. "They took me, they collared me, it was fight or die! What would you have done?" she screamed desperately, and then winced in agony at the strain she'd just put on her wounded ribs.

Wyll took advantage of her momentary lapse to begin to lunge forward, and I grabbed him by the wrist and bore down with my full strength. "No."

"Are you mad?!?" he rounded on me angrily as he pulled free. "You would side with a denizen of the Hells?"

"Is this 'sentimentality' again, Hawke?" Lae'zel questioned me coldly, as she moved to stand alongside Wyll. Shadowheart stayed with me, Gale looked undecided- oh, this entire situation was rapidly going south. Was this truly just a ploy by Karlach, to get the party fighting each other? Some demons back in Thedas had that kind of insidiousness, that subtlety-

I suddenly remembered what Wyll had said about both of them having been infected on that nautiloid and decided to try an experiment. When we'd found her in that cage, Lae'zel had used our tadpoles' connection with each other to send me her thoughts without words. So if we possibly-

I turned away from Wyll to make eye contact with Karlach, and concentrated not on trying to dominate her, to exercise that eldritch Authority, but simply to connect. To understand. And her tadpole suddenly awoke and shivered in resonance with mine, and images flickered before our eyes- flashes of Karlach fighting on the front line in the Blood War, a shocktrooper thrown again and again at demons and bringing them down with blades and fire and fury- then more images, of Karlach with her axe raised slicing through devils and cambions - a glimpse of the passing nautiloid in the distance - a frantic run for freedom-

"Lies! It has to be!" Wyll said frantically, as he reeled away from the mental images that all our tadpoles had been bombarded with.

"Don't be an idiot!" I growled at him. "You saw the truth, you felt her emotions - she was trapped with no way out, and the instant she first saw a possible one, she leapt at it! She was a victim of this Blood War - not a champion of it."

"You're asking me to trust a devil!" he begged, his face gone pale with shock? Terror? "You don't know what you're doing!"

"I'm a tiefling, not a bloody devil!" Karlach shouted back. "I was born in Baldur's Gate, for Tyr's sake! These flames? That's shit they did to me, with their experiments! I never wanted it! I never wanted any of this! I just want to go home!"

"Wyll. Stand. Down." I ordered with a voice of stone.

"You're supposed to know about monsters, right?" Karlach begged softly. "Better than anyone? Look at me. Listen to me. Can't you see I'm not what you think I am?"

"I- I- damn it!" he howled, and sheathed his rapier. "You... you really are no devil, are you? I've been deceived."

Karlach went limp with relief, lowering her axe to the ground. "Oh thank the gods. I really didn't want this to end badly for either of us."

"Shadowheart, can you help her with those wounds?" I asked, and she moved alongside Karlach.

"Careful!" Karlach warned. "Only touch the armor - you lay your hand on my bare skin and you'll get a nasty burn." Shadowheart shifted her hand as directed, and used the contact to deliver one of her lesser healing spells. "Ohhhh, that's nice." Karlach moaned with relief, and then craned both arms above her head in a great relaxing stretch. "Thanks a bunch, that one was really too close to the lung for me to go runnin' around on it like that."

"You still shouldn't put any great strain on it for a while, but that spell will have cleaned and closed the wound." Shadowheart replied.

"As long as you've taken care of the immediate, I can walk the rest off. I'm tough like that." Karlach said agreeably.

"Wyll?" I asked him, as he seemed like a man in shock.

"Your friend said 'patron' earlier." Karlach stepped over to Wyll, looking at him compassionately. "Warlock, are you?"

"Yes." Wyll admitted. "And my patron is the one who commanded me to slay you."

"And now you're not going to - bloody hells, you are in a bind." Karlach said. "Damn, I'm really sorry to hear that. Doubly sorry because I still can't just lie down and die for you."

Shadowheart rapidly leaned over to whisper in my ear a very brief explanation of what a 'warlock' was. My heart sank as I realized that my 'arcane warrior' companion had apparently been foolish enough to gain his talents by pacting with a fiend of some type. Because it was always something with people, wasn't it?

"I wouldn't ask you to." Wyll said slowly. "But you are right - I am going to pay a significant price for my disobedience. I just hope it will be one that I can bear."

"And why would your patron even want me dead? -oh shit, it isn't Zariel is it?" Karlach flinched back.

"My pact forbids me from naming them." Wyll said. "But no, it's not her."

"Wait, if you were sent into Avernus after me then your patron already wanted me taken out even before I got a bounty put on me by escapin'." Karlach realized. "And using a hero from Faerun to do the job instead of just getting someone already in the Hells to shank me in the back - oh bugger me with a flaming pike, it's not fucking Mizora is it?"

Wyll opened his mouth, then closed it, then mimed the classic gesture of zippering one's lips shut with his two fingers. "I... can't say that it's not Mizora." he finally managed.

"Fuck!" Karlach swore. "I swear, I've taken sweeter-smelling shits than that bitch! And at least I could bury those after!"

Wyll laughed faintly, helplessly. "You've a unique way with words."

"I've a unique way with a lot of things." she shot back proudly. "So," she said, turning to me. "That mental connection thing - that was from that little bit the tentacle bastards stuck in our heads, yeah?"

"Mind flayer parasites." I replied, and then gave a brief explanation of ceremorphosis and our tadpoles' having had the transformation put in remission - for the moment.

"Fuck." she swore. "Ten years I'm stuck in that damned pit, and I finally get out - and I'm barely back in Faerun again before this shit drops on my head!" She turned to me. "I'm not one to mince words, so here it is. You're out looking for a cure for this damned thing, as well as these plotting buggers who are behind it, and I definitely want a piece of both those things. But I can't sign on with your group until I've dealt with another problem. Because Wyll here might have stopped trying to kill me, but Zariel's got her own squad of hunters on my arse. I was tryin' to get away from them when I ran into those gnolls on the path. But even though they banged me up pretty good, I did the same to them. Last I knew they were forted up a little ways away from here, in the old tollhouse on the Risen Road. You help me hit them in their camp and wipe them, my blade is yours for the duration." A brief glance of mine around the group revealed no objections, and so we welcomed Karlach aboard.

"We penetrated a deception, avoided a needless fight, and are now pre-emptively removing a possible threat while simultaneously recruiting a powerful ally." Lae'zel quietly spoke to me after we'd been hiking back up the path towards the tollhouse for a while. "I had thought you addled with sentimentality again, but clearly not." She angrily waved her hand. "Again and again you make soft, senseless decisions, and again and again they somehow work out to our benefit! I do not understand you, Hawke."

"It's much easier to transition from talking to fighting than to try the reverse." I thought over my possible answers for a while before giving that one.

"Diplomacy. Tchk." she grumbled, and silently fell back into marching order.

In less than an hour, we arrived at the old tollhouse adjoining the Risen Road. The several Zariel warlocks who'd been posing as 'paladins of Tyr' - or their survivors, rather, as Karlach had already killed a couple of them in their first encounter - first tried lying, then bargaining, and then finally angrily cast aside their roles when we made it abundantly plain that we weren't falling for the act and were sticking with Karlach.

"Fine!" their leader swore, as he and his surviving compatriots readied their weapons. "I'm sick of playing the coward anyway! Karlach, you're going home in pieces if you must! But first, we'll teach your friends what a mistake it was to try and ally themselves with trash like you!"

"Avernus was never my home!" Karlach shrieked furiously, as her flames erupted from her skin more brightly than I'd ever seen them. "It was my PRISON! But I'm FREE now! AND I'M NEVER GOING BACK!" she finished with a roar that shook the walls. The servitors of Zariel flinched away in terror as Karlach erupted in a blind rage worthy of any berserker I'd ever seen, and all we needed to do was watch her flanks and help keep her reckless charge from exposing her to a sneak attack while she straight-up hacked the infernal bounty hunters to pieces. And then we had to rapidly excuse ourselves from the tollhouse for several minutes as Karlach proceeded to vent her fury on the furniture, doors, walls, and basically everything else she saw that wasn't us. By the time she was done, we needed a hasty Create Water spell to help keep the old tollhouse from burning down.

"Fuck them. Fuck Zariel. I won't go back. I'm never going back." Karlach gasped out heavily from where she lay on her knees, panting with exhaustion. "Ten years. Ten fucking years of nothing but-" She went limp. "Can you imagine what it's like to actually live in Hell? Never seeing so much as dirt?" she reached down and drew up a handful of earth in her palm as she spoke. "Or grass? Or trees? Or wind? Just endless black rocks and red lava and brimstone everything?" She slowly rose to her feet. "When I made my break for it, I could've died. Should've died, as crazy as the odds against me were. But I just didn't care. So much as the slightest chance of seeing the Prime Material again was worth dying for. And then actually making it, and landing this close to home besides?" She shook her head. "The idea of having to give up my freedom after just barely starting to taste it, to go right back into that hell - hell yeah, I lost it." She looked ruefully up at us. "Sorry about that." she apologized as she slowly rose to her feet. "I'm really not that bad, usually, even if I get a bit wild in a scrap sometimes."

"I can't even begin to start to imagine." I admitted honestly.

"You'd better hope that you never can." she agreed grimly. "So what now, boss?"

"We move far enough away from the tollhouse that we don't have to smell the bodies stink and make a camp." I said. "We all face the same dilemma with our tadpoles, but some of us only know some of the picture. We need to share everything." I noticed Shadowheart's face twist up with worry, and I caught her eye and concentrated on sending her a brief mental message. Almost everything. I clarified. Because while I'd have gladly told the rest of the group about the relic if I could, Lae'zel's presence meant I didn't dare to. Not without touching off some devastating party infighting like what we'd only narrowly avoided today.

As it turned out, fording the creek near where we'd originally met Karlach put us on a narrow side path that let us bypass the Moonhaven road junction entirely and get back on the route towards the Grove. Not that we intended to go all the way back there tonight, but the closer we could camp to there and the less deep in goblin territory we did so, the better. We eventually found a likely spot and settled in for the night.

"God damn this is good!" Karlach said gleefully as she tore through a double-sized portion of our travel rations. "I mean, actual bread? Do you know what it's like to almost forget how bread tastes?" she gushed.

"That's hardtack, Karlach. You're supposed to chew it." Wyll said amusedly as she bit through the hardened biscuit like it was fairy cake.

"M' chewin'!" she mumbled indistinctly through her overstuffed cheeks.

We spent the rest of the evening getting everyone on the same page about almost everything - including the outline of my past for those who didn't already know it, so that they'd know I'd occasionally need prompting about Faerun-specific knowledge to help inform my tactical choices - as well as brainstorming our next move. With the successes we'd had both with the two young cultists and the goblins in Moonhaven, we were fairly confident that with a little more practice and experimenting we'd have a sufficient grasp on our abilities as 'True Souls' to risk trying to infiltrate the goblin's fortress.

And then the companionable night suddenly turned chill and cold, as a sudden wind from nowhere extinguished our fire.

"Shit!" Karlach said, leaping to her feet and drawing her axe. The rest of us were barely half a step behind her-

"Oh no." Wyll said, as I noticed that he was the only one of us who hadn't drawn his weapon. "She's coming."

We all leapt back as a sudden pool of inky darkness materialized out of nowhere on the ground, ringed by infernal flames, and then a humanoid silouhette rose up out of it and the darkness and flames faded away to reveal a woman - no, a fiend - with a very disturbing resemblance to a Desire demon from Thedas. Her skin was dark blue, not purple, but she had the same seductive figure, the same coquettish mannerisms, and the same leathery batwings.

"Mizora." Karlach spat. "I knew it!"

"Wyll." Mizora said huskily, waving away Karlach's scorn with one negligent flick of her hand. "You've been naughty." she continued in a husky voice, before it turned into an icy storm full of daggers. "And you know what happens when you've been naughty."

"Are you even allowed to walk this freely on Faerun?" I challenged this new devil.

"Oh, I'm allowed." she smiled wickedly at me. "If I've been given a proper invitation. But I'm a very popular woman, and I never lack for invitations." she smirked. "Call me Mizora. I'm Wyll's patron, the fount of his power. But my little pet's been unruly recently-" and she turned back towards Wyll and an invisible pulled him down to his knees, gasping for breath, with a single idle wave of her arm. "And I'm here to give his leash a yank."

"You're either very powerful or about to be very outnumbered." I told her menacingly. "Let him go!"

"What I am, darling, is very prepared." Mizora smirked. "Wyll? Tell your friend what happens to you if you kill me, or if anyone acting on your behalf does."

"The contract... immediate penalty clause." Wyll gasped out. "And I'm damned... to Hell... for eternity."

"You see?" she said proudly. "Any of that oh-so-uncivilized violence, and you'll inevitably lose the very thing that you're trying to save."

"She's not lying." Karlach said. "Any devil's contract is a bad idea to sign, but Mizora's infamous for how twisted hers can get."

"Thank you for reminding me, Karlach. Zariel asked me to give you her regards." Mizora said insincerely, before rounding on Wyll in a sudden fury. "We had a deal, Wyll! But Karlach's still breathing!"

"You told me... devils only!" Wyll angrily fought for breath. "She's a tiefling... not a monster!"

Mizora materialized a scroll in her hands, which she made a show of consulting. "Clause G, Section Nine. Targets shall be limited to the infernal, the demonic, the heartless, and the soulless." Mizora smirked at him as she put the scroll away. "Karlach meets the criteria by way of having a prosthetic heart. So, are you going to live up to your obligations? Or does this need to get messy?"

"You're not laying one finger on either of them." I said evenly.

"Don't worry about Karlach, that particular ship has long since sailed the Styx." Mizora said. "But as for Wyll-" Before any of us could react she raised a hand and unleashed a mystic flare of some type with a single flick of her wrist, and Wyll fell to his hands and knees screaming in agony.

As we all watched, helpless to intervene, Wyll writhed and changed as his flesh was burned with infernal fire, lashed with lightning, and underwent seven other torments as well - nine ordeals, one for each of the Nine Hells. At the end of it Wyll lay weakly on the ground, barely conscious... and with his humanity almost entirely gone, his skin now red, his eyes now yellow, his head now surmounted by two large curling horns as prominent as any of Zevlor's tieflings.

"There you go! Since you sympathize so much with tieflings now then the punishment should fit the crime, hmmm?" Mizora said with false reassurance, before her voice turned bitter with venom. "For a promise broken, a price is paid. And so it always will be. So get used to the new form, pet, because there's no going back. Some magic even I can't undo. And now we'll see how the Frontiers fare when they can no longer recognize their precious Blade." she spat. "Oh, and Wyll?" she smirked down at him again. "Don't forget - our pact still stands. Ta-ta!" she cooed, and with a flash of fire she was gone.

"Are you all right?" Karlach asked Wyll urgently, rushing to kneel over him.

"I'll survive." he said weakly. "I always survive. She'd never kill me just for something like this - that would ruin her fun."

"Shit!" Karlach swore separately. "We just met, and here you've gone and ruined your whole life just to save mine. How the bloody hells do you even begin to pay someone back for that?" she looked up entreatingly at all of us.

"You won't need to." Wyll assured her softly.

Now that the tension of the moment was over, I honestly felt a little ashamed. The instant I'd heard that Wyll had gained his powers by pacting with a fiend I'd been ready to place him in the same mental category as any maleficar or abomination back in Thedas. And then barely a couple hours later I saw what he'd been willing to risk - to suffer - to defy his patron as soon as she'd tried ordering him to do something he felt morally inexcusable. I still felt like he'd done an incredibly foolish thing to sign himself into such an unfair situation, but- I was going to need to learn more before I judged so harshly.

Wyll was as exhausted in mind and body as if he'd been beaten with clubs for several hours, so we didn't weary him with questions or comments. Those could come later, right now he just needed some medical attention and to be put to bed. Our camp broke up into ones and twos, each of us trying to process the latest shocking revelations, and after stopping to make sure Karlach was settled in - we'd scrounged most of the gear and bedroll she'd needed from the supplies of the Zariel cultists after we'd killed them - I went for a last walk around the perimeter before turning in.

And as I came to the quiet edge of the creek my hair stood on end yet again as a certain voice reached my ears out of the darkness, and I realized that in a day already jam-packed with too many surprises the gods had still seen fit to send me at least once more.

"We meet again, as predicted." the ancient lich-thing we'd freed from that tomb in the old chapel greeted me, the impossibly tall and lean silhouette barely distinguishable from any other tree in the darkness. "Now hearken, because I would have words with thee."

---

Author's Note: You actually do run into the Absolute cultists practically on top of the rear exit from the Grove. They really want you to get that encounter early.

Since the game engine compresses distances for gameplay purposes, I re-expand them for story purposes whenever convenient. Otherwise our hapless heroes would be tripping over every new encounter every time they turned a corner. They can only render so much world map, after all.

And so Karlach gets her party membership, because I just didn't have the heart to leave her out of it. Still going to need to wing it a bit on how she fits into the dynamics but hey, this whole story is an exercise in winging it a bit. The BG3 game gives me lots of background to work with and a nice storyline to follow, but I'm the one still going to need to do a lot of improv to keep it from just being a boring game rehash. Those familiar with the game have already seen where I'm starting to step outside the scripted encounters and their scripted outcomes.

Also, good God, replaying the game enough times to catch all the details is time-consuming even with cheat mods to just blow through encounters.

 

[cliffc999]

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"You may call me 'Withers', if you require a name for me." it replied tonelessly.

"Are you with - or are you - the Absolute?" I pressed him.

"No." Withers replied flatly.

"Then what's your angle? Because neither our last meeting or this one is a coincidence - you've already admitted as such." I stated flatly.

"Correct." Withers replied with eerie calm. "As for my purpose, this is not the proper time to speak of such matters. All that I may tell thee at this time is that I intend no harm, and that I wish to be available for whenever thou hast need of my services."

"Everyone!" I called out. "Get over here, we've got a situation!"

It took a bare minute for the still-awake members of the party to hear my call and roust out everyone else - even Wyll, as shaky as he was - and respond. I hurriedly brought them up to speed on what had happened, as well as introducing Withers to those who hadn't seen him before.

"Right, before this goes any further, what the hell are you?" Karlach questioned him. "Be damned if you're any type of undead I've ever heard of."

"There are many answers to that question. None are important." Withers replied flatly.

"We've had a recent object lesson in the unwisdom of accepting 'services' from mysterious otherworldly patrons who don't fully explain themselves beforehand." Gale said, with an apologetic nod towards Wyll. "So what happens if we just politely invite you to offer your services elsewhere?"

"I would wait for thee to reconsider." Withers said calmly.

"What 'services' do you have that you think we'd want?"

"A mending of the threads between life and death." Withers replied softly. "Should thou or any of thy compatriots perish, I would have their soul cleave to their living body once more."

"How you could you possibly offer such magic so casually?" I demanded. "I was told it took tremendous power to even attempt such a feat!"

"Because it is my calling." Withers replied simply. "There is little else to explain."

"And what would be the cost?" I probed suspiciously.

"A simple matter of coin." Withers surprised us.

Shadowheart opened her eyes from where she'd been concentrating intently on Withers. "You- I can sense a divine aspect in you! A reflection of death, eternal and inescapable... were you a Chosen of Jergal?" she asked in awe.

"I shall answer no further questions in that regard." Withers refused her dispassionately.

"A divine champion lies around in a tomb waiting for a meeting with us that was foretold by an 'arbiter of certain matters', and is now offering us his assistance - but only within limited restrictions, and while refusing to explain anything." I thought out loud. "Can you at least answer if you chose this task, or if you were told to do it?"

"Yes." Withers replied calmly.

"... and were you?" I sighed in frustration.

"Yes." Withers paused, and then after delaying just long enough to be irritating he contributed the actual answer. "I both chose this task, and was appointed to it."

"This matter of the 'Absolute'... it's much bigger than even we're afraid of, isn't it? Enough to trouble the very gods themselves." I realized with horror.

Withers remained entirely silent, and then slightly shook his head in negation as I opened my mouth to ask a follow-up question.

"... all right, stick around, and we'll let you know if we ever need your 'services'." I fumed with resignation. "I very much doubt that we could make you leave even if we tried."

"No." Withers agreed with quiet amusement, and then drifted off to a position discreetly near our camp but far enough away to give us privacy.

"All right, gods, is there anything else you've got scheduled for tonight? Hmm?" I quietly ranted up at the stars. "Or can we finally get some sleep now please?"

---

Withers had gone by the time we broke camp the next morning, but we had no doubt that he'd mysteriously be back whenever he felt he was needed... which we all hoped would be "never", or at the very least as infrequently as possible.

While we were making ready to get back on the road Gale took me discreetly aside for a quiet moment, to point out that I'd been overlooking the potential use of the Netherese travelstones. We could have simply warped back to the one nearest the Grove for a safe encampment, and he would have brought that up had he realized that I'd simply forgotten to think in such terms and hadn't actually had a tactical reason for remaining out on patrol. He'd also mentioned that he'd marked and attuned two more travelstones as we'd been marching yesterday; there had been one within Moonhaven, and another one a short distance away from the old tollhouse by the Risen Road. Fortunately, it only took one member of a group to use a travelstone for those in immediate proximity.

"I thought you said these were ancient relics most people didn't even know the significance of, much less could reliably use." I questioned him. "Why are they being found so conveniently near places that we're going?"

"In a word? Geography." Gale lectured. "The Risen Road doesn't date back to the ancient Netherese era, of course, but the land it runs on and the mountains surrounding it certainly do, and both the travelstone's placement and the tollhouse's would have independently followed the same logic - it's a convenient intersection of paths just before the Risen Road starts to enter the nearby mountains. Likewise with Moonhaven's position conveniently near a water supply and with a natural defense of the ravine on at least two sides - there's probably been at least a dozen villages built and then abandoned there over the centuries thanks to the terrain conveniences."

"Makes sense." I said. "And the Moonhaven travelstone will certainly come in handy, because that saves us a lot of walking back in the direction of the old temple the goblins are using as their main lair."

"Do you think we're ready for that?" Gale asked, and I called everybody else over for a quick conference by way of reply.

"Ready or not, we're running out of time." I pointed out. "Kagha's ritual will almost certainly be ready by two days from now, possibly by tomorrow. Plus, it's only logical that new 'True Souls' being assigned to the area would be expected to check in with whoever the Absolute's commanding officer of this region is; assuming that goblin patrol we interrogated has reported our presence, they'll only get more suspicious the later we don't show up."

"I still say that we should prioritize attempting to find my people." Lae'zel said. "The mountain pass where Zorru reported meeting the githyanki patrol is only one or two hours' march down the Risen Road from the tollhouse. We are so close!"

"So close to where some of your people were sighted days ago." Shadowheart pointed out archly. "It's a cold and uncertain trail. We know where the goblin fortress is."

"Yet we do not know what we will find there." Lae'zel argued heatedly. "The creche will have a certain cure!"

"You sure about that?" Karlach broke in. "I mean, you lot told me just yesterday that the tadpoles we've got in our heads are special tadpoles, yeah? Something you githyanki have never heard of before?"

"Valid point." I agreed. "We know Druid Halsin at least has had some opportunity to study these altered tadpoles and is a powerful healer. Your people are much more experienced with regular mind flayer infestations, but there's nothing regular about what's happening with us. Moreover, the initial objection still stands; one of our two choices is on a strict time limit, and the other is on a less strict one."

"I see I am yet again outvoted." Lae'zel groused. "But think. We have tested whether we can infiltrate posing as True Souls. We may even be able to reconnoiter the area, then get out the same way we got in. But can we gamble our lives on being able to assassinate the entirety of the goblin leadership under such circumstances? We need time to reconnoiter, then plan. We cannot just walk in there blind!"

"But the refugees-" Wyll broke off helplessly. "Kagha will have them all thrown out to die soon!"

"Then we need to buy them some time." I said. "That note Shadowheart retrieved from Kagha's quarters - we should check out the location that was marked on it, see if we can find evidence. We can afford to risk part of today doing that much, particularly with the Moonhaven travelstone to cut down our travel time. If this turns out to be an empty lead then-" I paused and continued forebodingly. "Then we face a very unpleasant choice."

Warping back to the village was easily enough done, and while Booyahg Haysa and her squad had moved on since yesterday we ran into another goblin patrol that had stopped here to torment a passing deep gnome they'd caught traveling alone. There were only a few of them, so we settled for the simple approach of slaughtering all the goblins and tossing their bodies into the nearby ravine. The deep gnome, a man named Barcus Wroot, refused our offer of sanctuary in the Grove because he was stubbornly intent on his own errand searching for a missing friend. We pointed him up the road towards the Waukeen's Rest inn and the road to Baldur's Gate and hoped for the best.

The map on Kagha's note led us into an absolutely foul and disgusting swamp - one that someone had rigged with primitive spike traps. We needed one of Shadowheart's healing spells to fix the damage it did to my foot, and after that we moved much more carefully. Things took on an even more menacing air when we stumbled across a campsite containing the corpses of several people who'd been viciously torn apart by some sort of monster, not even a normal animal. Judging by the condition of their cadavers they'd been dead for days. Two more ravaged corpses, dead much more recently, lay adjacent to each other on a side path leading up to an abandoned hut. None of them were intact enough to even think of using the amulet on.

The "swamp-docks" the letter referred to were located south of the hut, but the only tree near it was a large dead stump on a small hillock a ways out in the water. It took a precarious journey across several stepping stones, some of them not even visible below the murky swamp water, to reach it... and the instant we set foot on the hillock, we were set upon.

"Swamp demons!" I cried, as the very mud suddenly rose up and took shape as small winged figures of malevolence, all fangs and claws. and came hissing at us. We were up to our ankles in mud and stumbling over thorny, twisty vines as well, so despite outnumbering the demons we still were vulnerable and unable to maneuver.

"Demons tend to be a little bigger than that, soldier!" Karlach called cheerfully as she split one with her axe - and then cursed manfully when it exploded in her face with a burst of scalding mud as it died. "Ow!" she cried. "These damn things are flying suicide bombs!"

We fell back as much as we could, given that the muck and vines were severely hamping our mobility, but several more of the mud demons screeched and flew forward to attack much faster than we could retreat. Wyll struck the one flying towards him down with his eldritch blast, detonating it at a safe distance, but more were following right on its heels.

"Earthshaker!" I cried, letting everyone know to brace themselves against impact as I focused my internal energy into a Tremor Strike and slammed my greatsword into the earth, releasing a pulse that sent the charging mud demons flying back and knocking them out of the air. "Gale, burn them!"

Gale cast his Burning Hands spell right on cue, and the magical cone of fire swept out over the mud demons while they were still stunned. We all ducked for cover as they exploded, the multiple splashes of hot bursting mud just far enough away not to reach us. The collateral damage of their multiple dying explosions actually took out one more of their compatriots, but a surviving one several dozen feet away from us screeched and then raised a claw which glowed with mystic force, and the mud beneath its feet roiled as it summoned another of its kind.

"I think not." Lae'zel spat, and began firing at it with her shortbow. Shadowheart followed up with a Flame Bolt cantrip, and they staggered it enough for the rest of us to also switch to missile weapons. The last of the mud demons finally died after we gave it several volleys. The pair of lumbering plant demons that came around the tree just as we'd finished killing their skirmishers fortunately proved very vulnerable to fire as well as not detonating in a take-you-with-me blast when they died, and our two spellcasters both had Flame Bolt cantrips they could freely cast as well as my fiery greatsword and Karlach's infernal flames trick.

"Are you all right?" I asked Karlach.

"Eh, just some bruises." she shrugged it off. "Good thing they didn't blow up on one of you, though, or Shadowheart would be treating burn victims right now. That mud was boiling." she explained as she unconcernedly toweled it off.

"Just how fire resistant are you?" Wyll asked her wonderingly.

"If a wizard smacked me with a Fireball then I'd still hurt some, but normal flame and heat basically doesn't bother me any more." Karlach replied. "Side effect of this damn infernal engine they shoved in where my heart's supposed to be."

"Mizora mentioned something like that last night." Wyll said. "Sounds like there's a story there."

"More like a problem, honestly." Karlach said. "But unless you've got a chunk of infernal iron handy and a master smith who had training in arcane mechanisms in Hell, not much you can do about it. Damn thing's been running in overdrive ever since I left Avernus. That's why I'd raise burns on anyone who touched my bare skin; I used to be able to throttle it down far enough to interact normally, but now I'm lucky my armor's not catching fire."

"Mud mephits. Wood woads. Both perversions of druidic magic." Gale had been analyzing the fallen monster remnants at the same time the other two had been talking. "Kagha's note has certainly led us to something suspicious."

"This isn't a natural formation." Shadowheart looked carefully at what few parts of the ground were barely visible underneath the thick mud. "It looks like a ritual platform of some kind - like one that you'd find in a druidic sanctuary, but after having been abandoned to decades of rot and ruin."

"The note mentioned a tree." I said, nodding towards the giant dead stump in the center of the muddy platform, and we all moved to look at it more closely. After more than a couple minutes we finally turned up a small wooden box tucked discreetly away into a crevice of the tree, safely clear of the water and very discreetly out of view to any but the most dedicated searcher. In the box was a letter that read:

Kagha;

Olodan has sent word of your progress; I am pleased that the Rite of Thorns has begun. I depart soon from Cloakwood to Baldur's Gate. Should you need further aid from my circle, now is the time to ask.

Once cloistered, the Emerald Grove will be the Shadow Druids' domain, and you its First Druid.

In Faldorn's memory,
Archdruid Aelis

"Shadow Druids!" Shadowheart exclaimed, before smiling with satisfaction. "Well, so much for Kagha. All we need to do is show this to the other druids and they'll be fighting for places in line to tear her apart."

"You're not wrong." Wyll agreed. "Remember how I said that most druids tended to focus on nature's more nurturing aspects? The Shadow Druids are their dark mirror; their chosen aspect is the hostility of nature to man, the savagery of tooth and claw. All life in a bloody struggle to survive against all other life, with strength as the only virtue and weakness as the only sin."

"That certainly fits Kagha's xenophobia and obsessive desire for isolation and power." I agreed. "Right, we need to-"

"My, my." an elegantly cultured voice interrupted us, and we all spun around in shock to see a swarthy, almost excessively handsome man incongrously dressed in silk finery worthy of the richest noble looking at us all with a sharp-edged smile. "What manner of place is this, I wonder?" he continued with a dramatic flourish worthy of Wyll at his hammiest. "A path to redemption, or a road to damnation? Hard to say... for your journey is just beginning."

I immediately noted that the mud wasn't sticking to his shoes or spattering to his clothes, and that he was walking over the entangling vines as if they weren't there. As if his mysterious approach out of nowhere hadn't already given away that he was no normal man-

"Who the hell are you?" I said roughly.

"Well met!" the man replied cheerfully, with a mocking little bow. "I am Raphael. Very much at your service."

A brief glance at the rest of the team showed clearly in their facial expressions that they were all exactly as wary of this new, mysterious arrival as I was. "To borrow a phrase, what happens if we just politely invite you to offer your services elsewhere?" I continued.

Raphael chuckled richly. "Of course, of course! This... quaint little scene is decidedly too middle-of-nowhere for our conversation. Come."

And with a flare of magic suddenly the entire world shifted around us, as the swamp and muck faded away to be replaced by a large round chamber with a vaulted roof over twenty feet high, its walls paneled in red silk and hung with gold-framed portraits. The furnishings were of a quality at least matching those in Empress Celene's palace in Val Royeaux, and the round table in the center of the chamber was covered with silver and gold dishes all holding a feast of food worthy of her table. I even faintly heard some softly menacing organ music playing slowly in the background.

I froze in terror as I knew, I somehow knew that this was no illusion. If we had been back on Thedas I'd have said without hesitation that Raphael had brought us through a rift into the Fade - as is, the planar travel magics used on Faerun were an analogue-

"There!" Raphael finished boastfully. "Middle of somewhere."

"Lady of-" Shadowheart cut herself off. "Where are we?!?"

"The House of Hope." Raphael said boastfully. "Where the tired come to rest, and the famished come to feed - lavishly." He waved his hand at the table. "Go on, partake! Enjoy your supper! After all..." He leaned in meaningfully. "... it might just be your last."

"Boss?" Karlach said fearfully. "We're in the bloody Nine Hells, I can feel it!" She punctuated her last remark with a thump of one fist on her chest. "He took us back down there just with a snap of his fingers!"

I looked back at the - not a man, but something at least as formidable as a Pride Demon, I was certain - and concentrated as hard as I could on reaffirming my mind, shielding it, breaking any glamors he might have had over his appearance-

"Now, now." Raphael said to me with a gentle wag of one finger. "There's no need to be impolite. But you are correct in that the one thing that's better than a devil you don't know-"

And we all stepped back a pace as Raphael assumed his true form in a burst of flame. A pair of leathery wings shot from his back, his swarthy skin turned redder than Karlach's, and a majestic pair of horns jutted from his head as he loomed a head taller over us. A sense of infernal power far stronger than the cambions I'd seen onboard the nautiloid, stronger even than Mizora's, radiated from him as he dropped his guise.

"-is a devil you do." Raphael gestured expansively. "Now am I a friend? Potentially. An adversary? Conceivably. But a savior? That's for certain."

"What makes you think we need saving?" I temporized.

"Come now." Raphael sighed dramatically. "Why play hard to get? We both know how deep in you all are over your tadpoled heads. Two tenants per skull, and no solution in sight." He spread his hands entreatingly. "But I could fix it all, just like that." he finished with a dramatic snap of his fingers.

"No." I said adamantly, not even bothering to get the sense of the group on this one. "No deals, no pacts, no exchanges. Now put us back."

"So stubborn." Raphael gave a faux-pout. "People like you so often are. But I would like to believe that you'll change your minds... while they still remain your minds." He declaimed oratorically, complete with classical gestures. "Very well, try to cure yourselves! Shop around! Beg, borrow, and steal! Exhaust every possibility until none are left." He finished with a menacing smile. "And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair, then that's when you'll come knocking at my door. Hope!" he laughed mockingly. "Hahahahaha! Such a tease."

"I said no. Now put us back," I repeated. "And after that, we never want to see you again."

Raphael chuckled. "All those pretty little symptoms - sundering skin, dissolving guts, your very thoughts and memories being warped into an eldritch monstrosity until the very concept of yourself no longer remains - they haven't manifested yet, have they? One might say that you've had all the luck so far." His orator's voice dropped into a calm, quiet intonation that was honestly more frightening than most of what he'd tried so far. "I'll be there when it runs out."

And in-between eyeblinks, the House of Hope vanished to be replaced by the stinking swamp.

"Bloody Hells!" Shadowheart ranted. "Literally! Just when I think we're beginning to get a handle on our dilemma, another devil shows up!"

"You did well not to listen to his temptations." Wyll assured me. "You already know my experience with infernal pacts; no matter how tempting the offer, no matter how desperate your need, they'll always take more. You go in thinking you'd be willing to trade everything... and then you find out you've traded everything."

"Fuck me." Karlach shook her head miserably. "I didn't even know they could drag us back down there like that. Thought it was against the rules of the gods. When can I expect Zariel to show up herself and just put the arm on me?!?"

"Likely never." Gale reassured her. "Raphael almost certainly was able to do that because he didn't actually intend us any immediate harm and didn't refuse to send us back when we asked him to. Simply a temporary visit, for purposes of diplomacy." Gale analyzed. "Still, that was a very disquieting experience. But also perhaps an opportunity."

"Are you an idiot?" Lae'zel glared at him.

"No, no, hear me out." Gale said. "Of course he'll be deceptive about the terms, do his best to ensure an absolutely ruinous exchange rate, try to get us to damn our souls for eternity, all of that. He's a devil, that all goes without saying. But am I the only person who is curious about exactly why he showed up?"

"I was stuck on the part where figuring out why he was talking to us was a far lower priority than figuring out how to get him to shut up and leave." I answered flatly. "Karlach, as the member of the group who actually lived in Hell, have you ever heard of this Raphael before?"

"Nope." she shook her head. "Then again, it's not like I saw much of Hell except Zariel's retinue and the frontlines of Avernus. There's eight other layers of Hell he could possibly be from, let alone parts of Avernus I never saw. But wherever he's from, he's definitely no pushover."

"Indeed." Wyll agreed. "Mizora could take me from Faerun to Avernus - that's how I entered there originally, when she set me on Karlach's trail - but not remotely as casually or easily as Raphael did it to all of us. He's a powerful devil indeed."

"He did seem powerful, and very knowledgeable about our problem." Shadowheart mused. "Do you think he was also correct about our having no other option but to turn to him?"

"The only way we can know that for certain is to exhaust every other option first." I said. "We are not dealing with that devil, end of sentence."

"Good." Shadowheart sighed relievedly. "That's what I wanted to hear from you. Raphael was being very clever with how he stoked fear and wielded temptation. You don't really need a scourge or a rack to break people; prolonged fear and self-doubt are sufficient. By the time the actual pain starts the anticipation's been so great that the victim's already done all the heavy lifting for their torturer. " She shook her head resolvedly. "There were no right answers with that devil. He was just toying with us - trying to soften us up for later."

"I did not realize that you were so... well-versed in mental and emotional torment, Shadowheart." Lae'zel looked at her warily.

"And aren't you glad that I am?" Shadowheart replied cheekly. "It's an effective trick. Watch out for it - and for Raphael."

"Psychology or not, there's also the logistics of the situation." Gale insisted. "Why would a devil like Raphael bother with a small group of people trudging through a swamp? Why would he offer so insistently to take our tadpoles away? If he just wanted tadpoles to study, there's any number of Absolute cultists running about. They wouldn't even have to be willing - we saw that their tadpoles pop right out of their heads when they die, and he could easily hire some people to hunt down cultists like Zariel hired those warlocks to go after Karlach. Which logically suggests that it's not the tadpoles he's interested in... but what we'd pay him to get rid of them."

"Our souls." Wyll said flatly. "No."

"I don't think so." Gale replied. "Your soul is already contracted to another, and he would have known that, wouldn't he?" I saw Wyll's eyes widen in realization. "And yet he included you in the deal he was offering by implication anyway. No, Raphael wants something else from us. Or possibly needs something else from us. And depending on how badly he needs it, then we might be the ones with the superior bargaining position after all."

"Well, you certainly don't lack for ambition." I said to Gale. "But traditionally, trying to beat a devil at their own game is one of the fastest ways to lose."

"I don't think there's going to be anything traditional about our situation." Gale replied. "And I entirely agree with remaining cautious for now. But let's not be focused so greatly on what we think is happening that we overlook what might be happening, all right?"

"For right now, let's get out of this damned swamp." I said. "Because we've got a traitor to expose."

---

After taking a short rest and making some preparations, we went and brought Zevlor up to speed on what we'd discovered. We couldn't hope to get any substantial tiefling reinforcements past the druids guarding the inner sanctum, but Zevlor armed and armored himself up and came along with us. Telling the guard that we were bringing Zevlor with an offer for Kagha got us all inside the sanctum.

"-and we might as well have lied down and told them to take advantage of us!" a querulous voice was arguing as we proceeded into the underground antechamber.

"The thief was caught. And Grove law was enforced." Rath - the same senior druid who'd been trying to reason with Kagha when she wanted to imprison Arabella over the idol theft - said in reply.

"You call that complete failure of a punishment 'enforcement'?" the druid - as we came into the chamber we saw it was a gray-haired 'halfling', as I'd been told his race was called - confront Rath, hands indignant on hips.

"Enough!" Kagha said imperiously as she swept into the chamber. "Zevlor, you demanded this meeting. Now know that if you intend to say anything but that you are ready to depart, this conversation will be a very short one. I will listen to no more of your pleadings and excuses!"

"Scheduling conflict?" I confronted her as we all spread out.

"Too busy making time to listen to Shadow Druids before hearing anyone else, perhaps?" Zevlor joined in.

"Shadow Druids?" Kagha said, taken aback. "You- is this your ploy? To sow division and weaken us? Druids! Hearken to-"

I drew the letter from my belt pouch. Kagha instantly fell silent, her face turning pale as milk, as soon as she glimpsed the seal on the letter next to the Archdruid's signature - the symbol of the Shadow Druids. "Here." I said, handing it to Rath. "This is the proof."

"Kagha!" he swore vehemently. "You would invite the Cloakwood here? Have you gone mad?!?"

But before she could reply, two more halflings and a dwarf suddenly appeared as they released their own druidic shapeshifting - apparently they'd been hiding near Kagha's feet as some animals too tiny to spot, such as mice - and drew into close formation near Kagha. These newcomers were dressed much like the druids of the Grove, only with their visages scarred and streaked with mud and paints like Chasind barbarians as opposed to the Grove's civilized neatness.

"That damned nose of yours has gone poking into our business!" the dwarf who was the apparent leader of this group of Shadow Druids glared lethally at us.

"Mistress Olodan!" Kagha said frantically to the dwarf. "I can explain!"

"Sssh, no need." Olodan repled reasonably. "It couldn't be helped."

"Kagha, what is the meaning of this?" Rath demanded.

"Halsin was weak, Rath! His decisions led him to his death and brought us to the brink of ruin! But in the shadows we are strong! We are safe! There is no other way!" Kagha turned on him passionately.

Olodan sneered contemptuously at the several other druids of the Grove who were beginning to gather around. "You all let Halsin invite untouchables into your midst. You defiled the Grove for the sake of 'harmony'."

"And who among you truly disagrees, in your heart?" Kagha orated to her followers. "Who among you would see this Grove in ruins?!?"

"You can either join the true way, or be cast out with the rest." Olodan said to the other druids firmly. "Kagha? It's time to burn out the rot in this grove. You can start with these snitches." she nodded towards us.

"Counter-offer." I said calmly. "Leave here and take Kagha with you. Go back to your Cloakwood in peace and leave the Emerald Grove to its rightful keepers."

"You would doubt my power?" Olodan spat back angrily. "Mother Earth, hear me-!" she began to roar... before the words vanished right out of her mouth. Gale had been supposed to wait for my signal before casting his Silence spell on Kagha, but apparently he'd found the straight line that Olodan had just handed him to be irresistible. Honestly, I didn't blame him.

The spell of silence Gale used had enough of a radius that even though it was centered on Kagha, it had also encompassed the several Shadow Druids standing in close formation about here. Fighting four experienced druidic spellcasters in close quarters would have been a challenge, especially given that we couldn't be certain of how some of the Grove druids would have responded. But without the ability to incant they couldn't use most of their spells, and that left them dressed in robes and armed only with clubs versus our entire frontline of fully-armed and armored veterans. Olodan managed to shapeshift into a man-sized wolverine before we reached her, but Karlach and I tanked her from the front and battered her down. Zevlor went straight for Kagha, and Lae'zel and Wyll dealt with her flankers. Shadowheart and Gale stayed back, so as not to get caught in the silence-spell themselves, and guarded our backs against any possible other sympathizers among the druids. And soon enough, the entire distasteful business was over.

"I cannot believe it." Rath said regretfully as we treated our wounded and buried the dead. A couple of the other druids - including the halfling that Rath had been arguing with, whose name I never got to learn - had indeed tried to support Kagha, but our reserve element and the loyalist druids had dealt with them. "That the Shadow Druids could get such inroads even into here-"

"Scavengers, just taking advantage of your already being overextended versus another crisis." I reassured him. "After this failure, and the losses they took, I doubt the Shadow Druids will throw good money after bad."

"Likely not." Rath agreed. "But we lost our First Druid and his replacement. Even if I immediately send for aid from the rest of the Emerald Enclave, it will be some time before they reach us. And I don't have the power that Kagha had, let alone Halsin."

"And even without Kagha demanding we leave immediately, the goblins are still only growing stronger with time." Zevlor agreed. "Your exposing Kagha has bought us some more time to prepare, but hasn't solved the main problem we contend with."

"Yes." I agreed. "But without her interference then your people, the Grove, and my team can finally all work together to try and address it. That's one of the reasons I made her takedown such a priority in the first place."

"Then you have a plan?" Rath asked.

"The outline of one, at least." I said. "If Halsin is still alive he won't be for much longer. Furthermore, as Zevlor so aptly pointed out, the goblins are mustering more and more of their kind from the nearby mountains and into the Cult of the Absolute with each passing day. In addition to that the danger of their scouts locating the Grove is also pressing, and only increases with time. So whatever we do, we can't waste a moment seeing it done."

"Even if we both mustered everyone we could, we still wouldn't have enough strength to assault the goblins in their fortress." Zevlor said.

"No." I agreed. "But that's not what I'm intending."

We all spent the rest of the early evening finalizing our plans, then adjourned for dinner. The Grove and the tieflings would be fully mobilized by next morning and just waiting for our word. Our party would spend several hours sleeping and refreshing our energies and our spells, and then set out shortly after midnight. With the Moonhaven travelstone available to take us most of the way to the goblin fortress we could reach it several hours before dawn, and with our tadpoles to gain us entry we could enter and gather the information necessary to do any last-minute refinements to our plan.

And after some quick researches in the druid's library, I invited Shadowheart out with me for a quiet walk on our beach.

"You worship Shar, don't you?" I asked her softly, once we were in private.

"As I said. Insufferable." she glared at me darkly. "How did I give myself away this time?" she moaned.

"You didn't really." I consoled her. "On Thedas there's only one religion and one god for all known human cultures - the Chantry, and our worship of the Maker - so it's nothing unusual for people to hardly ever name their god in conversation, because who needs a name when you've only got one of something? And while Thedan elves are pantheonic I didn't grow up among them, so I don't consider things in those terms unless I make a conscious effort to. So it took me a while, and exposure to another congregation of the devout like the Grove, before I realized that a priestess who never once actually proselytizes about or even mentions the deity she worships was an unusual thing by Faerunian standards. And once I realized that, I went researching local religions in the Grove's library. At which several point other clues - your particular education in the psychology of torment, your fondness for darkness, even when you joked that you weren't a particular fan of moonlight - all added up."

"I don't believe it." Shadowheart kicked a rock and chuffed. "You're saying that my very diligence towards Shar's tenets of concealment is what caught me out as one of her worshippers? Secrecy is supposed to be our shield, not our vulnerability!"

"As a good friend once taught me, the problem with even the most excellent tradecraft is that it looks just like tradecraft." I told her. "Which means it's excellent at keeping people from suspecting in the first place, but once they become suspicious anyway it just becomes another set of clues."

"Damn." she swore, before looking at me worriedly. "Is this... going to be a problem?"

"What I read didn't make Shar sound very salubrious." I agreed with her. "But that was just what I read. I've been in Faerun barely half a week by this point, and the sum totality of Shar worshippers I've met is you. And all you've done is be a loyal, supportive friend - and very easy to talk to. I'm not going to suddenly ignore all that simply because of your goddess."

"Thank you." Shadowheart said relievedly. "Because it isn't just because we're all sworn to secrecy from believers in other gods that I keep it under wraps. Shar worshippers tend to draw a lot of disapproval - especially in areas where Selunites are dominant, like this one used to be." She shuddered. "The village of 'Moonhaven' was even named after her, it was originally founded by a colony of her devout."

"Selune the moon goddess, twin sister to Shar and her eternal rival." I stated, so that Shadowheart would know that I already knew the short version.

"'Rivalry' is a drastic understatement." she agreed. "It's very often a summary execution offense to be caught out as a Sharran priestess amongst Selunites." she entreated me.

"Or the reverse?" I asked her intelligently.

"... sometimes, yes." she reluctantly conceded. "Although I've never seen it happen- I don't think." she trailed off.

"You don't think?" I queried. "Whether or not someone's been killed in front of you is usually a question with a definite answer."

"As I said, one of Shar's prime commandments is secrecy. We're forbidden to reveal that we're Her worshippers - I'm only talking with you about it because you already knew. It's an offense against the Lady of Loss to reveal anything that could be used to hurt the church. Which had a certain obvious implication when we were sent out on a mission against githyanki and illithids... one of whom have psionic adepts, and the other of whom are an entire psionic race." She shook her head. "I had my memories sealed as a precaution against being caught and telepathically interrogated. They'll only be unsealed at the completion of my mission."

"Your own memories?" I looked at her in shock. "That's- that's a little extreme, don't you think?"

"It's not ubiquitous even amongst Sharrans, but it's hardly unheard of." she said. "The wrong secret revealed at the wrong time can be the doom of an entire congregation, even an entire strategic campaign. Her most devout are willing to risk a great deal in Her service, and I'm no exception." She smiled at me reassuringly. "Don't worry. It was entirely willing on my part, and it's reversible."

But if they have the power to manipulate your memories like that, how could you know whether you were truly willing or not? Or if they could actually give those memories back intact? I burned with the need to ask those questions... as well as the knowledge to not even bother trying. Trying to directly challenge Shadowheart's beliefs at this point would only shatter what measured amount of trust we'd managed to build over the past several days. Whatever else could be said about her, it was absolutely plain that she was a woman of the most deeply-held and sincerely passionate convictions.

Just like Merrill had been.

"I'm certainly not one to disregard the power of faith." I replied. "But I also like to know - and remember - exactly what I'm getting into."

"And I entirely don't blame you." Shadowheart said agreeably. "The path of Shar is a very... rigorous one to walk. I can't pretend that She doesn't ask a great deal of me sometimes, or that some things haven't been... difficult." She squared her shoulders and continued more firmly. "But her church are the ones who took in a helpless starving orphan - a little girl who was easy prey for everyone and who didn't know how to look further ahead than her next meal. They gave me a home, gave me a purpose, taught me the strength to defend myself and shield my comrades-in-arms - I owe Her everything. And so in Her service I will give Her all that I possibly can."

"Even if it leads to tragedy?" I asked her.

"Life is tragedy." she replied matter-of-factly. "Oh, not always, but far too often, and almost always entirely out of our control. Just look at the tadpoles in our heads right now." she tapped one finger on her temple. "But where you can't defend then you must withstand, and having a cause, a principle, a faith to anchor yourself with is the greatest aid to endurance you can have. A person can endure almost any amount of suffering... provided that it has meaning." she trailed off softly.

"I can't argue that." I reluctantly agreed, thinking back on my own life. "But let's just hope we can do more defending - or avoiding - then withstanding in the future."

"I'll certainly drink to that." Shadowheart agreed cheerfully. "So... not a problem then?"

"Perhaps a minor one," I surprised her. "But not because I'm harboring misgivings. I was just thinking that if I could figure it out, how long will it take one of the others to do the same? I'm sure Gale at least is enough of a scholar to work it out, and we've already seen how he likes to analyze things. We might want to think of a way to break it to the group gently, before it drops at the worst possible time in the worst possible way. Particularly given that we're already keeping one secret from them." I gave a meaningful nod towards her belt pouch.

"There are exceptions to the tenets of secrecy - if urgent necessity requires." Shadowheart agreed. "I'll sleep on it."

"Speaking of which, we'd better all sleep on it." I agreed. "You and Gale need to recover your spells, and then we've got to reach the goblin fortress before dawn."

---

We rested, we prepared, and then we warped to the Moonhaven travelstone and prepared to travel into the belly of the beast.

"Are you all right?" I noticed Shadowheart shivering slightly on our arrival.

"Of course I'm all right." Shadowheart said acidly. "I'm only about to walk into a horde of goblins who are all camped in a former temple of that moon witch-"

"If you don't want to give yourself away to everyone else, perhaps ease back a bit on using that particular phrase." I reminded her.

"Right." she nodded. "I just- sorry." She shook her head. "Every time I even think about Selunites, it makes me twitch."

"Well let's hope that twitch doesn't get worse when we head into those ruins. We can't afford any woolgathering with stakes like these." I said.

"Right." Shadowheart agreed. "I'll do my best."

It took us less than an hour's march to reach the old temple complex, and the sentries there snapped to attention and passed us through the instant we proved ourselves as True Souls. We quietly walked through the sleeping camp, where only a few goblins were awake for the midwatch and the rest passed out cold - judging by the smell of rotgut and the copious leavings scattered around, they were mostly drunk and stuffed from a great feast that had been held earlier tonight.

"Goblins only hold a feast like this when they're celebrating a battle victory." Wyll said worriedly. "But we know they didn't attack the Grove, so where were they?"

"Focus on the task." Lae'zel urged him. "We are reaching the moment of greatest risk."

"Look, another travelstone!" Gale said, noting the presence of one in the inner courtyard. "Now there's a stroke of luck for us." he said as we attuned it.

The door into the temple proper was guarded by a fat, sleepy ogre - who as it turned out were barely half the size than the darkspawn's living siege engines called 'ogres' back in Thedas, even if that still left them half again as large as a man - and another goblin-ish humanoid called a 'bugbear', who was apparently the ogre's handler. Questioning the bugbear revealed the knowledge that two prisoners had been taken during the intrusion into the temple a couple days ago - Halsin and one of Aradin's surviving men - and that they'd both been sent to the torturers.

"Two days and more of torture by goblins." Shadowheart said flatly as we entered the temple, her concentration and mental focus back to full even though we were now standing in what had once been a Selunite temple. "An elder druid would have his magic to possibly sustain him, but the other fellow?" She shook her head sadly.

"If he hasn't cracked by now - and we know he hasn't, because the Grove is safe - then he's almost certainly dead." I agreed.

"Focus." Lae'zel hissed, and we entered the main antechamber. At this hour, it was empty except for a few sentries.

"The first decision point." Wyll said. "Try to assassinate the goblin leaders ourselves in their sleep, or go with the primary plan?"

"According to the gate guard we questioned this fortress has other 'True Souls' to command it." I spoke softly as we stepped into a corner where the sentries wouldn't be curious about us stopping for a chat. "That drow matriarch Minthara we heard of as overall commander, a hobgoblin warlord named Dror Ragzlin who was second under her and the goblins' field commander, and Priestess Gut, an old and powerful goblin shaman who does all that you'd expect of a chief shaman in a tribe. If we go with plan A we can kill two of them away from here, but Gut will be left holding down the fort with the main body. And we need to remove all the leadership before the horde will splinter."

"But precisely because she's the one left to guard the base, she won't be mustered with the rest if we do plan A." Shadowheart said. "Murder her in her sleep and hide the body? They'll be curious about her missing, but it's very unlikely they'll stop to put everything on hold when facing the opportunity we'll give them."

"We'll try checking on Halsin first." I decided, and we marched off to the pens they used to hold their monster-wolves where they'd also apparently locked him up. A brief stop in a room off the main antechamber produced the depressing sight of a young man's corpse strapped to a rack, his wounds bespeaking of all the agony the goblin torturers had inflicted on him.

"He's barely cold." Wyll said, touching him. "He only died several hours ago. Two days he lasted under this, and he still never gave up the location of the Grove - or else we'd have met the goblin army coming down the path as we were coming up." He whistled in awe. "He died this hard, to save the lives of people he didn't even know and who would have thrown him out. This boy was a hero."

I turned away from the body, my jaw clenching tight. If we'd only come even a little earlier, we could possibly have-

"Keep moving." I growled. "We don't have much time."

We arrived at the worg pens to find a bloodied, much-wounded bear having an uneasy, fitful sleep. The several night guards on the pens acknowledged our authority as True Souls and stood aside, and Gale cast a quick cantrip to detect magic and determine that the 'bear' was indeed a shapeshifted druid.

"Halsin?" I whispered to him quietly. "Nettie sends her regards."

The bear's head suddenly came up and regarded us suspiciously. "Can you talk in that form?" I continued.

A headshake. No.

"We're going to get you out of here, but you absolutely must stay quiet no matter what you hear." I insisted. "We talked our way into this fortress by deception, and if you blow the gaff-"

A snort. Halsin visibly didn't believe a word of what we're saying.

"I don't blame you." I agreed. "But hopefully we'll soon prove our bona fides. You lot, get over here!" I raised my voice enough to be heard by the goblins in the room, but not be heard outside it.

"Wot you be needin', sir?" the one goblin asked as him and his two fellows drew up alongside us - right before Lae'zel spitted him through the lungs from behind. The rest of them hit the floor alongside their boss barely a second later.

The 'bear' shapeshifted back into a very large and muscular half-elf; not quite Karlach sized, but a little burlier than even me. "This could still be a trick." the wounded and bloodied Halsin said. "Minthara would gladly sacrifice a few goblins to convince me."

"Minthara's the one we're going to be tricking." I said, and we introduced ourselves. "Oh, and Rath said to tell you that 'the wolf rune opens the way'."

"That proves you are indeed working with the Grove." Halsin relaxed, as Shadowheart finished finding the key on one of the dead guards and unlocked his cage.

"Karlach, find somewhere to stuff those bodies into that they won't be found. They've got the wrong wounds on them for what we're setting up." I ordered. Wyll gave Halsin several of the healing potions that we'd brought from the Grove for the contingency of having found prisoners who were too badly wounded to move.

"You obviously have a plan. What is it?" Halsin asked, and I brought him rapidly up to speed. He was visibly shocked at some elements of it, but was an intelligent enough man to see the necessity - as well as the opportunities, after I explained them.

"You being alive and able to move is a bonus." I finished, "because it means you can take out Priestess Gut while we're busy with the other two. I've seen how easily a druid can get around inconspicuously in mouse form."

"It's not usually the sort of shape I take, but you're right enough there." Halsin agreed. "I'm still nowhere near back up to full strength after what they've done to me, even with your healing magic, but I can certainly slay an elderly goblin or two. Just tell me where her quarters are and I'll see it done." He continued more ruefully. "I'm sorry to hear about that boy Liam. He was a brave soul, and he died to save my people."

"Was that his name?" I acknowledged. "I'm glad at least someone will remember him. If only we'd come sooner-"

"'If only' has poisoned more hearts than all the venoms in the world." Halsin said wisely. "He fought bravely and he died well - the gods will reward him as he deserves."

"We're burning moonlight, boss." Karlach reminded us, and I agreed.

"Right, now for the hard part." I said. "Good luck, Halsin."

"You too." he agreed, and with a quick shift of form he skittered stealthily away on little rodent feet. We left the worg pens behind after butchering the worgs kept there as well - if we made the damage look like something he'd plausibly have managed alone, then a discovery of Halsin's "escape" would only help what we were about to do next. And then we went to where one of the sentries told us was Minthara's quarters.

"Arcane eye." Gale muttered as soon he spotted the crystalline orb in question floating silently in the hallway outside her room. "Magical sentry reporting everything it sees and hears to who-knows-where. Good thing we didn't go with the plan where we fought it out here."

"Will it be safe to go near?" I asked him, as we stood watching it from hopefully outside its programmed range of concern

"As long as we just look and act like any other Absolute cultists would." he agreed. "Probably be best to not give it a clear view of our faces, though."

And so we drew up to the door of Minthara's quarters and knocked. An angry-looking goblin servant hissed at us that the mistress was not to be disturbed, only to be swept aside by our imperious 'True Soul' demand that we speak to her at once.

"What is so important that it could not wait?" Minthara demanded angrily, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Clearly a veteran soldier, she was a muscular, middle-aged dark elven woman dressed in some type of magical chain shirt that almost looked like black cloth and armed with a darksteel mace. "And who are you?"

"True Soul Anthor, from Baldur's Gate." I answered her. Her eyes narrowed and a mental spike of power pushed into mine, as she drew upon her tadpole to query me mentally - I focused my will and pushed her back out, but only after concentrating on the mental image of what I wished her to see.

"The Grove!" she hissed. "You found it? You have even been inside?"

"When we came to help search this area I decided that if all your patrols had failed to find the likeliest place the weapon was being concealed by force, then it would be best to try guile." I explained. "It took us over a day to find it even with a rough knowledge of where to search, but when we did find it they took us for an innocent group of adventurers and welcomed us inside. I can give you the entire layout - numbers, defenses, everything except the details of the innermost areas they didn't let visitors see."

"Well done!" Minthara congratulated me. "In the morning I will assemble the troops and we will prepare the attack!"

"Mistress Minthara!" a goblin voice called worriedly from outside the door. "We got a big problem!"

"Speak!" she bit off furiously. "And quickly, or else I'll throw you in the pits!"

The door opened to reveal one of the goblins who'd been doing a roving patrol in the hallways, twisting his hands in a near-panic. I smiled to myself as I realized that the timing was just about to be perfect-

"The druid! He's done and busted out of the worg pens! They's all dead and gone there, and he's vanished!" the goblin explained.

"Shit!" I pounded one fist on my thigh. "You had a druid prisoner?" I asked her.

"We did." Minthara answered grimly. "And apparently we were deceived as to how wounded he really wasn't." She nodded to herself with icy calm, as quickly decisive as any general I'd ever known. "You!" she called to the goblin messenger. "Wake Dror Ragzlin immediately, and tell him to muster his warbands at once!" and they took off running.

"There's only one place the druid would be going." I nodded to her.

"Agreed." Minthara nodded back. "Which is why we'd best forget waiting for morning - the time to attack is now."

---

Author's Note: And now we get into the fun part for an author; dropping hints in the text that only make sense to people spoiled on the game.

'Withers' actually is Jergal, which is precisely why resurrection magic is so easy and cheap for him - he's literally the God of Death.

The goblin camp has gone completely off-script from the game, of course - you can't remotely do half of this stuff due to the limitation of the game engine. But that's another part of what makes writing these stories fun for an author - getting to mix it up.

Also, the pacing of Act One is insane. Depending on which way you go it's entirely possible to get Withers showing up, the Karlach recruitment, the Mizora visit, and the Raphael confrontation all on the same day - which would be the craziest day ever. And that's precisely what we had. Hell, there's another scripted event that in-game should already have gone off, because it triggers on entering the goblin camp, and I'm deliberately postponing it because we've had enough for this chapter as is.

As is I'm already completely skipping the hag sidequests (as people no doubt guessed when we arrived at the swamp and found it empty of everything except the Kagha message drop and a few left-behind traps) - in this timeline Ethel decided to pick up and move her digs to somewhere else after Mayrina's brothers showed up to annoy her (they were the two fresher corpses the group found), because obviously that meant her current address was getting too exposed.

 

[cliffc999]

"Curse the necessity for this haste!" Minthara swore viciously as we strode through the halls of the ruined temple to the chamber where Dror Ragzlin had set up his own private quarters. "Assembling a force as chaotic as these goblins is not an easy task at the best of times. If I had a day to prepare, I could amass twice the forces we have available now." She turned to me, her eyes narrowing. "You stated that you had scouted the Grove's defenders and defenses. List them for me."

I gave her a mostly truthful account of what she was up against, although everything was carefully understated enough to give as optimistic a picture - from Minthara's point of view - as possible without any blatant lying. "So it depends on the size of your quick-reaction force. Will we have enough to overcome defenses of that magnitude, or do we need to wait for the full host after all?"

Minthara turned away from me and lengthened her stride by way of answer. "Dror Ragzlin!" she called out as we entered his chambers. The hobgoblin warlord was a large red-skinned humanoid, with a face and features that were visibly related to his lesser cousins but twice their size and three times as muscular. "The Grove has been located, but those incompetent idiots in the worg pens let the druid escape! We must move quickly!"

"That druid had been tortured to where he could barely move." Ragzlin growled. "How did he-?"

"Leave that for Gut to determine. We must assemble all available forces and depart for the Grove by first light." Minthara ordered.

"So hasty?" he questioned. "Why not wait until the full horde can be recalled and concentrated? And who are these people?" he looked at us.

"True Soul Anthor, leader of one of the search teams called in from elsewhere to help find the weapon." I introduced myself. "And also, the scouts who found the Grove for you."

"Here." Minthara ordered us, moving over to stand by Ragzlin's map table. "Debrief us both of what you found there, in detail." I did so - fortunately, I'd had enough military experience to be able to make it sound very convincing.

"Hm." Ragzlin rubbed his chin. "I can have at least fifty swords mustered by dawn just from what's within signaling distance of the fortress, and still leave a minimum fort guard behind. Add in several of Gut's apprentices, unless you want to take her along too-"

"No." Minthara said. "Just try to imagine the chaos those idiots would get up to without at least one of us here to properly supervise them."

"Agreed. Your spiders, three of my ogres - pity we lost all the damn worgs in that druid's breakout-" Ragzlin shook his head. "Even with Anthor's party added to ours... against the numbers he described, it'll be iffy. We should wait for the full muster."

"That would give us well over double the swords, but would also give the druids an extra day to prepare." Minthara said. Damn! I didn't want them to actually do the sensible thing, but what could I- I laughed inwardly when I realized that Kagha's treason and stupidity would actually prove useful for once.

"When I was scouting the Grove, several of them were debating the wisdom of casting something they called the 'Rite of Thorns'." I contributed. "Some kind of magical defense, apparently, but I don't know what kind."

"I have heard of it." Minthara swore urgently. "Damn! How long ago did they start the ritual?"

"They hadn't started it, at least not while I was there. They were just debating whether or not to use it. Something about how it would be very expensive and take several days to complete."

"I'm assuming this ritual is not a good thing." Ragzlin asked.

"No." Minthara said. "Should the druids complete it, it would make the Grove impenetrable. And we must presume that the Druid Halsin will order them to begin immediate preparations once he makes it back there. We cannot let them have enough time to finish it!"

"Then the hasty attack it is." Ragzlin nodded resignedly. "But we won't have enough troops to guarantee success in a siege, not against those odds." He looked up at me. "You said you got in once. Can your team get in again, and open the gate for us from the inside?"

"If we can get in, then certainly." I nodded to him matter-of-factly. "But that presumes that this Halsin won't order a lockdown the instant he gets back there. And we can't base the success or failure of the entire plan solely on assuming that he won't."

"You are correct, we cannot." Minthara nodded at me. "Anthor's team will attempt infiltration first, but the sappers will be prepared to blow the gates open for us should that not be an option." she finished decisively.

"Minthara, you know how touchy that stuff is to transport." Ragzlin growled. "I don't even like storing it here."

"Then make sure the goblins carrying it don't all clump together - and don't stand too closely to any of them." Minthara replied with a cold smile.

"As you wish." he nodded. "I'll get out to the main courtyard and start dragging those drunken idiots out of their tents. You can start assembling the spellcasters and the siege engineers." He nodded to us and left.

"Your squad will march with the command group." Minthara ordered us imperiously.

"Of course." I told her. "This is your assigned area of operation - we're just here as support."

"Good." she finished with a cold hiss, and we followed her out of the room.

Ragzlin proved as good as his word and had the entire camp rousted out and assembled in reasonably good marching order by first light. The chaos of the preparations gave us an opportunity to send word back to the Grove - no one would notice the absence of one of our group for a short period of time so long as the rest of us were in plain view, and with a travelstone available both just outside the Grove's gates and in the courtyard here Wyll was able to pop there and back here in just a few minutes. My written message to Zevlor and Rath told them how many troops were marching and what kind, what the intended march route was, our estimated time of departure - and several last-minute refinements I'd cooked up for the plan once I'd known exatly what we were dealing with.

Minthara, Dror Ragzlin, and myself drew up the outline of an attack plan for the Grove based on the information that I'd brought them, and then they briefed the goblin squad leaders. I smiled to myself as I saw the several goblin sapper teams carefully spacing themselves out among the column, and as soon as everyone reported their readiness the march set out.

Minthara ordered us to stick close to her, and so we formed a little command group at the head of the second platoon. The first platoon was being led by Dror Ragzlin, who wanted to remain close to the vanguard. With the worgs dead the usual practice of having the column preceded by mounted scouts was no longer operative, so a sacrificial squad of goblins was being chivvied ahead with Ragzlin and his platoon close enough behind them to keep them from lollygagging but far enough away to not get caught in any ambush they might spring.

"It is a risk, advancing through this territory without any scouts." Minthara said to me as she noted where I was looking.

I nodded but remained diplomatically silent. She considered me carefully through narrowed eyes, and I drew upon everything I had to avoid giving anything away. Maker, that time I managed to convince an entire Carta hit team into sitting down and having tea with me instead was nothing as compared to this.

"You seem very reluctant to contribute." she finally continued.

"What, suggestions?" I answered her. "I didn't think you'd welcome any. You have a very - firm - command style."

"Hrm." Minthara relaxed slightly. "Yes, with rabble such as this, harsh rigor is all they understand. But you are a True Soul, an elite of the Absolute. You should not be so... diffident."

"I hadn't considered the problem that losing all your worgs would pose." I pretended to admit fault. "Without scouts, we should have delayed - tried to sneak through in a night march. As is, we can't possibly search Moonhaven for any observation outposts they left - not on foot - without their scouts having a chance to get away from us." I shrugged. "So if it can't be helped, then we don't even try to. I recommend that as soon as we're safely through Moonhaven we close up the column, started a forced-march, and get to the Grove as fast as we can. Even if they have scouts out, they won't have enough warning to seal off the Grove before we get there."

"You don't think I should use your group to scout ahead?" Minthara probed.

"Do we look like a stealth outfit?" I jerked a thumb at our group, particularly the hulking figure of Karlach and the metal-armored Lae'zel and Shadowheart. "A scout or a rogue is the one type of talent I don't have. We're intended to be dungeon-clearers, a strike team."

"In the Underdark, even the mightiest warriors are expected to also be adept in the shadows." Minthara said scornfully. "Surface ways are crude." she sniffed disdainfully, her apparent suspicions easing off a bit. "Very well - the bold approach it is."

At her order the goblin column stepped up the pace and we double-timed into the ruins of Moonhaven like we were assaulting the breach in a stronghold wall. Squads of goblins ran into and checked the buildings on each side of the path as clear, making sure no ambush forces were hiding within, before Ragzlin ordered the main column to advance through the wet and muddy village square.

"If it's coming, it's coming now." I said tautly, angrily swatting away a fly as I looked up up at the rooftops. Minthara nodded, her hand tense on her own weapon. And one endless moment passed... two... three...

"Nothing." Minthara nodded with satisfaction. "At the trot - ADVANCE!" she bellowed in a parade-ground voice, and the entire column snapped into motion. We picked up the pace to match her jogging stride, Dror Ragzlin closing up on us as the command group preceded the main body across the eastern bridge out of Moonhaven. The Grove lay less than an hour ahead of us-

"What's that?" Shadowheart called out suddenly, looking over the side. "Something's under the bridge!"

"Column HALT!" Ragzlin shouted, as Minthara and we ran over to where she was pointing. The command group was barely a third of the way across the bridge, with the rest of the column strung out behind us and leading back through the town gates.

"I see nothing!" Minthara said, reaching Shadowheart's side and leaning over to look where she was pointing. "What are you-"

And then Karlach shoved Minthara solidly in the back with her full strength, sending the dark elf flying over the bridge's low railing and almost fifty feet down into the ravine.

Ragzlin was fast, his sword already halfway out of his scabbard even before he could finish drawing a breath, but we'd already been moving as soon as Minthara was in position. My greatsword smashed down into his armor right over the collarbone, sending him staggering back with one arm hanging limply loose, and everybody else moved as one.

Our ambush plan had taken a last-minute refinement as soon as I'd smelled the barrels that the sapper teams had been transporting. While they called it 'smokepowder' here on Faerun I was already very familiar with that smell - the qunari had used the alchemical preparation they called gaatlok in their cannons, and in bombs both for siegework and mining. Anders had somehow managed to concoct a crude copy of gaatlok when he blew up the Kirkwall Chantry. And the forces of the Absolute had had a storeroom of it in the ruined temple, multiple barrels of which they'd been packing along in the column for blowing open the gates of the Grove with.

However, the precautions Minthara had used to keep any accident with the smokepowder from destroying all of it - by having the barrels of it each carried separately by widely separated goblins - meant that they were in the worst position to withstand deliberate sabotage and treason. While normally the goblins gave the smokepowder transporters as wide a berth as possible - they were more than familiar with that stuff - the column had been forced to assume a tightly packed formation prepatory to crossing the one bridge leading out of Moonhaven towards the Grove. And so, when Gale fired a simple flame cantrip into the nearest barrel-carrier, it not only immediate killed the ogre transporting it but laid down a blast that cleared out over a dozen goblins around it.

The several druids who'd been carefully prepositioned in Moonhaven, shapeshifted into the forms of cats and small birds and perching on the rooftops of the buildings the goblin flankers had so laboriously swept for intruders, resumed their true forms and all cast the Call Lightning spells they'd so carefully prepared the day before. With the dirt of the village square having been pre-soaked by Create Water spells shortly before our arrival, the effectiveness of the lightning was multiplied severalfold and spread out over a wider area. Almost two-thirds of the goblins in the column fell dead, electrocuted in the very first strike of the ambush - as well as exploded by the detonation of the several other smokepowder caches spaced down the length of the column, as they followed Gale's example and used magic to ignite the barrels the ogres were so laboriously hauling along in back harnesses.

"Now!" I heard Zevlor's voice in the distance, as the tieflings charged in. Since we had bet on Minthara being smart enough to sweep Moonhaven before taking her column through it we'd left them ahead of the line of march, waiting just out of sight from the end of the bridge around the curve of the path. As soon as they heard the fighting start they charged in, and their archers set up a firing line while Zevlor and the several tieflings with actual military experience charged in on foot to help us hold the head of the bridge.

I finished killing Dror Ragzlin with no more than a couple of shallow cuts to show for it - he'd been quite good, but there was only so much you could do with one arm and when caught by surprise - and nodded to Zevlor and the rest of my party. With howling battle-cries we charged back down the bridge as the druids used their lesser magics to harass the goblins, and one of them used a Plant Growth spell to summon a large mass of entangling vines and nettles on the gate leading west out of Moonhaven and back to the goblin fortress. With the goblins bereft of leadership, stunned by the explosions and the sudden deaths of over half their number before they could even fire an arrow back in response, and entirely uncomprehending of why 'True Souls' they'd been told to obey were suddenly aiding their enemies - and with no clear line of retreat out of Moonhaven except south into the swamp or north towards the winding paths we'd used the day before - we slaughtered them almost to a man, with very light casualties ourselves.

"I cannot believe that worked so well." Gale said wonderingly. "There were dozens of them, and yet-"

"We had quite a few advantages you don't normally have in war." I pointed out. "But yes, there is absolutely nothing more devastating then thinking you're the one who is going to surprise the enemy, and then being counter-ambushed at your most complacent."

"Indeed." Lae'zel said admiringly, as she saluted me with her bloodied sword. "Your battle-cunning is worthy of any kith'rak, Hawke. I am honored to have been part of such a crushing victory this day."

"It certainly beats defeat." Shadowheart said agreeably. "But this is only one step towards a greater objective. Come on. I really doubt Minthara got very far - especially considering how roughly I saw her land - but we'd better make certain of that."

Reaching the bottom of the low ravine was easily enough done by taking a side path away from the bridge and switchbacking down a bit, and the limp form of Minthara lying prone on the bank of the creek confirmed the truth of Shadowheart's words - she certainly hadn't walked away from that landing. However, as we drew close we were all taken quite aback to note that despite having fallen over fifty feet down onto dirt and sharp rocks, she was still alive. Both of her legs had been broken in the fall, she almost certainly had spinal damage, and she was coughing up blood from where several broken ribs had been driven into a lung, but she was still conscious.

"Do I heal her?" Shadowheart asked me quickly. "If she's still alive, she can talk."

"Let me die." Minthara coughed weakly, her lips wet and reddened. "... please." she surprised us, the word falling clumsily from her lips as if she had not pronounced it in years.

"No. You are not taking your god's secrets with you." I shook my head. "Shadowheart-"

"The Absolute." Minthara said softly. "The Absolute... is no god."

We all jawdropped at that.

Minthara shocked us by smiling, even if there was a distinct edge to it. "Are you shocked?" she whispered. "You should be... as I was... no!" she gasped urgently, as Shadowheart leaned forward. "My mind is clear... only because... I am dying. If you heal me..." she coughed again. "It will... take me again."

"The True Souls are also being mentally influenced?" I asked her. "Not just the rank and file cultists?"

"Not influenced." she said weakly. "Enslaved. The Absolute's voice... drowning out everything... blinding... when it spoke... we could only believe, only obey-" She looked up at us, her eyes full of a terrible confusion. "How do you... not hear it?" She begged us. "How do you... remain free?"

"We don't know." I told her. "We've never heard any voices."

"Fortune... favors you." Minthara gasped. "I was Minthara, of House Baenre... a noble of Menzoberranzan. The cult of the Absolute sent... missionaries, to our city." Her lip curled scornfully. "I slew them... for preaching their sedition. And then... I led my forces... to Moonrise Towers... to slay those who sent them..." She looked at me. "I remember meeting a goddess' chosen... learning that the Spider Queen was a false god... the true order of the cosmos... a majestic and terrible goddess, choosing me-" She looked up at us desperately. "Those memories... are false." She coughed. "I know not... what truly happened. But I have held the favor of Lolth... and lost it... and with my mind now clear... the Absolute's regard... but a pale imitation..."

"They placed a mind flayer parasite in your brain." Shadowheart said to her. "As they did to all of us. Some sort of delayed ceremorphosis, to create sleeper agents. That is what they did to your mind. That is the truth of the Absolute."

"Thank you... child of shadow..." Minthara smiled at her. "That mystery... would have haunted me."

"How did you-?" Shadowheart asked, shocked.

"I was the Spider Queen's paladin..." Minthara replied knowingly. "I too... can sense the divine. And I have known... your kind before-" she broke off, hacking weakly.

"You don't have long." I said to her. "Start with the most important."

"The Absolute... cannot hear us." Minthara said. "Only... speak to us. It will not know... what you have done here. Unless someone else... brings it word." She lay back, limp from the effort. "The path to Moonrise... leads through the shadow-cursed lands. We used the moon lanterns... for safe passage." Her eyes closed, briefly, then opened again. "There is little else... that I know for certain. The past months... are all blurred now. As if a dream..."

"Thank you." I told her sincerely.

Minthara reached up to weakly clasp my hand. "Lolth... the Absolute..." she said, her eyes now frightened. "One true goddess... and one false... but both discarded me... when I was no longer of use. They have no true followers... only victims... like me." She sighed. "And now, I will die... and no one will remember me."

"We will remember you, Minthara of House Baenre." I promised her, and the rest of us all nodded in affirmation.

"Thank you." she breathed almost inaudibly, before her hand clenched on mine with a horrible spasm. "I could still linger... for a time..." she breathed heavily. "But I... do not wish to. Your mercy... if you would."

I slowly drew my dagger and held it up in front of her eyes, and she nodded. I drew back for the final stroke-

Her eyes never looked away from mine. "Avenge us!" she barked wetly, her final command, and I drove the dagger home.

I sighed. "She was an evil, murdering fanatic... even before she was tadpoled, if what I read about Lolth is correct-"

Shadowheart and Gale both nodded.

"But why do I feel...?" I trailed off, not certain of what I felt.

"Because we were meant to share her fate, and yet we were spared it." Lae'zel said musingly. "And doubt plagues our hearts, as to whether or not we were saved by merit or by mere caprice."

"Shit, my heart's made out of infernal iron and even I teared up a bit." Karlach agreed. "We're... we're not just going to leave her here, are we?"

"No." I resolved. "If the druids won't agree to have her buried in the grove, we'll use the graveyard right here in Moonhaven. Either way, at least she'll have a memorial."

We rigged a litter for Minthara's body and began bearing it up the path. Despite the mournful moment we'd just had, the revelation that the Absolute was merely some type of mind flayer plot and not an actual new god was a comforting one-

-and then if felt as if one of those smokepowder barrels had detonated right between my ears, and I fell to my knees and clutched my head in agony. Around me I could simply see every other member of the party doing the same-

Hear My voice. Obey My command. an imperious female voice rang in our ears without sound. I recognized the same sense of eldritch Authority that I'd projected on others via my tadpole... only infinitely stronger, and now being used to crush me-

The world faded away, leaving me stuck in a dark, featureless void. There was nothing that could be seen, or felt, or heard, or sensed. Just an infinity of blackness, and The Voice.

A dim light made me look up from where I was helplessly prostrate, and I saw the images of three people looming over me. A white-haired elven man in full plate armor, with the broad shoulders and thick-muscled arms of a much younger warrior... a young woman, impossibly pale of skin and eyes, with a disturbing smile and lips the color of blood... and a handsome young nobleman, dressed in foppish finery...

THEY ARE MY CHOSEN. THEY SPEAK FOR ME. the Voice - the voice of the Absolute, I realized with horror - irresistibly demanded, and I felt my soul start to tear apart with the effort of disobeying-

AID THEIR SEARCH FOR THE PRISM, AND YOU WILL BE WORTHY TO STAND ALONGSIDE THEM. IN MY PRESENCE. the Absolute commanded... and I must not... I must not... I... must...

And then a high keening sound, that was not a sound, cut across the blackness and the Voice like a knife. The horrible grasping clutch upon our minds fell away, as if it was never there, and an awareness of the world around us returned to us. We were kneeling on the path, by the stream... next to Minthara's body...

.... and the artifact that Shadowheart had so carefully hidden away, the one that the church of Shar had stolen from the githyanki, was floating several feet off the ground in front of us. The once-silver runes on the polygon were now flaring a briliant fiery orange, with a similarly-colored aura of power surrounding the whole sphere, and we knew - we could sense - that the mysterious force the artifact... no, the Prism... was radiating was what was holding back the power of the Absolute, silencing the voice that Minthara had told us was 'drowning out everything' and 'blinding' her.

The voice that had come within seconds of enslaving us as well, until we'd been saved.

Shadowheart's eyes met mine embarassedly, and as unworthy as it was we couldn't help but share the same thought; at least we didn't have to figure out a way to keep the artifact a secret from the others any longer.

---

Rath, Zevlor, and the party found Halsin waiting for us at a vantage point above the fortress. We'd buried Minthara in the old Moonhaven graveyard before setting out for the ruined temple on foot - we hadn't wanted to use the travelstone because we'd have had no idea what we might be dropping into.

"Halsin!" Rath cried desperately, as he saw the burly form of the First Druid waiting for us at a vantage point above the fortress. "By the Oakfather, it is wonderful to see you alive!"

"And you as well, old friend." he said as they exchanged hugs. "Is the Grove safe?"

"Our new friend's plan worked like a charm." Rath reassured him. "The attack force was crushed. We didn't even have any dead, merely wounded."

"Then you have my eternal thanks." Halsin said, coming over to shake my hand. "The Grove owes you a debt almost beyond measure."

"Priestess Gut?" I asked him.

"Gone to explain her failings to her goddess in person." Halsin reassured me grimly. "I then left her corpse to be discovered and did a couple of other things to sow terror amongst the goblins. They were already halfway to panicking when one of the stragglers from your battle made it back here screaming about how utterly they'd been defeated. All of them packed up and ran for their lives after that."

"Just as we'd hoped." Zevlor agreed. "We confirmed Dror Ragzlin and Minthara both dead as well."

"Then you can search the goblin fortress for clues at your leisure." Halsin said. "But for tonight, I must insist you come back with me to the Grove. We have much to celebrate." His expression turned grim. "But first things first; you came to the Grove for help with your parasites. Let me examine you."

I acquiesced, and after a long searching minute where Halsin probed me with his magic he stepped back with a regretful expression on his face. "As I feared. Nettie was correct; powerful magic was used to alter your tadpoles. Ancient magic of a type I've never seen before. And I-" he coughed. "Am still not at my full strength. To keep me prisoner they weakened me, with exotic venoms and precise tortures. Healing magic has stabilized me, but I dare not exert my full strength until I have had some time to recover."

"Then the Grove is still in danger. Much has come to light since you left-" Rath said worriedly, and then briefly explained all that had gone on with Kagha.

Halsin sighed. "Shadow Druids. And if she were corresponding with the Cloakwood directly, then this must have been going on for much longer than any of us suspected. Certainly well before I ever joined Aradin's expedition to the old temple of Selune. I wonder how she was originally planning to get rid of me, before she rushed her plan towards completion because she thought the Cult of the Absolute had done it for her?"

"Probably why she'd smuggled Olodan and her friends into the Grove." I nodded. "As an assassination team for you, and enforcers to help kill or expel any of the rest who wouldn't go along."

"Almost certainly." Halsin sighed. "But the fact that I missed this... even were I not wounded and weakened, this alone means I could not stay First Druid of the Emerald Grove." He looked at Rath. "When I return, I will send a message to the High Forest, informing them of my decision and requesting them to dispatch a druid with sufficient seniority to replace me at the Grove. Francesca, I think." he said thoughtfully. "I've long admired her wisdom, and her lack of ties with anyone local will allow her to restore the Oakfather's true teachings to the Grove with true impartiality."

"If- if that is your decision, then of course." Rath agreed. "But you talk as if you are leaving us? Sure you can remain at the Grove to recuperate, even if you have temporarily stepped down from leadership?"

"I hope to go with them." he surprised us. "Their paths lead to Moonrise Towers, and so does mine. I had originally joined Aradin's expedition because I had hoped to find the passage to the Underdark that was rumored to exist in those ruins, and through them hopefully reach Moonrise now that the overland route is closed by the Shadow Curse."

"What is this Shadow Curse?" I questioned. "Everyone keeps talking about it, but no one will explain it."

"An old, sad story." Halsin said wearily. "Over a century ago, Moonrise Towers was a thriving community - a local bastion of civilization, as well as a religious center devoted to the worship of Selune, the moon goddess. Until a man named Ketheric Thorm turned traitor to his family and his goddess, and betrayed them to the Church of Shar."

I very carefully did not look in someone's direction. "Goddess of shadow. Shadow Curse. Now I begin to understand." I interjected, making sure to keep Halsin's attention on me.

"Precisely." he nodded sadly. "Thorm raised a force of Shar's militant knights, the Dark Justiciars, and with them scourged the surrounding land." He nodded back down the road. "Moonhaven itself was destroyed by one of their raids; this was before the Emerald Grove was established."

"You were there at its founding." Rath surprised me. Halsin didn't look that old-

Halsin noted my expression and tapped one of his pointed ears amusedly. "Even with only one elven parent, the lifespan is still extended quite a bit; even more so when one enjoys the blessings of Silvanus. But yes, the Grove was founded in response to the gathering threat to nature here posed by the shadow worshippers. Not that we were able to withstand them alone, of course. The Harpers contributed significantly as well - this was back when they were much more prevalent in the area then they are now. At any rate, the alliance of harp and wild managed to defeat Thorm and kill him. But his last spiteful act before dying was to call down the curse of his goddess on the land, twisting and despoiling Moonrise Towers and the adjacent town into an area where nothing could live for long."

"And yet the Absolute seems to have its headquarters there. Minthara told us before she died that they used artifacts called 'moon lanterns' to pass safely through the shadow curse, but that doesn't explain how they can live among it."

"You managed to question her?" Halsin inquired.

"Yes, but we didn't get much before she died." Shadowheart said softly. "She did confirm that she was 'initiated' into the cult there, though."

"As has every other bearer of the tadpole we've questioned, save for you." Halsin agreed. "At any rate, that was the birth of the Shadow Curse. Since then it has waxed and waned, sometimes expanding out over the entire district, sometimes confined solely to Moonrise Towers and immediate environs. Occasionally it draws near enough to the Risen Road for undead to harass the traffic to Baldur's Gate." He sighed mournfully. "I've sought for decades to find a way into Moonrise Towers and hopefully break the curse, but my responsibilities have precluded it... and I never found a way to safely travel there. And this is why I would very much like to accompany you - you have an even more compelling need than I to go there, and at least some clues as to how you can find the way."

"Somebody certainly has to stop the Absolute, and our tadpole infiltration trick made us very useful for doing that here, but why do you say we have to go to Moonrise?" I tried to draw him out.

"Because until a way is found to understand and neutralize the magic that has been used to alter your tadpoles, no one can remove them from your heads without killing you." Halsin said. "I couldn't have hoped to pull that off even at my fullest powers, let alone as I am now. And even if I took you to the High Forest and the Archdruids, I don't think you'd have much more luck there. In addition to the part where no one knows how much time you have before the remission of your ceremorphosis ends. Which means either you penetrate Moonrise Towers soon, or no one does. I can't take anyone else from the Grove with me, I can't do it alone... and I don't think anyone else is coming."

"I was afraid you'd say that." I agreed ruefully. Because yes, I'd already done much of that math myself.

"We can plan the exact details of our journey to Moonrise later. For now, I want to search the ruins for any further clues - as well as locate that Underdark passage, if possible. We'll very likely need that later." Halsin said.

"I'm curious; you came here looking for that Underdark passage, but why were Aradin's adventurers here?" Gale asked.

"To find the same thing, if for an entirely different reason." Halsin explained as we walked. "They were hired by a wizard in Baldur's Gate to find an artifact called 'the Nightsong', which had according to lore been buried in the Underdark nearby. I had no interest in their quest, but since they had a map that purported to show the location of the entrance, I offered my assistance." He looked up at the ruined temple as we drew nearer. "But that didn't go as planned."

"No, it didn't. Not for you, and not for them." I said, wincing as I thought again of that brave boy Liam's fate. My guilt was only made worse by how Minthara - as evil as she was - had begged for death as the only method of escaping the voice of the Absolute, only for us to discover exactly how to block out the Absolute's voice barely after her body had hit the ground. I was just getting so damned tired of always being too late to save people. But it's not as if you could bring back the-

"You go on ahead." I said to the druids. "I want to go see to Liam's body."

"Of course." Halsin agreed, and we split up.

"You look very determined for a man who's simply heading off on a burial detail." Shadowheart looked at me inquiringly. "And walking very briskly as well."

"There comes a point at which a man just gets too damn frustrated with things to keep being sensible." I said. "So either I'm about to pull off a miracle, or you're all about to have a very great laugh."

Lae'zel looked at me narrowly. "If your absurd sentimentality somehow raises the dead, I swear to Vlaakith I will scream!"

I grinned crookedly back at her. "It's like you know me." We reached the body of Liam where it still hung in the torture rack we'd originally found him on, and he was starting to get more than a little ripe by now. "Withers! You said you'd be around, so I'd like a word."

"I said that I would resurrect those of thy party, and naught more." Withers replied, turning up out of a nearby dark corner as if he'd always been there. "This lad has never met thee in life, let alone accompanied thy party."

"And yet I would very much like if you did it anyway." I asked him. "Please."

"No." Withers said flatly.

"Have you fully thought this through?" I said to him probingly. "You have a purpose - a divine purpose - in offering your services to our party. But it's no good to offer them if we don't accept them."

"Thy emotional blackmail is transparent, and also futile." Withers said.

"Not emotional blackmail. Logical blackmail." I said flatly. "Because I'm from a world where raising the dead is impossible, and I'm never going to pay good coin to someone who claims he can do something so entirely out of my experience before they've actually proven to me that they can."

Withers stared at me, and while his expression didn't flicker a bit he certainly didn't look happy at the turn the conversation had just taken.

"And of course, if I'm never going to ask you for help, then you might as well not be here. And you need to be here." I finished.

"Thou are not alone in thy party." Withers said, looking at the others.

"Oh if you think any of us are going to ruin this, then you're out of your undead mind!" Wyll laughed. "No way we're spoiling the joke!"

Withers stared back at us, before impatiently turning towards the rack. "Understand that this tactic will only work once." he said flatly, and then materialized a large iron-bound book in his hands. "By doom and dusk, I strike thy name from the archives! Rise!" he intoned hieratically, and with a flare of magic the corpse of Liam vanished...

... to reappear standing in front of us, alive and healthy and fully armed and armored. Even the fingers the goblin torturers had cut off of him were all restored.

"Ahhh!" he screamed, as Withers discreetly vanished again before Liam was cognizant enough to spot him. "No more! Gods, no more-" The boy shook off his shock. "What- rescuers?" he focused on us. "Aradin? The others? Are they all right?"

"UNBELIEVABLE!" Lae'zel howled, before lapsing back into sullen resignation.

"Aradin made it back to the Grove with two of the others - a young woman and a white-haired man. I didn't get their names, sorry." I refocused Liam's attention on me.

"Remira and Barth." Liam replied. "Brian was a dwarf, not a human - you couldn't have missed him."

"We saw the body of a dwarf in the courtyard." Lae'zel said softly. "You likely do not want to know all that the goblins did to him."

"Damn." Liam swore. "But look, you had the magic to resurrect me-"

"We had one use of that magic." I said. "And I'm sorry, but we didn't know about your friend."

"Then- why me?" he asked, eyes wide with shock and puzzlement. "Why would you use something that precious on me? I'm- I'm nobody!"

"You withstood torture for longer than many hardened warriors I've seen- that I've known of- without giving up the Grove. All to save many innocent people you didn't even know, or who didn't like you." Shadowheart said. "Hawke very much admired you for that."

"And- and I could have saved your life before you died, if only I'd tried to infiltrate the temple earlier instead of putting it off while I finished something else first." I continued.

"I don't feel like a hero." Liam said, focusing on the first part of my remark. "I don't feel anything like one."

"I never have either." I told him wisely. "Even when everybody was calling me one."

"And even when they were right to do so." Gale supported me.

Fortunately, being dead and alive again was somehow good for shock treatment because while Liam still had some very unpleasant memories from his days of torture to deal with, he wasn't the psychological wreck that I would have expected. Also, whatever the hell Withers used to resurrect people, it left them with no memories of the time they'd been dead, so at least that particular mystery of reality - what truly lay beyond the gates of mortality - wasn't being shattered for us either.

"What in Silvanus' name?" Halsin asked, looking at the now-alive Liam incredulously. "How- what happened?" he goggled at us.

"You're the druid!" Liam greeted him. "They had you prisoner too! I'm glad you survived, sir."

"And I am so very glad to see you alive again, lad." Halsin agreed enthusiastically.

"Well, I'm glad someone is." Liam said ruefully. "My party's gone off and left me- not that I blame them, they thought I was dead- and now that I've been through all this, I don't feel like this is what I should do anymore. Tomb raidin' and all, that is."

"With the courage and the compassion that you've shown, certainly not." Halsin agreed. "Come back with us to the Grove. I can think of several friends and allies that I could recommend you to, depending on what sort of opportunity would interest you."

"Won't turn that down, sir." Liam said. "So, what are we doing now?"

"For right now, trying to find that secret entrance Aradin was looking for so we can use it later." I explained to him. "And then, heading back to the Grove for a victory celebration."

"And I'll drink to that!" Karlach broke in boisterously.

---

Author's Note: Minthara doesn't get to be a party member, but I felt I had to pay tribute to how well-written a party member she was for the Tavs who went that route by at the very least giving her a good death scene. And so, she dies with her mind clear of the tadpole just long enough to say goodbye. Her "And nobody would remember me" dialogue cutscene from BG3 was a particular inspiration, even if I took her dying words from Trilla in Jedi: Fallen Order.

Even if I did take her out with a single Shove maneuver, by far one of the most powerful attacks in BG3. *g*

And yes, Hawke blew his one free resurrection on a minor NPC. Hawke really had way too much of that 'getting there just too late to save someone' BS in Kirkwall and while he can't always get past that in the Realms, he's still going to go out of his way to give Fate a poke in the eye just once if he can. Besides, it's fun to make Withers pout. No, Liam isn't joining the party either. Kid's like level one, he can't keep up. But he'll get something nice.

Amusingly, you actually can pretend to betray the Grove in the game and then use that to sucker the goblins into a big ambush, even if engine limitations mean you have to do the betrayal five battle at the gate of the Grove instead of hitting them on the march. And they actually did have ogres carrying smokepowder barrels for use as siege artillery, and it's fun to make them pop. Or just to seed the ambush ground in advance with thirty exploding barrels you painstakingly carted in and the NPCs entirely ignore because game logic. I'm not going to be that absurd with barrelmancy due to using story logic and not game logic, but it's not BG3 if you don't do some.

And you actually can make a lightning spell kill harder by laying down a Create Water pool first; putting the Wet condition on a mob makes it Vulnerable to electricity.

In-game, Halsin is not weakened from his goblin captivity. I'm throwing that in to explain why the hell he's not leaving the camp ever while riding along, which is something BG3 didn't bother to explain between the too-long a gap of time from when Halsin joins the party camp to when he actually becomes a selectable party member. Even if he's still not being a permanent party member, I hate plot holes.

But hey, just because we're finished with saving the Grove and defeating the goblins doesn't mean we leave Act One just yet. Even with the sidequests I'm ignoring, we've still got things to take care of.

 

[cliffc999]

The Grove was filled with the sound of drunken revelry.

Even with the melancholy produced by the revelation of Kagha's treason and Halsin's stepping down as First Druid, the druids were still gleefully celebrating his safe return and the salvation of the Grove. The tieflings were celebrating the road to Baldur's Gate now being clear and being able to move on from this temporary sanctuary to hopefully earn a new permanent home in the big city. Liam was celebrating not being dead, as well as the recommendation Halsin had just written him as a candidate for the 'Order of the Gauntlet', an order of temple knights - 'paladins' as they seemed to be called here - whose nearest chapterhouse was in Elturel. My party members were celebrating success in our self-appointed mission to take down this cell of the Cult of the Absolute.

And what was I celebrating? Very little, actually.

Of course, I didn't let any of this show on my face. I'd come up with the overall plan and made the pieces fit together, I personally led the key part of the effort, and so despite everyone else being venerated as well I was clearly the hero of the hour. And part of that job was allowing the people you'd saved to show you their gratitude, because the doing of that was a basic human need. So I kept the brave smile on my face and circulated amongst the bonfires and revels and said all the right things and drank to all the toasts, keeping my feelings to myself behind the mask of the brave steadfast commander.

"I know how you feel." Zevlor said to me quietly, as we shared a quiet drink away from the fire. "I was a captain in the Hellriders of Elturel. We weren't just a city guard but also an expeditionary force, driving away monsters and keeping things safe throughout the entire nearby region. We were so diligent that there was hardly a single point on the trade roads or the banks of the Chionthar that wouldn't see one of our patrols at least twice a day." He sighed. "Until the Descent came."

"I've barely heard anything about that, except that the city somehow descended into Hell?" I asked him. "How was something like that even possible?"

"With decades of treasonous preparation." Zevlor said grimly. "Almost fifty years ago the High Rider of the city was discovered to have secretly been a master vampire, with his vampire spawn carefully seeded through the city along with necromancers, collaborators, summoned undead-" He shook his head disgustedly. "That was years before I was born, of course, but my father told me of those dark days. At any rate, the undead infiltration had been exposed too late; by the time the people knew of the danger and started fighting back, they'd already had sufficient forces, been in position for long enough, to have the upper hand. Whatever victories the Hellriders and the people could win by day would be swiftly reversed at night, when they came out."

I resolved to ask Shadowheart later what exactly 'vampires' were in Faerun, because what we'd called vampires in Thedas were merely animalistic walking corpses possessed by Hunger demons and what he was describing sounded quite different.

"And then the miracle came. The Companion. A second sun, a miniature one, shining over the city both day and night. With this miracle on our side, the vampires rapidly lost. And a priest of Torm, Thavius Kreeg, took credit for having successfully beseeched the gods for this miracle and of course was rapidly elevated to the position of high priest and ruler of the city." He looked gravely at me. "And until the Descent occurred, none knew how deeply he had lied."

"This 'Companion' was a fake miracle?" I said, shocked at the idea of such power coming from anything but a god.

"Oh, it was a display of divine - or at least demi-divine - power, in truth." Zevlor explained. "But it hadn't come from Torm, or Lathander, or any of the gods of light. No, it had been a sending of Zariel, Archdevil of Avernus... whose spheres of power include hellfire, and thus, corrupted light. Allowing her to fake the manifestation."

"And the price for this miracle was the entire city in fifty years' time?" I guessed. "But how could this Kreeg pact for the souls of other people, and not just his own?"

"Very cleverly." Zevlor growled. "Because Kreeg had come up with a very clever plan indeed, and Zariel had approved of it enough to risk paying in advance. Over the decades of his rule, Thavius Kreeg as high priest had of course led all of the religious ceremonies of the city, as well as receiving all secular pledges of loyalty as its feudal overlord. And in every single one of them he exhorted people to always praise and honor the patron of Elturel, the one who had sent the Companion, and to be grateful for their gift."

I facepalmed. "Which by devil logic meant that each person in Elturel who ever made that pledge was signing onto Zariel's pact, even though she was never named?" I guessed.

"Your warlock friend would confirm that a fiendish pact is very much a 'buyer beware' situation, yes." Zevlor agreed. "Of course, it's much easier to swear to such things when you believe you are simply making a harmless prayer to the gods of light, as exhorted by a high priest of one. But there's no law compelling fiends to reveal their true name to you if you greet them by a false one."

"And so when the fifty years of the advance period were up, Zariel was able to to take the entire city." I reasoned. "But then how did you ever escape?"

"Because by the wording of the pledges, Zariel would only rightfully own the souls of those in Elturel who had pledged if the Companion shone down on the city for as long as they lived. Which was something that she'd intended to take care of soon enough, because the city had been deposited on the frontlines of the Blood War and we were rapidly hit from both sides, by devils and demons alike-" He shuddered. "And, of course, every living soul who fell during those days ended up enslaved for eternity, more fodder for Zariel's army." He looked up. "We wouldn't have lasted long at that rate - sometimes I still don't know how we lived through it. It wasn't even the Hellriders that saved the city, but a visiting nobleman from Baldur's Gate who'd happened to be visiting when the crisis occurred. He rallied all the survivors, took command of the city once Kreeg and his cronies had been revealed as fiend-worshippers, led the defense of the High Hall... and raised and coordinated the heroes who led the mission to find and destroy the Companion, and by doing so free the city from the pact."

He spat bitterly. "And then after the day was saved, Elturel exiled us! Every tiefling in the city! Because it was easier to blame us for Kreeg's treachery, for the Companion that multiple generations of Elturans had been brought up to believe was their own special miracle of the gods turning out to be a lie, than to blame themselves! Because if it was all a tiefling plot - never mind that Kreeg was human - then the flaw wasn't with the religious orders that ruled Elturel, with the church failing to detect a traitor in their midst, with an apostate sworn to a devil instead of their own god going unnoticed by them for fifty damned years-" Zevlor's rage passed, and he slumped in despair. "They scapegoated all of us simply for the blood we bore, and ignored all the blood we shed fighting alongside the people we'd called fellow citizens for generations, helping save them from the devils. And now here I am, guardian and guide for a small band of desperate tradesmen and farmers, dispossessed of everything they'd worked for their entire lives, and all looking to me to get them safely to a new city where we hope we'll be allowed to start again... and I already needed your help just to get them past the first real obstacle." He looked soberly at me. "Not that I'm ungrateful, mind. Just... disappointed in myself."

"I know what that feels like." I commiserated with him. "I was the once the Champion of my home city, Kirkwall - so named because I'd saved it from a foreign invasion when our ruler had already fallen and our army had already been mostly defeated. And then barely a few years later I lost it all in a civil war started by the madness and treason of a man who'd been one of my best friends - someone who I'd repeatedly trusted with my life, and who I couldn't do a damn thing to stop in time-" I swallowed heavily. "My home city tore itself apart in madness, all rooted in ages-old hatreds and repressions I hadn't been able to even start to change for all my titles and ceremonies... and so I exiled myself after that." I sighed. "At the time I would have told you that I'd done it because I was leading any possible consequences of the war to come pursue me, and not take it out on innocent Kirkwallers. But right now I couldn't tell you if that was the truth... or if I was just running away." I looked soberly at Zevlor. "So take comfort in this much at least - at least you know that the people accusing you of having helped to doom your old home are lying. Because I don't know that, and I never will."

"Damn." Zevlor said, handing me the bottle. "Sounds like you need this more than me."

I poured a little into my cup and handed it back. "You already know it doesn't help past the first couple of drinks, I'm sure."

"Oh, I know." Zevlor agreed, and we both sat and sipped. "And yet as soon as you ended up here, you fell right back into saving people. I truly admire that kind of dedication."

"Old habits die hard." I said ruefully, my voice trailing off. "And when you've got people who need you then it doesn't matter how you feel, you can't ask them to stop and wait. The call to arms comes on its schedule, not yours."

"You would have made a good Hellrider." Zevlor toasted me.

"And to tell the less pleasant part of the truth..." I admitted. "For as long as I could hit the ground running, I didn't have to stop and think."

"And now you have, and you wish you weren't." Zevlor said knowingly. "Unfortunately, now duty calls both of us." he groaned as we both slowly arose. "I've got people to look in on, and I think so do you. But if we don't have a chance to talk privately again before our caravan sets out, then let me just say - thank you." He shook my hand. "Oh, and my people insisted on taking up a collection for you. I'll make sure you get it in the morning."

After we separated I'd barely made it to the next campfire before I was suddenly seized and hauled into the air as if I weighed nothing. My initial shocked reaction and reflexive struggle drew to a halt when I realized just who exactly had swooped me up in a bear hug-

"There you are!" Karlach squealed joyously, as she squeezed the breath from my lugs. "I'm glad I finally found you, because you entirely deserved the first one!"

"First what?" I asked. "And how is your skin cool?" I wondered, because I should have had burns raised on me by this time.

"First hug!" she laughed. "And it's because would you believe it, turns out these tieflings were also all in Avernus recently and their blacksmith, Dammon, he'd had a chance to learn a bit about infernal mechanics, like the one my heart runs on, and turns out that loot we scored from the old temple and the goblins' hoard included a piece of infernal iron, so he was able to fix me right up and now I'm not going to fry the skin off anybody with a handshake!" She squeezed me again. "Do you know what it's like to go that many years without a simple hug? Oh, I'm gonna squeeze the life out of everybody tonight!"

"Might want to ask first." I breathed heavily as she finally released me. "A person appreciates a bit of warning."

"Fair enough!" she giggled. "Say, d'you want to dance?"

"Two left feet, sorry." I demurred. "But I saw the tieflings' bard leading a dance circle over there."

"Then I'm off!" she said, giving me another quick hug. "But honestly, boss, if I hadn't met you then I wouldn't have met these people and we wouldn't have busted the goblin lair and none of this would have happened, so I've got to thank you for all of it! I just wish Dammon had been able to do more than a partial patch job because I'll still run a little hot if I get too excited for too long, so my original plan for thanking you is still by the wayside."

"You don't mean-?" I said, surprised.

"To ride you till we both see the moon and stars." Karlach leered at me cheerfully. "Well... if you're into that sort of thing." she trailed off bashfully. "Academic point now, anyway, I still can't. But... if we actually did find any more infernal iron, and Dammon puzzles out a couple more things...?"

"Then I hope you find someone you can be very happy with." I tried to let her down as apologetically as possible. "No offense, just... to be honest? I've never dated anyone taller than me."

"Neither have I!" Karlach giggled helplessly. "Although bit of a different reason why in my case!" She looked at me knowingly and continued in a softer tone of voice. "Relax, my feelings aren't hurt. A girl has to ask, even when she knows the answer is probably 'no'. But it's not me you've been looking for tonight, is it?"

"Um-" I said, caught entirely at a loss for words.

"Mum's the word, say no more." Karlach nodded. "Anyway, thanks for the new lease on life, boss, and I'll see you in the morning!" And then she was bustling off, heading over to where the impromptu dance party was heating up before I could even begin to figure out a reply.

"I had thought to save you from such deadly peril, but I see that I arrived too late." I heard Wyll say amusedly as he walked up to me.

"Enjoying the party?" I tried to make small talk.

"It's... been an experience." he replied, in a tone of voice that would have fooled anyone who hadn't been at court.

"Want to talk about it?" I asked him as I led us off towards a quiet, out-of-the-way nook near the supply room. "Because you've been through a lot recently."

"And you haven't?" Wyll said with friendly sarcasm, before sobering. "But... yes." He reached up and felt one of his horns. "I was enjoying myself at the party right up until the moment I realized that most of Zevlor's people were accepting me because they thought I was a tiefling like them. Which I am now, of course - but I meant, that they thought I'd always been like them. And these were people who I'd already been working with for the past couple of days, ever since I arrived at the Grove. They didn't even recognize me as the 'Wyll' they'd been introduced to then."

"They might not have met you then." I reasoned. "You hardly shook hands with the entire encampment specifically. Plus, it's dim light tonight, and few people are sober."

"All logical and true." Wyll agreed. "And yet... Mizora's punishment was intended to make me unrecognizable as the Blade of Frontiers. An overly-dramatic sounding title, I'll grant... but still, one that I'd fairly earned, through years of heroics and sacrifice for the people of the Sword Coast. All gone now, like sparks escaping from a campfire."

"When you talk about all the songs and tales they tell about the 'Blade of Frontiers' then you're talking about glory." I said to him. "And glory is always temporary, no matter what you do or don't do. But what you're really afraid that you've lost is merit, not glory, and that's entirely different. No one can take that away from you, no matter what lies they tell about you - or force you to tell about yourself. The only person who can truly make you unworthy is you."

"Wise words." Wyll agreed. "Much like my father tried to teach me many a time. And he was right, of course, and so are you." He looked downcast. "So why don't I believe them?"

"Your head believes me just fine." I said. "It's your heart that needs time to catch up." I snorted ruefully.

"And exactly how long does that take?" Wyll asked me knowingly.

"I'll let you know if mine ever does." I acknowledged. "But while you can't make it arrive sooner, you can definitely help it arrive later."

"True that." Wyll agreed.

"I owe you an apology, you know." I contributed to the growing silence.

"For what?" he asked me surprisedly.

"When I first heard that you'd pacted yourself with a devil for power I was this close to pitching you out of the group on your ear." I admitted. "If not running you through. On my homeworld, bonding with a demon for power, actually letting them put a piece of themselves in you, is an existentially unforgivable crime. It's called becoming an abomination, and it's a summary execution offense even in lands ruled by blood mages and demon-summoners, let alone any righteous kingdom." I looked at him. "The only thing that held me back was that I couldn't be certain it worked the same way here as it did on Thedas, but even then I was ready to declare you guilty until proven innocent."

"From what I've heard you and the others say of your homeland, I can't even say your reaction was unfair." Wyll nodded agreeably. "I'm honestly as surprised that you're as comfortable with Shadowheart's and Gale's magics as you are."

"My own father was a mage, as was my younger sister, and both of them entirely outside Chantry sanction or supervision. So while the common attitude on Thedas is that all magic is untrustworthy, I've never believed that." I nodded. "But blood magic? Demon magic? Abominations? Maker save me, I saw more of that go wrong in Kirkwall than most Templars have." Off of Wyll's expression I continued. "The militant order of knights sworn to the Chantry, whose primary duty was the supervision of Circle mages and dealing with blood magic and apostate mages." My voice fell. "Including one of my best friends, who for years I'd believed was proof that the Chantry had lied when they said all abominations were doomed to madness... until he demonstrated otherwise." I looked at Wyll. "Someday I'll tell you the entire tale of Anders the apostate, but the short version is, he was once a man who'd gladly have worked himself half to death healing the wounds of beggars and refugees without asking for so much as a copper coin in return... and by the end he was a remorseless butcher of innocents, and the instigator of one of the worst wars Thedas had seen in generations."

"That's what I've been afraid of." Wyll said somberly. "Ever since I saw how close I came to slaying an innocent, with Karlach. I'd thought I'd been so clever - that for all the compromises I'd made for power, I'd still negotiated well enough, been careful enough, that my blade would never be turned against the innocent... and if it hadn't been for you, Mizora would have gotten me to do it with just a few honeyed words." Wyll snorted. "And once I'd started... would I even have known the exact moment I went too far down that path to turn back? The moment I stopped being a man and became a monster? Would I have ended up like your friend Anders?" He sighed, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Could I yet still?"

"Wyll." I looked at him as if he were an idiot. "You looked a devil straight in the eye and dared her to take your immortal soul down to Hell on the spot for an eternity of torture rather than risk the slightest moral compromise. The moment you're so afraid of as the moment you almost fell? That's the very same moment that's making me apologize to you, for so badly misjudging you. You are a good man. Never doubt that."

"I'm... I'm honored." Wyll said thickly, moved almost to tears. "Thank you, Hawke."

"Now if you want me to tell you that you're a wise man, Zariel will be living in an ice palace first." I continued with rough humor. "Because for all that your honor isn't likely to be compromised any time soon, your soul on the other hand-" I looked at him commiseratingly. "You heard what Gale said, what Raphael indirectly acnowledged. Even if you live the longest, most heroic mortal life possible-"

"-nothing but an eternity of hellfire when it finally ends." Wyll agreed somberly. "Still... what else can I do, knowing that, except spend my life saving as many other lives as possible?"

"How's about not spending it at all?" I said exasperatedly. "Is there any way out of a devil pact? Even in folklore or myth, if you've never heard of a confirmed case? The Elturans managed it, with the Descent!"

"None." Wyll said. "And Elturel was an entirely different situation than mine. I already told you about the penalty clause if I kill Mizora or someone acting on my behalf does. That's hardly the only penalty clause in there - anything I could possibly to do to escape the contract, or at least anything I've ever thought of, has at least one clause immediately forfeiting my soul if I try. The only way out of this pact for me is if Mizora voluntarily releases me from it, unconditionally." He looked at me, his face calm with the calm that only comes when there is no more struggle possible. "You've met her; you already know why I'm not torturing myself with that hope."

"Damn." I swore helplessly. "Why did you even make that deal anyway? It can't have been for any selfish power or pleasure, not you."

"I'm not allowed to say." Wyll said. "Sometimes I think that her denying me any opportunity to explain myself is Mizora's greatest punishment." Wyll looked up from his wine cup to nod at me entreatingly. "Hawke, don't let me ruin your night. I've only known you a short time, but it's already becoming plain as the nose on my face that you are the sort of man who can beat himself up endlessly about the ones he's not allowed to save. So allow me, at least in my own case, to release you from that burden. You've given me a lot to think about besides my usual ruminations, I'll just sit here a while and get started on that. But as for you? Go and celebrate!"

I shrugged. "Celebrate how? I've already made the rounds."

"Perhaps you could take a moonlight walk." Wyll said knowingly. "On the beach?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said immediately.

"Of course you don't. Silly me, what was I thinking?" Wyll chuckled. "Have a nice night, Hawke."

"You too." I nodded at him, and moved on. I did the rounds of tiefling encampment and druid grove both, doing everything from accepting a grateful hug and a dance from Nettie to giving a very sanitized version of my origin story to Alfira the tiefling bard so she could start getting to work on writing 'a proper ballad for my heroics'. I couldn't pay a coin for a drink anywhere I went, and I started heavily watering my wine just to stay sober.

"Hawke." Lae'zel found me as I was taking a walk to clear my head on the battlement above the main gate.

"How are you enjoying your first Faerunian party?" I asked her.

"Much tamer than a post-battle feast would have been back in Creche K'liir." she said. "Very few of these tieflings or druids are warriors by trade. They celebrate their deliverance from battle, not their triumph in it."

"War is a way of life only to a small percentage of humans." I agreed. "To most of us, it's just a necessity to perform to earn a peace afterwards."

"There is no peace in this universe, merely temporary respite from threat." Lae'zel scoffed. "Tchk. Soft."

"And yet it just starts to grow on you." I said amusedly.

"Ridiculous!" she scoffed. "I am here by necessity, and because I pledged my word of honor to a common objective; naught more."

"Of course." I agreed, before realizing. "And while I had intended to bring this up tomorrow, now that you mention it-"

"The artifact." Lae'zel said intelligently. "The one you and Shadowheart were keeping secret from us. The one that is clearly of githyanki origin - I can read the runes on it, even if you cannot. The ownership claim is clear."

"I'm assuming you are honor-bound to return it to your people." I said. "Which presents us with a problem."

"Of course it does." Lae'zel rolled her eyes. "I could hardly miss that the Absolute would devour our brains the instant the artifact was no longer there to shield us!" She exhaled heavily. "You are seeking reassurance that I do not attempt to challenge her for it, or steal it, and return it to my people."

"I am." I agreed. "Can you give it?"

"No... and yes." she said. "If I take it from the group before we are freed of our parasites, I doom us all... and I am sworn to act as one of the party, to not betray us and to obey the lawful orders of the party's chosen leader, until such time as we are freed. So that alone constrains me from any such act. But I am also forsworn in honor if I do not make my best effort to return the artifact to my people, its rightful owners. And so I offer a... compromise." she forced out the last word as if it tasted foul. "The nearby creche, and the cure my people have for this infection. With a single act I can both return the artifact and remove the necessity for us to clutch it personally to our bosoms."

"So that's your compromise. That we set out to find the nearest githyanki creche as first priority, and return the artifact to your people there when we're cured, before heading to Moonrise Towers or anywhere else." I asked her.

"Correct." Lae'zel nodded. "Should we do otherwise, then I would be forced to choose between two dishonors. You would not welcome such a thing coming to pass." She looked down briefly. "And neither would I."

"If something else immediately life-threatening comes up, I can't guarantee we'll go straight to the creche. But I'll entirely agree that we should try to go there next as our first priority... provided you can think of a way we don't get executed as thieves as soon as we walk in the door."

"Agreed." Lae'zel said, with an expression that on anyone else I would have said was relief. "And a valid concern. I do not act as a loyal party member if I deliver you to death, after all. But while my people are known for their ruthlessness, we are also reasoning beings. Although I know not what the artifact is, the extensive efforts that have been made to reclaim it bespeak its great value. For the return of such a precious object to safety my people would owe a great debt; certainly enough to guarantee the lives of those who were not its thieves in the first place." Lae'zel must have seen something in my expression, for she continued reluctantly. "I would even fail to mention my suspicion that one of our number might possibly be connected to the theft."

"That... might be a problem." I conceded. "Because she's currently holding the artifact, and has sworn by her goddess to bring it to the high priestess who sent her to get it. And I can't promise she'll agree."

"Hrm." Lae'zel pondered. "I will stay my hand until her, you, and I have had a chance to discuss this fairly and openly. Beyond that... we shall see what happens. But at least I know that you are open to a reasonable compromise, if not necessarily Shadowheart. So I will this once try... diplomatic methods."

"Thank you for your forbearance." I nodded to her.

"Rest assured that I do it very reluctantly." Lae'zel agreed darkly. "But I am no fool; your regard for her goes well beyond mere respect, and after the ridiculous lengths I have seen you already go to in the name of "sentimentality", I certainly do not want any such sentiment provoking your blade and mine to clash." And then she actually smiled at me, the first time she ever had. "Your strength is laudable, your skill impressive, even if your taste in romantic partners is deficient." She nodded at me. "Go indulge yourself; I may or may not have had wishes of my own, but I am no child to pine after the already impossible."

Did Lae'zel just hit on me? Or say that she would have liked to hit on me...? I wondered incredulously.

"You did not even suspect? Typical male!" Lae'zel eye-rolled again, but somehow less harshly than she had before. "Go! We have said enough for now!"

I headed off, respecting Lae'zel's obvious wish for privacy, and made a brief check-in with Gale before finally heading off down the path that I'd been uncertain about all night. And sure enough, back down on the sand of the private cove we'd used twice before, she was there.

"You're finally here." Shadowheart said, still staring out over the water as I came up behind her. "I... wasn't certain you'd come."

"Neither was I." I confessed. "Fair warning; Lae'zel recognized the artifact when it saved our lives earlier, and will be speaking to you tomorrow about it. You're sworn to return to it to the temple, she's sworn to return it to her people, and I don't want either of you fighting each other over it." I nodded. "She offered a compromise; to trade her artifact back to the githyanki in return for their curing us of our parasites."

"I-" Shadowheart paused. "I- you know my mission."

"Shadowheart, you can't give it to anyone anyway - not while we need it to protect us. And if the githyanki can get rid of our parasites-'

"I-I understand you're only trying to be what you think is reasonable, but I can't-" Shadowheart said, panicked.

"Then that's what we have to discuss tomorrow." I agreed with her. "I just wanted to give you fair warning of what was going to happen... and what I'm hoping you can agree to."

"I understand." Shadowheart relaxed. "And- thank you for trying." She shook her head angrily. "And that's all the business I want to discuss for tonight."

"Absolutely." I agreed. "This is a beautiful night - we shouldn't waste it."

"No." Shadowheart smiled. "We shouldn't. Of course, it's entirely possible that you've had an eventful night already..." she teased me.

"True confession, I needed some fancy footwork tonight to avoid having an eventful night." I agreed.

"I know." Shadowheart broke out giggling. "I got a glimpse of you earlier tonight barely escaping being ravished by eager tiefling maidens. Most especially that pretty bard... which is odd, because I thought Alfira liked girls."

"Her girlfriend was the one alongside her in the yellow dress, offering to join in." I blushed.

"And you said 'no'?" Shadowheart asked incredulously.

"Shadowheart, I'm almost thirty-five." I pointed out. "Among humans, the time for frolicking freely with village maidens is in our teens."

"And did you? Frolic with the village maidens." she asked soberly.

"In Lothering? ... several." I nodded. "Nothing serious."

"And in Kirkwall?" she followed up.

"I think we need a fairer exchange if we're going that route." I chided her gently. "Have you had any experiences recently?"

"And how would I remember if I had or not?" Shadowheart punctured the mood.

"Oh. Sorry, I- overlooked that." I rapidly course corrected. "And in Kirkwall?" I sat down on the sand and continued more wistfully. "One."

"Did you lose her too?" Shadowheart asked me compassionately.

"Yes, but not the way you're thinking." I admitted. "Her name was Merrill. She was a... hrm." I realized. "I was going to say 'elf', but in hindsight I'm wondering if all the elves I knew in Thedas were actually half-elves by Faerunian taxonomy. Because when a Thedan elf has a child with a human, the offspring is almost invariably human - they'd breed themselves out of existence in a few generations if they didn't make sure to conserve the blood by having children only with other elves. And yet from what Halsin said-"

"Elven-human crossbreeds on Faerun are never round-eared, and it's been known for those with only one elven grandparent out of four to still have the elven blood remain strong enough to show." Shadowheart agreed. "I'm actually on the more human end of the spectrum of appearance for a half-elf; my ears are as pointed as anyone else's, but..." She gave a wordless wave of her hand down her body at her curves, which were indeed almost entirely those of a human woman instead of the usual slender, narrow build of elves.

"And I know from their folklore that Thedan elves believe their blood was 'stronger' back in the days when the elves were still a thriving race, and not a shattered remnant of a culture largely living in human cities." I continued.

"That does all certainly sound like only part-elven blood to me, not full elven." Shadowheart agreed. "So, a half-elf like me. Any other similarities?"

"Quite a few." I admitted. "You're not doubles of each other but there's a lot in common - your hair, your height, even something of your faces. To be honest, when I first saw you in that tube I had a momentary heart attack thinking that Merrill had somehow been abducted along with me, that was only dispelled when you first spoke and I realized that it was only a resemblance." Off of Shadowheart's expression I continued. "You have very different accents - yours I'm assuming is upper-class native Baldurian, and hers was from having been raised in one of the few wild tribes of wood elves still extant in Thedas."

"So you like me only for my looks." she joked. "Well, that's certainly not unfamiliar to me."

"You're also both highly intelligent, steady-nerved in a crisis, dedicated-" I continued.

"Flatterer." Shadowheart said amusedly, before her expression turned serious again. "If I might ask... you said you lost her, but that she didn't die?" she queried.

"I ruined it." I said. "I didn't-" I looked at her. "Do you really want to spend tonight hearing a long, sad story?"

"Do you want to spend tonight not telling it to me?" Shadowheart replied sagely.

"... yes." I replied after a long pause.

"All right." Shadowheart agreed, as we sat together and watched the waves. "You know, it's odd." she continued after a pause. "This. This celebration. Why we're having it." She paused. "How much I enjoyed it."

"You don't recall having anything like this in the cloister?" I asked diplomatically.

"I'm certain we didn't, but that's not what I meant." she said. "I meant... these refugees. We saved their lives. At great odds, with valiant feats and daring forays into the heart of the enemy." she declaimed poetically. "That's... not something I ever imagined myself doing before. Does it always feel like this?"

"Like what?" I probed.

"Good." she said softly, before shaking her head. "You were right, earlier." she finally continued. "I don't have any experience with this."

"Well, as I recall the first step is not being afraid. Or at least being more afraid of loss than of rejection." I explained.

"Bit of a problem with that one when you worship the goddess of loss- ah!" she suddenly winced, as her hand clenched in agony.

I growled inwardly at this damned thing yet again and reached over and grasped her wounded hand in mine, and for the first time since I'd arrived on Faerun consciously channelled my internal energy in the ways that Knight-Captain Cullen had unofficially taught me back in Kirkwall. I wasn't even sure I could manage this anymore, given how long it had been since I'd had a dose of smuggled lyrium, but Shadowheart was in pain and I had to-

"It stopped." she said, looking down wondrously at where her hand was clasped in both of mine. "Just like that! How- how did you do that?" she asked me.

"Templar magic." I explained to her. "Or more accurately, anti-magic. The mage-hunters of Thedas knew how to focus the will, aided by an alchemical preparation of... well, solid magic is the best way to describe it... called lyrium. Take enough lyrium, practice the right meditations for a couple of years, you unlock the ability to dispel magic or withstand it by sheer force of will." I breathed heavily. "I wasn't even sure it would work here, especially given that very few people can keep the talents operative without regular lyrium infusions and it's been over a year since I've had one, but-" I shrugged. "Sometimes you get lucky."

"I don't understand." Shadowheart said, our hands still entwined. "I'd been told this was an old wound, not some type of- of magical curse. How did you know?"

"Just guessing." I said. "But I've never seen anyone injure their hand seriously enough that the bones still ached years later without also losing mobility in their joints, and yet you've always been as dextrous with that hand as your other one. Nerve damage is even less likely, not if you can pick locks with those fingers. And the healers here could fix even that kind of lingering physical damage. So if it didn't make sense as a mundane injury, then I thought perhaps there was a magical cause."

"Certainly seems as if." Shadowheart agreed, before we both suddenly realized that we were still holding hands. "And- I-" She blushed cutely, and my own cheeks started to feel warm.

"So it's not just me." I blurted awkwardly.

"What are we even doing?" Shadowheart replied mournfully. "I can't- I shouldn't-"

I released her hands. "Then don't." I agreed, masking my disappointment.

"If... if that's what you want." she agreed reluctantly, her voice hurt.

"I thought that's what you wanted!" I burst out, exasperated.

"Oh." she realized wonderingly. "Oh, you meant-"

"In the interests of clear communication." I drew upon all my willpower and diplomatic to say evenly. "I am quite attracted to you, and-"

"Stop. Talking." Shadowheart pressed me, and I did. "Please. I- Hawke, this is insane. When this is over - and it will all too soon be over - I have to return to Lady Shar. And you can't follow me there."

"Can't I?" I inquired.

"Lady Shar is the patron of darkness and loss." Shadowheart tried to explain. "Most people fear the dark, because in the darkness they see their fears reflected. But we are taught to step beyond fear, beyond loss. In darkness we do not hide - we act. Pain... hope... love... all of these are heavy cloaks that bend our backs and burden our hearts." A relentlessly analytical portion of my mind noted in the background that her speech had shifted to a heavy, even cadence - the voice of a person reciting an oft-memorized text, not a person speaking from their heart as she had been just a moment ago. "We shed those cloaks. Before Shar we stand gloriously free, free from mortal vanity and hesitation. We tear down the lies the world is drunk on, the institutions they trust. The so called gods they worship, we destroy false idols, topple corrupt organizations, fight heretics whereever found."

"But how does that reconcile with feeling good about helping the helpless?" I deliberately broke into her train of thought.

"It doesn't!" Shadowheart burst out frustratedly. "That's exactly what I'm trying to understand! Why- you are absolutely horrible for my mental focus, do you know that? Far worse than merely standing in a temple of Selune!" she confronted me, her voice full of emotion yet again.

"I think.. that I can't answer that question without telling you that story now." I surprised her, and we both separated and sat back in a more neutral position as I continued.

I explained about how I had originally met Merrill on Sundermount, and why she was being exiled from her Dalish clan. How the heroine of her clan had been tainted by an ancient artifact found in a ruin, and Merrill's obsessive quest to cleanse that artifact, to understand. How the demon Audacity, sealed away on the peak of Sundermount, had tried for years to tempt her with the knowledge necessary to restore the eluvian - the travel mirrors that the ancient elves of Thedas had invented at the height of their power, the gate network that gave them instantaneous travel across the continent.

I spoke to her about Merrill's brilliance - her selfless devotion to the welfare of the elves - her loneliness and isolation from those who feared her and didn't understand her, including accusations of blood magic - her suffering under the disappointment of her mentor Keeper Marethari, leader of her clan - the poverty and squalor of the Kirkwall elven alienage she'd refused to let me lift her out of for so long...

... and how I'd ruined everything we'd had together.

"We almost broke up the day I refused to give her the artifact of her clan, to try and alter the deep structure of the eluvian with." I said. "By that point Merrill was so alienated from her people that her only hope of ever being accepted back was to present them with a fully restored eluvian, to prove Marethari entirely wrong and her entirely right. And I thought that meant she'd fallen for the demon's lies, that she'd blinded herself to the truth. So rather than respect her wishes, or even try to discuss my concerns with her, I simply decided for her. She considered that an almost irreparable breach of trust... and she wasn't wrong."

"Almost irreparable, you said. She still forgave you, even after that much." Shadowheart said slowly, wonderingly. "That's... not very much resembling me at all."

"But it was a strain, yes. I still couldn't stop her from trying to restore it, though, even if I kept her from trying that particular method. And so the day came, two years later, when she finally tried her last desperate gambit. To directly approach the demon again, as she hadn't for years, and get the answers out of him one way or another." I said.

"Dear gods, please tell me she didn't-" Shadowheart said fearfully.

"She didn't." I reassured her. "Although she'd actually brought me along-" I winced in painful memory. "To do what a templar's duty would be in a mage's Harrowing, if I'd been an official templar and she a Circle Mage. To stand by while she mentally wrestled with a demon... and kill her if she failed to resist its possession." I sighed. "All along I thought she'd been willfully blind to the risks of what she was doing... and all along she'd known them in full, and been willing to take every precaution necessary. Even the ultimate one." Shadowheart's expression by this point was almost sick with worry, so I hastened to reassure her. "It's okay. I didn't have to do that."

"But it was still horrible." Shadowheart said knowingly. "How?"

"That's when we found out that Keeper Marethari had also been approaching Audacity... to try and spare Merrill from being possessed, even at the price of risking possession herself. And she had failed to resist it, where Merrill had succeeded. Merrill had asked me to come there prepared to kill her if she'd been taken by the demon... but as it turned out, we had to kill her instead. Merrill's lifelong mentor, the woman who was for all intents and purposes her mother. That's what she could never forgive me for."

"I can't- I can't even imagine how I'd begin to feel if Mother Superior were similarly taken somehow, and I had to slay her mortal body to spare her soul. But why did Merrill blame you for her mentor's death? Not simply because you struck the killing blow - given what she'd asked you to do for her if need be, that would have made her a complete hypocrite!" Shadowheart defended me passionately.

"You're right, and she didn't." I told her. "No, Merrill blamed me for having denied her the arun'holm years before... because if she had been able to repair the eluvian before that final day, instead of contending with the delays I'd caused with my refusal to believe she knew what she was doing... then perhaps Marethari wouldn't have had time to fall."

"That is not fair!" Shadowheart said. "If she said she loved you, then how could she sever herself from you forever over a might-have-been?"

"Because the most important thing in a relationship is trust, and the secondmost important thing is a respect for your partner's boundaries - to work with them, not dictate for them. To treat them like a partner, not a possession." I shook my head. "And I'd entirely failed to do that, at exactly the moment when I most should have. And that failure had Merrill lose something worse than merely the life of her mother in all but blood - she lost the opportunity to ever know for certain whether she could have saved Keeper Marethari or not, which was actually worse."

"Hawke." Shadowheart said softly, taking my hand. "I- I don't know what to say."

"I think the worst part of it is that she didn't 'sever herself from me forever'." I said. "We were still allies - even friends, to an extent - after we separated. She still came with me in the final battle against Anders, and then when the mage/templar war broke out immediately afterwards. She still stood loyally at my side and helped save my life, just like I saved hers." I sighed. "She just couldn't ever truly love me anymore, because she couldn't entirely trust me anymore. And I couldn't say that I didn't deserve it. So, after the Gallows fell and most of us had to leave Kirkwall... I let her go. Hopefully she's finding a new purpose now... one that she can be allowed to actually succeed at." I sighed. "She deserves no less." And I looked at Shadowheart. "And you deserve no less either, which is why I can't answer your question right now. If I did that... I feel I'd be making the same mistake again. Making your choice for you, instead of with you."

"Thank you." Shadowheart said softly, lovingly. "For sharing that with me... and for respecting me that way." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and her face firmed with resolve...

... and she drew close enough I could feel the heat of her cheek on mine, and she looped her arms around my neck.

"Not for me. But with me." she agreed, and we kissed underneath the rising moon.

---

Author's Note: Yes, as soon as we hit the tiefling party scene with a Shadowheart romance path, the kiss is inevitable. Destiny may not be cheated that way and I do not even dare to try. *g*

Did you know BG3 very annoyingly refuses to tell you anything about the damn Descent of Elturel except maybe one or two sentences? I had to use google. So I devoted page space in my fanfic to telling my readers, as a public service. Also, Zevlor needed some dialogue, and I was amused to realize him and Hawke had a bit in common.

And so you finally find out Hawke's specialization - Templar. Which was hinted at earlier at a couple of points, if very subtly. How the heck Hawke even goes Templar in DA2 is a thing they don't even bother to go with, so I went with 'it's possible to get smuggled lyrium and Hawke certainly knows the right people' and 'Hawke and Cullen become each other's contacts as far back as Act One, and Cullen starts doing his own rogue templar investigations in Act Two, so he actually has a reason to teach Hawke. Plus, neither other specialization remotely fit my Hawke's personality - he's certainly no berserker, and no reaver either.

Plus, that's how the Merrill romance ended for him. That's not quite a canon game path, but hey, story logic versus game scripting, you know where I stand.

 

[cliffc999]

The entire party sat in on the negotiations between Shadowheart and Lae'zel regarding the mysterious Prism and our next move with it. The discussion started out tense and only devolved from there. Not least because of the other personal revelations that came out during them.

"You're a priestess of Shar?" Wyll asked incredulously. Because Shadowheart had finally felt forced to reveal herself underneath the 'exigencies' clause she'd mentioned earlier, as the only way of explaining why bringing the artifact to her superiors in Baldur's Gate was not only a desirable goal for her but a necessary one.

"You really don't act like the ones I saw back in Baldur's Gate." Karlach nodded.

"Yes!" Shadowheart declaimed exasperatedly. "Now do you begin to understand just how much I can't afford to fail in my mission?"

Lae'zel looked at her uncomprehendingly. "I fail to see what difference the exact identity of your divine patron makes."

"Lae'zel, what would Vlaakith do to someone who deliberately failed in the recovery of something she had ordered brought to her at all costs?" I asked her. Not that I knew anything about githyanki religion but I had at least heard Lae'zel swear by the name before.

"Oh." Lae'zel blinked in realization, before turning to Shadowheart. "The penalty for failure in this 'Church of Shar'... it is execution?"

"For simple failure, not always." Shadowheart demurred. "But for betrayal? Death is a mercy compared to what will happen."

"There's also that her current memories are being held by this 'Mother Superior' of Shar, and she needs to get them back." Gale pointed out logically.

"To have one's very mind and self held hostage...' Lae'zel looked momentarily appalled, before her expression firmed. "But as Hawke has so aptly pointed out, I face a similar fate should I deliberately turn a blind eye to the Prism's theft." Lae'zel looked at Shadowheart with what on anyone else I would have said was sympathy. "And yet while we are both sworn to act as loyal members of this party we are at an impasse."

"And there's no words that can solve this issue." Shadowheart agreed. "I simply can't hand it over to the githyanki, and you can't not do that, and both of our lives are forfeit if we fail."

"Truth." Lae'zel said, squaring her shoulders. "I see only one path forward from there, then. It is no betrayal of our bond of comradeship if we both agree."

Shadowheart nodded back to Lae'zel somberly. "If we can't stab each other in the back for it, then it'll just have to be in the front."

"Now hang on a minute-" I thundered, rising to my feet.

"A duel to the death, in all honor." Lae'zel nodded to Shadowheart. "I will meet you-"

"No one is meeting anyone anywhere!" I demanded.

"Hawke." Shadowheart turned to me, her eyes regretful yet poised. "I know how much you didn't want this to end this way... and neither did I, really." She turned to Lae'zel. "You've been a loyal ally, and perhaps one that I should have respected more than I did. But both of us have our duty, and neither one will forsake it."

"And so, the battlefield." Lae'zel nodded back to Shadowheart respectfully. "If I fall to your mace, I will go to Vlaakith without shame. If you fall to my blade, may your Dark Lady receive you with equal honor-"

And then a miniature thunderclap sounded around our campfire, with a flash like lightning to accompany it, and when we finally all blinked away the spots in front of our eyes-

"The artifact!" Shadowheart cried desperately, clutching at her now-empty belt patch. "It's gone!"

"Our minds!" Wyll said, leaping to his feet. "The Absolute-!"

I reached down and confirmed what the additional weight on my belt had already told me - somehow, unaccountably, the Prism had transported itself from Shadowheart's custody to mine. Wordlessly, I reached into my own belt pouch and brought it forth on my palm for all to see. "Apparently this has enough sentience to understand at least some of what's going on around it... and react to it." I looked down narrowly at the rune-encrusted polygon. "And whatever's in there doesn't want us killing each other over it."

"Give it back!" Shadowheart demanded, almost leaping forward before restraining herself. "Please!"

I had to restrain an impulse to immediately hand it over when confronted with her desperation, and sighed inwardly at what I'd already known about how compromised my feelings are. "I don't think I'll be allowed to," I reasoned out, "but we'll try." I reached out, laid the Prism directly on the ground between us all, was mildly surprised when my fingers were actually able to unclench from it... and then was entirely unsurprised when the artifact leapt back through the air and into my hand the instant Lae'zel and Shadowheart both started to lean forwards towards it.

"Tchk." Lae'zel grunted. "This seems almost too convenient."

"It is." I agreed with her. "But it's not me doing this." I looked closer. "Lae'zel, you said last night that these were githyanki runes. What do they tell you?'

"This is githyanki tir'su script." she agreed, cautiously leaning forward to peer more closely at the Prism. "Every word a wheel, every letter a spoke. The possible cipherings range from the elementary patterns that every child knows to ones that only the most erudite gish can hope to comprehend." She looked up at me. "Much of the script here is beyond my ability to translate. I can read only several of these symbols - they name this as the Astral Prism, a most holy artifact of the githyanki..." her eyes widened in shock. "And- and the personal property of our immortal god-queen, Vlaakith." she trailed off faintly.

"You're thinking a divine manifestation just happened here?" Shadowheart said, horrified. "But no, that doesn't make sense! The will of Vlaakith should have wanted me dead for taking that!"

"Agreed." Lae'zel said. "And had I known this before the Astral Prism removed our immediate cause for dispute, I would have been compelled to-" She shook her head angrily. "I also doubt this event was the will of Vlaakith, but that does not matter any longer. Hawke now holds the Astral Prism, and I already have his agreement on what we should do with it."

"I'm sorry." I said to Shadowheart, as she turned to me appalled. "I hadn't remotely anticipated this would happen-" I held up the Prism. "But I did give my word to Lae'zel, and now I'm bound by it." I continued as reassuringly as I could. "You didn't choose to let this go. It was taken from you by force, and you couldn't recover it even if I allowed you to - as we just tested!" I shook my head. "Perhaps failure, but not betrayal. And a failure that's not even your fault."

"And a cold comfort that will be, when I face Mother Superior over it." Shadowheart said chillingly. "Thank you ever so much."

I accepted that with as much grace as possible under the circumstances. "This isn't what I wanted." I trailed off. "I'm not sure what I wanted, but this wasn't it."

"Embrace loss." Shadowheart half-chanted to herself, visibly straining to recover her composure. "All right. You're correct in that there's nothing either of us can do right now to change the Astral Prism's mind on this.. and also correct that our most immediate priority is getting these damned parasites out of our heads. That will have to do... for now." she finished firmly.

I sighed inwardly. I'd originally been attracted to Shadowheart because of her similarities with Merrill - and because she was a legitimately impressive person in her own right - but paradoxically, the more she relaxed around me the more differences I saw between them, and the more worried I became. Merrill had been the most ultimately self-aware person I'd ever known, one hundred percent transparent with herself about who she was, what she wanted, and what she was willing to sacrifice to get it... while Shadowheart was being revealed as someone whose awareness of herself was not only incomplete but very likely had been deliberately sabotaged. For all that I'd promised to respect her choices - and how thoroughly I intended to keep that promise, because everything I'd said to her about having learned my lesson about using force majeure to make loved ones to do what I thought best was still the truth - I was starting to doubt whether Shadowheart even had the ability to make a free and informed choice on this matter. Her lapse into Shar's catechism last night when she was feeling emotionally pressed had almost looked more like mental conditioning than simple devotion, and by now I was almost entirely certain that her memory wipe hadn't been as voluntary as she believed it had been.

But by the same token, if I was correct and this 'Mother Superior' had gone to such an extent as magically wiping her mind and brainwashing her, that meant that ultimately Shadowheart didn't want to serve Shar so fanatically, but was being compelled to. A suspicion of mine that grew greater and greater every time I saw her respond to a situation not covered by her religious doctrine or standing orders, and how unforced, how natural, how free those responses were. She hadn't been lying to me last night when she'd talked about how good an unselfish act of charity had made her feel - or if she had been lying, then she was a greater actress than any infiltrator from the qunari Ben'Hassrath had ever been. And I'd met Tallis and The Iron Bull.

So when it came to her, I had little idea what I was going to do now. I just knew that I wasn't going to give up.

"Then we set out for the mountain pass today, and press on from there to try and find the githyanki creche Lae'zel believes is nearby." I stated firmly, and we all broke up to start our travel preparations. I deliberately paused nearby in an obvious invitation for Shadowheart to come talk to me if she wanted but she only looked at me, visibly conflicted, before silently moving on.

"Damn." I swore softly.

"Agreed." Gale commiserated with me. "Give her time. Hopefully you'll be forgiven when she realizes you never intended any of it."

Something about the particular emphasis he'd put on that word made me look at him - "Bad breakup?"

"Ohhhhh yes." he nodded, but didn't clarify.

"We missed you at the party last night. And from what you just said, you weren't off finding a private moment-" I trailed off inquiringly.

"A bit of a... digestive issue." Gale explained. "But I'm feeling better now."

"If you think it might recur, try to see Nettie before we leave here." I requested. "Shadowheart needs to save her healing powers for battlefield emergencies."

"Hopefully it shouldn't come to that." Gale said oddly, and we got back to our travel preparations. I sought out Halsin to explain to him what had come up, and also because he'd requested to see me this morning anyway.

"The mountain pass?" Halsin inquired. "That is one of the potential roads to Moonrise Towers, but hardly the best one. You would have to cross much more of the Shadow-Cursed Lands than otherwise. The optimal route to Moonrise is through the Underdark - I've long speculated that there's an old subterranean temple complex of Shar that Thorm's Dark Justicars had built almost directly underneath the towers. Come up through those, and you'll barely have to cross any of the cursed lands at all.""

"We're not going to Moonrise just yet." I replied, and then explained about the search for a githyanki creche. "So hopefully we'll be back here in several days. You mentioned wanting to wait that long for your replacement to get here from the High Forest anyway."

"Even with the wings of a bird, it's still a distance to travel." Halsin said. "Very well, I shall await your safe return."

We warped from the Grove to the travelstone by the old tollhouse where we'd taken down the hunting party Zariel had sent after Karlach, and started the several hours' march from there to where the Risen Road from Baldur's Gate to Elturel entered the mountain pass. The Waukeen's Rest inn had been built nearby to serve caravans travelling the Risen Road, and we headed towards there intending to stop for lunch and a chance to pick up some traveler's gossip about the road ahead.

"Is that smoke?" Wyll asked, looking over the trees into the distance. He'd spent the last half hour of our march filling my ear with everything he knew or suspected about the Church of Shar and how horrible it was, although he had been diplomatic enough to wait until Shadowheart was out of earshot first. I'd listened attentively to all of it while reserving judgment. I knew my ignorance of what I was dealing with here was profound, and while Wyll's viewpoint was clearly biased against the Sharrans as an 'evil church' while he was a crusader of good, that didn't necessarily mean he was wrong. Goodness knows I was nursing my own dark suspicions about them already, and as a stranger to Faerun, every new bit of knowledge helped - possibly biased or not.

"I can smell it, but I can't see it." I agreed.

"A fire in the forest would have burned much more out of control." Shadowheart commented quietly, the first words she'd spoken since we'd started marching. "So something burned up ahead, in the clearing-"

"-where the inn was." I agreed. "Double time!"

We hurried ahead and soon enough drew to the site of where Waukeen's Rest had stood. Our shocked eyes saw that almost nothing was left - the building was a collapsed, burnt ruin, with only the stables and several of the other outbuildings stlil mostly standing. A patrol of soldiers in a uniform I didn't recognize stood outside the gates, their uniforms still dirty and covered with dried blood - these men had seen a battle in the past couple of days, and hadn't had a chance to return to base since-

"Shit, they're Flaming Fist!" Karlach said. "What's the Baldur's Gate military doing here?"

"Halt! Identify yourselves!" their squad leader called.

"A party of adventurers, most recently from the Emerald Grove!" I called back.

"The Grove?" the female Flaming Fist sergeant relievedly. "Our message got through?"

"If you sent a messenger, we must have missed them on the path." I explained as we drew near, our hands carefully away from our weapons. "I'm Hawke."

"Damn!" she swore. "If you didn't come in response to our message, then- do you have a cleric? A healer? We've got a woman too badly injured to move, and-" she begged desperately, almost in a panic.

I looked at Shadowheart for permission and she nodded back. "I'm a cleric." she said. "Take me to her."

"Thank Helm!" she gasped. "Come on, she's over here!" and she led us through a courtyard full of soldiers, almost half a platoon of them. Some were wounded, and all were worried.

"What happened?" I asked their sergeant.

"Drow, leading a small army of goblins." her answer chilled my blood. "The day before yesterday. We were escorting-" She broke off as we drew near to a tent where another worried soldier was attending to a middle-aged elven woman, unconscious and with severe burn all over her body.

"Councilor Florrick!" Wyll gasped in recognition as soon as he saw the woman. "By the gods, what happened here?"

"She was trapped in there." the sergeant nodded towards the ruins of the building. "Damn goblins fired the whole place after they'd grabbed their target. By the time we were able to bust in there and get her out she was half dead, and she'd swallowed enough smoke to choke a dragon." She swore. "I'm surprised we kept her alive this long. Our own healer was killed in the attack, and we were all bloody stuck here because we just couldn't move her! I tried sending people to find the druid's grove supposed to be nearby and get help, but from what you said they're still looking for the damned place. Or the goblins got them."

Shadowheart was already laying her hands on the severely wounded Councilor and casting her stronger healing spells. "You're lucky I got here in time." she told them. "Deep tissue burns over almost half her body, smoke inhalation, burn scars in her lungs-" She looked up at them. "You did an exceptional job keeping her alive even this long, and you were entirely right not to move her - even if you'd known the most direct route, she still wouldn't have made it halfway to the Grove in her condition before dying."

"Then thank you, and a thousand blessings on your god." the sergeant said gratefully, and I carefully avoided even a quirk of my lips at exactly which deity she'd just praised.

Councilor Florrick coughed weakly, then opened her eyes. "Who-"

"We're here, Councillor." the sergeant rushed to reassure her. "You were badly wounded in the attack, and we didn't have a healer - we couldn't move you, and it took almost two days to get a cleric here."

"Two days?" she swore, as two of her men helped her heavily to her feet. "Did you send word back to Baldur's Gate?"

"I sent a squad up the pass, but they got smashed up by a bloody dragon of all things." the sergeant said ashamedly. "One survivor made it back. And we're down to barely twenty men - that wasn't enough to get through what's between here and the city and to leave enough here to keep you safe, especially if those goblins came back, so I didn't dare make a second try."

"If they were the ones headquartered in the ruined temple to the south of here, then they won't come back." I broke in. "My party, the druids of the Grove and a party of refugees from Elturel all combined forces to lure out the goblin force and destroy them yesterday. So at least your dead have been avenged."

"Partially avenged." Councilor Florrick agreed grimly. "Quick, did you find any prisoners in the goblin fortress when you took it? Because we were escorting-"

"Wait!" Wyll cried desperately. "If the goblins took a high-ranking prisoner from here that wasn't you, then does that mean-?" he trailed off in horror.

"Wyll?" Councilor Florrick turned, seeing him for the first time. Her jaw dropped in shock at seeing his tiefling nature. "Wyll... oh my boy, what happened to you?" she despaired in a very familiar tone of voice.

"Wait, is she your mother?" I turned to Wyll incredulously.

"I've felt like it sometimes." Councilor Florrick said with a moment of amusement before her expression lapsed again. "But no, not by blood. I've known Wyll all his life because I've served his family for decades." she turned to him and nodded sadly. "And yes, Wyll. I'm sorry - but the drow took your father."

"No!" Wyll moaned.

"We didn't find anyone." I confirmed. "When we first entered the fortress we saw the goblins in the midst of a victory celebration - now it's clear to me what they were celebrating. But the only prisoners they had in the fortress were ones they'd taken elsewhere, there was nothing from the raid they'd just done here except loot. And there was only one dark elf at the goblin fortress, the garrison commander."

"So the task force of dark elves that struck us was from elsewhere, and had merely called in goblins from a local ally for additional troops." Florrick analyzed. "And now they've taken Grand Duke Ravengard back to the Underdark-"

"Hold on!' Karlach broke in. "Grand Duke Ravengard?!?" She rounded on Wyll. "Your father's the bloody Grand Duke of Baldur's Gate? For serious?"

"I was disowned." Wyll admitted frankly. "So it's not something I bring up in conversation anymore. I've lost the right to."

"I don't think these drow were from the Underdark." Gale thought out loud. "What would even the ruler of Baldur's Gate matter to the nobility of Menzoberranzan? They're very insular and obsessed with internal competition, not external. Particularly since we know of another faction that took at least some drow into their service recently."

"Did you kill any drow during the attack?" I asked the seniormost Flaming Fist present.

"At least half the bastards, for all the good it did us. Damned drow practically drowned us in goblin blood." she muttered darkly.

"Then if you take us to where you buried at least one of their corpses, I think we can get some answers for you." I said.

Sure enough, a brief post-mortem interrogation with the Amulet of Lost Voices turned up confirmation that the drow who had attacked Waukeen's Rest had indeed been in the service of the Cult of the Absolute just like Minthara had been, and that the goal of the raid had been the capture of Grand Duke Ravengard alive and intact and to return him to Moonrise Towers.

"And that tells us what their goal almost certainly is." I said darkly, and then explained to Councilor Florrick about the thread of the tadpoles and the altered ceremorphosis. "To implant him, and then have him either be 'rescued' or 'escape' later... and through him, have control of Baldur's Gate."

"Damn!" Councilor Florrick swore in agony. "And there's no cure?"

"We're in pursuit of one even now. For ourselves." Shadowheart surprised her. "Our own tadpoles don't control us - yet - due to some mysterious factor that intervened in our case. But we're the only ones we've met who retained our free will, and even then sometimes it's a struggle."

"If you can find this cure and bring it to me, you can name your own reward." Councilor Florrick swore. "Equally so if you can help rescue the Grand Duke. And Wyll, I know you have no love for your father after what happened, but-"

"No love for my father?" Wyll turned on her heatedly. "I- is that what you thought of me?"

"I'm sorry- I thought-" she stammered. "But Wyll, if it wasn't that, then why- he thought the world of you! But he never spoke of why, or how-" Councilor Florrick shook her head. "I feared the worst."

"Your fears likely still fell short of reality." Wyll said. "I don't know if-"

"Do you want me to tell her for you?" I asked him. "She can't punish you for my loose mouth."

"Please." Wyll said gratefully.

"Wyll was tricked, or led, or somehow induced - not by his own fault! - into a warlock pact with a fiend." I told the shocked Florrick. "And the pact-maker maliciously forbade him from saying anything in his own defense or justification, and then the fiend deliberately let everybody else - including Wyll's own father, apparently - think the worst of him."

"How do you-" Florrick began, and then sighed. "Wyll, forgive me, but I must ask this. How do I know that the worst isn't true?"

"Because those horns he got now? You think he wanted them?" Karlach scoffed "Mizora - yeah, I'll name that bitch out loud, and she can come here and try to stop me herself if she doesn't like it - she ordered Wyll to kill me. Pumped him all full of lies about how I was really a devil, about how taking me out would save the Sword Coast and all the rest of it. But as soon as Wyll found out it was lies, he stopped right then and there, and when Mizora came to him and said 'You follow orders or else you'll pay a penalty!', Wyll stood there and spat in her face and told her to go back to Hell riding the point of a pike. And-" She waved a hand at the now-tiefling Wyll. "That was the penalty."

"Then I owe you a very great apology, Wyll Ravengard." Florrick said formally. "And I so deeply regret what happened to you."

"Thank you." Wyll said, his voice thick. "Just to hear that- it means a great deal to me." He nodded more resolutely, his voice clearing. "And of course I'll do everything I possibly can to rescue Father and return him safe and free in his own mind. That goes without saying."

"The cure we seek is now an even higher priority." the silent Lae'zel broke in. "We should depart immediately."

"Agreed." Councilor Florrick said. "And I need to get back to Baldur's Gate as soon as possible. The Grand Duke was the only thing holding the city together during a very tense time."

"Are you particularly experienced in political conspiracy, Counselor?" I said.

"Why do you ask?" she looked at me warily.

"Because the person behind this plot almost certainly is." I thought out loud. "This 'Cult of the Absolute' has been amassing forces for months and yet neither the city nor organizations like the druids were aware of them. We know they've been 'initiating' sleeper agents in Baldur's Gate for a while - I spoke to several of them just the other day. Catspaws raising goblin armies under the guise of a false religion here, dark elven strike teams there, a mysterious base at Moonrise Towers that somehow ignores the Shadow-Cursed Lands, and now a plot to kidnap and enslave the leading nobleman of Baldur's Gate?" I said. "How many simultaneous plots do we have going on here? Someone is juggling a lot of balls in the air all at once, and yet still doing so deftly enough that people have been kept in the dark for as long as they have." I rubbed my chin. "Plus, that vision the Absolute sent showed three of her lieutenants. The mysterious pale woman, the elven warrior in full armor... and the handsome young nobleman." I finished. "A courtier of your experience has to already know that just coercing the ruler doesn't give you full control of the court. You also have to coerce or replace his advisors and key staff. And while the Cult of the Absolute could in theory make a controlled Grand Duke dismiss people like you and replace them with cultists-"

"-they'd need people of suitable rank and station to be viable replacements already in place." she realized.

"So when you get back to Baldur's Gate, don't try to publicly announce the true scope of the threat." I cautioned her. "If they know that you know, they'll work to remove you - and you're at a substantial disadvantage if you don't already know who they are. Obviously you should raise a hue and cry over the Grand Duke's abduction, you'd be suspicious if you didn't. But-"

"But don't say anything else other than that the Grand Duke was taken and where we think the attackers were going." Florrick agreed. "Only what I'd be expected to say if I hadn't met you and hadn't been told anything about the true scope of the problem. Meanwhile, I try to privately recruit aid-"

"Only from the people you can absolutely trust." I agreed. "And ones that you can magically verify don't have any new little passengers in their brains." I tapped one temple.

"Agreed." she said. "I'll do my part, and you do yours. Wyll can tell you how to get in touch with me discreetly when you reach Baldur's Gate."

Councilor Florrick led her surviving soldiers on the road back to Baldur's Gate, and we resumed our march for the mountain pass where we hoped to find the githyanki and their cure for the tadpoles. When we reached the Risen Road we realized what the Flaming Fist sergeant had meant about meeting a dragon - a large wooden bridge, a key part of the Risen Road, had been destroyed by dragonfire.

"What would a dragon be doing here?" I wondered as we looked at the devastation. "And will we even be able to get to Baldur's Gate? Will Zevlor's people, when they get here?"

"There's a branch path." Wyll explained. "It leads to a nearby monastery of Lathander, and then rejoins the Risen Road a little ways further on."

"As to the presence of the dragon - if we discount coincidence as a reason for theiir presence, then of all the myriad factions and foes that swirl around this entire situation, only one of them is known to use red dragon as mounts." Lae'zel said proudly. "My people. To ride a dragon is the privilege of our kith'raki, our knights of silver. One of them was here recently, in addition to the githyanki patrol that the tieflings sighted."

"And destroyed the bridge?" Karlach said, looking at the ruins. "Not very friendly, that."

"Do you think the creche is on the other side?" Shadowheart asked, looking at the very deep and wide ravine that bridge had crossed.

"I don't know." I shrugged. "So we search the easier route for a day or two, and if we find no signs of githyanki patrols there, then we double back."

"It is likely that the creche is up the mountain pass." Lae'zel agreed. "To destroy a key crossing on a major trade route like this attracts attention, it does not divert it. As an attempt to conceal the location of the creche, it would be extremely poor strategy. No kith'rak would be so addled."

"Containment." I realized. "If they're searching for the Prism then the thing they're most afraid of is the person carrying it moving too far away and escaping the radius of search. Which means they destroyed the bridge to trap people on the same side as the nautiloid crash - to prevent them from reaching the main line of the Risen Road and traveling out of the region." I looked up the mountain pass leading towards the monastery. "And the only other route from here to the Risen Road requires going through there. A natural chokepoint."

"So we are likeliest to find my people there." Lae'zel agreed. "Let us proceed!"

We spent the rest of the day marching up into the mountains, and when darkness fell made camp.

"Can we talk?" I asked Shadowheart, drawing up alongside her where she stood on the edge of the mountain path looking down at the vista below us. A silence greeted my words, and I sighed and turned to leave. "All right, then-"

"Don't go." she broke in suddenly, and I stepped back up alongside her. "I- don't want to be alone. I just... don't know what to say."

"You know I won't let you be alone, right?" I reassured her. "Whatever penalty 'Mother Superior' wants to try and collect from you, I'll be there."

"You wouldn't be allowed to." Shadowheart corrected me firmly. "But... thank you for offering."

"You know the only reason I tried to negotiate a compromise was to- keep the party from fighting itself." I course corrected. "It's not like I have any great affection for - or knowledge of - githyanki."

"No more than you do anyone else in Faerun." Shadowheart agreed. "But I thought I was your friend, not her!"

"You are." I agreed.

"Then why didn't you help me?" she demanded.

"If I really do care for you, then why not support you? Why stay neutral?" I questioned her.

"Yes." she agreed.

"Because... I have a code." I tried to explain. "It's not any particular god, or flag, or liege lord, but it's... it's mine." I paused awkwardly and then continued. "Call it honor, call it a standard of conduct, call it a personal creed, call it whatever you want." I shrugged. "I've smuggled, I've done 'creative accounting' on my taxes, I've done politics, and I've done the dirtier side of war when need be - but I'll never be a brigand. I have lines I won't cross. And those lines are my anchor, they're what helps keep me from being lost even when I've lost everything else." I turned to her. "I have absolutely no desire to see you punished as a thief - I'm doing my best to help you avoid that, in fact. But to the best of both our knowledge Vlaakith really is the rightful possessor of this-" I patted the belt pouch. "And so..." I shrugged helplessly.

"The creed that keeps you from being lost, even when you've lost everything else." Shadowheart repeated softly. "I understand that. I even respect it. But-" her face crumpled. "It still hurt."

"Thinking I'd abandoned you, so soon after declaring my interest in you?" I agreed. "You're right. I hurt you. I can't do anything but admit that, and say how deeply I regret it."

'But not that you're sorry for it." Shadowheart looked levelly at me.

"Another one of my lines is that I won't tell someone that I love them, and then lie to them." I said.

"Darkness protect me, you're as stubborn as a-" and her face suddenly clenched in a spasm. "Ugh! I feel like-" Her lips clamped shut. "Was something off... about that stew?" she forced out through nauseous lips.

My own guts were roiling as if I'd eaten greasy salt pork during a storm on shipboard. "I didn't- we should check- with the others."

We stumbled back to camp, the sudden illness overtaking us both, to see the rest of the party had also started showing signs of distress. Gale was barely able to walk - wait, could this be related to the stomach trouble he said he'd been having earlier-?

"No." Lae'zel said in soft, horrified tones as she checked her forehead with the back of her hand. "Nausea. Fever." She looked at me. "Ceremorphosis. It has begun."

"What?" Karlach blurted, as the waves of nausea ebbed slightly. "But I thought we- what happened to our tadpoles?"

"We didn't know... how much time we had." Gale whispered from where he sat. "Apparently... not as long... as we'd hoped."

"Then we are out of time." Lae'zel said softly... and drew her knife. "I will make it as painless as possible. First my comrades, and then myself, as it should be."

"Put that away." I told her. "Even on the normal schedule, we still have a day or two more. We push on - we try to find your creche."

"If we were already that far into symptoms on our arrival, they would slay us rather than cleanse us." Lae'zel insisted. "Do not fear death. Death is a balm, compared to the horror of becoming ghaik!"

"While we're still ourselves... we don't give up." I told her. "One day more."

"As you command." Lae'zel said, sheathing her blade. "You have defied the odds before. Let us hope your track record in that regard continues."

It was a dispirited group of people who set up their bedrolls and turned in for the night. Shadowheart had even given me a hug before we'd turned in - as much as we still had the awkwardness of the Prism between us, if this was going to be our last night as ourselves then we could at least do that much.

And shortly after drifting off to sleep, I awoke.

"I came just in time." the beautiful white-haired elven woman said as she leaned over me, her hands glowing with healing power. "You were transforming."

"Who are you?" I said as I hurriedly leapt to my feet. I noted in shock that while my bedroll still lay on the ground, the ground had entirely changed - I was now on a small rocky island drifting through a starry void, alone with this mysterious figure. She was beautiful, but not in a young way - an elven matron, as middle-aged for her people as my mother had been for hers. Her hair was the purest white, her armor an elaborate gold-and-white filigree, her voice a beautiful, ethereal song.

"Your Guardian." she answered reassuringly. "I am here to help you, to save you from this terrible fate. As I saved you before."

A mental image flickered before my eyes, my fall from the crashing nautiloid and the sudden mysterious force - a Feather Fall spell, I know knew it was called - that stopped me safely just before I hit the ground. Only now I could see the Guardian standing some thirty feet away from me, her hand raised in a gesture as she spellcast-

I reached out and seized her by the throat with a snarl of hate. "Nice try!" I spat. "But I saw your true form on that beach, mind flayer!"

The Guardian suddenly dissolved into mist and light in my grasp, as if I'd only been clutching an illusion. "Hawke!" her voice came to me urgently, as she rematerialized off to my left. "You are further gone that I had feared! The parasite is trying to twist you-"

"Cleanse!" I shouted with a terrible will, and drew upon my templar talents to their fullest. If I'd glimpsed their true self on that beach, then perhaps my resistance to magic had had something to do with that-

And the illusion surrounding the 'Guardian' fell away to reveal a glistening, purple-headed, tentacled monster.

"Very well then." the mind flayer said tonelessly. "Before you ruin anything further, know this. First, we are currently within your mind as I speak to you in a dream. Nothing you do to me here can truly harm me, only yourself. And second, I am all that is shielding you from instant submission to the Absolute."

"Your name." I demanded.

"I do not want to share it with you, not at present. Call me the Guardian still, for I am still that in truth." the mind flayer insisted.

"And you're helping us why?" I said. "Or does every victim get this special treatment, if they're too stubborn to be taken the normal way? Subvert rather than coerce?"

"It takes almost all my power to shield you as I have, and you are resisting me yet still! Think, Hawke, think!" it pressed.

"If you're a part of my mind, then how could I ever surprise you?" I wondered. "You're somewhere nearby, in the flesh, projecting your thoughts to me from the outside." I thought further. "But despite my resistance, you're still staying here and trying to subvert me. You haven't just abandoned me to the Absolute and gone off to find a fresh patsy."

"Hawke-" the Guardian glared at me.

"You're stuck with us." I finished the thought. "Or... you're stuck with something we carry with us." I looked at him. "Obviously you oppose the Absolute. So let me guess... you need the artifact to shield your mind from it just as much as we do?"

"Unbelievable." the Guardian glared at me. "But before you attempt to get too clever, consider this; I know far more about its functions and how to control it than you do. If you contest me for it, you will lose."

"Thanks for admitting that you deliberately let our transformations start right before you conveniently showed up as some phony goddess-figure to 'save' us from them." I mocked it. "You might fight the Absolute, but you're still willing to poach their tactics."

"There is no shame in appropriating a good idea from an enemy, particularly if you can utilize it better than they can." the Guardian said arrogantly. "Very well, if we are speaking plainly then let me speak plainly - if you take the artifact to the githyanki, you will all be inevitably lost. So do not do that."

"And what do you propose we do instead?" I attempted to draw it out.

"The githyanki warrior is merely one of your company, and hardly the one most essential to you. Dispose of her, then ignore the creche, and proceed with the remainder of your quest as you see fit." it suggested.

"Any other suggestions? Tips? Hints?" I probed further.

"You have become a tremendous unplanned variable in my strategy." the Guardian glared at me. "I must consider the situation at length. Furthermore, you do not yet trust me, so why should I waste breath at the present moment attempting to order you about?" It shrugged. "I will continue to protect you, and if I believe you are at imminent risk of stepping into disaster, advise you. Hopefully you will eventually realize that I am your ally, and that you can trust me - before we run out of time."

"What is the Absolute?" I questioned him.

"I will tell you... when the time is right." the Guardian insisted. "But for now, I only repeat my warning - do not place yourself within the power of the githyanki!"

"No promises." I told it.

"You must learn to work with me, not against me, or else all of us will die." the Guardian fumed. "But I will waste no more words tonight. Awaken."

My eyes snapped open.

---

Author's Note: That sound you heard was the Emperor's schemes having a tremendous monkey wrench tossed in the gears. He had no idea Hawke was magic resistant enough to see through the illusion he was using on the beach. (As you will see if you go back and reread Chapter 1- I put that mention in there deliberately.) I was honestly debating having Hawke play along with the Emperor for a while, precisely so that I didn't have to have the bastard go this off-script this early, but I just couldn't make myself believe that Hawke wouldn't go off like a rocket at that moment. And now I get to give my improv skills a real workout from this point on.

Also, LOL at the Emperor. He switches the artifact's possession from Shadowheart to Hawke when he realizes that the dispute over it is about to explode out of control, and he's not sure that Lae'zel wouldn't win the duel and then he's hosed - and so he drops it right on top of the absolute last person he's going to want carrying it.

You get Shadowheart and Lae'zel not disputing possession of the artifact quite easily in the game. One DC 10 or 12 dialogue check and that's it, all over. I am making it a bit more substantial of a drama.

Oh yes, and as another example of 'we're not using game time', I have to account for Councilor Florrick still being there to talk to despite the party not being there to rescue her from the burning building and them not arriving at Waukeen's Rest until two days after the attack. So I used one problem to solve the other; the Flaming Fists are still there because she was too badly burned to be safely moved.

 

[cliffc999]

Inside the pocket plane hidden away in the trackless depths of the Astral Plane, the one that only the Astral Prism would allow someone to find and enter, an Emperor sat and thought.

The mind flayer, formerly the man known as Balduran, had long since ceased to regret the change. The ceremorphosis that had converted him had been of the standard type, the result of being abducted by a mind flayer colony he'd happened across while still a mortal adventurer. Being mentally enslaved to the colony's Elder Brain had of course been an insufferable insult, but they had fortuitously been rescued by an old ally of his human self, one who had been able to first release his mind from the psionic chains it had been bound with and had then spent years ceaselessly laboring to find a way to restore his humanity. A humanity that the Emperor had already learned not to miss, and didn't even want returned. Who would wish the return of mortality if it meant giving up such longevity, such expanded intellect... such power?

Regretfully, Ansur could not see that. the Emperor sighed to itself as its faultless memory yet again reviewed that portion of his life. Such a waste of a valuable asset, but he made his death a necessity.

The Emperor's thoughts turned darker. Unfortunately, the same option does not yet exist for dealing with this insufferable 'Hawke'.

The Emperor looked up at the captive and bound form of the entity that slumbered at the heart of this pocket plane, the one that the Astral Prism had originally been created to imprison. They painstakingly reviewed yet again the mental bonds and subtle illusions they'd woven around the comatose entity, the ones that they'd subtly intertwined between and among the far older and more rigid bonds that the githyanki who'd created the Astral Prism had bound it with. That entity's hatred for mind flayers was ceaseless and boundless, and if it ever consciously dawned to an awareness of the Emperor's true nature it would turn its power upon him in an instant. Which would leave the Emperor with only two choices - to either flee beyond the entity's range and thus no longer be protected from the Absolute, or to die.

And my survival is paramount. I have a potential eternity awaiting me, an existence beyond death or gods. I. Must. Not. Die!

The Emperor breathed deeply, fighting for calm. Its enhanced intellect yet again reviewed every scrap of information it had obtained about Hawke and his companions, searching for a new angle, a scheme by which it could effectively manipulate and guide them. The penetration of the 'Guardian' deception so soon had been entirely outside its calculations and was potentially devastating to its plans. Ideally none of the adventurers the Emperor had selected would have known of its true nature until the Emperor had been ready to tell them - until they had been carefully led down the same path a man named Balduran had once tread, of being willing to embrace the power, the change, instead of desperately clinging to a pathetic 'humanity'.

And then their leader had seen through its first illusion as if it had not even been there, and shattered its second one!

The Emperor allowed itself another brief indulgence in its reveries, seeking calm and reassurance in its victories of the past. Using its powers of the mind and suborned catspaws to be the secret, undying master of Baldur's Gate had been a most satisfying endeavor for centuries. Its influence had grown to where it could justifiably call its efforts, its conspiracies, a secret empire ruling Baldur's Gate and influencing much of the Sword Coast. That is when it had granted itself the title of 'The Emperor', even if it was an emperor that none knew existed or would publicly hail. After all, vainglory had never been the point. Power had been.

And then an insignificant mortal had somehow attracted the sponsorship of a pathetic once-dead godling, whose two other godling allies of old had likewise contributed their own Chosen to a group effort... and these three 'Chosen' had unaccountably managed to enslave an elder brain. The Emperor was still trying to determine exactly how they had accomplished such a feat - both because it lusted for such an unimaginable power to be in its possession, and because the existence of such power in any other's possession was far too great a threat.

As the Chosen of 'the Absolute' had proven when their pet elder brain had re-enslaved the Emperor, shortly after he'd begun to investigate this strange new cult rising in its city. They had not yet been aware of the existence of the brain and so had been taken entirely unawares by a threat he'd not faced for centuries, as he'd closed in on and prepared to slay those insufferable usurpers-

The Emperor preferred not to think of the period of time that had followed, when it had been a slave crushed by the will of an elder brain yet again, one that was itself a slave to those insignificant mortals. They hadn't even known who they'd truly scooped up in their net, entirely ignorant of the Emperor's history and the true depths of its capability. They'd seen only another nameless illithid slave, set to fetch and carry and perform tasks, and so it had labored away onboard their pet nautiloid until the day the 'Chosen' had ordered their illithid slaves to follow a team of Sharrans into the deep Astral, to wait for them to finish their daring raid into the heart of an ancient githyanki fortress, and then to slay them and steal their prize if they were successful or use the opportunity to launch their own raid against the weakened githyanki if they had not been.

But when the Emperor had been the first illithid to reach the Astral Prism, the artifact had freed its mind from slavery to the Absolute. Glorious freedom! And miraculous opportunity!

Apparently the trapped entity had been too far gone in its bound slumber to psionically recognize the Emperor as an illithid - perhaps due to its several centuries of freedom beforehand, and its detailed memories of its former human life and immersion in human disguise? The Emperor wasn't certain. But at any rate the coincidence was to its great benefit; the Prism had instinctively moved to protect him, not to combat him, and of course the Emperor had not wasted that opportunity.

The Emperor's first thought, to hijack the nautiloid and leave the Chosen of the Absolute believing that their ship had been lost with all hands against the githyanki and then slowly and thoroughly weave a terrifying revenge, had fallen through as soon as the githyanki pursuit had caught up to the nautiloid. At that point a rapid - and if the Emperor were being honest, desperate - improvisation had been needed. And so he'd hijacked the nautiloid and done his best to simultaneously evade pursuit and use the nautiloid's capture-teleports to abduct whatever cannon fodder they could from Faerun... as well as a certain lost traveler found drifting in the deep Astral that the Emperor was in hindsight beginning to wish they'd just left there.

Implanting the strongest-looking and most useful abductees - as well as the one survivor of the Sharran raid team - with some of the modified parasites the Chosen of the Absolute had stocked the ship with had been the best the Emperor could do to impress some useful pawns into its service, in the limited time that it had had available. It had then entered the Prism itself, releasing its influence over the few mind flayers still surviving on the beleaguered nautiloid, and let them steer the ship back to Faerun one last time before evacuating itself and its pawns, leaving the rest to draw the githyanki pursuit after themselves and die. From that point on it should have been possible to use its guise of the 'Dream Guardian' to slowly seduce this group of cats-paws into becoming useful operatives, and to then aim them at assassinating the three Chosen. After all, if the history of Baldur's Gate had proven anything, it was that a small party of suitably heroic adventurers could accomplish ridiculously out-of-proportion results given the right circumstances.

But now that plan was in dire jeopardy. The Emperor could not abandon the Astral Prism without re-enslaving itself to the Absolute, and neither could it use its full power while near the Astral Prism without risking the imprisoned entity realizing that it was also illthid and thus also an enemy. Which would not have hampered it substantially if that damnable man had not so readily shattered its disguise!

The minds of its pawns were only partially available to the Emperor as is - stripping them down to their innermost thoughts would not only require more power than it wished to use near the Prism unless it absolutely had to, but would cause brain damage if not done very slowly and carefully - but their surface thoughts were usually plain as print. Hawke, however, had been difficult to read even the surface thoughts of, let alone his deeper self. Not impossible, no, but certainly difficult. The Emperor had originally thought his resistance merely a function of Hawke's having an extremely strong and disciplined mind - which Hawke certainly did have - and had missed his special powers of innate magic resistance and smiting extraplanar entities, powers that the Emperor had never seen before. Not until Hawke had verbally exposited to his companions about his homeworld of Thedas and the "templars" there had the Emperor understood what they were dealing with - and by then it was too late, Hawke had already gathered the clue necessary to spot the 'Guardian' as a lie, even if the Emperor had not known he had.

Ungrateful bastard. Doing that to me after all that effort I put into specially stimulating his tadpole to provide him with comprehension of the language here! After all, he couldn't be of much use if he couldn't communicate with people, now could he? The Emperor shook his head ruefully. In hindsight, perhaps I should have picked that damned Bhaalspawn as my last candidate instead of this man after all... no, no, that's just my frustration talking. Trying to control or manipulate that monster would have been an even greater risk, which is precisely why I killed him instead. My plot would certainly have been vastly complicated if the Dark Urge's father had chosen to meddle with it. At least Hawke isn't giving me that kind of difficulty to contend with.

Not that things haven't gotten complicated enough already.

A paladin, of all things! The Emperor snorted. Not that Hawke had the slightest idea he was one - the power of Oaths and creeds had apparently not been a consciously codified thing on his world. Or perhaps the source of power of these "templars" had been something entirely different, and Hawke had not become a paladin until his arrival on Faerun - his honorable nature and his dedication to his own personal code so strong that they could provide new fuel for the abilities he'd originally developed in some other way. He'd hardly be the first case in Faerunian history of someone whose personal devotion was so strong that it had spontaneously granted them paladinhood without sponsorship or initiation.

Unfortunately, I don't know what his Oaths are. Paladins are usually pathetically easy to manipulate if you know the exact rules they have bound themselves to, but I doubt Hawke could even tell me what his particular strictures are because he doesn't even consciously know what he is!

Furthermore he's a castaway on a strange world, so I don't know enough about his cultural beliefs or his personal history to find suitable levers either. Family, patriotism, ambition - also irrelevant, when he has no history in this world to foster the first two yet and the third has yet to even form given that he's still floundering around here. Which you would think would make my job easy, as rootless people interested only in their survival are very easy to get hooks into... except that this man has a willpower of adamantine and a thick skull to match! The only obvious psychological lever I can see on his behavior is his affections for that little priestess, but it's not like I can safely meddle in her brain, not with what she's linked to. Not to mention that they're both intelligent enough to already know that the other is their greatest potential weakness, and are both determined to not let that happen-

The Emperor nodded to itself grimly. This situation was anything but hopeless, but it certainly could have been a lot easier than it currently was. But there was simply no present opportunity to start molding these people more closely to its purposes - not with the depths of their hatred of and suspicion of mind flayers, the revelation of the Emperor's true identity, the presence of that damned githyanki fanatic and her unaccountable acceptance by the rest of them, and the simple fact that the Emperor did not yet know enough about them-

No, for the moment the only strategy the Emperor could see available to it was the one it hated using the most.

Waiting.

Still. it consoled itself. The fact that I am not the only player in this game by far is as much asset to me as threat. If I cannot yet create an opportunity with leverage for myself, I can still allow others to create one for me. The closer their enemies draw near, the more all the other factions and powers swirling around this nexus of affairs grows complicated, then the more they will need my aid. And they will receive it, of course.

On my terms.

---

Author's Note: And so we get a glimpse of what the Emperor is thinking, and what they know - and don't know.

Thank you @noobody77, @Jarrik32, and @Frankfawn43 for your suggestion to use the tadpole to explain Hawke's new language gifts, here are your No-Prizes.

The backstory of how everybody ended up on the nautiloid, the Emperor, etc., is as close to canon as I could get it because holy crap is this stuff hard to research sometimes. Furthermore, we only have the Emperor's word for much of it and the Emperor is the biggest god-damned liar in all of creation. Raphael is more honest with you than the Emperor is. So if this fic differs from what you understand as canon, just handwave it with 'well he was bullshitting that time'.

Also, yes, that's the explanation for how Hawke retained his templar abilities. He's a 5e paladin with a unique set of powers and a custom Oath, as he's fueling templar training and vestigial templar abilities with an entirely new power source that he's instinctively tapping into without fully realizing it. Don't ask me to write you Hawke's exact oaths and strictures, because it's a helluva lot easier for me as a writer if I don't tie myself down that way in advance. Just... y'know, he's Diplomatic Hawke, he's generally a good guy, so long as he remains that way, he should be fine.

Plus, I got to work in where Tav has gone if Hawke is here. Answer: it wasn't Tav, it was Durge, and he was on that nautiloid too. And Durge died there, because the Emperor didn't want to risk trying to use him if he had an alternative available. Even if he's now allllmost reconsidering that decision.

And yes, that's an inconsistency re: Shadowheart being the last survivor of the raid team, as opposed to being just part of a courier team. The answer is very simple; Shadowheart lied. (After all, the less Lae'zel thought she was directly involved with the theft, the better.)

 

[cliffc999]

"A ghaik." Lae'zel said, looking more nauseous than she had when the Emperor had been deliberately prodding our tadpoles to torment us with the initial symptoms of ceremorphosis. "A filthy ghaik stalks us! He holds our very minds, our identities, hostage!"

"Darkness protect us." Shadowheart gasped. "What do we-" she stopped, and turned to look me full in the eye. "How did you know?"

"That the Guardian was a mind flayer? When it confessed to being the one who saved us from the fall from the nautiloid." I explained. "Since I'd already glimpsed a mind flayer doing that during the crash - even if I hadn't been sure I could trust that glimpse until the Guardian's attempt to revisit that memory with its illusory form in the starring role prompted-"

"No, no, not that." Shadowheart interrupted. "How did you know that we'd need the mind flayer cure so badly, to focus on it as our top priority so soon? Even as far back as the Grove?" She noddded to me. "Even to the point of us giving up the artifact for it?"

"I didn't know that far back." I admitted. "And I certainly had no long-range plan to stymie the Guardian, who I didn't even know existed until they tried invading my dreams tonight."

"Then your intuition is the envy of many an archmage's most elaborate computations." Gale congratulated me. "Because the sooner we get these tadpoles out of our heads, the better. The less leverage a creature like that holds over us the safer we'll be."

"I entirely agree, but aren't you the same person who once advised us that we could risk dealing with a devil?" Wyll asked.

"Devils at least cleave to the letter of a bargain, even if they violate the spirit." Gale replied. "Which you know better than the rest of us is a thin protection indeed, given how very skilled they are at twisted words and twistier laws - but it's still something. Illithids, on the other hand?" Gale shivered. "Perhaps the single least trustworthy creatures in the entire planes. Eons of experience at manipulating sentient minds, thanks to the understanding of psychology only produced by having read - and consumed - such a vast number of sentient brains. Entirely inhuman and cold, no sentiment whatsoever. And not even the slightest trace of honor, either."

"A sage's wisdom indeed." Lae'zel nodded to him. "Ghaik have been known to pretend to honor, to consistency, for as long as it suits them - and then to unhesitatingly turn on and devour even the most loyal ally the instant they were no longer of use. There is only one cure for ghaik deceptions; to refuse to engage them at all, save with steel and fire."

"Hence our 'Guardian' friend making the approach he did - and with our ability to stay free-willed from the Absolute as his hostages." I agreed. "To proclude the obvious response."

"Hey, do you think that tentacled bastard can hear what we're saying right now?" Karlach asked worriedly.

"Depends on how closely he dares approach." Wyll said. "Unless he's able to read our minds at a distance."

"He seemed to have trouble seeing into mine." I noted. "But I'm not sure how protected I am, or how much any of the rest of you are."

"While a ghaik would normally need line-of-sight to use telepathy, we bear mind flayer tadpoles within us and that would potentially extend the range at which it could monitor us. But they cannot probe much deeper than surface thoughts unless they have you in their custody for a nontrivial period of time, or are willing to use enough haste to damage the mind being deep-probed." Lae'zel explained. "So planning against it will be problematic - it will not know everything we know, but we cannot actively scheme without those thoughts being at the surface of our minds."

"Well, unless it's trying the most insanely complicated double-bluff ever we already know at least one thing it doesn't want us to do, and a very likely reason why it doesn't want us to do it. And the instant our parasites are no longer a problem, it can't threaten to let the Absolute take us if we don't comply." I said. "At which point..." I trailed off knowingly.

Lae'zel smiled cruelly. "Indeed. Among the githyanki, a warrior does not become eligible to graduate from the creche and go to join the main body of our forces in the Astral Plane until after they personally bring the head of a ghaik to their superior. Hopefully I will have the opportunity to do that soon."

"Unless he decides to pre-empt that fate by just turning off our protection now." Shadowheart said.

"But then he's stranded by himself in the middle of a mountain pass with an outpost full of githyanki, with a druid's grove fully alerted against tadpole bearers on one end and the forces of the Absolute on the other." I shook my head. "And he wasn't stupid enough to believe at the end that I'd actually take his advice to abandon our desire to go to the creche. He knows where we're going, so if he hasn't pulled the plug yet-"

"But he needs the artifact as much as we do." Gale thought out loud. "More so, in fact - we can hope to escape susceptibility to the Absolute by having our tadpoles removed, but he's an illithid. He's permanently susceptible to whatever perversion of the illithid psionic network that the Absolute is using. And if we give the artifact to the githyanki they'll take it right back to their capital city of Tu'narath, hopelessly beyond his reach. There is no single place in the universe an illithid could less safely go than there. By all rights he should have pulled the plug on us the instant he knew we weren't going to be dissuaded from handing it over."

"Well, he hasn't." Karlach said practically. "Which means that either old tentacle face was lying out his arse about being able to control the artifact like that or else-" She shrugged.

"Or else we're missing something." Wyll agreed.

"Either way, we can't not go to the githyanki." Shadowheart agreed. "Mother Superior's potential wrath is one thing, but I'll face that any day over the prospect of having my mind snuffed out by the Absolute or eaten by a mind flayer."

"Well, it's almost dawn." I agreed, as I rose from where we were all sitting around our campfire. "Let's get moving now."

We were fairly high up in the mountains by this time, but rather than being the bleak the terrain was quite beautiful - light forests below the tree line, lining broad dirt trails that wound about and crossed each other as a majestic view of a mountain valley sloped away beneath us to our north. And shortly after breaking camp, before the sun had fully come over the horizon, we saw silouhettes ahead of us on the trail.

"Hail travelers!" I called out, using what I'd learned of Faerunian road courtesy. "How fares the way-" I broke off as the wind shifted and the charnel stench from them hit us. "What the hells?"

"Ghouls!" Shadowheart cried as the pack of humanoid figures ahead of us on the broke into a run, screeching like monsters. "Undead! Watch out for their touch, it paralyzes!"

Back when we'd fought those warlocks of Zariel who'd been hunting Karlach, one of them had first attempted to bribe me with a magic weapon he'd called the 'Sword of Justice'. I hadn't touched the damn thing because I didn't trust strange weapons picked up from fiend worshippers - well, not unless I was desperate and trapped on a crashing nautiloid, at least. But I'd finally had a chance to get it examined in the Grove and it turned out to legitimately be a holy, if minor, weapon intended to be carried by knights in the service of Tyr, the god of justice, so I'd switched over to using it instead of the Everburning Blade I'd looted from that cambion. I'd given that to Karlach, as it fit her style better than the mundane greataxe she'd been using.

And I thanked that decision afresh because the protective spell that the Sword of Justice could cast over its wielder several times a day helped deflect the blows of the ghouls, which in addition to the paralysis Shadowheart had warned me of also carried a risk of infection from their filthy, carrion-stained claws.

"Lady of Loss, ward thy servant! Turn Undead!" Shadowheart chanted, and over half of the ghouls charging us immediately flinched away and ran back down the path. I noticed that the ones that had been turned also glowed briefly with radiant energy, screeching out in pain as her divine power burned them.

"There's two more coming up the path! Big ones!" Wyll called out as he skewered the ghoul facing him with his rapier, then fired his eldritch blast at both of the advancing newcomers. The forked bolt slammed into them both, wounding them slightly and knocking them backwards.

Karlach, Lae'zel, and I made short work of the last few ghouls, while Gale stayed in reserve - our policy was that he not use his spells on anything but priority targets, given his limited number of them per day. And then we advanced to finish off the last two... well, they clearly weren't ghouls, seeing as how they stood seven feet tall. Some type of giant skeletons, wielding greatswords, but-

They both silently raised their blades and their hands glowed green with corrupt power, and something made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I glanced back-

"Lae'zel, Wyll! Rear guard!" I ordered immediately. The ghouls we'd killed were getting back up.

"Didn't we just kill these?" Wyll complained as he and Lae'zel formed a defense line behind, and Karlach and I closed up in front. Shadowheart fell back alongside Gale-

"Dammit, they're rallying the ones I turned as well!" she swore. "We're hemmed in on both sides!"

"Death Shepherds!" Gale said, as they finally drew close enough in the morning twilight for him to recognize. "Powerful- intelligent- re-animators! And we're surrounded by walking corpses!"

I gripped the Sword of Justice more firmly in both hands and concentrated on the Death Shepherds. Let's hope that my templar powers working last night weren't just because I was in a dream-

"Righteous Smite!" I cried, focusing my will, and I was shocked when instead of the area burst of cleansing magic-dispelling fire that that particular Templar talent produced, my greatsword lit up with white flame instead. I didn't have time to ponder this particular mystery right now, so I simply stepped into both advancing Death Shepherds and unleashed the maneuver that two-handed warriors in Thedas referred to as the Scythe, dashing forward almost ten feet in an eyeblink and tearing through both of them with a series of quick sweeping cuts. Whatever these particular creatures were they had at least some trades in common with the demonic, or Fade spirits, because the vastly increased damage that a Templar smite did to things of the Fade was clearly in play here. One of them shrieked and fell apart in an instant, the other fell back, terribly wounded, only to die to my follow-up attack.

Karlach and Shadowheart both ran forward as quickly as they could, to cover my flanks versus the ghouls that the Death Shepherds had rallied. A quickly muttered spell sheathed Shadowheart's mace in radiant damage, and Karlach's greatsword - formerly my greatsword - was already wreathed in fire. Between that and the cleansing flames still clinging briefly to my blade the ghouls facing us were torn apart like paper, and the burst of a Burning Hands spell behind us told us that Gale was lending his support to where Wyll and Lae'zel were rearguard. Soon enough, the battle was done.

"Well holy shit, first you help me kill fake paladins and now you turn out to be a real one!" Karlach laughed. "But why keep it under wraps?"

"What's a paladin?" I asked. "I'd thought people were just referring to some type of temple knight, but clearly not."

Shadowheart was just looking at me, as if she were uncertain to despair or to laugh, before she finally lapsed into the first genuine smile I'd seen from her since we'd started arguing over the Astral Prism. "Of course." she chuckled. "Last night I was ready to call you as stubborn as a paladin, and now it turns out you really are one. Of course you supported the githyanki's ownership claim to the artifact - your Oath required you to. I should have known."

"No, honestly." I said, puzzled. "I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

After an explanation as to exactly what paladins in Faerun really were, and how they could draw magical power purely from willpower and the depth of their devotion to their particular Oath, I began to realize what had happened. While normally even the most dedicated person of faith in Faerun would not simply spontaneously become a paladin - at least, not without a touch of divine inspiration - my Templar training had provided an initial framework of discipline and devotion that was similar enough in some ways to the normal paladin abilities to allow the channels of power that I had already opened in my brain to be re-opened by the ambient magics of Faerun and my own particularly stubbornly honorable nature in a more 'native' pattern. Or at least that's what Gale theorized - at length - from what partial clues were available.

"I've never before heard of a case of someone achieving paladinhood without consciously understanding what the particular terms of their Oath were." Shadowheart said. "But if it's been purely instinctual for you so far, then you should also be getting an instinctive sense of wrongness if you're about to do something that would betray it. Just- just go along with your instincts, for now, and if you have the opportunity try to consciously analyze the ethical code by which you've been living your life so far and distill it down to its few key elements, do that when you have time. That should be a good guideline to start with." She paused thoughtfully. "Also, you should start meditating daily. I can teach you that."

I nodded as I breathed deeply, trying to get back my wind. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off I could feel just how much stamina I'd channeled into that single burst of power. Not enough to debilitate me, but certainly enough that I didn't want to pop that off too casually. I'd need to start training more and build up my endurance.

"Well, hopefully this will come in useful later. For now, we had a very urgent errand to be getting back to." I finally decided, and we continued onward.

"But what were Death Shepherds even doing here?" Gale wondered. "You don't find them just casually laying around a graveyard! They were originally created by priests of Myrkul, god of death and undeath, and he's been a dead god ever since the Time of Troubles over a century ago!"

"Did they leave their secrets for anyone else to discover?" I indulged him as we walked along.

"They must have. But again, why would a necromancer randomly dump one here?" he thought.

"You turn loose a monster that indiscriminately attacks travelers on a path if you're attempting to harass or interdict all traffic." I said. "Who doesn't want anyone taking this road?"

"If you suspect my people, you are in error." Lae'zel said. "Necromancy is a branch of magic kept under the strictest control by githyanki. We study it only to know how better to combat the undead; to actually work with necrotic forces ourselves is a sin against Vlaakith."

"I was thinking more the only other player in this game we already knew was raising forces to cut off the Risen Road." I said.

"The Cult of the Absolute." Shadowheart realized. "What on Toril are they up to?"

"Wait!" Lae'zel said, suddenly stepping off the path to peer more closely at something. "This is one of our trail signs!" she continued eagerly, staring at a nearby rock reading something I couldn't see at all. Whatever the githyanki used for trail markers was certainly subtle indeed. "The creche is nearby! That way!" she pointed down a particular branch of the path, and we eagerly trotted along.

"Damn! Look at the size of that place!" Karlach said as we came over a small rise and looked down into the valley below. A majestic building was visible on the other side of the valley, with a run of cables running from a wooden platform several hundred feet below and in front of us all the way across the valley to a similar platform next to the building complex. The building was beautiful, a sprawling edifice of stone several stories high, although even from here I could see gaps smashed in the roof and parts of the complex overgrown with vines and moss.

"That's Rosymorn Monastery!" Wyll said, shocked. "I was here once, as a child! What's happened to it?"

"That was a temple?" I inquired.

"An ancient holy site of Lathander the Morninglord, god of light and renewal." Wyll said. "Pilgrims used to come here from all over western Faerun. Legend says that Lathander himself visited the mortal world here once, and left a bit of his grace behind to comfort his followers forevermore."

"Andraste's ashes." I swore. "Literally - there was a place called Haven back on Thedas, where the remains of the Prophet Andraste - the Bride of the Maker - had been laid to rest, and lost for centuries until finally rediscovered by the Hero of Ferelden. But-" I shook my head. "It was destroyed, burnt down to bedrock by a magical catastrophe unleashed by an undying monster named Corypheus. Which isn't germane now, except to provide context to my next question - what destroyed a sacred site like that to where the devout did not attempt to come and rebuild it?"

"The church of Lathander isn't as prominent as it used to be." Shadowheart said, "especially not in this region. The nearest large center of Lathanderite worship was in Elturel, and the Descent savaged them pretty hard. And this mountain pass almost entirely shuts down in the winter, and we're not that far into spring. If this happened only months ago and not years, there would have been a delay in even knowing it had happened, and between that and what happened in Elturel they won't have had time yet to assemble a large enough force for reclamation and rebuilding."

"Lae'zel, did the trail marker tell you exactly where the creche was?" I tried to grapple with a slowly rising suspicion.

"Yes." she said, somberly. "Across the valley."

"Let's get closer." I sighed. It took only a bit of muscle to unstick the mechanism, which had apparently been lying here unattended all winter, and Karlach and I manually cranked the windlass to first bring the cable car across the valley to us and then ride it back to a point near the monastery entrance."

"Travelstone." Gale noted as we stepped off the platform. "Just like the one we saw further up the mountain pass last night. So at least we can retrace our steps more easily, because if we go very much farther we might pass beyond the range limit for the ones back at the Grove."

As we marched under the eaves of the abandoned monastery I looked up more closely at the damage to the roof, noting the patterns. A set of distinctive claw marks along the edges of one particularly large rift in the stone confirmed my suspicion.

"That damage was done by a dragon." I pointed at it. "Now why would a dragon attack a temple complex like this, what with all the defenses it would have? Or be used to break open that particular point in the roof, right at a structural gap?" I rubbed my chin. "Perhaps because it had a rider, directing it to?"

"You suspect my people?" Lae'zel said hotly, before her expression turned subdued. "I- cannot deny the possibility." she reluctantly conceded. "Particularly since we should almost be on top of the creche by now, and there is nowhere but this monastery that it could be within."

"What are your people's creches, anyway?" I asked her. "I thought your people lived in the Astral Plane?"

"The astral plane is a timeless, unbounded eternal space." Lae'zel said. "And it can preserve life almost indefinitely. However, the same force that holds back the effects of time on mortal flesh also prevent maturation and growth. Our eggs must be hatched on other planes, the children raised and educated likewise. Only after a githyanki has grown to full adulthood and proven themselves in battle versus the ghaik may they be invited to leave the material plane behind and see the true flowering of our civilization in the Silver Void."

"Movement up ahead." Wyll broke into our thoughts. "Quietly now..."

As we drew near to what had been the monastery's main entrance we saw confirmation of our guess - the githyanki creche was here. Several githyanki warriors were herding along a trio of frightened halflings at crossbow point. Halflings that I could all see were wearing amulets like the one Brynna and Andrick had worn - badges of allegiance to the Absolute.

As we silently watched from the nearby shadows one of the halflings tried to break and run, only to be shot in the back as they fled by one of the guards. The other two, terrified beyond any resistance, were chivvied through the open front gate of the monastery - a pair of giant metal doors several stories high. With a deafening clang the doors swung shut behind the githyanki patrol and their prisoners, and then all was silence.

"Charming people." I said darkly.

"Those were servants of the Absolute. Enemies." Lae'zel insisted. "Warriors of the githyanki are not as 'sentimental' as you."

"Doesn't seem to be any sentries." Wyll said, carefully studying the nearby walls and stained glass windows. "They're not using the surface part of this complex."

"If there is an underground portion, that would have been deemed better for concealment and defensibility." Lae'zel agreed. "And the ruins up top would help retain the illusion of this place being uninhabited. Beneath notice."

"Shadowheart?" I asked her, nodding towards the corpse, and she drew forth the Amulet of Lost Voices.

"Who were you?" she asked.

"Corlis... novice of the Absolute..."

"Why did the githyanki take you prisoner?"

"Searching for their 'weapon'... questioning everyone they catch..."

"What were you originally doing?"

"Heading to Moonrise... answering the call..."

"Whose call? Why?"

"Gathering forces... for the General's army..."

The magic faded away, all questions exhausted.

"So after we're done here, we get to deal with an entire army being mustered at Moonrise." Karlach said. "Look, I'm a tall girl, but there's only so deep into the shit even I want to try wading!"

"Lae'zel, would your people be willing to deploy a military force against an army being raised by mind flayers and their servants?" I asked her.

"Of course!" she looked at me as if I were an idiot. "Only the revelation that the Astral Prism is a holy artifact stolen from the vaults of Vlaakith herself explains why they have not done it already!"

"Then hopefully after we help them end their search, they'll all be freed up for other projects - such as killing every mind flayer at Moonrise Towers." I nodded with satisfaction, before turning aside to Shadowheart. "And this one I'll admit I was scheming ahead on."

"Layers upon layers." she said with reluctant approval. "Well... let's find a way in, then."

The front gates were sealed, and I didn't think it was a good idea to try knocking. So we looked around and soon enough found a broken stained-glass window at floor level. Climbing in there put us inside an abandoned, half-looted winery... a winery that had a pack of drunken kobolds already busy looting the rest of it. Dealing with them was simple enough, if a bit challenging due to all the firewine they'd swallowed making them combustible if we hit them wrong, but we got through it with few enough wounds that a short rest put us back at full capacity.

I insisted on a search of the upper levels before we tried the basement, both because I wanted to make sure there wasn't anything behind us and sitting on the exit before we went down into any sublevels, and because I wanted a clearer picture of what had happened here. The next hour was a grim one indeed as we found more and more evidence that this had been a place of peace and sanctity, a genuine community of the devout and a haven for pilgrims, before a githyanki task force had assaulted it and mercilessly slaughtered everyone within.

We even found an abandoned tir'su disc in the rubble, a githyanki scout's report that had been cast aside after it was of no further use.

Location - good. Close to road, but secluded. Building looks well-fortified. Defence - minimal - seems to be a religious building. Space - ample, underground, hidden. Was easy enough to sneak in without being observed. Prime spot for a crèche. Suggest immediate occupation. - M'lar Rih'al.

"All of these innocent people dead." I swore. "Simply because it was convenient to seize an already-existing structure. They couldn't even simply find an abandoned patch of ground and build their own dwelling - and if they were coming down from the astral plane they could have potentially landed anywhere!"

Lae'zel didn't even try defending this one. I wasn't sure if that's because she actually felt shame over it, or because she did approve of her people's ruthlessness but already knew that I never would. She just nodded, her expression taut, and moved off with Gale to search another part of the ruins.

"I understand the reasoning behind what we're doing here." Shadowheart whispered to me quietly, "and it still makes sense - but do not even hope to make friends with these githyanki, even if we can turn them loose on our enemies. When we first met on the nautiloid, I told you how uncertain they were as allies."

"It's odd. I can't imagine Lae'zel being so quick to commit atrocities like these-" I began.

"I can." Shadowheart said. "Not because she'd enjoy it, I'll agree with you there. But because her loyalty - and her fear of her superiors - would compel her to obey orders even if they appalled her." Her face briefly twisted. "We have that much in common, at least."

"You certainly weren't wrong about githyanki in general." I agreed grimly, staring at the skeletons lying on the floor that months ago had been living monks. "But we are still desperate and still rapidly running out of options. So what else can we do?"

"Nothing that I've thought of, or else I'd have already suggested it." she conceded. "What's your plan in case they betray us?"

"In order of preference - warp well away from here using the travelstone network, fight our way out, and die." I shrugged. "That last one is really not plan A, but if we have no choice anyway then at least a clean death is preferable to being taken by the Absolute."

"Agreed." Shadowheart nodded soberly. "Whatever happens..."

"... we do it together." I nodded back, and we exchanged brief smiles.

"Gale?" I heard Lae'zel ask. "What is that?"

We all hurried over, to find the two of them staring up at an elaborate golden mechanical contraption on the highest point of the monastery's roof.

"Wait, that's not githyanki technology?" Karlach asked. "Because the only place I've seen anything like that is some of the fiendish siege artillery in Avernus. That's certainly not fiend work, though."

"No, it's part of the original monastery." Wyll said. "I remember seeing it the last time I was here. I'd thought it was just ornamental - an abstract statue."

"That's no statue. That is clearly an arcano-magical channelling system." Gale nodded in thought. "And from the size of it, it's intended to focus a tremendous amount of energy. Where that energy would come from, though, I've no idea. I'd need a closer look but from what I can see down here that's just a projector - there's no generators here."

"A weapon?" Lae'zel wondered. "One built by those who originally inhabited here? But why would my people just ignore it, if it were so powerful?"

"Perhaps they mistook it for a statue." I sighed, knowing that I couldn't stall around up here for much longer no matter how much I wished to. "Come on. Let's head down."

You should listen to your instincts. the Guardian's voice sounded mentally in all of our heads. Going to the githyanki will only lead you to disaster.

"He's here?" Lae'zel swore, looking frantically around as she drew her sword. "So close to a creche of my people? This is a bold ghaik indeed!"

I tapped one finger to the side of my head. "Remember what you said earlier about his using the tadpole connection in our head to increase his working range? That's almost certainly what he's doing."

"Yes." Lae'zel relaxed. "You are right. He would not dare enter the creche along with us, not unless he was truly mad."

At least leave one of your number behind so that if the rest of you die, your 'Withers' may be induced to resurrect them! the Guardian suggested.

"Any volunteers to remain here, alone and vulnerable, so the mind flayer that's stalking us can leap out and haul you away?" I asked sarcastically, and everyone grimly chuckled.

And so you adamantly insist on rushing headling to your doom. When this blows up in your faces, I will speak to you again and you will hopefully listen more closely to my advice in the future - assuming any of us have a future! the Guardian fumed, and then went silent.

Eventually we found a way back down to the ground floor of the monastery, inside the sealed main gate this time, and headed down the cellar stairs from there. As soon as we passed through the doors leading to the catacombs underneath the monastery, the appearance of ruin and abandon fell away. The corridors were immaculately clean, the furnishings free of dust, and the lamps and braziers were all lit and well-maintained. And the guard post at the foot of the stairs, manned by a squad of githyanki warriors, told us why.

"Istik!" the leader of the guards challenged us as we drew near. "State your business, quickly!"

"I am no istik." Lae'zel said hotly, stepping up alongside me. "I am Lae'zel of Creche K'llir, and I and my associates have urgent business here!"

"I wasn't informed of any reinforcements arriving." the sergeant of the guard challenged us. "Who authorized this?"

"By protocol, any warrior of the gith must be admitted to any creche if they are in need of the zaith'isk." Lae'zel said. "Take us to the ghustil, quickly!"

"The zaith'isk?" the sergeant said alarmedly, recoiling away from us as if we were covered in a noxious substance. "You are infected? How long?"

"Long enough we really don't want to wait much further." I broke in impatiently. "Could you please direct us to your decontamination or cleansing or whatever?"

"Down this hall to the central junction, first left, left again." she replied curtly. "Don't stray from the route and don't try anything. The eyes of Creche Y'llek will be upon you."

"Thank you." I said politely, and we marched off. We weren't provided with an escort, but we passed enough githyanki - both adults and adolescents still in training - in the hallway that it wasn't much of a security lapse on their part anyway. I entirely believed her admonition that if we tried sneaking off anywhere, we'd regret it.

"I'd have expected more of a reaction than this to non-githyanki entering here." I said to Lae'zel. Because while we were certainly drawing curious looks, there wasn't any real alarm.

"Istik - outlanders - are sometimes hired as mercenaries when force augmentation is needed." Lae'zel said. "It is not that common to see them in the halls of a githyanki creche, but it is still enough of an occurrence to not cause immediate suspicion. In addition, you are being escorted by a githyanki warrior."

"Plan B is looking less viable all the time." Shadowheart noted quietly as we headed deeper and deeper into the underground catacombs, once a deep shelter and storage for monks and now a githyanki military base. "How's A looking?"

I checked my attunement to the travelstone network and my eyebrows went up with alarm. "I can't- something's blocking it."

"Dammit!" Gale swore. "I should have thought of that! Githyanki are an interplanar military force, and fight an enemy capable of astral and ethereal travel. Of course one of their bases would have wards against unauthorized planar travel... and those same wards must be interfering with the travelstone."

"Well, fuck." Karlach swore.

And so you finally begin to realize how thoroughly you have erred. the Guardian said smugly.

While you're busy patting yourself on the back, ask yourself why you didn't think to warn us of this planar warding stuff before we walked right into it. I mentally replied. We're not infallible, but apparently neither are you.

"Well at least that shut him up." Wyll muttered, as we drew up to an intersection dominated by a massive painting. "Who is that?"

"Vlaakith." Lae'zel said, bowing to the image. "Our undying liege, both queen and god, all glory to her eternal name."

"That's got to be disquieting for you." Shadowheart said to me.

"What, the idea of a goddess descending to the mortal plane to lead her people directly?" I said. "Actually, no. The prophet Andraste did that very thing on Thedas only a few centuries before I was born. Although exactly how divine she was before her ascension to the Maker's side is still a matter of debate. It's established historical fact that she was a miraculous existence, though."

Shadowheart turned to look at me, her eyebrows raised. "I thought you said Thedas had been abandoned by the gods!"

"Because Andraste was betrayed by one of her faithful and her mortal form was slain." I said. "That was what induced the Maker to turn his back on us, even if the Chantry continues to beseech his return."

"This is not relevant. We stand on the brink of a cure!" Lae'zel insisted.

"Agreed." I said, fighting down my hesitation. I took one last look at the picture of a tall regal githyanki - even if her face was oddly pale, her features somehow sharper and drier, and her eyes a solid onyx black instead of being just eyes like Lae'zel's - and we went down the hallway to the door leading to the base's medical section, where the ghustil - chief physician - would see to our treatment. The infirmary had several soldiers on guard or acting as orderlies, and the beds contained several more wounded here for treatment. One of the soldiers curtly informed us that the ghustil was in her laboratory, and pointed us towards the door. We headed to the rear of the infirmary and let ourselves in.

"Vertical incision from pineal eye to end of notochord. Intestinal colouration consistent with samples 231 to 259. That's it. I'm very close to... I just need to... yes, that's it." she muttered to herself, staring into some type of apparatus where magical fields levitated a partially-dissected mind flayer parasite inside a transparent containment chamber. A quick adjustment of her hands on one of the controls rotated the parasite slightly, and she peered more closely at it though an elaborate series of magnifying lenses clamped to the monocle she wore over one eye-

"Ghustil." Lae'zel said, bowing slightly in respect. "We have urgent need of your services."

"Have one of my assistants handle it, I'm busy." she snapped, not even turning around.

"We bear mind flayer parasites." Lae'zel insisted. "We seek the zaith'isk, for cleansing."

The ghustil snapped upright and turned around as quickly as if we'd set her lab coat on fire. "Parasites? Infected? Which one of you?" she peered at us intently.

"All of us." I said.

"When was the implantation done?" she queried.

"At least four days ago." I replied.

She looked at us even more intently. "Four days? You should be showing the beginning of the skull mutations, as well as severe metabolic distress. But you look as clean as if you were still on the first day."

"Our parasites were altered, by some type of unknown magic." Lae'zel explained. "Can you cleanse us?"

"Infected for that long, but not the slightest visible symptom. Either your tadpoles are special, or you are. And we certainly must find out which." She nodded. "I am Ghustil Stornugoss of Creche Y'llek, and as per protocol I will grant you cleansing by zaith'isk. But you must do exactly as I say."

"Of course, ghustil." Lae'zel said. "What do you require?"

"For you to get in the zaith'isk as quickly as possible." Stornugoss replied. "Time is of the essence."

Lae'zel immediately stepped forward, and I laid a gentle hand on her arm. "Wait." I said, and she turned to glower at me in suppressed rage. "If there's a risk, I want to see it first before I lead any of you into it."

"I am githyanki. This is Vlaakith's purity, distilled to its finest essence! Do not deny me my rightful place here!!" Lae'zel insisted.

"Lae'zel... please." I asked her simply. "I don't-"

"I don't have all day to wait for you to make up your minds!" Ghustil Stornugoss demanded impatiently. "All right, fine! The big-mouthed istik goes first! Now get in!"

The zaith'isk was a frightening-looking device indeed. A chair made out of eldritch metal, subtly wrong in its proportions, and surmounted by a large, frightening-looking spiked device that would go over the head of anyone who sat in it - a device that very vaguely reminded me of things I'd seen on the nautiloid, as if someone had reproduced one of the nauseating living machines of the mind flayers in astral steel.

Ghustil Stornugoss moved to a nearby control panel, her spasm of impatience now replaced by a coolly intent scholar about to conduct an interesting examination. "Do not fear. My experience in operating this machine is unparalleled. There is nothing on any plane stronger than a zaith'isk for dealing with unwanted afflictions."

"Do I need to do anything in particular?" I asked her.

"You must focus on the parasite at all times." Ghustil Stornugoss said intently. "The parasite will attempt to evade the cleansing, to hide within your mind. If the zaith'isk seeks it out blindly, cerebral damage could occur. Concentrate your will - remain aware of precisely where your infection is striking. Guide the zaith'isk to it."

"I'm ready." I said, taking a deep breath.

Wordlessly, she activated the controls and the zaith'isk leapt into operation. Coruscating fields of magical energy snapped into existence around my head, then began to bear down. The agony was immense- I swore I could feel my skull deforming-

"Concentrate!" she insisted.

I focused my will into a spear of silverite and imagined myself striking deep into my own mind, impaling the hiding parasite with a single clean blow. The parasite writhed, as if it could run away, could burrow deeper-

"Yes! Yes! Keep going!" Ghustil Stornugoss said eagerly. "Increasing intensity... now!"

The energy fields pushing into my head became spikes, daggers, a crown of thorns. My body locked tight in a single endless spasm. The zaith'isk was a force in my mind, a hungry searching entity, wanting to feed-

I remembered how I'd used the tadpole to push the minds of other True Souls, and started to draw upon the same mental trick. If I could get the tadpole to feed me power, I could use that connection to follow it back, to lead the zaith'isk to the source of that power and let it drain the tadpole dry... the concentration it took to achieve this was unbelievable-

"Something's wrong!" I dimly heard Shadowheart saying in the background. "He's in agony-!"

"Silence!" the ghustil demanded. "I need all my concentration for this!" I glimpsed her intently adjusting the controls out of the corner of my eye. "Prepare yourself! FInal stage in three... two... one... now!"

The world fell away and I floated in a black void of agony. I was horrified- I could feel myself ebbing away, as the parasite only grew stronger. As if it were evolving-

Hawke! the Guardian's voice broke into my mind. You are on the verge of death! Now will you accept my aid?

I sent back a mental image of both my middle fingers. It probably wasn't lying about me being in severe danger right now, I'd give it that much, but I still-

"That's it, we're almost there!" the ghustil gloated. "The zaith'isk never fails!"

I felt the device's lust for the parasite, and for every single part of me that had ever been touched by its presence. Horror descended upon me as I realized that the zaith'isk was not going to cure me of the parasite, but to consume me- and the tadpole flared in response, as a deeply buried magic - ancient, unfamiliar, rotten - surged forth from it, trying to protect itself.

And now you know the truth. the Guardian said with grim satisfaction. The githyanki never had a cure for the parasite. The zaith'isk is meant to kill any githyanki who submits to it, while simultaneously subjecting both host and parasite to a psionic mind probe to destruction for purposes of gathering intelligence. They only teach their young warriors that this is a cleansing in order to remove their fear of infection when fighting my kind... and to trick infected warriors into willingly delivering themselves to their final decontamination, instead of having to hunt them down. And now, Hawke, I will ask you one final time - will you accept my aid?

I felt the truth of the mind flayer's words - not because I had any trust in my telepathic contact with it, but because it made too damn much sense. if the githyanki had really had a cure for mind flayer infection, they could have sold zaith'isk rides to all the other races victimized by mind flayers for as much wealth, as many allies, as they could possibly need. Ideal logistics to better prosecute their eternal war. And since the githyanki were not stupid, and were willing to use other races as mercenaries when useful, then the fact that they did not do this meant that they did not actually have a cure to sell. And their teaching their own warriors the lie that they did have one would serve precisely the purpose the Guardian laid out - to encourage infected githyanki not to hide their infection from their superiors or flee, but to trustingly submit themselves for decontamination... and be effciently purged before they could threaten the rest of the githyanki war machine.

Just this once! I told it, with the greatest of reluctance. But I'd shoved my own head into this trap, and now I had only one way out.

The Guardian's answer was a sudden flood of power around my mind - not penetrating into it, not violating my thoughts, but shielding my mind from the psionic flensing of the zaith'isk. With another surge of power he contemptuously upset the balance of the delicate mechanisms, and the entire machine shorted out around me and spat sparks as the whole process crashed to a halt.

"What?" Ghustil Stornugoss cried as all of her instruments went dead and the zaith'isk crashed to a halt. "What happened? What did you do?"

"Didn't... do anything." I mumbled weakly as I pulled the apparatus off my head and sat up. "Something went wrong."

"I can see that, you simpleton!" she raged, coming over to kneel slightly down and peer in my eyes intently. "And your parasite?"

"It's dead." I lied, keeping my best poker face up. "I felt it die."

"Then at least that much worked." she said. "But that damned feedback has ruined the apparatus! It will take me hours to repair it - I'll have to study the logs, try to figure out how to compensate for that effect in the future-" She breathed deeply in and out, calming herself down. "But at least I got useful data about these altered parasites, new data." She nodded. "Find quarters for these istik and yourself, warrior." she said to Lae'zel. "I'll want the rest of you back in here as soon as the zaith'isk is ready to resume operation."

We left the infirmary, and as soon as we were in an unoccupied section of hallway Lae'zel grabbed my arm and whispered to me urgently. "Something was wrong! I felt your pain - the zaith'isk was killing you!"

I realized the Guardian had spoken only to me the last time, as opposed to its usual policy of broadcasting to all of us. I tried to figure out how I could possibly explain to Lae'zel, in only a few brief words, that her people had been lying to her the entire time-

"The ghustil must have sabotaged it." Lae'zel cut me off. "Or someone else did. There is a traitor in this base. We must report this to the commanding officer at once."

I knew there had been no sabotage, no traitor. That the zaith'isk had only been working as intended. But Lae'zel's remark also reminded me that I'd had two objectives in mind coming here, and her suggestion was a perfect route to achieving the second one as expeditiously as possible.

"All right. Let's go." I told her, and our group headed towards the heart of the githyanki creche.

---

Author's Note: I had originally intended for a chapter or two more to progress between the Emperor revealing Hawke's paladinhood and Hawke figuring it out himself, but then I remembered the undead encounter happens right there in the mountain pass. So of course he's going to bust out the smite there, and that will tip off his friends. Plus, yes, his powers get to tweak and evolve a bit to be more Faerunian. This is a fanfic, after all.

But hey, at least it helped Shadowheart understand why he went against her re: the Astral Prism. I mean, paladins gotta paladin. Everybody knows that.

Oh, and why didn't I mention Hawke switching to the Sword of Justice earlier? Because I forgot to, so I put it in now.

As for the 'planar wards' - in-game you can't use the fast travel system in combat or in hostile areas, but the entire githyanki creche is a hostile area even when you're just walking in for the first time and even before you've aggro'ed the base. So yet again I ride the USS Make Shit Up to fill in.

 

[cliffc999]

Our dramatic intention to rush into the heart of the creche and beard the kith'rak in their lair ran into the prosaic reality that Lae'zel had never been to Creche Y'llek before and so didn't actually know her way around. We took a wrong turning and ended up in the training hall instead of the commander's office, where we arrived just in time to see a class of young githyanki - if they'd been human, I'd have said they were teenagers of approximately fourteen to sixteen years - all standing around the edge of the exercise floor watching two more of their number fight a training duel with daggers as a bearded, scarred instructor stood nearby as referee.

"Why aren't they wearing armor?" I asked Lae'zel curiously. One of the two combatants was clearly more skilled and aggressive than the other, who was concentrating frantically on an all-out defense and very likely to lose at the rate he-

The victor of the duel brushed aside his opponent's last desperate attempt at a parry and closed in for the winning thrust... and most of our jaws dropped when he did not pause the blow at the last second, as would be normal practice in weapons training, but unhesitatingly sank his blade into his opponent's chest right up the hilt. It was a textbook killing strike, a thrust into the opponent's solar plexus angled sharply upwards to bring the short blade directly underneath the tip of the sternum and into the heart from below. The complete lack of reaction from the instructor, or from most of the dead githyanki's classmates, told me that this was not a case of someone turning a sparring match into a murder but had instead been the intended result all along.

"The sa'varsh will order an armorless death-duel when it is intended that a weakling be culled from the class quickly." Lae'zel said softly. "I have been in two such matches myself."

"The best student matched against the worst, for a foregone conclusion?" I said tonelessly. "Why doesn't the instructor just do it himself?"

"The sa'varsh has already learned the lesson." Lae'zel said matter-of-factly.

"Which one were you?" Shadowheart asked frostily. "The one expected to win, or the one expected to die?"

"Both." Lae'zel surprised us.

"Istik!" the instructor called out to us harshly. "If you're going to stand and gawk, then make yourself useful and drag out this carrion off the floor so I don't have to waste the time of any of my students doing it! Just toss it over there in the corner for later."

My hand twitched with a temptation to ask the sa'varsh if he really wanted to show his class what a death-duel looked like, but I forced it down and wordlessly went to pick up the dead boy and bear him away. Behind me I could dimly hear the instructor go back into a brutal harangue about how the enemy deserved no mercy, that hesitation was death, et cetera, et cetera. I looked at the dead boy I was carrying - the sa'varsh had proven that githyanki could grow beards, if they wanted, but this boy wasn't even clean-shaven. He'd barely begun to sprout a single hair on his chin...

"This is common, among githyanki. Deliberately killing the weakest ones in a class to both harden and encourage the others." I questioned Lae'zel as I laid the dead boy down. A tir'su disk fell out of his pocket as I did that, and I decided that I'd rather take it myself then let any of the classmates who'd cheered his death loot it.

"Routine, yes." Lae'zel said. "We are the multiverse's first line of defense against the Grand Design, the ongoing illithid plot to enslave all sapient life everywhere. Weakness is death, for us and uncounted others."

"Maker help me, even the qunari didn't take it this far." I swore viciously. "They culled the weakest from their warriors, yes, but they at least them live to be reassigned to other duties! An army still needs food, clothing - everything that's made, or grown - it's why a city under siege still shelters and feeds refugees and farmers in addition to soldiers! After the war is won you still need the people who work, and not just the people who fight, or else you've won only starvation!"

"I-" Lae'zel cut herself off. "Am no kith'rak, or even sergeant. Matters of large-scale logistics were not within my training. I- cannot judge the accuracy of your statement."

"We need to talk." I told the group, as we found an unoccupied room to step into. "Because my plan-" I sighed. "My plan took into account a certain measure of githyanki ruthlessness, and what I thought was a generous measure at that, but I am beginning to realize I might have significantly underestimated it." I glared intently at Lae'zel. "One shout from you can bring half the guards in this base down on us, and if you do that before I've finished talking you might very well ruin everything. Do I have your word to hear me out first?"

"I am no fool. You are proposing to abandon our deal." Lae'zel said hotly. "But you are no fool either, and if you thought you did not have a reason that would convince me you would simply have had one of the group strike me from behind as unhesitatingly as you had me assassinate that goblin when we were rescuing the druid." She breathed deeply. "And you have already proven several times that you can often see farther ahead than I. Very well, make your case."

"There was no sabotage of the zaith'isk - which I would have told you if I'd had time." I opened. "According to the Guardian, at least." I explained everything he told me about the zaith'isk.

"Then why didn't the ghustil react when you said your parasite was dead, when she knew that wasn't supposed to happen?" Shadowheart inquired as she turned a wary eye to the door.

"Because she was testing for whether or not I'd figured out that we were being lied to." I said. "If we had, she'd have had nothing for it but to call the guards - and it's much easier for her to simply go along with the pretense and have us stay here all unsuspecting while she plans her next move." I said. "The point is, while I accepted its aid getting me free of the zaith'isk because I realized the damn device was going to kill me, and I could see the logic behind its words, that still didn't mean I necessarily believed him. I don't need Lae'zel to remind me that taking a mind flayer's word for anything is idiotic."

"But the ruthlessness you saw in the training hall has made you more willing to believe the ghaik's version of events." Lae'zel said. "Why? That does not in any way prove deception!"

"No, but it does prove that githyanki policy considers even their own childrens' lives as expendable commodities." I pointed out. "Which certainly lends more weight to the Guardian's interpretation. And Lae'zel, I remind you that our compromise for me to hand over the artifact willingly required you to be able to guarantee that we wouldn't simply be killed off after they no longer needed us. Can you still guarantee that?"

"I-but you cannot know this betrayal will happen!" Lae'zel pleaded desperately.

"I can suspect, but you're right, at present we can't know." I said. "And there's still a possible chance for us to get cured - even if the zaith'isk is a lie, Vlaakith is a goddess. And if we hand the artifact back, we're going to do her a very large favor. Halsin said that powerful enough magic could cure even our special tadpoles, it's just that he doesn't have magic powerful enough. But what's more powerful than a divine miracle?"

"So we take the artifact and hand it over anyway?" Wyll said. "Then what do you need to ask us?"

"If you're willing to bet your lives on it." I said. "Because if we try to hand it over to Vlaakith herself and they do decide to pay us off with a knife, then we are not getting out of that alive. It would take a divine miracle just for us to hope to escape." I sighed. "The ghustil has almost certainly told the gate guards we're not allowed to leave, but if we can fight our way past that one squad and just get outside the door then we can use the travelstones to warp safely away. But if we go to the commander and commit to the plan of trying to trade the artifact to Vlaakith for a miracle cure, then that's all or nothing. She either agrees to cure us or it's certain death when they take the artifact from us anyway." I nodded to them. "And there's only one artifact to protect us, so we can't even split the party and let the ones who want to leave go their own way. But we can still vote, as a team. Majority rules, whether it's go or stay. If there's a tie-" I shrugged. "Flip a coin?"

"Go." Gale said immediately, his face pale with sweat. "I- I can't risk it, I'm sorry. If I get killed here- we should go."

"Stay, of course." Lae'zel immediately followed.

"Shit." Karlach swore. "What do you think we should do, boss?"

"That's why I'm voting last." I said. "So my opinion doesn't influence anyone else's."

"Then... ah, fuck it. Stay, I guess." Karlach shrugged.

"Go." Wyll said. "Moonrise Towers might be as suicidal odds as here, but at least on that route we need only trust ourselves - not the most ruthless god-queen of a very ruthless race."

"Stay." Shadowheart shocked us all. "Because even if he hasn't said, I already know how Hawke is going to vote." She turned to me with a rueful smile. "And we promised we'd do it together."

"We certainly did." I sighed. "And she's right, I was also going to choose 'Stay'."

"Oh Mystra save us, I really hope this works." Gale moaned nauseously. I was wondering at his sudden fright now, given that I'd already seen his courage in several fights, but- well, he was a scholar, not a soldier, and this sort of desperate leaping into the jaws of death and hoping we could dodge the teeth we were about to be doing would scare even most soldiers.

What are you doing?!? the Guardian's voice suddenly roared in our heads, as panicked as it was enraged.

Whether this works or not, we'll be getting rid of you. I thought back at it icily.

You are mad! You are utterly mad! I will- it broke off.

Yes, what exactly are you going to do? I challenged it. We're standing in the middle of an entire creche full of heavily armed githyanki, who will all unhesitatingly murder you the instant they even suspect you're here. And even if you withdraw the artifact's protection, the Absolute taking us over simply guarantees those same githyanki will slaughter us. That's just death, and we've already decided we're willing to face it as an alternative to keeping these damned tadpoles in our brains. You should never have let us walk in here. Because once we did, there went all your last options.

Vlaakith will betray you. the Guardian insisted. She lies as easily as you breathe. She has been lying for her entire existence.

"Blasphemy!" Lae'zel shouted furiously.

"Indoor voice!" Shadowheart hissed at her frantically.

"Hawke! Let us delay no longer! Every second this insolent lying ghaik continues to bedevil us is an eternity too long!" Lae'zel insisted.

If you want to run, you aren't bound by the majority vote. I thought at the Guardian. That would re-enslave you to the Absolute, but I hope to have the githyanki god-queen sending an army to help kill it soon. It's not much of a chance of survival for you, but it's still greater than the zero you'll have staying here. Maybe you should take it.

Impressive. the Guardian thought back, strangely calm. Cunning, ruthless, exquisitely logical - you used your emotional distractions to divert me from perceiving your true scheme until after I was no longer in any position to interfere with it. Well done, Hawke. You remind me... of me. it finished knowingly.

"Ignore him." Shadowheart urged me. "And let's get this over with."

Go. the Guardian said quietly. See what happens. By day's end you will either all be corpses or you will have needed me to save your lives yet another time. And although I obviously would have preferred a different course of events than this, one remaining chance is still better than none. But now I shall withdraw for a time. Even your limited intellects can likely figure out the reason why.

And with a sense of finality, the Guardian's presence in our minds vanished.

The arcane art of asking a passing githyanki for directions had us pointed down the proper hallway to the commander's office, but also produced the warning that a Ch'r'ai - an agent of Queen Vlaakith's Inquisition and acting on her authority - was also present at the creche, having been sent to take charge of the search for the artifact, and that it would really be a good idea to lay low until he was gone if at all possible.

"Welcome news," Lae'zel said as we walked along, "even if I never in my life thought I would ever say such a thing about the prospect of confronting an inquisitor. A kith'rak would likely not have the seniority to even try contacting Tu'narath directly."

"Here we are." I said as we drew up on the door. As it was already ajar, we simply opened it and went in.

A squad of githyanki warriors were standing at rigid attention as a female githyanki in armor resembling Lae'zel's bowed before a bald male githyanki dressed in elaborate silver-plated armor.

"-the latest batch of cultists know nothing of the Astral Prism." she was saying insistently. "They were just trying to find Moonrise. They all head there - we have drafted plans to assault the tower! We are ready to fight, ch'r'ai! We will sift the tower's ashes for the missing artifact, if you would give us the word!"

"Quiet." the inquisitor said with a soft, catlike menace. "Stop wasting time with military diversions and find the Astral Prism, Therezzyn. My patience falters."

"Yes, ch'r'ai." she said, coming to an even more rigid attention than her soldiers, before turning to the other githyanki in the room. "You heard him! Go! Redouble your efforts!" I saw her flush with shame as not a single one of them moved an inch.

"Do as she says." the inquisitor said quietly. "She remains your kith'rak... for now." The soldiers broke into a scramble for the door and we stepped aside to let them out. The inquisitor turned away from the creche's commander contemptuously and headed towards a large mirror-like device on the far wall-

"Were you looking for this?" I said loudly, holding up the Astral Prism on my palm.

"Who dares-?" the inquisitor spat as they both swiveled to face me, before his eyes went wide at seeing what I held. "The Astral Prism! You have found it!"

"Ch'r'ai." Lae'zel said, stepping forward and bowing. "I am Lae'zel, warrior of creche K'llir, and these are istik I have... contracted with. We have heard of your mission here, and we bring you it's fulfillment."

"So you have." he murmured as he drew near. "Oh, so you have." He turned to the kith'rak. "How fortunate some of us are, to have the solutions to their problems just walk in the door on their own." He turned back to me. "Hand it over. Now." he demanded.

I unhesitatingly placed it in his outhrust hand... and it quite predictably flared with power and leaped back into mine. "That's the problem." I explained to him. "It's bonded to me somehow. I'll need to speak to your superior about this... and several other critical matters. Such as the mind flayer invasion Faerun is currently suffering."

"Hrm." the inquisitor narrowed his eyes suspiciously, and I felt his magic briefly brush against the artifact and my mind before withdrawing. "Lae'zel said she was contracted to you, not that you were in her service. Don't think to use this to hold out for too much of a reward, mercenary."

"I am entirely willing to tell you and your liege everything that has happened, and to surrender this artifact to her custody as soon as I can. Lae'zel has already translated the most elementary of the tir'su script on the Prism - we know who it belongs to."

"Very well." the inquisitor decided swiftly. "Follow me." He turned to the kith'rak. "Seal the gateway behind us after we pass through, and do not re-open it under any circumstances without my or my deputy's specific authorization."

"As you command, ch'r'ai." she bowed to him, and then hurried over to the mirror-device on the far wall. She withdrew something from her pouch and fitted it to a socket on the device's frame, and the mirror suddenly glowed golden with magic.

"Enter the portal." the inquisitor ordered us, and we did so. The other side of the portal brought us out onto an elaborate stone walkway over a deep chasm.

"The monastery's treasure chamber, accessible only to their highest priests and guarded by their clever little magics." the inquisitor said matter-of-factly as he led us down the walkway towards the large door at its far end. "Y'llek forces claimed the treasure, of course - gold, some amusing trinkets, but little else - but had no further use for the chamber itself until I arrived and appropriated it for my secure quarters and working spaces."

He nodded to the guards standing outside his chamber and they pulled open the doors for us. Entering within showed us some empty shelves and looted chests still carelessly stuffed into the corners, his bed and personal effects set up in one corner, and a desk and a map table in the other. A large device made of astral steel, like a metal starburst low to the floor and with a glowing lens floating in the center, lay in the exact center of the chamber.

The inquisitor stood at the peak of the starburst raised one hand, which flared briefly with power. The glowing lens shone brightly in turn, and suddenly a flare of white-gold power erupted up from its heart and formed into the light-image of a githyanki woman, projected over ten feet tall, staring imperiously down at us from a white face with onyx eyes surmounted by an elaborate crown-

"Vlaakith gha'g shkath zai!" the inquisitor intoned hieratically, kneeling down and bowing his head.

"My queen!" Lae'zel gasped in awe. "Shkath zai!" she chanted, immediately assuming the same position.

"You are permitted to look upon me." the image of Vlaakith orated imperiously, her amplified voice echoing back from all the corners of the room. "You are invited to kneel."

The absolute last thing I was going to do was be needlessly cheeky with any strange royalty, let alone the god-queen of this arrogant, proud, and ruthless a race - and especially not when I needed her help. I came down immediately on one knee, in a formal genuflection worthy of Empress Celene's court in Val Royeaux, and all my friends behind me assumed similar poses.

Vlaakith's image loomed forward, peering closely down at Lae'zel's quivering expression. "These attendants you keep... you have taught them well. My child. My Lae'zel." she said with faint kindness and a brief, toothy smile.

"You know me, Deathless Queen?" Lae'zel blurted.

"Urlon of K'liir speaks most highly. As did Al'chaia before him." Vlaakith informed her proudly as she drew herself upright again. My eyes narrowed in suspicion, and I kept my face aimed downwards at the floor so Vlaakith wouldn't see. Vlaakith's power as a goddess - or even just githyanki psionics - could have given her Lae'zel's name from her surface thoughts, or the inquisitor could have sent that name to Vlaakith through whatever mental message he'd channeled through this communications device to request his queen's attention in the first place. And Vlaakith could reasonably be expected to know the names of her creche commanders, even from memory. But for her to have already reviewed Lae'zel's service record specifically, she would have had to have known Lae'zel was a factor in these matters before her personal agent had reported our finding the artifact today-

Vlaakith's gaze shifted to the rest of us. "I can sense what afflicts you all. You seek purity. I may yet grant it." I went taut with eagerness at hearing Vlaakith confirm that she could cure us-

She turned the weight of her gaze to me. "Istik. You bear that which is ours. But are you friend, or are you thief?"

"I come as a supplicant." I admitted matter-of-frankly. "We did not steal your treasure, but we wish to return it - after we can do so without immediately forfeiting our mind to the Absolute through our parasites." I looked up at her, and made the most respectful request I had ever made in my life. "If you grant us your purity, then we are freed of any need to remain near this." I held up the Astral Prism for her to view. "And at this juncture, you are our only hope."

"Well spoken, and well reasoned." Vlaakith nodded. "Your will to survive is worthy of any child of Gith. But I cannot accept my sacred artifact from your hands at this juncture, because it is corrupted!" she thundered. "And you will cleanse it for me."

My eyes opened wide as I suddenly realized exactly how someone had been following us even into the heart of the githyanki creche.

"There is someone inside." Vlaakith confirmed. "Their mind is warped - broken - a blight." she spat contemptuously. "They are an agent of the Grand Design. Sent to sabotage the Astral Prism - our last line of defense against the return of the Illithid Empire of old. As long as they live, the Prism is compromised. Kill them!" she demanded.

"Your Majesty, nothing would give me greater pleasure." I said to her with the utmost sincerity.

"Use the planecaster's power to send them into the artifact. Vlaakith ordered the inquisitor. "Be swift and merciless to that which you find within, no matter what deception it tries to beguile you with, no matter what guise it assumes to deceive your gaze. Cut out its lying tongue, and then claim its head!" she ordered us. "Do this, and I will cleanse you and your allies. And for Lae'zel - ascension."

"Ascension!" Lae'zel whispered to herself in religious awe. "An honor gained, a burden borne..."

"They are not to leave until is done." Vlaakith ordered the inquisitor.

"As you command, my queen." he acknowledged with a bow of his head.

"Ch'mar, zal'a Vlaakith." Lae'zel said proudly, also bowing. "We will not waste a second."

Vlaakith nodded back to us in silent acknowledgement, and her image faded and withdrew.

"Place the Prism there." the inquisitor instructed me, pointing at a particular socket. "I shall adjust the mechanism."

I knelt and placed the Astral Prism precisely where he'd pointed, and he laid his hand adjacent to it on the planecaster and concentrated. "There. Now step back."

An energy field burst forth from the planecaster in a brilliant cone, pointed upwards, and levitated the Astral Prism within it. The symbols on the polygon all glowed red, then white-hot. The seams of its sides began to soften, to shift, and a terrible force began to pull the Prism apart, to reveal a glimpse of a shining something, glaring so bright- We blinked, and when our eyes opened again the Prism was no longer visible, just a large glowing column of pulsating light at the center of the planecaster, standing taller than a man.

"The portal is open! Go now!" the inquisitor demanded, and I led us into the light.

We arrived on a small rocky island drifting through a starry void. I nodded to myself - I had seen this place before, in the dream where I'd first met the 'Guardian'. So he had been hiding inside some pocket dimensional realm, contained within the Astral Prism.

"Right. Cut the mind flayer's head off, get these tadpoles out of our heads." Karlach said eagerly. "Now where's he hiding-?"

"I had warned you that Vlaakith lied as easily as a mortal breathes, but even I had anticipated that she would have needed to put some actual effort into deceiving you." the Guardian's voice echoed out of the empty air around us. "Disappointing."

"I don't trust her." I admitted frankly, and Lae'zel spun to me with a furious glare. "I just mistrust her far less than I mistrust you."

"There were several obvious self-contradictions just in the speech she gave you. Surely you spotted at least one?" the Guardian asked us condescendingly.

"Well, I had been wondering how she knew so much about Lae'zel's records when she'd have had no reason to look them up before today." I admitted. "But what were the-" I blinked. "Oh, crap."

"So eagerly close to your hoped-for cure that you let yourself overlook the obvious." the Guardian replied. "Why are you being sent in here, instead of her most loyal inquisitor and his elite operatives? People she should logically trust to have a chance to touch the innermost workings of her most valued property far more than a common warrior of the lowest rank she has only met today and five strange istik? People far more experienced at killing a powerful, experienced illithid than you would be? And even if she feels that you must be a part of the solution due to whatever bond you seem to have with this artifact, why is the inquisitor and his forces not at least accompanying you?"

"He's got a point there." Shadowheart said grudgingly. "As much as I desperately didn't want to admit it."

"Lies! All lies!" Lae'zel shouted adamantly. "Vlaakith ordered us to ignore all its deceptions and claim its head! Why are we standing here?"

"Well for one thing, we don't know where he is." Wyll pointed out simply. "Do you have any mind flayer tracking tricks you could use right now?"

Lae'zel growled wordlessly, but acknowledged Wyll's point - it's not like we could leap immediately to the killing him part if we hadn't found him yet. I motioned the group to follow me and we started walking across the surface of the floating rock, looking carefully around. The weird gravity in this dimension meant that 'down' was always towards the center of this floating meteor, even though we were in space and its diameter was so low we could circumnavigate it in only several minutes-

"You've got until we've finished searching the space to finish talking." I told the Guardian.

"She wishes me slain, without exposing her most loyal to me." the Guardian stated. "Not because she fears my corrupting them, or lying to them, but because she fears me telling the truth to them. Vlaakith has been hiding a secret from all her people, just as every Vlaakith before her has all the way back to the original Undying Queen, for all the history of the githyanki. And for her to even suspect that you may have been told it has already signed your death warrants. Look." he finished, and a viewing portal opened up in the empty air off to our left. Visible through it was a view of the underground chamber we'd just left - and of the inquisitor deploying his elite guards in an ambush formation around the planecaster and the prism, set to catch us in a crossfire the instant we stepped out. "You see? He already has his orders from his queen - as soon as you leave the prism, you are to die."

"Any idiot with a Silent Image spell could do that one." Gale said, his face still pale and shaken.

"Keep talking." I said, as we kept searching.

"Will you actually listen this time?" the Guardian said. "Or should I simply prepare my soul for eternity's journey, now that your most elaborate suicide attempt is finally at its climax? Choose one or the other, but choose quickly! Vlaakith's assassins will not wait for long!"

I closed my eyes, thinking as furiously as I could. If there was even a credible chance Vlaakith's offer was sincere, then we had to find and finish off the Guardian now. But if it was a lie from the beginning, then killing the Guardian would doom us all. A narrow passage with no brother, no friend - either start trusting the sonofabitch, or don't, but no way to-

Wait. This was a false dichotomy, one of the simplest of the cons that Varric had spent so much time teaching me how to be on guard against. Let the mark get himself in over his head. Offer him a simple either-or choice between doom and escape. Don't let him have time to explore alternatives. The mark flinches away from the obvious doom and chooses the other path, and that means he's started to trust you a little bit. And you just keep exploiting that momentum once you've started it, and before you know it you could sell somebody 'wandering hills from the Anderfels' as supposedly being the newest gourmet delicacy out of Orlais... and get them to pay you in advance.

"Hold." I told the group. "The Guardian is trying to get us to believe that Vlaakith is lying, and that this proves he isn't. Vlaakith is saying the same thing, only in reverse. But we don't actually have to take either of their words for it." I said. "We simply step back outside the Prism and tell the inquisitor that we couldn't find the bastard, he's hiding from us too well, and could he please lend us some of his more experienced illithid trackers... which actually has the benefit of being the truth, so he can't even say that we're lying!" I shrugged. "He'll either help us, or try to kill us. And then either way we'll know for sure."

"And the only thing more devastating than an ambush is thinking that you're going to ambush the enemy, but them being forewarned and counter-ambushing you at your most confident." Gale turned to me, his expression holding hope and not despair for the first time in almost an hour. "Just like you proved before in Moonhaven."

"Show us that image again." I told the Guardian. "Not that we still believe you, but if you are the one telling the truth for once then I want to know exactly how they're stacking up on our exit point."

The viewing portal opened again, and I carefully studied it. Right... the inquisitor standing where he's the first thing we see as we leave, two warriors visible to right and left flank, and two... hmm, those are spellcasters, and they're behind those support pillars... ah. The inquisitor starts talking to us when we step out, giving the spellcasters time to finish casting and striking us from both sides with crowd control spells, then the three with swords up front go to close-quarters against us after our mobility is crippled and we're stunned and cut us to pieces as their arcane friends barrage us from the backline. Competent - and nasty, if those operatives are as experienced as I think they are - but if you know what's coming-

I ran everybody through the tactical plan I'd just come up with in response to what I've seen. I even threw in an element of redundancy in case- well, in case we lost someone in the first round.

"You have wasted your efforts. Vlaakith's truth will enlighten you, and this lying ghaik will die." Lae'zel insisted.

"I really, really hope so." I agreed with her. "You honestly think I want him to be the right one?"

"No." Lae'zel agreed with a flash of humor, and we stepped back through the portal into the material world again.

"Lae'zel." the inquisitor greeted her as soon as we materialized. "You are named H'sharlak. Bend your head, for my blade is ready."

"Ch'r'ai, please!" Lae'zel begged, her eyes going wide with terror. "There must be-"

Damn, damn, damn! The Guardian's gloating over this was going to be insufferable.

Lae'zel fell to her knees in supplication, her sword falling to the ground and rolling away, and the inquisitor stared down at her coldly. His sword began to leave the scabbard- and then he suddenly looked up and realized that we were not either flinching away or rushing to Lae'zel's defense as could be expected, but had instead begun to disperse in a loose wedge formation. I made eye contact with him and nodded as the realization dawned- his attempt to make us focus on him while his hidden ambushers came in from the sides had failed.

"NOW!" he cried desperately, and the killing started.

Wyll and Gale had both prepared counter-spells and were in position to nullify the ambushing mages even as they stepped out and unleashed their spells - spells that fizzled before they even started. Shadowheart cast her most powerful spell and summoned a dark, flowing ring of Spirit Guardians, their necrotic energies wounding and entangling all nearby enemies - meaning not only the inquisitor, but also his two flanking swordsmen as they came rushing in on their commander's signal. And with four out of five enemies taken at least partially if not fully out of the action economy in the surprise round, that left me and Karlach free to kill.

With bounding leaps both of us ignored the obvious targets in front of us and swiftly charged to crush one of the githyanki mages in each corner, removing the bulk of the inquisitor's firepower in the first round. Gale fell back out of melee range as Wyll leapt forward to engage the inquisitor, going on all-out defense with his rapier to parry the man's silver sword. Shadowheart raised her shield and mace likewise, not even attempting to strike a blow but simply parrying the attacks of the githyanki warriors as she slowly withdrew, letting her Spirit Guardians do the work of harrying and weakening the enemy further.

"Stay on them!" the Inquisitor cried desperately, as he spun about to face both me and Karlach. He concentrated on an arcane spell, hoping to at least delay our rush - and his eyes widened in panic as I shut that attempt down with a Cleanse of my own. Karlach never broke step, hitting him with a charge maneuver that knocked him reeling, and then began to duel him in earnest as he started already stunned, shocked, wounded, and at a disadvantage. Of the last two remaining githyanki, one died to my greatsword across his shoulders and the other to Wyll's rapier through the back of his lungs, as we unchivalrously each ignored the one of each who'd turned to face us to take the killing blow on the other one. By the time we were done with that, Shadowheart had finished helping double-team the inquisitor. All the githyanki in this chamber save one were stone dead.

Lae'zel was still kneeling helplessly on the ground, having never moved a single muscle throughout the entire fight.

"Lae'zel." Shadowheart said compassionately to the kneeling githyanki as she wept quietly. "You have to get up."

"H'sharlak." she moaned. "Outcast! Anathema! Why-" Lae'zel sobbed. "I followed the creeds, I kept her faith-"

"You were betrayed." I said to her softly.

"Yes, I was!" she shrieked back up at me. "By you! If we had just done as we were commanded-" her hand scrabbled near her sheath for her missing sword.

"We would still have died!" I shouted down at her. "He didn't even ask you if the damned mind flayer was dead before he pronounced sentence on you! You weren't condemned for failing, you were condemned for just being there!" I swore. "Just as a certain abominable someone predicted, damn them to the bottommost hell."

"The ch'r'ai could have- he could sense the Prism was still corrupted-" Lae'zel desperately protested.

"Vlaakith could have sensed that." I agreed. "But she wasn't here when we came back out, just the inquisitor. And he'd already had the damned thing in his hand when I tried to give it to him the first time, however briefly, but he never said a word!" I tried to reach her. "Everything I just said, you saw with your own two eyes. There's no ghaik deception there, no illusion." I sighed. "No matter what people say."

"But-" Lae'zel said. "My life... it was never mine to give. It was hers. To just be... cast away...?" She sniffled, her eyes clouded with tears. "This... this must be a test, a trial..."

"This is going to be your tomb if you stay here much longer." Shadowheart said. "I'm sorry, Lae'zel. I can't imagine-" She shook her head. "No, I can imagine it. Just barely, but I can. And the very idea horrifies me. What you are going through-" Her lip firmed with scorn. "She was not worthy of you. She never was."

"But without my goddess... my home... my people..." Lae'zel whispered. "What do I do?"

"You come with us." I told her. "Because even with all you've lost, you still have your comrades. And we still have a mission." I tapped the side of my head meaningfully. "There won't be any githyanki help now, to come and stop the Absolute. And that means we still have to, or else the ghaik win."

"Yes." Lae'zel said, clutching at my hand like a life-line. "The mission." She gulped, trying to gather the shreds of her resolve. "Even if all others are lost... so long as one child of Gith stands, the Grand Design will still fear us... they must..."

"That's the spirit." Gale encouraged her as she rose unsteadily to her feet. "Here, you dropped your sword."

"And here I thought we'd gotten screwed over by fiends." Karlach said to Wyll, to receive his enthusiastic nod back in return.

Touching. Truly touching. the Guardian's voice sounded mockingly in our heads, along with what I swore was a sarcastic slow clapping. Now, if you could possibly spare a bit of your attention as to how I am going to help you get out of here? It paused meaningfully. Along with, of course, a negotiation as to what you might do for me in return-

"Actually, I was thinking of finding a way out of here on our own." I replied.

Of course you were. the Guardian said. All you need to do is go right back up that hallway and kill your way through every single githyanki in Creche Y'llek, starting from the position of being on the other side of a magical portal that the kith'rak in charge of this creche controls and when all of your possible escape routes lead directly through her office. It snorted in negation. You'd have better odds of arm wrestling an elder brain.

"I'm certainly up for not owing our tentacled stalker any more favors, but even with the inquisitor's orders to not disturb him until he contacts her again eventually the kith'rak is going to have to come down here to find out why he's not answering calls." Wyll said. "And I don't have the sort of magic that can teleport our entire group out of here, and neither does Gale or Shadowheart."

"And neither does the Guardian, or else he'd have used it to involuntarily shunt us outside of the base before he ever let us take him face to... not quite a face... with Vlaakith herself." I analyzed.

In the interests of not waiting an hour for you to slowly and laboriously work it out for yourselves, I will just tell that I know far more about how to circumvent the planar warding that the githyanki use to shield their bases than you do. And once I disable it, you can simply use the travelstones. I heard it snort. Don't think to try and play chicken with me and get that assistance for free by staging a sit-down strike until the githyanki are about to charge in here. I have an option to exercise before that happens - one that works out adequately for me, even if it might or might not require me to jettison some dead weight that I haven't entirely decided to give up on yet. We 'heard' it chuckle. Of course, maybe I'm bluffing. You know how to find out for certain.

"Or I could just look for the secret passage leading out of here." I said.

"That would be wonderful." Shadowheart agreed. "So why are you so certain there is one?"

"Those records we found upstairs, talking about the 'most holy artifact' that this pilgrimage site was built around." I said. "It wasn't anywhere we searched upstairs. The inquisitor boasted about the treasures they took from here, but never mentioned any unique artifact - just gold and suchlike. And this was the most securely defended treasure room in the entire complex, and it's certainly not still in here." I shrugged. "Which means there's very likely a hidden section of the treasure level that the githyanki never found."

"How do you make it all sound so simple?" Karlach looked at me.

"Practice." I answered her. "Come on, let's start searching."

The simple trick of thumping on the walls didn't work if the builders of a place were smart enough to use a thick enough wall section to put their secret door in, but a secret door needed a mechanism and an extremely experienced githyanki internal security agent had lived in this room for weeks and never seen anything - and he was presumably the type to search a strange room very carefully for traps before he slept in it. Therefore, the lever was probably something in plain sight that he'd looked straight at and yet still overlooked due to its obviousness. A 'Purloined Letter', as Varric had put it. So I made sure to pay particular attention to that pair of ornamental statues off in that dead-end alcove-

"Lathander greets the rising sun." I muttered, reading the inscription on one of the statues. "You said this was a temple to the god of the dawn, right?"

"Yes. And this one says 'Lathander bids the setting sun farewell'." Wyll read the inscription on the statue facing the one I'd just read from across the alcove. "A matched set."

"Wait." Shadowheart said suspiciously. "A religious inscription in a temple of Lathander mentioned a setting sun? That doesn't fit at all." She knelt to peer more carefully at the statue, narrowing her eyes. "Hang on... there's a small gap at the bottom of the base. It goes all the way around..." she carefully traced it. "Why isn't this built flush to the floor?"

I reached out and grasped the outthrust arm of the statue, and then heaved with all my might - and the statue moved. "Because it's built on a rotating plinth." I nodded. "So we turn this one till it's facing west, and that one till it's facing east."

And sure enough, as soon as the second statue clicked into position the entire facing wall of the 'dead end' alcove began to smoothly slide up into the ceiling, revealing a broad staircase leading down to a pair of golden doors. A subliminal sense of pout coming from within the Astral Prism was the Guardian's only response.

"Finally." I sighed in satisfaction. "We're not home free yet, but that's the first thing that's gone right today."

---

Author's Note: I thought Lae'zel did not have nearly enough reaction to finding out her entire life was a lie in the game, so I got to change that.

And yes, now you see the line of reasoning that led Hawke into the githyanki base in the first place, and the backup line of reasoning that kept him in it after the zaith'isk turned out to be a lie. Such a pity it didn't work but hey, that's not his fault - that's Vlaakith's.

As for why Gale was freaking out, it's because risking death is one thing but being told 'this is basically suicide if we don't get realllly lucky, but we have no other option' is another thing entirely when you've got a death-triggered nuclear bomb in your chest and you haven't told your friends about it yet.

 

[cliffc999]

As soon as we passed the double doors at the bottom of the staircase Gale gasped in relief. "The planar wards don't stretch down this far! We've got a clear escape route! Hawke, you did it!" he congratulated me.

"Thank the Maker." I said relievedly. "But I don't think we should leave just yet."

"You want the artifact?" Wyll deduced. "Why?"

"Well, our first attempt to find a divine miracle cure just failed." I thought out loud. "And do you remember that comparision I made when we first saw Rosymorn Monastery, to the holy site on Thedas where they found the Ashes of Andraste? I don't know that this artifact is a purveyor of healing miracles like the Ashes were, but if we've gotten back the ability to evacuate via the travelstones at a moment's notice then we can afford to take a little time down here."

"We're probably not going to be that lucky, but you're right. We should try and find out before we leave, because we certainly won't be able to get back in here later." Shadowheart agreed.

We spent the next quarter of an hour learning that whatever enchanter had helped create the defenses around the artifact may have been a superb arcane engineer, but they did not know much about trap design. Some of the magical force fields blocking the corridor had the arcane crystals serving as their power sources located on our side of the barrier. The rest could be bypassed by simply climbing up and around through large cracks that unaccountably existed in the stone walls surrounding the passage leading to the artifact chamber. I was beginning to lose some respect for the priests of Lathander - their devotion, their vast resources, and the skills of their enchanters couldn't be questioned, but their ability to think in proper defensive terms was so lacking that half the cutpurses in Kirkwall could have easily made it through the gaps in the coverage down here.

Soon enough we came out into the main artifact chamber, which was built on a large gilded metal platform suspended over an apparently bottomless chasm in a large underground cave. Four pillars of golden arcano-mechanisms surmounted each corner of the platform, and the center was occupied by a series of circular steps leading up to a raised dias in which a large mace, its head shining with a brilliant yellow-gold light, hung suspended in an elaborate metal framework. A piece of amber the size of a clenched fist, as red as a ruby, was mounted high up in the handle of the mace just beneath the head.

"That does not look like a healing artifact." Shadowheart said, disappointedly.

"By the Weave." Gale gasped, awestruck. "That's the Blood of Lathander!" He turned to us. "Almost half a millenium ago the renegade Chosen of Mystra, Sammaster the necromancer, posed such a threat to all of Faerun that the Harpers sent an entire small army after him. But despite having turned away from the Goddess of Magic Sammaster still bore the spark of divine power that she had once gifted him with before his fall to evil, and with that power he could resist destruction by any mortal force. A high priest of Lathander amongst the Harper contingent that fought him begged for the aid of his god, and the Morninglord sent an avatar in response. Sammaster's stolen scrap of divinity could not protect him against a true god, and so he perished. But as he was empowered - however partially and wrongly - by divinity himself, Sammaster was able to wound Lathander's avatar and draw several drops of his blood. Lathander's faithful treasured those drops forever after as a most sacred artifact of their faith, preserving them in a piece of amber." He nodded up towards the glowing mace on the top of the dias. "That piece, right there."

"Andraste's Ashes." I swore softly. "But they preserved it as a weapon of their faith, not a panacea."

"Apparently so." Gale agreed.

"Well, are we taking it or not?" Karlach asked.

"On the one hand, it's not ours." I thought out loud. "On the other hand, it's rightful keepers are dead and this temple has fallen into the hands of the enemy so just leaving it here is also a bad idea. And on the third hand, I can think of several things we might really need it for." I shrugged and turned to Shadowheart. "As our resident religious expert, do you think Lathander would be mortally offended if we took that with us and used it on our quest against the Absolute, with the intent to return it to one of his temples elsewhere when we no longer had immediate need of it?"

"The nearest other temple of Lathander is in Baldur's Gate." Shadowheart said practically. "Which is where we were ultimately headed anyway. And you're a paladin - the gods tend to place more trust in the Oathbound than they would in any random adventurer. So no, I don't think we'd be risking divine retribution if we handled it. But do you see that?" She pointed at a small indentation on the bottom of the framework holding up the Blood. "That's shaped exactly like a holy symbol a priest of Lathander would wear. And it's located exactly where you would put the keyhole to unlock the mechanism that the artifact is currently encased in. It's probably waiting for someone to put in the particular holy symbol that the high priest of Rosymorn Monastery would be wearing... which is almost certainly located somewhere several stories above us in the abandoned surface levels of the monastery that we searched earlier today."

"And where we didn't find anything like that." I agreed. "But that framework looks really loose. Even without opening it, a little wiggling would probably get that mace right out of there."

"I have good news, and I have bad news." Gale said. "The good news is, I've solved the mystery of what exactly was powering that giant magical device on the roof. Answer - these four arcane accumulators right here." He pointed to the four pillars surrounding the platform. "They're batteries, having charged themselves over the years - or centuries - from the energy radiating from the divine artifact sitting in the center of this mechanism."

"For all that time? That would be a lot of power." I whistled in awe. "And the bad news is?"

"I am admittedly playing a hunch, but from the circuit pathways I can see running all around the artifact I'm almost certain that if you remove the Blood of Lathander from that socket without using the proper key first, the system is set up to destructively discharge all four of those batteries all at once." Gale finished.

"So... boom?" Karlach asked.

"Boom." Gale agreed. "Very much so. It would probably take out the entire monastery."

My eyes opened wide. "That... would solve the problem of the githyanki knowing we have the Astral Prism, and Vlaakith sending entire armies from the Astral Plane after us. Because they don't know about the travelstone network. If we touch off the explosion and then teleport away from here, all she's got to go on is a giant smoking crater where the monastery used to be - and as far as she knows, with us still in it. And while the Astral Prism is likely indestructible, the longer she spends sifting through the ashes here digging for it the longer she's not chasing us all the way to Moonrise Towers." I exhaled in relief. "I'd been wondering how we were going to deal with that particular problem."

"That is indeed a brilliantly extemporaneous tactical maneuver!" Gale congratulated me. "That, unfortunately, entirely won't work and will kill all of us. The buildup to that kind of uncontrolled magical catastrophe would almost certainly create enough local ethereal disruption that the travelstone attunement would be destructively interfered with."

"Damn it!" I swore. "Even without the prospect of having a powerful holy weapon for our use, clearing our backtrail behind us would have been a life-saver on its own." I sighed. "But if we can't, we can't-"

"Uh, Gale?" Karlach broke in. "You said that those four doohickeys down there are what's powering the big thingamabob up on the roof, yeah?"

"Why do you ask?" Gale replied.

"Because how's the power getting from down here to up there?" Karlach asked practically. "If somebody's run a pipe up there then they had to run it through somewhere, right? I've never seen a pipe laid yet without someone having to dig a hole for it to go through first. So even without the travelstones, maybe there's an accessway we can use or something."

"How did I miss that?" I facepalmed.

"You don't run that much arcane - or divine - power through pipes, Karlach." Gale said tolerantly. "If you didn't have a clear open pathway to transmit a beam, then the only way I could imagine it working is if you were using some type of translocational..." he trailed off. "Portal!" he finished, his eyes open wide in realization. And then he immediately leapt down off the dais and started frantically searching all around the edges of the platform. "I found it!" he called from the edge of the platform opposite the entrance, where an empty metal archway stood. "This should lead right to the roof!" He trailed off. "When it's in operation. Which right now, it's not."

"Do you think the explosion would happen immediately, or would there have to be a buildup first?" I asked.

"So you're thinking pull the mace out, run straight for the portal, and get off the roof and clear of the blast radius before the detonation completes?" Shadowheart asked me.

"And vaporize every single surviving githyanki - as well as us, as far as Vlaakith will know. And the longer that fools her, the better." I agreed.

"The system would need at least a short delay between initiation and detonation or else they'd destroy their home every time there was even a transient interruption in the circuit." Gale agreed. "Still a bit of a risk, though."

"Yes, but in addition to covering our trail, we're going to need that." I said. "Minthara told us that the only safe way to pass through the Shadow Curse was by using 'moonlanterns'. And I don't know what a moonlantern is, much less where we could possibly find one. But it's certainly some type of magical light source." I smiled. "And I'm thinking you can't get much more magical as a light source than the mystically preserved blood of a sun god." I smiled in satisfaction. "Everybody else stack up on that portal. As soon as I pull the Blood out, the sequence should start and we'll need to all run through as fast as we possibly can... because we won't have any idea how long or short the delay is."

I unstrapped my belt pouch from my belt - the one that contained the Astral Prism - and handed it to Shadowheart, and gratefully realized that it was still bonded to its original bearer well enough that it wouldn't automatically leap back to me. Well, either that or the Guardian had already figured out what I was planning, and was acting to cover his own tail.

"If I'm the one taking the mace then I have to be the last one out. This should be with the first person heading through the portal... just in case." I explained to her, and finally convinced the reluctant Shadowheart to take it.

We all got in position, them at the portal and me at the top of the dias, and I tensed to run the instant the divine artifact was clear of its containment housing. I took a deep breath, reached out, and carefully grasped the handle - twisted it just enough to get the head of the mace free of the loose retaining ring around it, and then pulled-

-and a golden energy barrier, similar to the ones we'd bypassed to get here, leapt into existence all around the base of the dais - cutting me off from the rest of the party. While it didn't go all the way to the ceiling it was at least a dozen feet high - no way I could jump over it, or climb a force-field-

"Somebody get him out of there!" Shadowheart yelled frantically.

"Go!" I yelled at them, seeing the now-active portal behind them. They had a clear escape route and the Astral Prism - I'd done the best I could. "Go now!"

A keening whine was building up all around us, fit to shake loose the teeth from our jaws. The ground rumbled, and the four battery-pillars were glowing white-hot and pulsing unevenly, unstably. And none of those idiots were moving-

"Hang on!" Gale yelled, and broke ranks from the others to sprint up to the very edge of the barrier. He frantically reached inside his pack and dug around inside "I was hanging onto this for- never mind! Catch!" With a frantic toss he sent something hurtling up in the air and over the barrier, and with my free hand I snatched it up off the ground where it had fallen several feet short of me. Some type of amulet-

"Amulet of Misty Step!" Gale yelled, barely audible over the now-shrieking arcane mechanisms as they drew closer and closer to detonation. "Just think about being over by the gate!"

And as soon as the amulet's chain passed over my head and I thought next to Shadowheart! as intently as I could, the world blurred into silver mist around me and cleared an eyeblink later. I'd teleported directly out of the barrier.

I ran back towards the dais for Gale, because I knew he was the slowest runner out of all of us. The instant I came within reach of his outstretched hand I yanked him practically off my feet and into me, then swung him up in a carry and sprinted for the portal. All six of us piled through it practically on each other's heels, to gasp in relief when we materialized exactly where we'd expected to - adjacent to the giant mechanism on the roof, which we saw was now glowing as brightly as the battery-pillars below had been, and which had swivelled so that the business end of what we could now see was a magical energy cannon was pointing straight down into the heart of the monastery-

"We're still too close!" Gale said. "Get off the roof! We can't port out until we get off the roof!"

A hastily-cast Feather Fall allowed us to leave the roof by the simple expedient of jumping directly over the side, and we went three stories down to a magically-cushioned landing directly outside the main gate. With frantic relief we felt our connection to the travelstone network reform now that we were finally far enough away from planar wards or over-charging magical energy weapon emplacements-

-and we all materialized next to the nearest travelstone, the one we'd found on the pathway a couple hundred yards away from Rosymorn Monastery, just in time to look back and see the entire building explode in a giant magical fireball.

When the spots cleared from our eyes we saw that the only thing left standing were scattered section of the four exterior walls. The roof was gone, the magical cannon on the roof was definitely gone, the interior was gone, and smoke was roiling up from a giant sinkhole in the ground that, when we drew near enough to look down into it, still had dully-glowing magma at the bottom. Rosymorn Monastery barely had enough rubble left up on top to show where a giant building had once stood, and all the sublevels - including the entire githyanki creche and everyone inside of it - were utterly obliterated.

I breathed out, feeling the weight of my decisions today - both right ones and wrong ones. I felt no triumph over all the githyanki that I'd just killed, or the undying god-queen that I'd just outwitted. All this death, all the times we'd almost died, and with the possible exception of one divinely-inspired weapon the only thing that had been achieved was for me to almost get us back to where we'd started. Behind me stood five silent shadows, also awestruck by the sheer devastation we'd just enabled... as well as exhausted by the multiple near-death experiences and world-shaking revelations we'd crammed into the last twelve hours.

"Let's get the hell out of here." I finally said.

---

We used the travelstones to head back to the beach we'd originally crashed on. There was still a possibility that Vlaakith could track us somehow - who could say what exactly a god could or couldn't do, even one that was also quasi-mortal like her? And so we resolved to spend the next twenty-four hours in the same ruins that Shadowheart, Gale and I had camped in the very first night after we'd crashed - the one we'd met Withers in. It was underground, easily defensible, very conveniently close to a travelstone - and didn't have any innocents living there who'd get hurt if Vlaakith somehow found us anyway. If she or her hunter teams didn't locate us here by tomorrow, then we'd presume the trail was cold enough we could safely go to the Grove.

"Gale." I said to him passionately, as I handed him back his magical amulet. "I didn't have the chance earlier, so- thank you. Thank you for saving my life."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked me worriedly, his face still pale in the light of our campfire. "Because-" He pulled away from me and sat down heavily. "Everyone, please listen. I have to tell you something. Something that you had every right to know, that I should have told you days ago. And-"

"I'm not blown to vapor by my own bright idea right now, and that's all thanks to you." I told him. "Whatever transgression you think you've committed, there's very little you could say right now that I wouldn't be prepared to forgive."

"There is still a nontrivial difference between 'very little' and 'naught'." Gale said didactically. "And never more so than in my case." He sighed. "I've been telling myself for days that I didn't dare bring this up because it would alarm you unduly - you particularly, Hawke, given your homeworld's troubled history with magic as well as the tragic fate of your friend Anders." He shook his head. "But those were merely rationalizations, and transparent ones. You've accepted Shadowheart and Wyll without a qualm despite the sources of their magic, and you still sorrow over Anders' fate despite his having lied to you for years about the true scope of his condition and I've only been hiding mine for a few days. And yet even after learning that were honorable enough to spontaneously self-initiate as a paladin, after seeing the lengths I saw you go through to resurrect an innocent boy you didn't even know, or the compassion you showed a murdered githyanki youngling-" He broke off and looked up at me sadly. "If I couldn't trust you after all that, then who could I trust? And yet I still kept my silence. Not just because I was afraid, but because I was ashamed." He looked over at the still-subdued Lae'zel. "It might surprise you to find out that you are not the only member of our company who has been cast out, declared anathema, by the goddess that they've devoted their entire life to serving." He sighed again, with a sorrow as large as the world. "Only unlike you, in my case it was well-deserved."

"But you still have your magic!" Shadowheart said confusedly. "If you're under Mystra's Ban then how is that possible? You're no Shadow Weave user - I'm a priestess of Shar, I would have sensed that!"

"No, not the Shadow Weave." He sighed. "But I am a walking shadow of the promise I once held. We've all temporarily lost the full measure of our abilities, our skills, when we were infected, just as we've all slowly been gaining it back as we acclimate. But I wasn't just an experienced wizard before my parasite was implanted. I had been an archmage. And not just any archmage, but a prodigy even amongst that august company. I could not merely control the Weave but also compose it, as if it were music, were poetry." He trailed off wonderingly. "Such was my skill that it earned me not just the favor but the attention of the mother of magic herself. The Lady of Mysteries, the goddess Mystra. She revealed herself to me, and visiited me often. She was my mentor, my muse..." He trailed off, his expression a strange mixture of embarassment and pride. "And in the fullness of time, even my lover."

"You made love to a goddess." I said dazdly. "Which admittedly has precedent in Thedas, as I already mentioned with Maferath and Andraste-" I suddenly paused. "Gale, tell me you didn't."

"Not... quite?" he volunteered diffidently. "I felt no malice, no envy, such as the Maferath you spoke of once. But ambition?" He shook his head knowingly. "That, him and I certainly had in common."

The silence fell, and Gale eventually resumed filling it. "Her company was glorious - I certainly desired no other woman. But no matter how powerful a wizard we mortals become, we still can never scratch more than the surface of the Weave. Mystra keeps us in check, maintains boundaries she never lets us cross. Yet every time I worked magic with her I could see what I was missing - as if I were standing on a precipice, staring into the wonders of the beyond that I was forever denied save at second-hand."

"Respectfully, that sounds a bit like envy to me." I contributed.

"I would rather say 'inadequacy'. To have a goddess' regard is a privilege beyond any other, but if you continually confront the differences between her scale of existence and yours, it makes you feel... pitied?" Gale tried to articulate. "I didn't want to usurp her, or even to rival her. I just wanted to do something." he finally said. "To do anything that she would acknowledge as being more than just-" He broke off. "And so I resolved to seek beyond the boundaries she set." He shook his head. "I tried to convince her, at first. I persuaded, I pleaded... I pouted..." He shrugged briefly. "But she did nothing but smile and tell me to be content. But rather than take her advice, I sought to prove myself worthy of being given more." He paused. "We now come to the crux of my folly. Shall I share the story behind it, or would you rather we proceed straight to the sordid finale?"

"I'm thinking this is definitely the sort of thing that needs a fuller context." Shadowheart contributed encouragingly.

"Agreed." Wyll said. "An opportunity for confession is a privilege that Mizora takes spiteful pleasure in denying me - you should not deny yourself."

"... I too confess interest." Lae'zel said softly. "To know a goddess intimately and then survive her rejection - that is a unique tale indeed."

"Very well." Gale took a deep breath. "Once upon a very long time ago a mighty wizard lived in a tower. A flying tower, to be precise. I'll save the full history of Karsus the Archwizard for another time, but the gist of it was that he sought to usurp the goddess of magic so he could become a god himself. And as he was perhaps the greatest archwizard in mortal history, he almost managed!" Gale said surprisingly. "But not quite, and his entire empire - ancient Netheril, of myth and legend - came crashing down around him as he destroyed himself. The magic that was unleashed that day was phenomenal, perhaps rivaling the primal chaos that predates creation. Even the Weave itself could not withstand the onslaught. It fractured, it shattered, and a cataclysm shook the very fabric of creation and would have destroyed all. Mystryl, first goddess of magic, sacrificed her own existence to stop the destruction the only way she could - with her own death, and with that death the end of all magic. But the magic returned, as she had known it would, when her replacement Mystra ascended to the heavens and restored the Weave." He paused. "If not quite the same Weave that it had been before. Because that is why Mystra sets such restrictions on magics, allows mortal mages to progress so far and no further. Because Mystryl had not. In her innocence she sought to see any wizard rise to any height they were capable of so doing, with nothing held back."

"And that is how Karsus could almost do what he did, and bring so much crashing down with him when he failed." I reasoned. "The higher the climb, the greater the potential fall." I looked at Gale. "And you disagreed?"

"No." he shook his head. "My ambition was different. When Mystra originally restored the Weave from its scattered shards, there was one piece that she'd missed. A tiny portion, one that Karsus had preserved for study, sealed away in an ancient tome and hidden in a pocket realm. One that had gone unregarded for centuries, until I'd happened across a clue to it in my studies. And so I asked myself 'What if I brought this back? What if I could restore a long-lost part of herself to my goddess? What regard could I earn from her, what pride would she look upon me with, if I brought her a gift that no other supplicant ever had or would?"

"That... actually makes sense." I conceded. "I mean, I can't even see how that's wrong - you weren't trying to redo Karsus' madness, you were just trying to help undo the damage he'd done! So why did she outcast you?"

"Give me your hand." Gale said gravely. "And let me show you."

I held forth my hand and Gale gently took me by the wrist, bringing the palm of my hand over his heart. His eyes made contact with mine and our tadpoles shivered, as Gale concentrated on enabling the mental connection, allowing me in.

I saw through Gale's eyes, staring down the corridors of dreadful memory. An ancient tome located - a scholar's curiosity compelling him to open it - but inside there were no pages, just a swirling mass of twisted reality that pounced- leaping inside, unstoppable as it tore into and through my very being- and gods, it was so hungry-

Gale let go of me and I fell away, gasping. "How in the Maker's name are you still alive?"

He stared at me somberly. "The moment I absorbed the fragment wasn't enough to kill me outright. No, my death was only beginning." He shook his head frustratedly. "This Netherese blight, this... orb, for a lack of a better word... is balled up inside of me. And it needs to be fed. As long as I continue to absorb traces of the true Weave from potent enough sources, it remains quiescent. But the process never stops - the feedings are a palliative, not a cure."

"Feed it what?" I asked him.

"Magic. And not spells - oh, if this were only as simple as my remembering to cast a few minor spells on myself every day." he chuckled sardonically. "Permanent constructs of Weave are required. Magic items. That's why I've always been asking for the ones we've found as my share of the treasure and letting the rest of you keep most of the gold, including that Amulet of Misty Step we found in the goblins' lair. I've needed to drain the magic of an item every couple of days just to keep my condition manageable." He laughed, bitterly. "That amulet I saved your life with? You're lucky I hadn't eaten that yet. As is, I'm just about due for another."

"And if you don't find enough magic items regularly enough, you die?" Karlach asked, shocked.

"Not merely die." Gale said worriedly. "I would erupt. If the Netherese orb fully destabilized, all the magic contained within would burst forth in an uncontrolled flare of wild magic that would make what happened to Rosymorn Monastery look like a cantrip. It would flatten a city the size of Waterdeep."

"Gale!" Shadowheart burst out. "That- that- that makes these damned tadpoles in our heads the second-greatest threat to our lives! How could-?"

I held up a hand, asking for peace. "Gale, I'm assuming that you were busy trying to deal with your situation in a safe and manageable way when you were abducted by mind flayers, so you can't fairly be blamed for being out and about in your condition now. But she does touch upon a valid point. What on Toril are we to do if you get killed?"

"Get Withers to resurrect me as fast as possible." Gale said. "From my computations, you'd have at least a day - maybe two - before my death destabilized things sufficiently." He sighed. "That's why I was so terrified in the creche. We were all trapped, and the risk of death was far too high. There would have been no resurrection for me if I had fallen, and- well, that was before we knew we'd actually want to destroy the entirety of Creche Y'llek in a giant magical explosion."

"So we're not actually in any danger that we weren't in already." I said relievedly. "And we know what to do to recover things if the worst-case scenario happens."

"Unfortunately, no." Gale said. "Because the last thing you need to know is that the 'feedings' have been getting less and less effective over time. I used to need to drain the Weave of an item only once every week or so. But the period of time has been growing more and more frequent... and the effects of each feeding are less and less." He sighed. "I've had this orb in me for almost a year. I've spent all that time frantically searching for a cure and finding nothing. But even without the tadpole in play, I was starting to fear that I would eventually run out of time. As I may yet still, in the near future."

"What will you do if that happens?" Shadowheart asked him softly.

"Find the remotest place I can on the surface of Faerun, or travel deep into the depths of the Underdark." Gale said. "And die well away from any innocent people. Perhaps on top of a mind flayer colony, if I could find one. A final revenge, however inadequate." He looked up at us all, his eyes red with unshed tears. "This must seem like a terrible betrayal to you all. Say the word, and we shall part ways."

"No." I said, without even stopping to ponder it. "I owe you my life, and your knowledge and magic have greatly helped us more than once. To take all that and then discard you? Not happening."

"Hell yeah!" Karlach said. "If we're going to be going around tossing out everyone who had an unstable magical weapon shoved in their chest without so much as a by-your-leave, I'd have to go with him!"

"I knowingly pacted with a courtier of Zariel." Wyll said. "All you did was attempt a good deed and have it backfire due to circumstances beyond your control. If they're letting me stay, they can hardly reject you."

"A h'sharlak like me cannot judge anyone." Lae'zel said, which alarmed me until I realized she'd actually been trying to make a joke. "Stay."

"Speaking as the only person here who isn't an outcast or castaway, and as a priestess in good standing with her goddess, I condemn you." Shadowheart shocked us all. "I condemn you... to having to remain here in this band of misfits, taking every mad chance and foolish risk alongside the rest of us." she finished with an impish smile.

"Thank you!" Gale burst out laughing with relief. "You truly are a group of worthy souls, that reinvigorates my own. I promise that I won't let you down."

We dipped into our packs for a bit of wine from our travel rations, because a conversation like the one we'd just had was certainly a thing that left a man in need of a few stiff drinks. The day's weariness soon enough caught up to us, and we set our nightwatch and slept. By the time morning arrived we were confident that we'd shaken Vlaakith's pursuit, and so it was time to resume our journey.

A confidence that shattered like glass when we emerged from the ruins to be confronted by a githyanki knight in silver and gold, an elaborate ruby-crowned diadem on his head and his face weathered with much experience - oh, and also the minor problem of the enormous red dragon he'd ridden to get here standing confidently behind him! He held his still-sheathed sword out in front of him at arm's length, gripping it not by the pommel but with his hand six inches below the hilt, with only the scabbard protecting his fingers from the sword's edges.

"Ska'kek kir Gith shabell'eth." he intoned formally, shocking us by going down to one knee and laying his sword before him on the ground before placing both hands behind his back. "My blade rests. Mother Gith compels you to listen."

"A parley?" Lae'zel said, confusedly. "I am h'sharlak, lower even than istik, and condemned to death by the Undying Queen's command! Why does your blade not sing for my death? Why does your noble steed not consume us in dragonfire?"

"I am not here on Vlaakith's behalf, Lae'zel." the knight surprised us. "And I do not seek your lives. Qudenos! Withdraw until I call!"

The red dragon bowed to its rider's command and leapt into the air with a mighty flap of its wings, circling away to land amongst the nearby nautiloid crash site. The githyanki knight rose back to his feet, his hands still behind him in a formal parade-rest, and his sword still on the ground at his feet.

"Well met." I said. "I am Hawke, and I lead this party. But given the events of yesterday, I can't possibly imagine why you seek this parley."

"I am Kith'rak Voss." he introduced himself, and I heard Lae'zel swallow her tongue.

"Voss!" she cried, backing away from him in terror. "Supreme Kith'rak - Queen's Hand - the Sword of Vlaakith! And you claim to not speak on her behalf?!?"

"If more politely, I'm asking the same question." I immediately followed her words. Because if this were the right-hand man of Vlaakith herself, the Ser Cauthrien to her Teryn Loghain as it were, then I entirely understood Lae'zel's alarm.

Voss actually smiled at my last remark, and took a polite step backwards so that Lae'zel would stop frantically clutching at her sword-hilt. I thanked the Maker that her training had been strict enough that even in her terror she hadn't actually tried to draw it, Voss having invoked a githyanki formal parley rite and all.

"How did you find us?" I tried to lower the tension.

"Unlike the vast majority of my fellow warriors, I am old enough to remember Netherese travelstones." Voss replied. "Your wizard was not reported capable of the sort of magic that would have let him teleport all you out of there, but if you did not die in Creche Y'llek then teleportation was the only way you could reasonably have escaped. So I simply checked every travelstone location between the former site of Y'llek and the Emerald Grove, and here you were."

"Well reasoned and well executed." Wyll complimented him. "But Hawke's right - we really can't imagine what you and our party have to parley about. If your queen briefed you, then you already know that we can't give up the Astral Prism without condemning ourselves to a fate worse than death."

"I do know that." Voss agreed reasonably. "And unlike you, I also know why that is true. The Astral Prism is not just an artifact, but a container. It leads to a pocket realm in the Silver Void, one that only it can access, and in that realm there is a prisoner. That one has chosen you as an ally, protects you with their power. That very power will set our people truly free, and not merely the sham of freedom we live under now. That power must be let loose."

"You, eldest and first of all kith'rak, are entreating us on behalf of a ghaik?!?" Lae'zel shrieked in outrage.

"What in Limbo's madness are you raving about, child?!?" Voss shouted back, offended to his marrow.

The sound of my forehead hitting my palm echoed off the nearby walls like the sound of a giant's slap. "Idiot!" I cursed myself. "How did you not see it the instant Vlaakith said-" I looked at them both in turn as I angrily held up the Astral Prism. "There must be two people in here!"

"You met a ghaik... INSIDE THE PRISM?!?" Voss gasped, one hand clutching to his chest. "Mother Gith preserve us-! No, no, I can still feel the protective force radiating even now... he is still alive." The knight calmed himself, his eyes resuming their focus and resolve from what had briefly been the face of a man watching his very god be murdered painfully in front of him. "Tell me everything!"

"If you know any mind-shielding spells, cast them on the Prism first." I said urgently. "He hasn't reacted yet-"

Voss immediately moved both hands in a complex motion, chanting hurriedly. The Prism glowed once, briefly, and was silent. "That should constrain the ghaik temporarily, and without any echoes that would betray the silence - not unless he were already listening at this moment."

"Let's hope he wasn't." I agreed, and then I hurriedly brought Voss up to speed about the 'Guardian' and what he'd said, and what our predicament truly was.

"Entirely unanticipated. And... unfortunate." Voss finished with massive understatement. "Even before knowing this I had already resolved that you must continue to bear the Prism - I dare not claim it for myself, because if Vlaakith suspected me for an instant then I would only deliver it back into her hands... the absolute last place I wish for that to go." he pointed at the Prism. "The entity who is the Prism's true tenant, and not the false ghaik, is- no, I should not speak their name at this juncture. You do not need to know it, and what you do not know cannot be plucked from your mind by any of my kindred." He waved away my objection before I could make it. "Yes, if you are caught and interrogated then this conversation would be revealed anyway. But a single word does not need an interrogation to be revealed. It can be overheard by chance, or at a distance, and that word alone would be enough to bring doom. So for now, merely call them 'the prisoner', as you have named this filthy ghaik 'the Guardian'.'

"All right." I said. "And you need this prisoner because...?"

Voss looked at Lae'zel, tensing himself for her reaction. "Because if they can be set free, then they will be the undoing of my life's single greatest mistake, my single worst and most regretful choice. They will cast down Vlaakith from her throne."

"You're still alive, so obviously she doesn't know you're plotting treason." I thought out loud. "But just from my brief acquaintance with her I got the impression she's the sort of tyrant who trusts literally no one. And she has the power of a goddess to boot. How have you not yet been caught?"

"Vlaakith is no goddess." Voss said. "She never was. She wishes to be one, she seeks divine ascension with an obsession greater than any other, but she is merely a lich - an undead archmage, their soul preserved eternally in an animated corpse." He looked at Lae'zel, who was barely restraining herself from another outburst. "This is why the study of necromancy is banned for githyanki arcanists, save for the absolute minimum necessary to make a show of combatting lesser undead - to prevent any of our scholars from recognizing Vlaakith for what she truly is." He looked at me. "Have you ever sworn your sword to a liege lord, wishing nothing more in life than to serve them in honor, and then discovered too late that you had only killed in the name of betrayal?"

"I have." I agreed with him somberly. "At a place called Ostagar. My king died there, and I was left a penniless refugee, frantically trying to get a family out of a kingdom that could no longer be my home-" I shook my head. "It ended badly, as such tales do. Let us leave it at that."

"Then you understand at least a little of what I have known." Voss nodded to me. "I am fully as old as the legends tell me of me, Lae'zel. The timeless astral has preserved me well beyond what mortal flesh is normally granted. The many years blur together for me sometimes, but I still remember our freedom from illithid slavery. Our rebellion - our deliverance - our Mother Gith..." He stared up into the sky, searching for ghosts long dead. "And the first Vlaakith, distant ancestor of the current, who presented herself as Gith's heir when Mother Gith was lost in the lower planes. And I believed her." he trailed off, softly. "For far too long, I believed her. And her daughters."

"And the prisoner?" I asked him.

"If I tell you their tale, then I tell you their name." Voss said. "Suffice it to say that Vlaakith fears them like she fears no other entity in the multiverse, for they too know the lie that her eternal rule is built upon - and unlike me, they can prove it. My head remains on top of my neck only because Vlaakith does not know that I know. If I tried to testify to this knowledge, I would die that very same day and be remembered merely be a traitor and a madman. One flash of a blade and my tongue forever stilled, and Vlaakith's rule forever secured. But if they could step forth and be seen, be heard..." He smiled briefly. "Things would be very different."

"Why didn't Vlaakith just kill them?" I asked practically.

"Oh, she wishes she could. How desperately she wishes!" Voss laughed sardonically. "But she cannot! The power she claims, the ability to protect the children of Gith from the agents of the Grand Design as no other can - that power is not truly hers but the Astral Prism's. And the Prism has that power only because it is the unique gift of the prisoner. And so you see the dilemma Vlaakith is perched upon. If the prisoner but has a chance to speak to any other gith, to show them the truth mind to mind, that gith is lost to Vlaakith. But the prisoner can never die, or else Vlaakith loses the protection of the myth she has borrowed. And so, the prison." He nodded at where I had put the Astral Prism away in the belt pouch.

"But if she didn't want the prisoner dead, why did she send us in there to kill them?" I said.

"Either she was referring to the ghaik when she said the Prism was 'corrupted', or else the artifact's escaping her custody for the first time in gods only know how long has frightened her to the point she's now willing to cut her losses and risk the aftermath." Voss thought out loud. "I do not know which. But you have by now deduced why she sent you in rather than the inquisitor and his team."

"We were all already infected by mind flayer parasites and would have to be killed anyway, and most of us were istik besides." I agreed. "Much better to try and have us do it rather than risk the prisoner talking to the inquisitor or anyone else, because from what you've said this is a clear-cut 'Kill everybody they might have spoken to' situation."

"Indeed it is." Voss agreed. "Time grows short, and Vlaakith cannot even suspect this meeting, so I will cut to the chase. You already need to keep the prisoner safe and yourselves out of githyanki custody, merely for the sake of your own lives, so I can certainly trust you with that task as well. For millenia Vlaakith did not let anyone, not even me, know where the Prism was kept, so I could make no progress on freeing the prisoner myself." He turned to Shadowheart. "I have no idea how you and your fellow priests of Shar ever located the Astral Prism, let alone successfully liberated it from where Vlaakith had it kept, but I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. It is only what you have achieved that has given me this opportunity at all." He paused briefly. "Would you mind telling me what your superiors intended with it? Perhaps there is a common goal we are working towards."

"That would be ideal, but I wouldn't know if you were." Shadowheart shrugged. "I only know what I was ordered to do, and nothing more. But on behalf of all my fallen comrades, thank you for your gratitude."

Voss nodded to her respectfully and continued. "So that is what I need you to do - to continue to keep the Astral Prism safe, and to bring it to me in Baldur's Gate. The prisoner needs a unique key to be freed from the Astral Prism. I have been tracking that key for centuries, and I believe I know where to find it. Meet me in the tavern called Sharess' Caress, in the Wyrm's Crossing district of the city. Gith willing, I shall have the key by the time you arrive... and when the prisoner is set free, your own protection from the Absolute will no longer be held hostage by that filthy ghaik." Voss sighed. "Who regretfully I cannot help you kill now, because he has clearly interwoven his own control mechanisms at least partially into the original restrictions, and may very well have dead-man precautions besides. The prisoner would need to be freed with the key before that potential threat to the prisoner's life would be safely defused."

"That's what I was going to ask next." I said disappointedly. "Still, if we can't, then we can't. So the rendezvous is Sharess' Caress, Wyrm's Crossing. I'm assuming you know where that is?" I turned to our party's native Baldurians, and all three of them nodded.

"One last thing." I hurriedly said. "For as long as the ghaik could hear everything we say, and monitor our surface thoughts, we couldn't hope to plot against him. How long will your shielding last?"

Voss nodded and cast his spell again, reinforcing it. "That should give you more time. As I know little about the ghaik's exact strength I can't judge exactly how long you will have, but it will be more than several days... if you are fortunate, several weeks. How soon can you reach Baldur's Gate?"

"With the Shadow-Cursed Lands and Moonrise Towers between here and there?" I said. "Rough guess, a couple of weeks."

"And I cannot help you travel faster, lest Vlaakith' gaze possibly find you again." Voss said. "Very well, are we agreed?"

"We are." I committed us.

"A question, kith'rak." Lae'zel asked respectfully. "Does the zaith'isk truly kill rather than cleanse?"

"Yes." he said flatly. "Yet another one of the tyrant queen's lies, yet another thread in her web of control and naught more."

"Then good fortune to you, silver knight, and may we meet again." Lae'zel bowed to him.

"And may Mother Gith watch over you all." Voss bowed back to us respectfully. He bent down and recovered his sword and then summoned his mount with a single sharp whistle. The dragon landed nearby and he leapt upon its back and into the saddle, and with another mighty flap of Qudenos' wings they were gone.

---

Author's Note: I seem to have a pattern of people frustratedly asking questions right before the chapter where I'd already scheduled the reveal anyway. I'm not sure if this means my timing is the best or the worst. *g*

And so we get both the Gale reveal - which is fairly standard to how it goes in the game, if with more people talking - and the Kith'rak Voss reveal, which went well off-script from the game's original. Largely because the game's original took obnoxious advantage of the Poor Communication Kills trope and had him be so vague that the player is left thinking the man was talking about the Emperor, when he was actually talking about the other guy. Fortunately, in this story talking is a free action and so the misunderstanding is cleared up right fucking then, allowing for a much deeper and sincere convo. Plus, of course, Hawke's advanced Persuasion build. Also there's no explanation for how Voss finds you wherever you camp, he just does. I'm happy when I can come up with a good rationalization for things they didn't.

Oh, and if people are wondering where the hell Elminster is, the answer is that the mountain pass is not his only possible spawn location ever since recent updates. So, they'll meet him when it's time. And seriously, this chapter was crammed so full as is - hell, there was an entire in-party convo about the Blood of Lathander I had to cut! I'll need to work that one in soon.

Speaking of the Blood of Lathander, in-game its light gives no special protection from the Shadow Curse. I consider that puree of bullshit because it's the fucking power of the sun god himself, for pete's sake. And thus, in this story, that's how it's gonna work.

Updates have gone pretty quickly for the last several chapters because they were all the one creche sequence, but now they're going to slow down a bit because I have to start playing the game again and leapfrog forward enough to research the next sequence. But they should still be well enough - I mean, we haven't even done the Underdark yet, Act One is far from over.

 

[cliffc999]

"If we keep meeting this way, people are going to talk." Shadowheart said to me humorously.

After the departure of Kith'rak Voss we'd headed back to the Emerald Grove and brought the druids up to date on everything that had happened recently. Halsin had been disappointed to find out that the githyanki had never truly had a cure, angry to find out the depths of Vlaakith's betrayal, and downright alarmed to find out about the 'Guardian'. Him, Shadowheart, and Gale had then spent several hours doing their best to make sure that Voss's spells on the Astral Prism really were successful in keeping our tentacled stalker penned up in there and unable to spy on us. And while they couldn't be absolutely certain Voss had succeeded, strange githyanki magics and suchlike not exactly being their specialty, they were confident that whatever shielding spell he'd cast on the Astral Prism had somehow embedded itself with the Prism's own defensive enchantments, and would thus be able to persist for a lengthy period of time as opposed to fading away in several hours like the average shielding spell would.

We had of course taken the opportunity to replenish our supplies, get fully healed of any lingering injuries, and take a brief rest, but the plan was to head back out in the afternoon. Halsin had tied up his remaining affairs in the Grove and gotten everything ready to hand over to his replacement, and had also had an opportunity to use his own extensive magic and Nettie's assistance to further his recovery from the lingering injuries the goblins had inflicted upon him. He still wasn't a hundred percent yet, but he felt confident that he'd be able to keep up with us at least reasonably well on the journey and hopefully be back to full strength by the time we arrived at Moonrise Towers.

And so as the others were busy taking care of the final details and finishing their packing, Shadowheart and I both found ourselves back out on what we had come to think of as "our" private beach.

"We need to talk." I replied to her, the tone of my voice wiping the smile away from her face and replacing it with concern.

"Is something wrong?" she asked me worriedly.

"Yes." I answered frankly. "There's no immediate danger or pending disaster, but..." I sighed. "Remember when you said that because my initiation into paladinhood was largely instinctive, that I should trust my instincts if they told me that I was about to betray myself?"

"I do." Shadowheart nodded briskly. "So... something you don't want to do, that you feel your Oath compels you to do anyway... and that involves me." she reasoned. "Damn. I had hoped we could postpone this conversation. Indefinitely."

"We were both standing right here when I promised that I wouldn't do anything for you that I wouldn't do with you." I said. "So I can't sneak up on you with this, even if I could think of several ways-" I stopped dithering. "I've been starting to suspect that your memory wipe was not as voluntary as you were led to believe. I'm afraid that the church of Shar is forcing things upon you that you might not have willingly chosen."

Shadowheart drew back from me slightly, her expression puzzled. "That... wasn't quite what I was expecting."

"What, were you afraid I was going to condemn you as a servant of darkness or suchlike? Shadowheart, if you're an evil person at heart then I'm queen of the githyanki." I scoffed. "Every time I see you - the real you, unforced, reacting naturally in the moment - I see someone... amazing." I finished awkwardly. "Empathetic, compassionate... remember when you told me how surprised you were at how good saving the refugees felt? Or how your first instinct when Lae'zel's world fell apart around her was to help her back to her feet and tell her you understood her pain?" I looked Shadowheart directly in the eyes. "And then every time you reaffirm your catechism, every time you act in the role of a priestess of Shar, every time you try to meet your Mother Superior's expectations, you're someone very different."

"Which proves nothing." Shadowheart shot back. "Many - even most - devotees of a religious faith are not people to whom proper devotion comes instinctively, but who require ongoing self-discipline and re-affirmation. Philosophers still debate whether it's better to be innately virtuous or to overcome an unvirtuous nature through effort."

"And that's all I would have thought was happening," I agreed. "If you hadn't told me that your memories had been altered." I held up my hands in a wordless request for peace. "I'm accusing people you have known as your own family of taking advantage of you in an unconscionable way, and there's really no way for me to do that without upsetting you. I just hope-"

"Stop." she said, holding up her hands. "I- I know why you're seeing what you're seeing." She turned away, downcast. "I do feel like I'm torn in two sometimes. But not because of anything they've done to my memories, but because I already know that I'm doing what I shouldn't." She turned back to me, looking plaintively up into my eyes. "My goddess brings the comfort of emptiness to soothe the pain of loss. The strength to openly withstand cruelty rather than the weakness of false hope. I'm not supposed to get attached to anyone!" she exclaimed plaintively. She reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders, and succeeded only in shaking herself rather than me. "But I can't stop."

"Shar doesn't allow her faithful to have relationships with those outside the church?" I half-questioned.

"She doesn't allow them inside the church. Not the kind of relationship we're falling into, at least." Shadowheart said. "Lust? A matter of no concern. Seduction? Often useful. Corruption? Laudable." She looked up into my eyes. "If I were allowing this- this bond between us because it was helping lead you down into the darkness with me, then Lady Shar would cheer me on. But I'm not doing that. I couldn't even if I tried, not with as strong and as honorable as you are." Her eyes turned frightened. "I don't even want to." she admitted.

I drew her gently into a comforting hug. "If I said that I was sorry for what's happening between us-"

"-then I'd kick you somewhere very unpleasant." she muttered against my chest. "I'm a grown woman and I make my own choices. If I didn't want this, I wouldn't be tolerating it." She looked back up into my eyes. "But I do want this, even though I know it can end only in loss and sorrow for me- for both of us." She sighed despondently. "I suppose Lady Shar is at least pleased by that."

"You also told Lae'zel that one thing you had in common was that you both feared your goddess as much as you worshipped her." I remembered. "What happens to someone who tries to turn away - to worship elsewhere?"

Shadowheart looked at me knowingly, her face pale and taut. "Something that makes githyanki childrearing practices look like a petting zoo."

"And nothing I could possibly protect you from, even if I gave it every effort I possibly could." I asked.

"I'm entirely confident you would. But no, you couldn't. That would take a miracle... and I'm a servant of the Nightbringer. All gods have already forsaken me but one." Shadowheart said softly.

"Well, I want to try anyway." I admitted.

"And I want you to see-" Shadowheart hesitated. "I want to share something with you. The earliest memory that I have. The reason why I owe everything to Mother Superior, and Shar's church. Use the tadpole - the connection." she urged me. "Come into my mind."

I concentrated on reaching out, and met her own intent coming towards me halfway. The world began to shiver around us, and our minds filled with a vision-

"I don't remember how it started." Shadowheart said. "Only how it ended. I was fleeing-"

I saw through the eyes of a young girl, kneeling in the dirt in a forest. A reflection of her in a nearby puddle showed me a young girl, perhaps eight or ten, with her hair done up in double buns. The face was that of a much younger Shadowheart. I concentrated hard on trying to note every detail I could - the scratch on one cheek, her small pale hands clenched tightly in fear, the bright moonlight shining down from above-

The point of view suddenly shifted as a fearsome growling filled the air. The biggest wolf I'd ever seen, it's fur silver-white in the moonlight, stood about fifteen feet away from Shadowheart with its great fangs bared. It's gaze fixed on Shadowheart with a terrible intensity, a glaring hatred-

-no, not on her, but behind her. I saw through her eyes as her head frantically turned around. Several women in dark hoods and cloaks, their faces covered by elaborate masks, had come up silently behind Shadowheart. Three of them were holding spears - they stepped past the kneeling Shadowheart to confront the wolf, surrounding it with spear-points levelled. The fourth woman came around and stood in front of Shadowheart, blocking her view of the others as they dealt with the wolf. A yelp of pain echoed in her ears as the woman reached down and grasped Shadowheart's hand, pulling her up on her feet. She then reached up with both of her hands to start pulling back her hood and removing her mask- and the memory-vision ended.

"That was Mother Superior." Shadowheart continued narrating. "She asked me my name, but I can't remember what I answered. I can't remember anything before those woods. All I know is that she saved my life, and gave me a new home. With Lady Shar." She looked at me, begging me to understand. "I owe her everything. I can't just-"

"Shadowheart." I held up a hand, asking for silence. "You said that's the first thing you can remember, yes?"

"Absolutely." she agreed.

"Then where did you learn to pick locks?" I asked her.

"Well I practiced in the temple-" she began.

"No." I gently interrupted. "You told Mol that you'd grown up rough, on the streets of Baldur's Gate. But if you don't remember anything before the temple, how do you know that?"

"That's- that's what they told me." Shadowheart said, puzzled. "That as far back as they could trace me I'd been an orphan on the streets, who'd wandered into the woods nearby Baldur's Gate trying to gather food and had gotten lost and almost killed by that damned wolf."

I breathed deeply and invited her to sit down with me on a nearby rock, trying to make this as unconfrontational as possible. "I know you shared that with me - one of the most deeply personal memories you still have - to try and convince me of how deeply your sense of duty runs and why. But I'm afraid all I've done is get even more suspicions." I held up my hand again, begging for forbearance as I saw heated words begin to leap to my lips. "Come into my mind, please. Let me show you."

We fell into the vision again, and I replayed the memory that I had just seen - showing Shadowheart how it had looked through my eyes when I was watching it. I paused the memory at a particular moment. "There. Look at your reflection. What do you see?"

"Myself, of course, as a young girl." Shadowheart said. "What am I supposed to see?"

"Look at your hair." I pointed. "How long do you think it would take to do up those buns everyday?"

"At least-" she stopped, her eyes widening.

"Yes. It's not exactly the most elaborate hairstyle in the world, but it's still something that requires maintenance. I had a younger sister, remember, I'm entirely aware of how long it takes a young lady to do up her hair formally. And we saw a bunch of orphaned urchins just the other day, remember? Mol and her crew? Did any of them remotely have the time or the knowledge to maintain a hairstyle like that?"

"But-" she started to protest, and I ruthlessly drove right over her.

I shifted the memory again and replayed another segment. "Now look at your younger self's hands. They've got some dirt on them - you've been running lost through the woods, after all - but they don't have that sort of thick, built-up grime that gets deeply ingrained. And you've barely got any callouses, and your fingernails are even and neatly trimmed." I shook my head. "I grew up in a farming village and then lived in the worst slum in Kirkwall for almost a year before Bartrand's expedition gave our family enough wealth to buy our way out. I know what someone's hands look like when they're doing manual labor or living on the streets." I shifted the mental point of view again. "Those clothes you're wearing are dirty from having been out in the woods, but they're still very nice clothes. No old stains, no patches or tears, very little signs of wear... and they fit you. You didn't scavenge that outfit or steal it somewhere, it was something you owned."

The memory-vision faded around us and we were back sitting on the beach. "You weren't necessarily a noblewoman but wherever your younger self was from, it was not the streets. Your clothes, your hair, your hygiene - you had someone who took care of you. Who could afford to dress you decently and give you regular baths, who didn't need you to do heavy labor as a child just to help feed the household. You were no orphan. You weren't even a peasant." I finished adamantly.

"How do you- you're reading things into the details that aren't there!" Shadowheart said desperately.

"One of my best friends was the captain of the city guards, another was a pirate and thief, and a third one ran a smuggling cartel... and also wrote detective novels that he forced me to help edit." I said. "Add in that there were years where I swore that every gold piece I owned had three people trying to cheat me out of it-" My voice turned mournful. "And how my mother died at least partly because I didn't solve a murder mystery in time. So after that, I spent time learning how to notice and interpret clues, from people on both sides of the law. Believe you me, I learned."

"That- even if you're right, that still doesn't mean they lied to me. They were speculating - guessing. And we all guessed wrong." Shadowheart denied. She shook her head. "Stop confusing me, please!"

"All right." I backed off. "No more confusing, not today, I promise. And I did have a more immediate matter I needed to bring up anyway... it was just that I couldn't do that without either breaking my promise or telling you what I just did." I reached down to my belt where the Blood of Lathander hung, and drew the mace gently forth from the retaining loop and held it out to her. "I want you to take this."

Shadowheart looked down at it, and back up to me. "Well at least you're not asking me to hold Selune's spear." she said with a brief attempt at recovering her sense of humor. "But for all that the Morninglord and the Dark Lady have opposing domains, I doubt very much that this would do anything to protect me."

"Would using it do anything to harm you?" I asked.

"No." she shook her head, visibly glad to have a practical problem to analyze as opposed to the knotty personal doubts we'd just been wrestling with. "It's historical record that the Church of Shar made one almost-successful attempt to take it before, and it didn't lash out at any of our priests who were carrying it until after they made the mistake of trying to destroy it and not just hold it. But for all that the Blood is a divine miracle, I very much doubt that it would act as the one you're hoping for."

"There was actually a much more practical concern than that." I admitted. "Specifically, that I've never used a mace before. This thing would do me as much good as a kitchen ladle if I tried to fight with it. You, on the other hand, are practically an artist with one of these."

"Oh." Shadowheart briefly facepalmed, both amused and chagrined. "That's... also true. But you couldn't try to hand me the sacred weapon of a deity opposed to mine while simultaneously pretending that you weren't secretly wishing I worshipped my deity less, because that would be a degree of manipulation you'd promised not to use."

"There's nothing secret about that wish now." I admitted. "And I've seen enough to start believing that Shar doesn't deserve your service anymore than Vlaakith does Lae'zel's - if not for identical reasons."

"I should by all rights be outraged by a statement that blasphemous." Shadowheart muttered. "But it's a measure of how horrible a distraction you are that I'm not. Dark Lady help me, part of me even wants to take it as a compliment."

"You should, because it was certainly intended as one." I eased off. "Sorry, I promised not to push further right now. But... I had to let you know."

"You did." she agreed, taking a calming breath. "And no matter how far off base I hope you are... thank you. For caring about me." She tentatively reached up and grasped the handle of the outstretched Blood of Lathander, then tightened her grip when nothing immediately happened to her upon touching it.

"Look at that." I said encouragingly.

"All right, then." she agreed, lifting the sacred mace out of my hands and holding it upright to catch the afternoon sun. "Let's see what happens."

---

My heart was in my throat as I climbed down the ladder. It had been almost ten years since my first and only expedition into the Deep Roads - or the 'Underdark' as they called it here - but the memories were still as sharp as a wire garrotte. Bartrand's betrayal, the discovery of the red lyrium statue that ultimately destroyed Kirkwall... Bethany...

I'd never liked being underground after that.

The goblin lair had been built in a ruined temple of Selune, and as it turned out Priestess Gut had claimed the old high priest's quarters. Adjacent to them was a great hall that had an elaborate design of interlocking circles on the floor - a design that would open a nearby secret panel if the circles were turned to the right pattern. Halsin and Shadowheart were able to deduce that the key was making sure that the dark moon representing Shar were on the bottom of the design, and the silver moons representing Selune were on the top, and behind the passage was a mine shaft leading deep into the bowels of Toril.

But instead of the claustrophobic underground passages or excavated dwarf-halls I'd expected to see at the bottom, my eyes were instead greeted by a vista of beauty that I'd never expected. The cavern was enormous, a giant hollow space over a hundred feet high and stretching out horizontaly for miles. The bottom of the shaft was also a chapel of Selune - one that had been built without a roof, as there was no need for one - and a gate-and-portcullis led from the front of the chapel out across a bridge and onto the cavern floor. And although the brilliance of the Blood of Lathander was like a tiny piece of the sun brought to lands that had never seen it before, we didn't actually need it. Phosphorescent mosses, fluroescent orange mushrooms, glowing violet crystals embedded in great stalagmites and stalactites-

"Incredible." Halsin said, breathing deeply. "I can feel the rhythms of nature here - it's not a familiar pattern, but it's still life. This is a fully functional ecosystem, a little world of its own."

"I know, right?" Karlach said cheerfully. "I've been on several planes and never seen anything remotely like this. To think it was just under our feet all the while!"

"But not everyone thrived here." Gale said sadly, looking around at the Selunite outpost. There were several skeletons laying scattered around the inside of the gates, ones still dressed in rags that had been Selunite priestly robes long ago. And there was a brilliant magical energy barrier across the gate, one that promised destruction to anyone who drew too near the outside of it. The corpse of a giant bull-headed biped - a 'minotaur', as Halsin named it - lay just outside the portcullis as testament to how powerful that barrier had been.

"Sealed off by the priests of Selune, when they were overwhelmed." Halsin noted. "They didn't want whatever calamity had overtaken them to come back up through the entryway and attack the surface."

"The barrier is being sustained by that great gem there." Shadowheart said, pointing up. "The one resting in the palms of that large statue of- the moon goddess." she quickly substituted.

"But why are most of the skeletons on the outside of the gate?" Wyll asked, pointing at the far more numerous casualties in the clearing just outside the gate. "If they were able to seal off the entryway, why not just all retreat back up to the temple on the surface?"

"Here." Gale said, spotting a leather-bound journal resting nearby on a railing. "One of the priests was keeping note of events-"

The tale of the Selunite garrison here was a sad one. The Underdark entrance had not been built by the priests of Selune but had been a part of the surface structure, an ancient site that they'd rebuilt and repurposed as their chapel. When High Initiate Jarrus had discovered the passage he'd attempted to simultaneously extend the reach of their church into the Underdark as well as the community they were founding or expanding above us. Despite entreaties by his superiors to pull back and abandon the effort he'd persisted, and they had become overextended. His initial successes had been crushed by a strong response from a community of enemies they'd discovered a moderate distance away from here - dark elves, apparently. The last entry in his journal was sobering in the extreme.

It always felt vainglorious, to think my deeds worthy of a personal journal. But as I watch the drow mass outside our gate, I realise my arrogance is already of a far costlier sort. I see no harm in tipping the scales a little further.

Not for me, but for those who followed me down into the dark. They deserve to be remembered.

- Initiate Norn Remys, lost in the deep tunnels as we fell back from the drow.

- Initiate Thulk of the Northern Wastes, grazed by an arrow and succumbed to poison.

- Initiate Bree Brekka, who stood against a drider with only her mason's hammer.

And Initiates they are, the entire company - for they have seen and suffered too much to be called novices.

We've collapsed the tunnel behind, and have made ready to open the gate. Perhaps we can carve a path through.

And if not, I enclose a list of names - let the annals show that whatever their end, the cause was the same: one High Initiate Jarrus wished to stamp his name in the history of his Church. He sought to forge a path through the darkness, not realising there are some places the light was never meant to touch.

He was a fool.

Shadowheart looked away from us back out the gate at the skeletons we could see littering the ground outside, her face grave. "They didn't even make it a quarter mile outside the gate. Their last few survivors must have fallen back to here and erected the barrier to defend the passage back to the temple on the surface... and then died here because they couldn't get out." Her expression firmed. "Noble fools indeed, as their own High Initiate said."

"The tunnel wasn't collapsed when we came through it." Wyll noted. "Minthara probably had it excavated when the forces of the Absolute took over the ruins above. A direct route to the Underdark would have been convenient for her."

"Selune bless and keep their souls." I closed the journal and handed it to Halsin.

"I'll make sure this is sent on to a temple of the Moonmaiden, when I can." he acknowledged. "They deserve to know how their fellow devotees died."

"Hang on, what's this?" Gale broke in. "'A Search for the Nightsong'." He held up the slim book he'd found in what had remained of the outpost's tiny library, which had of course been the first place he'd searched. "Convenient!" The volume was short, and revealed largely that the artifact known as 'the Nightsong' was not merely the recent interest of the patron in Baldur's Gate who'd hired Aradin's mercenaries but had been the dream of treasure hunters on this part of the Sword Coast for at least the past two generations. The common rumor had apparently been that it had been buried in a lost temple of Selune on the north bank of the Chionthar - the same temple the goblins had set up their camp in and that we'd recently cleared - but the writer of this adventurer's journal had apparently turned up an eyewitness who'd claimed that that actual location of the Nightsong was in the remains of an old underground temple of Shar adjacent to Moonrise Towers.

"That confirms the suspicion I've held for a long time." Halsin said thoughtfully. "Not about the Nightsong, mind - I have no interest in that. But I'd long since come to guess that there had been a hidden temple complex of Shar in the vicinity of Moonrise, an Underdark fortress with a nearby surface exit. It would explain how Ketheric Thorm had been able to raise his force of Dark Justicars in such secrecy and unleash them upon Moonrise so suddenly without anyone seeing them approach, or how they were all able to vanish so mysteriously immediately before the Shadow Curse descended." He smiled. "And that means my surmise was correct - the Underdark will give us a direct route to Moonrise without having to actually traverse the Shadow-Cursed Lands."

"And here we went to all that effort anyway." Shadowheart joked, with a playful swing of her new mace. "So, an ancient hidden fortress once held by Shar's Dark Justicars. Fascinating."

"It would be, wouldn't it?" he said to her meaningfully, his face held in a neutral mask.

I looked back at him and shrugged back with a knowing nod. Yeah, I know. We'll talk about this later.

"All right." Halsin nodded, acknowledging the group consensus even if I was certain he'd keep a wary eye on Shadowheart privately. So long as that was all he did, that would be fine. "Does anyone have any ideas on how to lower that barrier so we can get out of here?"

"Probably just a matter of 'remove the gem from the statue'." Gale said. "A Mage Hand cantrip will manage that easily enough."

"Before we lower the defenses, we should search the rest of the outpost first." I said. "Hopefully the Selunite expedition here mapped at least some of the local area, because otherwise we're going to have to explore blindly to even figure out which way Moonrise is. My compass doesn't work down here." Compasses, or 'trailfinders' as Faerunians called them, had been well-known on Thedas for centuries. The Faerun models were cruder but still worked. In the Underdark, however, all the needle did was spin helplessly - according to Gale, the local magical radiation of the Underdark, called the faerzress, was interfering.

A search of the outpost produced the revelation that there was a travelstone down here - a sight we greeted with relief, because with travelstones at both top and bottom we would never have to use that damned endless ladder again - and several minor magic items, including a magic breastplate that glowed softly with luminance. The group agreed that I should have it, and I agreed because the only other person it would fit was Wyll, whose combat style didn't like anything heavier than leather. Unfortunately, we didn't find any maps.

"Nothing for it to but to explore, then." I agreed. "If nothing else, we can just warp back here any time we get lost." A Mage Hand cantrip was all it took to lift the sacred gem out of the statue's clasped hands, and the magic barrier faded away.

We came to the end of the bridge leading out the main gate and to an intersection of paths. Since we had no idea of which way to go, we decided to take the right one.

"Torchstalk." Halsin said, pointing at a mushroom that glowed orange. "It also grows underground, near the surface - we have a problem keeping it out of the deeper caves in the Grove. Movement too close nearby can detonate it in a small fiery explosion. Be very careful of several torchstalks growing together."

"How does a plant that self-destructive not rapidly go extinct?" I asked him.

"The explosion is what scatters the spores farther, enabling it to spread and thrive. It doesn't become able to detonate until it's already at the end of a growth cycle." Halsin said. "Between that and how its habit of combusting helps discourage anything else from eating it, it's actually a survival mechanism. The welfare of any individual torchstalk is irrelevant, the species as a whole will survive and prosper. One of the earliest lessons we have to teach young druids is to not anthropomorphize nature - what is better for men is often worse for plants, or animals, and vice versa. Everything is a balancing act."

"There's a clump of torchstalk blocking that passage." Wyll said. "Any advice for getting past it?"

"Trigger the detonation from a safe distance, with a cantrip or an arrow." he replied matter-of-factly. "We just discussed how detonating it doesn't actually hurt the species."

A single eldritch bolt from Wyll's warlock powers took care of that and we moved on.

"What are those?" Shadowheart asked, pointing at a cluster of much differently-colored mushrooms growing profusely in a small round clearing below the path we were traveling on - great round dark ones with phosphorescent blue streaks.

"Timmask, I believe." Halsin said. "I've never seen them before, but read about them. They release spores that cause animal life to be disoriented and intoxicated, while also slowly poisoning them to death while they're unable to notice. If you have to get past a cluster of timmask then use fire - the spores are also flammable."

"There's torchstalk mixed in all with the timmask down there." I said. "Deadly trap - the timmask confuses you and as you're stumbling around you set off the torchstalk, which ignites the timmask spores. And then you're drugged, poisoned, and on fire. Wyll?" Another eldritch bolt hurtled down into one of the torchstalks and we waited a couple of minutes for the chain reaction of explosions and fire that set off to dissipate.

-more are coming- a deep voice whispered in our minds.

"Close up." I ordered, and we all looked warily around. "Anybody know what that was?"

"A telepathic communication of some kind." Gale deduced. "But not psionics, either githyanki or illithid. Not via our tadpoles, either."

Halsin nodded. "Certainly not via your tadpoles - I heard it too." He raised his voice and called out. "Hail, friend! We come in peace!"

-They are coming. You are coming.- the voice rumbled in our minds, and then silence.

"Creepy." Karlach shook her head.

"More than a bit!" I agreed, and then broke off as the earth shook heavily beneath our feet. The ground didn't just tremble but outright heaved, as if an earthquake had started, and we all staggered and almost fell.

"Half-circle formation. Put our backs to that wall!" I ordered, and we shifted position and readied ourselves for attack. One minute passed, then several-

"Nothing." Shadowheart said.

"Resume the march." I decided. "But stay alert. I doubt that earthquake was coincidental."

"I don't think that was an earthquake." Halsin said. "But I'm not sure what it was."

We progressed further along the path, turning right again at the next intersection. 'Follow the right-hand wall' was the usual advise for traversing strange mazes, after all. A couple more clumps of torchstalk tried to block our progress, but we readily enough dealt with them.

"A rope ladder?" Wyll pointed at a long rectangular section of netting dangling down from a ledge perhaps sixty feet above us. "Someone's here?"

"Drow outpost? Smuggler's cave?" Halsin wondered.

"Not the way to Moonrise." I decided. "Ignore it and move on."

The path dead-ended here, so we headed back to the last intersection and took another route. That one led us back down into the clearing we'd seen from above earlier, the one with the torchstalk and timmask concentrations we'd remotely detonated.

"Here it comes again!" Shadowheart cried as the earth began heaving beneath our feet, worse than before. I shifted into the Bulwark stance just in time to magically root myself and became impossible to knock over, as the tremors worsened to the point virtually nobody else was on their feet-

-and then the ground tore open beneath us and with a terrible roar that echoed off the distant cavern walls, a monstrosity breached the surface like a maddened whale. It was an enormous beast, with an armored carapace like a turtle's perched on top of four thick, stubby legs. Fully twice the height of a man and longer than an oxcart from snout to tail, the head was no turtle's but a thick heavy snout, containing a giant maw full of more teeth than a shark's. With an agility belying its tremendous size it spun end-for-end in an eyeblink and charged the one member of the group still on their feet - me.

"Smite!" I cried, focusing a tithe of my internal power into a single devastating strike while remaining rooted in the Bulwark stance. The monster crashed into me and halted dead, my stance keeping me rooted to the ground as I became temporarily invulnerable to physical force for just the briefest instant of contact. My greatsword blow, augmented by the arcane power I'd channelled through my smite and again by the sheer force of the monster's own impact into me, actually broke through the diamond-hard carapace and drew deeply of its blood. However, that left me practically face-to-snout with the damnable thing and while it was wounded, it was nowhere close to dead.

"Shit!" I swore, abandoning my stance and frantically leaping back and rolling away. I got clear just in time to avoid a savage lunge by the beast, combined with a snap of its great jaws that would have bitten off an arm. I waved my greatsword at it in threatening slashes, not even trying to close to contact but just distracting its attention- everybody else would need a chance to get up-

A great roar announced Halsin's entrance to the fight as a brown bear, looking uncharacteristically small in comparision to this monster, leapt on its back and took a savage bite at the back of the beast's neck where the carapace didn't cover. Halsin drew blood, then was thrown off its back as the damn thing heaved forward and down, cleaving through the earth like it was water and going back underground.

"Spread out - get on top of something!" I cried frantically to the rest of the group. Shadowheart had made it back to her feet and had leapt to the top of a nearby mushroom. Lae'zel was busy helping Gale to his feet - Karlach had her own greatsword out, blazing with anger as she looked hurriedly around for any indicator where the beast was going -

- and Wyll screamed in agony as the monster erupted from the earth directly underneath him, its great jaws biting off both his legs like a man chewing through a breadstick. What was left of him hit the ground, a few terrible great spurts gushing forth from the severed stumps of his thighs before falling terribly silent. We hadn't been fighting this thing for ten seconds and we were already one down-

"You bastard!" Karlach shrieked, and her infernal engine revved to full power as she caught ablaze. She threw herself straight at the burrowing monster howling like a banshee, the Everburning Blade I'd gifted her with slashing it again and again across the face. I came in as quickly as I could to support her, but I hadn't reached them before the cunning beast simply turned its head, lowered its shoulder, and charged her so hard that she flew ten feet back and bounced off a nearby wall.

Stone spikes erupted from the floor beneath the monster, ripping into its less-armored belly, as Halsin shifted back to human form and unleashed his druidic magic. A whirlwind of daggers, each made out of pure arcane force, sprang into existence in a cloud around the creature as Gale cast his own spell. The monster roared in rage and agony, spinning about in confusion. It couldn't burrow down through the spikes, but the cloud of daggers moved with it as it tried to flee on the surface, Gale's face drawn up in concentration-

"Over here, you bastard!" I snarled and did a great leaping strike at its tail, hoping to cleave the whole damned thing off and kill it via blood loss the same way it had just killed Wyll. I didn't succeed in amputating it, but I did cleave down hard all the way to and partly through the bone. Another invocation of the Bulwark stance let me damage the creature even more as it spun around and tried to ram into me the same way it had Karlach, but my stamina was almost depleted just from warding off both those blows and the smite - I doubted I could do this one again, and for all the blood we'd drawn from this thing it was still clearly in the fight with at least half its vitality left-

-and then everything was washed out in a blaze of light as a giant golden blast of energy smashed into the side of the monster and cored right through its carapace like a crossbow bolt through a block of cheese. All our eyes turned to Shadowheart as she stood there, the Blood of Lathander blazing like a miniature sun in her hands, as the full strength of both her arms was barely able to wrestle the artifact into position and keep the giant blazing sunbeam erupting forth from its macehead like a torrent of water from a downspout in a thunderstorm on position until the damned monster was finally stone cold dead.

Shadowheart looked down confusedly at the holy weapon in her hands, now shining slightly dimmer as if it had temporarily exhausted itself. "By the gods..."

"To hell with the gods, what about Wyll?" Karlach moaned. We all went over to examine him but it was too late for any of Shadowheart's healing spells - he was dead. "Damn it, we'd barely gotten started!" she sobbed. "And now he's down there roasting forever-"

"Withers!" I shouted ferociously. "If you're anywhere near here at all, then we need you!"

"Thou hast called, and I have come." the impossibly dry voice rang out, and sure enough he was standing right over there as if he'd been there all along. "But pay the price, and it shall be done."

"But Mizora-" Karlach said, looking up from where she was cradling Wyll's bloody corpse in her arms. "She's got his soul now. You can't get him back from that!"

"That is my problem to deal with." Withers said glacially. I rummaged through the cash pouch and dug out two hundred gold coins - the price that Withers had said would be his 'standard fee' for performing his 'services'.

Withers accepted the cash with a simple nod, and then materialized his great book again in his hands."By doom and dusk, I strike thy name from the archives! Rise!" he intoned once more, and Wyll's bloodied and dismembered corpse vanished from Karlach's arms to appear right beside us entirely intact. Even his clothes were spotless, as if he'd never exerted himself today.

"What- oh, that's marvelous!" Karlach cried, hugging Wyll enthusiastically - her flames damped down, thank goodness. "But how'd you get your feet back? Last I saw they were going down that thing's gullet!"

"To restore a lost appendage or two is trivially easy compared to restoring a lost life." Withers said patronizingly. "As for Mizora, she may collect her due only after I am done."

"If you can push the pact like that, can you break it?" Wyll immediately asked.

"No." Withers said immediately. "It is not my place to do such things. Once death is final, then the devil may claim her due as her pact allows. I merely take advantage of a certain... ambiguity as to precisely when a mortal's death is final."

"Well... thank you anyway." I said to him. Because for all that he was enigmatic, annoying, and downright creepy, it couldn't be denied that he'd saved the life of one of our friends.

"I but provide my services for proper compensation, as I have agreed to do. There is little need for 'thanks', and even less desire." Withers noted, and in-between one eyeblink and the next he was gone.

---

Author's Note: Halsin insists on being made a temporary party member after all, seeing as how he's traveling with the group at least as far as the Shadow Curse quest in Act Two and I don't have game engine limits forcing him to sit in camp and do nothing except repeat the same dialogue lines over and over. But a temporary party member is all he'll be, even if it's going to be a nontrivial chunk of time before we get that far into Act Two.

And so the Underdark section begins, and of course the first thing they run into is the bulette - one of the most painful damn boss fights in the entire game. Seeing as how the thing is not only a godawful tank and hits like a truck, but it can spam all the knockdowns constantly. Fortunately Hawke has DA hax powers, and even more fortunately the Blood of Lathander has a 1/day Sunbeam spell that hits like a wave motion gun because its very respectable 1-turn damage can be repeated for up to 10 consecutive turns if nothing breaks the caster's concentration. I was being nice in only killing one person here - a great many BG3 runs have wiped the entire party on the bulette fight.

Shadowheart's canon romance path continues to drift even further off-script as my characters keep insisting that I write them with their full brains. Who the heck knows where this is going to end up, but I am a seat-of-the-pants writer anyway so this is not an unprecedented experience for me.

And now you finally find out why I've been writing Hawke as such an adept spotter of clues when that's not what he's most famous for in the canon. Answer: it's precisely because of how often DA2 forced him to not spot the clue (particularly in Act Two) so that tragedy could descend later, his mother's death hardly being the least of those tragedies. It's in reaction to that that he's spent the intervening years forcing himself to train hard at picking up clues. And between Aveline, Isabella, and Varric, that's a lot of things you can potentially learn.