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

[Enohthree]

The moment I heard about Karlachs heart issue in game, I was asking the same thing about Withers and was so pissed that that wasn't even an option. It seems so obvious too! Thank you for giving her a better ending.

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I always figured that the justification was that the heart was attuned equipment. It's not like Withers brings you back naked.
If you die holding the Blood of Lathander clenched in your partially severed hand he'll bring you back still holding it.

That being said DnD healing being able to fix her is partially why the level cap is what it is. Regenerate is a 7th level cleric spell nobody would have any reason not to pick in this case, which is why you stop just short at 6th level spells.

Hell is paved with the bones of people who have tried invading it with similar goals in mind.

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Keep in mind that in the game you can totally just do this successfully if you keep your wits about you when dealing with devils. The trick seems to be to only make deals or try to invade the homes of devils who won't survive four appropriately leveled adventurers beating them to death before escaping.

 

[cliffc999]

I always figured that the justification was that the heart was attuned equipment. It's not like Withers brings you back naked.

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That is a reasonable theory. Of course, it means Hawke's plan still works... because one way to de-attune equipment is to kill the wielder and then loot the equipment off their corpse.

And given Withers' power level they would have had an excuse to basically break any rules they felt like regarding resurrections if they wanted.

I know I spoilered it before, but honestly, the game's been out over a year so people already know. 'Withers' is actually Jergal, former and now resumed God of Death. So yeah, he's got the power to do whatever. He just also has a lot of divine rules he needs to obey about how directly he can interfere with shit... but what he's doing for the party right now is technically rules legal.

In-game it's just that Withers is always at your campsite, but given that 'making camp' in videogame logic basically seems to be stepping into an Instant Dungeon like some Gamer fic, which obviously can't be the case in this story, I'm going with 'Withers just shows up whenever and then is gone whenever he don't need to be there.' But that's metaphorically appropriate anyway... he's Death, and mortals are always potentially walking in Death's shadow.

 

[Mr.Nobody]

And there's always that fun bit, if I'm remembering right, he can just straight up send you to when you're supposed to die in the future and it's a wrap.

I'm not gonna try to out lawyer him over technicalities in the death department.

 

[cliffc999]

You see that in-game, even. If you try to kill anyone at the epilogue party scene, Jergal will entirely unleash the smackdown on you.

 

[Domino]

BTW, note that in theory Mizora could have damned Wyll to hell the instant he refused to kill Karlach - that clause about 'refusal of orders' that was in the letter she sent to Wyll recently? That's canon, from the game. The game does not explain this inconsistency, so I'm going with 'Mizora is having far too much fun forcing a good man to do the slow slide down the slippery slope to just end the game now unless she absolutely has to'.

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Oh that's simple - Wyll is far too useful as a reluctant pawn who she can aim at her enemies and rivals than he would be dead with his soul converted into soul coins. Mizora's actual goal in getting Wyll to Kill Karlach was to get her out of Zariel's service, which is already accomplished sufficiently enough since she's back on the prime material plane (and now that she's on the prime Karlach is on a countdown until she combusts anyway) and Mizora is totally canny enough to recognize that throwing Wyll away in spite of his little rebellion and granting Karlach a brief reprive would just be her breaking her own toys. So instead she uses a penalty clause to punish Wyll and remind him just who owns him.

 

[cliffc999]

We used the travelstones to head back to Last Light Inn and dropped off the lute with Halsin. The comatose Flaming Fist was freed from his catatonia readily enough once they had an object with a suitable emotional connection to him - I wasn't quite sure how that worked, but I was neither druid nor mage - and Halsin joyously revealed to Jaheira and us that the man had given him the final clue he needed. Thaniel, the spirit of the land for this region, had been trapped in the Shadowfell - and in his long-lost, time-lost wanderings, Cullagh had run across him several times. Halsin was certain that he could open a portal into the Shadowfell and bring Thaniel out, hopefully weakening or removing the Shadow Curse that way, and Jaheira's Harpers were ready to support him in that endeavor. So we let them get on with their job and got back to ours.

We also had the unpleasant duty of explaining to Arabella that her parents were dead. She went completely hysterical on us, shrieking that we were 'liars' and 'cheats', before running out of the inn and into the night. I was saddened but not surprised - she was nowhere near unintelligent enough not to have already figured out that if she'd been separated from her parents in Reithwin that long and they didn't have miraculous anti-curse wild magic embedded in them, they were vanishingly unlikely to have survived. So her adamant insistence that they had survived, that of course they'd be found no problem, was nothing but bone-deep denial... and once the bubble burst, it burst.

Since Arabella was immune to the Shadow Curse and knew that she was, I didn't want to just let her run out onto the inn grounds and be alone for a while - because unlike all the other people who were trapped here it was distinctly possible that she'd just keep running. And that would potentially lead to some very bad ends. But when I finally located her I was shocked to find her standing still a short distance outside the protective perimeter and deep in conversation with the definitely absolute last person I would have expected to find her talking with.

"Fear not." Withers intoned at me calmly. "The child shall come to no harm whilst she is with me."

"That's... reassuring." I tried to smile at Arabella, who looked at me suspiciously from where she was hiding halfway behind Withers' legs. "Might I ask what you're talking about?"

"No." Withers said flatly.

"Might I ask your interest in her at all?" I pressed. Because for all that he'd been a consistent help, he was still an entirely unknown, very eldritch, and to be honest slightly creepy presence - and one who I would not have remotely expected would have anything to do with a random orphan girl he'd just met, given how visibly he'd disdained interest in anything but his mysterious 'calling' and 'duties'.

"The child hath come into contact with forces that were not meant for such as her, however minor and fleeting that contact may have been. And now with tragedy added to thorns, the possibility arose of a potential future... imbalance." Withers non-explained. "Whilst I am constrained from excessive interference in events I am already obligated to monitor thy party's progress and remain available to perform my duties as might be necessary - and if I happen to also exchange an idle word or two with passers-by whilst in the performance of that obligation, that is not necessarily a proscribed activity."

"The bone man's... very calm." Arabella said embarassedly. "He's helping me be calm." She looked downcast. "Sorry for yelling at you. You were just trying to help too."

"It's all right." I reassured her. "I did several things that were a lot angrier than just yelling at someone when my mother died."

"I've heard of magic that can bring people back." Arabella asked. "It's supposed to be very rare, but...?" she trailed off hopefully.

"If Withers doesn't know anyone who could bring your parents back, I certainly don't." I reached for an answer, and where Arabella couldn't see I saw Withers shake his head very slightly from side to side. Imperceptibly, I nodded back to him. "Although you did just remind me of something very important that I didn't get a chance to ask anyone about - but there's an expert right here." I looked at Withers. "Ketheric Thorm is back walking Faerun after a century in the grave. A century. No priest can cast that powerful a spell, can they? And discussing what sort of magic it does take to do that should be within your purview, yes?"

"Hmmmm... yes." Withers finally decided. "And whilst a willing revival after such a span of time is just barely possible for the most puissant of mortal magics, one of those souls was both unwilling to return and much-beloved of the Moonmaiden and the other soul condemned for eternity to the most possessive grasp of the Nightsinger. Overcoming such obstacles places the feat entirely beyond the scope of mortal agency. Certes I can think of only three entities that could readily perform such a deed... and I am wholly certain that two of them did not do it. Thus by process of elimination, the responsible party is likeliest the Lord of Bones."

"... I don't know who that is." I admitted embarrassedly. I didn't miss the part where he knew about Isobel's resurrection as well as Ketheric's despite my never having mentioned it, but right now that was just one more thing to be filed along with the many many other things about Withers that entirely defied explanation.

"How fortunate thou art that several of thy companions do." Withers replied dryly.

"I'll leave you two to your discussion, then." I took the hint. "And Arabella... I'm sure that you're safe with him, but your friends in the inn are worrying about you. So make sure to come back after you're done talking, all right?"

"I will." she agreed quietly.

I brought Withers' clue back to the others, and the instant I said the name that Withers had given me Shadowheart gasped as if she'd been struck.

"The Lord of Bones?!?" she cried, her eyes aghast. "But they're supposed to be-" She interrupted herself suddenly to pull her rucksack off her back and began rummaging through it. "Come on, where did I- ah!" she finally hauled out a large, dusty tome.

"The Book of Dead Gods?" Gale recognized it. "The one we picked up in that ruin? Why are you- oh dear." he interrupted himself, as realization visibly struck.

Shadowheart had already flipped it open to the last several pages and read through them hurriedly. "Shit." she swore. "He's not in here."

"Who isn't in there?" Karlach saved me the trouble of asking.

"Myrkul." Shadowheart replied. "The former god of the dead, also known as 'The Lord of Bones'."

"Exactly how does one become a former god?" I questioned.

"By dying." Gale explained. "Myrkul was one of the several gods who were destroyed during the Time of Troubles over a century ago, when Ao the Overgod... I'll give you the whole lecture later, the point is, he fell from godhood and his divine portfolio was taken over by Kelemvor, a mortal ascended to divinity during the Troubles."

"Except now Myrkul's back, apparently." Shadowheart swore. "Those ruins we found Withers in were an old temple of Jergal - the god who was the scribe of the names of the dead. This was clearly an artifact of the church for, as the title says, recording the names of dead gods." She slid the book across the table, with it opened to the last page. "Except Myrkul's name isn't in here. And the three most recent entries in this book have all been overwritten to the point they're no longer readable."

"'By doom and dusk, I strike thy name from the archives'." Wyll quoted. "Withers gives that same chant every time he resurrects someone. 'Struck their name from the archives' must be the Jergalite phrasing for saying 'Someone is no longer dead'.'

We all wordlessly looked down at the Book of Dead Gods... where three names had clearly been struck from its roster.

"Three names." Shadowheart noted grimly. "And Myrkul was one of the Dead Three - a trio of ascended mortals who long ago encountered Jergal, who in the ancient times of Faerun was far more powerful and imbued with several more divine portfolios than they are now. And legend has it that Jergal had grown weary of and wished to retire from those offices, so one day when three evil and powerful mortals finally found him with the intent of stealing the power of gods-" She rolled her eyes. "I'm not even going to get into how insane an idea that is. At any rate, they had the mind boggling luck to have Jergal actually be in a mood to give them what they sought instead of slaying them, as he seized the opportunity to divest himself of several of his more onerous responsibilities."

"Oh, I remember this one." Gale said eagerly. "The three mortals played a round of dice to determine who would get to choose first, and- let me see, how exactly did it go again? Ah." Gale started reciting whatever text he was mentally consulting from memory. "Bane cried out triumphantly, 'As winner, I choose to rule for all eternity as the ultimate tyrant. I can induce hatred and strife at my whim, and all will bow down before me while in my kingdom'. Myrkul, who had won second place, declared, 'But I choose the dead, and by doing so I truly win, because all you are lord over, Bane, will eventually be mine. All things must die - even gods.' Bhaal, who finished third, demurred, 'I choose murder and dying, and it will be by my hand that what Lord Bane rules may pass to Lord Myrkul. So both of you must pay honor to me and obey my wishes, since I can destroy your kingdom, Bane, by murdering your subjects, and I can starve your kingdom, Myrkul, by staying my hand.' And so the alliance of the Dead Three was formed, because despite being utterly horrible and untrustworthy in every aspect they still all needed each other just to survive. But all of them finally met their end in the Time of Troubles, despite various attempts to restore themselves afterwards with various plots that failed. You can ask Jaheira about Bhaal's attempt if you're really curious - her first really famous adventure was being part of the team that stopped his 'Bhaalspawn' plot."

"Except now they've apparently succeeded at coming back." I nodded. "But where does this 'Absolute' come in? And the mind flayers?"

"Ghaik do not revere any gods, and most certainly do not either empower gods with worship or be empowered by them." Lae'zel stated firmly. "That would require the ability to acknowledge that anything in the multiverse could ever be intrinsically beyond their ability to eventually comprehend or dominate. Githyanki scholars have long believed that the very structure of their brains - or souls - precludes forming such a divine connection at all."

"Raphael mentioned in his last conversation with me that mind flayers 'didn't have souls for devils to take'." I remembered. "Which if true would confirm at least one of those scholars' theories. So yes, if this is a plot of three lost gods somehow returning to power, where do the mind flayers come in? They seem entirely irrelevant to such a process."

"I haven't the foggiest notion how they fit in yet." Gale shrugged. "But we're about to head to the place where we can find out." He sighed. "If this really is a plot of the Dead Three somehow having returned, no wonder Elminster passed on such dire forbodeings from Mystra."

"We've got to tell Jaheira about this before we leave." I decided. "And then we've got to get moving."

Jaheira's reaction to the possibility that Bhaal wasn't entirely as dead as she'd done her best to keep him was everything you could imagine and more.

---

The distant sound of war drums caught our attention as we moved across Reithwin towards Moonrise Towers, but they weren't coming from the direction of the tower.

"That sounds like it's coming from the west, outside of town." I remarked.

"That's the road to Baldur's Gate." Wyll said darkly. "We'd better go have a look."

"All right-" I agreed, as we marched down the cobblestone street towards the west gate of Reithwin.

"Ware!" Lae'zel hissed suddenly. "The qua'nith, the detector Kith'rak Voss left us - it is active! Vlaakith's soldiers are somewhere ahead!"

"Keep walking, but slowly." I immediately reacted. "If they see us suddenly change course-" My hurried glance at the terrain around us told me that the likeliest place for ambush was at the gateway itself. The wooden gates had long since rotted away but the wall and the archway were still there, with stone stairs leading up from each side of the path to a low battlement passing over the road. A near-perfect blind for hunters-

"I think it's up there." I said loudly, pointing off to the right of the gate and to where a ruined house sat adjacent to the wall. "That's where the map said it was, do you think?" I finished suggestively.

"Entirely!" Shadowheart picked up the cue immediately. Because of course what we were doing was giving the githyanki waiting up ahead a reason not to be alarmed at our sudden change of course.

"After we finish checking that out, then we go examine the road conditions." I ordered loudly, giving them a motivation to remain in position and just wait for us to finish fooling around instead of abandoning their original positions to try and ambush us on the move. More quietly I continued muttering to Lae'zel. "Does that thing tell you where they are?"

"Only that they are near and to our west." she whispered back. "If they are not laying in wait outside the wall, then they must be using invisibility magic."

"Only an amateur would overlook how useful the high ground of that battlement is, but nobody's there." I said back as we slowly walked off the road, up the slope to our right, and towards the ruined house. We stepped inside and used the pose of 'searching' the house as an opportunity to hold a very brief meeting.

"All right, if they really are invisible and set up on the gate the likeliest deposition for them is their spellcaster and archers up top and their melee fighters lurking at the foot of those stairways adjacent to both sides of the road. They'd want to let us pass by, then pin us from the flanks and rear and cut off our retreat while the ones on the battlement rained hell on us from almost directly above. But right now we're up against the wall and with access to the walkway. So we defeat them in detail - we rush them from their right flank to catch their ranged attackers up top in melee while they're stuck on the wall with us, and while they're separated from their infantry element down below. Who will have to fight their way back up the stairs to reach us."

"A good ice storm in the right place should not only batter all the ones I can catch in the area of effect but leave those stairs very slippery to walk up." Gale said.

"That's the opening move, then. After Gale takes the first shot Lae'zel and I roll up the ones on top of the wall, Karlach bottlenecks the stairway against their men below, and everybody else rains fire down from the high ground on any target you can find." I decided.

"We're assuming the ambushers are roughly our equal in number - because we sort of have to." Shadowheart conceded. "What if they have substantial reinforcements nearby?"

"Run away." I answered frankly. "Get back into the town - which after all our scouting we know the layout of a lot better than they should - go dark, break contact, and travelstone back to Last Light as soon as we're far enough out of combat we can re-attune." I nodded to everyone. "Everybody clear on their assignments? Then let's move - they won't wait in place for long."

We left the house and headed down the top of the town wall towards the gate and the stairway leading down to street level from the right, as if we were entirely innocent of the possibility of danger and just wanted to take the shortest route back to the road. I still couldn't see anything, but the louder and louder chirping of the detector said that they had to be here somewhere-

Gale's ice storm crashed down, its circular area of effect encompassing much of the battlement over the gate, the street directly beneath it, and the staircase nearest us. Shouts of pain and angry curses in gith accompanied the fading of five githyanki into visibility - an armored spellcaster of some type and two crossbowmen on top of the wall with two heavily-armored figures flanking both sides of the street down below, just as I'd predicted. All of them were moderately wounded from the sudden burst of eldritch hail they'd endured, and the stone surface of the street and stairs were now icy and slick. I noted in passing that all of them were using Light cantrips as protection against the Shadow Curse-

"H'taka!" Lae'zel screamed viciously as she and I rushed side-by-side down the top of the battlement. The first archer we reached was caught so off-guard that I body-checked him right off the top of the battlement with barely a break in my step. He went ten feet down to land on pavement with a painful screech, and then I was face to face with their leader. A disrupting pulse shattered whatever her spell was while it was still half-cast, and then we came down to the clash of blades. Lae'zel smoothly went around us and engaged the other crossbowman, battering away his desperate point-blank shot with her shield and then slashing at him viciously before he could even draw his own sword.

With their ambush successfully counter-ambushed, their artillery taken out of action, and their formation shattered and split up, the githyanki hunting party went down fast and hard. With her advantage of position, reach, and weight Karlach had been able to defeat her opponent straight-up, and Wyll and Shadowheart had taken down the other already-wounded fighter from range before coup de gracing the wounded crossbowman I'd sent flying. Gale hadn't even needed to use any further spells beyond his initial ice storm.

"I'm going to have to thank Voss when I see him next." I noted, as Shadowheart used a minor healing spell on several of the cuts I'd taken from their leader as we'd dueled. "Even as far on the back foot as they were they still put up a damned good fight. If they'd had a chance to successfully ambush us, it could entirely have gone the other way - we only had it this easy because we had forewarning."

"Indeed." Lae'zel agreed as we examined the bodies. "Their insignia is that of Tu'narath - the great astral city that is the githyanki capitol. These were no crechelings - only proven veterans are allowed the honor of serving in Vlaakith's home guard." She looked down at the dead patrol leader, then knelt near the body and started stripping it. "She is about the same size as I - I shall claim her armor as a trophy, as it is of superior quality."

"Well, it's not as if I could wear it." Shadowheart agreed amusedly.

Lae'zel finished 'borrowing' the dead githyanki's armor and magical bracers and held up a tir'su disk she'd found in their leader's pocket. "Do what has been asked of you. Stop the interlopers, and take back what is mine - else your punishment will be severe. By order of the Undying Queen." she recited.

"So this was no scout team sent against Moonrise - they were specifically looking for us, and the Astral Prism as well. Which means Vlaakith has figured out that we weren't destroyed at Rosymorn. Damn, she works fast." I finished grimly. "You'd better get out that amulet." I ordered Shadowheart. "We need to know how they found us."

"Who were you?" we asked her.

"Ch'r'ai... Tska'an..." So, another one of Vlaakith's inquisitors.

"How did you find us?"

"Knew your destinations... was waiting on the only route..."

We all breathed a sigh of relief that Vlaakith was not tracking us, but instead had merely been using what she'd already known - that we were headed to Moonrise Towers, and that the Sharran heist team had originally been supposed to bring the artifact to their temple in Baldur's Gate. With that information this would be exactly where you'd preposition an ambush team, at the nearest place those two routes would be guaranteed to converge - the road leading from Reithwin to the city.

"How many more teams like yours have been dispatched?" Because there's no way Vlaakith sent just one small hunting party.

"No answer. She didn't know." Shadowheart said.

"Where is Kith'rak Voss?"

"Searching for you... he will destroy you..."

"Vlaakith has not found him out yet. Good." Lae'zel noted relievedly.

"Are there any other githyanki in the Shadow-Cursed Lands?" we probed.

"None... all the others perished..."

"That's it." Shadowheart put the amulet away.

"So Vlaakith's pursuit teams haven't been doing well in here." I noted. "Not surprising, this place is lethal as hell without any of the protections we've been using."

"Good, it means she won't be surprised - or assume it was us - when this lot misses their next check-in." Karlach noted.

"Um, Hawke?" Gale interrupted. "I think you'd better see this."

Gale had turned away from the proceedings to look west and down the road, and when we moved up alongside him on the low battlement I saw exactly what he was alarmed by. The road to Baldur's Gate led west from Reithwin across flat, normal-looking terrain - apparently the wesetern boundaries of the Shadow Curse were nearby. And just outside those boundaries we could see the distant light of dozens and dozens of large campfires.

"So Jaheira wasn't wrong. He has built an army." Shadowheart noted somberly, as we all stared out at the martial vista laid out halfway to the horizon.

My keen eyes barely made out the shape of the largest of the distant silhouhettes. "Those big ones showing a recognizable profile - I swear they're ogres." I said.

"So those aren't just men, but humanoids of all varieties. He must be recruiting every goblin, hobgoblin, and ogre tribe in the entire region." Wyll noted. "Along with every fanatic, raider, and cultist the mind powers of this 'Absolute' could draw in."

"Let's just hope he's not keeping too many of them as a fort guard at Moonrise." I finally said. "Come on. We've been putting it off long enough."

---

Moonrise Towers. The heart of the enemy.

The Astral Prism was throbbing dully in my belt pouch, its normally inert runes flickering a dull orange. We were clearly drawing nearer to the center of the Absolute's power, and the prism was having to exert itself more powerfully to withstand its commands. If I stood still and tried to 'listen', I swore I could hear a whispering at the edge of my consciousness-

We marched forthrightly down the bridge leading towards the main gates of Moonrise as if we didn't have the slightest thing to hide. As we drew nearer I noted details that hadn't been visible when we'd studied the tower from a distance on the high ground above Reithwin. The portcullis I'd feared was still a jammed mass of rust that hadn't been restored to its original condition after lying abandoned for so long. Several wooden gantries had been hastily erected in various spots around the tower where repair crews were still fixing the damage done by siege engines back during the original fall of Moonrise. Strange shadow-vines grew about in reckless profusion and hadn't been trimmed, some of them even drawing to crawl up the very sides of the tower. By all appearances Ketheric Thorm's revival and return to power had been relatively recent, and he'd chosen to expend finite resources elsewhere rather than focus on restoring his home to pristine condition as first priority.

Although this was still no crumbling ruin or savage goblin-camp. The siege engines on the tower were newly-built and in excellent condition, even if they apparently went unmanned save in times of high alert. The torches in their torchholders were all fresh and regularly maintained. The twin moonlanterns hung to where they gave redundant coverage to the entrance and prevented the entry of shadows had their brightwork neatly polished. And the guards wore spotless uniforms and moved with crisp precision and strict discipline, on patrol routes clearly designed to leave no careless gaps in the coverage. There was a firm hand in command here, and a competent one.

"That's far enough." one of the two guards at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main entrance doors stated firmly, his palm outthrust in an unspoken order to halt. Both of these men were in brilliantly polished half-plate, their tabards neat and clean and emblazoned with the symbol of the Absolute's cult. As I drew to a halt my eyes narrowed at the symbol's heraldry - a downward-pointing triangle with a skull in the center, and the four fingers and thumb of a hand reaching upward with the skull set in place of the palm. I'd seen those symbols less than an hour ago, in a reference text we'd been consulting. Although altered somewhat in iconography from their original versions, once you were already looking for the correspondence it was as plain as day. The hand of Bane, the triangle of Myrkul, and the skull of Bhaal. Our deductions had been correct - the Dead Three ultimately lay behind whatever or whoever was the Absolute.

My dark thoughts were interrupted by the mental shiver of a tadpole pushing against mine. I mentally pushed back, and the probing guard nodded.

"Ah, one blessed like myself. What news, True Soul?" he greeted us, both of them relaxing from their wary postures.

"Githyanki scouts near Reithwin Town." I answered him. "After we took them down, we found this on the body of their leader." I held out the tir'su disk that Lae'zel had found on the inquisitor.

"Disciple Z'Rell will definitely want to hear about that." the female guard agreed. "You'll find her in the main audience chamber."

"What's one of our own rank doing on door guard duty?" I couldn't help but ask.

"Who better to suss out the true from the false?" the first man tapped his temple knowingly. "Go on in."

"Praise the Absolute." I mouthed the words to him.

"In Her name." he replied sincerely, and we up the stairs. A pair of massive oak doors greeted us, and we swung one of them open and headed on in. I judged the quality of the door in passing - newly restored, not relic construction, and it'd take a fairly powerful spell or else a squad of strong men with a good battering ram to break it open in a hurry.

The front hall was laid out almost exactly as Isobel had described, so I already knew the main audience chamber was straight ahead of us. A quartermaster stood in one corner, running some sort of trading post or gear issuing point. Several humans dressed like pilgrims were breathlessly whispering to each other as they stood in another corner, apparently waiting their turn for an audience. A number of guardsmen were posted around around the front hall, but not quite as many as I'd have expected given the size of the army I'd seen just down the road. One of the arcane eye-orbs that we'd seen both at the ruined temple and in the Grymforge was slowly doing a patrol circuit around the inside of the front hall as well. The room was clean, but the old and cracked stone flooring and the dying vines growing in several places contributed to a subliminal atmosphere of decay and rot.

"He's only keeping a moderate fort guard and concentrating most of his troops in the field army." I quietly muttered to the others. "Either that or he doesn't want to try supplying too large a garrison in here - after all, every scrap of food would have to be shipped in by moonlantern caravan, and that's a cumbersome process."

Directly opposite the main entrance doors we'd just come in were an equally large pair of metal doors, with the skull-symbol of the Absolute emblazoned proudly upon them and another pair of guards in front of those doors. Neither of them stopped us as we walked directly into the main audience chamber, but we drew to a halt in the rear of the chamber as we noted a group of people already ahead of us. The audience chamber was also a large hall, if not as large as the main entrance hall we'd just passed through, with several rows of benches for people to wait upon until the ruling lord of the tower was ready to see them. Another arcane eye-orb floated slowly around the chamber, and at the far end a throne stood on top of a short dais. A low spiral staircase led upwards from both left and right of the throne, providing access to the upstairs quarters for the lord and other distinguished residents.

The throne was flanked on one side by an arrogant-looking one-eyed female orc dressed in elaborately decorated studded armour and wielding a handaxe and shield. On the other side stood, of all things, a skeletal dog - the animated skeleton of some type of great mastiff, judging from the size and shape, with glowing blue eyes. But all of our attention was focused on the occupant of the throne, as we caught our first sight of General Ketheric Thorm. He was a large, powerfully built half-elf - not quite as broad-shouldered as Halsin or as tall as Karlach, but still somebody who could at the very least match me size for size. He had long gray hair neatly bound in a ponytail and a full gray beard and moustache, both profuse but neatly trimmed. He wore heavy black plate armor with elaborate steel fluting sculpted in the shape of ribs and bones, giving the artistic illusion that he wore a giant's skeleton over the outside of the plating. A small golden diadem with the symbol of the Absolute mounted at its front rested on his brow and a glowing purple gem shone from where it was mounted directly on his breastplate, the only visible symbols of rank. A warhammer and a shield, both clearly magical, rested against either side of his throne within easy reach of his hands. He was sitting in a relaxed posture, clearly entirely at ease, stroking his chin idly with one hand, and staring down at the current group of 'petitioners' with a dispassionate expressionlessness.

Several goblins, of all things, were cringing fearfully as they stood directly in front of his throne about ten paces away from him. They were apparently prisoners - none of them had any weapons, and they were surrounded on three sides by armed guards who glared down at them suspiciously. Their only possible route of escape would be directly towards the throne, where Ketheric sat formidably with his lieutenant and his necromantic guard dog to bar their way.

"We did as we were told!" a female goblin was begging. "Followed every order we was given!"

"The facts suggest otherwise!" the orc barked harshly. "You were ordered to retrieve the artifact. You failed to do so."

"Take it up with Minthara!" the female goblin shot back hotly. "She's the one who mucked it all up!"

Our blood ran cold as we realized that these goblins were apparently survivors of the gobin enclave we'd smashed near the Emerald Grove. I really hoped that none of these goblins had actually seen us-

"Enough!" the orc shouted, and a wave of mental force lashed outward from her as she drew upon her tadpole to demand submission. All of us blinked with the force of her mental push even from across the chamber, and the goblins fell cringingly silent. "You failed to retrieve the artifact. You failed to protect your True Soul. You do not deserve to live." she condemned them. I motioned covertly to the party to stay silent and not interfere - not that I expected anyone to be eager to do so, but if these goblins were about to get executed for failure before they even knew that we were in the room, that would be the best way to preserve our cover.

Ketheric looked up from the cringing goblins and spotted us standing at the rear of the chamber, and my heart sank. "A new True Soul, here with tidings?" he greeted us. His voice was curiously calm and relaxed - where we'd have expected a harsh roar of command or a snarling undertone of malice, instead he spoke as matter-of-factly, as normally, as a village elder saying hello to a random passerby in the marketplace. A simple acknowledgement that someone else was present and a mild curiosity as to their particular business today and nothing more. It was so commonplace that in this atmosphere it was decidedly out of place.

"A githyanki scout patrol, General, defeated near the west gate of Reithwin Town." I answered him courteously.

"Ah." He dismissed our news with an idle wave of his hand. "If they were all defeated, then they are of no immediate urgency." he continued in that strangely gentle voice. "But I am mildly curious as to the point of view that someone uninvolved in this particular matter might bring." He gave another idle, relaxed wave of his hand in the general direction of the golems. "These are stragglers from the goblin encampment we had and lost near the Emerald Grove. They came crawling here in disgrace, confessing to having failed to achieve any of their assigned objectives and to having lost all of the True Souls that were stationed there to supervise them. What do you think should be done with them?" he finished. There wasn't a single clue on either his stoic face or his entirely immobile, ultimately-disciplined body as to what he was genuinely feeling or what answer he expected - or what purpose he had for bringing us into this at all.

The goblins all looked fearfully at me, praying for deliverance. I cursed inwardly, because I had no idea if these goblins had seen us during our infiltration of the encampment or not. If I ordered their deaths and they were any of the ones who'd seen our faces, they had every reason to spitefully blurt that out before they died. But if I asked for mercy from someone with such a reputation for mercilessness, I risked exposing ourselves- ah.

"They seem wholly devout, but clearly lack competence." I answered matter-of-factly. "Obviously they cannot be given responsibility for another operation in the field, but I believe execution should be reserved for clear disloyalty. Are there more menial duties they could be reassigned to, where their limited capacities would be of no import?" At this point I was fairly certain the goblins would gladly welcome peeling potatoes for life as an alternative to execution... and would hopefully be grateful enough to keep their little mouths shut.

"Yes! Yes!" one of the other goblins burst out. "We'll do anything, milord! Sweep the floors, empty your chamber pots-" He fell silent instantly as Thorm began to speak.

"Faith without accomplishment is anaemic, sickly. In a word, useless. We are too close to the ending - and the new beginning. I can coddle failure no longer." Thorm turned to look aside at his orc lieutenant. "Kill them. Quickly." he concluded, his voice never having changed its calm, even tones throughout.

"What?" the female goblin screeched angrily. "You creaking old bag of shit!" Quick as a snake, she snatched a halberd out of the careless hands of the nearest guard and with a quite frankly damned impressive throwing arm heaved it as it were fired from a ballista. Before anyone in the room could react it sailed in a neat arc across ten paces and landed point-first in Ketheric's throat, nailing him to the back of his throne. His body went limp and slack in that way a man did when you'd successfully put the thrust directly through their spine-

-and then his eyes snapped open again. His freely lolling head returned to its normal position, his cold and scornful gaze focused intently on the goblin who'd just impaled him. His right hand reached up to slowly and deliberately grasp the halberd's shaft firmly, and with no visible effort he pulled the point loose from his throat. Although the halberd's spear-point was clearly coated in dark ichor, there was not the slightest sign of a wound visible on the man. I could hear the memory of Jaheira's voice in this moment - "And the son-of-a-bitch just reached up and pulled it out like it was a splinter."

Ketheric Thorm rose imposingly to his feet as the goblins flinched back in terror. I quickly noted that nobody else in the room had shown the slightest sign of surprise - perhaps it had not been carelessness that had let the one guard be disarmed so readily, but indifference. Ketheric stalked inexorably towards the goblin who had just tried to kill him, but rather than strike at her with the halberd he simply held it out at arm's length and then dropped it at her feet.

"Try again." he ordered quietly, his voice tinged with the first hint of emotion he'd shown throughout this entire conversation - contempt.

Her eyes wide with terror, her hands shaking, the goblin reluctantly picked up the halberd - and then swung it sideways with desperate strength at Ketheric's exposed neck, just above the collar of his armor. The blade cleaved through the flesh and halfway through his spine, leaving his head horribly dangling to one side... and then he reached up with his left hand, wrenched the halberd loose with a mild effort, and his head immediately sprang back upright and into position with the torn-open flesh knitting instantly and seamlessly the instant the blade was no longer in the wound. He tossed the now gore-covered halberd to the ground and stepped over it without a backward glance, interlocking the fingers of both his hands and raising his arms overhead-

"No! Noooooooo!" the goblin wailed helplessly, as Ketheric brought his gauntleted hands down in a mighty two-fisted smash that burst her skull open like a melon and scattered brains and gore for several feet around.

"Dispose of the rest as you see fit." he ordered the orc, his voice now bored and careless again. "Or better yet, put that True Soul to use - you have far more important matters to attend to, Z'rell, or have you forgotten?"

"Of course not, my lord! Thank you." the now-identified 'Disciple Z'Rell" bowed to him nervously. Without even bothering to wipe the gore and brains off his armor first, Ketheric Thorm turned and headed up the stairs and out of the audience chamber without another word.

"You heard the General." Z'rell stated authoritatively. "Deal with this trash. I have vital matters to attend to - report to me in my office in an hour." She followed the General upstairs.

The inner guidance of my Oath flinched away from executing the helpless under these conditions - not that these goblins weren't malevolent little sacks of violence who gladly inflicted misery on the innocent and who I'd readily have killed on the road out of general principles. The problem was that the crimes they were being condemned for here were ones that I had actually committed.

"Trial by combat." I decided. I drew my sword and looked at the guards. "If I lose, I guess they're competent enough to live after all."

"Are you crazy?" one of the surviving goblins begged. "We haven't got a chance!"

"Not much of one." I agreed grimly. "But it's either me... or her." I nodded towards the direction Z'Rell had just departed in.

The goblins were motivated enough at the prospect of that to snatch up their weapons, which one of the encircling guards contemptuously tossed back to them at my order. They then immediately gang-rushed me, trying to flank me from both sides... not that it helped them any.

I wiped the blood off my sword and sheathed it, my Oath still intact even if I felt a bit grungy. "Come on, let's get a breath of fresh air until the Disciple is ready to see us." I told my team.

"Gods damn that was frightening." Wyll whispered to me as we left the room.

"She wasn't exaggering at all." Shadowheart contributed, her voice low and distant. "He truly has passed beyond death somehow."

"And it's our job to find out how." I agreed. "But come on. We've got barely an hour left to work in before the next test of our infiltration skills, and we've got several jobs to do here." I looked at Wyll. "Finding your father being one of them - I haven't forgotten. Plus the survivors of the attack on the tiefling convoy, and-" I broke off. "Let's get to the dungeons."

---

Author's Note: You need to watch the cutscene to get the full force of JK Simmons' voice acting here, as he's the voice of Ketheric Thorm. I didn't even touch it up much except changing the halberd toss through the chestplate to something slightly more believable.

And yeah, the githyanki ambush at the west gate of town is a tough boss fight... that gets far less tough if you have an advance warning about the ambush and stack your deck. I need to practice more on writing climactic fight scenes in a more play-by-play manner, especially given that we're only several chapters out from Ketheric's boss fight, but for right now this is how it goes.

The sequence with Arabella and her mysterious nature powers and Withers is in the game, but AFAIK they never really explain what's up with it. I think it's just there to provide a humanizing moment for Withers, because the party actually does need to trust him a little and he's kinda, y'know, a mysterious eldritch thing.

But hey, Hawke was able to get a premature revelation of the Dead Three's involvement because he took the step of actually asking the dude who does impossible resurrections about 'Hey, who else do you know can do impossible resurrections?' And Withers might not be allowed to directly say 'Oh yeah, I totally know the Dead Three are up to this bullshit', but he is allowed to answer a question on an academic topic related to his primary subject matter during which he just happens to lay out the logical reasons why the best guess for the resurrection of the Thorms is Myrkul.

Before anybody mentions that high-level priests can drop 'True Resurrection', while that spell does work up to 200 years post-death it also requires a willing subject (which leaves out Isobel, as she was dragged back against her will) as well as a soul that isn't trapped (which leaves out Ketheric, because Shar had his soul and was busy roasting him for eternity for his failures). It took a divine resurrection to get past that.

And yes, that is indeed Halsin and Jaheira doing something that never happens in videogames - NPCs actually handling an important sidequest offstage while you're busy with something else. God, I love the freedom of story mode sometimes. *g*

 

[TyricGaias]

If it turns out JK Simmons is an asshole in real life, I'd lose complete faith in humanity

 

[gammoregan]

If Withers can bring someone back from total bodily disintegration - which he entirely can, because people have gotten their party straight-up nuked in the vaporizing of Rosymorn Monastery and still gotten them back alive and intact at the rez station - then why not just amputate her prosthetic post-mortem and let the man bring her back fully organic? I've been asking myself that for ages, and now that I'm finally writing a BG3 story, I get to have it my way.

Click to shrink...

I haven't read the most recent chapter, but one problem I thought of with this is that it should also work with the slugs. Kill someone, cut their head open, take the slug out, and then revive them.

And I can't even put into words how much of a big deal it would be if the entire party could remove their slugs this easily.

 

[cliffc999]

I haven't read the most recent chapter, but one problem I thought of with this is that it should also work with the slugs. Kill someone, cut their head open, take the slug out, and then revive them.

Click to shrink...

The tadpoles are protected by epic Netherese magic that even gods find annoying to deal with, Karlach's heart is not.

Also, Withers wouldn't remove them even if he could - without them the party can't infiltrate the cult of the Absolute, which is what he wants them to do.

 

[Hmmaster]

I personally think the infernal heart engine is so integrated with hellish magic (and therefore Karlach) that Withers cannot easily just "oh, let's bring you back w/o the engine, Karlach." The same argument that applies with the tadpoles and the Netherese magic should, IMO, apply to him.

To put another way, Withers cannot (or will not, take your pick) bring back Wyll's soul untainted, unpacted w/o Mizora when he died earlier in the story. Karlach's engine is the result of such a pact between Gortash and Raphael, and Raphael is orders of magnitude more powerful than Mizora since he's got a little fiefdom of his own in the Nine Hells and is the son of an archdevil, rather than just a member of an archdevil's court. If Withers can't intervene to just break the soul binding on Wyll, then I don't think he should be able to break similar infernal pact magic connected to Karlach's infernal engine.

It's certainly your story to do with what you will. Personally, I wish that it had been Hawke's out of context templar abilities that were a solution, because that would have been something to genuinely come out of the protagonist's influence.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

And Withers might not be allowed to directly say 'Oh yeah, I totally know the Dead Three are up to this bullshit', but he is allowed to answer a question on an academic topic related to his primary subject matter during which he just happens to lay out the logical reasons why the best guess for the resurrection of the Thorms is Myrkul.

Click to shrink...

Withers is enjoying having a smart and experienced adventurer to bounce off, I suspect.

 

[cliffc999]

I personally think the infernal heart engine is so integrated with hellish magic (and therefore Karlach) that Withers cannot easily just "oh, let's bring you back w/o the engine, Karlach." The same argument that applies with the tadpoles and the Netherese magic should, IMO, apply to him.

Click to shrink...

The Netherese magic comes from an epic Netherese artifact that was originally part of the incident that helped Karsus gank the goddess of magic and can, in the hands of a skilled user, potentially enable divine ascension - and I mean you can actually see that happen in the game if you decide to encourage Gale to make a bid for godhood.

The infernal heart engine is a little gizmo that can be tuned up by a random tiefling blacksmith working with field expedient gear and any random piece of infernal iron.

They are not the same.

To put another way, Withers cannot (or will not, take your pick) bring back Wyll's soul untainted, unpacted w/o Mizora when he died earlier in the story.

Click to shrink...

Of course he can't. The gods aren't allowed to just arbitrarily LOLnope infernal soul pacts, that's part of the rules that enable soul pacts to begin with. There's actually a bit in one of the 3.5e supps that shows Asmodeus negotiating the original strictures of infernal contract law with the gods back during the creation era and let's just say they REALLY should have read the fine print.

But that's Wyll's problem, not Karlach's, because...

If Withers can't intervene to just break the soul binding on Wyll, then I don't think he should be able to break similar infernal pact magic connected to Karlach's infernal engine.

Click to shrink...

... Karlach was never under the terms of an infernal pact to begin with. She was abducted and sold as a slave, but she never signed any deal herself. And Gortash got paid for delivering Karlach's body, not her soul.

This is why Zariel doesn't show up and invoke a penalty clause on Karlach like Mizora can with Wyll. Zariel can't. She has no contract with Karlach to enforce.

 

[2 Hot Crown Subdues the Sinful]

I think it's just there to provide a humanizing moment for Withers, because the party actually does need to trust him a little and he's kinda, y'know, a mysterious eldritch thing.

Click to shrink...

I personally think that Mystra's gonna blow up again & Arabella is queued up as a replacement.

 

[DIT_grue]

Spoiler: Suggestions

"I haven't the foggiest notion how they fit in yet." Gale shrugged. "But we're about to head to the place where we can find out." He sighed. "If this really is a plot of the Dead Three somehow having returned, no wonder Elminster passed on such dire forbodings from Mystra."

Click to shrink...

This spelling is apparently real, if rare, but I'm much more familiar with forebodings (and it also has what seems to me a more obvious surface analysis).

"Are they any other githyanki in the Shadow-Cursed Lands?" we probed.

Click to shrink...

there

We marched forthrightly down the bridge leading towards the main gates of Moonrise as if we didn't have the slightest thing to hide. As we drew nearer I noted details that hadn't been visible when we'd studied the tower from a distance on the high ground above Reithwin. The portcullis I'd feared was still a jammed mass of rust that hadn't been restored to its original condition after lying abandoned for so long. Several wooden gantries had been hastily erected in various spots around the tower where repair crews were still fixing the damage done by siege engines back during the original fall of Moonrise. Strange shadow-vines grew about in reckless profusion and hadn't been trimmed, some of them even drawing to crawl up the very sides of the tower. By all appearances Ketheric Thorm's revival and return to power had relatively been recent, and he'd chosen to expend finite resources elsewhere rather than focus on restoring his home to pristine condition as first priority.

Click to shrink...

I'm not sure what this is trying to say. - Oh! Maybe it's a typo for daring?
been relatively

"That's far enough." one of the two guards at the foot of the stairs leading up to the main entrance doors stated firmly, his palm outthrust in an unspoken orer to halt. Both of these men were in briliantly polished half-plate, their tabards neat and clean and emblazoned with the symbol of the Absolute's cult. As I drew to a halt my eyes narrowed at the symbol's heraldry - a downward-pointing triangle with a skull in the center, and the four fingers and thumb of a hand reaching upward with the skull set in place of the palm. I'd seen those symbols less than an hour ago, in a reference text we'd been consulting. Although altered somewhat in iconography from their original versions, once you were already looking for the correspondence it was as plain as day. The hand of Bane, the triangle of Myrkul, and the skull of Bhaal. Our deductions had been correct - the Dead Three ultimately lay behind whatever or whoever was the Absolute.

Click to shrink...

order
brilliantly

 

[S!ËGFR!ÊD]

I personally think that Mystra's gonna blow up again & Arabella is queued up as a replacement.

Click to shrink...

Nah, she won't. She's not that far gone.

 

[cliffc999]

I knew I wasn't making the best decision, but I was doing it anyway.

The worst-case scenario is that we'd be almost immediately exposed by Disciple Z'Rell and have to flee. That meant that I should be treating the hour of time before our appointment with her as the only time I might have to conduct a reconaissance. The priority target thus should be Ketheric Thorm's quarters, to search for clues about Thorm's immortality or the cult's upcoming war plans. Instead I was going for what by cold calculation should have been the secondary target- rescuing the prisoners in Moonrise Towers.

We don't have to break them out right at this moment. I told myself. Just scout out where they're being held under what conditions, and possible escape routes.

Perhaps I was being overconfident after my success in improvising a miracle - well, to be honest, improvising an idea on where we could rent a miracle - to save Karlach, but when you were this deep in a sticky situation there came a point at which you had to abandon cold calculation and just keep playing to your strengths. We'd been doing nothing but playing long shot after long shot just to get this far, so it was too late to pretend that there were reasonable odds to gamble on now.

Besides, there should hopefully be at least one hole card left down there to play-

The entrance to the dungeon level turned out to be in a room adjacent to the audience chamber. Two guards were posted at the top of the stairs, and two more in the chamber at the bottom. A large set of closed double doors led out to what Isobel had told me were the main docks, and the entrance to the dungeon proper led off in another direction.

The guards at the bottom of the long winding stairs looked at us curiously - or suspiciously - but visibly decided not to challenge us as we headed out into the main dungeon area. It was a large circular area that was a cross between a construction and an excavation, clearly laid deep below the tower's foundations. The ceiling was dozens of feet above the floor, and there were no individual cells - just a series of large chambers with narrow prison bars instead of walls, partitioned out of segments of the room's circumference. A wide stone floor stretched around the outer rim of the room, half its depth walled in by prison bars and half left for freedom of movement. The center of the room, however, was a giant hollow pit stretching down deep into the earth, with more of that eerie green eldritch glow dimly visible at the bottom - apparently the warped geometry of the Shadowfell incursion was reaching even here, unless some impossible force had excavated below Moonrise Towers in a feat entirely beyond mundane engineering. A solid pillar of earth rose up from the center of the open chasm and a small two-story stone tower had been built on it, with wooden constructions gantries still set up adjacent to its walls and a small observation platform on top - apparently the warden's office. Several guards were diligently conducting roving patrols up and down the line of cells, with two slowly drifting arcane eye-orbs supplementing their efforts.

Most of the cells were empty, but the nearest one was full of a cluster of miserable tieflings - many of whom I recognized, including Alfira's girlfriend Lakrissa and several others I'd met at the party. Zevlor wasn't with them, however. A cell some ways further down held a small group of deep gnomes I didn't know, and no other prisoners were visible.

"Father isn't here." Wyll said, downcast. "Which... he is a valuable prisoner, they'd likely keep him in separate quarters..." he tried to console himself.

"Mizora's 'asset' doesn't look to be here either." Gale murmured. "So that's at least one problem we can postpone for a little while.

"Let's go talk to the tieflings before one of them blows our cover." I decided, and we stepped over to their cell. As I approached I held up one finger to my lips in the universal gesture for 'Ssssh!', making sure that none of the patrolling guards or orbs got an angle of view to what I was doing.

"Hawke?" Lakrissa greeted me in an astonished murmur. "Thank the gods! Can you get us out of here?"

"Not so loud!" Shadowheart shushed with an angry whisper. "If any of you blows our cover, we're all dead."

"Right." one of the other tieflings muttered. "One of-"

"Prisoners are not to be spoken to without authorization!" a patrolling guard barked out to us, having noticed what we were doing. Fortunately they were still far enough away they wouldn't have heard the whispering-

"Resume your patrol." I ordered them curtly, drawing upon my tadpole to speak with that disturbing Authority-

"As you command, True Soul." she saluted me, and walked away. I mentally shivered at how my imagination insisted that the stench of illithid ichor was filling my nostrils-

"Good news, that worked. Bad news, she'll remember our faces... meaning I've got to find a way to break you out of here and have a solid alibi being somewhere else entirely while I do it." I muttered to the tieflings.

"Talk to the deep gnomes, their leader keeps claiming he's got a way of getting us out of here if only he could get his hands on some tools." Lakrissa whispered back.

A quick look around confirmed that none of the guards were looking too curiously at us, and after waiting for the patrolling orbs to be at a safe distance we walked over to the cell containing the deep gnomes.

"-improvise tools with anything you can find, be creative." the leader was whispering to his subordinates as we approached. "This rock is basalt, it'll crack with enough press-" He broke off as he sensed our approach and immediately turned to face us with a false, bright smile. "Ah! Don't mind us, sir. The back wall is oozing drainage, we're just trying to plug the leak."

"You're clearly planning an escape." I murmured to him softly.

"I wouldn't be so foolish as to think we could possibly escape the Absolute!" he assured me guilelessly. "The Warden has eyes everywhere! And ears."

"Are you Wulbren?" I suddenly remembered the name of the missing friend that that deep gnome we'd met in Moonhaven and then again in Grymforge had been searching for. "Barcus Wroot's been worried about you."

"Barcus is out there?" The leader of the imprisoned deep gnomes looked up at me with calculating eyes. "If he sent you, then you're no slave to the Absolute. You're a wolf among sheep, aren't you?" He nodded. "Well, I guess you and I were destined to eye coming." he continued without missing a beat.

"The Absolute is not death, it is life!" I immediately picked up the cue as the patrolling arcane eye drew close to and passed us by. "Abandon your stubborn defiance and submit! If you would just-"

"All right, it's gone." the leader nodded to me. "Good job thinking fast, now to business. I'm Wulbren, and if you're going to help us escape then we need tools. Anything we can use to break through that back wall - these fools haven't been maintaining this place like they should, and there's a structural weakness you can exploit if you're a skilled enough miner. Which, not to brag, we most certainly are." He looked back towards the wall in question, his eyes narrowing. "And judging from the sound there's a whole hollow space back there - it must lead somewhere."

I cursed inwardly because there was indeed a hollow space back there - Isobel had told me about it. It was the secret route she'd used to escape Moonrise Towers, that led from the dungeon level to a small auxiliary docks tucked into a cleverly hidden cave on the shore of the Chionthar a short distance away from the tower. If Wulbren could get the deep gnomes - and the tieflings, because the rear wall of their cell was adjacent to the same passage - into that tunnel, they'd have a clear shot all the way to the river and away...

... and the hidden route would be exposed to Ketheric's forces, thus closing off the best way - and quite likely the only way - that we could hope to sneak an attack force into the tower later. I wondered at how Ketheric had missed it, as he'd been the lord and master of this castle ever since its construction and so had to know about it. I suppose it was that he hadn't realized Isobel had discovered it, and so he'd never bothered to block the passage off because he might just possibly need it himself later.

"I'll see what I can do." I non-promised. "We've got to maintain our cover or else a whole lot of other people are screwed, so whatever I set up you'll have to hold on executing it until we're clear."

"If it's that how it has to be." Wulbren agreed reluctantly. "It's not as if we're overburdened with other options in here."

"Before I go looking, what else do you know that might help?" I asked.

"There's something underneath the dungeon." Wulbren said. "They throw the corpses of all the prisoners who don't make it down that oubliette on the other side of the warden's tower, but the hole never gets full. There's either a huge cavern down there or else something's eating them. At any rate, don't climb down anywhere. We gave up on the idea of trying to get out through the lower vents once we realized the sublevels were... suspicious."

"Do they ever take prisoners from the dungeon and not bring them back?" Wyll asked urgently.

"All the time." Wulbren said.

"Let's go." I ordered. "We linger here too long, they'll get wise."

Rather than head back towards the entrance I led the party off on a full circuit of the prison floor... or at least as much of a full circuit as could be made, as the floor didn't go all the way around the outside of the pit. My heart leapt as I saw what I'd been hoping to see at the far end of the floor's circumference... a crack in the wall that, with a little effort, could let you climb up and get into the space behind the dungeon's outer wall, the already-existing cave passage that they'd taken advantage of to help build the secret exit into.

"You already knew this was here." Shadowheart looked at me knowingly as we vanished into the passage. "How?"

"From someone who'd already gotten into Moonrise Towers, and then gotten out." I told the truth. "But I promised not to reveal my source, so please don't ask." I continued firmly. "But yes, this is the postern exit from Moonrise Towers. It should lead down this passage to a hidden cove and a backup set of docks. We'll need to verify that quickly."

"And then we help 'em escape down it, yeah?" Karlach said eagerly.

"We can't." I poured cold water on her hopes. "At least half a dozen guards saw us enter the prison level. If there's a breakout now, we can't hope to get back into Moonrise without an army - and we haven't yet found anything we came here looking for."

"We're not just leaving them here!" Wyll fumed.

"We're not." I agreed. "But first we find out what we have to work with. Then we figure out how to set the situation up so they can save themselves."

A quick scramble down the corridor confirmed that the docks were indeed there, and one old yet still seaworthy boat was still there and chained up. Also, the back walls of both cells were vulnerable - from this side Karlach and I could have bashed them down without much difficulty, provided we found a large enough bludgeon. My fingers itched with the urge to just do it, but we had to preserve the secrecy of this route at the same we used it-

"Right, let's get back out of here before the guards wonder where we went." I ordered. "Then I'll try my True Soul routine on the warden."

The warden was a female tiefling, suspicious and narrow-minded. Even my True Soul authority wasn't sufficient to get her to bend the slightest bit from her standing orders, although she did accept my being present in her dungeon as yet another True Soul attempt to skim out those willing to 'embrace the Absolute' from the 'nonbelievers' who'd eventually have to be disposed of in one way or another. More importantly, I got a look at the exact layout of her office - the controls for the cells and her desk were in the lower floor of the warden's tower, and the secure storage for valuables confiscated from prisoners was in the upper chamber. Yet another arcane eye also patrolled the treasure chamber, but she was normally alone in her office. This would be important later.

"Sit tight." I went to tell Wulbren and Lakrissa in turn. "We'll be back, and then it'll be time to move. For right now we've got to get back upstairs and defuse any suspicions." We left behind several sets of desperate and terrified eyes as we headed back up the dungeon stairs, hoping for our return but afraid that we never would.

We passed through the audience chambers and up the stairs behind the throne to the upper floor of Moonrise Towers, the floor that had contained the family quarters and the lord's study in better days. The guards on this floor consisted not just of soldiers but also several robed skeletons and a massive ogre standing vigil on an elaborately decorated door.

"That leads up to the rooftop chapel." one of the guards warned me. "General Thorm's up there now at his devotions. Absolutely no interruptions." he insisted firmly.

"Disciple Z'Rell?" I asked them.

"In her office, at the other end of the floor." He pointed back the way we'd come. "Past the stairs, then left."

"Remember your place, child." we could hear Z'Rell arrogantly hectoring some subordinate as we approached. "The True Souls stand above you, and I stand above them."

"Of course, Disciple. As always." a woman's voice answered her resentfully, and we passed a woman in robes leaving her office as we approached it.

"You wished to see us, Disciple?" I asked as we entered.

"You're early, but no matter." she greeted us. "The goblins - tell me how they died at your hand. No... better yet, show me." With an eager, hungry smile she lashed out with her tadpole, demanding entrance to my mind- I focused my will and concentrated solely on the images of my sword cleaving the goblins open, with no thoughts spared as to why or how-

"You like to handle underlings physically." she smiled disturbingly at me. "So do I."

"A waste of my time, honestly." I replied curtly. "I'm not here to clean up trash."

"Your confidence is delicious." she snorted. "I can certainly see why the Absolute would be eager to dig more deeply into that mind of yours. I certainly am." Her mind reached out again, skillfully pushing its way past my mental walls and demanding my memories, demanding the truth-

I deliberately dug up my feelings for Shadowheart where I'd been burying them for the sake of the mission and threw them to the front of my mind, letting myself feel that horrible memory of our confrontation the other night, my hurt, my confusion-

"You took pity on one of Shar's miserable little followers? And then she rejected you?" Z'Rell laughed mockingly, her suspicion entirely diverted away by her newfound amusement. "But with the Absolute, your every fantasy could become real." Z'Rell continued, her voice thick with temptation. "The pleasures of the mind can far surpass those of the body. I was privileged to stand in Her presence once, and it was ecstasy. She gave me everything I wanted."

"What did you want?" I hurriedly changed the subject.

"To take without asking. To feel without doubting. And to kill without consequence." she replied with a psychopath's glee. "In a word... freedom."

"And how could we be privileged to stand in Her presence?" I played along.

"By serving well." Z'Rell said. "Your little skirmish with the githyanki is of no import now, because we have a more urgent situation. General Thorm's valued advisor Disciple Balthazar has fallen out of contact. It is fortuitous that your team is available... if you can bring down an elite githyanki patrol so easily, then you should be able to handle this mission readily enough."

"A rescue mission?" I inquired.

"A retrieval." Z'rell corrected me. "Disciple Balthazar had been sent to bring back a valuable relic from underneath the old Thorm family mausoleum. Go there and find out what happened to him. But regardless of whether he's alive or dead, don't come back without that relic."

"A bit hard to retrieve something if we don't know what it is." I pointed out.

Z'Rell looked at us, visibly bristling. "You have no need to know. Balthazar can tell you when you find him - or his orders can, if you find them on his corpse."

"Let me guess." I said knowingly. "Balthazar was told what it was, but you weren't."

"Mind your tongue!" Z'Rell glared hotly. "But... yes." she admitted like pulling teeth. "All I know of the relic is that it must be awesomely powerful to be worth so much of General Thorm's regard. Our march has already been delayed because he refuses to leave Moonrise Towers until its safe retrieval."

"One last question. You said you 'lost contact'...?" I probed.

"An arcane eye accompanied him when he left Moonrise, but it was destroyed less than an hour ago. It didn't report anything useful before its destruction, though." She replied. I nodded inwardly at that. Aafter all, we'd proven at the Grymforge that it was entirely possible to sneak up on one of those things with a bit of lateral - or vertical - thinking.

"Understood, Disciple. We'll head out now." I agreed.

"Take a moonlantern from Balthazar's quarters before you go." She insisted, with a glance at the empty moonlantern we'd faked up with a light cantrip and Isobel's blessing. "Yours is dimming - it clearly needs replacement." She handed me an elaborate decorated silver key. "This will get you inside." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Don't touch anything except the spare moonlanterns. Balthazar likes to put 'precautions' on his belongings - we've already had to haul out the corpses of several overly-curious apprentices. Dismissed!"

Balthazar's quarters were lavishly appointed, and overflowing with bookshelves, books, papers, and workbenches full of arcane and alchemical impedimenta. Several spare moonlanterns lay conveniently - and all by themselves - on a table near the door.

"Our friend Balthazar is a necromancer." Gale pronounced after a brief visual inspection of the various paraphernalia that had been laid out. "Quite an advanced one too, judging from some of these experiments."

"Don't touch anything." Shadowheart warned him urgently. "Look." She pointed behind one of the workbenches, where the corpse of a dead man in an apprentice's robe lay cooling in front of a bookcase.

"Damn, Z'Rell wasn't kidding." Karlach said worriedly.

"We're not going to find any clues in here, if this place is so full of traps." Wyll groused.

"No, but that door leads out to the front balcony." I pointed. "And there should also be a balcony door into the lord's bedroom from there, and we already know that Thorm isn't in his quarters. Shadowheart?"

"On it." she agreed, reaching for her lockpicks. She was able to get the door open, but the other balcony door into Ketheric's quarters was arcanely sealed.

"Damn." Gale said. "I'll have to use up my only Knock spell on it. Still, needs must." A quick flare of arcane power and the door popped open-

-and we stood face to face with the General's undead guard dog, who stared at us silently. Suspiciously. Perhaps even murderously.

"The General asked us to fetch some papers for him." I improvised.

The dog simply stared.

"Praise the Absolute!" I continued, and gave the same salute I'd seen the tower guards give. The dog finally sniffed in apparent disdain and stepped aside to let us enter.

"Right, don't try to touch anything besides papers." I warned my team needlessly. "But the General didn't tell us exactly where he'd left them, so we'll have to look through all of this." I continued for the dog's benefit. I whispered to Shadowheart "Keep an eye on that thing and get ready to put it down if need be. The rest of us will try to find any clues."

A letter left right out on the General's writing desk begged for our attention, so I pocketed it immediately. "All right, that's the first one. Keep looking." Several maps laid out on the map table contained notes for long-range plans to besiege and conquer several other Sword Coast cities, apparently after taking Baldur's Gate and 'initiating' enough of the citizenry there with tadpoles and threats to raise a larger army for the Absolute.

"Look at this." Gale said, holding up a file copy of an operations outline that he'd found in another desk.

Dictated to Scribe Yanthus by General Ketheric

Sweeping up individual drow renegades is not giving us the cadre of Lolth-trained veterans I want for our staff and officer corps; we must be more ambitious. Agent Xilvre, True Soul 113, will be commanded to infiltrate Menzoberranzan itself, ideally House Baenre, ostensibly to proselytise on the behalf of the divine Absolute. I think Xilvre will be convincing in this role.

This intrusion will excite outrage among the Baenre matrons, who can be counted upon to send a warband to exterminate whoever was so rash as to promote anti-Lolth apostasy in their home. Xilvre will have left a clear trail back here to Moonrise Towers, where the warband will find, not a circle of ragtag heretics, but an army in the making.

I will parley with the drow leader, but as we negotiate her warband will be ambushed, and every drow warrior we capture will be tadpoled. This accomplished, the warband leader will meet the same fate, and thus we shall acquire our cadre of hardened Underdark warriors.

And all it will cost us is the life of loyal Agent Xilvre, but he is, truth be told, a tedious enthusiast and I will not miss him.

"Now I really feel sorry for Minthara." Karlach said. "It was all a setup from the getgo? Poor bitch never had a chance."

"Thorm is absolutely ruthless." I agreed. "Even with his own men. And to think that he started out as a champion of light. What the hell did Shar do to him?" I deliberately looked at Shadowheart as I said those last words, and she flinched away from my gaze.

"I think that hound is getting suspicious. It's time for us to leave." was all she'd say.

I reached out to touch the locked chest at the foot of Thorm's bed, keeping an eye on the dog. It looked at me, then turned away unconcernedly.

"Must be some papers in here." I deduced. "Shadowheart, if you'd please-?" She knelt down and silently got to work with her picks.

"Hold on." Wyll whispered. "Loose floorboard here-" He looked at me meaningfully, and I deliberately walked to the other end of the room and started to reach out to touch a wardrobe - something that couldn't possibly be containing any papers - so as to distract the dog's attention. Sure enough, it fell for the bait and growled at me, and I snatched my hand back.

"Right." Wyll said. "Time to go." We headed outside and shut the door behind us, breathing in relief that the undead sentinel hadn't quite gotten suspicious enough to sound the alarm, and all huddled together on a quiet corner of the balcony.

"Let's see what this says." I drew out the letter that had been waiting on Thorm's desk. An elaborate wax seal was still intact - apparently this piece of mail had recently been delivered while the General was away at his 'devotions', and so he wouldn't miss it when he got back. "Wyll, do you recognize this heraldry?" I showed him the wax seal - it had been what had attracted my eye to the envelope in the first place.

"No." he said. "Which is odd - it's clearly the insignia of a Baldurian noble house, because all coats of arms in the city contain the city emblem somewhere." He pointed at a small heraldic depiction of a single ship with its sails cocked in a distinctive manner, set in miniature in the corner of the elaborate seal. "But I'm not at all familiar with the house insignia... which I should be. It's been more than a couple years, yes, but I haven't been disowned for that long."

"Well, let's hope that they signed their name then." I shrugged and slit the letter open and read it.

General Thorm;

Given what we know from my research about the gith artifact, I can't emphasise enough how critical it is that it be recovered. The power that artefact contains can boost our own efforts to unforeseen levels, but if it falls into the hands of enemies of wit and persistence, it could bring down all of our plans and schemes.

The body of our handpicked captain for the artefact raid wasn't found in the wreckage of the nautiloid, and I'm not at all easy in my mind about that fact.

Find the artefact. Employ rigorous means. Do not fail.

-Lord Gortash

"Gortash?!?" Karlach spat incredulously. "That backstabbing little pissant is mixed up in all this? And he's a lord now?" She laughed bitterly. "Well at least killing him won't interfere with the mission, because it IS the mission!"

"The old half-elven warrior, the mysterious pale woman... and the handsome young nobleman." I recited the description of the Absolute's three Chosen. "Would you say that Gortash was 'handsome' and 'young'?, Karlach?"

"Handsome? Only if you find greasy little gits handso- all right, being fair, I suppose he could clean up if he put some effort into it. He's still not going to be put on stage as the star of a theatrical epic any time soon, though." Karlach snorted. "And young? Yeah, he was only a few years older than I was. By now he'd be only a little over thirty."

"What did you find, Wyll?"

"Notebook, apparently." he said, flipping through it. "Hang on... Elder Brain domination?"

"What?" Lae'zel said incredulously. "How would anyone possibly - it would take the power of a god to accomplish such a feat!"

We all eagerly leaned over to read the book for ourselves, and our blood ran cold at what we found.

Young Gortash's plan to enslave an illithid elder brain and make it our marionette under control of the Crown of Karsus has proceeded almost without flaw, barring the slight delay while our Bhaalist allies sorted out their leadership conflict. The weak point must surely be the sharing of the Netherstones - it was necessary to secure my engagement and that of the murder cult, but eventually it's certain to fracture our fragile alliance. Clearly, all three Netherstones must be controlled by a single leader - me, by preference - but not until after all the stakeholders have made their essential contribution. Gortash fears that, energised by the dark energies of the Crown, the brain we now call the Absolute will eventually metamorphose into something new and more difficult to control. If he's right, the need to invest the power of the Netherstones in a single wielder is urgent. Even more so in that Enver Gortash, at least, must be thinking the same way.

"The Crown of Karsus!" Gale said, awestruck. "You were right, Lae'zel - it would take a power beyond anything mortal to enslave an elder brain." He nodded. "And that's exactly what Gortash and Ketheric have obtained. When Karsus made his bid for godhood, several artefacts of that attempt survived his fall. I'm stuck with one of them right now." He thumped his chest. "And they apparently found another one of them - and the most powerful of them, at that."

"For the benefit of the person who fell off the planar turnip wagon last week, an 'elder brain' is...?" I embarassedly asked.

"The final evolution of the ghaik life cycle." Lae'zel explained. "They are the architects of the Grand Design, the leaders of ghaik colonies. They are gigantic creatures formed by the amalgamation of thousands of ghaik minds into one single organism, a near-godlike entity with vast psionic and mystic might." She looked at us, her expression one that we had virtually never seen on Lae'zel's face before - fear. "No elder brain has ever been destroyed by anything less than a githyanki army. If this Gortash and General Thorm somehow control one, then with its power they could crush any conceivable foe."

"And yet there's been a distinct lack of crushing recently." Karlach pointed out. "Except by more normal things like goblins, soldiers, and whatnot. Maybe their leash on it isn't as tight as we're afraid of."

"Then it would have already destroyed them for their impertinence!" Lae'zel insisted.

"I think we've already gotten a clue that they're struggling to control it." I realized, and tapped my belt pouch. "Specifically, how high a priority Gortash is placing on making sure they get ahold of the Astral Prism."

"Thorm's notes said that Gortash was afraid the Elder Brain would become more difficult to control." Gale agreed, and then exhaled heavily. "It's looking more and more as if Mystra were right."

"Would the Crown survive the explosion?" I thought out loud.

"The Orb certainly wouldn't." Gale answered. "As for the Crown..." his eyes opened in realization.

"Exactly." I said. "Either this has actually been Mystra just wanting the Crown of Karsus removed from play and everything else a secondary objective at best... at which point she was not being entirely truthful with you. Or else the Crown actually will survive the explosion and survive to plague Faerun yet again in the hands of a new master, at which point her plan is honestly well-meaning but flawed. Doesn't matter which, though, because either road leads to the same destination - please don't detonate the orb, we should try to find another way."

"Absolutely." Gale exhaled, his body going limp as all tension left it. "Oh thank- other people." he awkwardly trailed off. "I was really terrified of having to do that, I just couldn't not do it. If that makes any sense."

"Perfect sense." Wyll said agreeably.

"Shadowheart, what did you find in that chest?" I turned back to business. Our time was getting a bit short, after all.

"Nothing but keepsakes." she said quietly. "We should go - we should already have departed on our assigned task a while ago."

"You're right about that." I agreed, before I was struck by a thought. "Let's take all those moonlanterns with us, though - Z'Rell likely doesn't know exactly how many are left, and the fewer they have available the better." The remaining spare moonlanterns were all stuffed into our packs. A quick examination of them had produced the sad result that all of the pixies contained in these lanterns had already died, their light being preserved only by necromantic magic. Dolly Thrice had not been lying about her eventual fate if we hadn't released her. No wonder moonlanterns 'faded' with time.

"What are we doing about the prisoners?" Wyll asked as soon as we were across the bridge and back in Reithwin.

"Oh, we're getting them out before we go to try and find this Balthazar." I agreed. "But we're going to do so with a perfect alibi, because we just left the tower with the entire guard shift as witnesses. And Z'Rell won't be expecting us back for hours."

"So how do we-?" Wyll began, before trailing off. "Of course. We just go back in through the postern entrance from the outside."

"Exactly." I agreed. "But first we head back to Last Light. Jaheira needs to know everything we've found out about the real players behind the Absolute, and we're going to need a boat."

We dropped off everything we found, including most of the spare moonlanterns, and then got back on the water and headed downriver towards where the cove should be. It didn't take us very long to find it, and we crept as stealthily as we could from the passage from the hidden docks back down towards the dungeon.

"We can't leave any witnesses." I reminded everyone softly. "First thing first, we take out those patrolling arcane eyes."

It took some patience to finally have an arcane eye reach the end of its patrol circuit beneath where we observed quietly from the crack in the wall and none of the roving guards were close enough to see what was about to happen, but finally their irregular wanderings coincided. I reached out with my anti-magic and willed the arcane eye to stop, to short out, to go blind and dark. The magical armbands Lae'zel had looted from the dead githyanki inquisitor in Reithwin augmented a githyanki's natural minor psionics and allowed them to be used more often, so Gale didn't even have to use a spell to telekinetically pick up the "dead" orb and quietly toss it down into the chasm.

"Good job. Just one more.." Another short wait left the other patrolling eye in a similarily vulnerable position, and it was disposed of the same way.

"Three roving guards left, plus the warden in her office and the eye in her treasure room." Shadowheart noted softly. "And several more outside the dungeon at the foot of the stairs or working in the interrogation room, so we can't make any noise. If anyone hears anything and shouts an alarm, half the tower comes running down here." She swore. "If we only had a rogue! They're split up and unsuspicious, a few sneak attacks and they're all gone - but none of us are lightfooted enough to pull that off, not even me."

"So if stealth isn't an option, we try trickery instead. Shadowheart, have you got a casting of that disguise spell left?" I asked her.

"Yes. Whose face will I be wearing?" she turned to me.

"Z'Rell's. You won't even have to speak, just stand there and look like you're angry enough to kill someone. And then..." I explained the rest of the plan.

The roving guard we passed on our way to the warden's office looked mildly surprised to see us back on the dungeon floor when she hadn't noticed us enter the room, but the sight of 'Disciple Z'Rell' walking along with us and looking like she was in a very bad mood made her curiosity turn and flee for its life and tempted them to follow along after it. We ignored her and walked boldly into the warden's office, who snapped to attention at the sight of the 'Disciple'. Behind the guard's back I winked at both Wulbren and Lakrissa in their cells, and they smiled back at us.

As soon as we were in the warden's office I was barking orders, not giving her time to think. "Get those three idiots you call cellblock guards in here immediately. Our inspection earlier turned up an irregularity, and the Disciple wants to talk to them." I growled at her. She took one panicked look at 'Z'Rell' and immediately went to fetch her people.

"Disciple, I swear, all prisoners are present and accounted for." the warden was pleading. "We took a headcount just thirty minutes ago. If there's been anything-"

"Fall in." I demanded of the new arrivals, pointing at the open space in front of the warden's desk. "Right there. The Disciple needs to have a word with you lot."

"W-what word?" one of the guards asked nervously.

"Silence." Shadowheart intoned, and her spell came down and blanketed the entire office in a zone of magic through which not even a thunderclap could penetrate. Gale and Shadowheart couldn't spellcast while the silence was up but Wyll's warlock powers still worked, and he invoked his Repelling Blast to send the warden flying and prone. With the strongest opponent taken temporarily out of action, it was easy for us muscular sorts to batter her men unconscious and then concentrate on stabbing her to death. And, of course, there wasn't the slightest bit of noise to alarm anyone else on the lower level of the castle.

"Why did we only stab her?" Karlach asked after it was done.

"The warden would be expected to die in her office, so leaving her blood around doesn't raise any suspicions." I explained. "But these guards are supposed to have died out on the floor thanks to escaping prisoners who somehow got their cells open very very sneakily, so we can't have four corpses' worth of splatter in here." My stomach was mildly nauseous but my Oath not actually disturbed as we took the unconscious guards outside, finished them off, and then tossed their corpses down into the depths below as well. I was starting to work out that while my Oath felt very strongly about only doing things to the deserving, it was somewhat less particular about the how as opposed to the what.

Shadowheart, still wearing Z'Rell's face, went upstairs to distract the last arcane eye so I could disrupt it from behind, and then we tossed it down the chasm after its two fellows. Fortunately it wasn't capable of seeing downstairs into the warden's office from the top floor. I was pleased to see several scrolls and potions of invisibility among the magical loot in the pile of items confiscated from prisoners. With those items logged in and now stolen, I wouldn't have to use the riskier variant of this plan that involved assassinating our way to the main docks.

"Damn." Wyll swore as he went through the prisoner log. "Father's name isn't in here. Nor is Zevlor's. Nor is anyone's that sounds like they could be Mizora's asset. They weren't put in here and removed later, they were all sent to a separate facility who-knows-where."

"Well, Mizora can't fault you for not rescuing their asset if you never found them despite your best efforts." I tried to reassure him as we all politely decided not to further stoke worries about his father. "Perhaps she should have given you better directions. Or at least a name or a description."

"And that's what they're supposed to think happened." I explained to the two groups of grateful prisoners as we used the controls in the warden's office to open their cells. "The gnomes somehow mechanically hacked the lock of their cell-" Wulbren looked smug at the thought of doing that. "-and you all broke out, killed the guards and the warden, and then got out by using invisibility magic from the stash of confiscated items in the warden's treasure room. Meanwhile, we were never here."

"Here, take both of these boats." Karlach said as we ushered the survivors to the hidden auxiliary docks and gave them the remaining moonlanterns. "We won't need them to get out. Head up the river to Last Light Inn, you can't miss it underneath the giant protective dome. They'll be expecting you there."

After the prisoners were all safely away using both the old boat and the one we'd brought in, we warped out to the travelstone in Reithwin and headed to the cemetery on the north side of town. The 'Thorm Family Mausoleum' would be there, and when we'd most recently debriefed at Last Light Jaheira had raised an interesting possiblity that we'd overlooked. Specifically, that an artifact which was so important to Ketheric that he'd actually delay his attack on Baldur's Gate to make sure it was secure first was very likely to be the mysterious source of his immortality.

So we actually would be doing the mission that Z'Rell had assigned us after all... because either the artifact was what we're looking for, or else it wasn't and we'd need to maintain our cover long enough to go back into Moonrise again and keep searching. But we weren't even inside the mausoleum's front door before we yet again had a new factor enter the equation-

"What the literally hell are you doing here?" Karlach swore viciously, as we all stopped in shock at the sight of a certain personage casually leaning against the wall outside the mausoleum entrance.

"Our hero thought but of treasure ahead / Did not consider the peace of the dead / Through the dark he went creeping / And woke what was sleeping / A new grave they dug, which he himself fed." Raphael recited his poem with the most ornate of oratorical flourishes.

"A warning, and for free, even!" I raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "Don't tell us you're actually worried about our welfare."

"Merely protecting my... assets." Raphael replied smoothly. "Although I have grown a bit fond of you, perhaps. In my own way."

"Get off it." Karlach scoffed. "I'm pretty sure you don't even like your own reflection unless it's paying you off somehow."

Raphael sighed melodramatically, as if he were but a poor innocent forced to bear all the weight of the world - or at the very least was a bard on-stage who'd been cast in such a role. "It would be pointless of me to bar you from entering. But I can... set the scene, as it were. Prepare you for your role."

"Since I'm pretty sure even a god couldn't actually shut you up, you might as well keep talking." I yielded to the inevitable.

Raphael actually chuckled briefly at that before continuing onward. "Below us lies the Gauntlet of Shar. In times of old, a great temple for her worship as well as a challenge arena, painstakingly crafted for the final testing and reforging of her Dark Justiciars. But now this arena has become a stage, instead. A hushed theatre, deep down in the dark, upon which a great drama has suspended itself in time. Its actors languish there still, bereft of audience yet still mired in the languor of their long-tired scenes." His expression firmed and his voice filled with menace. "If you, however, through the dark go creeping and awake what is sleeping, then chances are that many more graves than yours alone will soon be fed."

"You're the one who came here wanting something from us, so you're the one who needs to actually provide some context." I flatly replied. "A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend and misleads more often than it achieves."

"Fair enough." Raphael nodded. "There is a creature that lurks in silence and shadow - a creature who, like me, is very much of the infernal persuasion. Should it make its way out through the very doors you are about to brazenly swing open, you'll have unleashed a pestilence upon this realm. In truth, it is carnage incarnate!" he declaimed dramatically. "So if you meet the devil of which I speak, kill it. Consider no other course of action!"

"Raphael." I crossed my arms and lifted a cynical eyebrow at him. "We saw the wreckage of infernal destruction in the Grymforge. You told me in our conversation at Last Light Inn that you had a 'very profitable' contract in this region decades ago. The head stonemason of Reithwin left behind a journal saying that he pacted with a devil to contract for the massacre of Thorm's Dark Justiciars. Now you show back up and tell me that an infernal juggernaut of some type is trapped below in an old temple for Dark Justiciars... and I'm not supposed to add all this up?" I looked at him cynically. "So let me guess - the reason you made out so profitably on that contract is because you somehow stiffed your subcontractor. Who is still trapped below after a hundred years... and who, if we kill him for you, will never have to be paid his past-due wages."

Raphael dropped every single theatrical mannerism to just stare at me with an expressionless frustration, before recovering his affable demeanor with a visible effort. "As a reward for your sagacity, I'm not even going to deny anything that you just said." His smile turned cruel. "Because I don't have to. You have no way to your objective that doesn't involve getting past him, and if you don't kill him then he is most certainly going to kill you. After all, he is a remorseless engine of infernal slaughter and naught more. A blunt instrument of the lower planes as opposed to my more sophisticated approach. Ask Karlach what an 'orthon' is, if you don't believe me."

"Fuck!" she swore. "There's one of those trapped down there? Boss, for once this bastard's not lying - we are all very much deep in the shit if we can't take that thing, and murdering it from ambush is probably the only way we can. Because try to imagine a devil that's fifteen feet tall, hits like a storm giant, and could bounce siege artillery off its codpiece without blinking, and then make it meaner than a dwarven berserker that just got cheated out of a lifetime supply of free ale - and you're just about getting in the neighborhood. Even other devils didn't want to go near one of those things when they got turned loose on a battlefield."

"So yes, at best you will have the blink of an eye in which to strike." Raphael affirmed. "Please do try not to come to an ignominious defeat here. After all, the true climax of this grand drama that we are all caught up in awaits us in Baldur's Gate and not this dreary little backwater. And it would be such a shame if you were to miss your cue. Good luck!" And in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

"Is it too late to go back to Last Light and ask Isobel to bless us maybe a hundred gallons of holy water?" Karlach asked plaintively.

"If the orthon is trapped, then presumably there's a certain distance we have to step inside before it can actually reach us." Wyll said. "Let's see if we can find this 'Balthazar' first before we have to scout out the deeper sections."

"Perhaps this devil is the reason Balthazar went out of contact." Lae'zel observed.

"Shadowheart?" Gale asked. "Are you all right? You look distracted."

We all turned to realize that Shadowheart had not only not been contributing to this conversation, she'd wandered slightly away from us during it as if she weren't even paying attention. "What? Sorry, I just-" she sighed. "The Gauntlet of Shar is here?" Her shoulders slumped in resignation. "I just... thought I would have more time."

"What do you mean?" I asked, suddenly frightened to my marrow.

"I've... known for a while that there was an upcoming trial, a test, that I must face in the name of Lady Shar." Shadowheart said gravely, her face a mask surmounted by frightened eyes. "One that I-" she waved her hand angrily, as if banishing shadows. "One that I cannot avoid, or delay."

And my heart sank through my bootsoles as Isobel's words at Last Light echoed in my memory: "Shar's favorite device for cementing her followers' loyalty is to force them to do something that they will never forgive themselves for. Something that makes them believe that an eternal existence in the darkness is all that they deserve. I'm almost certain that Shadowheart is coming to such a crux point."

And I sighed inwardly at the irony of Shadowheart's words just now, because she was right.

I'd thought I would have more time as well.

---

Author's Note: And so we finally arrive at the Gauntlet of Shar. As all players of the game now, this is the big 'Point of No Return' for Act 2. Well, not right now, you can still go in the entrance and the upper levels. But once you start the final segment of the gauntlet, there's no going back.

You also get the dialogue with Raphael at the entrance, although you can't actually tell him you're wise to the whole gig in-game or get him to actually tell you that it's an orthon waiting for you down there.

Now I actually have to get my playthrough through the Gauntlet, because there's a whole lot to take note of here, I'm not going to try doing it all from memory, and Youtube only has a few of the cutscenes. So, updates may be slightly slower. But no worries, I know where this is going... I just want to make sure I dot all the I's and cross all the T's on the way there.

 

[Simonbob]

Heh.

I always like it when somebody get's one over on a demon.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

"Get off it." Karlach scoffed. "I'm pretty sure you don't even like your own reflection unless it's paying you off somehow."

Click to shrink...

*Looks at his preferred lover in the house*

Karlach's on to something here...

 

[DIT_grue]

"Mizora's 'asset' doesn't look to be here either." Gale murmured. "So that's at least one problem we can postpone for a little while.

Click to shrink...

Missing the closing quotation mark at the end of this paragraph.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

"Fall in." I demanded of the new arrivals, pointing at the open space in front of the warden's desk. "Right there. The Disciple needs to have a word with you lot."

"W-what word?" one of the guards asked nervously.

"Silence." Shadowheart intoned,

Click to shrink...

It's a very effective word

"Raphael." I crossed my arms and lifted a cynical eyebrow at him. "We saw the wreckage of infernal destruction in the Grymforge. You told me in our conversation at Last Light Inn that you had a 'very profitable' contract in this region decades ago. The head stonemason of Reithwin left behind a journal saying that he pacted with a devil to contract for the massacre of Thorm's Dark Justiciars. Now you show back up and tell me that an infernal juggernaut of some type is trapped below in an old temple for Dark Justiciars... and I'm not supposed to add all this up?" I looked at him cynically. "So let me guess - the reason you made out so profitably on that contract is because you somehow stiffed your subcontractor. Who is still trapped below after a hundred years... and who, if we kill him for you, will never have to be paid his past-due wages."

Raphael dropped every single theatrical mannerism to just stare at me with an expressionless frustration, before recovering his affable demeanor with a visible effort.

Click to shrink...

You know, I can't help but wonder if Raph's not used to dealing with people unfamiliar with devils, but familiar with con men, and honestly expected Hawke to not risk calling him out on his bullshit even if he did figure it out. That frustration comes across as 'you're not supposed to just say it, there are RULES!'