wellis
Well worn.
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Is it possible to get a Wish spell to undo it or his contract?
Will you be getting the dog or the owlbear cub?
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The Once and Future Champion (Baldur's Gate 3/Dragon Age)
- Thread starter cliffc999
- Start date
BigBad
Know what you're doing yet?
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That's something only the author, as the effective DM, can answer.
wellis
Well worn.
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Oh so it wasn't possible/didn't appear in the game?
ALIAS FAKENAME
Not too sore, are you?
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Nope not at all, its part of the story if you want him to remain a good person he ends up suffering the loss of privilege that he once had.
So, if you want Wyll to actually hold to his values and ideals he ends up suffering cause Mizora is that much of a bitch, and if you do kill Karlach you get a pretty decent Robe that isn't really worth missing out on Karlach's content.
nobodez
Bringer of Context
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This is a rough transition of scenes. Not sure how to do it better, but I had to read it a handful of times to figure out what was happening.
Yacov
Know what you're doing yet?
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Come on Hawke, not every one of your former companions have life ruining or city destroying baggage. Just most of them.
Aveline's problems and background at least were uncomplicated and comparatively low personal stakes in pretty much any run. Outside having her husband killed in the Blight, which wasn't exactly extraordinary, all she really needed was some dating advice and grief counseling.
Huh, wonder if Hawke knows any Berserker techniques from Thedas he can teach Karlach? It is mostly about channeling your rage, so it could translate over.
Wonder how Hawke will react to Wither's services? Being able to resurrect party members is certainly going to be a shock to him.
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DIT_grue
lurker
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armed with a mace
deepened
hope
from the nautiloid
matter
My best guess for the word intended here is wrist.
burned
ALIAS FAKENAME
Not too sore, are you?
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One of the subclasses for Barbarian is literally called Berserker, so its pretty likely that she could learn it, its also one of the most fun ones cause it gives you a pretty powerful bonus action throw attack which can be devastating when combined with a returning weapon.
paloswag
Know what you're doing yet?
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This was a decent read so far. I'm hoping you end up being picky about what content from BG3 you include.
The biggest issue I have with video game fanfiction in general is when writers try to include every piece of content from a game when a lot of it just isn't that interesting when it's not in "game" form.
The biggest issue I have with video game fanfiction in general is when writers try to include every piece of content from a game when a lot of it just isn't that interesting when it's not in "game" form.
thsgrn
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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seconded. And like... you can just decide random minor sidequests Don't Exist, even if they're things that the characters absolutely would engage with if they came across them and in normal play you definitely see the trigger for it, if writing them is uninteresting and/or a distraction from the interesting stuff. Even something major could just get written out completely as long as the storyline remains coherent without it - games like this have to have Too Much Content for any one story.
(Not saying any of that has happened yet, heck I've never played BG3 and probably never will so I have no idea what's mainline or optional or complete invention.)
fireball900
World Conqueror (not Overlord)
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There is a reason that Warlocks are Charisma casters, not Wisdom Casters.
Chapter 7
New
cliffc999
Connoisseur.
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"Who are you?" I demanded.
"You may call me 'Withers', if you require a name for me." it replied tonelessly.
"Are you with - or are you - the Absolute?" I pressed him.
"No." Withers replied flatly.
"Then what's your angle? Because neither our last meeting or this one is a coincidence - you've already admitted as such." I stated flatly.
"Correct." Withers replied with eerie calm. "As for my purpose, this is not the proper time to speak of such matters. All that I may tell thee at this time is that I intend no harm, and that I wish to be available for whenever thou hast need of my services."
"Everyone!" I called out. "Get over here, we've got a situation!"
It took a bare minute for the still-awake members of the party to hear my call and roust out everyone else - even Wyll, as shaky as he was - and respond. I hurriedly brought them up to speed on what had happened, as well as introducing Withers to those who hadn't seen him before.
"Right, before this goes any further, what the hell are you?" Karlach questioned him. "Be damned if you're any type of undead I've ever heard of."
"There are many answers to that question. None are important." Withers replied flatly.
"We've had a recent object lesson in the unwisdom of accepting 'services' from mysterious otherworldly patrons who don't fully explain themselves beforehand." Gale said, with an apologetic nod towards Wyll. "So what happens if we just politely invite you to offer your services elsewhere?"
"I would wait for thee to reconsider." Withers said calmly.
"What 'services' do you have that you think we'd want?"
"A mending of the threads between life and death." Withers replied softly. "Should thou or any of thy compatriots perish, I would have their soul cleave to their living body once more."
"How you could you possibly offer such magic so casually?" I demanded. "I was told it took tremendous power to even attempt such a feat!"
"Because it is my calling." Withers replied simply. "There is little else to explain."
"And what would be the cost?" I probed suspiciously.
"A simple matter of coin." Withers surprised us.
Shadowheart opened her eyes from where she'd been concentrating intently on Withers. "You- I can sense a divine aspect in you! A reflection of death, eternal and inescapable... were you a Chosen of Jergal?" she asked in awe.
"I shall answer no further questions in that regard." Withers refused her dispassionately.
"A divine champion lies around in a tomb waiting for a meeting with us that was foretold by an 'arbiter of certain matters', and is now offering us his assistance - but only within limited restrictions, and while refusing to explain anything." I thought out loud. "Can you at least answer if you chose this task, or if you were told to do it?"
"Yes." Withers replied calmly.
"... and were you?" I sighed in frustration.
"Yes." Withers paused, and then after delaying just long enough to be irritating he contributed the actual answer. "I both chose this task, and was appointed to it."
"This matter of the 'Absolute'... it's much bigger than even we're afraid of, isn't it? Enough to trouble the very gods themselves." I realized with horror.
Withers remained entirely silent, and then slightly shook his head in negation as I opened my mouth to ask a follow-up question.
"... all right, stick around, and we'll let you know if we ever need your 'services'." I fumed with resignation. "I very much doubt that we could make you leave even if we tried."
"No." Withers agreed with quiet amusement, and then drifted off to a position discreetly near our camp but far enough away to give us privacy.
"All right, gods, is there anything else you've got scheduled for tonight? Hmm?" I quietly ranted up at the stars. "Or can we finally get some sleep now please?"
Withers had gone by the time we broke camp the next morning, but we had no doubt that he'd mysteriously be back whenever he felt he was needed... which we all hoped would be "never", or at the very least as infrequently as possible.
While we were making ready to get back on the road Gale took me discreetly aside for a quiet moment, to point out that I'd been overlooking the potential use of the Netherese travelstones. We could have simply warped back to the one nearest the Grove for a safe encampment, and he would have brought that up had he realized that I'd simply forgotten to think in such terms and hadn't actually had a tactical reason for remaining out on patrol. He'd also mentioned that he'd marked and attuned two more travelstones as we'd been marching yesterday; there had been one within Moonhaven, and another one a short distance away from the old tollhouse by the Risen Road. Fortunately, it only took one member of a group to use a travelstone for those in immediate proximity.
"I thought you said these were ancient relics most people didn't even know the significance of, much less could reliably use." I questioned him. "Why are they being found so conveniently near places that we're going?"
"In a word? Geography." Gale lectured. "The Risen Road doesn't date back to the ancient Netherese era, of course, but the land it runs on and the mountains surrounding it certainly do, and both the travelstone's placement and the tollhouse's would have independently followed the same logic - it's a convenient intersection of paths just before the Risen Road starts to enter the nearby mountains. Likewise with Moonhaven's position conveniently near a water supply and with a natural defense of the ravine on at least two sides - there's probably been at least a dozen villages built and then abandoned there over the centuries thanks to the terrain conveniences."
"Makes sense." I said. "And the Moonhaven travelstone will certainly come in handy, because that saves us a lot of walking back in the direction of the old temple the goblins are using as their main lair."
"Do you think we're ready for that?" Gale asked, and I called everybody else over for a quick conference by way of reply.
"Ready or not, we're running out of time." I pointed out. "Kagha's ritual will almost certainly be ready by two days from now, possibly by tomorrow. Plus, it's only logical that new 'True Souls' being assigned to the area would be expected to check in with whoever the Absolute's commanding officer of this region is; assuming that goblin patrol we interrogated has reported our presence, they'll only get more suspicious the later we don't show up."
"I still say that we should prioritize attempting to find my people." Lae'zel said. "The mountain pass where Zorru reported meeting the githyanki patrol is only one or two hours' march down the Risen Road from the tollhouse. We are so close!"
"So close to where some of your people were sighted days ago." Shadowheart pointed out archly. "It's a cold and uncertain trail. We know where the goblin fortress is."
"Yet we do not know what we will find there." Lae'zel argued heatedly. "The creche will have a certain cure!"
"You sure about that?" Karlach broke in. "I mean, you lot told me just yesterday that the tadpoles we've got in our heads are special tadpoles, yeah? Something you githyanki have never heard of before?"
"Valid point." I agreed. "We know Druid Halsin at least has had some opportunity to study these altered tadpoles and is a powerful healer. Your people are much more experienced with regular mind flayer infestations, but there's nothing regular about what's happening with us. Moreover, the initial objection still stands; one of our two choices is on a strict time limit, and the other is on a less strict one."
"I see I am yet again outvoted." Lae'zel groused. "But think. We have tested whether we can infiltrate posing as True Souls. We may even be able to reconnoiter the area, then get out the same way we got in. But can we gamble our lives on being able to assassinate the entirety of the goblin leadership under such circumstances? We need time to reconnoiter, then plan. We cannot just walk in there blind!"
"But the refugees-" Wyll broke off helplessly. "Kagha will have them all thrown out to die soon!"
"Then we need to buy them some time." I said. "That note Shadowheart retrieved from Kagha's quarters - we should check out the location that was marked on it, see if we can find evidence. We can afford to risk part of today doing that much, particularly with the Moonhaven travelstone to cut down our travel time. If this turns out to be an empty lead then-" I paused and continued forebodingly. "Then we face a very unpleasant choice."
Warping back to the village was easily enough done, and while Booyahg Haysa and her squad had moved on since yesterday we ran into another goblin patrol that had stopped here to torment a passing deep gnome they'd caught traveling alone. There were only a few of them, so we settled for the simple approach of slaughtering all the goblins and tossing their bodies into the nearby ravine. The deep gnome, a man named Barcus Wroot, refused our offer of sanctuary in the Grove because he was stubbornly intent on his own errand searching for a missing friend. We pointed him up the road towards the Waukeen's Rest inn and the road to Baldur's Gate and hoped for the best.
The map on Kagha's note led us into an absolutely foul and disgusting swamp - one that someone had rigged with primitive spike traps. We needed one of Shadowheart's healing spells to fix the damage it did to my foot, and after that we moved much more carefully. Things took on an even more menacing air when we stumbled across a campsite containing the corpses of several people who'd been viciously torn apart by some sort of monster, not even a normal animal. Judging by the condition of their cadavers they'd been dead for days. Two more ravaged corpses, dead much more recently, lay adjacent to each other on a side path leading up to an abandoned hut. None of them were intact enough to even think of using the amulet on.
The "swamp-docks" the letter referred to were located south of the hut, but the only tree near it was a large dead stump on a small hillock a ways out in the water. It took a precarious journey across several stepping stones, some of them not even visible below the murky swamp water, to reach it... and the instant we set foot on the hillock, we were set upon.
"Swamp demons!" I cried, as the very mud suddenly rose up and took shape as small winged figures of malevolence, all fangs and claws. and came hissing at us. We were up to our ankles in mud and stumbling over thorny, twisty vines as well, so despite outnumbering the demons we still were vulnerable and unable to maneuver.
"Demons tend to be a little bigger than that, soldier!" Karlach called cheerfully as she split one with her axe - and then cursed manfully when it exploded in her face with a burst of scalding mud as it died. "Ow!" she cried. "These damn things are flying suicide bombs!"
We fell back as much as we could, given that the muck and vines were severely hamping our mobility, but several more of the mud demons screeched and flew forward to attack much faster than we could retreat. Wyll struck the one flying towards him down with his eldritch blast, detonating it at a safe distance, but more were following right on its heels.
"Earthshaker!" I cried, letting everyone know to brace themselves against impact as I focused my internal energy into a Tremor Strike and slammed my greatsword into the earth, releasing a pulse that sent the charging mud demons flying back and knocking them out of the air. "Gale, burn them!"
Gale cast his Burning Hands spell right on cue, and the magical cone of fire swept out over the mud demons while they were still stunned. We all ducked for cover as they exploded, the multiple splashes of hot bursting mud just far enough away not to reach us. The collateral damage of their multiple dying explosions actually took out one more of their compatriots, but a surviving one several dozen feet away from us screeched and then raised a claw which glowed with mystic force, and the mud beneath its feet roiled as it summoned another of its kind.
"I think not." Lae'zel spat, and began firing at it with her shortbow. Shadowheart followed up with a Flame Bolt cantrip, and they staggered it enough for the rest of us to also switch to missile weapons. The last of the mud demons finally died after we gave it several volleys. The pair of lumbering plant demons that came around the tree just as we'd finished killing their skirmishers fortunately proved very vulnerable to fire as well as not detonating in a take-you-with-me blast when they died, and our two spellcasters both had Flame Bolt cantrips they could freely cast as well as my fiery greatsword and Karlach's infernal flames trick.
"Are you all right?" I asked Karlach.
"Eh, just some bruises." she shrugged it off. "Good thing they didn't blow up on one of you, though, or Shadowheart would be treating burn victims right now. That mud was boiling." she explained as she unconcernedly toweled it off.
"Just how fire resistant are you?" Wyll asked her wonderingly.
"If a wizard smacked me with a Fireball then I'd still hurt some, but normal flame and heat basically doesn't bother me any more." Karlach replied. "Side effect of this damn infernal engine they shoved in where my heart's supposed to be."
"Mizora mentioned something like that last night." Wyll said. "Sounds like there's a story there."
"More like a problem, honestly." Karlach said. "But unless you've got a chunk of infernal iron handy and a master smith who had training in arcane mechanisms in Hell, not much you can do about it. Damn thing's been running in overdrive ever since I left Avernus. That's why I'd raise burns on anyone who touched my bare skin; I used to be able to throttle it down far enough to interact normally, but now I'm lucky my armor's not catching fire."
"Mud mephits. Wood woads. Both perversions of druidic magic." Gale had been analyzing the fallen monster remnants at the same time the other two had been talking. "Kagha's note has certainly led us to something suspicious."
"This isn't a natural formation." Shadowheart looked carefully at what few parts of the ground were barely visible underneath the thick mud. "It looks like a ritual platform of some kind - like one that you'd find in a druidic sanctuary, but after having been abandoned to decades of rot and ruin."
"The note mentioned a tree." I said, nodding towards the giant dead stump in the center of the muddy platform, and we all moved to look at it more closely. After more than a couple minutes we finally turned up a small wooden box tucked discreetly away into a crevice of the tree, safely clear of the water and very discreetly out of view to any but the most dedicated searcher. In the box was a letter that read:
Kagha;
Olodan has sent word of your progress; I am pleased that the Rite of Thorns has begun. I depart soon from Cloakwood to Baldur's Gate. Should you need further aid from my circle, now is the time to ask.
Once cloistered, the Emerald Grove will be the Shadow Druids' domain, and you its First Druid.
In Faldorn's memory,
Archdruid Aelis
"Shadow Druids!" Shadowheart exclaimed, before smiling with satisfaction. "Well, so much for Kagha. All we need to do is show this to the other druids and they'll be fighting for places in line to tear her apart."
"You're not wrong." Wyll agreed. "Remember how I said that most druids tended to focus on nature's more nurturing aspects? The Shadow Druids are their dark mirror; their chosen aspect is the hostility of nature to man, the savagery of tooth and claw. All life in a bloody struggle to survive against all other life, with strength as the only virtue and weakness as the only sin."
"That certainly fits Kagha's xenophobia and obsessive desire for isolation and power." I agreed. "Right, we need to-"
"My, my." an elegantly cultured voice interrupted us, and we all spun around in shock to see a swarthy, almost excessively handsome man incongrously dressed in silk finery worthy of the richest noble looking at us all with a sharp-edged smile. "What manner of place is this, I wonder?" he continued with a dramatic flourish worthy of Wyll at his hammiest. "A path to redemption, or a road to damnation? Hard to say... for your journey is just beginning."
I immediately noted that the mud wasn't sticking to his shoes or spattering to his clothes, and that he was walking over the entangling vines as if they weren't there. As if his mysterious approach out of nowhere hadn't already given away that he was no normal man-
"Who the hell are you?" I said roughly.
"Well met!" the man replied cheerfully, with a mocking little bow. "I am Raphael. Very much at your service."
A brief glance at the rest of the team showed clearly in their facial expressions that they were all exactly as wary of this new, mysterious arrival as I was. "To borrow a phrase, what happens if we just politely invite you to offer your services elsewhere?" I continued.
Raphael chuckled richly. "Of course, of course! This... quaint little scene is decidedly too middle-of-nowhere for our conversation. Come."
And with a flare of magic suddenly the entire world shifted around us, as the swamp and muck faded away to be replaced by a large round chamber with a vaulted roof over twenty feet high, its walls paneled in red silk and hung with gold-framed portraits. The furnishings were of a quality at least matching those in Empress Celene's palace in Val Royeaux, and the round table in the center of the chamber was covered with silver and gold dishes all holding a feast of food worthy of her table. I even faintly heard some softly menacing organ music playing slowly in the background.
I froze in terror as I knew, I somehow knew that this was no illusion. If we had been back on Thedas I'd have said without hesitation that Raphael had brought us through a rift into the Fade - as is, the planar travel magics used on Faerun were an analogue-
"There!" Raphael finished boastfully. "Middle of somewhere."
"Lady of-" Shadowheart cut herself off. "Where are we?!?"
"The House of Hope." Raphael said boastfully. "Where the tired come to rest, and the famished come to feed - lavishly." He waved his hand at the table. "Go on, partake! Enjoy your supper! After all..." He leaned in meaningfully. "... it might just be your last."
"Boss?" Karlach said fearfully. "We're in the bloody Nine Hells, I can feel it!" She punctuated her last remark with a thump of one fist on her chest. "He took us back down there just with a snap of his fingers!"
I looked back at the - not a man, but something at least as formidable as a Pride Demon, I was certain - and concentrated as hard as I could on reaffirming my mind, shielding it, breaking any glamors he might have had over his appearance-
"Now, now." Raphael said to me with a gentle wag of one finger. "There's no need to be impolite. But you are correct in that the one thing that's better than a devil you don't know-"
And we all stepped back a pace as Raphael assumed his true form in a burst of flame. A pair of leathery wings shot from his back, his swarthy skin turned redder than Karlach's, and a majestic pair of horns jutted from his head as he loomed a head taller over us. A sense of infernal power far stronger than the cambions I'd seen onboard the nautiloid, stronger even than Mizora's, radiated from him as he dropped his guise.
"-is a devil you do." Raphael gestured expansively. "Now am I a friend? Potentially. An adversary? Conceivably. But a savior? That's for certain."
"What makes you think we need saving?" I temporized.
"Come now." Raphael sighed dramatically. "Why play hard to get? We both know how deep in you all are over your tadpoled heads. Two tenants per skull, and no solution in sight." He spread his hands entreatingly. "But I could fix it all, just like that." he finished with a dramatic snap of his fingers.
"No." I said adamantly, not even bothering to get the sense of the group on this one. "No deals, no pacts, no exchanges. Now put us back."
"So stubborn." Raphael gave a faux-pout. "People like you so often are. But I would like to believe that you'll change your minds... while they still remain your minds." He declaimed oratorically, complete with classical gestures. "Very well, try to cure yourselves! Shop around! Beg, borrow, and steal! Exhaust every possibility until none are left." He finished with a menacing smile. "And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair, then that's when you'll come knocking at my door. Hope!" he laughed mockingly. "Hahahahaha! Such a tease."
"I said no. Now put us back," I repeated. "And after that, we never want to see you again."
Raphael chuckled. "All those pretty little symptoms - sundering skin, dissolving guts, your very thoughts and memories being warped into an eldritch monstrosity until the very concept of yourself no longer remains - they haven't manifested yet, have they? One might say that you've had all the luck so far." His orator's voice dropped into a calm, quiet intonation that was honestly more frightening than most of what he'd tried so far. "I'll be there when it runs out."
And in-between eyeblinks, the House of Hope vanished to be replaced by the stinking swamp.
"Bloody Hells!" Shadowheart ranted. "Literally! Just when I think we're beginning to get a handle on our dilemma, another devil shows up!"
"You did well not to listen to his temptations." Wyll assured me. "You already know my experience with infernal pacts; no matter how tempting the offer, no matter how desperate your need, they'll always take more. You go in thinking you'd be willing to trade everything... and then you find out you've traded everything."
"Fuck me." Karlach shook her head miserably. "I didn't even know they could drag us back down there like that. Thought it was against the rules of the gods. When can I expect Zariel to show up herself and just put the arm on me?!?"
"Likely never." Gale reassured her. "Raphael almost certainly was able to do that because he didn't actually intend us any immediate harm and didn't refuse to send us back when we asked him to. Simply a temporary visit, for purposes of diplomacy." Gale analyzed. "Still, that was a very disquieting experience. But also perhaps an opportunity."
"Are you an idiot?" Lae'zel glared at him.
"No, no, hear me out." Gale said. "Of course he'll be deceptive about the terms, do his best to ensure an absolutely ruinous exchange rate, try to get us to damn our souls for eternity, all of that. He's a devil, that all goes without saying. But am I the only person who is curious about exactly why he showed up?"
"I was stuck on the part where figuring out why he was talking to us was a far lower priority than figuring out how to get him to shut up and leave." I answered flatly. "Karlach, as the member of the group who actually lived in Hell, have you ever heard of this Raphael before?"
"Nope." she shook her head. "Then again, it's not like I saw much of Hell except Zariel's retinue and the frontlines of Avernus. There's eight other layers of Hell he could possibly be from, let alone parts of Avernus I never saw. But wherever he's from, he's definitely no pushover."
"Indeed." Wyll agreed. "Mizora could take me from Faerun to Avernus - that's how I entered there originally, when she set me on Karlach's trail - but not remotely as casually or easily as Raphael did it to all of us. He's a powerful devil indeed."
"He did seem powerful, and very knowledgeable about our problem." Shadowheart mused. "Do you think he was also correct about our having no other option but to turn to him?"
"The only way we can know that for certain is to exhaust every other option first." I said. "We are not dealing with that devil, end of sentence."
"Good." Shadowheart sighed relievedly. "That's what I wanted to hear from you. Raphael was being very clever with how he stoked fear and wielded temptation. You don't really need a scourge or a rack to break people; prolonged fear and self-doubt are sufficient. By the time the actual pain starts the anticipation's been so great that the victim's already done all the heavy lifting for their torturer. " She shook her head resolvedly. "There were no right answers with that devil. He was just toying with us - trying to soften us up for later."
"I did not realize that you were so... well-versed in mental and emotional torment, Shadowheart." Lae'zel looked at her warily.
"And aren't you glad that I am?" Shadowheart replied cheekly. "It's an effective trick. Watch out for it - and for Raphael."
"Psychology or not, there's also the logistics of the situation." Gale insisted. "Why would a devil like Raphael bother with a small group of people trudging through a swamp? Why would he offer so insistently to take our tadpoles away? If he just wanted tadpoles to study, there's any number of Absolute cultists running about. They wouldn't even have to be willing - we saw that their tadpoles pop right out of their heads when they die, and he could easily hire some people to hunt down cultists like Zariel hired those warlocks to go after Karlach. Which logically suggests that it's not the tadpoles he's interested in... but what we'd pay him to get rid of them."
"Our souls." Wyll said flatly. "No."
"I don't think so." Gale replied. "Your soul is already contracted to another, and he would have known that, wouldn't he?" I saw Wyll's eyes widen in realization. "And yet he included you in the deal he was offering by implication anyway. No, Raphael wants something else from us. Or possibly needs something else from us. And depending on how badly he needs it, then we might be the ones with the superior bargaining position after all."
"Well, you certainly don't lack for ambition." I said to Gale. "But traditionally, trying to beat a devil at their own game is one of the fastest ways to lose."
"I don't think there's going to be anything traditional about our situation." Gale replied. "And I entirely agree with remaining cautious for now. But let's not be focused so greatly on what we think is happening that we overlook what might be happening, all right?"
"For right now, let's get out of this damned swamp." I said. "Because we've got a traitor to expose."
After taking a short rest and making some preparations, we went and brought Zevlor up to speed on what we'd discovered. We couldn't hope to get any substantial tiefling reinforcements past the druids guarding the inner sanctum, but Zevlor armed and armored himself up and came along with us. Telling the guard that we were bringing Zevlor with an offer for Kagha got us all inside the sanctum.
"-and we might as well have lied down and told them to take advantage of us!" a querulous voice was arguing as we proceeded into the underground antechamber.
"The thief was caught. And Grove law was enforced." Rath - the same senior druid who'd been trying to reason with Kagha when she wanted to imprison Arabella over the idol theft - said in reply.
"You call that complete failure of a punishment 'enforcement'?" the druid - as we came into the chamber we saw it was a gray-haired 'halfling', as I'd been told his race was called - confront Rath, hands indignant on hips.
"Enough!" Kagha said imperiously as she swept into the chamber. "Zevlor, you demanded this meeting. Now know that if you intend to say anything but that you are ready to depart, this conversation will be a very short one. I will listen to no more of your pleadings and excuses!"
"Scheduling conflict?" I confronted her as we all spread out.
"Too busy making time to listen to Shadow Druids before hearing anyone else, perhaps?" Zevlor joined in.
"Shadow Druids?" Kagha said, taken aback. "You- is this your ploy? To sow division and weaken us? Druids! Hearken to-"
I drew the letter from my belt pouch. Kagha instantly fell silent, her face turning pale as milk, as soon as she glimpsed the seal on the letter next to the Archdruid's signature - the symbol of the Shadow Druids. "Here." I said, handing it to Rath. "This is the proof."
"Kagha!" he swore vehemently. "You would invite the Cloakwood here? Have you gone mad?!?"
But before she could reply, two more halflings and a dwarf suddenly appeared as they released their own druidic shapeshifting - apparently they'd been hiding near Kagha's feet as some animals too tiny to spot, such as mice - and drew into close formation near Kagha. These newcomers were dressed much like the druids of the Grove, only with their visages scarred and streaked with mud and paints like Chasind barbarians as opposed to the Grove's civilized neatness.
"That damned nose of yours has gone poking into our business!" the dwarf who was the apparent leader of this group of Shadow Druids glared lethally at us.
"Mistress Olodan!" Kagha said frantically to the dwarf. "I can explain!"
"Sssh, no need." Olodan repled reasonably. "It couldn't be helped."
"Kagha, what is the meaning of this?" Rath demanded.
"Halsin was weak, Rath! His decisions led him to his death and brought us to the brink of ruin! But in the shadows we are strong! We are safe! There is no other way!" Kagha turned on him passionately.
Olodan sneered contemptuously at the several other druids of the Grove who were beginning to gather around. "You all let Halsin invite untouchables into your midst. You defiled the Grove for the sake of 'harmony'."
"And who among you truly disagrees, in your heart?" Kagha orated to her followers. "Who among you would see this Grove in ruins?!?"
"You can either join the true way, or be cast out with the rest." Olodan said to the other druids firmly. "Kagha? It's time to burn out the rot in this grove. You can start with these snitches." she nodded towards us.
"Counter-offer." I said calmly. "Leave here and take Kagha with you. Go back to your Cloakwood in peace and leave the Emerald Grove to its rightful keepers."
"You would doubt my power?" Olodan spat back angrily. "Mother Earth, hear me-!" she began to roar... before the words vanished right out of her mouth. Gale had been supposed to wait for my signal before casting his Silence spell on Kagha, but apparently he'd found the straight line that Olodan had just handed him to be irresistible. Honestly, I didn't blame him.
The spell of silence Gale used had enough of a radius that even though it was centered on Kagha, it had also encompassed the several Shadow Druids standing in close formation about here. Fighting four experienced druidic spellcasters in close quarters would have been a challenge, especially given that we couldn't be certain of how some of the Grove druids would have responded. But without the ability to incant they couldn't use most of their spells, and that left them dressed in robes and armed only with clubs versus our entire frontline of fully-armed and armored veterans. Olodan managed to shapeshift into a man-sized wolverine before we reached her, but Karlach and I tanked her from the front and battered her down. Zevlor went straight for Kagha, and Lae'zel and Wyll dealt with her flankers. Shadowheart and Gale stayed back, so as not to get caught in the silence-spell themselves, and guarded our backs against any possible other sympathizers among the druids. And soon enough, the entire distasteful business was over.
"I cannot believe it." Rath said regretfully as we treated our wounded and buried the dead. A couple of the other druids - including the halfling that Rath had been arguing with, whose name I never got to learn - had indeed tried to support Kagha, but our reserve element and the loyalist druids had dealt with them. "That the Shadow Druids could get such inroads even into here-"
"Scavengers, just taking advantage of your already being overextended versus another crisis." I reassured him. "After this failure, and the losses they took, I doubt the Shadow Druids will throw good money after bad."
"Likely not." Rath agreed. "But we lost our First Druid and his replacement. Even if I immediately send for aid from the rest of the Emerald Enclave, it will be some time before they reach us. And I don't have the power that Kagha had, let alone Halsin."
"And even without Kagha demanding we leave immediately, the goblins are still only growing stronger with time." Zevlor agreed. "Your exposing Kagha has bought us some more time to prepare, but hasn't solved the main problem we contend with."
"Yes." I agreed. "But without her interference then your people, the Grove, and my team can finally all work together to try and address it. That's one of the reasons I made her takedown such a priority in the first place."
"Then you have a plan?" Rath asked.
"The outline of one, at least." I said. "If Halsin is still alive he won't be for much longer. Furthermore, as Zevlor so aptly pointed out, the goblins are mustering more and more of their kind from the nearby mountains and into the Cult of the Absolute with each passing day. In addition to that the danger of their scouts locating the Grove is also pressing, and only increases with time. So whatever we do, we can't waste a moment seeing it done."
"Even if we both mustered everyone we could, we still wouldn't have enough strength to assault the goblins in their fortress." Zevlor said.
"No." I agreed. "But that's not what I'm intending."
We all spent the rest of the early evening finalizing our plans, then adjourned for dinner. The Grove and the tieflings would be fully mobilized by next morning and just waiting for our word. Our party would spend several hours sleeping and refreshing our energies and our spells, and then set out shortly after midnight. With the Moonhaven travelstone available to take us most of the way to the goblin fortress we could reach it several hours before dawn, and with our tadpoles to gain us entry we could enter and gather the information necessary to do any last-minute refinements to our plan.
And after some quick researches in the druid's library, I invited Shadowheart out with me for a quiet walk on our beach.
"You worship Shar, don't you?" I asked her softly, once we were in private.
"As I said. Insufferable." she glared at me darkly. "How did I give myself away this time?" she moaned.
"You didn't really." I consoled her. "On Thedas there's only one religion and one god for all known human cultures - the Chantry, and our worship of the Maker - so it's nothing unusual for people to hardly ever name their god in conversation, because who needs a name when you've only got one of something? And while Thedan elves are pantheonic I didn't grow up among them, so I don't consider things in those terms unless I make a conscious effort to. So it took me a while, and exposure to another congregation of the devout like the Grove, before I realized that a priestess who never once actually proselytizes about or even mentions the deity she worships was an unusual thing by Faerunian standards. And once I realized that, I went researching local religions in the Grove's library. At which several point other clues - your particular education in the psychology of torment, your fondness for darkness, even when you joked that you weren't a particular fan of moonlight - all added up."
"I don't believe it." Shadowheart kicked a rock and chuffed. "You're saying that my very diligence towards Shar's tenets of concealment is what caught me out as one of her worshippers? Secrecy is supposed to be our shield, not our vulnerability!"
"As a good friend once taught me, the problem with even the most excellent tradecraft is that it looks just like tradecraft." I told her. "Which means it's excellent at keeping people from suspecting in the first place, but once they become suspicious anyway it just becomes another set of clues."
"Damn." she swore, before looking at me worriedly. "Is this... going to be a problem?"
"What I read didn't make Shar sound very salubrious." I agreed with her. "But that was just what I read. I've been in Faerun barely half a week by this point, and the sum totality of Shar worshippers I've met is you. And all you've done is be a loyal, supportive friend - and very easy to talk to. I'm not going to suddenly ignore all that simply because of your goddess."
"Thank you." Shadowheart said relievedly. "Because it isn't just because we're all sworn to secrecy from believers in other gods that I keep it under wraps. Shar worshippers tend to draw a lot of disapproval - especially in areas where Selunites are dominant, like this one used to be." She shuddered. "The village of 'Moonhaven' was even named after her, it was originally founded by a colony of her devout."
"Selune the moon goddess, twin sister to Shar and her eternal rival." I stated, so that Shadowheart would know that I already knew the short version.
"'Rivalry' is a drastic understatement." she agreed. "It's very often a summary execution offense to be caught out as a Sharran priestess amongst Selunites." she entreated me.
"Or the reverse?" I asked her intelligently.
"... sometimes, yes." she reluctantly conceded. "Although I've never seen it happen- I don't think." she trailed off.
"You don't think?" I queried. "Whether or not someone's been killed in front of you is usually a question with a definite answer."
"As I said, one of Shar's prime commandments is secrecy. We're forbidden to reveal that we're Her worshippers - I'm only talking with you about it because you already knew. It's an offense against the Lady of Loss to reveal anything that could be used to hurt the church. Which had a certain obvious implication when we were sent out on a mission against githyanki and illithids... one of whom have psionic adepts, and the other of whom are an entire psionic race." She shook her head. "I had my memories sealed as a precaution against being caught and telepathically interrogated. They'll only be unsealed at the completion of my mission."
"Your own memories?" I looked at her in shock. "That's- that's a little extreme, don't you think?"
"It's not ubiquitous even amongst Sharrans, but it's hardly unheard of." she said. "The wrong secret revealed at the wrong time can be the doom of an entire congregation, even an entire strategic campaign. Her most devout are willing to risk a great deal in Her service, and I'm no exception." She smiled at me reassuringly. "Don't worry. It was entirely willing on my part, and it's reversible."
But if they have the power to manipulate your memories like that, how could you know whether you were truly willing or not? Or if they could actually give those memories back intact? I burned with the need to ask those questions... as well as the knowledge to not even bother trying. Trying to directly challenge Shadowheart's beliefs at this point would only shatter what measured amount of trust we'd managed to build over the past several days. Whatever else could be said about her, it was absolutely plain that she was a woman of the most deeply-held and sincerely passionate convictions.
Just like Merrill had been.
"I'm certainly not one to disregard the power of faith." I replied. "But I also like to know - and remember - exactly what I'm getting into."
"And I entirely don't blame you." Shadowheart said agreeably. "The path of Shar is a very... rigorous one to walk. I can't pretend that She doesn't ask a great deal of me sometimes, or that some things haven't been... difficult." She squared her shoulders and continued more firmly. "But her church are the ones who took in a helpless starving orphan - a little girl who was easy prey for everyone and who didn't know how to look further ahead than her next meal. They gave me a home, gave me a purpose, taught me the strength to defend myself and shield my comrades-in-arms - I owe Her everything. And so in Her service I will give Her all that I possibly can."
"Even if it leads to tragedy?" I asked her.
"Life is tragedy." she replied matter-of-factly. "Oh, not always, but far too often, and almost always entirely out of our control. Just look at the tadpoles in our heads right now." she tapped one finger on her temple. "But where you can't defend then you must withstand, and having a cause, a principle, a faith to anchor yourself with is the greatest aid to endurance you can have. A person can endure almost any amount of suffering... provided that it has meaning." she trailed off softly.
"I can't argue that." I reluctantly agreed, thinking back on my own life. "But let's just hope we can do more defending - or avoiding - then withstanding in the future."
"I'll certainly drink to that." Shadowheart agreed cheerfully. "So... not a problem then?"
"Perhaps a minor one," I surprised her. "But not because I'm harboring misgivings. I was just thinking that if I could figure it out, how long will it take one of the others to do the same? I'm sure Gale at least is enough of a scholar to work it out, and we've already seen how he likes to analyze things. We might want to think of a way to break it to the group gently, before it drops at the worst possible time in the worst possible way. Particularly given that we're already keeping one secret from them." I gave a meaningful nod towards her belt pouch.
"There are exceptions to the tenets of secrecy - if urgent necessity requires." Shadowheart agreed. "I'll sleep on it."
"Speaking of which, we'd better all sleep on it." I agreed. "You and Gale need to recover your spells, and then we've got to reach the goblin fortress before dawn."
We rested, we prepared, and then we warped to the Moonhaven travelstone and prepared to travel into the belly of the beast.
"Are you all right?" I noticed Shadowheart shivering slightly on our arrival.
"Of course I'm all right." Shadowheart said acidly. "I'm only about to walk into a horde of goblins who are all camped in a former temple of that moon witch-"
"If you don't want to give yourself away to everyone else, perhaps ease back a bit on using that particular phrase." I reminded her.
"Right." she nodded. "I just- sorry." She shook her head. "Every time I even think about Selunites, it makes me twitch."
"Well let's hope that twitch doesn't get worse when we head into those ruins. We can't afford any woolgathering with stakes like these." I said.
"Right." Shadowheart agreed. "I'll do my best."
It took us less than an hour's march to reach the old temple complex, and the sentries there snapped to attention and passed us through the instant we proved ourselves as True Souls. We quietly walked through the sleeping camp, where only a few goblins were awake for the midwatch and the rest passed out cold - judging by the smell of rotgut and the copious leavings scattered around, they were mostly drunk and stuffed from a great feast that had been held earlier tonight.
"Goblins only hold a feast like this when they're celebrating a battle victory." Wyll said worriedly. "But we know they didn't attack the Grove, so where were they?"
"Focus on the task." Lae'zel urged him. "We are reaching the moment of greatest risk."
"Look, another travelstone!" Gale said, noting the presence of one in the inner courtyard. "Now there's a stroke of luck for us." he said as we attuned it.
The door into the temple proper was guarded by a fat, sleepy ogre - who as it turned out were barely half the size than the darkspawn's living siege engines called 'ogres' back in Thedas, even if that still left them half again as large as a man - and another goblin-ish humanoid called a 'bugbear', who was apparently the ogre's handler. Questioning the bugbear revealed the knowledge that two prisoners had been taken during the intrusion into the temple a couple days ago - Halsin and one of Aradin's surviving men - and that they'd both been sent to the torturers.
"Two days and more of torture by goblins." Shadowheart said flatly as we entered the temple, her concentration and mental focus back to full even though we were now standing in what had once been a Selunite temple. "An elder druid would have his magic to possibly sustain him, but the other fellow?" She shook her head sadly.
"If he hasn't cracked by now - and we know he hasn't, because the Grove is safe - then he's almost certainly dead." I agreed.
"Focus." Lae'zel hissed, and we entered the main antechamber. At this hour, it was empty except for a few sentries.
"The first decision point." Wyll said. "Try to assassinate the goblin leaders ourselves in their sleep, or go with the primary plan?"
"According to the gate guard we questioned this fortress has other 'True Souls' to command it." I spoke softly as we stepped into a corner where the sentries wouldn't be curious about us stopping for a chat. "That drow matriarch Minthara we heard of as overall commander, a hobgoblin warlord named Dror Ragzlin who was second under her and the goblins' field commander, and Priestess Gut, an old and powerful goblin shaman who does all that you'd expect of a chief shaman in a tribe. If we go with plan A we can kill two of them away from here, but Gut will be left holding down the fort with the main body. And we need to remove all the leadership before the horde will splinter."
"But precisely because she's the one left to guard the base, she won't be mustered with the rest if we do plan A." Shadowheart said. "Murder her in her sleep and hide the body? They'll be curious about her missing, but it's very unlikely they'll stop to put everything on hold when facing the opportunity we'll give them."
"We'll try checking on Halsin first." I decided, and we marched off to the pens they used to hold their monster-wolves where they'd also apparently locked him up. A brief stop in a room off the main antechamber produced the depressing sight of a young man's corpse strapped to a rack, his wounds bespeaking of all the agony the goblin torturers had inflicted on him.
"He's barely cold." Wyll said, touching him. "He only died several hours ago. Two days he lasted under this, and he still never gave up the location of the Grove - or else we'd have met the goblin army coming down the path as we were coming up." He whistled in awe. "He died this hard, to save the lives of people he didn't even know and who would have thrown him out. This boy was a hero."
I turned away from the body, my jaw clenching tight. If we'd only come even a little earlier, we could possibly have-
"Keep moving." I growled. "We don't have much time."
We arrived at the worg pens to find a bloodied, much-wounded bear having an uneasy, fitful sleep. The several night guards on the pens acknowledged our authority as True Souls and stood aside, and Gale cast a quick cantrip to detect magic and determine that the 'bear' was indeed a shapeshifted druid.
"Halsin?" I whispered to him quietly. "Nettie sends her regards."
The bear's head suddenly came up and regarded us suspiciously. "Can you talk in that form?" I continued.
A headshake. No.
"We're going to get you out of here, but you absolutely must stay quiet no matter what you hear." I insisted. "We talked our way into this fortress by deception, and if you blow the gaff-"
A snort. Halsin visibly didn't believe a word of what we're saying.
"I don't blame you." I agreed. "But hopefully we'll soon prove our bona fides. You lot, get over here!" I raised my voice enough to be heard by the goblins in the room, but not be heard outside it.
"Wot you be needin', sir?" the one goblin asked as him and his two fellows drew up alongside us - right before Lae'zel spitted him through the lungs from behind. The rest of them hit the floor alongside their boss barely a second later.
The 'bear' shapeshifted back into a very large and muscular half-elf; not quite Karlach sized, but a little burlier than even me. "This could still be a trick." the wounded and bloodied Halsin said. "Minthara would gladly sacrifice a few goblins to convince me."
"Minthara's the one we're going to be tricking." I said, and we introduced ourselves. "Oh, and Rath said to tell you that 'the wolf rune opens the way'."
"That proves you are indeed working with the Grove." Halsin relaxed, as Shadowheart finished finding the key on one of the dead guards and unlocked his cage.
"Karlach, find somewhere to stuff those bodies into that they won't be found. They've got the wrong wounds on them for what we're setting up." I ordered. Wyll gave Halsin several of the healing potions that we'd brought from the Grove for the contingency of having found prisoners who were too badly wounded to move.
"You obviously have a plan. What is it?" Halsin asked, and I brought him rapidly up to speed. He was visibly shocked at some elements of it, but was an intelligent enough man to see the necessity - as well as the opportunities, after I explained them.
"You being alive and able to move is a bonus." I finished, "because it means you can take out Priestess Gut while we're busy with the other two. I've seen how easily a druid can get around inconspicuously in mouse form."
"It's not usually the sort of shape I take, but you're right enough there." Halsin agreed. "I'm still nowhere near back up to full strength after what they've done to me, even with your healing magic, but I can certainly slay an elderly goblin or two. Just tell me where her quarters are and I'll see it done." He continued more ruefully. "I'm sorry to hear about that boy Liam. He was a brave soul, and he died to save my people."
"Was that his name?" I acknowledged. "I'm glad at least someone will remember him. If only we'd come sooner-"
"'If only' has poisoned more hearts than all the venoms in the world." Halsin said wisely. "He fought bravely and he died well - the gods will reward him as he deserves."
"We're burning moonlight, boss." Karlach reminded us, and I agreed.
"Right, now for the hard part." I said. "Good luck, Halsin."
"You too." he agreed, and with a quick shift of form he skittered stealthily away on little rodent feet. We left the worg pens behind after butchering the worgs kept there as well - if we made the damage look like something he'd plausibly have managed alone, then a discovery of Halsin's "escape" would only help what we were about to do next. And then we went to where one of the sentries told us was Minthara's quarters.
"Arcane eye." Gale muttered as soon he spotted the crystalline orb in question floating silently in the hallway outside her room. "Magical sentry reporting everything it sees and hears to who-knows-where. Good thing we didn't go with the plan where we fought it out here."
"Will it be safe to go near?" I asked him, as we stood watching it from hopefully outside its programmed range of concern
"As long as we just look and act like any other Absolute cultists would." he agreed. "Probably be best to not give it a clear view of our faces, though."
And so we drew up to the door of Minthara's quarters and knocked. An angry-looking goblin servant hissed at us that the mistress was not to be disturbed, only to be swept aside by our imperious 'True Soul' demand that we speak to her at once.
"What is so important that it could not wait?" Minthara demanded angrily, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Clearly a veteran soldier, she was a muscular, middle-aged dark elven woman dressed in some type of magical chain shirt that almost looked like black cloth and armed with a darksteel mace. "And who are you?"
"True Soul Anthor, from Baldur's Gate." I answered her. Her eyes narrowed and a mental spike of power pushed into mine, as she drew upon her tadpole to query me mentally - I focused my will and pushed her back out, but only after concentrating on the mental image of what I wished her to see.
"The Grove!" she hissed. "You found it? You have even been inside?"
"When we came to help search this area I decided that if all your patrols had failed to find the likeliest place the weapon was being concealed by force, then it would be best to try guile." I explained. "It took us over a day to find it even with a rough knowledge of where to search, but when we did find it they took us for an innocent group of adventurers and welcomed us inside. I can give you the entire layout - numbers, defenses, everything except the details of the innermost areas they didn't let visitors see."
"Well done!" Minthara congratulated me. "In the morning I will assemble the troops and we will prepare the attack!"
"Mistress Minthara!" a goblin voice called worriedly from outside the door. "We got a big problem!"
"Speak!" she bit off furiously. "And quickly, or else I'll throw you in the pits!"
The door opened to reveal one of the goblins who'd been doing a roving patrol in the hallways, twisting his hands in a near-panic. I smiled to myself as I realized that the timing was just about to be perfect-
"The druid! He's done and busted out of the worg pens! They's all dead and gone there, and he's vanished!" the goblin explained.
"Shit!" I pounded one fist on my thigh. "You had a druid prisoner?" I asked her.
"We did." Minthara answered grimly. "And apparently we were deceived as to how wounded he really wasn't." She nodded to herself with icy calm, as quickly decisive as any general I'd ever known. "You!" she called to the goblin messenger. "Wake Dror Ragzlin immediately, and tell him to muster his warbands at once!" and they took off running.
"There's only one place the druid would be going." I nodded to her.
"Agreed." Minthara nodded back. "Which is why we'd best forget waiting for morning - the time to attack is now."
Author's Note: And now we get into the fun part for an author; dropping hints in the text that only make sense to people spoiled on the game.
'Withers' actually is Jergal, which is precisely why resurrection magic is so easy and cheap for him - he's literally the God of Death.
The goblin camp has gone completely off-script from the game, of course - you can't remotely do half of this stuff due to the limitation of the game engine. But that's another part of what makes writing these stories fun for an author - getting to mix it up.
Also, the pacing of Act One is insane. Depending on which way you go it's entirely possible to get Withers showing up, the Karlach recruitment, the Mizora visit, and the Raphael confrontation all on the same day - which would be the craziest day ever. And that's precisely what we had. Hell, there's another scripted event that in-game should already have gone off, because it triggers on entering the goblin camp, and I'm deliberately postponing it because we've had enough for this chapter as is.
As is I'm already completely skipping the hag sidequests (as people no doubt guessed when we arrived at the swamp and found it empty of everything except the Kagha message drop and a few left-behind traps) - in this timeline Ethel decided to pick up and move her digs to somewhere else after Mayrina's brothers showed up to annoy her (they were the two fresher corpses the group found), because obviously that meant her current address was getting too exposed.
"You may call me 'Withers', if you require a name for me." it replied tonelessly.
"Are you with - or are you - the Absolute?" I pressed him.
"No." Withers replied flatly.
"Then what's your angle? Because neither our last meeting or this one is a coincidence - you've already admitted as such." I stated flatly.
"Correct." Withers replied with eerie calm. "As for my purpose, this is not the proper time to speak of such matters. All that I may tell thee at this time is that I intend no harm, and that I wish to be available for whenever thou hast need of my services."
"Everyone!" I called out. "Get over here, we've got a situation!"
It took a bare minute for the still-awake members of the party to hear my call and roust out everyone else - even Wyll, as shaky as he was - and respond. I hurriedly brought them up to speed on what had happened, as well as introducing Withers to those who hadn't seen him before.
"Right, before this goes any further, what the hell are you?" Karlach questioned him. "Be damned if you're any type of undead I've ever heard of."
"There are many answers to that question. None are important." Withers replied flatly.
"We've had a recent object lesson in the unwisdom of accepting 'services' from mysterious otherworldly patrons who don't fully explain themselves beforehand." Gale said, with an apologetic nod towards Wyll. "So what happens if we just politely invite you to offer your services elsewhere?"
"I would wait for thee to reconsider." Withers said calmly.
"What 'services' do you have that you think we'd want?"
"A mending of the threads between life and death." Withers replied softly. "Should thou or any of thy compatriots perish, I would have their soul cleave to their living body once more."
"How you could you possibly offer such magic so casually?" I demanded. "I was told it took tremendous power to even attempt such a feat!"
"Because it is my calling." Withers replied simply. "There is little else to explain."
"And what would be the cost?" I probed suspiciously.
"A simple matter of coin." Withers surprised us.
Shadowheart opened her eyes from where she'd been concentrating intently on Withers. "You- I can sense a divine aspect in you! A reflection of death, eternal and inescapable... were you a Chosen of Jergal?" she asked in awe.
"I shall answer no further questions in that regard." Withers refused her dispassionately.
"A divine champion lies around in a tomb waiting for a meeting with us that was foretold by an 'arbiter of certain matters', and is now offering us his assistance - but only within limited restrictions, and while refusing to explain anything." I thought out loud. "Can you at least answer if you chose this task, or if you were told to do it?"
"Yes." Withers replied calmly.
"... and were you?" I sighed in frustration.
"Yes." Withers paused, and then after delaying just long enough to be irritating he contributed the actual answer. "I both chose this task, and was appointed to it."
"This matter of the 'Absolute'... it's much bigger than even we're afraid of, isn't it? Enough to trouble the very gods themselves." I realized with horror.
Withers remained entirely silent, and then slightly shook his head in negation as I opened my mouth to ask a follow-up question.
"... all right, stick around, and we'll let you know if we ever need your 'services'." I fumed with resignation. "I very much doubt that we could make you leave even if we tried."
"No." Withers agreed with quiet amusement, and then drifted off to a position discreetly near our camp but far enough away to give us privacy.
"All right, gods, is there anything else you've got scheduled for tonight? Hmm?" I quietly ranted up at the stars. "Or can we finally get some sleep now please?"
Withers had gone by the time we broke camp the next morning, but we had no doubt that he'd mysteriously be back whenever he felt he was needed... which we all hoped would be "never", or at the very least as infrequently as possible.
While we were making ready to get back on the road Gale took me discreetly aside for a quiet moment, to point out that I'd been overlooking the potential use of the Netherese travelstones. We could have simply warped back to the one nearest the Grove for a safe encampment, and he would have brought that up had he realized that I'd simply forgotten to think in such terms and hadn't actually had a tactical reason for remaining out on patrol. He'd also mentioned that he'd marked and attuned two more travelstones as we'd been marching yesterday; there had been one within Moonhaven, and another one a short distance away from the old tollhouse by the Risen Road. Fortunately, it only took one member of a group to use a travelstone for those in immediate proximity.
"I thought you said these were ancient relics most people didn't even know the significance of, much less could reliably use." I questioned him. "Why are they being found so conveniently near places that we're going?"
"In a word? Geography." Gale lectured. "The Risen Road doesn't date back to the ancient Netherese era, of course, but the land it runs on and the mountains surrounding it certainly do, and both the travelstone's placement and the tollhouse's would have independently followed the same logic - it's a convenient intersection of paths just before the Risen Road starts to enter the nearby mountains. Likewise with Moonhaven's position conveniently near a water supply and with a natural defense of the ravine on at least two sides - there's probably been at least a dozen villages built and then abandoned there over the centuries thanks to the terrain conveniences."
"Makes sense." I said. "And the Moonhaven travelstone will certainly come in handy, because that saves us a lot of walking back in the direction of the old temple the goblins are using as their main lair."
"Do you think we're ready for that?" Gale asked, and I called everybody else over for a quick conference by way of reply.
"Ready or not, we're running out of time." I pointed out. "Kagha's ritual will almost certainly be ready by two days from now, possibly by tomorrow. Plus, it's only logical that new 'True Souls' being assigned to the area would be expected to check in with whoever the Absolute's commanding officer of this region is; assuming that goblin patrol we interrogated has reported our presence, they'll only get more suspicious the later we don't show up."
"I still say that we should prioritize attempting to find my people." Lae'zel said. "The mountain pass where Zorru reported meeting the githyanki patrol is only one or two hours' march down the Risen Road from the tollhouse. We are so close!"
"So close to where some of your people were sighted days ago." Shadowheart pointed out archly. "It's a cold and uncertain trail. We know where the goblin fortress is."
"Yet we do not know what we will find there." Lae'zel argued heatedly. "The creche will have a certain cure!"
"You sure about that?" Karlach broke in. "I mean, you lot told me just yesterday that the tadpoles we've got in our heads are special tadpoles, yeah? Something you githyanki have never heard of before?"
"Valid point." I agreed. "We know Druid Halsin at least has had some opportunity to study these altered tadpoles and is a powerful healer. Your people are much more experienced with regular mind flayer infestations, but there's nothing regular about what's happening with us. Moreover, the initial objection still stands; one of our two choices is on a strict time limit, and the other is on a less strict one."
"I see I am yet again outvoted." Lae'zel groused. "But think. We have tested whether we can infiltrate posing as True Souls. We may even be able to reconnoiter the area, then get out the same way we got in. But can we gamble our lives on being able to assassinate the entirety of the goblin leadership under such circumstances? We need time to reconnoiter, then plan. We cannot just walk in there blind!"
"But the refugees-" Wyll broke off helplessly. "Kagha will have them all thrown out to die soon!"
"Then we need to buy them some time." I said. "That note Shadowheart retrieved from Kagha's quarters - we should check out the location that was marked on it, see if we can find evidence. We can afford to risk part of today doing that much, particularly with the Moonhaven travelstone to cut down our travel time. If this turns out to be an empty lead then-" I paused and continued forebodingly. "Then we face a very unpleasant choice."
Warping back to the village was easily enough done, and while Booyahg Haysa and her squad had moved on since yesterday we ran into another goblin patrol that had stopped here to torment a passing deep gnome they'd caught traveling alone. There were only a few of them, so we settled for the simple approach of slaughtering all the goblins and tossing their bodies into the nearby ravine. The deep gnome, a man named Barcus Wroot, refused our offer of sanctuary in the Grove because he was stubbornly intent on his own errand searching for a missing friend. We pointed him up the road towards the Waukeen's Rest inn and the road to Baldur's Gate and hoped for the best.
The map on Kagha's note led us into an absolutely foul and disgusting swamp - one that someone had rigged with primitive spike traps. We needed one of Shadowheart's healing spells to fix the damage it did to my foot, and after that we moved much more carefully. Things took on an even more menacing air when we stumbled across a campsite containing the corpses of several people who'd been viciously torn apart by some sort of monster, not even a normal animal. Judging by the condition of their cadavers they'd been dead for days. Two more ravaged corpses, dead much more recently, lay adjacent to each other on a side path leading up to an abandoned hut. None of them were intact enough to even think of using the amulet on.
The "swamp-docks" the letter referred to were located south of the hut, but the only tree near it was a large dead stump on a small hillock a ways out in the water. It took a precarious journey across several stepping stones, some of them not even visible below the murky swamp water, to reach it... and the instant we set foot on the hillock, we were set upon.
"Swamp demons!" I cried, as the very mud suddenly rose up and took shape as small winged figures of malevolence, all fangs and claws. and came hissing at us. We were up to our ankles in mud and stumbling over thorny, twisty vines as well, so despite outnumbering the demons we still were vulnerable and unable to maneuver.
"Demons tend to be a little bigger than that, soldier!" Karlach called cheerfully as she split one with her axe - and then cursed manfully when it exploded in her face with a burst of scalding mud as it died. "Ow!" she cried. "These damn things are flying suicide bombs!"
We fell back as much as we could, given that the muck and vines were severely hamping our mobility, but several more of the mud demons screeched and flew forward to attack much faster than we could retreat. Wyll struck the one flying towards him down with his eldritch blast, detonating it at a safe distance, but more were following right on its heels.
"Earthshaker!" I cried, letting everyone know to brace themselves against impact as I focused my internal energy into a Tremor Strike and slammed my greatsword into the earth, releasing a pulse that sent the charging mud demons flying back and knocking them out of the air. "Gale, burn them!"
Gale cast his Burning Hands spell right on cue, and the magical cone of fire swept out over the mud demons while they were still stunned. We all ducked for cover as they exploded, the multiple splashes of hot bursting mud just far enough away not to reach us. The collateral damage of their multiple dying explosions actually took out one more of their compatriots, but a surviving one several dozen feet away from us screeched and then raised a claw which glowed with mystic force, and the mud beneath its feet roiled as it summoned another of its kind.
"I think not." Lae'zel spat, and began firing at it with her shortbow. Shadowheart followed up with a Flame Bolt cantrip, and they staggered it enough for the rest of us to also switch to missile weapons. The last of the mud demons finally died after we gave it several volleys. The pair of lumbering plant demons that came around the tree just as we'd finished killing their skirmishers fortunately proved very vulnerable to fire as well as not detonating in a take-you-with-me blast when they died, and our two spellcasters both had Flame Bolt cantrips they could freely cast as well as my fiery greatsword and Karlach's infernal flames trick.
"Are you all right?" I asked Karlach.
"Eh, just some bruises." she shrugged it off. "Good thing they didn't blow up on one of you, though, or Shadowheart would be treating burn victims right now. That mud was boiling." she explained as she unconcernedly toweled it off.
"Just how fire resistant are you?" Wyll asked her wonderingly.
"If a wizard smacked me with a Fireball then I'd still hurt some, but normal flame and heat basically doesn't bother me any more." Karlach replied. "Side effect of this damn infernal engine they shoved in where my heart's supposed to be."
"Mizora mentioned something like that last night." Wyll said. "Sounds like there's a story there."
"More like a problem, honestly." Karlach said. "But unless you've got a chunk of infernal iron handy and a master smith who had training in arcane mechanisms in Hell, not much you can do about it. Damn thing's been running in overdrive ever since I left Avernus. That's why I'd raise burns on anyone who touched my bare skin; I used to be able to throttle it down far enough to interact normally, but now I'm lucky my armor's not catching fire."
"Mud mephits. Wood woads. Both perversions of druidic magic." Gale had been analyzing the fallen monster remnants at the same time the other two had been talking. "Kagha's note has certainly led us to something suspicious."
"This isn't a natural formation." Shadowheart looked carefully at what few parts of the ground were barely visible underneath the thick mud. "It looks like a ritual platform of some kind - like one that you'd find in a druidic sanctuary, but after having been abandoned to decades of rot and ruin."
"The note mentioned a tree." I said, nodding towards the giant dead stump in the center of the muddy platform, and we all moved to look at it more closely. After more than a couple minutes we finally turned up a small wooden box tucked discreetly away into a crevice of the tree, safely clear of the water and very discreetly out of view to any but the most dedicated searcher. In the box was a letter that read:
Kagha;
Olodan has sent word of your progress; I am pleased that the Rite of Thorns has begun. I depart soon from Cloakwood to Baldur's Gate. Should you need further aid from my circle, now is the time to ask.
Once cloistered, the Emerald Grove will be the Shadow Druids' domain, and you its First Druid.
In Faldorn's memory,
Archdruid Aelis
"Shadow Druids!" Shadowheart exclaimed, before smiling with satisfaction. "Well, so much for Kagha. All we need to do is show this to the other druids and they'll be fighting for places in line to tear her apart."
"You're not wrong." Wyll agreed. "Remember how I said that most druids tended to focus on nature's more nurturing aspects? The Shadow Druids are their dark mirror; their chosen aspect is the hostility of nature to man, the savagery of tooth and claw. All life in a bloody struggle to survive against all other life, with strength as the only virtue and weakness as the only sin."
"That certainly fits Kagha's xenophobia and obsessive desire for isolation and power." I agreed. "Right, we need to-"
"My, my." an elegantly cultured voice interrupted us, and we all spun around in shock to see a swarthy, almost excessively handsome man incongrously dressed in silk finery worthy of the richest noble looking at us all with a sharp-edged smile. "What manner of place is this, I wonder?" he continued with a dramatic flourish worthy of Wyll at his hammiest. "A path to redemption, or a road to damnation? Hard to say... for your journey is just beginning."
I immediately noted that the mud wasn't sticking to his shoes or spattering to his clothes, and that he was walking over the entangling vines as if they weren't there. As if his mysterious approach out of nowhere hadn't already given away that he was no normal man-
"Who the hell are you?" I said roughly.
"Well met!" the man replied cheerfully, with a mocking little bow. "I am Raphael. Very much at your service."
A brief glance at the rest of the team showed clearly in their facial expressions that they were all exactly as wary of this new, mysterious arrival as I was. "To borrow a phrase, what happens if we just politely invite you to offer your services elsewhere?" I continued.
Raphael chuckled richly. "Of course, of course! This... quaint little scene is decidedly too middle-of-nowhere for our conversation. Come."
And with a flare of magic suddenly the entire world shifted around us, as the swamp and muck faded away to be replaced by a large round chamber with a vaulted roof over twenty feet high, its walls paneled in red silk and hung with gold-framed portraits. The furnishings were of a quality at least matching those in Empress Celene's palace in Val Royeaux, and the round table in the center of the chamber was covered with silver and gold dishes all holding a feast of food worthy of her table. I even faintly heard some softly menacing organ music playing slowly in the background.
I froze in terror as I knew, I somehow knew that this was no illusion. If we had been back on Thedas I'd have said without hesitation that Raphael had brought us through a rift into the Fade - as is, the planar travel magics used on Faerun were an analogue-
"There!" Raphael finished boastfully. "Middle of somewhere."
"Lady of-" Shadowheart cut herself off. "Where are we?!?"
"The House of Hope." Raphael said boastfully. "Where the tired come to rest, and the famished come to feed - lavishly." He waved his hand at the table. "Go on, partake! Enjoy your supper! After all..." He leaned in meaningfully. "... it might just be your last."
"Boss?" Karlach said fearfully. "We're in the bloody Nine Hells, I can feel it!" She punctuated her last remark with a thump of one fist on her chest. "He took us back down there just with a snap of his fingers!"
I looked back at the - not a man, but something at least as formidable as a Pride Demon, I was certain - and concentrated as hard as I could on reaffirming my mind, shielding it, breaking any glamors he might have had over his appearance-
"Now, now." Raphael said to me with a gentle wag of one finger. "There's no need to be impolite. But you are correct in that the one thing that's better than a devil you don't know-"
And we all stepped back a pace as Raphael assumed his true form in a burst of flame. A pair of leathery wings shot from his back, his swarthy skin turned redder than Karlach's, and a majestic pair of horns jutted from his head as he loomed a head taller over us. A sense of infernal power far stronger than the cambions I'd seen onboard the nautiloid, stronger even than Mizora's, radiated from him as he dropped his guise.
"-is a devil you do." Raphael gestured expansively. "Now am I a friend? Potentially. An adversary? Conceivably. But a savior? That's for certain."
"What makes you think we need saving?" I temporized.
"Come now." Raphael sighed dramatically. "Why play hard to get? We both know how deep in you all are over your tadpoled heads. Two tenants per skull, and no solution in sight." He spread his hands entreatingly. "But I could fix it all, just like that." he finished with a dramatic snap of his fingers.
"No." I said adamantly, not even bothering to get the sense of the group on this one. "No deals, no pacts, no exchanges. Now put us back."
"So stubborn." Raphael gave a faux-pout. "People like you so often are. But I would like to believe that you'll change your minds... while they still remain your minds." He declaimed oratorically, complete with classical gestures. "Very well, try to cure yourselves! Shop around! Beg, borrow, and steal! Exhaust every possibility until none are left." He finished with a menacing smile. "And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair, then that's when you'll come knocking at my door. Hope!" he laughed mockingly. "Hahahahaha! Such a tease."
"I said no. Now put us back," I repeated. "And after that, we never want to see you again."
Raphael chuckled. "All those pretty little symptoms - sundering skin, dissolving guts, your very thoughts and memories being warped into an eldritch monstrosity until the very concept of yourself no longer remains - they haven't manifested yet, have they? One might say that you've had all the luck so far." His orator's voice dropped into a calm, quiet intonation that was honestly more frightening than most of what he'd tried so far. "I'll be there when it runs out."
And in-between eyeblinks, the House of Hope vanished to be replaced by the stinking swamp.
"Bloody Hells!" Shadowheart ranted. "Literally! Just when I think we're beginning to get a handle on our dilemma, another devil shows up!"
"You did well not to listen to his temptations." Wyll assured me. "You already know my experience with infernal pacts; no matter how tempting the offer, no matter how desperate your need, they'll always take more. You go in thinking you'd be willing to trade everything... and then you find out you've traded everything."
"Fuck me." Karlach shook her head miserably. "I didn't even know they could drag us back down there like that. Thought it was against the rules of the gods. When can I expect Zariel to show up herself and just put the arm on me?!?"
"Likely never." Gale reassured her. "Raphael almost certainly was able to do that because he didn't actually intend us any immediate harm and didn't refuse to send us back when we asked him to. Simply a temporary visit, for purposes of diplomacy." Gale analyzed. "Still, that was a very disquieting experience. But also perhaps an opportunity."
"Are you an idiot?" Lae'zel glared at him.
"No, no, hear me out." Gale said. "Of course he'll be deceptive about the terms, do his best to ensure an absolutely ruinous exchange rate, try to get us to damn our souls for eternity, all of that. He's a devil, that all goes without saying. But am I the only person who is curious about exactly why he showed up?"
"I was stuck on the part where figuring out why he was talking to us was a far lower priority than figuring out how to get him to shut up and leave." I answered flatly. "Karlach, as the member of the group who actually lived in Hell, have you ever heard of this Raphael before?"
"Nope." she shook her head. "Then again, it's not like I saw much of Hell except Zariel's retinue and the frontlines of Avernus. There's eight other layers of Hell he could possibly be from, let alone parts of Avernus I never saw. But wherever he's from, he's definitely no pushover."
"Indeed." Wyll agreed. "Mizora could take me from Faerun to Avernus - that's how I entered there originally, when she set me on Karlach's trail - but not remotely as casually or easily as Raphael did it to all of us. He's a powerful devil indeed."
"He did seem powerful, and very knowledgeable about our problem." Shadowheart mused. "Do you think he was also correct about our having no other option but to turn to him?"
"The only way we can know that for certain is to exhaust every other option first." I said. "We are not dealing with that devil, end of sentence."
"Good." Shadowheart sighed relievedly. "That's what I wanted to hear from you. Raphael was being very clever with how he stoked fear and wielded temptation. You don't really need a scourge or a rack to break people; prolonged fear and self-doubt are sufficient. By the time the actual pain starts the anticipation's been so great that the victim's already done all the heavy lifting for their torturer. " She shook her head resolvedly. "There were no right answers with that devil. He was just toying with us - trying to soften us up for later."
"I did not realize that you were so... well-versed in mental and emotional torment, Shadowheart." Lae'zel looked at her warily.
"And aren't you glad that I am?" Shadowheart replied cheekly. "It's an effective trick. Watch out for it - and for Raphael."
"Psychology or not, there's also the logistics of the situation." Gale insisted. "Why would a devil like Raphael bother with a small group of people trudging through a swamp? Why would he offer so insistently to take our tadpoles away? If he just wanted tadpoles to study, there's any number of Absolute cultists running about. They wouldn't even have to be willing - we saw that their tadpoles pop right out of their heads when they die, and he could easily hire some people to hunt down cultists like Zariel hired those warlocks to go after Karlach. Which logically suggests that it's not the tadpoles he's interested in... but what we'd pay him to get rid of them."
"Our souls." Wyll said flatly. "No."
"I don't think so." Gale replied. "Your soul is already contracted to another, and he would have known that, wouldn't he?" I saw Wyll's eyes widen in realization. "And yet he included you in the deal he was offering by implication anyway. No, Raphael wants something else from us. Or possibly needs something else from us. And depending on how badly he needs it, then we might be the ones with the superior bargaining position after all."
"Well, you certainly don't lack for ambition." I said to Gale. "But traditionally, trying to beat a devil at their own game is one of the fastest ways to lose."
"I don't think there's going to be anything traditional about our situation." Gale replied. "And I entirely agree with remaining cautious for now. But let's not be focused so greatly on what we think is happening that we overlook what might be happening, all right?"
"For right now, let's get out of this damned swamp." I said. "Because we've got a traitor to expose."
After taking a short rest and making some preparations, we went and brought Zevlor up to speed on what we'd discovered. We couldn't hope to get any substantial tiefling reinforcements past the druids guarding the inner sanctum, but Zevlor armed and armored himself up and came along with us. Telling the guard that we were bringing Zevlor with an offer for Kagha got us all inside the sanctum.
"-and we might as well have lied down and told them to take advantage of us!" a querulous voice was arguing as we proceeded into the underground antechamber.
"The thief was caught. And Grove law was enforced." Rath - the same senior druid who'd been trying to reason with Kagha when she wanted to imprison Arabella over the idol theft - said in reply.
"You call that complete failure of a punishment 'enforcement'?" the druid - as we came into the chamber we saw it was a gray-haired 'halfling', as I'd been told his race was called - confront Rath, hands indignant on hips.
"Enough!" Kagha said imperiously as she swept into the chamber. "Zevlor, you demanded this meeting. Now know that if you intend to say anything but that you are ready to depart, this conversation will be a very short one. I will listen to no more of your pleadings and excuses!"
"Scheduling conflict?" I confronted her as we all spread out.
"Too busy making time to listen to Shadow Druids before hearing anyone else, perhaps?" Zevlor joined in.
"Shadow Druids?" Kagha said, taken aback. "You- is this your ploy? To sow division and weaken us? Druids! Hearken to-"
I drew the letter from my belt pouch. Kagha instantly fell silent, her face turning pale as milk, as soon as she glimpsed the seal on the letter next to the Archdruid's signature - the symbol of the Shadow Druids. "Here." I said, handing it to Rath. "This is the proof."
"Kagha!" he swore vehemently. "You would invite the Cloakwood here? Have you gone mad?!?"
But before she could reply, two more halflings and a dwarf suddenly appeared as they released their own druidic shapeshifting - apparently they'd been hiding near Kagha's feet as some animals too tiny to spot, such as mice - and drew into close formation near Kagha. These newcomers were dressed much like the druids of the Grove, only with their visages scarred and streaked with mud and paints like Chasind barbarians as opposed to the Grove's civilized neatness.
"That damned nose of yours has gone poking into our business!" the dwarf who was the apparent leader of this group of Shadow Druids glared lethally at us.
"Mistress Olodan!" Kagha said frantically to the dwarf. "I can explain!"
"Sssh, no need." Olodan repled reasonably. "It couldn't be helped."
"Kagha, what is the meaning of this?" Rath demanded.
"Halsin was weak, Rath! His decisions led him to his death and brought us to the brink of ruin! But in the shadows we are strong! We are safe! There is no other way!" Kagha turned on him passionately.
Olodan sneered contemptuously at the several other druids of the Grove who were beginning to gather around. "You all let Halsin invite untouchables into your midst. You defiled the Grove for the sake of 'harmony'."
"And who among you truly disagrees, in your heart?" Kagha orated to her followers. "Who among you would see this Grove in ruins?!?"
"You can either join the true way, or be cast out with the rest." Olodan said to the other druids firmly. "Kagha? It's time to burn out the rot in this grove. You can start with these snitches." she nodded towards us.
"Counter-offer." I said calmly. "Leave here and take Kagha with you. Go back to your Cloakwood in peace and leave the Emerald Grove to its rightful keepers."
"You would doubt my power?" Olodan spat back angrily. "Mother Earth, hear me-!" she began to roar... before the words vanished right out of her mouth. Gale had been supposed to wait for my signal before casting his Silence spell on Kagha, but apparently he'd found the straight line that Olodan had just handed him to be irresistible. Honestly, I didn't blame him.
The spell of silence Gale used had enough of a radius that even though it was centered on Kagha, it had also encompassed the several Shadow Druids standing in close formation about here. Fighting four experienced druidic spellcasters in close quarters would have been a challenge, especially given that we couldn't be certain of how some of the Grove druids would have responded. But without the ability to incant they couldn't use most of their spells, and that left them dressed in robes and armed only with clubs versus our entire frontline of fully-armed and armored veterans. Olodan managed to shapeshift into a man-sized wolverine before we reached her, but Karlach and I tanked her from the front and battered her down. Zevlor went straight for Kagha, and Lae'zel and Wyll dealt with her flankers. Shadowheart and Gale stayed back, so as not to get caught in the silence-spell themselves, and guarded our backs against any possible other sympathizers among the druids. And soon enough, the entire distasteful business was over.
"I cannot believe it." Rath said regretfully as we treated our wounded and buried the dead. A couple of the other druids - including the halfling that Rath had been arguing with, whose name I never got to learn - had indeed tried to support Kagha, but our reserve element and the loyalist druids had dealt with them. "That the Shadow Druids could get such inroads even into here-"
"Scavengers, just taking advantage of your already being overextended versus another crisis." I reassured him. "After this failure, and the losses they took, I doubt the Shadow Druids will throw good money after bad."
"Likely not." Rath agreed. "But we lost our First Druid and his replacement. Even if I immediately send for aid from the rest of the Emerald Enclave, it will be some time before they reach us. And I don't have the power that Kagha had, let alone Halsin."
"And even without Kagha demanding we leave immediately, the goblins are still only growing stronger with time." Zevlor agreed. "Your exposing Kagha has bought us some more time to prepare, but hasn't solved the main problem we contend with."
"Yes." I agreed. "But without her interference then your people, the Grove, and my team can finally all work together to try and address it. That's one of the reasons I made her takedown such a priority in the first place."
"Then you have a plan?" Rath asked.
"The outline of one, at least." I said. "If Halsin is still alive he won't be for much longer. Furthermore, as Zevlor so aptly pointed out, the goblins are mustering more and more of their kind from the nearby mountains and into the Cult of the Absolute with each passing day. In addition to that the danger of their scouts locating the Grove is also pressing, and only increases with time. So whatever we do, we can't waste a moment seeing it done."
"Even if we both mustered everyone we could, we still wouldn't have enough strength to assault the goblins in their fortress." Zevlor said.
"No." I agreed. "But that's not what I'm intending."
We all spent the rest of the early evening finalizing our plans, then adjourned for dinner. The Grove and the tieflings would be fully mobilized by next morning and just waiting for our word. Our party would spend several hours sleeping and refreshing our energies and our spells, and then set out shortly after midnight. With the Moonhaven travelstone available to take us most of the way to the goblin fortress we could reach it several hours before dawn, and with our tadpoles to gain us entry we could enter and gather the information necessary to do any last-minute refinements to our plan.
And after some quick researches in the druid's library, I invited Shadowheart out with me for a quiet walk on our beach.
"You worship Shar, don't you?" I asked her softly, once we were in private.
"As I said. Insufferable." she glared at me darkly. "How did I give myself away this time?" she moaned.
"You didn't really." I consoled her. "On Thedas there's only one religion and one god for all known human cultures - the Chantry, and our worship of the Maker - so it's nothing unusual for people to hardly ever name their god in conversation, because who needs a name when you've only got one of something? And while Thedan elves are pantheonic I didn't grow up among them, so I don't consider things in those terms unless I make a conscious effort to. So it took me a while, and exposure to another congregation of the devout like the Grove, before I realized that a priestess who never once actually proselytizes about or even mentions the deity she worships was an unusual thing by Faerunian standards. And once I realized that, I went researching local religions in the Grove's library. At which several point other clues - your particular education in the psychology of torment, your fondness for darkness, even when you joked that you weren't a particular fan of moonlight - all added up."
"I don't believe it." Shadowheart kicked a rock and chuffed. "You're saying that my very diligence towards Shar's tenets of concealment is what caught me out as one of her worshippers? Secrecy is supposed to be our shield, not our vulnerability!"
"As a good friend once taught me, the problem with even the most excellent tradecraft is that it looks just like tradecraft." I told her. "Which means it's excellent at keeping people from suspecting in the first place, but once they become suspicious anyway it just becomes another set of clues."
"Damn." she swore, before looking at me worriedly. "Is this... going to be a problem?"
"What I read didn't make Shar sound very salubrious." I agreed with her. "But that was just what I read. I've been in Faerun barely half a week by this point, and the sum totality of Shar worshippers I've met is you. And all you've done is be a loyal, supportive friend - and very easy to talk to. I'm not going to suddenly ignore all that simply because of your goddess."
"Thank you." Shadowheart said relievedly. "Because it isn't just because we're all sworn to secrecy from believers in other gods that I keep it under wraps. Shar worshippers tend to draw a lot of disapproval - especially in areas where Selunites are dominant, like this one used to be." She shuddered. "The village of 'Moonhaven' was even named after her, it was originally founded by a colony of her devout."
"Selune the moon goddess, twin sister to Shar and her eternal rival." I stated, so that Shadowheart would know that I already knew the short version.
"'Rivalry' is a drastic understatement." she agreed. "It's very often a summary execution offense to be caught out as a Sharran priestess amongst Selunites." she entreated me.
"Or the reverse?" I asked her intelligently.
"... sometimes, yes." she reluctantly conceded. "Although I've never seen it happen- I don't think." she trailed off.
"You don't think?" I queried. "Whether or not someone's been killed in front of you is usually a question with a definite answer."
"As I said, one of Shar's prime commandments is secrecy. We're forbidden to reveal that we're Her worshippers - I'm only talking with you about it because you already knew. It's an offense against the Lady of Loss to reveal anything that could be used to hurt the church. Which had a certain obvious implication when we were sent out on a mission against githyanki and illithids... one of whom have psionic adepts, and the other of whom are an entire psionic race." She shook her head. "I had my memories sealed as a precaution against being caught and telepathically interrogated. They'll only be unsealed at the completion of my mission."
"Your own memories?" I looked at her in shock. "That's- that's a little extreme, don't you think?"
"It's not ubiquitous even amongst Sharrans, but it's hardly unheard of." she said. "The wrong secret revealed at the wrong time can be the doom of an entire congregation, even an entire strategic campaign. Her most devout are willing to risk a great deal in Her service, and I'm no exception." She smiled at me reassuringly. "Don't worry. It was entirely willing on my part, and it's reversible."
But if they have the power to manipulate your memories like that, how could you know whether you were truly willing or not? Or if they could actually give those memories back intact? I burned with the need to ask those questions... as well as the knowledge to not even bother trying. Trying to directly challenge Shadowheart's beliefs at this point would only shatter what measured amount of trust we'd managed to build over the past several days. Whatever else could be said about her, it was absolutely plain that she was a woman of the most deeply-held and sincerely passionate convictions.
Just like Merrill had been.
"I'm certainly not one to disregard the power of faith." I replied. "But I also like to know - and remember - exactly what I'm getting into."
"And I entirely don't blame you." Shadowheart said agreeably. "The path of Shar is a very... rigorous one to walk. I can't pretend that She doesn't ask a great deal of me sometimes, or that some things haven't been... difficult." She squared her shoulders and continued more firmly. "But her church are the ones who took in a helpless starving orphan - a little girl who was easy prey for everyone and who didn't know how to look further ahead than her next meal. They gave me a home, gave me a purpose, taught me the strength to defend myself and shield my comrades-in-arms - I owe Her everything. And so in Her service I will give Her all that I possibly can."
"Even if it leads to tragedy?" I asked her.
"Life is tragedy." she replied matter-of-factly. "Oh, not always, but far too often, and almost always entirely out of our control. Just look at the tadpoles in our heads right now." she tapped one finger on her temple. "But where you can't defend then you must withstand, and having a cause, a principle, a faith to anchor yourself with is the greatest aid to endurance you can have. A person can endure almost any amount of suffering... provided that it has meaning." she trailed off softly.
"I can't argue that." I reluctantly agreed, thinking back on my own life. "But let's just hope we can do more defending - or avoiding - then withstanding in the future."
"I'll certainly drink to that." Shadowheart agreed cheerfully. "So... not a problem then?"
"Perhaps a minor one," I surprised her. "But not because I'm harboring misgivings. I was just thinking that if I could figure it out, how long will it take one of the others to do the same? I'm sure Gale at least is enough of a scholar to work it out, and we've already seen how he likes to analyze things. We might want to think of a way to break it to the group gently, before it drops at the worst possible time in the worst possible way. Particularly given that we're already keeping one secret from them." I gave a meaningful nod towards her belt pouch.
"There are exceptions to the tenets of secrecy - if urgent necessity requires." Shadowheart agreed. "I'll sleep on it."
"Speaking of which, we'd better all sleep on it." I agreed. "You and Gale need to recover your spells, and then we've got to reach the goblin fortress before dawn."
We rested, we prepared, and then we warped to the Moonhaven travelstone and prepared to travel into the belly of the beast.
"Are you all right?" I noticed Shadowheart shivering slightly on our arrival.
"Of course I'm all right." Shadowheart said acidly. "I'm only about to walk into a horde of goblins who are all camped in a former temple of that moon witch-"
"If you don't want to give yourself away to everyone else, perhaps ease back a bit on using that particular phrase." I reminded her.
"Right." she nodded. "I just- sorry." She shook her head. "Every time I even think about Selunites, it makes me twitch."
"Well let's hope that twitch doesn't get worse when we head into those ruins. We can't afford any woolgathering with stakes like these." I said.
"Right." Shadowheart agreed. "I'll do my best."
It took us less than an hour's march to reach the old temple complex, and the sentries there snapped to attention and passed us through the instant we proved ourselves as True Souls. We quietly walked through the sleeping camp, where only a few goblins were awake for the midwatch and the rest passed out cold - judging by the smell of rotgut and the copious leavings scattered around, they were mostly drunk and stuffed from a great feast that had been held earlier tonight.
"Goblins only hold a feast like this when they're celebrating a battle victory." Wyll said worriedly. "But we know they didn't attack the Grove, so where were they?"
"Focus on the task." Lae'zel urged him. "We are reaching the moment of greatest risk."
"Look, another travelstone!" Gale said, noting the presence of one in the inner courtyard. "Now there's a stroke of luck for us." he said as we attuned it.
The door into the temple proper was guarded by a fat, sleepy ogre - who as it turned out were barely half the size than the darkspawn's living siege engines called 'ogres' back in Thedas, even if that still left them half again as large as a man - and another goblin-ish humanoid called a 'bugbear', who was apparently the ogre's handler. Questioning the bugbear revealed the knowledge that two prisoners had been taken during the intrusion into the temple a couple days ago - Halsin and one of Aradin's surviving men - and that they'd both been sent to the torturers.
"Two days and more of torture by goblins." Shadowheart said flatly as we entered the temple, her concentration and mental focus back to full even though we were now standing in what had once been a Selunite temple. "An elder druid would have his magic to possibly sustain him, but the other fellow?" She shook her head sadly.
"If he hasn't cracked by now - and we know he hasn't, because the Grove is safe - then he's almost certainly dead." I agreed.
"Focus." Lae'zel hissed, and we entered the main antechamber. At this hour, it was empty except for a few sentries.
"The first decision point." Wyll said. "Try to assassinate the goblin leaders ourselves in their sleep, or go with the primary plan?"
"According to the gate guard we questioned this fortress has other 'True Souls' to command it." I spoke softly as we stepped into a corner where the sentries wouldn't be curious about us stopping for a chat. "That drow matriarch Minthara we heard of as overall commander, a hobgoblin warlord named Dror Ragzlin who was second under her and the goblins' field commander, and Priestess Gut, an old and powerful goblin shaman who does all that you'd expect of a chief shaman in a tribe. If we go with plan A we can kill two of them away from here, but Gut will be left holding down the fort with the main body. And we need to remove all the leadership before the horde will splinter."
"But precisely because she's the one left to guard the base, she won't be mustered with the rest if we do plan A." Shadowheart said. "Murder her in her sleep and hide the body? They'll be curious about her missing, but it's very unlikely they'll stop to put everything on hold when facing the opportunity we'll give them."
"We'll try checking on Halsin first." I decided, and we marched off to the pens they used to hold their monster-wolves where they'd also apparently locked him up. A brief stop in a room off the main antechamber produced the depressing sight of a young man's corpse strapped to a rack, his wounds bespeaking of all the agony the goblin torturers had inflicted on him.
"He's barely cold." Wyll said, touching him. "He only died several hours ago. Two days he lasted under this, and he still never gave up the location of the Grove - or else we'd have met the goblin army coming down the path as we were coming up." He whistled in awe. "He died this hard, to save the lives of people he didn't even know and who would have thrown him out. This boy was a hero."
I turned away from the body, my jaw clenching tight. If we'd only come even a little earlier, we could possibly have-
"Keep moving." I growled. "We don't have much time."
We arrived at the worg pens to find a bloodied, much-wounded bear having an uneasy, fitful sleep. The several night guards on the pens acknowledged our authority as True Souls and stood aside, and Gale cast a quick cantrip to detect magic and determine that the 'bear' was indeed a shapeshifted druid.
"Halsin?" I whispered to him quietly. "Nettie sends her regards."
The bear's head suddenly came up and regarded us suspiciously. "Can you talk in that form?" I continued.
A headshake. No.
"We're going to get you out of here, but you absolutely must stay quiet no matter what you hear." I insisted. "We talked our way into this fortress by deception, and if you blow the gaff-"
A snort. Halsin visibly didn't believe a word of what we're saying.
"I don't blame you." I agreed. "But hopefully we'll soon prove our bona fides. You lot, get over here!" I raised my voice enough to be heard by the goblins in the room, but not be heard outside it.
"Wot you be needin', sir?" the one goblin asked as him and his two fellows drew up alongside us - right before Lae'zel spitted him through the lungs from behind. The rest of them hit the floor alongside their boss barely a second later.
The 'bear' shapeshifted back into a very large and muscular half-elf; not quite Karlach sized, but a little burlier than even me. "This could still be a trick." the wounded and bloodied Halsin said. "Minthara would gladly sacrifice a few goblins to convince me."
"Minthara's the one we're going to be tricking." I said, and we introduced ourselves. "Oh, and Rath said to tell you that 'the wolf rune opens the way'."
"That proves you are indeed working with the Grove." Halsin relaxed, as Shadowheart finished finding the key on one of the dead guards and unlocked his cage.
"Karlach, find somewhere to stuff those bodies into that they won't be found. They've got the wrong wounds on them for what we're setting up." I ordered. Wyll gave Halsin several of the healing potions that we'd brought from the Grove for the contingency of having found prisoners who were too badly wounded to move.
"You obviously have a plan. What is it?" Halsin asked, and I brought him rapidly up to speed. He was visibly shocked at some elements of it, but was an intelligent enough man to see the necessity - as well as the opportunities, after I explained them.
"You being alive and able to move is a bonus." I finished, "because it means you can take out Priestess Gut while we're busy with the other two. I've seen how easily a druid can get around inconspicuously in mouse form."
"It's not usually the sort of shape I take, but you're right enough there." Halsin agreed. "I'm still nowhere near back up to full strength after what they've done to me, even with your healing magic, but I can certainly slay an elderly goblin or two. Just tell me where her quarters are and I'll see it done." He continued more ruefully. "I'm sorry to hear about that boy Liam. He was a brave soul, and he died to save my people."
"Was that his name?" I acknowledged. "I'm glad at least someone will remember him. If only we'd come sooner-"
"'If only' has poisoned more hearts than all the venoms in the world." Halsin said wisely. "He fought bravely and he died well - the gods will reward him as he deserves."
"We're burning moonlight, boss." Karlach reminded us, and I agreed.
"Right, now for the hard part." I said. "Good luck, Halsin."
"You too." he agreed, and with a quick shift of form he skittered stealthily away on little rodent feet. We left the worg pens behind after butchering the worgs kept there as well - if we made the damage look like something he'd plausibly have managed alone, then a discovery of Halsin's "escape" would only help what we were about to do next. And then we went to where one of the sentries told us was Minthara's quarters.
"Arcane eye." Gale muttered as soon he spotted the crystalline orb in question floating silently in the hallway outside her room. "Magical sentry reporting everything it sees and hears to who-knows-where. Good thing we didn't go with the plan where we fought it out here."
"Will it be safe to go near?" I asked him, as we stood watching it from hopefully outside its programmed range of concern
"As long as we just look and act like any other Absolute cultists would." he agreed. "Probably be best to not give it a clear view of our faces, though."
And so we drew up to the door of Minthara's quarters and knocked. An angry-looking goblin servant hissed at us that the mistress was not to be disturbed, only to be swept aside by our imperious 'True Soul' demand that we speak to her at once.
"What is so important that it could not wait?" Minthara demanded angrily, rubbing sleep from her eyes. Clearly a veteran soldier, she was a muscular, middle-aged dark elven woman dressed in some type of magical chain shirt that almost looked like black cloth and armed with a darksteel mace. "And who are you?"
"True Soul Anthor, from Baldur's Gate." I answered her. Her eyes narrowed and a mental spike of power pushed into mine, as she drew upon her tadpole to query me mentally - I focused my will and pushed her back out, but only after concentrating on the mental image of what I wished her to see.
"The Grove!" she hissed. "You found it? You have even been inside?"
"When we came to help search this area I decided that if all your patrols had failed to find the likeliest place the weapon was being concealed by force, then it would be best to try guile." I explained. "It took us over a day to find it even with a rough knowledge of where to search, but when we did find it they took us for an innocent group of adventurers and welcomed us inside. I can give you the entire layout - numbers, defenses, everything except the details of the innermost areas they didn't let visitors see."
"Well done!" Minthara congratulated me. "In the morning I will assemble the troops and we will prepare the attack!"
"Mistress Minthara!" a goblin voice called worriedly from outside the door. "We got a big problem!"
"Speak!" she bit off furiously. "And quickly, or else I'll throw you in the pits!"
The door opened to reveal one of the goblins who'd been doing a roving patrol in the hallways, twisting his hands in a near-panic. I smiled to myself as I realized that the timing was just about to be perfect-
"The druid! He's done and busted out of the worg pens! They's all dead and gone there, and he's vanished!" the goblin explained.
"Shit!" I pounded one fist on my thigh. "You had a druid prisoner?" I asked her.
"We did." Minthara answered grimly. "And apparently we were deceived as to how wounded he really wasn't." She nodded to herself with icy calm, as quickly decisive as any general I'd ever known. "You!" she called to the goblin messenger. "Wake Dror Ragzlin immediately, and tell him to muster his warbands at once!" and they took off running.
"There's only one place the druid would be going." I nodded to her.
"Agreed." Minthara nodded back. "Which is why we'd best forget waiting for morning - the time to attack is now."
Author's Note: And now we get into the fun part for an author; dropping hints in the text that only make sense to people spoiled on the game.
'Withers' actually is Jergal, which is precisely why resurrection magic is so easy and cheap for him - he's literally the God of Death.
The goblin camp has gone completely off-script from the game, of course - you can't remotely do half of this stuff due to the limitation of the game engine. But that's another part of what makes writing these stories fun for an author - getting to mix it up.
Also, the pacing of Act One is insane. Depending on which way you go it's entirely possible to get Withers showing up, the Karlach recruitment, the Mizora visit, and the Raphael confrontation all on the same day - which would be the craziest day ever. And that's precisely what we had. Hell, there's another scripted event that in-game should already have gone off, because it triggers on entering the goblin camp, and I'm deliberately postponing it because we've had enough for this chapter as is.
As is I'm already completely skipping the hag sidequests (as people no doubt guessed when we arrived at the swamp and found it empty of everything except the Kagha message drop and a few left-behind traps) - in this timeline Ethel decided to pick up and move her digs to somewhere else after Mayrina's brothers showed up to annoy her (they were the two fresher corpses the group found), because obviously that meant her current address was getting too exposed.
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Mizu
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Wonder if a Selune priest player gets any special story beats when they wander about that village? I've only played sorcerer Durge, so I dunno.
cliffc999
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No, I'm freelancing this bit.
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Hope she gets killed for real by somebody else.
Haste makes waste, and now you're about to get wasted, gta-syle.
DIT_grue
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When they were introduced, my impression was that attunement was an individual matter - if you, specifically, hadn't been to a stone and logged in, someone else couldn't carry you along in a jump to it. But now Gale has managed to find and use two more, and that suffices for the whole party including any future recruits, so that was wrong. (Which is obviously the way the game would go, because otherwise the mechanics would be somewhere between 'a pain' and 'nightmarish'.) Could the initial mentions be tweaked for greater clarity, or was I just reading poorly that day?
It seems like there's a missing word and/or a typo here - something like be or get, probably?
archly
needed
hostility
shortly
hour's
overestimated
cliffc999
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Added this to the paragraph - "Fortunately, it only took one member of a group to use a travelstone for those in immediate proximity."
The intent was that Hawke had forgotten about the travelstones after a bit, being distracted with other matters and not thinking in those terms, so Gale was attuning to all of them as a matter of course. But one person can warp the immediate group, so they could still use them, and of course people are catching up.
Yacov
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No redemption arc via persuasion for Kagha. Guess the evidence Hawke had to work with, he didn't assume Kahga was being manipulated and just thought she was a full blown traitor to the Druids. No sense trying to talk someone out of treason after it looks like they already committed it.
Yes mind wiping people and using them as disposable assets on a suicide mission is definitely the sign of a trustworthy group. You should totally believe everything they tell you about your life pre-mind wipe, especially when it directly encourages you to go on the above mentioned suicide mission.
There is absolutely no chance of them abusing this power to send a nigh infinite amount of clueless bodies at a target. Speaking of which, Shadowheart was in a group of Shar worshippers that got sent on this mission. I wonder if they also got the mind wipe treatment?
Wonder how Shadowheart takes this given the former conversation? A bit timely.
A long rest? Never heard of it.
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cliffc999
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Since I am trying to have time progress logically instead of having the world wait forever until a quest flag is tripped, Hawke feels a need to expedite sometimes.
Karmic Acumen
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Cauthrien was deus ex buffed for that encounter because the game really wants you to go to jail. She's nowhere near as impressive otherwise.
Velk
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She had a very good nap before hand.
Never played DA and have not seen any scenes.
TheChairIsAgainstTheWall
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Nicely done on the Goblin camp: as many options as the gave you, there are always more.
But there is terror and desolation! You've missed both Scratch and the Owlbar Cub! What is Shadowbae supposed to do without her pets?
But there is terror and desolation! You've missed both Scratch and the Owlbar Cub! What is Shadowbae supposed to do without her pets?
Prince Chrom
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Was that Varric or Isabella? It's been some time since I last played DA2.
And Hawke is immediately suspicious. And that's without him knowing about the faction on Thedas that does mind wipes.
cliffc999
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I was thinking Varric.
If you mean the Qun, I was actually having Hawke know at least a little about it. He certainly has a strong interest in 'know thy enemy' re: the Qun, and he was at Skyhold long enough to at least briefly talk with The Iron Bull.
Plus, of course, the part where in addition to the qunari's non-magical methods, on Thedas the magical methods of mental manipulation are largely the province of blood magic.
Kagha is a full-blown traitor to the Druids. If you don't interfere with the situation when you first enter the Grove, or blow the dialogue checks, Arabella panics and tries to run and then Kagha's poison snake kills her. And Kagha doesn't blink at it.
Furthermore, when Olodan tells Kagha it's time to 'burn the rot out of the Grove', she means cold-bloodedly massacreing all the tieflings. Kagha's not just isolationist and paranoid, she's a straight-up 'non-druid lives don't matter - slaughter them without guilt'.
At this point Kagha goes beyond manipulated to mass murdering asshole, and I stopped even trying to take Kagha alive once I found this out. I don't even see her turning back at fourth and last if you make the Persuade check as 'redemption' so much as I see it as 'Kagha has no spine'.
Or to put it another way, when the literally mindwiped cultist who was lifelong brainwashed by some of the most evil assholes in Faerun is still feeling hella guilty after a purge of the grove, Kagha's willingness to massacre the tieflings without shedding a tear is even more horrific than otherwise.
Seriously, look up video sometimes of how Shadowheart reacts if an evil Tav goes with helping Minthara purge the grove for real - she spends the victory celebration trying to get blackout drunk as quickly as humanly possible because she emotionally cannot deal with what she's just done. An illithid mind probe will confirm that for all her superficial lack of concern, she's tormented by it - even despite the fact that by Shar's teachings, she shouldn't be.
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Prince Chrom
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Yeah, that tracks for him.
I was thinking the Qun yes, but good point about Blood Magic. And if he did talk with The Iron Bull, Bull would probably share that. Hawke is good at getting people to tell him things.
BigBad
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The qunari process is more alchemical lobotomy than a true mindwipe. Those who suffer the effects of qamek require constant supervision because they can't take care of themselves. They're like living zombies. Blood mages are the true mind-wipers, and it's actually the reason blood magic is so feared. Sure, sacrifices are creepy, but the mind control is what keeps templars up at night.
Poor Shadowheart has been getting repeatedly mindwiped for something like 40 years.
Poor Shadowheart has been getting repeatedly mindwiped for something like 40 years.
Prince Chrom
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Bull was mindwiped and is still fully functional. Overuse of it might cause that, but it doesn't do that at base.
