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

[BigBad]

Bull was mindwiped and is still fully functional. Overuse of it might cause that, but it doesn't do that at base.

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Bull was reconditioned, not mindwiped. Regular old psychological programming, which is the preferred method of the Qun. Very small doses of qamek can induce limited or temporary effects, but it's also so painful that there's one variation they use as a terror weapon, saar-qamek.

 

[Yacov]

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'.

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Looking back, I think Kagha was less a zealot of the Shadow Druid philosophy and more just lacking any form of convictions. Kagha seemed to be a coward who was willing to go along with whomever was able to sufficiently intimidate her. A model pack member and follower rather than a pack leader. The wolf that responds to social confrontation by showing their belly.

When Halsin disappears, Kahga is left without the person that has been commanding her for probably most of her life. I would like to think Kahga hadn't been in communication with the Shadow Druids before this. The Shadow Druids just put out some routine feelers after the change in leadership and she folded immediately.

It helps that the Thorn Ritual probably aligns with Kagha's desires. It is a ritual whose main purpose is to hide from danger. It allows Kagha to hide from danger and responsibility while having the excuse of saying it is for the good of the Grove. The reason Kagha directs the entire Grove's efforts to completing the ritual to the detriment of everything else is that is what will keep her safe.

When the artifact is stolen, Kahga listens to her new leaders for instruction and attempts to execute a child. At this point the party can show up where they are able to be threatening or show public opinion in the Grove is turning against her. Without being able to contact the Shadow Druids for guidance in public, Kagha's conviction that "the child must die" crumples like a paper bag.

Trying to persuade Kagha during the confrontation most likely has less to do with convincing her that the Shadow Druids are wrong, and more about offering her a lifeline to escape the situation with her life. A lifeline which Kagha eagerly grabs onto if she feels the Shadow Druids are a sinking ship as it will keep her alive.

If Kagha lives and Halsin returns, she takes Halsin taking charge and demoting her back to novice with only token resistance. Why should Kagha be particularly upset? She now has someone she believes is powerful giving the orders, making the hard decisions for her, and most importantly keeping her safe. That is all I think Kagha wanted in the end.

 

[cliffc999]

Looking back, I think Kagha was less a zealot of the Shadow Druid philosophy and more just lacking any form of convictions. Kagha seemed to be a coward who was willing to go along with whomever was able to sufficiently intimidate her. A model pack member and follower rather than a pack leader. The wolf that responds to social confrontation by showing their belly.

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I agree, but that's still enough to make me want to saw her head off. When you so utterly lack conviction that you can't even stick with a basic 'mass murder of noncombatants is wrong' then you get no clemency, nor deserve any. We all know the Nuremberg precedent.

Although it is instructive to note that in this story Diplomatic Hawke offered the Shadow Druids a chance to just walk away, and Olodan chose violence instead.

When Halsin disappears, Kahga is left without the person that has been commanding her for probably most of her life. I would like to think Kahga hadn't been in communication with the Shadow Druids before this.

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She had to have been. Halsin is lost on the same day that Tav arrives at the Grove, but there's already been time for at least one exchange of letters to get all the way to the Cloakwood and back. And that's a long walk.

 

[Yacov]

She had to have been. Halsin is lost on the same day that Tav arrives at the Grove, but there's already been time for at least one exchange of letters to get all the way to the Cloakwood and back. And that's a long walk.

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Wait, things start falling apart in less than a day once Kagha is left in charge? I thought Halsin's departure and Adrian's stragglers coming pack at least took a couple of days, if not a week. Kagha couldn't even wait 24 hours after Halsin leaves before enacting her (the Shadow Druids') plan?

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

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

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

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

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

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Reading back to Chapter 3, the Grove gets news Halsin is missing in action the same time Hawke and party fend off the goblins. Kagha's already announced her intentions to do the ritual and kick out the tieflings before the goblins even found them.

Kagha went full isolationist before she knew Halsin is missing. Halsin just told the Druids he was leaving to help Adrian's party and I assume within a few hours Kagha was gathering materials and making preparations for the Thorn Ritual and yelling at the refugees.

 

[BigBad]

She wanted to finish the ritual so quickly because it had to be done before Halsin returned or Daddy gets his belt.

 

[cliffc999]

Wait, things start falling apart in less than a day once Kagha is left in charge?

Click to shrink...

In canon, the news that Halsin has gone missing in the goblin's lair reaches the Grove literally at the same moment Tav does - Aradin and the survivors of the adventuring party are the ones trapped outside the gate when Tav arrives to start the encounter.

Kagha was already starting her Rite of Thorns BS the instant Halsin left, apparently with the intent of rushing it to completion before he returned. She couldn't have known he wasn't expected to return until after the adventurers got there. (add) I wonder what her original plan for making sure Halsin was gone so that she could become First Druid was. Likely an assassination, with Olodan and her team helping.

My device of 'Kagha pulled in the scouts so as to increase pressure on the Grove and make people more desperately clutch at her straws' is an invention of my story, but I'm having fun filling in blanks like that.

 

[Domino]

You also gotta keep in mind that if the Rite of Thorns ritual goes off and the Grove is put at the mercy of the Shadow Druids, there is 100% gonna be a nonzero number of druids who will not be okay with their new overlords who will get murdered off by the Shadow Druids as part of their purges. Even if she is unaware of it, Kagha has 100% decided that she is willing to kill off anyone who doesn't unquestioningly side with her.

 

[cliffc999]

Minor correction to the last chapter - as it turns out, Shadowheart did not grow up in Moonhaven as a child. I misinterpreted several lore bits and was off on the timeline as well. Text has been edited to compensate.

 

[cliffc999]

"Curse the necessity for this haste!" Minthara swore viciously as we strode through the halls of the ruined temple to the chamber where Dror Ragzlin had set up his own private quarters. "Assembling a force as chaotic as these goblins is not an easy task at the best of times. If I had a day to prepare, I could amass twice the forces we have available now." She turned to me, her eyes narrowing. "You stated that you had scouted the Grove's defenders and defenses. List them for me."

I gave her a mostly truthful account of what she was up against, although everything was carefully understated enough to give as optimistic a picture - from Minthara's point of view - as possible without any blatant lying. "So it depends on the size of your quick-reaction force. Will we have enough to overcome defenses of that magnitude, or do we need to wait for the full host after all?"

Minthara turned away from me and lengthened her stride by way of answer. "Dror Ragzlin!" she called out as we entered his chambers. The hobgoblin warlord was a large red-skinned humanoid, with a face and features that were visibly related to his lesser cousins but twice their size and three times as muscular. "The Grove has been located, but those incompetent idiots in the worg pens let the druid escape! We must move quickly!"

"That druid had been tortured to where he could barely move." Ragzlin growled. "How did he-?"

"Leave that for Gut to determine. We must assemble all available forces and depart for the Grove by first light." Minthara ordered.

"So hasty?" he questioned. "Why not wait until the full horde can be recalled and concentrated? And who are these people?" he looked at us.

"True Soul Anthor, leader of one of the search teams called in from elsewhere to help find the weapon." I introduced myself. "And also, the scouts who found the Grove for you."

"Here." Minthara ordered us, moving over to stand by Ragzlin's map table. "Debrief us both of what you found there, in detail." I did so - fortunately, I'd had enough military experience to be able to make it sound very convincing.

"Hm." Ragzlin rubbed his chin. "I can have at least fifty swords mustered by dawn just from what's within signaling distance of the fortress, and still leave a minimum fort guard behind. Add in several of Gut's apprentices, unless you want to take her along too-"

"No." Minthara said. "Just try to imagine the chaos those idiots would get up to without at least one of us here to properly supervise them."

"Agreed. Your spiders, three of my ogres - pity we lost all the damn worgs in that druid's breakout-" Ragzlin shook his head. "Even with Anthor's party added to ours... against the numbers he described, it'll be iffy. We should wait for the full muster."

"That would give us well over double the swords, but would also give the druids an extra day to prepare." Minthara said. Damn! I didn't want them to actually do the sensible thing, but what could I- I laughed inwardly when I realized that Kagha's treason and stupidity would actually prove useful for once.

"When I was scouting the Grove, several of them were debating the wisdom of casting something they called the 'Rite of Thorns'." I contributed. "Some kind of magical defense, apparently, but I don't know what kind."

"I have heard of it." Minthara swore urgently. "Damn! How long ago did they start the ritual?"

"They hadn't started it, at least not while I was there. They were just debating whether or not to use it. Something about how it would be very expensive and take several days to complete."

"I'm assuming this ritual is not a good thing." Ragzlin asked.

"No." Minthara said. "Should the druids complete it, it would make the Grove impenetrable. And we must presume that the Druid Halsin will order them to begin immediate preparations once he makes it back there. We cannot let them have enough time to finish it!"

"Then the hasty attack it is." Ragzlin nodded resignedly. "But we won't have enough troops to guarantee success in a siege, not against those odds." He looked up at me. "You said you got in once. Can your team get in again, and open the gate for us from the inside?"

"If we can get in, then certainly." I nodded to him matter-of-factly. "But that presumes that this Halsin won't order a lockdown the instant he gets back there. And we can't base the success or failure of the entire plan solely on assuming that he won't."

"You are correct, we cannot." Minthara nodded at me. "Anthor's team will attempt infiltration first, but the sappers will be prepared to blow the gates open for us should that not be an option." she finished decisively.

"Minthara, you know how touchy that stuff is to transport." Ragzlin growled. "I don't even like storing it here."

"Then make sure the goblins carrying it don't all clump together - and don't stand too closely to any of them." Minthara replied with a cold smile.

"As you wish." he nodded. "I'll get out to the main courtyard and start dragging those drunken idiots out of their tents. You can start assembling the spellcasters and the siege engineers." He nodded to us and left.

"Your squad will march with the command group." Minthara ordered us imperiously.

"Of course." I told her. "This is your assigned area of operation - we're just here as support."

"Good." she finished with a cold hiss, and we followed her out of the room.

Ragzlin proved as good as his word and had the entire camp rousted out and assembled in reasonably good marching order by first light. The chaos of the preparations gave us an opportunity to send word back to the Grove - no one would notice the absence of one of our group for a short period of time so long as the rest of us were in plain view, and with a travelstone available both just outside the Grove's gates and in the courtyard here Wyll was able to pop there and back here in just a few minutes. My written message to Zevlor and Rath told them how many troops were marching and what kind, what the intended march route was, our estimated time of departure - and several last-minute refinements I'd cooked up for the plan once I'd known exatly what we were dealing with.

Minthara, Dror Ragzlin, and myself drew up the outline of an attack plan for the Grove based on the information that I'd brought them, and then they briefed the goblin squad leaders. I smiled to myself as I saw the several goblin sapper teams carefully spacing themselves out among the column, and as soon as everyone reported their readiness the march set out.

Minthara ordered us to stick close to her, and so we formed a little command group at the head of the second platoon. The first platoon was being led by Dror Ragzlin, who wanted to remain close to the vanguard. With the worgs dead the usual practice of having the column preceded by mounted scouts was no longer operative, so a sacrificial squad of goblins was being chivvied ahead with Ragzlin and his platoon close enough behind them to keep them from lollygagging but far enough away to not get caught in any ambush they might spring.

"It is a risk, advancing through this territory without any scouts." Minthara said to me as she noted where I was looking.

I nodded but remained diplomatically silent. She considered me carefully through narrowed eyes, and I drew upon everything I had to avoid giving anything away. Maker, that time I managed to convince an entire Carta hit team into sitting down and having tea with me instead was nothing as compared to this.

"You seem very reluctant to contribute." she finally continued.

"What, suggestions?" I answered her. "I didn't think you'd welcome any. You have a very - firm - command style."

"Hrm." Minthara relaxed slightly. "Yes, with rabble such as this, harsh rigor is all they understand. But you are a True Soul, an elite of the Absolute. You should not be so... diffident."

"I hadn't considered the problem that losing all your worgs would pose." I pretended to admit fault. "Without scouts, we should have delayed - tried to sneak through in a night march. As is, we can't possibly search Moonhaven for any observation outposts they left - not on foot - without their scouts having a chance to get away from us." I shrugged. "So if it can't be helped, then we don't even try to. I recommend that as soon as we're safely through Moonhaven we close up the column, started a forced-march, and get to the Grove as fast as we can. Even if they have scouts out, they won't have enough warning to seal off the Grove before we get there."

"You don't think I should use your group to scout ahead?" Minthara probed.

"Do we look like a stealth outfit?" I jerked a thumb at our group, particularly the hulking figure of Karlach and the metal-armored Lae'zel and Shadowheart. "A scout or a rogue is the one type of talent I don't have. We're intended to be dungeon-clearers, a strike team."

"In the Underdark, even the mightiest warriors are expected to also be adept in the shadows." Minthara said scornfully. "Surface ways are crude." she sniffed disdainfully, her apparent suspicions easing off a bit. "Very well - the bold approach it is."

At her order the goblin column stepped up the pace and we double-timed into the ruins of Moonhaven like we were assaulting the breach in a stronghold wall. Squads of goblins ran into and checked the buildings on each side of the path as clear, making sure no ambush forces were hiding within, before Ragzlin ordered the main column to advance through the wet and muddy village square.

"If it's coming, it's coming now." I said tautly, angrily swatting away a fly as I looked up up at the rooftops. Minthara nodded, her hand tense on her own weapon. And one endless moment passed... two... three...

"Nothing." Minthara nodded with satisfaction. "At the trot - ADVANCE!" she bellowed in a parade-ground voice, and the entire column snapped into motion. We picked up the pace to match her jogging stride, Dror Ragzlin closing up on us as the command group preceded the main body across the eastern bridge out of Moonhaven. The Grove lay less than an hour ahead of us-

"What's that?" Shadowheart called out suddenly, looking over the side. "Something's under the bridge!"

"Column HALT!" Ragzlin shouted, as Minthara and we ran over to where she was pointing. The command group was barely a third of the way across the bridge, with the rest of the column strung out behind us and leading back through the town gates.

"I see nothing!" Minthara said, reaching Shadowheart's side and leaning over to look where she was pointing. "What are you-"

And then Karlach shoved Minthara solidly in the back with her full strength, sending the dark elf flying over the bridge's low railing and almost fifty feet down into the ravine.

Ragzlin was fast, his sword already halfway out of his scabbard even before he could finish drawing a breath, but we'd already been moving as soon as Minthara was in position. My greatsword smashed down into his armor right over the collarbone, sending him staggering back with one arm hanging limply loose, and everybody else moved as one.

Our ambush plan had taken a last-minute refinement as soon as I'd smelled the barrels that the sapper teams had been transporting. While they called it 'smokepowder' here on Faerun I was already very familiar with that smell - the qunari had used the alchemical preparation they called gaatlok in their cannons, and in bombs both for siegework and mining. Anders had somehow managed to concoct a crude copy of gaatlok when he blew up the Kirkwall Chantry. And the forces of the Absolute had had a storeroom of it in the ruined temple, multiple barrels of which they'd been packing along in the column for blowing open the gates of the Grove with.

However, the precautions Minthara had used to keep any accident with the smokepowder from destroying all of it - by having the barrels of it each carried separately by widely separated goblins - meant that they were in the worst position to withstand deliberate sabotage and treason. While normally the goblins gave the smokepowder transporters as wide a berth as possible - they were more than familiar with that stuff - the column had been forced to assume a tightly packed formation prepatory to crossing the one bridge leading out of Moonhaven towards the Grove. And so, when Gale fired a simple flame cantrip into the nearest barrel-carrier, it not only immediate killed the ogre transporting it but laid down a blast that cleared out over a dozen goblins around it.

The several druids who'd been carefully prepositioned in Moonhaven, shapeshifted into the forms of cats and small birds and perching on the rooftops of the buildings the goblin flankers had so laboriously swept for intruders, resumed their true forms and all cast the Call Lightning spells they'd so carefully prepared the day before. With the dirt of the village square having been pre-soaked by Create Water spells shortly before our arrival, the effectiveness of the lightning was multiplied severalfold and spread out over a wider area. Almost two-thirds of the goblins in the column fell dead, electrocuted in the very first strike of the ambush - as well as exploded by the detonation of the several other smokepowder caches spaced down the length of the column, as they followed Gale's example and used magic to ignite the barrels the ogres were so laboriously hauling along in back harnesses.

"Now!" I heard Zevlor's voice in the distance, as the tieflings charged in. Since we had bet on Minthara being smart enough to sweep Moonhaven before taking her column through it we'd left them ahead of the line of march, waiting just out of sight from the end of the bridge around the curve of the path. As soon as they heard the fighting start they charged in, and their archers set up a firing line while Zevlor and the several tieflings with actual military experience charged in on foot to help us hold the head of the bridge.

I finished killing Dror Ragzlin with no more than a couple of shallow cuts to show for it - he'd been quite good, but there was only so much you could do with one arm and when caught by surprise - and nodded to Zevlor and the rest of my party. With howling battle-cries we charged back down the bridge as the druids used their lesser magics to harass the goblins, and one of them used a Plant Growth spell to summon a large mass of entangling vines and nettles on the gate leading west out of Moonhaven and back to the goblin fortress. With the goblins bereft of leadership, stunned by the explosions and the sudden deaths of over half their number before they could even fire an arrow back in response, and entirely uncomprehending of why 'True Souls' they'd been told to obey were suddenly aiding their enemies - and with no clear line of retreat out of Moonhaven except south into the swamp or north towards the winding paths we'd used the day before - we slaughtered them almost to a man, with very light casualties ourselves.

"I cannot believe that worked so well." Gale said wonderingly. "There were dozens of them, and yet-"

"We had quite a few advantages you don't normally have in war." I pointed out. "But yes, there is absolutely nothing more devastating then thinking you're the one who is going to surprise the enemy, and then being counter-ambushed at your most complacent."

"Indeed." Lae'zel said admiringly, as she saluted me with her bloodied sword. "Your battle-cunning is worthy of any kith'rak, Hawke. I am honored to have been part of such a crushing victory this day."

"It certainly beats defeat." Shadowheart said agreeably. "But this is only one step towards a greater objective. Come on. I really doubt Minthara got very far - especially considering how roughly I saw her land - but we'd better make certain of that."

Reaching the bottom of the low ravine was easily enough done by taking a side path away from the bridge and switchbacking down a bit, and the limp form of Minthara lying prone on the bank of the creek confirmed the truth of Shadowheart's words - she certainly hadn't walked away from that landing. However, as we drew close we were all taken quite aback to note that despite having fallen over fifty feet down onto dirt and sharp rocks, she was still alive. Both of her legs had been broken in the fall, she almost certainly had spinal damage, and she was coughing up blood from where several broken ribs had been driven into a lung, but she was still conscious.

"Do I heal her?" Shadowheart asked me quickly. "If she's still alive, she can talk."

"Let me die." Minthara coughed weakly, her lips wet and reddened. "... please." she surprised us, the word falling clumsily from her lips as if she had not pronounced it in years.

"No. You are not taking your god's secrets with you." I shook my head. "Shadowheart-"

"The Absolute." Minthara said softly. "The Absolute... is no god."

We all jawdropped at that.

Minthara shocked us by smiling, even if there was a distinct edge to it. "Are you shocked?" she whispered. "You should be... as I was... no!" she gasped urgently, as Shadowheart leaned forward. "My mind is clear... only because... I am dying. If you heal me..." she coughed again. "It will... take me again."

"The True Souls are also being mentally influenced?" I asked her. "Not just the rank and file cultists?"

"Not influenced." she said weakly. "Enslaved. The Absolute's voice... drowning out everything... blinding... when it spoke... we could only believe, only obey-" She looked up at us, her eyes full of a terrible confusion. "How do you... not hear it?" She begged us. "How do you... remain free?"

"We don't know." I told her. "We've never heard any voices."

"Fortune... favors you." Minthara gasped. "I was Minthara, of House Baenre... a noble of Menzoberranzan. The cult of the Absolute sent... missionaries, to our city." Her lip curled scornfully. "I slew them... for preaching their sedition. And then... I led my forces... to Moonrise Towers... to slay those who sent them..." She looked at me. "I remember meeting a goddess' chosen... learning that the Spider Queen was a false god... the true order of the cosmos... a majestic and terrible goddess, choosing me-" She looked up at us desperately. "Those memories... are false." She coughed. "I know not... what truly happened. But I have held the favor of Lolth... and lost it... and with my mind now clear... the Absolute's regard... but a pale imitation..."

"They placed a mind flayer parasite in your brain." Shadowheart said to her. "As they did to all of us. Some sort of delayed ceremorphosis, to create sleeper agents. That is what they did to your mind. That is the truth of the Absolute."

"Thank you... child of shadow..." Minthara smiled at her. "That mystery... would have haunted me."

"How did you-?" Shadowheart asked, shocked.

"I was the Spider Queen's paladin..." Minthara replied knowingly. "I too... can sense the divine. And I have known... your kind before-" she broke off, hacking weakly.

"You don't have long." I said to her. "Start with the most important."

"The Absolute... cannot hear us." Minthara said. "Only... speak to us. It will not know... what you have done here. Unless someone else... brings it word." She lay back, limp from the effort. "The path to Moonrise... leads through the shadow-cursed lands. We used the moon lanterns... for safe passage." Her eyes closed, briefly, then opened again. "There is little else... that I know for certain. The past months... are all blurred now. As if a dream..."

"Thank you." I told her sincerely.

Minthara reached up to weakly clasp my hand. "Lolth... the Absolute..." she said, her eyes now frightened. "One true goddess... and one false... but both discarded me... when I was no longer of use. They have no true followers... only victims... like me." She sighed. "And now, I will die... and no one will remember me."

"We will remember you, Minthara of House Baenre." I promised her, and the rest of us all nodded in affirmation.

"Thank you." she breathed almost inaudibly, before her hand clenched on mine with a horrible spasm. "I could still linger... for a time..." she breathed heavily. "But I... do not wish to. Your mercy... if you would."

I slowly drew my dagger and held it up in front of her eyes, and she nodded. I drew back for the final stroke-

Her eyes never looked away from mine. "Avenge us!" she barked wetly, her final command, and I drove the dagger home.

I sighed. "She was an evil, murdering fanatic... even before she was tadpoled, if what I read about Lolth is correct-"

Shadowheart and Gale both nodded.

"But why do I feel...?" I trailed off, not certain of what I felt.

"Because we were meant to share her fate, and yet we were spared it." Lae'zel said musingly. "And doubt plagues our hearts, as to whether or not we were saved by merit or by mere caprice."

"Shit, my heart's made out of infernal iron and even I teared up a bit." Karlach agreed. "We're... we're not just going to leave her here, are we?"

"No." I resolved. "If the druids won't agree to have her buried in the grove, we'll use the graveyard right here in Moonhaven. Either way, at least she'll have a memorial."

We rigged a litter for Minthara's body and began bearing it up the path. Despite the mournful moment we'd just had, the revelation that the Absolute was merely some type of mind flayer plot and not an actual new god was a comforting one-

-and then if felt as if one of those smokepowder barrels had detonated right between my ears, and I fell to my knees and clutched my head in agony. Around me I could simply see every other member of the party doing the same-

Hear My voice. Obey My command. an imperious female voice rang in our ears without sound. I recognized the same sense of eldritch Authority that I'd projected on others via my tadpole... only infinitely stronger, and now being used to crush me-

The world faded away, leaving me stuck in a dark, featureless void. There was nothing that could be seen, or felt, or heard, or sensed. Just an infinity of blackness, and The Voice.

A dim light made me look up from where I was helplessly prostrate, and I saw the images of three people looming over me. A white-haired elven man in full plate armor, with the broad shoulders and thick-muscled arms of a much younger warrior... a young woman, impossibly pale of skin and eyes, with a disturbing smile and lips the color of blood... and a handsome young nobleman, dressed in foppish finery...

THEY ARE MY CHOSEN. THEY SPEAK FOR ME. the Voice - the voice of the Absolute, I realized with horror - irresistibly demanded, and I felt my soul start to tear apart with the effort of disobeying-

AID THEIR SEARCH FOR THE PRISM, AND YOU WILL BE WORTHY TO STAND ALONGSIDE THEM. IN MY PRESENCE. the Absolute commanded... and I must not... I must not... I... must...

And then a high keening sound, that was not a sound, cut across the blackness and the Voice like a knife. The horrible grasping clutch upon our minds fell away, as if it was never there, and an awareness of the world around us returned to us. We were kneeling on the path, by the stream... next to Minthara's body...

.... and the artifact that Shadowheart had so carefully hidden away, the one that the church of Shar had stolen from the githyanki, was floating several feet off the ground in front of us. The once-silver runes on the polygon were now flaring a briliant fiery orange, with a similarly-colored aura of power surrounding the whole sphere, and we knew - we could sense - that the mysterious force the artifact... no, the Prism... was radiating was what was holding back the power of the Absolute, silencing the voice that Minthara had told us was 'drowning out everything' and 'blinding' her.

The voice that had come within seconds of enslaving us as well, until we'd been saved.

Shadowheart's eyes met mine embarassedly, and as unworthy as it was we couldn't help but share the same thought; at least we didn't have to figure out a way to keep the artifact a secret from the others any longer.

---

Rath, Zevlor, and the party found Halsin waiting for us at a vantage point above the fortress. We'd buried Minthara in the old Moonhaven graveyard before setting out for the ruined temple on foot - we hadn't wanted to use the travelstone because we'd have had no idea what we might be dropping into.

"Halsin!" Rath cried desperately, as he saw the burly form of the First Druid waiting for us at a vantage point above the fortress. "By the Oakfather, it is wonderful to see you alive!"

"And you as well, old friend." he said as they exchanged hugs. "Is the Grove safe?"

"Our new friend's plan worked like a charm." Rath reassured him. "The attack force was crushed. We didn't even have any dead, merely wounded."

"Then you have my eternal thanks." Halsin said, coming over to shake my hand. "The Grove owes you a debt almost beyond measure."

"Priestess Gut?" I asked him.

"Gone to explain her failings to her goddess in person." Halsin reassured me grimly. "I then left her corpse to be discovered and did a couple of other things to sow terror amongst the goblins. They were already halfway to panicking when one of the stragglers from your battle made it back here screaming about how utterly they'd been defeated. All of them packed up and ran for their lives after that."

"Just as we'd hoped." Zevlor agreed. "We confirmed Dror Ragzlin and Minthara both dead as well."

"Then you can search the goblin fortress for clues at your leisure." Halsin said. "But for tonight, I must insist you come back with me to the Grove. We have much to celebrate." His expression turned grim. "But first things first; you came to the Grove for help with your parasites. Let me examine you."

I acquiesced, and after a long searching minute where Halsin probed me with his magic he stepped back with a regretful expression on his face. "As I feared. Nettie was correct; powerful magic was used to alter your tadpoles. Ancient magic of a type I've never seen before. And I-" he coughed. "Am still not at my full strength. To keep me prisoner they weakened me, with exotic venoms and precise tortures. Healing magic has stabilized me, but I dare not exert my full strength until I have had some time to recover."

"Then the Grove is still in danger. Much has come to light since you left-" Rath said worriedly, and then briefly explained all that had gone on with Kagha.

Halsin sighed. "Shadow Druids. And if she were corresponding with the Cloakwood directly, then this must have been going on for much longer than any of us suspected. Certainly well before I ever joined Aradin's expedition to the old temple of Selune. I wonder how she was originally planning to get rid of me, before she rushed her plan towards completion because she thought the Cult of the Absolute had done it for her?"

"Probably why she'd smuggled Olodan and her friends into the Grove." I nodded. "As an assassination team for you, and enforcers to help kill or expel any of the rest who wouldn't go along."

"Almost certainly." Halsin sighed. "But the fact that I missed this... even were I not wounded and weakened, this alone means I could not stay First Druid of the Emerald Grove." He looked at Rath. "When I return, I will send a message to the High Forest, informing them of my decision and requesting them to dispatch a druid with sufficient seniority to replace me at the Grove. Francesca, I think." he said thoughtfully. "I've long admired her wisdom, and her lack of ties with anyone local will allow her to restore the Oakfather's true teachings to the Grove with true impartiality."

"If- if that is your decision, then of course." Rath agreed. "But you talk as if you are leaving us? Sure you can remain at the Grove to recuperate, even if you have temporarily stepped down from leadership?"

"I hope to go with them." he surprised us. "Their paths lead to Moonrise Towers, and so does mine. I had originally joined Aradin's expedition because I had hoped to find the passage to the Underdark that was rumored to exist in those ruins, and through them hopefully reach Moonrise now that the overland route is closed by the Shadow Curse."

"What is this Shadow Curse?" I questioned. "Everyone keeps talking about it, but no one will explain it."

"An old, sad story." Halsin said wearily. "Over a century ago, Moonrise Towers was a thriving community - a local bastion of civilization, as well as a religious center devoted to the worship of Selune, the moon goddess. Until a man named Ketheric Thorm turned traitor to his family and his goddess, and betrayed them to the Church of Shar."

I very carefully did not look in someone's direction. "Goddess of shadow. Shadow Curse. Now I begin to understand." I interjected, making sure to keep Halsin's attention on me.

"Precisely." he nodded sadly. "Thorm raised a force of Shar's militant knights, the Dark Justiciars, and with them scourged the surrounding land." He nodded back down the road. "Moonhaven itself was destroyed by one of their raids; this was before the Emerald Grove was established."

"You were there at its founding." Rath surprised me. Halsin didn't look that old-

Halsin noted my expression and tapped one of his pointed ears amusedly. "Even with only one elven parent, the lifespan is still extended quite a bit; even more so when one enjoys the blessings of Silvanus. But yes, the Grove was founded in response to the gathering threat to nature here posed by the shadow worshippers. Not that we were able to withstand them alone, of course. The Harpers contributed significantly as well - this was back when they were much more prevalent in the area then they are now. At any rate, the alliance of harp and wild managed to defeat Thorm and kill him. But his last spiteful act before dying was to call down the curse of his goddess on the land, twisting and despoiling Moonrise Towers and the adjacent town into an area where nothing could live for long."

"And yet the Absolute seems to have its headquarters there. Minthara told us before she died that they used artifacts called 'moon lanterns' to pass safely through the shadow curse, but that doesn't explain how they can live among it."

"You managed to question her?" Halsin inquired.

"Yes, but we didn't get much before she died." Shadowheart said softly. "She did confirm that she was 'initiated' into the cult there, though."

"As has every other bearer of the tadpole we've questioned, save for you." Halsin agreed. "At any rate, that was the birth of the Shadow Curse. Since then it has waxed and waned, sometimes expanding out over the entire district, sometimes confined solely to Moonrise Towers and immediate environs. Occasionally it draws near enough to the Risen Road for undead to harass the traffic to Baldur's Gate." He sighed mournfully. "I've sought for decades to find a way into Moonrise Towers and hopefully break the curse, but my responsibilities have precluded it... and I never found a way to safely travel there. And this is why I would very much like to accompany you - you have an even more compelling need than I to go there, and at least some clues as to how you can find the way."

"Somebody certainly has to stop the Absolute, and our tadpole infiltration trick made us very useful for doing that here, but why do you say we have to go to Moonrise?" I tried to draw him out.

"Because until a way is found to understand and neutralize the magic that has been used to alter your tadpoles, no one can remove them from your heads without killing you." Halsin said. "I couldn't have hoped to pull that off even at my fullest powers, let alone as I am now. And even if I took you to the High Forest and the Archdruids, I don't think you'd have much more luck there. In addition to the part where no one knows how much time you have before the remission of your ceremorphosis ends. Which means either you penetrate Moonrise Towers soon, or no one does. I can't take anyone else from the Grove with me, I can't do it alone... and I don't think anyone else is coming."

"I was afraid you'd say that." I agreed ruefully. Because yes, I'd already done much of that math myself.

"We can plan the exact details of our journey to Moonrise later. For now, I want to search the ruins for any further clues - as well as locate that Underdark passage, if possible. We'll very likely need that later." Halsin said.

"I'm curious; you came here looking for that Underdark passage, but why were Aradin's adventurers here?" Gale asked.

"To find the same thing, if for an entirely different reason." Halsin explained as we walked. "They were hired by a wizard in Baldur's Gate to find an artifact called 'the Nightsong', which had according to lore been buried in the Underdark nearby. I had no interest in their quest, but since they had a map that purported to show the location of the entrance, I offered my assistance." He looked up at the ruined temple as we drew nearer. "But that didn't go as planned."

"No, it didn't. Not for you, and not for them." I said, wincing as I thought again of that brave boy Liam's fate. My guilt was only made worse by how Minthara - as evil as she was - had begged for death as the only method of escaping the voice of the Absolute, only for us to discover exactly how to block out the Absolute's voice barely after her body had hit the ground. I was just getting so damned tired of always being too late to save people. But it's not as if you could bring back the-

"You go on ahead." I said to the druids. "I want to go see to Liam's body."

"Of course." Halsin agreed, and we split up.

"You look very determined for a man who's simply heading off on a burial detail." Shadowheart looked at me inquiringly. "And walking very briskly as well."

"There comes a point at which a man just gets too damn frustrated with things to keep being sensible." I said. "So either I'm about to pull off a miracle, or you're all about to have a very great laugh."

Lae'zel looked at me narrowly. "If your absurd sentimentality somehow raises the dead, I swear to Vlaakith I will scream!"

I grinned crookedly back at her. "It's like you know me." We reached the body of Liam where it still hung in the torture rack we'd originally found him on, and he was starting to get more than a little ripe by now. "Withers! You said you'd be around, so I'd like a word."

"I said that I would resurrect those of thy party, and naught more." Withers replied, turning up out of a nearby dark corner as if he'd always been there. "This lad has never met thee in life, let alone accompanied thy party."

"And yet I would very much like if you did it anyway." I asked him. "Please."

"No." Withers said flatly.

"Have you fully thought this through?" I said to him probingly. "You have a purpose - a divine purpose - in offering your services to our party. But it's no good to offer them if we don't accept them."

"Thy emotional blackmail is transparent, and also futile." Withers said.

"Not emotional blackmail. Logical blackmail." I said flatly. "Because I'm from a world where raising the dead is impossible, and I'm never going to pay good coin to someone who claims he can do something so entirely out of my experience before they've actually proven to me that they can."

Withers stared at me, and while his expression didn't flicker a bit he certainly didn't look happy at the turn the conversation had just taken.

"And of course, if I'm never going to ask you for help, then you might as well not be here. And you need to be here." I finished.

"Thou are not alone in thy party." Withers said, looking at the others.

"Oh if you think any of us are going to ruin this, then you're out of your undead mind!" Wyll laughed. "No way we're spoiling the joke!"

Withers stared back at us, before impatiently turning towards the rack. "Understand that this tactic will only work once." he said flatly, and then materialized a large iron-bound book in his hands. "By doom and dusk, I strike thy name from the archives! Rise!" he intoned hieratically, and with a flare of magic the corpse of Liam vanished...

... to reappear standing in front of us, alive and healthy and fully armed and armored. Even the fingers the goblin torturers had cut off of him were all restored.

"Ahhh!" he screamed, as Withers discreetly vanished again before Liam was cognizant enough to spot him. "No more! Gods, no more-" The boy shook off his shock. "What- rescuers?" he focused on us. "Aradin? The others? Are they all right?"

"UNBELIEVABLE!" Lae'zel howled, before lapsing back into sullen resignation.

"Aradin made it back to the Grove with two of the others - a young woman and a white-haired man. I didn't get their names, sorry." I refocused Liam's attention on me.

"Remira and Barth." Liam replied. "Brian was a dwarf, not a human - you couldn't have missed him."

"We saw the body of a dwarf in the courtyard." Lae'zel said softly. "You likely do not want to know all that the goblins did to him."

"Damn." Liam swore. "But look, you had the magic to resurrect me-"

"We had one use of that magic." I said. "And I'm sorry, but we didn't know about your friend."

"Then- why me?" he asked, eyes wide with shock and puzzlement. "Why would you use something that precious on me? I'm- I'm nobody!"

"You withstood torture for longer than many hardened warriors I've seen- that I've known of- without giving up the Grove. All to save many innocent people you didn't even know, or who didn't like you." Shadowheart said. "Hawke very much admired you for that."

"And- and I could have saved your life before you died, if only I'd tried to infiltrate the temple earlier instead of putting it off while I finished something else first." I continued.

"I don't feel like a hero." Liam said, focusing on the first part of my remark. "I don't feel anything like one."

"I never have either." I told him wisely. "Even when everybody was calling me one."

"And even when they were right to do so." Gale supported me.

Fortunately, being dead and alive again was somehow good for shock treatment because while Liam still had some very unpleasant memories from his days of torture to deal with, he wasn't the psychological wreck that I would have expected. Also, whatever the hell Withers used to resurrect people, it left them with no memories of the time they'd been dead, so at least that particular mystery of reality - what truly lay beyond the gates of mortality - wasn't being shattered for us either.

"What in Silvanus' name?" Halsin asked, looking at the now-alive Liam incredulously. "How- what happened?" he goggled at us.

"You're the druid!" Liam greeted him. "They had you prisoner too! I'm glad you survived, sir."

"And I am so very glad to see you alive again, lad." Halsin agreed enthusiastically.

"Well, I'm glad someone is." Liam said ruefully. "My party's gone off and left me- not that I blame them, they thought I was dead- and now that I've been through all this, I don't feel like this is what I should do anymore. Tomb raidin' and all, that is."

"With the courage and the compassion that you've shown, certainly not." Halsin agreed. "Come back with us to the Grove. I can think of several friends and allies that I could recommend you to, depending on what sort of opportunity would interest you."

"Won't turn that down, sir." Liam said. "So, what are we doing now?"

"For right now, trying to find that secret entrance Aradin was looking for so we can use it later." I explained to him. "And then, heading back to the Grove for a victory celebration."

"And I'll drink to that!" Karlach broke in boisterously.

---

Author's Note: Minthara doesn't get to be a party member, but I felt I had to pay tribute to how well-written a party member she was for the Tavs who went that route by at the very least giving her a good death scene. And so, she dies with her mind clear of the tadpole just long enough to say goodbye. Her "And nobody would remember me" dialogue cutscene from BG3 was a particular inspiration, even if I took her dying words from Trilla in Jedi: Fallen Order.

Even if I did take her out with a single Shove maneuver, by far one of the most powerful attacks in BG3. *g*

And yes, Hawke blew his one free resurrection on a minor NPC. Hawke really had way too much of that 'getting there just too late to save someone' BS in Kirkwall and while he can't always get past that in the Realms, he's still going to go out of his way to give Fate a poke in the eye just once if he can. Besides, it's fun to make Withers pout. No, Liam isn't joining the party either. Kid's like level one, he can't keep up. But he'll get something nice.

Amusingly, you actually can pretend to betray the Grove in the game and then use that to sucker the goblins into a big ambush, even if engine limitations mean you have to do the betrayal five battle at the gate of the Grove instead of hitting them on the march. And they actually did have ogres carrying smokepowder barrels for use as siege artillery, and it's fun to make them pop. Or just to seed the ambush ground in advance with thirty exploding barrels you painstakingly carted in and the NPCs entirely ignore because game logic. I'm not going to be that absurd with barrelmancy due to using story logic and not game logic, but it's not BG3 if you don't do some.

And you actually can make a lightning spell kill harder by laying down a Create Water pool first; putting the Wet condition on a mob makes it Vulnerable to electricity.

In-game, Halsin is not weakened from his goblin captivity. I'm throwing that in to explain why the hell he's not leaving the camp ever while riding along, which is something BG3 didn't bother to explain between the too-long a gap of time from when Halsin joins the party camp to when he actually becomes a selectable party member. Even if he's still not being a permanent party member, I hate plot holes.

But hey, just because we're finished with saving the Grove and defeating the goblins doesn't mean we leave Act One just yet. Even with the sidequests I'm ignoring, we've still got things to take care of.

 

[TyricGaias]

Hawke pulled a 12th Doctor. Love it

 

[Kalesin]

So, bloodsucker's dead? Idk if that has been answered or not.

Also, with frog girl being so impressed I look forward to Hawke being proposed some sexy tume, lol.

On another note, any advice on some other good BG3 fics? Maybe even some pathfinder wotr? Somehow it hard to find good fics on these two games.

 

[cliffc999]

So, bloodsucker's dead? Idk if that has been answered or not.

Click to shrink...

As mentioned in the AN for Chapter 3, Astarion will not be recruited to the party. So he's off doing whatever he does in a playthrough where Tav never goes to the part of the map that gets the encounter that recruits him. (Which IIRC is getting caught by the vampire hunter and dragged back to Cazador, where he dies.)

 

[2 Hot Crown Subdues the Sinful]

As mentioned in the AN for Chapter 3, Astarion will not be recruited to the party. So he's off doing whatever he does in a playthrough where Tav never goes to the part of the map that gets the encounter that recruits him. (Which IIRC is getting caught by the vampire hunter and dragged back to Cazador, where he dies.)

Click to shrink...

Shouldn't he have become a True Soul without the proximity to the prism?

 

[BigBad]

Shouldn't he have become a True Soul without the proximity to the prism?

Click to shrink...

He may have, but that doesn't make him more powerful when separated from the Absolute cultists. Neither the Gur nor Cazador are likely to care that he suddenly found religion.

 

[TheChairIsAgainstTheWall]

And then Karlach shoved Minthara solidly in the back with her full strength, sending the dark elf flying over the bridge's low railing and almost fifty feet down into the ravine.

Click to shrink...

Shove, killer of many foes and closer of many loot drops.

And so, when Gale fired a simple flame cantrip into the nearest barrel-carrier,

Click to shrink...

Barrelmancy!

With the dirt of the village square having been pre-soaked by Create Water spells shortly before our arrival

Click to shrink...

That liquids system Larian is so proud of.

However, as we drew close we were all taken quite aback to note that despite having fallen over fifty feet down onto dirt and sharp rocks, she was still alive.

Click to shrink...

She's joining the party?

Avenge us!" she barked wetly, her final command, and I drove the dagger home.

Click to shrink...

Or not.

So either I'm about to pull off a miracle, or you're all about to have a very great laugh

Click to shrink...

She is?
...oh. Liam. That makes more sense.

 

[MostQuestionableReader]

Even if I did take her out with a single Shove maneuver, by far one of the most powerful attacks in BG3.

Click to shrink...

Spoiler: S.H.O.V.E.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6n3UpSBohg

 

[wellis]

Sort of a pity Minthara didn't get to join. I get the feeling she could've been an interesting foil to Hawke and others here.

I do recall people complaining that Larien may have sanded down the main party too much after there were a number of complaints about how mean much of the party was in Early Access.

 

[Kuroji]

"Then make sure the goblins carrying it don't all clump together - and don't stand too closely to any of them." Minthara replied with a cold smile.

"As you wish." he nodded.

Click to shrink...

That day, she was amazed to discover that when Ragzlin was saying "As you wish", what he meant was, "I love you"...

 

[Rake1810]

Loving this story thanks for the update!

 

[Hmmaster]

I really love the story thus far.

My first complaint, if I had to say one, is that I think the pacing is too fast? In a video game format, the pacing can be as fast as you want it to be - see the "no long rests" runs on YT to really break the illusion of time passing. I think there are several moments where a breather scene or even chapter might have been nice to see, because the pacing is so fast that I don't have a vibe for how any of the companions really think of Hawke other than Shadowheart and maybe Lae'zel. (I'm not going to say my own fic does this better or anything, just pointing out a thing that I've noticed about this one)

My second complaint is that you could replace Hawke with a barbarian monk or fighter Tav, with either a folk hero backgroud or a soldier background, and I wouldn't notice the difference. I do enjoy the small references to Thedas, but I feel like most of the time, it is just used as a tease and not as driving motivation for Hawke's characteristics. It reads as 95% BG3 with maybe 5% DA influence, when I think the DA influence could be more prominent. This feeling might be a product of the faster pace, because there are almost no natural points for Hawke to take in what's happening and have moments of conversation or character building moments.

 

[cliffc999]

Yeah, this is my first video game fic, I am teaching myself pacing for this sort of thing. In fairness, Act One has ridiculous pacing in game - only the use of videogame time where reality doesn't ever move until you get there lets you space it out some. Since I am using an actual time progression... yeah.

 

[GrayBowser]

This is fun! Karlach stuffing herself with hardtack was really cute.

The Thedas/Faerûn culture clash is entertaining too. What else might come up?

• The parallel between Karsus' Folly and the magisters' entry to the Golden City, and also the Sunderings
• The Red Wizards of Thay and Larloch might remind Hawke of bad memories too
• Most elves would probably be quite surprised to hear of a world where they're predominantly enslaved
• Dwarf wizards are possible here
• There isn't that close an analog for the spirit-touched, as that's much more of an individual relationship than paladins and warlocks have
• Ghouls probably raise some uncomfortable similarities with darkspawn, even more so than goblins
• Lyrium as a substance would probably attract a lot of interest from arcane academics
• Hawke might be mistaken for a warblade using martial disciplines and their maneuvers with his Thedas fighting moves
• Baldur's Gate (the city) probably feels a lot like Kirkwall
• It feels like there's a lot more mutability to people in Faerûn between all the different ways of getting transformed by magic and curses, and equally a lot more other planes than just the Fade. Would someone from Thedas have any idea what to make of an angel or a fey, for instance?
• Dragons in Faerûn seem to tend more towards being masterminds than predominantly physical threats
• The archetype of Elminster, the benevolent wise old mage, might also be absent from Thedas culture
• The right portal to Earth could take Hawke to Ed Greenwood's house, and maybe he's got a copy of Dragon Age

Looking forward to where this goes no matter whether any of those come up!

 

[DIT_grue]

.... and the artifact that Shadowheart had so carefully hidden away, the one that the church of Shar had stolen from the githyanki, was floating several feet off the ground in front of us. The once-silver runes on the polygon were now flaring a briliant fiery orange, with a similarily-colored aura of power surrounding the whole sphere, and we knew - we could sense - that the mysterious force the artifact... no, the Prism... was radiating was what was holding back the power of the Absolute, silencing the voice that Minthara had told us was 'drowning out everything' and 'blinding' her.

Click to shrink...

That's the first time I've ever seen that spelling of similarly, although it apparently is only "nonstandard".

"I hope to go with them." he surprised us. "Their paths leads to Moonrise Towers, and so does mine. I had originally joined Aradin's expedition because I had hoped to find the passage to the Underdark that was rumored to exist in those ruins, and through them hopefully reach Moonrise now that the overland route is closed by the Shadow Curse."

Click to shrink...

path
that ? The ruins would be them, but that's no use without the passage to go further, and either passage or Underdark should be singular and thus that.

On another note, any advice on some other good BG3 fics? Maybe even some pathfinder wotr? Somehow it hard to find good fics on these two games.

Click to shrink...

Try Golden-Eyed Heir to Myth by Saphroneth - I'm not familiar with WotR, but I'm enjoying the story.

 

[Kalesin]

Try Golden-Eyed Heir to Myth by Saphroneth - I'm not familiar with WotR, but I'm enjoying the story.

Click to shrink...

That's the only story I was able to find... Playing WOTR and reading in tandem. But playing takes a lot more time than reading, lol.

 

[LordofBones]

Hawke would have an aneurysm at Myrkul and Velsharoon, the necromancers that became gods. Hell, Velsharoon is practically the equivalent of a Tevinter Archon becoming God of blood magic.

 

[cliffc999]

The Grove was filled with the sound of drunken revelry.

Even with the melancholy produced by the revelation of Kagha's treason and Halsin's stepping down as First Druid, the druids were still gleefully celebrating his safe return and the salvation of the Grove. The tieflings were celebrating the road to Baldur's Gate now being clear and being able to move on from this temporary sanctuary to hopefully earn a new permanent home in the big city. Liam was celebrating not being dead, as well as the recommendation Halsin had just written him as a candidate for the 'Order of the Gauntlet', an order of temple knights - 'paladins' as they seemed to be called here - whose nearest chapterhouse was in Elturel. My party members were celebrating success in our self-appointed mission to take down this cell of the Cult of the Absolute.

And what was I celebrating? Very little, actually.

Of course, I didn't let any of this show on my face. I'd come up with the overall plan and made the pieces fit together, I personally led the key part of the effort, and so despite everyone else being venerated as well I was clearly the hero of the hour. And part of that job was allowing the people you'd saved to show you their gratitude, because the doing of that was a basic human need. So I kept the brave smile on my face and circulated amongst the bonfires and revels and said all the right things and drank to all the toasts, keeping my feelings to myself behind the mask of the brave steadfast commander.

"I know how you feel." Zevlor said to me quietly, as we shared a quiet drink away from the fire. "I was a captain in the Hellriders of Elturel. We weren't just a city guard but also an expeditionary force, driving away monsters and keeping things safe throughout the entire nearby region. We were so diligent that there was hardly a single point on the trade roads or the banks of the Chionthar that wouldn't see one of our patrols at least twice a day." He sighed. "Until the Descent came."

"I've barely heard anything about that, except that the city somehow descended into Hell?" I asked him. "How was something like that even possible?"

"With decades of treasonous preparation." Zevlor said grimly. "Almost fifty years ago the High Rider of the city was discovered to have secretly been a master vampire, with his vampire spawn carefully seeded through the city along with necromancers, collaborators, summoned undead-" He shook his head disgustedly. "That was years before I was born, of course, but my father told me of those dark days. At any rate, the undead infiltration had been exposed too late; by the time the people knew of the danger and started fighting back, they'd already had sufficient forces, been in position for long enough, to have the upper hand. Whatever victories the Hellriders and the people could win by day would be swiftly reversed at night, when they came out."

I resolved to ask Shadowheart later what exactly 'vampires' were in Faerun, because what we'd called vampires in Thedas were merely animalistic walking corpses possessed by Hunger demons and what he was describing sounded quite different.

"And then the miracle came. The Companion. A second sun, a miniature one, shining over the city both day and night. With this miracle on our side, the vampires rapidly lost. And a priest of Torm, Thavius Kreeg, took credit for having successfully beseeched the gods for this miracle and of course was rapidly elevated to the position of high priest and ruler of the city." He looked gravely at me. "And until the Descent occurred, none knew how deeply he had lied."

"This 'Companion' was a fake miracle?" I said, shocked at the idea of such power coming from anything but a god.

"Oh, it was a display of divine - or at least demi-divine - power, in truth." Zevlor explained. "But it hadn't come from Torm, or Lathander, or any of the gods of light. No, it had been a sending of Zariel, Archdevil of Avernus... whose spheres of power include hellfire, and thus, corrupted light. Allowing her to fake the manifestation."

"And the price for this miracle was the entire city in fifty years' time?" I guessed. "But how could this Kreeg pact for the souls of other people, and not just his own?"

"Very cleverly." Zevlor growled. "Because Kreeg had come up with a very clever plan indeed, and Zariel had approved of it enough to risk paying in advance. Over the decades of his rule, Thavius Kreeg as high priest had of course led all of the religious ceremonies of the city, as well as receiving all secular pledges of loyalty as its feudal overlord. And in every single one of them he exhorted people to always praise and honor the patron of Elturel, the one who had sent the Companion, and to be grateful for their gift."

I facepalmed. "Which by devil logic meant that each person in Elturel who ever made that pledge was signing onto Zariel's pact, even though she was never named?" I guessed.

"Your warlock friend would confirm that a fiendish pact is very much a 'buyer beware' situation, yes." Zevlor agreed. "Of course, it's much easier to swear to such things when you believe you are simply making a harmless prayer to the gods of light, as exhorted by a high priest of one. But there's no law compelling fiends to reveal their true name to you if you greet them by a false one."

"And so when the fifty years of the advance period were up, Zariel was able to to take the entire city." I reasoned. "But then how did you ever escape?"

"Because by the wording of the pledges, Zariel would only rightfully own the souls of those in Elturel who had pledged if the Companion shone down on the city for as long as they lived. Which was something that she'd intended to take care of soon enough, because the city had been deposited on the frontlines of the Blood War and we were rapidly hit from both sides, by devils and demons alike-" He shuddered. "And, of course, every living soul who fell during those days ended up enslaved for eternity, more fodder for Zariel's army." He looked up. "We wouldn't have lasted long at that rate - sometimes I still don't know how we lived through it. It wasn't even the Hellriders that saved the city, but a visiting nobleman from Baldur's Gate who'd happened to be visiting when the crisis occurred. He rallied all the survivors, took command of the city once Kreeg and his cronies had been revealed as fiend-worshippers, led the defense of the High Hall... and raised and coordinated the heroes who led the mission to find and destroy the Companion, and by doing so free the city from the pact."

He spat bitterly. "And then after the day was saved, Elturel exiled us! Every tiefling in the city! Because it was easier to blame us for Kreeg's treachery, for the Companion that multiple generations of Elturans had been brought up to believe was their own special miracle of the gods turning out to be a lie, than to blame themselves! Because if it was all a tiefling plot - never mind that Kreeg was human - then the flaw wasn't with the religious orders that ruled Elturel, with the church failing to detect a traitor in their midst, with an apostate sworn to a devil instead of their own god going unnoticed by them for fifty damned years-" Zevlor's rage passed, and he slumped in despair. "They scapegoated all of us simply for the blood we bore, and ignored all the blood we shed fighting alongside the people we'd called fellow citizens for generations, helping save them from the devils. And now here I am, guardian and guide for a small band of desperate tradesmen and farmers, dispossessed of everything they'd worked for their entire lives, and all looking to me to get them safely to a new city where we hope we'll be allowed to start again... and I already needed your help just to get them past the first real obstacle." He looked soberly at me. "Not that I'm ungrateful, mind. Just... disappointed in myself."

"I know what that feels like." I commiserated with him. "I was the once the Champion of my home city, Kirkwall - so named because I'd saved it from a foreign invasion when our ruler had already fallen and our army had already been mostly defeated. And then barely a few years later I lost it all in a civil war started by the madness and treason of a man who'd been one of my best friends - someone who I'd repeatedly trusted with my life, and who I couldn't do a damn thing to stop in time-" I swallowed heavily. "My home city tore itself apart in madness, all rooted in ages-old hatreds and repressions I hadn't been able to even start to change for all my titles and ceremonies... and so I exiled myself after that." I sighed. "At the time I would have told you that I'd done it because I was leading any possible consequences of the war to come pursue me, and not take it out on innocent Kirkwallers. But right now I couldn't tell you if that was the truth... or if I was just running away." I looked soberly at Zevlor. "So take comfort in this much at least - at least you know that the people accusing you of having helped to doom your old home are lying. Because I don't know that, and I never will."

"Damn." Zevlor said, handing me the bottle. "Sounds like you need this more than me."

I poured a little into my cup and handed it back. "You already know it doesn't help past the first couple of drinks, I'm sure."

"Oh, I know." Zevlor agreed, and we both sat and sipped. "And yet as soon as you ended up here, you fell right back into saving people. I truly admire that kind of dedication."

"Old habits die hard." I said ruefully, my voice trailing off. "And when you've got people who need you then it doesn't matter how you feel, you can't ask them to stop and wait. The call to arms comes on its schedule, not yours."

"You would have made a good Hellrider." Zevlor toasted me.

"And to tell the less pleasant part of the truth..." I admitted. "For as long as I could hit the ground running, I didn't have to stop and think."

"And now you have, and you wish you weren't." Zevlor said knowingly. "Unfortunately, now duty calls both of us." he groaned as we both slowly arose. "I've got people to look in on, and I think so do you. But if we don't have a chance to talk privately again before our caravan sets out, then let me just say - thank you." He shook my hand. "Oh, and my people insisted on taking up a collection for you. I'll make sure you get it in the morning."

After we separated I'd barely made it to the next campfire before I was suddenly seized and hauled into the air as if I weighed nothing. My initial shocked reaction and reflexive struggle drew to a halt when I realized just who exactly had swooped me up in a bear hug-

"There you are!" Karlach squealed joyously, as she squeezed the breath from my lugs. "I'm glad I finally found you, because you entirely deserved the first one!"

"First what?" I asked. "And how is your skin cool?" I wondered, because I should have had burns raised on me by this time.

"First hug!" she laughed. "And it's because would you believe it, turns out these tieflings were also all in Avernus recently and their blacksmith, Dammon, he'd had a chance to learn a bit about infernal mechanics, like the one my heart runs on, and turns out that loot we scored from the old temple and the goblins' hoard included a piece of infernal iron, so he was able to fix me right up and now I'm not going to fry the skin off anybody with a handshake!" She squeezed me again. "Do you know what it's like to go that many years without a simple hug? Oh, I'm gonna squeeze the life out of everybody tonight!"

"Might want to ask first." I breathed heavily as she finally released me. "A person appreciates a bit of warning."

"Fair enough!" she giggled. "Say, d'you want to dance?"

"Two left feet, sorry." I demurred. "But I saw the tieflings' bard leading a dance circle over there."

"Then I'm off!" she said, giving me another quick hug. "But honestly, boss, if I hadn't met you then I wouldn't have met these people and we wouldn't have busted the goblin lair and none of this would have happened, so I've got to thank you for all of it! I just wish Dammon had been able to do more than a partial patch job because I'll still run a little hot if I get too excited for too long, so my original plan for thanking you is still by the wayside."

"You don't mean-?" I said, surprised.

"To ride you till we both see the moon and stars." Karlach leered at me cheerfully. "Well... if you're into that sort of thing." she trailed off bashfully. "Academic point now, anyway, I still can't. But... if we actually did find any more infernal iron, and Dammon puzzles out a couple more things...?"

"Then I hope you find someone you can be very happy with." I tried to let her down as apologetically as possible. "No offense, just... to be honest? I've never dated anyone taller than me."

"Neither have I!" Karlach giggled helplessly. "Although bit of a different reason why in my case!" She looked at me knowingly and continued in a softer tone of voice. "Relax, my feelings aren't hurt. A girl has to ask, even when she knows the answer is probably 'no'. But it's not me you've been looking for tonight, is it?"

"Um-" I said, caught entirely at a loss for words.

"Mum's the word, say no more." Karlach nodded. "Anyway, thanks for the new lease on life, boss, and I'll see you in the morning!" And then she was bustling off, heading over to where the impromptu dance party was heating up before I could even begin to figure out a reply.

"I had thought to save you from such deadly peril, but I see that I arrived too late." I heard Wyll say amusedly as he walked up to me.

"Enjoying the party?" I tried to make small talk.

"It's... been an experience." he replied, in a tone of voice that would have fooled anyone who hadn't been at court.

"Want to talk about it?" I asked him as I led us off towards a quiet, out-of-the-way nook near the supply room. "Because you've been through a lot recently."

"And you haven't?" Wyll said with friendly sarcasm, before sobering. "But... yes." He reached up and felt one of his horns. "I was enjoying myself at the party right up until the moment I realized that most of Zevlor's people were accepting me because they thought I was a tiefling like them. Which I am now, of course - but I meant, that they thought I'd always been like them. And these were people who I'd already been working with for the past couple of days, ever since I arrived at the Grove. They didn't even recognize me as the 'Wyll' they'd been introduced to then."

"They might not have met you then." I reasoned. "You hardly shook hands with the entire encampment specifically. Plus, it's dim light tonight, and few people are sober."

"All logical and true." Wyll agreed. "And yet... Mizora's punishment was intended to make me unrecognizable as the Blade of Frontiers. An overly-dramatic sounding title, I'll grant... but still, one that I'd fairly earned, through years of heroics and sacrifice for the people of the Sword Coast. All gone now, like sparks escaping from a campfire."

"When you talk about all the songs and tales they tell about the 'Blade of Frontiers' then you're talking about glory." I said to him. "And glory is always temporary, no matter what you do or don't do. But what you're really afraid that you've lost is merit, not glory, and that's entirely different. No one can take that away from you, no matter what lies they tell about you - or force you to tell about yourself. The only person who can truly make you unworthy is you."

"Wise words." Wyll agreed. "Much like my father tried to teach me many a time. And he was right, of course, and so are you." He looked downcast. "So why don't I believe them?"

"Your head believes me just fine." I said. "It's your heart that needs time to catch up." I snorted ruefully.

"And exactly how long does that take?" Wyll asked me knowingly.

"I'll let you know if mine ever does." I acknowledged. "But while you can't make it arrive sooner, you can definitely help it arrive later."

"True that." Wyll agreed.

"I owe you an apology, you know." I contributed to the growing silence.

"For what?" he asked me surprisedly.

"When I first heard that you'd pacted yourself with a devil for power I was this close to pitching you out of the group on your ear." I admitted. "If not running you through. On my homeworld, bonding with a demon for power, actually letting them put a piece of themselves in you, is an existentially unforgivable crime. It's called becoming an abomination, and it's a summary execution offense even in lands ruled by blood mages and demon-summoners, let alone any righteous kingdom." I looked at him. "The only thing that held me back was that I couldn't be certain it worked the same way here as it did on Thedas, but even then I was ready to declare you guilty until proven innocent."

"From what I've heard you and the others say of your homeland, I can't even say your reaction was unfair." Wyll nodded agreeably. "I'm honestly as surprised that you're as comfortable with Shadowheart's and Gale's magics as you are."

"My own father was a mage, as was my younger sister, and both of them entirely outside Chantry sanction or supervision. So while the common attitude on Thedas is that all magic is untrustworthy, I've never believed that." I nodded. "But blood magic? Demon magic? Abominations? Maker save me, I saw more of that go wrong in Kirkwall than most Templars have." Off of Wyll's expression I continued. "The militant order of knights sworn to the Chantry, whose primary duty was the supervision of Circle mages and dealing with blood magic and apostate mages." My voice fell. "Including one of my best friends, who for years I'd believed was proof that the Chantry had lied when they said all abominations were doomed to madness... until he demonstrated otherwise." I looked at Wyll. "Someday I'll tell you the entire tale of Anders the apostate, but the short version is, he was once a man who'd gladly have worked himself half to death healing the wounds of beggars and refugees without asking for so much as a copper coin in return... and by the end he was a remorseless butcher of innocents, and the instigator of one of the worst wars Thedas had seen in generations."

"That's what I've been afraid of." Wyll said somberly. "Ever since I saw how close I came to slaying an innocent, with Karlach. I'd thought I'd been so clever - that for all the compromises I'd made for power, I'd still negotiated well enough, been careful enough, that my blade would never be turned against the innocent... and if it hadn't been for you, Mizora would have gotten me to do it with just a few honeyed words." Wyll snorted. "And once I'd started... would I even have known the exact moment I went too far down that path to turn back? The moment I stopped being a man and became a monster? Would I have ended up like your friend Anders?" He sighed, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Could I yet still?"

"Wyll." I looked at him as if he were an idiot. "You looked a devil straight in the eye and dared her to take your immortal soul down to Hell on the spot for an eternity of torture rather than risk the slightest moral compromise. The moment you're so afraid of as the moment you almost fell? That's the very same moment that's making me apologize to you, for so badly misjudging you. You are a good man. Never doubt that."

"I'm... I'm honored." Wyll said thickly, moved almost to tears. "Thank you, Hawke."

"Now if you want me to tell you that you're a wise man, Zariel will be living in an ice palace first." I continued with rough humor. "Because for all that your honor isn't likely to be compromised any time soon, your soul on the other hand-" I looked at him commiseratingly. "You heard what Gale said, what Raphael indirectly acnowledged. Even if you live the longest, most heroic mortal life possible-"

"-nothing but an eternity of hellfire when it finally ends." Wyll agreed somberly. "Still... what else can I do, knowing that, except spend my life saving as many other lives as possible?"

"How's about not spending it at all?" I said exasperatedly. "Is there any way out of a devil pact? Even in folklore or myth, if you've never heard of a confirmed case? The Elturans managed it, with the Descent!"

"None." Wyll said. "And Elturel was an entirely different situation than mine. I already told you about the penalty clause if I kill Mizora or someone acting on my behalf does. That's hardly the only penalty clause in there - anything I could possibly to do to escape the contract, or at least anything I've ever thought of, has at least one clause immediately forfeiting my soul if I try. The only way out of this pact for me is if Mizora voluntarily releases me from it, unconditionally." He looked at me, his face calm with the calm that only comes when there is no more struggle possible. "You've met her; you already know why I'm not torturing myself with that hope."

"Damn." I swore helplessly. "Why did you even make that deal anyway? It can't have been for any selfish power or pleasure, not you."

"I'm not allowed to say." Wyll said. "Sometimes I think that her denying me any opportunity to explain myself is Mizora's greatest punishment." Wyll looked up from his wine cup to nod at me entreatingly. "Hawke, don't let me ruin your night. I've only known you a short time, but it's already becoming plain as the nose on my face that you are the sort of man who can beat himself up endlessly about the ones he's not allowed to save. So allow me, at least in my own case, to release you from that burden. You've given me a lot to think about besides my usual ruminations, I'll just sit here a while and get started on that. But as for you? Go and celebrate!"

I shrugged. "Celebrate how? I've already made the rounds."

"Perhaps you could take a moonlight walk." Wyll said knowingly. "On the beach?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said immediately.

"Of course you don't. Silly me, what was I thinking?" Wyll chuckled. "Have a nice night, Hawke."

"You too." I nodded at him, and moved on. I did the rounds of tiefling encampment and druid grove both, doing everything from accepting a grateful hug and a dance from Nettie to giving a very sanitized version of my origin story to Alfira the tiefling bard so she could start getting to work on writing 'a proper ballad for my heroics'. I couldn't pay a coin for a drink anywhere I went, and I started heavily watering my wine just to stay sober.

"Hawke." Lae'zel found me as I was taking a walk to clear my head on the battlement above the main gate.

"How are you enjoying your first Faerunian party?" I asked her.

"Much tamer than a post-battle feast would have been back in Creche K'liir." she said. "Very few of these tieflings or druids are warriors by trade. They celebrate their deliverance from battle, not their triumph in it."

"War is a way of life only to a small percentage of humans." I agreed. "To most of us, it's just a necessity to perform to earn a peace afterwards."

"There is no peace in this universe, merely temporary respite from threat." Lae'zel scoffed. "Tchk. Soft."

"And yet it just starts to grow on you." I said amusedly.

"Ridiculous!" she scoffed. "I am here by necessity, and because I pledged my word of honor to a common objective; naught more."

"Of course." I agreed, before realizing. "And while I had intended to bring this up tomorrow, now that you mention it-"

"The artifact." Lae'zel said intelligently. "The one you and Shadowheart were keeping secret from us. The one that is clearly of githyanki origin - I can read the runes on it, even if you cannot. The ownership claim is clear."

"I'm assuming you are honor-bound to return it to your people." I said. "Which presents us with a problem."

"Of course it does." Lae'zel rolled her eyes. "I could hardly miss that the Absolute would devour our brains the instant the artifact was no longer there to shield us!" She exhaled heavily. "You are seeking reassurance that I do not attempt to challenge her for it, or steal it, and return it to my people."

"I am." I agreed. "Can you give it?"

"No... and yes." she said. "If I take it from the group before we are freed of our parasites, I doom us all... and I am sworn to act as one of the party, to not betray us and to obey the lawful orders of the party's chosen leader, until such time as we are freed. So that alone constrains me from any such act. But I am also forsworn in honor if I do not make my best effort to return the artifact to my people, its rightful owners. And so I offer a... compromise." she forced out the last word as if it tasted foul. "The nearby creche, and the cure my people have for this infection. With a single act I can both return the artifact and remove the necessity for us to clutch it personally to our bosoms."

"So that's your compromise. That we set out to find the nearest githyanki creche as first priority, and return the artifact to your people there when we're cured, before heading to Moonrise Towers or anywhere else." I asked her.

"Correct." Lae'zel nodded. "Should we do otherwise, then I would be forced to choose between two dishonors. You would not welcome such a thing coming to pass." She looked down briefly. "And neither would I."

"If something else immediately life-threatening comes up, I can't guarantee we'll go straight to the creche. But I'll entirely agree that we should try to go there next as our first priority... provided you can think of a way we don't get executed as thieves as soon as we walk in the door."

"Agreed." Lae'zel said, with an expression that on anyone else I would have said was relief. "And a valid concern. I do not act as a loyal party member if I deliver you to death, after all. But while my people are known for their ruthlessness, we are also reasoning beings. Although I know not what the artifact is, the extensive efforts that have been made to reclaim it bespeak its great value. For the return of such a precious object to safety my people would owe a great debt; certainly enough to guarantee the lives of those who were not its thieves in the first place." Lae'zel must have seen something in my expression, for she continued reluctantly. "I would even fail to mention my suspicion that one of our number might possibly be connected to the theft."

"That... might be a problem." I conceded. "Because she's currently holding the artifact, and has sworn by her goddess to bring it to the high priestess who sent her to get it. And I can't promise she'll agree."

"Hrm." Lae'zel pondered. "I will stay my hand until her, you, and I have had a chance to discuss this fairly and openly. Beyond that... we shall see what happens. But at least I know that you are open to a reasonable compromise, if not necessarily Shadowheart. So I will this once try... diplomatic methods."

"Thank you for your forbearance." I nodded to her.

"Rest assured that I do it very reluctantly." Lae'zel agreed darkly. "But I am no fool; your regard for her goes well beyond mere respect, and after the ridiculous lengths I have seen you already go to in the name of "sentimentality", I certainly do not want any such sentiment provoking your blade and mine to clash." And then she actually smiled at me, the first time she ever had. "Your strength is laudable, your skill impressive, even if your taste in romantic partners is deficient." She nodded at me. "Go indulge yourself; I may or may not have had wishes of my own, but I am no child to pine after the already impossible."

Did Lae'zel just hit on me? Or say that she would have liked to hit on me...? I wondered incredulously.

"You did not even suspect? Typical male!" Lae'zel eye-rolled again, but somehow less harshly than she had before. "Go! We have said enough for now!"

I headed off, respecting Lae'zel's obvious wish for privacy, and made a brief check-in with Gale before finally heading off down the path that I'd been uncertain about all night. And sure enough, back down on the sand of the private cove we'd used twice before, she was there.

"You're finally here." Shadowheart said, still staring out over the water as I came up behind her. "I... wasn't certain you'd come."

"Neither was I." I confessed. "Fair warning; Lae'zel recognized the artifact when it saved our lives earlier, and will be speaking to you tomorrow about it. You're sworn to return to it to the temple, she's sworn to return it to her people, and I don't want either of you fighting each other over it." I nodded. "She offered a compromise; to trade her artifact back to the githyanki in return for their curing us of our parasites."

"I-" Shadowheart paused. "I- you know my mission."

"Shadowheart, you can't give it to anyone anyway - not while we need it to protect us. And if the githyanki can get rid of our parasites-'

"I-I understand you're only trying to be what you think is reasonable, but I can't-" Shadowheart said, panicked.

"Then that's what we have to discuss tomorrow." I agreed with her. "I just wanted to give you fair warning of what was going to happen... and what I'm hoping you can agree to."

"I understand." Shadowheart relaxed. "And- thank you for trying." She shook her head angrily. "And that's all the business I want to discuss for tonight."

"Absolutely." I agreed. "This is a beautiful night - we shouldn't waste it."

"No." Shadowheart smiled. "We shouldn't. Of course, it's entirely possible that you've had an eventful night already..." she teased me.

"True confession, I needed some fancy footwork tonight to avoid having an eventful night." I agreed.

"I know." Shadowheart broke out giggling. "I got a glimpse of you earlier tonight barely escaping being ravished by eager tiefling maidens. Most especially that pretty bard... which is odd, because I thought Alfira liked girls."

"Her girlfriend was the one alongside her in the yellow dress, offering to join in." I blushed.

"And you said 'no'?" Shadowheart asked incredulously.

"Shadowheart, I'm almost thirty-five." I pointed out. "Among humans, the time for frolicking freely with village maidens is in our teens."

"And did you? Frolic with the village maidens." she asked soberly.

"In Lothering? ... several." I nodded. "Nothing serious."

"And in Kirkwall?" she followed up.

"I think we need a fairer exchange if we're going that route." I chided her gently. "Have you had any experiences recently?"

"And how would I remember if I had or not?" Shadowheart punctured the mood.

"Oh. Sorry, I- overlooked that." I rapidly course corrected. "And in Kirkwall?" I sat down on the sand and continued more wistfully. "One."

"Did you lose her too?" Shadowheart asked me compassionately.

"Yes, but not the way you're thinking." I admitted. "Her name was Merrill. She was a... hrm." I realized. "I was going to say 'elf', but in hindsight I'm wondering if all the elves I knew in Thedas were actually half-elves by Faerunian taxonomy. Because when a Thedan elf has a child with a human, the offspring is almost invariably human - they'd breed themselves out of existence in a few generations if they didn't make sure to conserve the blood by having children only with other elves. And yet from what Halsin said-"

"Elven-human crossbreeds on Faerun are never round-eared, and it's been known for those with only one elven grandparent out of four to still have the elven blood remain strong enough to show." Shadowheart agreed. "I'm actually on the more human end of the spectrum of appearance for a half-elf; my ears are as pointed as anyone else's, but..." She gave a wordless wave of her hand down her body at her curves, which were indeed almost entirely those of a human woman instead of the usual slender, narrow build of elves.

"And I know from their folklore that Thedan elves believe their blood was 'stronger' back in the days when the elves were still a thriving race, and not a shattered remnant of a culture largely living in human cities." I continued.

"That does all certainly sound like only part-elven blood to me, not full elven." Shadowheart agreed. "So, a half-elf like me. Any other similarities?"

"Quite a few." I admitted. "You're not doubles of each other but there's a lot in common - your hair, your height, even something of your faces. To be honest, when I first saw you in that tube I had a momentary heart attack thinking that Merrill had somehow been abducted along with me, that was only dispelled when you first spoke and I realized that it was only a resemblance." Off of Shadowheart's expression I continued. "You have very different accents - yours I'm assuming is upper-class native Baldurian, and hers was from having been raised in one of the few wild tribes of wood elves still extant in Thedas."

"So you like me only for my looks." she joked. "Well, that's certainly not unfamiliar to me."

"You're also both highly intelligent, steady-nerved in a crisis, dedicated-" I continued.

"Flatterer." Shadowheart said amusedly, before her expression turned serious again. "If I might ask... you said you lost her, but that she didn't die?" she queried.

"I ruined it." I said. "I didn't-" I looked at her. "Do you really want to spend tonight hearing a long, sad story?"

"Do you want to spend tonight not telling it to me?" Shadowheart replied sagely.

"... yes." I replied after a long pause.

"All right." Shadowheart agreed, as we sat together and watched the waves. "You know, it's odd." she continued after a pause. "This. This celebration. Why we're having it." She paused. "How much I enjoyed it."

"You don't recall having anything like this in the cloister?" I asked diplomatically.

"I'm certain we didn't, but that's not what I meant." she said. "I meant... these refugees. We saved their lives. At great odds, with valiant feats and daring forays into the heart of the enemy." she declaimed poetically. "That's... not something I ever imagined myself doing before. Does it always feel like this?"

"Like what?" I probed.

"Good." she said softly, before shaking her head. "You were right, earlier." she finally continued. "I don't have any experience with this."

"Well, as I recall the first step is not being afraid. Or at least being more afraid of loss than of rejection." I explained.

"Bit of a problem with that one when you worship the goddess of loss- ah!" she suddenly winced, as her hand clenched in agony.

I growled inwardly at this damned thing yet again and reached over and grasped her wounded hand in mine, and for the first time since I'd arrived on Faerun consciously channelled my internal energy in the ways that Knight-Captain Cullen had unofficially taught me back in Kirkwall. I wasn't even sure I could manage this anymore, given how long it had been since I'd had a dose of smuggled lyrium, but Shadowheart was in pain and I had to-

"It stopped." she said, looking down wondrously at where her hand was clasped in both of mine. "Just like that! How- how did you do that?" she asked me.

"Templar magic." I explained to her. "Or more accurately, anti-magic. The mage-hunters of Thedas knew how to focus the will, aided by an alchemical preparation of... well, solid magic is the best way to describe it... called lyrium. Take enough lyrium, practice the right meditations for a couple of years, you unlock the ability to dispel magic or withstand it by sheer force of will." I breathed heavily. "I wasn't even sure it would work here, especially given that very few people can keep the talents operative without regular lyrium infusions and it's been over a year since I've had one, but-" I shrugged. "Sometimes you get lucky."

"I don't understand." Shadowheart said, our hands still entwined. "I'd been told this was an old wound, not some type of- of magical curse. How did you know?"

"Just guessing." I said. "But I've never seen anyone injure their hand seriously enough that the bones still ached years later without also losing mobility in their joints, and yet you've always been as dextrous with that hand as your other one. Nerve damage is even less likely, not if you can pick locks with those fingers. And the healers here could fix even that kind of lingering physical damage. So if it didn't make sense as a mundane injury, then I thought perhaps there was a magical cause."

"Certainly seems as if." Shadowheart agreed, before we both suddenly realized that we were still holding hands. "And- I-" She blushed cutely, and my own cheeks started to feel warm.

"So it's not just me." I blurted awkwardly.

"What are we even doing?" Shadowheart replied mournfully. "I can't- I shouldn't-"

I released her hands. "Then don't." I agreed, masking my disappointment.

"If... if that's what you want." she agreed reluctantly, her voice hurt.

"I thought that's what you wanted!" I burst out, exasperated.

"Oh." she realized wonderingly. "Oh, you meant-"

"In the interests of clear communication." I drew upon all my willpower and diplomatic to say evenly. "I am quite attracted to you, and-"

"Stop. Talking." Shadowheart pressed me, and I did. "Please. I- Hawke, this is insane. When this is over - and it will all too soon be over - I have to return to Lady Shar. And you can't follow me there."

"Can't I?" I inquired.

"Lady Shar is the patron of darkness and loss." Shadowheart tried to explain. "Most people fear the dark, because in the darkness they see their fears reflected. But we are taught to step beyond fear, beyond loss. In darkness we do not hide - we act. Pain... hope... love... all of these are heavy cloaks that bend our backs and burden our hearts." A relentlessly analytical portion of my mind noted in the background that her speech had shifted to a heavy, even cadence - the voice of a person reciting an oft-memorized text, not a person speaking from their heart as she had been just a moment ago. "We shed those cloaks. Before Shar we stand gloriously free, free from mortal vanity and hesitation. We tear down the lies the world is drunk on, the institutions they trust. The so called gods they worship, we destroy false idols, topple corrupt organizations, fight heretics whereever found."

"But how does that reconcile with feeling good about helping the helpless?" I deliberately broke into her train of thought.

"It doesn't!" Shadowheart burst out frustratedly. "That's exactly what I'm trying to understand! Why- you are absolutely horrible for my mental focus, do you know that? Far worse than merely standing in a temple of Selune!" she confronted me, her voice full of emotion yet again.

"I think.. that I can't answer that question without telling you that story now." I surprised her, and we both separated and sat back in a more neutral position as I continued.

I explained about how I had originally met Merrill on Sundermount, and why she was being exiled from her Dalish clan. How the heroine of her clan had been tainted by an ancient artifact found in a ruin, and Merrill's obsessive quest to cleanse that artifact, to understand. How the demon Audacity, sealed away on the peak of Sundermount, had tried for years to tempt her with the knowledge necessary to restore the eluvian - the travel mirrors that the ancient elves of Thedas had invented at the height of their power, the gate network that gave them instantaneous travel across the continent.

I spoke to her about Merrill's brilliance - her selfless devotion to the welfare of the elves - her loneliness and isolation from those who feared her and didn't understand her, including accusations of blood magic - her suffering under the disappointment of her mentor Keeper Marethari, leader of her clan - the poverty and squalor of the Kirkwall elven alienage she'd refused to let me lift her out of for so long...

... and how I'd ruined everything we'd had together.

"We almost broke up the day I refused to give her the artifact of her clan, to try and alter the deep structure of the eluvian with." I said. "By that point Merrill was so alienated from her people that her only hope of ever being accepted back was to present them with a fully restored eluvian, to prove Marethari entirely wrong and her entirely right. And I thought that meant she'd fallen for the demon's lies, that she'd blinded herself to the truth. So rather than respect her wishes, or even try to discuss my concerns with her, I simply decided for her. She considered that an almost irreparable breach of trust... and she wasn't wrong."

"Almost irreparable, you said. She still forgave you, even after that much." Shadowheart said slowly, wonderingly. "That's... not very much resembling me at all."

"But it was a strain, yes. I still couldn't stop her from trying to restore it, though, even if I kept her from trying that particular method. And so the day came, two years later, when she finally tried her last desperate gambit. To directly approach the demon again, as she hadn't for years, and get the answers out of him one way or another." I said.

"Dear gods, please tell me she didn't-" Shadowheart said fearfully.

"She didn't." I reassured her. "Although she'd actually brought me along-" I winced in painful memory. "To do what a templar's duty would be in a mage's Harrowing, if I'd been an official templar and she a Circle Mage. To stand by while she mentally wrestled with a demon... and kill her if she failed to resist its possession." I sighed. "All along I thought she'd been willfully blind to the risks of what she was doing... and all along she'd known them in full, and been willing to take every precaution necessary. Even the ultimate one." Shadowheart's expression by this point was almost sick with worry, so I hastened to reassure her. "It's okay. I didn't have to do that."

"But it was still horrible." Shadowheart said knowingly. "How?"

"That's when we found out that Keeper Marethari had also been approaching Audacity... to try and spare Merrill from being possessed, even at the price of risking possession herself. And she had failed to resist it, where Merrill had succeeded. Merrill had asked me to come there prepared to kill her if she'd been taken by the demon... but as it turned out, we had to kill her instead. Merrill's lifelong mentor, the woman who was for all intents and purposes her mother. That's what she could never forgive me for."

"I can't- I can't even imagine how I'd begin to feel if Mother Superior were similarly taken somehow, and I had to slay her mortal body to spare her soul. But why did Merrill blame you for her mentor's death? Not simply because you struck the killing blow - given what she'd asked you to do for her if need be, that would have made her a complete hypocrite!" Shadowheart defended me passionately.

"You're right, and she didn't." I told her. "No, Merrill blamed me for having denied her the arun'holm years before... because if she had been able to repair the eluvian before that final day, instead of contending with the delays I'd caused with my refusal to believe she knew what she was doing... then perhaps Marethari wouldn't have had time to fall."

"That is not fair!" Shadowheart said. "If she said she loved you, then how could she sever herself from you forever over a might-have-been?"

"Because the most important thing in a relationship is trust, and the secondmost important thing is a respect for your partner's boundaries - to work with them, not dictate for them. To treat them like a partner, not a possession." I shook my head. "And I'd entirely failed to do that, at exactly the moment when I most should have. And that failure had Merrill lose something worse than merely the life of her mother in all but blood - she lost the opportunity to ever know for certain whether she could have saved Keeper Marethari or not, which was actually worse."

"Hawke." Shadowheart said softly, taking my hand. "I- I don't know what to say."

"I think the worst part of it is that she didn't 'sever herself from me forever'." I said. "We were still allies - even friends, to an extent - after we separated. She still came with me in the final battle against Anders, and then when the mage/templar war broke out immediately afterwards. She still stood loyally at my side and helped save my life, just like I saved hers." I sighed. "She just couldn't ever truly love me anymore, because she couldn't entirely trust me anymore. And I couldn't say that I didn't deserve it. So, after the Gallows fell and most of us had to leave Kirkwall... I let her go. Hopefully she's finding a new purpose now... one that she can be allowed to actually succeed at." I sighed. "She deserves no less." And I looked at Shadowheart. "And you deserve no less either, which is why I can't answer your question right now. If I did that... I feel I'd be making the same mistake again. Making your choice for you, instead of with you."

"Thank you." Shadowheart said softly, lovingly. "For sharing that with me... and for respecting me that way." She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and her face firmed with resolve...

... and she drew close enough I could feel the heat of her cheek on mine, and she looped her arms around my neck.

"Not for me. But with me." she agreed, and we kissed underneath the rising moon.

---

Author's Note: Yes, as soon as we hit the tiefling party scene with a Shadowheart romance path, the kiss is inevitable. Destiny may not be cheated that way and I do not even dare to try. *g*

Did you know BG3 very annoyingly refuses to tell you anything about the damn Descent of Elturel except maybe one or two sentences? I had to use google. So I devoted page space in my fanfic to telling my readers, as a public service. Also, Zevlor needed some dialogue, and I was amused to realize him and Hawke had a bit in common.

And so you finally find out Hawke's specialization - Templar. Which was hinted at earlier at a couple of points, if very subtly. How the heck Hawke even goes Templar in DA2 is a thing they don't even bother to go with, so I went with 'it's possible to get smuggled lyrium and Hawke certainly knows the right people' and 'Hawke and Cullen become each other's contacts as far back as Act One, and Cullen starts doing his own rogue templar investigations in Act Two, so he actually has a reason to teach Hawke. Plus, neither other specialization remotely fit my Hawke's personality - he's certainly no berserker, and no reaver either.

Plus, that's how the Merrill romance ended for him. That's not quite a canon game path, but hey, story logic versus game scripting, you know where I stand.

 

[Kalesin]

to try and spare Shadowheart from being possessed

Click to shrink...

Merrill

Thanks for the update!

Wonder if there's a mod to add Alfira to your party...

 

[Mr.Nobody]

Ah, nice to see Hawke and Shart getting together, and at the very least talking before diving into anything.

 

[TyricGaias]

I must be a Templar because this story is my lyrium

 

[Ragnarokasgard67]

When Hawke finds out what the Sharran cultists did to Shadowheart he is gonna lose his shit. Side note, will Templar anti-magic abilities work on Faerunian mages in a combat situation?