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

Reader mode
cliffc999 said:
To be fair, Balduran's murderer is the illithid that originally shoved a tadpole in his eye. The Emperor is Balduran's identity thief.
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Fair point.

aabbcc said:
The tadpole that eventually ate out Balduran in the unfun way and became the Emperor is as much at fault for the murder.
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Huh. Philosophical question- do individual Illithids have free will?

And if so, how much thought/maturity does an Illithid tadpole? Can it choose not to eat the brain it's in?
 
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One problem I had with Baldur's gate 3 was how they delt with Viconia, I hope you can improve on it. That said I'm enjoying the story a lot.

Edit:I found you have already addressed this.

cliffc999 said:
Yes and no. They certainly can, as the Emperor himself proves, but most of them are enslaved by elder brains and never have a chance to break free.
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I think Omeluum is a better example. It's an example that it's not only possible for a mind flayer to break free, but that it's possible for one to not be a complete and total dick.
 
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Daeth said:
One problem I had with Baldur's gate 3 was how they delt with Viconia, I hope you can improve on it.
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First off, I had no real objection to Viconia's portrayal in BG3 so I feel no need to devote any effort to rewriting it.

Second off, Viconia's went-back-to-the-Dark-Side characterization in 5e continuity was done at the editorial insistence of WotC, and dates back to 5e content published before BG3 was even released, so I'm annoyed at how many people keep blaming Larian for something that wasn't even their fault.
 
cliffc999 said:
First off, I had no real objection to Viconia's portrayal in BG3 so I feel no need to devote any effort to rewriting it.

Second off, Viconia's went-back-to-the-Dark-Side characterization in 5e continuity was done at the editorial insistence of WotC, and dates back to 5e content published before BG3 was even released, so I'm annoyed at how many people keep blaming Larian for something that wasn't even their fault.
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Ah yes, sad clown Xzar.

It's still amazing that WotC decided that the insane homicidal necromancer needed to be prettied up.

BigBad said:
Counterpoint: The Dead Three are extremely stupid, uncreative, and predictable. They are losers at heart. Their cleverness would be no obstacle at all to an elder brain.
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Bane engineered his own resurrection under his own power using his son as a catspaw that fooled the entire pantheon, projected the image of his resurrection across Faerun to gain a new portfolio and propelled himself from possessing a middling lesser power to becoming one of the most powerful of the greater gods of evil and retructured his church to remove all forms of stupid evil. He is legitimately brilliant; it was only 5e where his downturn began.

Myrkul's spirit laughed off his death and enjoyed his freedom from divinity, possessed a broken crown to turn it into an artifact of necromantic power, and has been possessing helpless sods and turning them into undead commanders. Taking Mask of the Betrayer into account, he ensured that his memory would live on eternally via the Spirit Eater and unlike everyone else, was content with his slow fading and accepted his death.

5e may have turned them into jokes, but Myrkul pretty much peaced out and Bane came back bigger and better in previous editions.
 
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Mizu said:
What's the more common romance target, Karlach? Gale? I'm doubtful about Lae'zel but I suppose it's possible.
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Like the other guy said, it's Astarion and by a lot.

It's not really related to the number of player who play the game, it's about the fraction who write stories. For whatever reason people who like astarion are more likely to write about it.

I've seen a couple Shadowheart ones but very few that I would actually consider reading and none that match this on in quality.
 
DeadlySoren said:
Like the other guy said, it's Astarion and by a lot.

It's not really related to the number of player who play the game, it's about the fraction who write stories. For whatever reason people who like astarion are more likely to write about it.

I've seen a couple Shadowheart ones but very few that I would actually consider reading and none that match this on in quality.
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The game audience is not the same audience as the audience who would write fanfic, as well as the audience who would write fanfic about romance as a main focus.

The game audience is largely male. Fic writers are largely female. I'm sure there are plenty of women who enjoy Karlach or Shadowheart's romance, but Astarion girlies are far stronger in their native element - slash fic with a canon bisexual character.
 
I've been following along lurking since the beginning, Just wanted to say I love the story, I like how you've been noticeably following cannon, but diverging where it makes sense enough and adding enough details and character interaction that even having played the game recently, I'm still excited to find out what happens next

cliffc999 said:
"Gortash and Orin will know that we'll be coming after them and the other two Netherstones, which means they'll know where we'll be going." Wyll said. "And if they can't exercise precision control of their army anymore, then that means they have to wait for us at Baldur's Gate." She rubbed her chin. "You're assuming that by the time we get there Gortash will be ruling the city, correct?"

"Either publicly in his own persona or at a remove through your father, yes." I agreed.
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Typo?
 
cliffc999 said:
All the pieces were coming together. The 'Cult of the Absolute', as publicly led by Ketheric, would assemble an 'army of evil' and march on Baldur's Gate. Meanwhile, I would have spent the prior months using my own network of influence to start pitching my 'Steel Watch' concept to the Council, as an officially government-funded and controlled - or so they'd be led to believe - augmentation to the Baldurian military. Of course this concept would meet resistance and indifference as an expensive and unnecessary boondoggle... until the burgeoning threat of the Absolute, comprised with a certain untimely absence of strategic leadership at the top echelon of the Flaming Fist, would leave the Council desperate for new solutions. At which point I would graciously come to their rescue with my army of Steel Watchers, constructed for them in record time by the genius and vision of Lord Gortash. And also by the ruthless exploitation of an expendable supply of highly skilled labor in the form of the worshippers of Gond, god of invention and technology, who I'd have impressed into service by various means - their families held hostage, remotely detonated bomb collars, et cetera.
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combined ?


cliffc999 said:
"They are mind-controlled. They will not have suffer any internal problems from the unexpected change of command." Jaheira pointed out.
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suffered

cliffc999 said:
"We certainly have to obtain the other two Netherstones and reunite it with ours to get control of the elder brain away from the Chosen, but from how you're talking that's not the only reason we need to head to Baldur's Gate immediately?" Shadowheart queried.
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them

cliffc999 said:
"Up until now there were loyalist True Souls scattered all through the area in which we were working, both when we near the Grove and also here." Gale followed along. "But as soon as we fall far enough behind the army and stay there for long enough, it becomes obvious to the elder brain that our six particular tadpoles are not receiving the signal as intended - which means it then knows exactly which six tadpoles are the renegade Prism-bearers." Gale's face twisted in worry. "I can't say exactly what happens at that point, but it's overwhelmingly likely to be unpleasantly fatal."
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we were near
 
cliffc999 said:
Second off, Viconia's went-back-to-the-Dark-Side characterization in 5e continuity was done at the editorial insistence of WotC,
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Not evil Drow make Drizzt less special, so Viconia had to be evil again!

I'm still stunned (not that I'm complaining) they brought Eilistraee back from the dead for 5e. Very happy about it, but stunned.
 
cliffc999 said:
Ellistraee is Lolth's daughter, and the deity of drow who don't want to be evil, joy, celebration, freedom, dance, and strippers. (No, seriously, dancing 'skyclad' is a worship rite.)
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I mean, if there was anything she had to inherit from her malignant tumor of a mother, the obvious fetish material domain's far from the worst choice. :V
 
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cliffc999 said:
Ellistraee is Lolth's daughter, and the deity of drow who don't want to be evil, joy, celebration, freedom, dance, and strippers. (No, seriously, dancing 'skyclad' is a worship rite.)
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Also more generally a goddess of the concept of redemption and of the Hunt. (not the only hunt deity, but a deity associated with hunting)

But yes, the stripping is a thing, though 5e, as it has done with a lot of things sex-adjacent, has toned that down, a lot.
 
Chapter 29 New
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    • "Of course." I sighed. "We'd already learned that she was a false god, a power-mad tyrant, and a lich. Why shouldn't she be a usurper as well?"

    "You are very good at saying what others want to hear." Orpheus replied with grim amusement. "But that does not mean you are not speaking the truth."

    "But the founding myths-" Lae'zel said, visibly struggling to process. "Are self-evidently lies, yes. But how could they be so distorted?"

    "By the silence of death." the githyanki woman who was the apparent commander of Orpheus' honor guard observed grimly. "When only one tongue speaks, their words forever go unchallenged."

    "Kith'rak Pirstal speaks truly." the bound Orpheus observed. "But I believe introductions are in order."

    "I am Lae'zel, formerly of Creche K'llir, now declared h'sharlak by the false queen." Lae'zel said formally. "My companions are Hawke, Shadowheart, Gale, Wyll, and Karlach. Hawke leads our party."

    "Well met." Orpheus said regally. "I am of course Prince Orpheus, the true heir of Mother Gith - although lamentably still in exile, for the moment. Kith'rak Pirstal commands these, my last remaining Honor Guard. Now tell me of how you came to be here, if you would."

    I spent several minutes doing a brief summary of events to date. Orpheus' manner turned very grim and intense as soon as the words "elder brain" were mentioned.

    "If it is truly an elder brain that you contest against, that explains the psionic storms that have buffeted the Astral Prism of late." Orpheus agreed. "But for it to be enslaved by humans? What madness is this?"

    "The magicks of ancient Netheril at its peak were mighty indeed, Prince Orpheus." Gale opined. "Great Karsus forged the Crown as the culmination of his gambit to forcibly claim the power of a god for himself and ascend to become divine. An artifact that could forge a true god anew would logically possess the power to dominate any mortal entity, however unaging or powerful."

    "And so that your true goal - to usurp the power of this Crown. I see." Orpheus frowned mightily.

    "Gale?" I turned to him, lifting an eyebrow inquiringly.

    "It was just an... intrusive thought!" Gale insisted, his face red with embarassment. "One of those niggling little temptations we all feel but never actually act on!"

    "We'll talk about this later." I said gently, before turning back to Orpheus. "I certainly don't want the power of a god. I just want to keep the elder brain - or its would-be masters - from devastating Faerun, and also to get this damned tadpole out of my brain!"

    "Your Radiance, we should purify the infected ones and then contend against the elder brain with our own people." Kith'rak Pirstal insisted. "We do not know them. We cannot trust them. Even if you believe they are speaking the truth at present, with the ghaik tadpoles in them they cannot even trust themselves!"

    "If we'd killed ourselves at the outset, as Lae'zel once urged us to do, then you'd have been left alone with nothing but that scheming illithid over there for company - him and all those who would have came after him. Including Vlaakith's inquisitors and the Cult of the Absolute, both of whom only avoided getting you because we were there." I stated. "Without us, you wouldn't have survived this far. Without you, neither would we. I acknowledge that your captain is giving you only prudent advice... but at the odds we're up against sticking to nothing but the prudent approach isn't going to work. Everything we've both survived to this point has already proven that."

    "I begin to see why you yielded to the leadership of a human, Lae'zel." Orpheus smiled slightly, and Lae'zel fought to smother a grin of her own. "He has very accurately placed his finger on the crux of the matter - even though we do not know each other, we still need each other."

    "The good news is, you may have more loyalists still extant on the outside than you know about." I reassured the captive prince. "Chief among them being Kith'rak Voss, who has at some point in the interim switched to supporting you while Vlaakith apparently still believes that he is her loyal right-hand man."

    "Voss!" Orpheus exclaimed relievedly. "My old friend yet lives, then? That is unexpected good fortune indeed!"

    "Uhhh, wasn't he the guy who helped Vlaakith stuff you in here?" Karlach's jaw dropped. "And you're still friends after that?!?"

    "The War of the Comet forced cruel choices on all of us." Orpheus sighed. "Initially Voss did support the first Vlaakith despite all the battles he and I had shared in the original rebellion. She was a most cunning deceiver indeed, and I had been occasionally rash and overly quick to judge in my youth. When Vlaakith spread her lie that Mother Gith had chosen her as her successor instead of myself due to her preferring wisdom over might, Voss believed her. It was not until towards the very end of the war that he came to realize that he had supported the wrong side."

    "It's a pity he hadn't seen through her earlier, then." Wyll commiserated.

    "Ironically, if he had done that then I would almost certainly have died." Orpheus observed mildly. "By the time Voss realized his error, our defeat was already nigh-inevitable. Vlaakith had gained too much ground, and too many gith had fallen for her honeyed words. Only two people had descended into the Hells to negotiate with Tiamat for the support of the red dragons, after all - Gith herself and the first Vlaakith, then only one of her chief advisors. And only two people returned from that negotiation - Vlaakith and Ephelomon, the great red dragon consort of Tiamat. So when they both attested that Gith had chosen to sacrifice herself to empower our race with the alliance that has since saved us so many times, and that she had chosen the line of Vlaakith as her successors rather than her own son..." he trailed off, his jaw clenched tight with rage.

    "What the Kith'rak just said about how a tale goes unchallenged when all other tongues are silenced." I agreed. "So she was framed as the rightful successor and you as a jealous usurper, one whom even his own mother would not support." I rolled my eyes. "I see that the first Vlaakith wasn't any more subtle than her current descendant is."

    "We are not a subtle people." Orpheus observed ironically. "And so came the War of the Comet, when I rallied those who would stand with me and contested against the first Vlaakith for my rightful crown. Oh, we fought valiantly. We fought nobly. We fought honorably. And we lost." he trailed off sadly. "By the time Voss finally saw through Vlaakith's lies, we were already so worn down that victory was impossible. But in the end, it was the fact that he had taken so long to see through her that saved me. Vlaakith was so proud, so smug to have turned even my best friend to her own service, that when he begged her for the 'honor' of personally facing me where I was making my last stand with my few remaining Honor Guard, she was amused to grant him his wish. And so we fought, and I was defeated, even though almost all of the loyalist troops with Voss had perished in the doing."

    "You and him killed all of his troops that weren't in on the plot, and then he brought you to the first Vlaakith as a prisoner." I reasoned. "Hoping that her vanity, her need to grind her victory into the face of her enemy and gloat - and possibly to have continued access to your unique powers - would lead to her imprisoning you instead of executing you."

    "We took a great gamble." Orpheus nodded. "But it was a gamble that succeeded. Though I have languished in this prison for I cannot even begin to count the years, I still survived. My Honor Guard, loyal beyond all measure, voluntarily submitted to being imprisoned with me. And so the line of Vlaakith have kept the greatest potential threat to their stolen throne alive down through the ages while trumpeting the tale that I perished to Voss' silver sword. While he and the few loyalists of mine who were as yet undetected remained free to keep my memory alive in secret, and seek the key to my release."

    "But you've been in here for thousands of years!" Wyll said incredulously. "How have you stayed sane?"

    "Although vain, treacherous, and powerhungry, Vlaakith still was no fool." Orpheus snorted. "She did not rely on my chains alone, however unbreakably forged they were in hellfire. This prison was intended to beguile the minds of those kept within, to distort their perception of time. She may or may not have suspected that I still had hidden loyalists on the outside, but she knew that if given millenia to plan even a small group of captive githyanki were all too likely to come up with something. So every day in here was a timeless suspension, with no real conception of urgency or desire... until he came." Orpheus turned his head from where he still hung levitated in his restraints to glare down at the 'Guardian'.

    "I'd been wondering how he subdued all of you long enough to get his scheme going, but you were still alive enough to rebel against him later." I nodded back.

    "He was a most cunning and puissant foe for a ghaik." Pirstal reluctantly acknowledged. "When he first entered here he was stealthy as a shadow, as silent and subtle as mist. We did not perceive him until it was too late. Somehow he had partially usurped some of Vlaakith's control mechanisms and turned them against us. Our Prince was caught in a helpless trance as the ghaik exploited his powers for its own use, while the rest of us were paralyzed, unable to interfere."

    "He did not slay my Honor Guard because he feared that the shock of their deaths so nearby would awaken my mind regardless of any bonds, at which point he feared for the outcome." Orpheus continued. "My powers of the mind are fully the equal of my mother Gith - at my height I was able to shield against even the most powerful psionic abilities of an elder brain. Even with my abilities still partially constrained by my chains, I would have little difficulty in overcoming a lone ghaik at point-blank range. He remained alive only so long as none of us could concentrate enough on resisting him."

    "But then he had to split his concentration dealing with us as well as you, and then he got trapped in here when I had Voss help seal off the Astral Prism mentally." I realized. "And he was spending so much power trying to break out of the sealing that he slipped up with one or more of you." I replied.

    "And even then my Honor Guard was unable to overcome him and his servitors, or snap me out of my trance." Orpheus acnkowledged. "Even a partial tithe of his power funnelled through the Astral Prism's control was still formidable to contest against. Until you brought the Astral Prism directly into the immediate presence of the elder brain several days ago, at which point he had no choice. He had to draw more deeply on my powers, to more directly stimulate my mind. If he did not, then he would have been overwhelmed by the elder brain - as you would have been - and immediately destroyed. But even his strength was insufficient to making such an effort and simultaneously keeping all of my Honor Guard subdued, and so they broke free of his trap and forced the ghaik to simultaneously fight on two fronts for the past several days. A fight that thanks to Voss' sealing he could neither flee nor summon reinforcements into - and which he could not win alone."

    "And of course, once you finally won and your Honor Guard woke you up, that ended whatever psionic tap the mind flayer had been making on your powers. So your shielding powers stopped being broadcast outside the Prism, and we had to come in here immediately."

    "I must speak." the 'Guardian's' mind voice broke into our conversation. "And you must listen! Or we are all doomed!"

    Pirstal and Lae'zel both had their swords out in the same motion, and both of them fell back at Orpheus' command. "No. We kept it alive this long to interrogate it. If it wishes to speak, then it saves us the trouble of questioning."

    "First off, my true name is Balduran, although in recent years I have styled myself 'The Emperor'." the mind flayer began. "Yes, the same Balduran who was the legendary founder of Baldur's Gate. I was-"

    "Nobody cares about your origin story. Get to the point!" I interrupted.

    "You intend to obtain the three Netherstones and use them to force the brain to destroy itself." the Emperor replied weakly. "This was my plan as well."

    "So what you're saying is that we don't need you anymore?" Shadowheart replied cheekily.

    "I am saying the exact opposite!" the Emperor insisted. "Even with the Netherstones, none of you can hope to dominate an elder brain! You need an illithid mind for that! One that can think like they do, with a brain structure specifically adapted to the psionic powers that illithids use!"

    "The Chosen seemed to be managing well enough despite not having a single tentacle among them." I eye-rolled. "This is really the best you can come up with?"

    "I have only learned most of this very recently-" the Emperor began, only for me to scornfully spit on it where it lay prone.

    "If you keep lying, I'm going to start cutting tentacles off until you've either run out of bullshit or tentacles." I said grimly. "You were originally one of the Absolute's elite servants before exposure to the Astral Prism broke you free. And I saw Gortash's letter to Ketheric - he'd personally picked you to captain the nautiloid that abducted us! You're the one who took us and jammed these tadpoles in our heads!" I raged. "You've known the whole time exactly who we were up against and exactly how they've been working, because you were there! But you held it all back until it was too late to do much good, and even now at the desperate end you're still trying to drip-feed it out selectively to manipulate us."

    "No!" the Emperor begged. "I was alone, the other illithids on the nautiloid still slaves of the Absolute and obeying me only for as long as they thought I was as well, with githyanki pursuing and an elder brain that needed to be destroyed if I were ever to be safe! So I diverted the ship on its return to recruit allies, however hastily! Necessity compelled me, not malice!"

    "He's your prisoner, but I'm starting to think that there's nothing here to interrogate." I looked at Orpheus. "No matter what we pressure him with, he'll just keep lying. And I really doubt his oh-so-convenient story that we have to keep him alive to do a job we already saw three non-illithids doing just the other day."

    "I agree." Orpheus said. "Guards, dispose of it."

    "No! Nooo! Hawke, you must-!" And then the Emperor's voice was silenced forever when Lae'zel's sword took his head clean off just a fraction ahead of Pirstal's own blade. The kith'rak glared at Lae'zel heatedly.

    "Apologies, but ever since that abomination had first tried to walk me on his leash I had vowed repeatedly to cut its head off and stick it on a pole. And I would not be forsworn." Lae'zel said fearlessly.

    "... understandable." Pirstal acknowledged with rough humor. "Well struck, warrior."

    "Indeed." Orpheus chuckled. "In fact... Lae'zel, do our people still hold to the principle that a crecheling may not claim the full privileges of adulthood until they have claimed the head of a ghaik and presented it to their superior?"

    "They do." Lae'zel bowed.

    "Lae'zel, formerly of Creche K'llir." Orpheus recited formally. "I, Orpheus, Prince of the Comet, do hereby accept your offering of this insolent ghaik's head as proof of your loyalty and skill. From this day forth shall you be deemed a true warrior of the gith, adult and beholden to no creche master."

    Lae'zel bowed formally to the captive prince. "I accept this honor from your hands with pride, Your Radiance. Sha'vah Orpheus!"

    "And now, to business." Orpheus replied. "Hawke, when does Voss intend to rendezvous with you next?"

    "He said he'd be waiting for us at a tavern in Baldur's Gate called Sharess' Caress." I said. "He was hoping by then to have located the key to your chains."

    "My chains were forged in the hells themselves, by the greatest master artisans of the devils." Orpheus said grimly. "They were intended for the punishment of the very most damned of souls. The first Vlaakith's dark bargain with the infernal to betray Gith also included the price of my bonds. If he seeks the key to these chains, then he seeks it among the depths of the infernal. I shall pray for his safe return."

    "And that's not the only safe return we're praying for." I agreed. "One of our other allies is scouting the city even now..."


    "Hawke?" Shadowheart's voice came to me from where I sat alone on top of the lookout tower. After we'd finished our discussion with Orpheus he'd resumed broadcasting his protective aura outside the Prism - that was a function Vlaakith I had originally designed into it, after all, so that she could exploit his powers if need be - and one of his honor guard had opened a portal for us to safely exit.

    "Shadowheart." I turned and greeted her with a brief smile. "What's on your mind?"

    "Rather a bit, actually." she said somberly. "First, I know that we haven't really had much chance to connect for the past several days. Isobel's got so much to teach me, but I should have made more time for you as well."

    "It's all right." I reassured her.

    "What's wrong?" she asked me concernedly. "Because that's the face of a man who still wants to be alone. Which... isn't usual, when we're both alone."

    I remained silent for a time, and Shadowheart sat tautly next to me in tense silence.

    "I'm scared." I finally admitted reluctantly. "If not terrified."

    "And you think I'm not?" she asked, relaxing against me. "We're up against impossible odds, with mind flayer parasites in our brains that very few have ever survived, while being pursued by multiple different factions of implacable foes. If you weren't scared right now, then I'd question your contact with reality."

    "The reason most of you are only scared and not very scared is because - not to sound like I've got a big head - you all think that I'm handling it. Gods, this morning we were talking to a long-lost prince of a multiplanar kingdom from an ancient era and I was discussing strategy with him as if I were an equal." I burst out. "Everybody thinks I'm their great leader! Everyone thinks that it doesn't matter how bad it's going to get, because I'll still have an answer! And what if I don't?!?" I finally fell silent, my pulse pounding in my ears.

    Shadowheart's head came to rest against my shoulder, her arm around me comfortingly. "You're leaving out the most important part. We trust you to know what to do next if anyone can." she emphasized. "But if you can't figure it out then one of us will think of something, at which point teamwork saves the day. Or one of us won't think of something, at which point none of us would have any right to blame you. I certainly never would."

    "But that's not good enough." I said despairingly, still looking away from her and out to the horizon, to the city.

    "I'm certain you remember that first night we camped together, in the ruin of the old chapel." Shadowheart agreed. "When you told me and Gale about your past. About your family... about Kirkwall..."

    "And about how I failed to save them all, over and over again." I agreed. "Just like I'm terrified that I'll fail you too." I sighed. "I was so confident when we started this trip. But I knew nothing. The sheer power of that elder brain... the literally cosmic scope of the Grand Design... the gods-damned Avatar of Myrkul, and with our luck we'll have Bane and Bhaal showing up in the flesh too by the time we're done! What kind of cocksure idiot thinks he'll be able to outsmart all that?"

    "I am not in love with a cocksure idiot." Shadowheart stated as matter-of-factly as someone would say 'The sun rises in the east'. "Even if I am in love with a man who takes too much on himself sometimes. You've supported me so much when I doubted and despaired. If you're going to do the same, then let me - let anyone - support you."

    "I'll be all right." I insisted.

    "You certainly will be, because you're going to be wise enough to listen to me when I say to stop bottling it all up and actually share your concerns with someone you can trust to help you through them." Shadowheart insisted. "Am I making myself clear?"

    "Crystal." I acknowledged.

    "Thank you." she sighed, cuddling into me - before suddenly moving away. "Of course... it might not be me you choose to share your concerns with." she continued, more downcast. "Because when I originally came up here, I was intending to apologize."

    "For what?" I asked her confusedly.

    "For what?" she echoed incredulously. "Does a certain conversation by the river at Last Light not come to mind? Where I pretended to be a jealous idiot?"

    "You were doing that under duress." I reassured her. "I don't hold it against you."

    "Truly?" she asked nervously. "Because..." her eyes closed in shame. "Back when she thought I was as at least as bad as any other Sharran Isobel once challenged me that the worshippers of Shar had 'made mental cruelty both a science, a fine art, and a competitive sport' - and she was not wrong. Hawke, I hurt you." she said mournfully. "When I pretended that you'd let me down the same way you'd let Merrill down, I took your greatest fear and greatest shame, which you'd told me in confidence, and deliberately used it against you. I was so desperate to fulfill Shar's will that I manipulated you in the cruelest, most underhanded way I could possibly think of - and for no better reason than because I thought it had the best chance of working." Without actually moving she seemed to painfully huddle into herself and pull away. "Remember what we both said that night about how a relationship can't survive once the trust has been so gravely violated by the one that the other can never entirely overcome the fear that they might do it again? That was false in your case, of course. But I'm afraid-" she looked up at me with moist eyes. "I'm afraid that I've made it true in my case, with what I did to you. That's... the real reason I've been so busy the past several days. The longer I could postpone this conversation, the longer I could pretend I still had-" She gulped. "Still had the best thing that's ever happened to me. But- but I can't pretend forever. And I'll... understand, if you can't-"

    "Shadowheart, stop talking nonsense." I cut her off firmly. "I am not mad at you, I certainly am not breaking up with you, and you have very little to apologize for." I paused momentarily. "All right, you have something substantial to apologize for but you just did that, and a sincere apology is all that you needed." I smiled at her. "Because I already understand why you did it. And you already understand why it was wrong. And we both understand why it's not something to be afraid of happening again." I quirked a lopsided grin at her. "I mean, I think we can rest assured that the next time Shar tries to hold a loved one hostage on you then you'll actually tell someone about it, yes?"

    "You- you forgive me?" Shadowheart asked incredulously. "Just like that?"

    "I think you're the best thing that's ever happened to me as well." I reassured her. "And if the goddess of spite herself couldn't get us to split up for real, then I'm pretty sure the only two things in the universe that could ever manage the job are you and I." I shrugged and grinned. "So as long as we both still agree, then all the gods and devils can just go hang."

    "Agreed." Shadowheart smiled like the sun rising, and we hugged and kissed for rather a long while-

    "I really hate to interrupt." Wyll's voice broke in. "But you might want to come down and join the rest of us before clothes start coming off. Jaheira's back, and the news looks to be fairly urgent."

    "Wyll, just because I once complained that you were as annoying as a younger brother doesn't mean you have to start living up to it on a regular basis." I groused as we disentangled ourselves and stood up.

    We arrived to see Jaheira looking like a rat's nest during a flood. "What happened to you?" I wondered. Because not only did she look visibly distressed, but Isobel was just finishing up what looked to have been treating her for wounds.

    "I set up a rendezvous at a Harper safe house to talk with several key members of my network in the city." Jaheira said wearily. "And I discovered that network had been infiltrated by doppelganger assassins. Humanoid shapeshifters who impersonate others." she continued, off my expression.

    "Well shit." Karlach swore.

    "I don't even know who's compromised and who isn't." Jaheira continued. "With one exception, everyone else at the meeting was a doppelganger. I was fortunate that I had a potion of Feather Fall in my pocket, because the only way I got us both out of that ambush alive was to jump right off the South Span into the Chionthar."

    "How's your surviving man?" Isobel asked.

    "Man? Boy." she snorted. "The one person they didn't bother to replace was our newest recruit. They kept him alive for his knowledge of the codes, in case they had to transmit any messages to Harpers elsewhere. I'm not sure whether I should be annoyed with him at not slipping a warning into a message earlier or thankful that he kept himself alive long enough to tip me off at the meeting before I actually sat down with my back to any knives."

    "Seeing as how he apparently saved your life, I'd err on the side of generosity." I suggested.

    "Well, at any rate I left messages in the emergency drops telling the rest of the network to disband and get the hell out of the city and regroup elsewhere. Three of the doppelgangers at that meeting were wearing the faces of Harper cell leaders - if they've gotten that deeply into the network, then I have to assume there's very few that they won't be able to find. If I try to leave them in place, I may as well just serve them up as dinner." Jaheira sighed. "And then I had to warn all of the men I brought back from Moonrise with us that doppelgangers were in play. Hell's bells, I don't even know how to check you."

    "Did you have your parasite jar with you?" Gale thought out loud. "And did it react to any of the doppelgangers?"

    "Yes. And no." Jaheira answered. "So, at least some of the Absolute cultists in the city aren't True Souls."

    "That was also true at Moonrise." Wyll interjected. "We ran into several Myrkul devotees who weren't tadpoled. And Ketheric wasn't either. True Souls might fill out most of the ranks of the Cult of the Absolute, but the Dead Three apparently have their own cultists mixed in with this as well."

    "And working willingly, not under illithid compulsion." Shadowheart said.

    "Sarevok also used doppelgangers in his scheme, a century ago." Jaheira sighed. "Whoever is in charge of the Bhaalite end of this operation, they are very uncreative."

    "Orin." I agreed, remembering the Chosen we'd seen in the depths of the illithid colony. "Actually, is she a doppelganger? She certainly didn't look human."

    "No, an unshifted doppelganger looks notably less human than even that." Jaheira said. "But I have been thinking back on it ever since I learned that doppelgangers were in play, and it is very likely from her features that she is a changeling - who are rumored to be the result when doppelganger blood enters a human's family tree, in much the same way tieflings are distantly descended from the infernal."

    "Wonderful. We're up against a cult of assassins that are also shapeshifters. Hmmm... those of us with tadpoles can at least mentally check anybody else with a tadpole, and Aylin can't be fooled as to whether someone is genuinely a priestess of Selune or not - and I can't imagine a doppelganger can impersonate her-" I thought out loud.

    "They could assume my shape, but not my celestial aura." Aylin confirmed. "Which can be distinctly felt, even when it is not visible."

    "So us six can remain certain about each other and about Aylin. And Aylin can always remain certain about Isobel or Shadowheart." I continued. "It's looking like the weak link is you, Jaheira."

    "Good. Keep doing that." Jaheira complimented me. "When shapeshifters like that are in play, you have to remain that suspicious of everyone."

    Gale muttered a spell under his breath and looked at Jaheira. "She's clear." He grinned back at Jaheira's expression. "Detect Thoughts. And the beauty of it is that it's a ritual spell, so I can cast it as often as I like."

    "Is there such a thing as a doppelganger detector?" I asked him.

    "If you brew a potion of Detect Thoughts then it'll last for hours." Gale replied after a bit of thought. "And I can do that with several relatively common ingredients available in any alchemy shop, even if it would cost a bit of gold. I can't think of anything else offhand."

    "Reading the surface thoughts of everybody I meet in a day would probably drive me insane." I said. "Brew a couple of those potions when you can, and we'll keep them as an emergency reserve. But for a longer-term solution..." I trailed off, stumped.

    "It would appear that Orin must be our priority target, then." Jaheira replied. "So long as there's a network of shapeshifting assassins running around the city we'll be too busy watching our backs to do anything else, so they have got to go. At least we know where Gortash is and what he's doing. Which brings me to the next part of the bad news."

    "Oh, what's that fucker done now?" Karlach moaned.

    "Even without my network I could still pick up the public news at least, from broadsheets and eavesdropping. And the news is all over town - the illustrious Lord Enver Gortash will soon be coronated as the new Archduke of Baldur's Gate." Jaheira spat into the fire. "By unanimous acclaim!"

    "His plan worked that well?" I asked incredulously.

    "Archduke? What kind of post is that?" Wyll followed. "It doesn't even exist in the city charter!"

    "It does now." Jaheira said sardonically. "The threat of the Absolute - which was heroically driven back by the genius of Gortash, just as we thought it would be! - has proven that the Parliament of Peers and the Council of Dukes are too slow and unwieldy to take decisive action when the city needs it. No, there must be a single strong leader to protect the city with firm resolve and not just more politicking as usual, blah blah blah."

    "I have known two worlds and the tyrants in both of them use almost exactly the same script." Lae'zel swore. "Appalling."

    "I've seen two worlds as well and you're not wrong." I agreed. "It must be some kind of character flaw inherent in the demi-human condition."

    "My father?" Wyll pressed.

    "Still alive, and being publicly paraded around as one of the Archduke-to-be's most enthusiastic supporters." Jaheira reassured him. "It was his confession of failure against the Absolute and endorsement of the new system that convinced much of the Parliament of Peers to vote for it. The rest were presumably influenced by Gortash. Plus, there were more than several abstentions - whether that means they were just 'encouraged' to stay home or there have been more vacancies created in the city's power structure, I do not know." Jaheira said.

    "More vacancies?" Karlach picked up on that. "Who died?"

    "Duke Stelmane." Jaheira answered. "Murdered in a private room at the Elfsong Tavern just a day ago. Brutally murdered, in a ritualistic killing." She spat into the fire again. "Bhaalite cultists, of course. They never change."

    "Damn, I knew her." Wyll sighed. "I mean, not very well - I was just a boy. But her and father conferred often on Council business, and she used to always have a kind word for me - until she had her stroke. She did well to survive it, but was never quite the same after that."

    "All water under Wyrm's Crossing now." Jaheira commiserated. "She must have been in Gortash's way."

    "Did you pick up anything else about Gortash's plans? Where he's staying?" Karlach pressed. "If we can knock him out quick and sharp first-"

    "Gortash is in Wyrm's Rock Fortress." Jaheira answered "Which surprises me, because I would have thought that the bastard would move himself into the High Hall in the Upper City first thing. But no, he has sworn that for as long as the army of the Absolute threatens the city - for they were only driven off, after all, not decisively crushed, and could possibly return at any time-" She emphasized the latter with sarcastic scary puppet gestures with her fingers. "At any rate, he is making much good propaganda out of his determination to not retreat within the city walls so long as the city remains under threat, as a gesture of solidarity with even the lowest of his people. Even if he is not stepping an inch out of the acting arch-ducal headquarters that have been set up on the topmost floor of the most secure island fortress that our most secure prison is built over."

    "There has to be more than a propaganda victory he's getting out of that." I said. "He's got to be doing a lot of networking and politicking amongst the patriars to set up and keep his whole scam running, and he's making every one that wants to see him journey all the way down from the Upper City every time? That's a lot of inconvenience to be putting people through when they're the people you most need to keep well-disposed towards you. He wouldn't be doing it without a very compelling reason."

    "Entirely logical, but I can't begin to speculate what it might be at present and I doubt Jaheira heard the reason being bandied about as common tavern gossip." Gale said.

    "Hah. No, I did not." she agreed. "And I looked into the access situation. First off, we can forget about the Guild getting us in via the sea route. There's a new outfit in town, led by someone called the Stone Man, and they are on a rampage. In just a few weeks Nine-Fingers' people have already been pushed out of half of their territory - including both the harbor and the coastal inlets on the Chionthar where smugglers like to dock when they are avoiding the harbor. She's busy hiring mercenaries to try and hold on to what she's got left. Oh, and worse yet, it's common knowledge among the thieves of Baldur's Gate that the Stone Man serves the Cult of the Absolute."

    "Fucking hell, Gortash does it again!" Karlach angrily kicked a nearby boulder, which actually shifted a foot. "Every time we make a plan, he's a step ahead!"

    "He does certainly seem to be a step ahead of us on this one." Jaheira agreed. "I've never even heard of anyone called the Stone Man before, but from what I overheard every cutpurse in town is terrified of him. A giant, unstoppable brute who strikes utterly without mercy, they say."

    "Anything else?" I asked.

    "Shadowheart was right about Gortash blocking out the refugees and putting in strict access controls. Wyrm's Rock has raised the drawbridge from the South Span - nothing is being allowed into the city from Rivington at all until after the coronation without an official pass, and those are rare on the ground as hell. The access controls on other gates are being even stricter. Rivington is a giant refugee camp now. Even our old tiefling acquaintances are stuck out there." Jaheira said.

    "Going to Rivington and making contact with them and gathering more data is an obvious course of action. Too obvious." I concluded. "Karlach's right in that Gortash has spent far too much thought gaming out everything we would probably do and moving to counter it in advance. We will get one major operation done before he knows we're there and acts accordingly - and if we're careless we won't even get the one. So we need to either make that first move either taking out Orin, or replacing the entire network you lost."

    "Knowing you, I'm assuming you've already got plans for both." Shadowheart said confidently.

    "Well, if we're presuming that the cult of Bhaal killed Duke Stelmane, starting a murder investigation of there should lead us to the cult. But while that is the more important objective, it's also a bit iffy - we'd be assuming that they'd actually let us examine the crime scene, and that we'd actually find clues. So I'm actually thinking to start with the other one first, because that relies only on things we already know are fact."

    "What facts would those be?" Jaheira said.

    "Fact one - the Guild used to run almost all the crime in Baldur's Gate and still has extensive contacts and resources available throughout much of it. Fact two - one of Gortash's henchmen has taken away half their territory in a month." I smiled. "And fact three - your old acquaintance Nine-Fingers would likely be very grateful to anyone who solved her little Stone Man problem for her."

    "Hawke, you are a mad bastard who I am suspecting could not think in a straight line even if he were paid to." Jaheira laughed. "That having been said, you're not wrong. Rumor had it that she's bleeding gold hiring mercenaries to help defend her remaining operations. If we killed the Stone Man for her and took our payment in kind rather than coin? Especially when it was for the purpose of dealing with the rest of the Absolutists, who she almost certainly despises after everything they've done to her already? We'd have an eye almost on every street corner in the Lower City. But how you are going to even find the Stone Man?"

    "If Nine-Fingers doesn't already know how to find him, she's not good enough at her job to help us find Orin." I said. "It's almost certainly just that seeing how he seems to be a very powerful fighter, Nine-Fingers doesn't have anyone tough enough to kill him. On the other hand, we were fighting the avatar of the god of death earlier this week..."

    "With my assistance." Aylin pointed out. "But I am reluctant to get involved in a gang war between criminals. That would be..." she trailed off as diplomatically as she could.

    "I understand." I said. "And we could use someone to check out the situation with the refugees and in Rivington anyway. Isobel can do that, and you could- hmmm." I trailed off.

    "Ah, that reminds me." Jaheira said and reached into her sack and came out with a mask. "Something I fetched from a holdout cache while I was in the city. The Mask of the Shapeshifter - wear it and you can use the spell of Disguise Self essentially at will." She handed it to Aylin. "I've seen a man the size of Karlach use this to impersonate a halfling, so it should certainly let you disguise yourself as a woman of more normal dimensions and features."

    "Thank you." Aylin said, taking the mask. "We shall see what we can do in Rivington, then, and rendezvous with you later. But how will you get into the city?"

    "Simple. One of us will get back in the same way she entered the first time." I nodded to Jaheira... and then pulled the Astral Prism out of my belt pouch. "And the rest of us will be riding in here."


    The Guild had existed in Baldur's Gate for decades. At its height it had been an organized crime syndicate whose fingers reached all the way from the humblest streets of the Outer City to peeking through the windows of the High Hall itself. Although the Guild traditionally restricted itself to the less objectionable categories of criminal behavior, they were still as ruthless as any crime syndicate needed to be when necessary. Not paying your Guild debts led straight to a very unpleasant encounter with its enforcers, and excessively getting in the way of the Guild's operations often led to the Guild spending good coin to ferret out your secrets and then make sure they ended up in the hands of the people you least wanted them to. Even the patriars of the Upper City or the Flaming Fist didn't casually cross the Guild, although they certainly had more ways to make their displeasure known than the common Baldurian and thus earned a measure of restraint in how hard the Guild would fleece them. Not that there weren't any number of guardsmen or nobles engaged in perfectly willing arrangements with the Guild, for everything from to contraband luxuries to strategic blackmail. They smuggled, they sold protection, they spied, and they did almost anything except murder for the right price - that latter was saved solely as a matter of in-house discipline.

    And yet as crime syndicates went they were... well, "substantially less horrible than they could have been" was the fairest description. Nine-Fingers had grown up as a homeless street urchin and even if nobody dared accuse her of it to her face, she still had a little sympathy in her for the poor and downtrodden. The destitute and helpless were about the only class of people who could even hope for forgiveness of debts owed to the Guild, and "stick to robbing the ones who actually have money" was one of the firmest rules the Guild had. And while they were hardly the Flaming Fist, there were certain categories of things you just didn't do in a Guild-dominated neighborhood unless you wanted your legs broken. This was why Jaheira actually deigned to maintain some kind of business relationship with Nine-Fingers at all, even if she was emphatic about them not being friends. And it was also why Jaheira's presence was the only thing we needed to convince the men guarding the hidden alley entrance to the Guildhall to let us in... or how Jaheira had known what it was.

    "Harper." one of the guards at the interior door leading to the main Guildhall greeted her curtly. "Who're your friends?"

    "A team of trustworthy associates I've put together to do a little job to remove one of the leaders of the Absolute cult." Jaheira replied. "All I need now is the location of the target - that's what I've come here to trade for."

    "If this bunch of mutts you've got following you around are more Harpers then I'm Laeral Silverhand." a female guard snorted. We'd simply stayed inside the Astral Prism until Jaheira was almost on top of the alley entrance, so we hadn't bothered to disguise ourselves - plus, we didn't know if the Guild had magical means to detect magical disguises at the door, and didn't want to risk triggering them if they did. We'd just have to hope Gortash didn't have any eyes or ears inside the hall tonight-

    "I need to tell the Guild that you work with all kinds as necessary?" Jaheira snorted. "Just tell Nine-Fingers we're here."

    "She's in a meeting." the first guard said. "A 'do not interrupt or the idiot who can't follow simple directions will regret their mother didn't drown them at birth' meeting. And I'm not sure I should let you out on the floor to wander around, so you can wait right here."

    "Come on, we know Nine-Fingers will want to see her as soon as she's free." the second guard said. "And what are all those damn Zhents we're paying for as extra muscle doing to earn their keep anyway? If this lot acts up in the house then they'll get the bum's rush. Until then, might as well let 'em spend their coin at the bar."

    "All right, go on in." the first guard agreed. "You been here before, Harper, you know the rules."

    "Zhents? Zhentarim? Those are the mercenaries you have been hiring to reinforce against the Stone Man?" Jaheira asked incredulously.

    "What business is it of yours?" the first guard replied challengingly.

    "As you so eloquently expressed, none." Jaheira replied with witheringly polite sarcasm. "I am just hoping that the Guild will receive full value for its money - unlike so many of their other clients."

    "She's got you there." the second guard chuffed. "Bunch of surly stuck-up bastards they are."

    We moved past them and headed down into the Guildhall proper. It was a giant underground - literally - tavern and festhall built on several levels surrounding a giant open-air atrium along with multiple offices and storerooms where people were busy collecting Guild 'taxes', inventorying 'merchandise', and bustling around making sure that the Guild's business kept running smoothly day and night.

    "They have several places like this spread out over the various districts of the city." Jaheira said softly as we walked across one of the upper platforms. "Nine-Fingers rotates between them on an irregular basis - she refuses to allow herself to be pinned down in any one place for too long."

    "Is that Lady Severn?" Wyll said incredulously, staring up at one of the patrons sitting at an upper-deck table. "She's on the Parliament of Peers!"

    "And apparently she is also a friend of the Guild." Jaheira observed. "You grew up in the Upper City and this surprises you?"

    "Surprises, no. Disappoints... a bit." Wyll said ruminatingly.

    "About these 'Zhents'," I asked Jaheira, as I noted clumps of surly looking men and women standing around in strategic positions and not smiling or talking to anyone. "I take it they're the sort of mercenaries who are less than scrupulous about fulfilling contracts?"

    "Mercenaries?" Jaheira snorted. "Try professional bastards for hire. A century and more ago the city of Zhentil Keep was home to one of the greatest criminal and conspiratorial networks in northern Faerun, the Zhentarim Black Network. Crime, smuggling, intrigue, warfare, everything short of taking over the world." Jaheira shrugged. "Then the mad god Cyric happened, and then the city of Shade returning, and- it's a long story but the short version is, there isn't a Zhentil Keep anymore. Or a Black Network. The name survives on a bunch of unscrupulous blades for hire and smugglers who mostly operate in eastern Faerun, but have been expanding west in recent years. That Nine-Fingers has let them in the Guildhall at all shows how desperate the Stone Man must be making her."

    "Stone Man? Hah!" a drunken halfling at the table we were walking past snorted, having apparently overhead the tail end of Jaheira's statement. "No need to worry about him! He'll be gone before morning!"

    "Leave the nice people alone and finish your beer, Tut." his companion said softly. "Sorry to have bothered you." he apologized to us.

    "Hmmm." Jaheira stopped and eyed the two suspiciously. "Now why is a man who drinks so much sitting with a man who drinks so little, I am wondering?"

    "What do you mean?" the second man said defensively.

    "I can see where there's a sticky ring around the inside of your mug." Jaheira snorted. "You haven't so much as moved it, let alone drank from it, for at least half an hour. Word of advice - if you're doing the 'pretending to be drunk' bit, then either drink something thinner than honey mead or remember to slosh your cup around every few minutes."

    "You've got a very keen eye for someone who isn't minding their own business." he replied.

    "The question is, whose business are you minding?" Jaheira narrowed her eyes at them. "Because of course Nine-Fingers has entirely approved whatever you're up to here, and you would never dream of running an independent angle against a Guildsman - however drunk - in their own hall. But I can ask her when my appointment to go see her comes around, so you're right, we don't need to bother you-"

    "Easy, easy!" he said. "I'm not sharping anyone! I'm just trying to keep a friend out of trouble!" He nodded at Tut. "He's a pain in the arse but he's still a friend, and earlier tonight he helped set up a tiny piece of the operation that's finally going to get rid of that damned Stone Man for us and he's wanted to brag about it to the entire hall all night - before the plan actually finishes! So I'm trying to pour enough ale into him that he'll go to sleep early before his mouth gets him in trouble. Now just move on and pretend you didn't hear that, and I'll stand you all a round, all right?"

    "Wait." I said. "He wasn't just bragging. The Guild is really about to take down the Stone Man?"

    "What's it to you, stranger?" he said.

    "Blunt truth? Because my crew was hoping to hire on that job, and you're telling me we got here too late!" I swore. "Look, if you'll just tip me off to where it's going down so I can rush out there and ask the crew boss if he'll let us tag in for a piece, I'll put coin in your hand right now."

    "The Harpers also want to talk to the Stone Man about certain things he's done to us as well as you." Jaheiera contributed. "That's why I'm here."

    "Jaheira? Damn, this must be legit." the sober man looked up at us - particularly at my own generous frame and Karlach's outright gargantuan one. "Won't deny that muscle like what you've brought along might make things go easier, given what a big tough fucker the Stone Man is supposed to be. And if you got in here..." He shrugged. "All right, it's happening at the Counting House tonight, right after normal close of business. We got a tip that the Stone Man's going to be trying a smash-and-grab there, you see, and so Nine-Fingers has a whole welcoming party waiting for them."

    "You, my friend, are a lifesaver." I thanked him enthusiastically. "Here's a few dozen on me." I reached into my pouch and put down twenty gold pieces, and he swept them off the table and into his pocket as elegantly as a stage magician.

    "Pleasure doing business with you." he said. "Tell the chief clerk at the front desk that Phostlethwaite sent you, and he'll let you down to talk to the crew chief. Good luck on the job."

    A generous use of cloaks and hoods, as well as a quick non-magical change of hair color for a couple of us at Shadowheart's skilled hands, was the best we could do to hide our more distinctive members as we headed through the early evening streets. The 'Counting House' was one of the city's largest banks and safety deposit houses - Jaheira was as startled as I had been to find out that it was apparently a Guild-owned front business. Still, if the Stone Man was going to go for something as high-profile as outright bank robbery then helping stop that would be a public service. And even if we wouldn't earn as much of Nine-Fingers' gratitude being an assist on the job as we could have if we'd solved the entire problem for her, at this point we'd settle for what we could get.

    The chief clerk at the bank did indeed accept our contact's name as proof of our bona fides, and gave us a written pass that let us through all the multiple layers of security to the main vault. I honestly wondered how the hell the Stone Man even thought he could rob this place, given that we had passed through three separate checkpoints that had multiple barred gates that could be closed in an instant to trap intruders in a solid barred enclosure, complete with teams of armed guards. We then passed through a hallway lined with multiple rooms for examining safety deposit boxes to reach the inner door of the high-security vault at the absolute far end of the secure vault section - but the door was shut.

    "This was supposed to be open." I worried. "The Stone Man's already making his move. But how did he get down this far?"

    "They let him in." Jaheira realized. "This was a trap, after all. They wanted him all the way inside before they lowered the boom. But now Nine-Fingers' people are about to finish him off in there without our help and we came all this way for nothing!"

    "Knock." Gale said smugly... and the vault door completely failed to move.

    "Normally when that spell is cast there's a little more... unlocking." Wyll observed mildly.

    "Apparently the Gondians finally did solve the mechanical complexity factorial that they kept claiming would make a suitably large and overengineered lock system unable to be solved by the classic arcane picklock." Gale sighed. "On the one hand, yet another shining triumph of science and reason over the obdurate physical limitations of the universe. On the other hand, very inconvenient for us."

    "Well, we can either brute-force the thousands of possible combinations for that giant keypad built into the floor with those pressure plates, or we can think of something clever." Shadowheart said.

    "Everybody search the chamber. If we're lucky some lazy employee wrote the combination down on a slip of paper so he didn't have to remember it every day." Jaheira said, and we swiftly covered the antechamber. And very rapidly we found a posted notice saying this:

    FOR THE DIRECT NOTICE OF CLEANING STAFF
    NO more water is to be used to clean the floor in front of the Main Vault - use prestidigitation if you must clean there. We can't afford any more lightning mishaps with wet pressure plates. There will be no more warnings - only dismissals.

    "... did the manager literally just put detailed directions on how to short out their vastly complicated magic-proof locking system on the bulletin board? Because he was tired of the cleaning staff ignoring simple directions?" I facepalmed.

    Gale needed a few moments to stop laughing before he simply emptied a pitcher of water over one of the pressure plates, then followed up with a shocking cantrip. Sure enough, the entire electrical system of the combination lock shorted out and the door popped open.

    Our hearts sank as we arrived inside the high-security vault, standing on a low balcony overlooking the main vault floor. A richly-dressed dwarf who could only be the bank manager stood posing confidently next to a very large reinforced trunk, surrounded by a squad of bank guards in full armor and nervously clutching their weapons.

    "It's still moving." a female guard muttered fearfully.

    "Hush your fussing." the manager replied lazily. "Nine-Fingers had that one found specially - that little mouthful it just ate will barely slow it down."

    "But the stories..." the guard whimpered.

    "Tall tales and big names, lass. Don't let them fool you." the manager posed confidently while lighting his pipe and taking a leisurely buff. "Elminster the archmage. Driz'zt the drow exile. Heroes have power, aye - but not half as much as we do. A little coin in the right purse. A soft word in the right ear." He smiled arrogantly up at his worried employees. "It's not glory that keeps these planes spinning, lads. It's gold."

    And at that moment the trunk heaved mightily behind him, and the lid began to open from the inside. A single mighty arm became visible, forcing its way out through the gap between the lid and the main body of the trunk. I gaped incredulously as the purple ichor starting to ooze from the seams of the trunk and the fangs suddenly growing out of the rim of the trunk lid revealed that that was no wooden trunk at all - that was a mimic, like the one the Harpers had found while clearing out the upper floor of Moonrise Towers.

    "Moradin's cracked clay!" the manager gasped, as him and his guards all stepped well away from the trunk and gaped at it in shock. I'd been told that to be swallowed by a mimic was certain death even for a grown man, and after having seen the size of the one's corpse in Moonrise and imagining just how much force that large a block of solid muscle could crush anything caught in its interior chamber with, I believed it. But this one was even bigger, and the Stone Man was still forcing his way out of it by sheer strength.

    His arm blindly reached up and out over the half-open lid, then ruthlessly came down and gouged the mimic directly in the eye that opened up on the lid's top. The mimic shrieked and toppled over on its side, its lid straining even further open as the Stone Man pushed against the mimic's full constriction with impossible power, and he came crawling out of its open lid and tore himself free from its long prehensile tongue without even showing any visible strain.

    "Bloody hells, I'm not sure I could do that!" Karlach muttered.

    The Stone Man pulled himself free from the dying mimic and slowly, arrogantly climbed to his feet. He was a big bald giant of a man, a tiny bit shorter than Karlach but slightly wider, with his right eye and the right side of his scalp all covered in an elaborate purple tattoo.

    "Minsc?" Jaheira gaped.


    Author's Note: The really amusing part is that the Emperor was telling the truth, at least about the needing an illithid part. But hey, there's a reason why 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' is a necessary lesson for children - if you go around lying all the time then when you finally do need to convince someone of the truth, guess what, they won't believe you. As is, Hawke will have to do something very clever later to get around the problem he doesn't know is coming yet. Hopefully he shall rise to the challenge. *g*

    The game inconveniently does not explain how the heck Voss can be the guy who helped put Orpheus in the Astral Prism in the first place and an old friend that Orpheus immediately greets with enthusiasm and no shock as soon as they meet up again after he's been freed, so I did it myself. Getting to fridge logic up things that fill in the cracks of canon is turning out to be one of my greater pleasures in writing this fic, honestly.

    And yes, Shadowheart was not ignoring the fact that she legitimately owed Hawke an apology for the fake jealously ploy - she was just scared to bring the topic up right away. I find how her character can immediately bounce from unflinching determination to blushing insecurity the instant the topic goes from professional to personal and back to actually be kinda adorable, even if it's a habit she needs to get over (and thankfully does) to complete the romance path. Seriously, though, check out a video sometime of how Shadowheart reacts if you were dual flirting with someone else and then break up with them to commit to Shadowheart's romance path. She literally can't believe she wasn't the second choice. Poor girl needs so many hugs.

    You get the Mask of the Shapeshifter free in the camp chest at game start if you ordered the digital deluxe edition. Giving it to them only at the start of act 3 is if anything a tad stingy.

    BTW, yes, I deliberately rushed them through the Guild House without having them actually reach Nine-Fingers precisely so that Jaheira would get no forewarning. I just wanted to imagine the expression on her face.

    And tooth still hurts, updates still slower. Hopefully the dentist tomorrow will have reassuring news.
     
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