As soon as we passed the double doors at the bottom of the staircase Gale gasped in relief. "The planar wards don't stretch down this far! We've got a clear escape route! Hawke, you did it!" he congratulated me.
"Thank the Maker." I said relievedly. "But I don't think we should leave just yet."
"You want the artifact?" Wyll deduced. "Why?"
"Well, our first attempt to find a divine miracle cure just failed." I thought out loud. "And do you remember that comparision I made when we first saw Rosymorn Monastery, to the holy site on Thedas where they found the Ashes of Andraste? I don't know that this artifact is a purveyor of healing miracles like the Ashes were, but if we've gotten back the ability to evacuate via the travelstones at a moment's notice then we can afford to take a little time down here."
"We're probably not going to be that lucky, but you're right. We should try and find out before we leave, because we certainly won't be able to get back in here later." Shadowheart agreed.
We spent the next quarter of an hour learning that whatever enchanter had helped create the defenses around the artifact may have been a superb arcane engineer, but they did not know much about trap design. Some of the magical force fields blocking the corridor had the arcane crystals serving as their power sources located on our side of the barrier. The rest could be bypassed by simply climbing up and around through large cracks that unaccountably existed in the stone walls surrounding the passage leading to the artifact chamber. I was beginning to lose some respect for the priests of Lathander - their devotion, their vast resources, and the skills of their enchanters couldn't be questioned, but their ability to think in proper defensive terms was so lacking that half the cutpurses in Kirkwall could have easily made it through the gaps in the coverage down here.
Soon enough we came out into the main artifact chamber, which was built on a large gilded metal platform suspended over an apparently bottomless chasm in a large underground cave. Four pillars of golden arcano-mechanisms surmounted each corner of the platform, and the center was occupied by a series of circular steps leading up to a raised dias in which a large mace, its head shining with a brilliant yellow-gold light, hung suspended in an elaborate metal framework. A piece of amber the size of a clenched fist, as red as a ruby, was mounted high up in the handle of the mace just beneath the head.
"That does not look like a healing artifact." Shadowheart said, disappointedly.
"By the Weave." Gale gasped, awestruck. "That's the Blood of Lathander!" He turned to us. "Almost half a millenium ago the renegade Chosen of Mystra, Sammaster the necromancer, posed such a threat to all of Faerun that the Harpers sent an entire small army after him. But despite having turned away from the Goddess of Magic Sammaster still bore the spark of divine power that she had once gifted him with before his fall to evil, and with that power he could resist destruction by any mortal force. A high priest of Lathander amongst the Harper contingent that fought him begged for the aid of his god, and the Morninglord sent an avatar in response. Sammaster's stolen scrap of divinity could not protect him against a true god, and so he perished. But as he was empowered - however partially and wrongly - by divinity himself, Sammaster was able to wound Lathander's avatar and draw several drops of his blood. Lathander's faithful treasured those drops forever after as a most sacred artifact of their faith, preserving them in a piece of amber." He nodded up towards the glowing mace on the top of the dias. "That piece, right there."
"Andraste's Ashes." I swore softly. "But they preserved it as a weapon of their faith, not a panacea."
"Apparently so." Gale agreed.
"Well, are we taking it or not?" Karlach asked.
"On the one hand, it's not ours." I thought out loud. "On the other hand, it's rightful keepers are dead and this temple has fallen into the hands of the enemy so just leaving it here is also a bad idea. And on the third hand, I can think of several things we might really need it for." I shrugged and turned to Shadowheart. "As our resident religious expert, do you think Lathander would be mortally offended if we took that with us and used it on our quest against the Absolute, with the intent to return it to one of his temples elsewhere when we no longer had immediate need of it?"
"The nearest other temple of Lathander is in Baldur's Gate." Shadowheart said practically. "Which is where we were ultimately headed anyway. And you're a paladin - the gods tend to place more trust in the Oathbound than they would in any random adventurer. So no, I don't think we'd be risking divine retribution if we handled it. But do you see that?" She pointed at a small indentation on the bottom of the framework holding up the Blood. "That's shaped exactly like a holy symbol a priest of Lathander would wear. And it's located exactly where you would put the keyhole to unlock the mechanism that the artifact is currently encased in. It's probably waiting for someone to put in the particular holy symbol that the high priest of Rosymorn Monastery would be wearing... which is almost certainly located somewhere several stories above us in the abandoned surface levels of the monastery that we searched earlier today."
"And where we didn't find anything like that." I agreed. "But that framework looks really loose. Even without opening it, a little wiggling would probably get that mace right out of there."
"I have good news, and I have bad news." Gale said. "The good news is, I've solved the mystery of what exactly was powering that giant magical device on the roof. Answer - these four arcane accumulators right here." He pointed to the four pillars surrounding the platform. "They're batteries, having charged themselves over the years - or centuries - from the energy radiating from the divine artifact sitting in the center of this mechanism."
"For all that time? That would be a lot of power." I whistled in awe. "And the bad news is?"
"I am admittedly playing a hunch, but from the circuit pathways I can see running all around the artifact I'm almost certain that if you remove the Blood of Lathander from that socket without using the proper key first, the system is set up to destructively discharge all four of those batteries all at once." Gale finished.
"So... boom?" Karlach asked.
"Boom." Gale agreed. "Very much so. It would probably take out the entire monastery."
My eyes opened wide. "That... would solve the problem of the githyanki knowing we have the Astral Prism, and Vlaakith sending entire armies from the Astral Plane after us. Because they don't know about the travelstone network. If we touch off the explosion and then teleport away from here, all she's got to go on is a giant smoking crater where the monastery used to be - and as far as she knows, with us still in it. And while the Astral Prism is likely indestructible, the longer she spends sifting through the ashes here digging for it the longer she's not chasing us all the way to Moonrise Towers." I exhaled in relief. "I'd been wondering how we were going to deal with that particular problem."
"That is indeed a brilliantly extemporaneous tactical maneuver!" Gale congratulated me. "That, unfortunately, entirely won't work and will kill all of us. The buildup to that kind of uncontrolled magical catastrophe would almost certainly create enough local ethereal disruption that the travelstone attunement would be destructively interfered with."
"Damn it!" I swore. "Even without the prospect of having a powerful holy weapon for our use, clearing our backtrail behind us would have been a life-saver on its own." I sighed. "But if we can't, we can't-"
"Uh, Gale?" Karlach broke in. "You said that those four doohickeys down there are what's powering the big thingamabob up on the roof, yeah?"
"Why do you ask?" Gale replied.
"Because how's the power getting from down here to up there?" Karlach asked practically. "If somebody's run a pipe up there then they had to run it through somewhere, right? I've never seen a pipe laid yet without someone having to dig a hole for it to go through first. So even without the travelstones, maybe there's an accessway we can use or something."
"How did I miss that?" I facepalmed.
"You don't run that much arcane - or divine - power through pipes, Karlach." Gale said tolerantly. "If you didn't have a clear open pathway to transmit a beam, then the only way I could imagine it working is if you were using some type of translocational..." he trailed off. "Portal!" he finished, his eyes open wide in realization. And then he immediately leapt down off the dais and started frantically searching all around the edges of the platform. "I found it!" he called from the edge of the platform opposite the entrance, where an empty metal archway stood. "This should lead right to the roof!" He trailed off. "When it's in operation. Which right now, it's not."
"Do you think the explosion would happen immediately, or would there have to be a buildup first?" I asked.
"So you're thinking pull the mace out, run straight for the portal, and get off the roof and clear of the blast radius before the detonation completes?" Shadowheart asked me.
"And vaporize every single surviving githyanki - as well as us, as far as Vlaakith will know. And the longer that fools her, the better." I agreed.
"The system would need at least a short delay between initiation and detonation or else they'd destroy their home every time there was even a transient interruption in the circuit." Gale agreed. "Still a bit of a risk, though."
"Yes, but in addition to covering our trail, we're going to need that." I said. "Minthara told us that the only safe way to pass through the Shadow Curse was by using 'moonlanterns'. And I don't know what a moonlantern is, much less where we could possibly find one. But it's certainly some type of magical light source." I smiled. "And I'm thinking you can't get much more magical as a light source than the mystically preserved blood of a sun god." I smiled in satisfaction. "Everybody else stack up on that portal. As soon as I pull the Blood out, the sequence should start and we'll need to all run through as fast as we possibly can... because we won't have any idea how long or short the delay is."
I unstrapped my belt pouch from my belt - the one that contained the Astral Prism - and handed it to Shadowheart. Thankfully the Guardian had already figured out what I was risking and was acting to cover its own tail, as the Astral Prism allowed the hand-off this time.
"If I'm the one taking the mace then I have to be the last one out. This should be with the first person heading through the portal... just in case." I explained to her, and finally convinced the reluctant Shadowheart to take it.
We all got in position, them at the portal and me at the top of the dias, and I tensed to run the instant the divine artifact was clear of its containment housing. I took a deep breath, reached out, and carefully grasped the handle - twisted it just enough to get the head of the mace free of the loose retaining ring around it, and then pulled-
-and a golden energy barrier, similar to the ones we'd bypassed to get here, leapt into existence all around the base of the dais - cutting me off from the rest of the party. While it didn't go all the way to the ceiling it was at least a dozen feet high - no way I could jump over it, or climb a force-field-
"Somebody get him out of there!" Shadowheart yelled frantically.
"Go!" I yelled at them, seeing the now-active portal behind them. They had a clear escape route and the Astral Prism - I'd done the best I could. "Go now!"
A keening whine was building up all around us, fit to shake loose the teeth from our jaws. The ground rumbled, and the four battery-pillars were glowing white-hot and pulsing unevenly, unstably. And none of those idiots were moving-
"Hang on!" Gale yelled, and broke ranks from the others to sprint up to the very edge of the barrier. He frantically reached inside his pack and dug around inside "I was hanging onto this for- never mind! Catch!" With a frantic toss he sent something hurtling up in the air and over the barrier, and with my free hand I snatched it up off the ground where it had fallen several feet short of me. Some type of amulet-
"Amulet of Misty Step!" Gale yelled, barely audible over the now-shrieking arcane mechanisms as they drew closer and closer to detonation. "Just think about being over by the gate!"
And as soon as the amulet's chain passed over my head and I thought next to Shadowheart! as intently as I could, the world blurred into silver mist around me and cleared an eyeblink later. I'd teleported directly out of the barrier.
I ran back towards the dais for Gale, because I knew he was the slowest runner out of all of us. The instant I came within reach of his outstretched hand I yanked him practically off my feet and into me, then swung him up in a carry and sprinted for the portal. All six of us piled through it practically on each other's heels, to gasp in relief when we materialized exactly where we'd expected to - adjacent to the giant mechanism on the roof, which we saw was now glowing as brightly as the battery-pillars below had been, and which had swivelled so that the business end of what we could now see was a magical energy cannon was pointing straight down into the heart of the monastery-
"We're still too close!" Gale said. "Get off the roof! We can't port out until we get off the roof!"
A hastily-cast Feather Fall allowed us to leave the roof by the simple expedient of jumping directly over the side, and we went three stories down to a magically-cushioned landing directly outside the main gate. With frantic relief we felt our connection to the travelstone network reform now that we were finally far enough away from planar wards or over-charging magical energy weapon emplacements-
-and we all materialized next to the nearest travelstone, the one we'd found on the pathway a couple hundred yards away from Rosymorn Monastery, just in time to look back and see the entire building explode in a giant magical fireball.
When the spots cleared from our eyes we saw that the only thing left standing were scattered section of the four exterior walls. The roof was gone, the magical cannon on the roof was definitely gone, the interior was gone, and smoke was roiling up from a giant sinkhole in the ground that, when we drew near enough to look down into it, still had dully-glowing magma at the bottom. Rosymorn Monastery barely had enough rubble left up on top to show where a giant building had once stood, and all the sublevels - including the entire githyanki creche and everyone inside of it - were utterly obliterated.
I breathed out, feeling the weight of my decisions today - both right ones and wrong ones. I felt no triumph over all the githyanki that I'd just killed, or the undying god-queen that I'd just outwitted. All this death, all the times we'd almost died, and with the possible exception of one divinely-inspired weapon the only thing that had been achieved was for me to almost get us back to where we'd started. Behind me stood five silent shadows, also awestruck by the sheer devastation we'd just enabled... as well as exhausted by the multiple near-death experiences and world-shaking revelations we'd crammed into the last twelve hours.
"Let's get the hell out of here." I finally said.
We used the travelstones to head back to the beach we'd originally crashed on. There was still a possibility that Vlaakith could track us somehow - who could say what exactly a god could or couldn't do, even one that was also quasi-mortal like her? And so we resolved to spend the next twenty-four hours in the same ruins that Shadowheart, Gale and I had camped in the very first night after we'd crashed - the one we'd met Withers in. It was underground, easily defensible, very conveniently close to a travelstone - and didn't have any innocents living there who'd get hurt if Vlaakith somehow found us anyway. If she or her hunter teams didn't locate us here by tomorrow, then we'd presume the trail was cold enough we could safely go to the Grove.
"Gale." I said to him passionately, as I handed him back his magical amulet. "I didn't have the chance earlier, so- thank you. Thank you for saving my life."
"Are you sure about that?" he asked me worriedly, his face still pale in the light of our campfire. "Because-" He pulled away from me and sat down heavily. "Everyone, please listen. I have to tell you something. Something that you had every right to know, that I should have told you days ago. And-"
"I'm not blown to vapor by my own bright idea right now, and that's all thanks to you." I told him. "Whatever transgression you think you've committed, there's very little you could say right now that I wouldn't be prepared to forgive."
"There is still a nontrivial difference between 'very little' and 'naught'." Gale said didactically. "And never more so than in my case." He sighed. "I've been telling myself for days that I didn't dare bring this up because it would alarm you unduly - you particularly, Hawke, given your homeworld's troubled history with magic as well as the tragic fate of your friend Anders." He shook his head. "But those were merely rationalizations, and transparent ones. You've accepted Shadowheart and Wyll without a qualm despite the sources of their magic, and you still sorrow over Anders' fate despite his having lied to you for years about the true scope of his condition and I've only been hiding mine for a few days. And yet even after learning that were honorable enough to spontaneously self-initiate as a paladin, after seeing the lengths I saw you go through to resurrect an innocent boy you didn't even know, or the compassion you showed a murdered githyanki youngling-" He broke off and looked up at me sadly. "If I couldn't trust you after all that, then who could I trust? And yet I still kept my silence. Not just because I was afraid, but because I was ashamed." He looked over at the still-subdued Lae'zel. "It might surprise you to find out that you are not the only member of our company who has been cast out, declared anathema, by the goddess that they've devoted their entire life to serving." He sighed again, with a sorrow as large as the world. "Only unlike you, in my case it was well-deserved."
"But you still have your magic!" Shadowheart said confusedly. "If you're under Mystra's Ban then how is that possible? You're no Shadow Weave user - I'm a priestess of Shar, I would have sensed that!"
"No, not the Shadow Weave." He sighed. "But I am a walking shadow of the promise I once held. We've all temporarily lost the full measure of our abilities, our skills, when we were infected, just as we've all slowly been gaining it back as we acclimate. But I wasn't just an experienced wizard before my parasite was implanted. I had been an archmage. And not just any archmage, but a prodigy even amongst that august company. I could not merely control the Weave but also compose it, as if it were music, were poetry." He trailed off wonderingly. "Such was my skill that it earned me not just the favor but the attention of the mother of magic herself. The Lady of Mysteries, the goddess Mystra. She revealed herself to me, and visiited me often. She was my mentor, my muse..." He trailed off, his expression a strange mixture of embarassment and pride. "And in the fullness of time, even my lover."
"You made love to a goddess." I said dazdly. "Which admittedly has precedent in Thedas, as I already mentioned with Maferath and Andraste-" I suddenly paused. "Gale, tell me you didn't."
"Not... quite?" he volunteered diffidently. "I felt no malice, no envy, such as the Maferath you spoke of once. But ambition?" He shook his head knowingly. "That, him and I certainly had in common."
The silence fell, and Gale eventually resumed filling it. "Her company was glorious - I certainly desired no other woman. But no matter how powerful a wizard we mortals become, we still can never scratch more than the surface of the Weave. Mystra keeps us in check, maintains boundaries she never lets us cross. Yet every time I worked magic with her I could see what I was missing - as if I were standing on a precipice, staring into the wonders of the beyond that I was forever denied save at second-hand."
"Respectfully, that sounds a bit like envy to me." I contributed.
"I would rather say 'inadequacy'. To have a goddess' regard is a privilege beyond any other, but if you continually confront the differences between her scale of existence and yours, it makes you feel... pitied?" Gale tried to articulate. "I didn't want to usurp her, or even to rival her. I just wanted to do something." he finally said. "To do anything that she would acknowledge as being more than just-" He broke off. "And so I resolved to seek beyond the boundaries she set." He shook his head. "I tried to convince her, at first. I persuaded, I pleaded... I pouted..." He shrugged briefly. "But she did nothing but smile and tell me to be content. But rather than take her advice, I sought to prove myself worthy of being given more." He paused. "We now come to the crux of my folly. Shall I share the story behind it, or would you rather we proceed straight to the sordid finale?"
"I'm thinking this is definitely the sort of thing that needs a fuller context." Shadowheart contributed encouragingly.
"Agreed." Wyll said. "An opportunity for confession is a privilege that Mizora takes spiteful pleasure in denying me - you should not deny yourself."
"... I too confess interest." Lae'zel said softly. "To know a goddess intimately and then survive her rejection - that is a unique tale indeed."
"Very well." Gale took a deep breath. "Once upon a very long time ago a mighty wizard lived in a tower. A flying tower, to be precise. I'll save the full history of Karsus the Archwizard for another time, but the gist of it was that he sought to usurp the goddess of magic so he could become a god himself. And as he was perhaps the greatest archwizard in mortal history, he almost managed!" Gale said surprisingly. "But not quite, and his entire empire - ancient Netheril, of myth and legend - came crashing down around him as he destroyed himself. The magic that was unleashed that day was phenomenal, perhaps rivaling the primal chaos that predates creation. Even the Weave itself could not withstand the onslaught. It fractured, it shattered, and a cataclysm shook the very fabric of creation and would have destroyed all. Mystryl, first goddess of magic, sacrificed her own existence to stop the destruction the only way she could - with her own death, and with that death the end of all magic. But the magic returned, as she had known it would, when her replacement Mystra ascended to the heavens and restored the Weave." He paused. "If not quite the same Weave that it had been before. Because that is why Mystra sets such restrictions on magics, allows mortal mages to progress so far and no further. Because Mystryl had not. In her innocence she sought to see any wizard rise to any height they were capable of so doing, with nothing held back."
"And that is how Karsus could almost do what he did, and bring so much crashing down with him when he failed." I reasoned. "The higher the climb, the greater the potential fall." I looked at Gale. "And you disagreed?"
"No." he shook his head. "My ambition was different. When Mystra originally restored the Weave from its scattered shards, there was one piece that she'd missed. A tiny portion, one that Karsus had preserved for study, sealed away in an ancient tome and hidden in a pocket realm. One that had gone unregarded for centuries, until I'd happened across a clue to it in my studies. And so I asked myself 'What if I brought this back? What if I could restore a long-lost part of herself to my goddess? What regard could I earn from her, what pride would she look upon me with, if I brought her a gift that no other supplicant ever had or would?"
"That... actually makes sense." I conceded. "I mean, I can't even see how that's wrong - you weren't trying to redo Karsus' madness, you were just trying to help undo the damage he'd done! So why did she outcast you?"
"Give me your hand." Gale said gravely. "And let me show you."
I held forth my hand and Gale gently took me by the wrist, bringing the palm of my hand over his heart. His eyes made contact with mine and our tadpoles shivered, as Gale concentrated on enabling the mental connection, allowing me in.
I saw through Gale's eyes, staring down the corridors of dreadful memory. An ancient tome located - a scholar's curiosity compelling him to open it - but inside there were no pages, just a swirling mass of twisted reality that pounced- leaping inside, unstoppable as it tore into and through my very being- and gods, it was so hungry-
Gale let go of me and I fell away, gasping. "How in the Maker's name are you still alive?"
He stared at me somberly. "The moment I absorbed the fragment wasn't enough to kill me outright. No, my death was only beginning." He shook his head frustratedly. "This Netherese blight, this... orb, for a lack of a better word... is balled up inside of me. And it needs to be fed. As long as I continue to absorb traces of the true Weave from potent enough sources, it remains quiescent. But the process never stops - the feedings are a palliative, not a cure."
"Feed it what?" I asked him.
"Magic. And not spells - oh, if this were only as simple as my remembering to cast a few minor spells on myself every day." he chuckled sardonically. "Permanent constructs of Weave are required. Magic items. That's why I've always been asking for the ones we've found as my share of the treasure and letting the rest of you keep most of the gold, including that Amulet of Misty Step we found in the goblins' lair. I've needed to drain the magic of an item every couple of days just to keep my condition manageable." He laughed, bitterly. "That amulet I saved your life with? You're lucky I hadn't eaten that yet. As is, I'm just about due for another."
"And if you don't find enough magic items regularly enough, you die?" Karlach asked, shocked.
"Not merely die." Gale said worriedly. "I would erupt. If the Netherese orb fully destabilized, all the magic contained within would burst forth in an uncontrolled flare of wild magic that would make what happened to Rosymorn Monastery look like a cantrip. It would flatten a city the size of Waterdeep."
"Gale!" Shadowheart burst out. "That- that- that makes these damned tadpoles in our heads the second-greatest threat to our lives! How could-?"
I held up a hand, asking for peace. "Gale, I'm assuming that you were busy trying to deal with your situation in a safe and manageable way when you were abducted by mind flayers, so you can't fairly be blamed for being out and about in your condition now. But she does touch upon a valid point. What on Toril are we to do if you get killed?"
"Get Withers to resurrect me as fast as possible." Gale said. "From my computations, you'd have at least a day - maybe two - before my death destabilized things sufficiently." He sighed. "That's why I was so terrified in the creche. We were all trapped, and the risk of death was far too high. There would have been no resurrection for me if I had fallen, and- well, that was before we knew we'd actually want to destroy the entirety of Creche Y'llek in a giant magical explosion."
"So we're not actually in any danger that we weren't in already." I said relievedly. "And we know what to do to recover things if the worst-case scenario happens."
"Unfortunately, no." Gale said. "Because the last thing you need to know is that the 'feedings' have been getting less and less effective over time. I used to need to drain the Weave of an item only once every week or so. But the period of time has been growing more and more frequent... and the effects of each feeding are less and less." He sighed. "I've had this orb in me for almost a year. I've spent all that time frantically searching for a cure and finding nothing. But even without the tadpole in play, I was starting to fear that I would eventually run out of time. As I may yet still, in the near future."
"What will you do if that happens?" Shadowheart asked him softly.
"Find the remotest place I can on the surface of Faerun, or travel deep into the depths of the Underdark." Gale said. "And die well away from any innocent people. Perhaps on top of a mind flayer colony, if I could find one. A final revenge, however inadequate." He looked up at us all, his eyes red with unshed tears. "This must seem like a terrible betrayal to you all. Say the word, and we shall part ways."
"No." I said, without even stopping to ponder it. "I owe you my life, and your knowledge and magic have greatly helped us more than once. To take all that and then discard you? Not happening."
"Hell yeah!" Karlach said. "If we're going to be going around tossing out everyone who had an unstable magical weapon shoved in their chest without so much as a by-your-leave, I'd have to go with him!"
"I knowingly pacted with a courtier of Zariel." Wyll said. "All you did was attempt a good deed and have it backfire due to circumstances beyond your control. If they're letting me stay, they can hardly reject you."
"A h'sharlak like me cannot judge anyone." Lae'zel said, which alarmed me until I realized she'd actually been trying to make a joke. "Stay."
"Speaking as the only person here who isn't an outcast or castaway, and as a priestess in good standing with her goddess, I condemn you." Shadowheart shocked us all. "I condemn you... to having to remain here in this band of misfits, taking every mad chance and foolish risk alongside the rest of us." she finished with an impish smile.
"Thank you!" Gale burst out laughing with relief. "You truly are a group of worthy souls, that reinvigorates my own. I promise that I won't let you down."
We dipped into our packs for a bit of wine from our travel rations, because a conversation like the one we'd just had was certainly a thing that left a man in need of a few stiff drinks. The day's weariness soon enough caught up to us, and we set our nightwatch and slept. By the time morning arrived we were confident that we'd shaken Vlaakith's pursuit, and so it was time to resume our journey.
A confidence that shattered like glass when we emerged from the ruins to be confronted by a githyanki knight in silver and gold, an elaborate ruby-crowned diadem on his head and his face weathered with much experience - oh, and also the minor problem of the enormous red dragon he'd ridden to get here standing confidently behind him! He held his still-sheathed sword out in front of him at arm's length, gripping it not by the pommel but with his hand six inches below the hilt, with only the scabbard protecting his fingers from the sword's edges.
"Ska'kek kir Gith shabell'eth." he intoned formally, shocking us by going down to one knee and laying his sword before him on the ground before placing both hands behind his back. "My blade rests. Mother Gith compels you to listen."
"A parley?" Lae'zel said, confusedly. "I am h'sharlak, lower even than istik, and condemned to death by the Undying Queen's command! Why does your blade not sing for my death? Why does your noble steed not consume us in dragonfire?"
"I am not here on Vlaakith's behalf, Lae'zel." the knight surprised us. "And I do not seek your lives. Qudenos! Withdraw until I call!"
The red dragon bowed to its rider's command and leapt into the air with a mighty flap of its wings, circling away to land amongst the nearby nautiloid crash site. The githyanki knight rose back to his feet, his hands still behind him in a formal parade-rest, and his sword still on the ground at his feet.
"Well met." I said. "I am Hawke, and I lead this party. But given the events of yesterday, I can't possibly imagine why you seek this parley."
"I am Kith'rak Voss." he introduced himself, and I heard Lae'zel swallow her tongue.
"Voss!" she cried, backing away from him in terror. "Supreme Kith'rak - Queen's Hand - the Sword of Vlaakith! And you claim to not speak on her behalf?!?"
"If more politely, I'm asking the same question." I immediately followed her words. Because if this were the right-hand man of Vlaakith herself, the Ser Cauthrien to her Teryn Loghain as it were, then I entirely understood Lae'zel's alarm.
Voss actually smiled at my last remark, and took a polite step backwards so that Lae'zel would stop frantically clutching at her sword-hilt. I thanked the Maker that her training had been strict enough that even in her terror she hadn't actually tried to draw it, Voss having invoked a githyanki formal parley rite and all.
"How did you find us?" I tried to lower the tension.
"Unlike the vast majority of my fellow warriors, I am old enough to remember Netherese travelstones." Voss replied. "Your wizard was not reported capable of the sort of magic that would have let him teleport all you out of there, but if you did not die in Creche Y'llek then teleportation was the only way you could reasonably have escaped. So I simply checked every travelstone location between the former site of Y'llek and the Emerald Grove, and here you were."
"Well reasoned and well executed." Wyll complimented him. "But Hawke's right - we really can't imagine what you and our party have to parley about. If your queen briefed you, then you already know that we can't give up the Astral Prism without condemning ourselves to a fate worse than death."
"I do know that." Voss agreed reasonably. "And unlike you, I also know why that is true. The Astral Prism is not just an artifact, but a container. It leads to a pocket realm in the Silver Void, one that only it can access, and in that realm there is a prisoner. That one has chosen you as an ally, protects you with their power. That very power will set our people truly free, and not merely the sham of freedom we live under now. That power must be let loose."
"You, eldest and first of all living kith'rak, are entreating us on behalf of a ghaik?!?" Lae'zel shrieked in outrage.
"What in Limbo's madness are you raving about, child?!?" Voss shouted back, offended to his marrow.
The sound of my forehead hitting my palm echoed off the nearby walls like the sound of a giant's slap. "Idiot!" I cursed myself. "How did you not see it the instant Vlaakith said-" I looked at them both in turn as I angrily held up the Astral Prism. "There must be two people in here!"
"You met a ghaik... INSIDE THE PRISM?!?" Voss gasped, one hand clutching to his chest. "Mother Gith preserve us-! No, no, I can still feel the protective force radiating even now... he is still alive." The knight calmed himself, his eyes resuming their focus and resolve from what had briefly been the face of a man watching his very god be murdered painfully in front of him. "Tell me everything!"
"If you know any mind-shielding spells, cast them on the Prism first." I said urgently. "He hasn't reacted yet-"
Voss immediately moved both hands in a complex motion, chanting hurriedly. The Prism glowed once, briefly, and was silent. "That should constrain the ghaik temporarily, and without any echoes that would betray the silence - not unless he were already listening at this moment."
"Let's hope he wasn't." I agreed, and then I hurriedly brought Voss up to speed about the 'Guardian' and what he'd said, and what our predicament truly was.
"Entirely unanticipated. And... unfortunate." Voss finished with massive understatement. "Even before knowing this I had already resolved that you must continue to bear the Prism. I dare not claim it for myself, because if Vlaakith suspected me for an instant then I would only deliver it back into her hands... the absolute last place I wish for that to go." he pointed at the Prism. "The entity who is the Prism's true tenant, and not the false ghaik, is- no, I should not speak their name at this juncture. You do not need to know it, and what you do not know cannot be plucked from your mind by any of my kindred." He waved away my objection before I could make it. "Yes, if you are caught and interrogated then this conversation would be revealed anyway. But a single word does not need an interrogation to be revealed. It can be overheard by chance, or at a distance, and that word alone would be enough to bring doom. So for now, merely call them 'the prisoner', as you have named this filthy ghaik 'the Guardian'.'
"All right." I said. "And you need this prisoner because...?"
Voss looked at Lae'zel, tensing himself for her reaction. "Because if they can be set free, then they will be the undoing of my life's single greatest mistake, my single worst and most regretful choice. They will cast down Vlaakith from her throne."
"You're still alive, so obviously she doesn't know you're plotting treason." I thought out loud. "But just from my brief acquaintance with her I got the impression she's the sort of tyrant who trusts literally no one. And she has the power of a goddess to boot. How have you not yet been caught?"
"Vlaakith is no goddess." Voss said. "She never was. She wishes to be one, she seeks divine ascension with an obsession greater than any other and devours the souls of our own people to try and obtain it, but she is merely a lich. An undead archmage, their soul preserved eternally in an animated corpse." He looked at Lae'zel, who was barely restraining herself from another outburst. "This is why the study of necromancy is banned for githyanki arcanists, save for the absolute minimum necessary to make a show of combatting lesser undead - to prevent any of our scholars from recognizing Vlaakith for what she truly is." He looked at me. "Have you ever sworn your sword to a liege lord, wishing nothing more in life than to serve them in honor, and then discovered too late that you had only killed in the name of betrayal?"
"I have." I agreed with him somberly. "At a place called Ostagar. My king died there, and I was left a penniless refugee, frantically trying to get a family out of a kingdom that could no longer be my home-" I shook my head. "It ended badly, as such tales do. Let us leave it at that."
"Then you understand at least a little of what I have known." Voss nodded to me. "I am fully as old as the legends tell me of me, Lae'zel. The timeless astral has preserved me well beyond what mortal flesh is normally granted. The many years blur together for me sometimes, but I still remember our freedom from illithid slavery. Our rebellion - our deliverance - our Mother Gith..." He stared up into the sky, searching for ghosts long dead. "And the first Vlaakith, distant ancestor of the current, who presented herself as Gith's heir when Mother Gith was lost in the lower planes. And I believed her." he trailed off, softly. "For far too long, I believed her. And her daughters."
"And the prisoner?" I asked him.
"If I tell you their tale, then I tell you their name." Voss said. "Suffice it to say that Vlaakith fears them like she fears no other entity in the multiverse, for they too know the lie that her eternal rule is built upon - and unlike me, they can prove it. My head remains on top of my neck only because Vlaakith does not know that I know. If I tried to testify to this knowledge, I would die that very same day and be remembered merely be a traitor and a madman. One flash of a blade and my tongue forever stilled, and Vlaakith's rule forever secured. But if they could step forth and be seen, be heard..." He smiled briefly. "Things would be very different."
"Why didn't Vlaakith just kill them?" I asked practically.
"Oh, she wishes she could. How desperately she wishes!" Voss laughed sardonically. "But she cannot! The power she claims, the ability to protect the children of Gith from the agents of the Grand Design as no other can - that power is not truly hers but the Astral Prism's. And the Prism has that power only because it is the unique gift of the prisoner. And so you see the dilemma Vlaakith is perched upon. If the prisoner but has a chance to speak to any other gith, to show them the truth mind to mind, that gith is lost to Vlaakith. But the prisoner can never die, or else Vlaakith loses the protection of the myth she has borrowed. And so, the prison." He nodded at where I had put the Astral Prism away in the belt pouch.
"But if she didn't want the prisoner dead, why did she send us in there to kill them?" I said.
"Either she was referring to the ghaik when she said the Prism was 'corrupted', or else the artifact's escaping her custody for the first time in gods only know how long has frightened her to the point she's now willing to cut her losses and risk the aftermath." Voss thought out loud. "I do not know which. But you have by now deduced why she sent you in rather than the inquisitor and his team."
"We were all already infected by mind flayer parasites and would have to be killed anyway, and most of us were istik besides." I agreed. "Much better to try and have us do it rather than risk the prisoner talking to the inquisitor or anyone else, because from what you've said this is a clear-cut 'Kill everybody they might have spoken to' situation."
"Indeed it is." Voss agreed. "Time grows short, and Vlaakith cannot even suspect this meeting, so I will cut to the chase. You already need to keep the prisoner safe and yourselves out of githyanki custody, merely for the sake of your own lives, so I can certainly trust you with that task as well. For millenia Vlaakith did not let anyone, not even me, know where the Prism was kept, so I could make no progress on freeing the prisoner myself." He turned to Shadowheart. "I have no idea how you and your fellow priests of Shar ever located the Astral Prism, let alone successfully liberated it from where Vlaakith had it kept, but I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. It is only what you have achieved that has given me this opportunity at all." He paused briefly. "Would you mind telling me what your superiors intended with it? Perhaps there is a common goal we are working towards."
"That would be ideal, but I wouldn't know if you were." Shadowheart shrugged. "I only know what I was ordered to do, and nothing more. But on behalf of all my fallen comrades, thank you for your gratitude."
Voss nodded to her respectfully and continued. "So that is what I need you to do - to continue to keep the Astral Prism safe, and to bring it to me in Baldur's Gate. The prisoner needs a unique key to be freed from the Astral Prism. I have been tracking that key for centuries, and I believe I know where to find it. Meet me in the tavern called Sharess' Caress, in the Wyrm's Crossing district of the city. Gith willing, I shall have the key by the time you arrive... and when the prisoner is set free, your own protection from the Absolute will no longer be held hostage by that filthy ghaik." Voss sighed. "Who regretfully I cannot help you kill now, because he has clearly interwoven his own control mechanisms at least partially into the original restrictions, and may very well have dead-man precautions besides. The prisoner would need to be freed with the key before that potential threat to the prisoner's life would be safely defused."
"That's what I was going to ask next." I said disappointedly. "Still, if we can't, then we can't. So the rendezvous is Sharess' Caress, Wyrm's Crossing. I'm assuming you know where that is?" I turned to our party's native Baldurians, and all three of them nodded.
"One last thing." I hurriedly said. "For as long as the ghaik could hear everything we say, and monitor our surface thoughts, we couldn't hope to plot against him. How long will your shielding last?"
Voss nodded and cast his spell again, reinforcing it. "That should give you more time. As I know little about the ghaik's exact strength I can't judge exactly how long you will have, but it will be more than several days... if you are fortunate, several weeks. How soon can you reach Baldur's Gate?"
"With the Shadow-Cursed Lands and Moonrise Towers between here and there?" I said. "Rough guess, a couple of weeks."
"And I cannot help you travel faster, lest Vlaakith's gaze possibly find you again." Voss said. "Very well, are we agreed?"
"We are." I committed us.
"A question, kith'rak." Lae'zel asked respectfully. "Does the zaith'isk truly kill rather than cleanse?"
"Yes." he said flatly. "Yet another one of the tyrant queen's lies, yet another thread in her web of control and naught more."
"Then good fortune to you, silver knight, and may we meet again." Lae'zel bowed to him.
"And may Mother Gith watch over you all." Voss bowed back to us respectfully, then reached into his belt pouch and withdrew a small trinket on a silver cord, made of astral metal. "Take this. It is a qua'nith, a psionic detector. Should any of Vlaakith's hunting parties find you and draw near, hopefully this will give you some warning."
"Thank you." I took the qua'nith and handed it to Lae'zel, who placed it in her pack. Voss nodded, then bent down and recovered his sword. With a single sharp whistle he summoned his mount, and then he leapt on its back and into the saddle as it landed nearby. Qudenos gave another mighty flap of his wings, and they were gone.
Author's Note: And so we get both the Gale reveal - which is fairly standard to how it goes in the game, if with more people talking - and the Kith'rak Voss reveal, which went well off-script from the game's original. Largely because in-game you have no way to know that the 'Guardian' is a mind flayer yet, so you have every reason to think that's who Voss is talking about re: the Prism's occupant and the misunderstanding about who he's really talking about has no possibility of being brought up and resolved. Also there's no explanation for how Voss finds you wherever you camp, he just does. I'm happy when I can come up with a good rationalization for things they didn't.
Oh, and if people are wondering where the hell Elminster is, the answer is that the mountain pass is not his only possible spawn location ever since recent updates. So, they'll meet him when it's time. And seriously, this chapter was crammed so full as is - hell, there was an entire in-party convo about the Blood of Lathander I had to cut!
Speaking of the Blood of Lathander, in-game its light gives no special protection from the Shadow Curse. I consider that puree of bullshit because it's the power of the sun god himself, for pete's sake. And thus, in this story, that's how it's gonna work. It's a major holy artifact, not just a +3 magic weapon, and the story will treat it as such.