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Outside the Astral Prism, it’s probably the end of the world. The Emperor’s gone, defected to the Netherbrain. They failed to subdue it- surely, now, it’s tearing Baldur’s Gate apart.
In here, surrounded by the grand skull of a dead god, the group of adventures is in the throes of a heated argument. The Netherstones need a mind flayer to wield them, or Gale to detonate himself. Orpheus could do it…
It’s the eleventh hour- but Karlach won’t let the clock stop.
“Wait just a moment, you’re all forgetting something. Another option.”
Everyone turns to look at her, words dying on their tongues.
“I could become a mind flayer. I don’t have long left, I can feel it. You can trust me to use the stones and nothing more.”
Before she can even see her face, Lae’zel’s shock slams into her mind. Shock, dismay, gratefulness- how do you even react to something like that? She crosses the gap, stares at her lover in mute horror.
“You would- why?”
“I don’t have long left. I can feel it. If I’m gonna die anyway- I’d rather die for you.” The engine’s unsteady, irregular, each slam of the pistons jarring her ribs and releasing another wave of heat. Not long left. Just long enough.
They’d talked about it, after killing Gortash. Lae’zel knew well the realities of death. She didn’t flinch away. She can’t flinch away now, now when the right path is so clear. She sacrifices herself, and Orpheus saves the githyanki. Lae’zel lives happily ever after.
Karlach takes her in her arms, pulls her and leans in until their foreheads touch. Lae’zel’s always running cold- cold, at least, compared to her. It soothes her racing thoughts for just a moment.
“I would have wanted you to die as yourself, Karlach. As a hero- in your own body.”
“Well, sure. But I want you to be free. You’ve still got that chance.”
She turns away, still holding Lae’zel close. It’s amazing that she’s gotten used to this casual softness, this display of affection even in front of her prince. Karlach wants to stay here forever, hold her closer still-
“I would be remiss not to point it out- none of us need to transform. I could simply-”
“Don’t. Gale, you have a whole life to live, now that that orb’s under control. I don’t.” It would all be pointless.
And the whole time, Orpheus watches them silently. She doesn’t exactly like the way the fabled prince’s acting. Every imperious word out of his mouth grates on her. Though, of course, allowances have to be made for the zillion years of imprisonment he went through- but he could have stood not to tell them they should’ve laid down and let his honour guard kill them. That was just dickish.
But he’ll save Lae’zel’s people. It puts it in better perspective. She’s doing this for Lae’zel.
Gale heaves a deep, defeated sigh. He doesn’t want to die, she knows- or hopes. Lucky, then, that she doesn’t get a choice in the matter.
“If you’re so set on it… then all I can rightly say is thank you.”
“Thank me after I’ve saved the world, soldier.” She dusts her hands on the greaves of her armour, looking around with hopefully contained trepidation. As always, as inescapably as metal to a magnet, her eyes return to Lae’zel. She quirks a weak smile. It’s returned as a vague, sharp-toothed grimace. By Lae’zel standards, it’s almost a grin.
She’s about to start taking her armour off when a thought occurs to her. Mind flayers don’t have noses, right?
“Hey, love.”
“I am listening.”
Scrunching her face up in concentration, she pulls out her piercings one by one. She’d gotten them done at the Grove party. Couldn’t quite remember how she’d come to the topic, but Halsin had ended up offering- with a protective spell on hand to keep himself from catching fire- and when she woke up the morning after, Lae’zel already lying as close as she could bear to her overheating body, she’d had a swanky new set of holes in her face. Now, they slip out easily, and she holds them in her cupped palms before pushing them towards Lae’zel.
“If I’m gonna transform… Here. they’re a bit nasty, but-”
She shuts her fist on them, presses it to her chest like a salute.
“There is no gift you could give me that would evoke disgust. I’ll keep this with me forever, just as I will keep your memory etched upon my heart, just as your name will be spoken among my people as we cleave Vlaakith’s reign apart. Zhak vo’n’fynh duj.” The others probably can’t notice, but Karlach’s spent long enough memorising the planes of Lae’zel’s face, the tone of her voice. She’s scared. Her voice wavers as she clutches the handful of piercings.
“Fuck, Lae…”
But she’s already stepping back. The mask of the dutiful soldier is sliding back into place. When Karlach turns around, she isn’t surprised to see Orpheus has moved closer to them.
“Tiefling. The time has come. Are you ready?”
“Yeah. Just- if there’s gonna be all that skin-melting, flesh-exploding going on, I think I should take my armour off first.”
It’s like she’s just packing in for the night. Getting ready to go to bed. All eyes are on her as she stands there, socks on the ground, kicking up space dust while she struggles to get her pauldrons off. It’s a bit silly, even.
Better to think of things like that than the death staring her in the face.
Orpheus offers his hand, like a storybook prince- well, he is a prince, if a warlike one.
Alright. Alright. She’s got this. She places her hand in his. It’s calloused in the way of a swordsman, despite his endless imprisonment. So cold. It draws a shuddering breath from her.
“It will only take a moment. And once you are a mind flayer, I will fold you under my protection once m-”
The Absolute rips into her mind, obliterating all sight, all sound. It’s as if her tadpole is exploding inside her brain, bursting forth, swelling with-
-OBEY-
-TRANSFORM-
-BECOME-
It's deafening. Only an instant passes before Orpheus slams down the gate, silences the Absolute in her head, but it's already happening. The avalanche has started, and the tadpole in her head sings of unbearable ecstasy while her legs give out from under her, arms crack and splinter upon hitting the floor, blood and bile rises, all smothered in an excruciating, exhilarating compulsion to evolve.
It's taking all she has, guts and blood and bones repurposed for its design. Well, it can take it. So much has been torn from her, but she's still got love to give- her future's been taken, but she can give Lae'zel a future of her own. Karlach Cliffgate is going to save the fucking world.
Her horns topple to the ground- the whole one first, then the nub. Her hair, her teeth, bits of skin… It should feel violating. it should feel like losing something important. And yet.
And yet, there is the joy of becoming.
She is emerging from her chrysalis. Sloughing off the scars, the burns, the horns carved with marks of Zariel’s property, Zariel’s champion, spitting up teeth like she’s a kid in a fistfight again. Living her life in reverse. Being born at the moment of death.
In the shifting mass of gore, fingers and toes fuse. The skull splits and cracks, changes form as its contents expand, thins to reveal the pulsing, growing intellect beneath.
(It’s a body Zariel has no claim over, a body she has not touched-)
She takes her final breath as tentacles burst forth.
Karlach opens her eyes.
For one delirious instant, she thinks she's dead. It's so quiet, all of a sudden, and the Astral Plane glistens with light. Had it always been so colourful? Had it been so dense with information, all packing itself into her mind?
One thing at a time.
“By the gods,” mumbles Wyll. More often, she’s heard him call out to Balduran instead- but the legendary hero has well and truly lost his luster. “That looked torturous.”
She doesn’t respond. Raises a hand to feel the flex of each finger.
She’d always thought she was in touch with her body. In the heat of battle, it always did what she asked of it- mowing through demons or slicing goblins clean in twain. She was good at one thing, and did it with aplomb. She’d thought that was all there was to it.
This would have blown her mind. Though this body is unfamiliar, there’s no confusion, no moment of adjustment. Even though she seems to be shorter, thinner than before. It doesn’t even feel strange. It’s just her. In fact, it feels-
“Should we have packed you a change of clothes? No offense, of course, but I don’t think you could fill out your old armour as you are right now.” Astarion waves vaguely at her body. His voice is carefully light, but she can feel the nausea still radiating off him. Turning to face her companions, her friends, she senses the same coming from all of them.
Oh, that’s right. Clothes.
A mere thought, and the energy of the Astral Plane coalesces on her naked form. Psionic construction of filigree, of fabric, of cerebral armour like the set she’d grabbed from the Emperor’s lair.
It fits her perfectly. Not the purple of all the mind flayers they’d fought so far; it’s bright red between the metal filigree. Her colour.
“... Karlach?” Now it’s Shadowheart stepping up, leaning towards her to get her attention. Hesitant, one hand twitching towards her mace, but not yet resting on it.
Karlach realises, suddenly, that she hasn’t spoken a single word this whole time. She reaches out with her mind-
I’m right here, soldier. Don’t worry- it’s still your old pal under this purple. She glances down again. …under this pink.
It seems to mollify her enough. Yet, nobody seems to know what to do now. Orpheus’s hand moves just barely on the hilt of his sword.
Her feet meet the ground for the first time. Seems like she really is physically weaker- the thought flits across her mind with no particular regret attached to it. She’ll simply have to adapt. Avail herself of the new abilities she can feel on the edge of her mind.
…Should we get going?
Orpheus appraises her for a long moment.
“If we are to trust you with the Netherstones, I would rather you set the pace. You may wish to speak with your comrades first.”
Right. Her comrades. The people staring in naked horror at her new body. Where to even begin with that? How about she starts with…
Uh. Heya.
Could’ve been better.
Lae’zel steps up. That amazing mind Karlach had come to know now unfurls before her, reveals more than ever before- the familiar and beautiful. The wonderful, resilient githyanki she’s found herself with in the best, last months of her life.
“...How do you feel?” Though she speaks, Karlach plucks the words from her thoughts first. Does she have ears, actually? She… might?
I feel… incredible. I’m still me, just… more. And my engine-
Wait.
My engine- it’s silent. There was so much to take in, but how had she only noticed now? Not only silent, but cooling down. Sitting there in her chest, still, but doing absolutely fucking nothing.
Can it be?
“Can it be?” Her lover whispers. “Are you certain?”
Sure as can be. Whatever ceremorphosis did to it, I think it turned it off. Lae, do you understand what that means? I get to live! I mean, live as a tentacled monster… she shakes out her tentacles, as much to clear her head as to underscore the point. But I’m still myself. And I still love you. And, more than anything- I know what our mission is.
Joy threads through her, yet without the blood-pounding intensity, without the quickening of breath. Entirely different from the emotions she’d had before, but just as right as everything feels in this new body.
Delighted I get to do the honours.
“I never thought I’d be happy to hear a ghaik will live.” The tir'su word tumbles from her mouth with less than its usual derision and hatred. Now, it’s referring to her- she’ll have to get used to that. “Yet my heart is glad, Karlach.”
Believe me, soldier, so is mine.
She reaches out. Lae’zel does actually take her hand in both of hers. Gently, carefully- it’s unbearably dry and calloused on her new skin. Now Karlach’s the one running cold of the two of them. She leans towards her-
Lae’zel’s thoughts douse her like a bucket of ice water.
Guilt. Horror. Gratitude. Her skin crawls, looking at her, and yet- is it not Karlach? Is it not worse, to force such a fate on her love? Karlach’s the one that brought her out of her tough shell, taught her to allow herself to find joy, and yet now she’s-
She flinches away. She hadn’t meant to pry- but her mind simply stepped into the other, as natural as breathing.
I’m alright, Lae. I’ve never felt more like myself.
Lae’zel’s disbelief colours the air as she lets go, steps back- floats upwards, power gathering at the edges of her thoughts.
Alright. no more time for any of that. Her friends can grapple with who she’s become some other time.
Time to go save the world- and survive.
The brain’s death throes claw at her mind. Dulled, perhaps, by Orpheus’s presence, by the Netherstones in her grip- around her, each of her tadpoled companions falls to the floor in mind-rending agony. The Netherbrain screams again, reverberating- further and further. To every tadpole, every mind flayer connected to it, every Nautiloid in the sky. For one eternal moment, she exerts her will, and the brain breaks.
A great shudder, and they’re out of that illusory, astral pocket, standing on the brain yet again. Another, and Karlach realises a few things.
They’re all falling. The brain had moved during their fight, she realises belatedly- and now they’re square in the middle of the bay.
The first thought: oh thank the gods. Enough people died in its ascent, they don’t need to die on its way down.
The second thought: wait, they’re all still standing on it.
She’s only halfway through the third thought- oh, right, she can fly now- as she grabs Lae’zel under the arms like an unruly cat. The gith twists in panic at the sight of illithid arms grabbing her from the back, battle instincts still sharp in the confusion. It’s me. hold on. But her arms aren’t as strong as they had been, and Lae’zel slips-
gods, no-
she meets her eyes as she falls, sorrow and grief on her face, speckled with blood and scorched with flame-
not recognizing her-
Karlach reaches out a hand-
and Lae’zel grabs it.
On her left, Gale envelops the rest of their comrades in a Feather Fall spell. Aylin takes flight as easily as anything, grabbing the one surviving Hellrider with her. And through the confusion, Lae’zel and Karlach float gently down into the ruined city.
Chaos reigns. The battle is not over yet- but it is ending. She can see it, even from this high in the air. Each illithid mind being snuffed by pitchforks, planks of wood, bare hands. Each anguished cry- we survived. Baldur’s Gate survived.
They touch down gently on a dock. Behind them, their allies drag themselves out of the water- looks like Gale’s aim wasn’t as good. As soon as she notices Orpheus, Lae’zel moves away, kneels to help him up onto the dock. The dutiful knight waiting on her prince. A soldier yet again.
There’s a feeling she can’t quite place rasping at the edges of her thoughts.
Neither of them had ever gotten a choice- to be a soldier or not. Lae’zel had been raised into Vlaakith’s army. Karlach had been thrust into Zariel’s. But now, she was free, wasn’t she? Truly free of Zariel. And yet Lae still-
Contemplation consumes her thoughts for only a few moments more. The final proof of the Netherbrain’s demise is beginning to make itself known around her. Astarion first- he swears, then begins sizzling- bleeds frustration-despair-finality from his thoughts all the way into the shade. Wyll’s Armour of Agathys fizzles and dies, Mizora’s loaned power making its way back to its mistress.
They’re alive.
They’re all alive.
Shaken, bruised, battered- but they’re alive and free, standing there watching the sun rise on the Chionthar. She’s saved the world and lived to tell the tale.
Each of her friends has something to say, but their words fade into the rushing waves. She’s alive.
It’s Orpheus that breaks her from her amazed reverie. He kneels before her, talks of gratitude and legacies.
“I will ensure that all githyanki know your name- and your sacrifice. I thank you, my liberator, my saviour.”
He promises her story will be told- but why does it feel like he’s talking to someone else?
When he calls them, his dragons land like an earthquake, stealing the breath from her lungs. Each mind is a planet unto itself- just the mere glimpse she steals suggests vastness. Like her perception is bending around them. It’s certainly a better first impression than the tadpoled dragon they’d just escaped from. For the first time since he was freed, Orpheus smiles.
“Come, Lae’zel. We will free the githyanki and dismantle the empire. Let them be imprisoned no longer!”
She’s-
Lae’zel had said-
They had climbed up to the roof of the Elfsong one morning, just before dawn, Lae’zel urging her on and chasing the sleep from her thoughts with a kiss. They’d talked… it had felt like hours. Lae’zel had looked over the city in all its glory and said- whatever comes next, I want you near. She’d found beauty outside of battle. She’d asked to stay by Karlach’s side for the time they had left.
But now, when that time has stretched out from “the next few days, if that” to “a hundred years or more”-
They’d both thought she would be dead by now. But she isn’t. She feels fucking amazing, actually, all moisturised and flourishing and such. Completely present in her body.
Then, why is Lae’zel looking to Orpheus?
Lae?
“Vlaakith will fall,” she says, eyes fixed on her prince- and past him, looking into the horizon. “And we will plant a seed. From that seed, Githyanki freedom will blossom.”
That’s- that’s great, but- you don’’t need to. You said you wanted-
“All my life, I’ve travelled in the slipstream of duty. Never questioning its path. I am a soldier- in its service, I came here, and in its service I must leave.” Finally, finally, she looks her in the eyes.
That’s not fucking true. You’re not just that- I’m more than what Zariel made from me. Look at me now. It’s still me, even if I’m not that soldier. You’re more than that, too! You’re more than anyone’s soldier! Orpheus can handle himself, you don’t need to fight any more.
Lae’zel, please- you don’t have to. You could stay here. In Faerun. With me.
(How can she be totally a mind flayer if she can believe in something so stupid? Surely the fact that she can even imagine a life together is proof enough that it’s still her. Can’t she see that?)
The love of her life stands there, turned towards the dragon but still looking her in the eyes. One might almost think she’s torn between the two, having a crisis of faith, about to make a grand romantic gesture and jump into the arms of her transformed love.
“I love you,” she whispers, but it’s not aimed at the Karlach standing there before her.
(Lae’zel looks at her and sees a gravestone.)
She flies away.