Chapter Text
Sephiria of Candlekeep had started to think, lately, that it was simply impossible for some people to become heroes, no matter how much they might desire it.
The elf sighed, pushing his black hair back behind a sharply pointed ear to get it out of his eyes, all the better to glower in annoyance at the woman before him. “You know, of course, that the city guard should technically be the ones managing this? Unlike you, I actually do have business to attend to.”
Sephiria was over a head taller than the elf’s five and a half feet, and her bright red ponytail fell across shoulders that looked like they could have put her fist completely through his torso if it came to a fight. She wished, occasionally, that made him hesitate more to talk back to her. “We should finish this ourselves, and you well know it. It’s our fault that any of this is still happening, we didn’t take steps to purge the remaining cult of Sarevok when we had the chance.”
“We didn’t have ‘the chance.’ You may recall that Sarevok almost ripped us both limb from limb with his bare hands. Unless you think you should have been looking over suspected Iron Throne activity reports while you were half-delirious with an arch-priest trying to get your hand reattached?”
“I’m not having this argument with you again, Acherai. Our brother is our responsibility. End of story. If this…” she paused, mouthing a few silent syllables, before turning to the nearest Flaming First guardsman in their small campsite. “What was her name again, sir?”
“Scar says… erm, I mean, Duke Loggerson says Korlasz, miss… er… ma’am? Sir? Not… not sure I know what to call you by? Is you the boss here? Or do you have to… ye called me sir, does that mean I’m in charge? Because you’re all sorts of fancy, an’ I only just…” the young man in Flaming Fist armor said, his voice tripping a few times as he tried to look at the floor to calm his frayed nerves, but without making Sephiria of Candlekeep feel like he was not showing her proper respect.
It was, unfortunately, a reaction she was becoming used to.
Four months. That was all it had taken Duke Entar Silvershield and the newly crowned Duke Harald ‘Scar’ Loggerson to reverse public opinion about her almost entirely, through what Acherai called ‘public relations’ and what Sephiria felt was a horribly cutthroat propaganda campaign that painted her as the sole hero of a battle she’d barely survived even with a lot of help. It felt like yesterday she had needed to be hidden away at a farmstead fifty miles outside of town, just to be sure no overzealous militiaman stabbed her in her sleep; and then one day the town criers and bulletins all credited her, almost alone, for saving the city entire from the ‘Blackhearted murderer Sarevok, traitor to the city conspiring to drive it to war with its most beloved trade partner, Amn,’ so he could ‘line his own filthy pockets with the spoils of stolen iron and shed blood.’ She had fallen asleep a wanted woman and woken up to a medal, a cheering crowd, and half the city’s young men wondering if she had any marriage prospects.
(That one, thank Torm, usually dissolved when they met her face-to-face. In her experience, few young men knew how to interact with a woman who they’d have to stand on a footstool to kiss, particularly when she also habitually carried a large sword)
It all felt terribly sudden, off-putting, and dreadfully unearned. One moment she was a killer soaked in the blood of a beloved public figure, the next she was a celebrity more beloved than he had ever been. One moment Amn was the formless, amoral enemy to the south, the next they were a beloved trade partner and the victim of a cruel deception that almost ruined their cordial and respectful relationship with Baldur’s Gate. One moment Sarevok was the city’s golden son, the next he was one step away from a demon and anyone who had any connection to his fallen business was a pariah.
And, to her even deeper discomfort, not one of them knew the true story of just exactly why she and the fallen Sarevok had come to such bitter conflict, or why that very much meant she didn’t deserve their love.
Acherai was no support at all. He had actually laughed in her face and said, “ Please, when you have a chance, try to name for me one thing that is more fickle than public opinion . Give people a story they want to believe, and they latch onto it every time. They accepted you as the assassin here to destabilize their city because it made them feel like the center of the universe, and now they accept you as the lovely paladin who slew the blackhearted tyrant because they like the idea of a fairy-tale heroine who belongs just to them. If it makes you feel better, I know you’re mostly useless.”
And that is the man I am trusting to watch my back down here. Family truly is the worst sort of complicated.
Turning to look down at the Flaming Fist soldier (and realizing with a slight wince that just the fact she had to look down at him would make the poor boy a nervous mess), she smiled reassuringly. “I’ve no rank in your organization or any other. Speak to me as you would another recruit at your own level, please.”
“N-no, miss… ma’am… missus… ‘s just I can’t… that is to say you being a hero and all…” the man stammered.
“For the love of… here . Boy! You want someone to command you, no? I am commanding you. Speak!” Acherai snapped.
“ Priestess Milandra says she removed the ward what your friend found, and we have the doors open, sir! Yer requested at the front, sir!” the man squawked in so pathetic a tone, Sephiria’s heart fairly well ached for him. This was probably his first mission, and he would not remember it with any kind of dignity.
“See, that wasn’t so hard. Maybe with a few more years of reporting on that level, you’ll graduate to guarding latrines,” Acherai said. “Tell the priestess and Imoen we’re on our way, and go tell the others to break camp. Oh, and don’t look the drow directly in the eyes, she takes it as a challenge for dominance.”
“ Siryessir!” the boy said, already halfway down the tunnel toward the crypts as the words left his mouth.
Acherai turned to his half-sister and smiled. “Before you say anything: I’m aware I could have been nicer to the boy and I chose not to be. Maybe this will teach you not to drag me along on your errands.”
She gritted her teeth and fought back the urge to punch the elf in his smug face, fully aware from the sparkle in his dark eyes that he knew he was successfully irritating her and enjoying it. Acherai Moonshadow, of somewhere he had never bothered to tell her about, was her half-brother only in the sense they had the bad luck to have their mothers earn the notice of the same abomination. She did not consider him any kind of family, and could only even consider him an ally in the sense that fate seemed to delight in giving them common enemies. She didn’t particularly like him, and he didn’t particularly like her, but, well…
When your father was the literal god of murder, you learned to somewhat accept any family that wasn’t currently trying to saw your throat open, she supposed.
The two adventurers turned the corner in the small tunnel they had been watching over to make sure no surprises came upon the group, and looked upon the small group camped out in front of the crypt doors. A half-dozen Flaming Fist operatives in full armor, including one with a holy symbol of the god Helm hanging freely from her neck; they’d have been more reassuring, she supposed, had any of them other than the priestess looked even slightly comfortable being there.
One readjusted his helmet because it was a size too large, and had fallen in front of his eyes. For the seventh time in this hour-long march. Sephiria had been counting.
Gods above, we are working with actual children.
Acherai had, of course, brought a pair of absolute untrustworthy reprobates; his ‘business partner’, an absolutely amoral mercenary dwarf by the name of Kagain, and (and it turned out that even if you had only known your brother for about a year, it still was slightly gross to think about him having sex) Acherai’s current lover, the dark elven priestess Viconia.
Sephiria was a bit more reassured by her own comrades; Imoen, her foster sister and perpetual problem-causer (it was okay, she also helped solve most of the problems) was the first to pop to her feet, leaving behind the book she’d been intently studying with Dynaheir, the mage who had, against all odds, actually agreed to teach the younger girl the beginnings of magecraft. Acherai had laughed for hours when he learned, but Imoen seemed actually dedicated to her work… too dedicated, some might say, given that she had refused to so much as consider picking a lock or disarming a trap until she was ‘a great archmage.’
What that meant, well… Imoen was the only one who actually knew, and explaining in a way that other people could understand was always difficult for her. But she seemed to be happy.
Finally, and most reassuringly, where Dynaheir went, Minsc went. Sephiria had to admit, she had grown to find the gigantic berserker to be deeply helpful to her mental state. He was a simple man, loyal, friendly, firmly devoted to always making the right choice, and strong enough to rip an ogre’s head off; it had taken her some time to warm up to Minsc, but in the end she had come to realize he was a paladin’s dream ally. In a world full of befuddling shades of gray, it was just very comforting to have someone at your back who would always see things in black and white, always choose white, and always be willing to back her up in doing the same.
“Seffie!” Imoen said. “Learned a new spell. Great stuff. You’ll love it! Oh, and Mom Milandra wanted to chat with ya.”
“Imoen. For the seventh time. My title in the church is not ‘Mother,’ and even if it was, shortening it would be bordering on sacrilegious. Please stop. Please ,” the priestess of Helm said.
“Well, ya shouldn’t be so darn motherly, then. Priests of Helm are supposed to be severe an’ mean an’ unreasonable, not look like they’re making soup,” Imoen said firmly. “Now tell Seffie what’s what, so we can get this done and head home.”
“Gods above, this girl…” Milandra muttered. “Lady Sephiria, I managed to pierce the wards on the outer doors of the tomb, but the situation is far from ideal. The Korlasz family fell from grace among the nobility some time ago, but they always had inclinations toward wizardry, and their associations with the Iron Throne left them with more than enough funding to make up for a lack of social clout. This will not be the final ward, and… well, magic and tombs mean undead, almost universally.”
Acherai sighed. “And the current Lady Korlasz most likely has ways to bypass the majority of these defenses, and the undead will be her own ancestors. I’d recommend we simply burn the place down, but of course it is underground and entirely made of rock.”
“I mean, we do usually manage to burn the building down in the end, even if it is made of stone, so don’t write it off completely, Acchy,” Imoen said. “This one will be tougher than most, but I got faith in us.”
“Sephiria, your cheering section is being off-putting again.”
Sephiria smiled sweetly. “Well, lucky you, you get to put some distance between the two of you, and perhaps even prove her wrong. You have the most expertise in traps of a magical nature, so perhaps with your keen eye, you’ll manage to avoid Imoen’s traditional dungeon bonfire.”
“Oh, how heroic of the noble paladin,” Acherai grumbled. “Unfortunately, you’re right. Everyone else, keep at least ten paces behind me, I’ll be quite upset if you step on something while I’m trying to disarm it. Viconia, if you see a ghost coming for my blood, do ask your god to intervene? She should love it down here. Dark, cold, miserable.”
“My goddess has little patience for irreverence, surface scum,” Viconia said idly, her tone more teasing than actually upset. “But fortunately for you, I remain in her favor, and I haven’t grown bored of you yet. I’ll try to keep any corpses from tearing out that glib tongue while I think of better uses you might put it toward to repay me later.”
“Gross,” Imoen said.
“Are we… really trusting… that ? I know that Sir Acherai is well-favored by Duke Silvershield, but…” Melindra said, gesturing vaguely at the drow priestess unabashedly looking at Sephiria’s brother as if he was a piece of steak. “It’s just… well, even going beyond her choice of goddess, and her attitude, even just the fact it’s a drow …”
“Helm would ask that you judge her fairly for her actions, not her race, I’m sure,” Sephiria said, not even remotely sure. “She’s… problematic, perhaps, but she’s never shown a sign of doing something so foolish as betraying a group that’s between her and a threat. She helped us kill Sarevok, and I see now reason she can’t be trusted now.”
“Please don’t make it sound as though I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart, whelp,” Viconia purred, and it was a bit off-putting how she could purr an obvious threat. “We are allies so long as I benefit from it, nothing more.”
“An drow after my own heart,” Acherai said with a grin. “Follow me, and follow quietly. I’d like to avoid a fight, if we could; Korlasz must be on the formidable side if she was deep in Sarevok’s counsel.”
“Oh gods oh gods oh gods…” Lilian Korlasz, last survivor of her house, whimpered under her breath as she struggled not to cry.
The simple truth was that she had not been a true believer; her devotion to Sarevok had been much more about how well he paid than how intense his claim to divinity was. Oh she had paid the lip service, she had said the prayers and sworn the oaths in blood, but obviously she hadn’t really believed . He was powerful, impossibly powerful, but a nascent god? Please.
Still, he had paid well. She had access to manpower, magic, and certain connections that even a noble who was no longer welcome at the annual winter balls could bring to bear, and with her lower profile she could exercise them in ways that the only son of Lord Rieltar Anchev often could not. She would take his gold, direct his men, do what tasks he told her to do when he told her to do it, and tell him that he was destined to godhood no matter how little she believed it.
And when he was the Grand Duke, she would be seated at a table in the palace like no Korlasz had been since her grandfather’s… indiscretions with necromancy got their whole estate blacklisted. The table might be a bit bloody, to be sure, but she had never been possessed of much in the way of morals. He was the key to a life that she deserved, and that society had unfairly denied her solely for the sins of her forebears.
And then he had died. Cut down before even achieving one tenth of his planned glories, by some country bumpkin who’d wandered in and cut his damn head off. And he had kept receipts of the payments he’d made to her. Receipts, the blasted idiot! Paying his mercenaries with Iron Throne funds, and keeping records!
That had been the mistake they had all made; the man had power, and force of personality, and to be sure he was intelligent, and that had led dozens of cultists and hundreds of mercenaries to believe he was the right choice to lead a conspiracy to take first the largest merchant guild in Baldur’s Gate, and then the city itself. But the simple fact was, he had no head for subterfuge. His preferred problem-solving method was to kill whatever angered him, and if that failed, to pay someone to make it go away. He would always take the direct approach unless someone more willing to be subtle did the work for him.
Nobody seemed to have done so, this time. And that meant that when the Grand Dukes had seized his personal estate and what little paperwork survived the destruction of the Iron Throne tower, a lot of people were in a lot of trouble. The Black Talons and Chill were now banned in the Sword Coast North and being hunted by the Flaming Fist, three separate secret cults of Cyric had been exposed and would almost certainly be burned out by the Church of Helm (if they were lucky), and several independent contractors in charge of the organizations hiring, smuggling, and enchanting services were now wanted for treason and murder. And just her luck, one Lilian Korlasz was depressingly high up on that list.
She had gone underground, both figuratively and literally, taking with her what funds, tools, and men she could gather while the Flaming Fist were smashing down her door. But every waterway and gate out of the city was being watched, and Dukes Belt and Jaanath were both magically gifted enough to stop her from fleeing the city by arcane methods, if they put their minds to it. She wasn’t even gifted enough at magecraft to teleport reliably out of the city under normal circumstances, and if she tried to do it when two superior practitioners were working against her, she suspected she’d land in pieces. She was panicking, horrified, seeing all her dreams of a rebuilt future crashing around her. She had limited funds, no plan, and no allies other than hired killers who were loyal to her only so long as she had gold (which was running out) and the fear of Sarevok’s memory (which would, to be fair, probably last longer than the gold).
And it was in this state, fleeing safehouse to safehouse and fully aware that each one would protect her for less time, and that her likely end would be one of her own men stabbing her in the kidneys, that a helping hand had been extended to her.
And made everything worse.
“We had an arrangement, and your side of it has been kept poorly ,” the man said, tapping a scarred finger against the crypt that contained one of her long-dead ancestors. ‘A man’ was all the description she could give of him; he wore a gray cloak with the hood pulled up, true, but such a basic disguise was irrelevant in comparison to the fact she couldn’t see him. The eye simply refused to focus on his face, like it was a hole in the world that her brain couldn’t process. Any attempt to look him in the eye left her with nothing but a headache as her gaze involuntarily slid off. A spell of such power and subtlety would have been intimidating enough to make Korlasz treat him with deep respect all on its own.
The fact he had killed the two hardened warriors she’d left guarding this room without so much as a noise the rest of the compound could hear had pushed that feeling well past respect and into gibbering terror.
“I did all I could!” she protested, her gaze not truly wanting to focus on the two smoking corpses on the floor, but the warped and shifting features of the hooded man were even more discomforting. “I… it was hard to even get into the temple cavern after all the damage they did, and the Fist were on my trail! This is everything I…”
“I did not ask for an excuse. Our terms were clear. You would deliver the tools of the fallen godspawn, and I would free you from this city,” the man said. He gestured to stone coffin he stood beside, where where some twenty pounds of jagged black steel lay. “You have provided me scrap.”
“This is all that remained, I swear to you! I found the site where he died, but his armor and sword were both shattered, and there was no corpse to speak of! I keep my bargains, milord, I…”
“Hm. I doubt you have the courage to lie to me. And you would hardly be worth the effort of ending your miserable existence,” the man said idly.. “I will take this… garbage . Perhaps studying the nature of its destruction will teach me something of value for further experimentation. And I shall compensate you for your limited success as much as is warranted.”
“You… you’ll get me out of the city?” Korlasz asked, licking her bone-dry lips as a small fire of hope ignited among the glacier of terror that had frozen her blood. “I don’t care about my men. Leave them. If it’s only one person, it must be easier for you…”
Something sparked behind the shifting mask, giving Korlasz a brief glimpse of eyes so cold and empty that she felt like she was at the bottom of the ocean, freezing, gasping for air, and a shark rushing toward her out of the darkness.
His tone was as casual as a man discussing the weather as he said, “I offer you knowledge, on the same scale of value as what you have given me. Specifically: Sarevok’s killers have breached this tomb’s meager defenses. The final ward was just disarmed, and they will be killing your outlying guards… now .”
Korlasz whipped her head around toward the door, eyes wide, and strained her ears. Metal ringing against metal, shouts calling men to arms, stomping boots… and screams, mixed pain and terror cutting off suddenly.
They were far off down the twisting stone halls, but she knew most of those screams.
She turned back to the dark man, a plea, an offer of anything in her power if he would just get her out of here already on her lips, but he was already gone.
At least he’d had the small kindness not to laugh at her.
Sephiria knew that it was probably a bad sign she took the battlefield so easily. But at least it was simple.
No politics, no lies, no gods-damned siblings questioning every decision she made and mocking every thought in her head. The last door had opened as Acherai broke the warding rune on the lock; the ghosts on the edge of their vision continued to hold to their crypts, fearing the drow priestess bearing dark flame in her palms; and suddenly she was in her element, with a dozen men charging at her, fear and anger burning in their eyes in equal measure.
She met the first one head-on, half a dozen paces ahead of the others in her party, and slammed her broadsword into his descending mace. He was a large man, perhaps, but she was six feet of solid muscle and plate steel bearing an enchanted sword that had originally been forged for an ogre warlord. His weapon shattered, and the impact of it barely slowed her swing as it went through his guard and into his neck. Barely slowing, she kicked him aside as he let out a gurgling scream, cut short by steel piercing his windpipe, and stepped right into the next man.
Later on, she would have time to worry that this is what Bhaal would want. The ease with which she could end life was a gift of her father, and he did not give gifts without expectation of repayment. The dreams, the doubts, the questioning of everything about her entire godsforsaken life. But for now, in the center of a battle, things were always simple.
A paladin was meant to fight evil. She had trained all her life for that very role. And now, evil was before her.
She brought her sword down, ignoring the motion to either side of her, her combat instincts honed enough to recognize it as her own allies trying to catch up to her. They wouldn’t be able to keep up. A second man fell beneath her, and she brought a booted foot down on his neck as she stepped forward.
Slash, advance.
Slash, advance.
Over the last year her life had become a nightmare in every sense of the word. But as long as she could bring the sword down one more time, and as long as she could take one more step forward, there was still something for her.
The fourth man she met threw down his halberd and fell to his knees, hands behind his head and very, very much more fear than anger in his eyes.
“Do you surrender?” She growled.
A severed head rolled past her feet to come to a stop against his knees, as Minsc reminded everyone that he was also involved in this fight.
“... Yes, yes gods yes please gods yes, ” he said.
She grabbed his collar, hauled him up to her face, and growled. “You’ll turn yourself in to the Flaming Fist, serve your sentence, and when you get out of prison, you will never lift a weapon again save in self-defense. You will take up farming. Understood?”
“ Yes yes yes yes.”
Throwing him back in the general direction of Imoen and Milandra, she stomped down the hall, overtaking Minsc, her sword already coming up to take the two swordsmen by the door; the one on the right is smaller, if I come in from that direction I can knock him into the other and put them both off-balance, and then I just have to bring the sword down one more …
“Hold,” a soft but firm voice said from behind her, cutting through the battle haze. “It’s already over.”
“... Thank you, Dynaheir,” she said, exhaling. “I didn’t even notice. Your spells have gotten more subtle than I recall.”
“I know Imoen prefers to burn down any building we enter,” the Rashemi witch said, fairly gliding past both Sephiria and Minsc to stand between the two men at the door, neither of whom moved beyond taking very short, shallow breaths that were hardly visible. “But a more subtle approach is occasionally for the best. Thankfully, ‘tis not difficult to cast unnoticed when Minsc is amid his battle rage.”
She lightly pushed on one’s shoulder, and he fell over, stiff as a statue.
“Two more for the gaol, officers. Give me a moment to prepare, I understand this Korlasz character is something of a mage? Everyone please get at least half the room away from the door, except of course for you, dear Minsc, whom I would request begin applying as much force to it as thy prodigious boots will allow.”
Imoen leaned on Sephiria, smiling brightly. “She’s teachin’ me, Seffie. Someday? Someday, I’ll be scary too.”
Minsc’s smile was even brighter. “ Never shall friend Imoen be as scary as Minsc’s witch.”
“We need to surrender, Korlasz,” Larsen said.
Larsen was not the commander of the guards, because the closest thing this rabble had to a commander was dead, as was the closest thing he’d had to a second-in-command. A day ago, if you had told her that the loud, angry, sweaty, greedy morons that were clearly planning to backstab her eventually had died, she would have honestly not cared overmuch.
But since they had taken with them two-thirds of her forces, she found herself caring a great deal very suddenly.
“Surrender? Surrender?! To the people who gutted Sarevok like a dog and killed half our number?!” she snapped. “I think it’s safe to say that our options are to fight and have a chance to escape, or be taken back to the Ducal Palace and hanged.”
Larsen’s eyes narrowed, which was hard because they were already small and piglike, like whatever god sculpted him had decided to use two black pebbles and call it a day. “ You might get strung up. Noble enough to be a traitor, not noble enough to bribe your way out. Maybe if we turn you in, they go easy on the rest of us. Thugs aren’t worth the effort.”
Korlasz laughed bitterly, so hopefully nobody noticed the ice in her veins as the stupid bastard put into words a fear that had been plaguing her the entire day. “Oh, yes, because the courts are so kind and considerate to members of the cult that nearly brought the entire region into a war with Amn. Tell me, did you know any of the other no-count thugs that signed on with Sarevok? How many of them were tossed in the gaol for a few months until they could testify against their superiors? The Chill, the Black Talons, they were slaughtered to a man! The Iron Throne tower was burned to the ground! Now stop questioning me and help your men bar the door. I need to focus.”
Korlasz was, for all her other issues, a mage of some ability. No match for the wizards who mages who made up Sarevok’s inner circle, Semaj or Perorate, but she had skill and funds, and a mage could achieve quite a bit with that. She removed three scrolls from her pack, one fairly common and one that she had needed to sell two of her family’s old employees into slavery to afford. She cast the first immediately; the five remaining men pushing furniture and broken coffin lids in front of the door began to noticeably move faster as the spell flooded their muscles with powers and pushed their reflexes to new heights. At the very least, once the door was taken down, they might manage to live a few minutes longer than their allies down the main hall.
The second, she took further back into the crypt room, near to the coffin of one Marilyn Korlasz, an aunt who had passed away only seven months previously of a wasting fever. If any of the men were even watching her, and she doubted it because something very, very strong was beginning to slam the doorway against their barricades, they would just see her raising a corpse as a zombie and not question it too much.
They would probably not even stop to consider that Aunt Marilyn had, in life, looked quite a lot like her, particularly not as she undid the belt of her robe and slid it over the corpse.
If they were all going to die here, perhaps there was a use for that, too.
The zombie began to stir inside the opened coffin, and Korlasz held the final scroll ready, her heart hammering in her chest.
“ MINSC JUDGES YOUR DOOR!” Minsc screamed, the heavy wooden door and about two-hundred pounds of stone and wood piled behind it shaking piteously under his booted foot. “ AND FINDS IT WANTING !”
Acherai sighed. “Blasting down the door would be quicker, Dynaheir, and against all odds also probably quieter.”
“By all means. You tell him to stop judging the door,” the witch said dryly. “I’m sure ‘twould be quite interesting to see how well thy words reached his ear. Thou seem to be quite light, and I’m sure the distance thou fly when he hurls thee ‘twould be impressive, to say the least.”
“You know, this attitude is why nobody likes to visit Rasheman.”
Something made a horrible crunching sound, and on the other side of the door someone screamed in pain as Minsc’s blade went completely through the wood, sending splinters the size of thumbs flying into the room on the other side.
“I mean, among other things.”
Dynaheir grinned. “Fortunately, the Wychlaran care not at all about tourism, as a rule. And as for why I allowed good Minsc to handle the dismantlement… I needed to be ready for this.”
The shouting on the other side of the door shifted, from desperation and exertion to a high-pitched shriek of agony that didn’t sound like anything an adult human should have been able to make, and which died off very quickly, as the cracks in the wooden door began to glow red…
Dynaheir raised her hands, and brought them down in a chopping motion, silver light gleaming in both palms, matching in color the globe of energy that suddenly surrounded Minsc, just a second before the doorway erupted in a gout of flame that rolled out to surround him.
“ Minsc!” Sephiria shouted, her hand in front of her face as though it would somehow protect from the sudden wave of heat that rolled over the room, so intense it singed her hair even a solid fifteen feet back from the engulfed berserker. “He…! He’s…” she stopped. “He’s … fine?”
Acherai whistled. “Globe of Invulnerability?”
“Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere.”
“... Clearly effective, but doesn’t that spell last ten minutes and stop Minsc from moving at all while in effect?”
“And you see some downside to this if it prevents him from running into that ?” Dynaheir said, motioning at the firestorm that seemed to be filling the entire adjacent chamber. “Clearly our reports of Korlasz’s talents were understated. To conjure a flame cloud like that marks her as more powerful than we gave her credit for.”
“Yeah, but she conjured it while she was in the room ,” Imoen said. “I… jeez, did she kill her own guys in there? Is she still in…”
“She’d hardly be the first to decide that if she was doomed, she might as well take a rival with her. Frankly, I hope it is so. It would make this slog a bit shorter and allow us to get back to somewhere with the closest things rivvil can manage to soft pillows and good wine a bit sooner,” Viconia said with a small chuckle.
Sephiria narrowed her eyes. “I don’t find anything particularly amusing about a woman committing suicide, Viconia.”
“Well, you never knew any of my sisters.”
“Is there another path in, mayhaps? This tomb is clearly not normal, simply from the preponderance of traps. Another passage would not be unheard of, and ‘twould certainly be faster than waiting for this spell to collapse on its own,” Dynaheir suggested. “The spell holding yon Minsc lasts for another five minutes, and by then I’m sure that the fire will have spread naturally. If we want to have any chance of acquiring documents or other evidence of this cult’s activities, we need to hurry. I'm quite certain that by now Boo has told him that once he is free, he is to run in and begin smashing anything that has not already burned.”
“... ‘Boo has told him’?” Sephiria asked.
“My life is very complicated, child, and I have to make the occasional mental concessions to survive it.”
“... I shan’t question it. Immy, could you begin searching the north half of the chamber for any kind of hidden doorways? Acherai, you search the southern, and…”
“Found it,” Acherai said, having walked off to the side of the room and started fiddling with a torch for no reason she could tell.
“... Elaborate, please.”
“It’s an idiot tomb puzzle. You know, the kind old wizards think ‘clever,’” Acherai said, pushing one of the torches near the other, and nodding as the orange flame ignited in a distinctly more reddish tone on the unlit torch. “Did you not notice the fires are different colors, over here? You need to mind your surroundings, sister dear.”
“I was fighting three men to the death.”
“And if one of them had been hiding behind these torches, you’d be dead. Could you go down to that other group of torches to the side, and put out the third one? We need to match the colors to the crystals set into the walls over yonder, so that one will be… purple, somehow? Apparently this was meant to keep out a children’s daycare.“
“I hate you.”
“Hate me while you get this done! You’re the one who cares about this idiot cultist, I’m perfectly happy to just let her burn or escape, whichever comes first!” he snapped.
Biting back the reply that she was fairly sure her god wouldn’t be happy to hear, assuming he even listened to her anymore, she moved to do as she was asked, and sure enough as soon as the flame lit in a bizarre purple flame, a door slid open in the wall with the harsh grinding of stone against stone. Acherai poked his head inside, eyes scanning for any sign of the traps that every other inch of this godsforsaken tomb had had…
He blinked.
“Hm. Well. It’s not a path to Korlasz, but. Given that nobody cares about her, probably better off, really,” he said. “Come, take a look, Seph.”
“You are insufferable! If that woman escapes, then every death she… every…” Sephiria said, her eyes widening as the unmistakable scent of old blood ran over her in a wave the moment she stepped through the hidden door, and locked eyes with the unholy symbol of Bhaal was emblazoned prominently on the book set up on the small altar at the end of the chamber.
“So,” Acherai said softly. “The dukes were after anything we could find about the cult of Sarevok, if I recall correctly?”
Korlasz slid along the damp cave tunnel, her clothes soaking against her body and a smile of mad desperation on her face.
Every single person I worked with is dead. Every single thing I believed in is ash. Every coin to my name, every favor, every friend, every connection. I’m nothing. My life is over.
She was crawling through the tunnel they had been hoping to escape through once the payment from their benefactor had come through; a broken wall in the lower levels of the tomb complex that led an underground river, and eventually out of the city. There had been a small craft prepped to get her group and what she’d been hoping to be a large pile of gold down the waterway, but she couldn’t possibly have steered it by herself.
There was enough space for a single person traveling light to walk alongside the water, though, if they moved slowly enough and carefully enough. A single person who had nothing. Who had no reason to go on other than the sheer, agonizing need to survive, simply because nobody thought she could do it.
I have lost everything. My life is over. I’ve been abandoned by everyone who could have helped, and left to rot in the dark.
But I’m not going to die down here. No matter how empty things might seem. I refuse, I refuse to die down here! Even if nothing awaits me at the end of this tunnel but more pain, I’ll be alive to feel it!
“This is interesting.”
Her eyes widened in shock, and she nearly lost her footing on the slick rocks. “W…who said…?”
“ I was watching the situation unfold from a distance, you see. I have an interest in the killers of Sarevok, thought not one as personal as your own, of course. I was, in all truth, quite certain they were going to be adding you to their body count, given their general deadliness and your…” the disembodied voice said, and she could hear the smirk behind the words even with no face to speak them. “ Well. You didn’t seem to be particularly impressive. And yet here you are, still alive despite the odds! Hunted by demigods, betrayed by archmages, and the bloodied, soaking wet, failure of a girl manages to worm her way to freedom.
“Would you like to be less of a failure, girl? The path you’re taking now is ten miles underground before you find anything like a path to the surface. You know full well that if you slip into these waters, you won’t be climbing out. Do you truly want to risk everything on the vague hope that you’ll have solid footing for all that time? That there won’t be one mossy patch or crumbling rock that sends you into the black?”
She laughed bitterly. “I… know better… than to make any more deals with strange mages. I’ll take my chances.”
“My child, you wound me. I always honor my contracts, and I won’t even make you sign in blood, ” the voice said, a low chuckle under the words. “A fair deal, honored by both parties, is the basis of any mutually beneficial relationship, and right now you need benefit far more than I do. I have men in the area, and they can reach you within the hour if they move quickly. And in return, you will aid them in a task they need to take care of in the city. Fair, no?”
She hissed. “I can’t… go back to the city. If anyone finds out I’m alive…”
“ You’re being a little dramatic, my child. How many people on the street know you by appearance? I doubt any of the people who were just sent to clap you in irons could pick you out of a crowd. And you are, after all, a mage. If you don’t have even the basic foresight to have one spell in your possession to disguise your face for a few hours, while on the run from the largest law enforcement agency in the region, then I’ll have to rescind my offer because you deserve to drown alone in the dark. Enjoy your ten mile hike. I’m sure the rapids will be fine.”
“Wait!” she snapped. “Wait, I… fine. Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll help you. Just… just get me out of here. I just want to live. I don’t care anymore, I just… I just want to live.”
“Brilliant. Remain roughly where you are, and keep your footing. Conjure a small light if you can. A vessel will be en route shortly.”
“... Against the current?”
“ My child, please. I thought my skill with magic would be fairly obvious by this point.”
She slid down the wall, her shaking knees halfway giving out as she haphazardly moved to a seating position, the retreating flood of fear and adrenaline leaving her more tired than she’d ever been in her life. “Fine. Fine. Perhaps you could… at least tell me something. What… what did I get myself into, here…?”
“ Oh, any town crier will be shouting about it in a week or two, I assure you. I shouldn’t want to give out too many details and ruin the surprise before our dear lady is prepared. One never knows who’s listening, ” the voice said with a chuckle. “ But I assure you, you’ll soon have ample cause to rejoice at your decisions, my child.
“You’ve just become a hero, after all.”