Acherai sighed in bliss as Viconia's spell rolled over him; just a cantrip, but enough to reduce the pounding in his skull to a dull throb. It made him a little sad he considered that a victory, though not as sad as the sounds of the ogre still being messily devoured just a few houses away from their new stopping point. Tazok was, apparently, extremely crunchy.

"How is your arm?" she asked, and damn if he didn't think he heard genuine concern in her tone.

Awwwww, she hates me less than she usually implies, how sweet. He thought, before saying aloud, "Good enough. We need you to focus on keeping this apparently infinite tide of zombies at bay, so save the rest of the healing for the trip home if any of us survive."

"You seem determined to make that not happen, so perhaps I'd be best just spending my spells now. I'll already have to cut the heart from some fluffy moon-loving beast to earn back Shar's favor after this fiasco, might as well make her truly furious. Power from the blessed Nightmother to protect and save a paladin of Torm. Honestly," Viconia grumbled.

"Are you still on about that? Honestly, you hold a grudge far too long, my dear."

"It has only been twenty minutes."

"And yet I'm already bored by it! Now, has anyone seen Coran? I sent him to deal with the wizard or cleric directing this tide of undead, but there's a pretty decent chance he just went to the shadows to ogle the women."

"I do have a cute butt. Couldn't blame him," Imoen said proudly.

"Immy, hush," Sephiria said.

"What? It's true. I don't get much of the attention 'cause you're a giant and Viconia's all evil and harlot-y, but I have a damn cute butt and more people should pay attention to it."

"If we survive this, I think I've found my sacrifice to Shar," Viconia murmured.

"Well, congratulations, we probably won't!" Coran said cheerfully, dropping down from one of the ruined homes into the alley they'd taken temporary shelter in. "Back from the scouting run, boss. You want the bad news, or the worse news?"

"You weren't sent on a 'scouting run', Coran. You were sent on an assassination."

"Well, I couldn't get close, so it became a scouting run," Coran said cheerfully. "And Imoen, believe me when I say your rear end has been well noticed by discerning observers, and the quality is exactly as advertised."

"Awwwww, shucks."

"Imoen, stop finding that flattering," Sephiria said, not even trying to disguise the growing headache anymore. "Coran, what did you find?"

"Two things. First, the building in the center of the city is definitely a temple to Bhaal, and that temple is a deathtrap. I'll need a partner to get through all the mechanisms, and probably someone with magical skill to handle the very troublesome looking runes I spied on the floor."

"Wonderful. Well, we brought two, though I think the lady is probably more experienced in such things than I," Acherai said, giving an affirmatory nod in Dynaheir's direction.

"'Tis good to have one's expertise acknowledged."

"Oh, I always notice talent, milady, even if a mage of Rasheman wasn't already a rarity in these lands. Your performance against Tazok was inspired, and I don't mind adding that if you're seeking new companionship after this little disaster, I am quite a bit more focused on the expansion of the arcane arts than my sister, so…"

"Can we all please stop flirting for ten minutes and focus on our own bloody survival?" Sephiria snapped, taking the time to elbow Acherai in the gut before firmly re-directing Imoen's gaze away from her apparent attempts to shift her leggings to better show off the aesthetically pleasing rear end she was so proud of. "If the temple is so thoroughly trapped, they must be using it as a central base. We should assume at least two mages inside, probably whatever soldiers Sarevok has in his employ still, and the man himself... that is a damnable force to assault, and no question of it. I fail to see how it could be worse without them having an actual dragon nesting inside."

"Actually, that was just the bad news. There's still the worse news."

"… I was joking about the dragon, man. I swear to all that's holy if you tell me there truly is one…"

"Oh, no, the temple had nobody moving about the grounds and I couldn't get far in, but you can always tell if there's a dragon roosting about. Wyvern hunters who don't know how to spot the signs and go down the wrong cave tend to not come back out of it," Coran said cheerfully. "No, no, the worse news is that I definitely saw Sarevok leaving the temple before I reached it. He could be anywhere by now."

"What?!" the two children of Bhaal, in a rare moment of agreement, snarled in something just shy of a blind panic.

"He was hard to miss. Large bloke, spiky, glowing eyes…"

"Damn. Damn, damn, damn. If he made a run for it, this was all a waste of time and blood," Acherai hissed.

"He would never run. Not from us. You can't imagine how much he wants us dead," Sephiria countered.

Acherai shuddered. "Oh, I have an idea… No, you're right. He wouldn't flee. But if he's hunting us, why hasn't he found us already? We've hardly been quiet, and if the undead are on his side, he would have few issues traveling the ruins."

"There must have been something else that drew him out. Something he needed to deal with personally, even more than his business with us."

"More important than godhood?" Viconia asked. "I fail to see many things that would match that as a priority."

Sephiria considered the statement for a moment… and winced. "Then clearly you have never been in love. Tamoko must be here, that's all it could be."

Acherai arched an eyebrow. "The priestess you had captured? That's ridiculous. Even if she escaped her little prison, she still betrayed one of the most powerful men on the Sword Coast. Why would she willingly walk back into his clutches when she could have just run back to Kara-tur and been relatively safe?"

"Clearly," Sephiria repeated, "you have never been in love."

"Oh, quit actin' like an expert on love, ya big goof. Seffie's never even kissed a boy," Imoen whispered conspiratorially.

"Imoen, stop it."

"Ain't kissed a girl either, gotta add. No kisses at all for Seffie," Imoen continued happily. "It's on account of how she's intimidating, I figure. Like, sure, all the stableboys were like, 'Oh, she's so lovely, like a bird in the sun' or whatever, but then they talked to her and she was all 'blah blah blah Torm and justice and smiting.' It puts folks off their game, I expect."

"IMOEN. STOP IT."

"Both of you stop, and think. This is perfect," Acherai said, his grin slightly manic and quite a bit sharklike. "If he's really hunting his little priestess, we have the chance to take him in the open, far from his minions and defenses. Tamoko might even be able to heal us during the battle if she's not dead before we arrive. We couldn't ask for better at this point."

"… A fair point," Sephiria grumbled. "Imoen, I'll be punching you later, but for now Dynaheir, I'm trusting you to manage the assault on the temple. Follow Coran, and take the others with you. Shut down the spells guiding these undead before they kill our friends in the upper sewers. Acherai and I will track Sarevok."

"Acherai and I and Imoen, you mean," Imoen said.

"No. This is not negotiable, Imoen, I don't want you anywhere near that monster," Sephiria said. "Anyone untouched by the divine is simply not safe in his presence. Just the pressure of him is painful to face."

"She's right. He's more Bhaal than human at this point. Insane, vicious, and strong. Even fully taken over by my own divine power, I couldn't stop him. But the two of us together feels…" Acherai said. "It's different. Fate. Destiny. Call it what you want, but I know: this is a stage for the Children of Bhaal, and if we aren't able to force him off it between the two of us, then we're just not going to win. This is a family affair, I'm afraid."

"And I. Am. Family," Imoen snapped.

"I have two families now, Immy. You're the good one. The only one I want to be safe," Sephiria said.

"Oh, what a lovely sentiment to share when I'm about to walk into battle at your side once again…" Acherai muttered.

"So please. For me. Focus on trying to help the others and leave Sarevok to us. I swear to you, I will be back. Make sure you're alive when I am."

Imoen sighed. "Okay. Fine. But only because you're bein' all upset about it. I mean, come on, Jaheira and them are probably holding up just fine."


Jaheira had lost consciousness for a few moments, presumably when Minsc slammed both her and the skeleton she had been fighting into a wall with a single sweeping charge. So she was not sure if what she was seeing now was a hallucination or not, but she dearly hoped it was.

Because it looked like Minsc, skewered through the gut on the skeleton warrior's sword and still coated in the bone dust he had created by completely pulverizing the thing with his return blow, had stepped over the fallen Xan and, erm, dealt with the issue of Edwin's apparent betrayal.

She hadn't seen what he did, through the filth in her eyes and the dizziness in her head. But suffice to say that the only sign of Edwin she could now see was something red and dripping coating the tunnel wall behind where he had been standing a few seconds previous. Jaheira would have taken a moment to mourn what was left of a comrade, if she had ever considered a Red Wizard a comrade, but she was torn away from that show of grace by the fact Minsc had followed up whatever he had done to the poor bastard by trying to do the same to her husband.

"M-Minsc! Not me! Wrong! B-B-Bad!" Khalid said, trying as best he could in mid-combat to point towards the remaining undead, because truly only he could manage to so firmly under-react to this situation. Jaheira was torn between the urge to kiss him and the urge to smash his assailant over the head with her staff, and pushed both of those desires aside because they were in fact not helpful. Both because Minsc was not fully in control of his own actions, and because in the state he was in now she was fairly certain he wouldn't even feel it. A true berserker like him, in a battle rage of this magnitude, would not be stopped by anything short of an injury that instantly killed him. He had determined for some reason that some thing in the rear lines needed to die, and he was going to keep swinging wildly until he killed it. The best choice, in her opinion, was to direct that swinging in a direction that was a tad more productive than smashing her husband into paste.

Nature was a thing that was everywhere. 'Civilized' beings often forget this, but a druid could always find an ally when she needed one.

Or several.

Inaudible under the screams of battle and the smashing of blade against blade or bone or (all too often) flesh, she began to murmur a low, quiet prayer to Silvanus and Mielikki, asking for one more tiny boon before her mind or body failed her. And, in their love and wisdom, they answered her even in this pit.

The walls down the path to the undercity began to hum strangely, and then to crack. A few slime-coated bricks began to shift, push out, and finally fall into the slime.

And that was when it became clear that the cracking sound echoing through the wall was not, in fact, stone breaking.

From a dozen tiny holes in the wall they swarmed; flies, spiders, ants, cockroaches, centipedes… hundreds, maybe thousands of leaping, crawling, and biting creatures rushing from their holes in a swarm that they would never have done without the call of a druid beseeching their aid. The vermin of the city, the tiny chitinous crawling beasts that lived and swarmed under every cobblestone, worming their way into every crack. They would have been useless against creatures such as the undead knights, but…

The cloud of insects fell on the rear lines, filling the tunnel with biting, stinging, hissing beasts that would leaped onto everyone in the tunnel. Khalid, bless his soul, recognized his wife's handiwork and immediately disengaged from the berserker to make a headlong dive for the filthy water, coating himself with it as best he could and shielding Xan with his body to prevent the swarm from getting to them.

This left only Minsc, who was far beyond noticing pain and was already looking for another target after 'defeating' her husband; Edwin, whose oddly glassy expression was replaced almost immediately by one of intense horror as so many insects coated every inch of his bare skin it was suddenly difficult to even see...

And further down the hall, near the darkness Sephiria's party had descended into, a roughly human-sized space in the middle of the swarm, screams of pain and confusion echoing out from seemingly empty air.

They stopped echoing very quickly as Minsc's bloody gaze locked onto the suddenly revealed enemy, and his charge hit it with the force of a rampaging bull.


Sarevok, with a sigh of genuine regret, brought his gauntleted hand down again, the blood on it glistening in the dim, otherworldly light of the cavern.

"For what little it's worth, understand that I truly did not want to do this. Had you just stayed loyal, just known your place, you could have ruled beneath me after I ascended. The High Priestess of Sarevok will be a coveted position in the new world."

Tamoko had long ago lost consciousness, her face little more than a mass of blood and bruises, bone even peeking through in places. He supposed had she been able, she would have said something poetic and cutting to him. He had always loved her way with words, despite Common not being her first language. Perhaps when he achieved divinity, he would take the time to find her soul and enslave it to write declarations to his clergy. After he finished punishing her, of course, both in this world and in the afterlife. As important as his ascension was, as much as his blood was screaming to find and slaughter his inferior siblings, what kind of god did not even take the time to root out heresy when he found it?

He brought his fist in again, a blow hard enough to cause genuine damage, but not quite kill her just yet. He wasn't sure she could feel any pain in her condition, but it hardly mattered anymore. As long as the blood was flowing, he would continue to cut. Because as far as he was concerned, the moment just before the murder was always the sweetest part…

"Hullo, little brother. Trouble in paradise? This is why I so rarely bother with long term relationships."

Particularly with a victim that's truly worth it.

"You seem different brother," Sarevok said, not even bothering to look for the source of the voice, fully aware he wouldn't see anything. "Weaker. Less focused. I hear pain in your voice. You were such a predator before, and now I can barely feel even a twinge of interest."

"Ah, well, I had a talk with our sister… and our father. Alas, I fear I'm turning out to be a black sheep. Is that not just the way of things? You think you have so much in common, and one little disagreement turns you against the whole family."

"You know I'll kill you this time, don't you? You might have been a danger before, but you wrap yourself in mortal weakness like a cloak. It's pathetic."

"Pathetic, little brother, is giving up everything you are for the right to be nothing more than a puppet. Look at you. So strong, so proud, and what are you, really? Bhaal's marionette, dancing on strings until he has enough power to pull you up off the stage and take his own final bow. It would be sad, if it wasn't so funny."

"Laughter doesn't come easily to the dead," Sarevok said, dropping Tamoko like the meaningless garbage she truly was to him, and picking up his fallen sword. The blade hummed with energy in his hand, like a living predator eager for the kill. "Now are you just going to try to talk me to death? Because while I could rip this city apart brick by brick to find you, it would save us a lot of time if you just came to face me."

"But it was such a good conversation! And I have so many details I wanted to share with you still. For instance, after our last scuffle, did you know I managed to work out the final kinks in a little spell I've had my eye on for awhile. Improved Invisibility! It's really quite good, I love it. I can only use it once a day, sadly, but just casting it made me feel great. Like all my studies have paid off."

"Are you actually boasting about your ability to hide from me?" Sarevok asked. "Perhaps you hope I'll grow bored and slit my own throat to escape the tedium? Or…"

Whatever he had been planning to say was lost, then, in the sound of metal slamming into metal as Sephiria appeared from thin air behind him, still cloaked in magic leaving her partially transparent like some avenging ghost, and brought her blade down on his helmet with enough force to cleave a giant's skull in half.

In the shadows, Acherai smiled. "Didn't say I cast it on myself, little brother."


"I don't like this. Do not. Too quiet. Way too quiet. Definitely gonna be a problem. We should turn back an'…"

"Imoen. Darling. Your beauty inspires us all. We know you want nothing more than Sephiria's health and happiness. Stop talking while we try to sneak," Coran whispered harshly, slipping a dagger lightly along a wire so thin that it was invisible to the naked eye in this dim light. They had only spotted it because a skeleton pinned to the wall by a series of arrows had them both on edge, and were now following it to the mechanism in hopes of disarming it without getting shot.

Finding the Temple of Bhaal had been easy. With Viconia pushing back most of the undead hordes and Dynaheir more than furious enough to fry the ones who didn't get the hint, they hadn't even needed to be terribly stealthy. But upon reaching the actual building, they had learned very quickly that it wasn't a 'trapped temple' so much it was a large, temple-shaped trap. This was the fifth tripwire they'd removed, tied to such delights as pitfalls, acid baths, and of course projectile launchers mounted in the walls. Every surface that bore the skull symbol of Bhaal was a magical trap that would go off if you touched it, and the teardrops around the skull had a fifty-fifty chance of being a secondary projectile. Coran hadn't noticed anything odd about the statues yet, but he'd taken to giving each one a patdown just to be safe, because he just knew deep in his heart that one of them would either come to life or have a fireball trap in its eyes.

Also a colony of bats could be heard having made their home in the ceiling, so Imoen just felt like the whole place was pretty gross. Someone had been polite enough to keep it clean, but you could smell the musk.

"Here. Can you help me get this brick out?" Coran asked, slipping his knife into a crack in the wall at waist level. Imoen nodded and slipped her own pocket knife, the two rogues alternating pushes until it began to slide free. As soon as her fingers could find purchase she slid it out, and Coran reached into the hole. She fought the urge to make an innuendo about the situation, but only because she could hear machinery clicking under his fingers almost immediately and didn't want him to slip and set the trap off.

"Are you two nearly done?" Viconia asked. "Shar's holy night, we have not even walked across the room yet."

Coran twisted his arm, there was a soft 'snap', and he pulled something that dripped smoking liquid from the trap launcher. "Well, in a shocking twist, friend drow, the Temple of Murder is designed to kill those who enter it without permission. Forgive us for trying to make sure we won't be boiled alive before we even reach the altar, much less the rooms behind it."

"Hmph. I do suppose it explains Bhaal's rather inglorious death. Perhaps he would still be alive if his priesthood could safely walk across their own temple without a map when he needed their aid," Viconia said.

"Bhaal was not a publicly worshipped god, as should be obvious. Any who entered this temple either knew where every trap was, or sought to burn the foul place down," Dynaheir murmured. "And it will likewise not be large. This had to be a small community by simple virtue of location. Most likely this antechamber will be the biggest room here, and our target is in one of the priest's quarters in the back."

"And the odds he knows we're here?" Viconia drawled.

"… Higher than I care to think, given his apparent skill in the art. There may be alarms that cannot be removed with the cut of a wire or the snap of a trigger."

"Well, we'll know soon enough. Do not step anywhere near the altar, those runes look bad, but I think I've made us a path to the door. Prepare your spells and weapons," Coran said, with uncharacteristic somberness. "Anyone who has made a lair in this place is going to be one of the most dangerous people we could ever hope to-"

A man who was clearly at least eighty years old and not carrying it particularly well, a cane supporting his stiff leg, stepped out of the door behind the altar, clearly struggling to push it. He raised his hands to show himself deliberately removing a ring from each, and dropped them on the floor. He then reached into the pockets of his robes, pulled out two wands, and set them down.

"Good evening. I surrender," he said, his voice dry and cracked with age, but otherwise perfectly pleasant.

"… … … Can I shoot him anyway?" Imoen asked.

"Do it, then run. This has to be a trap," Viconia snapped.

"Understandable paranoia. What would alleviate your concerns? Would you like me to wound my hands to show I cannot make the gestures needed for spells?" Winski asked calmly, pulling a small knife from another pocket and pressing the blade to, and then through his skeletally thin hand, showing no particular reaction to the pain beyond a slight wince. "There. It hardly hurts more than the arthritis, anyway. If someone else wishes to do the other hand, they are welcome. I'd appreciate a healer's aid when I'm in prison, of course."

"Look, ya old jackass, you better be joking," Imoen snapped. "We came here to stop a threat, and if I found out that I left Seffie alone to track down Sarevok's janitor or somethin', I…"

"Oh, no. No, I was most certainly trying to kill you, child," Winski said with a dry chuckle. "But alas, I have failed. My spells for the day were nearly all centered on divining the battlefield and directing my necromantic minions, but… well, most of them are destroyed or too weak to be a real threat to you, and my apprentice has been pulped by a giant barbarian per my last scry on his location."

"… You are oddly calm about this, sir mage," Dynaheir said.

"Why should I be upset? Oh, I will be sent to the Fist's stockade, I assume, and then most likely to the headsman's block. but I had only a few years of life left to me regardless," Winski said, gesturing to his own skeletal frame. "My trial will be brief, but it should be quite a public spectacle. I will use it to ensure that when Sarevok rages across the coast like a hurricane, killing everything in his path, all will know I made it possible. My name will go down in history books as the harbinger of the new Lord Murder. I had hoped to live to see those books written, but… well, I always knew there was a chance it would end like this."

Dynaheir, Imoen, and Coran took an almost instinctive step back from the old man, his face looking more like a skull than a human grin. It was finally the Rashemi who murmured, "You are… you are proud to be remembered as a mass murderer?"

"I am proud to be remembered. Some people are special, child, but I know full well I am not. Sixty years of study in the Art, and look at me: some power, perhaps, but still a talent so minor the likes of Elminster or Khelben could swat me aside like a mote of dust. Even if I were to pursue the path of undeath and live a thousand more years, I will never achieve anything that could be called truly unique. I will never be special. The greatest destiny I could look forward to is to be known as some vampire or lich that ruled over a crypt in the middle of nowhere, that an overzealous adventuring party stepped over on their way to the real threat," the old mage said with another painfully dry chuckle, the sound almost inhuman with how strained it came from his throat. "No, if a man like me wants to make an impact, wants to be remembered, he needs to learn to spot talent. To find something special and become a part of it. I may only be a remora, but I found a true shark and I am content to be pulled along in his wake. Because even the scraps of his divinity are more than I could have ever hoped to gather on my own. The only true immortality is legacy, and when all of you have been forgotten, the name of Winski Perorate, the Herald of Murder, will still be used to frighten schoolchildren in every-"

Whatever he was going to say next was cut off, then, but Viconia stepped forward and slammed her mace into his left temple. It was not a particularly heavy weapon, and she was no warrior, but the human was so desiccated he made that old crone Matron Baenre look like a lithe young maiden in the prime of her childbearing years. Sure enough, the skull shattered like an eggshell, collapsing inward with a single blow and sending the iblith to the stone floor. For a few long seconds, he twitched as his nervous system caught up to his brain in the realization he was dead.

"I would tell you," she told the corpse that hadn't quite accepted it yet, "that Shar holds your view in disdain and true holiness lies in the loss of legacy, the death of stories. That it is pointless to seek such meaning, because the ultimate destiny of all worlds is oblivion, and it is best to simply find peace in the embrace of the void before you fade into it for all time. But frankly, I've already forgotten your name and by this time tomorrow I shan't even remember I killed you, so you may have been overestimating your ability to write yourself into history anyway."

Imoen, Coran, and Dynaheir took another step back.

"What?" Viconia asked. "Are we going to loot his workshop or not? I thought we were in a hurry."


Sephiria had not really expected her opening blow to bring Sarevok down. But she had been, at the very least, expected something from smashing a two-handed broadsword down onto his head. And in fairness, he did seem to stumble, nearly falling to his knees from the force of the impact.

Which wasn't much of a comfort to her when the shock of the impact ran up her arms like she'd just punched a mountain, a sudden sharp pain followed by a dull ache in all the bruises and cuts that still covered her body under her own armor. A chip of metal broke off the blade of Tazok's magical broadsword where it had touched the black armor, leaving the metal of Sarevok's helmet totally untouched.

Hm. Maybe I should have let Imoen come after all. She could at least offer moral support.

She knew it was a strange thought to have, but adrenaline did funny things to the brain, and Sarevok was already spinning on her, his own sword flashing through the darkness like a bolt of lightning.

Gods above, he was strong. Strong and fast, moreso than he had been in either of their previous battles. The armor, it had to be that gods-damned armor; something about it focused him, pushing his divine strength to the surface. She had just traded blows with an ogre and come off it the final victor, but Sarevok in his full armor, eye glowing with golden fire and sword trailing an edge of phantasmal light in the gloom, was his superior by far. Just blocking made her feel like her arms would be torn off as he struck three times in the space of a heartbeat. Long, painful months of fighting monsters and assassins had given her the reflexes to meet the blows, and in a fit of irony the strength behind them was almost a blessing; each impact drove her bodily back a few inches, forcing him to re-adjust his aim for the blow to follow it.

Fortunately, if there was one concept above all else that had been forcibly crushed into her mind since she'd begun adventuring, it was how to fight someone stronger than herself.

Between her sword and Sarevok's, which was the superior weapon was clear. The blade in her half-brother's hand burned with the same gold fire as his eye, lending a wicked edge and a preternatural speed to every swing. When a hit grazed her armor, it went through the metal like it was paper. It was a nightmare cast in black steel, and in a head-on battle she simply couldn't see him ever losing.

It was also a little less than six inches shorter than the blade she had taken from Tazok.

She blocked Sarevok's next blow, as before, but rather than try to absorb the impact, she rode it, pushing back with her legs. She would have to thank Acherai, as much as it galled her, because she suspected this wouldn't have worked without him; the remains of his spell still flowed around her, making her featured blurry and semi-transparent, to the point it was difficult to focus on her.

Sarevok probably didn't even realize he'd pushed her back nearly five feet, until he swung at where she should have been, and hit only empty air, and by then it was too late. Her longer blade snapped in, even as he brought his own weapon in a backhanded swing… and when the two weapons collided, the extra length of her blade slammed into his wrist with bone-crushing force.

And that, brother, she thought with satisfaction as the weapon fell from his grip to clatter to the stone floor, is why a two-handed grip is the better option for weapons of this size.

The hate burning in his eye was almost palpable as Sephiria shifted to the right, stepping between him and the fallen blade and slashing in at his neck. There was no honor here; underestimating her brother because he didn't have a sword would have been mindlessly idiotic; a fact he proved quickly by blocking the blade with only his armored forearm, the weapon striking up sparks against the spikes that lined seemingly every inch of him.

Sweet Torm, how does he even move in that suit?! She thought in frustration that quite surpassed anything she had ever felt before as her weapon danced in again and again, faster than the huge ogre's sword had any right to move in human hands, and he intercepted each one on the black plate without so much as a nick on the metal. He couldn't get closer, at least, unwilling to risk her going for a seam in the armor while he moved for his sword, but it hardly mattered; she could hold him back, but couldn't hurt him! If she couldn't do any damage, this was going to be a long fight and she had been running from battle to battle for a sizable chunk of the day. If it came down to stamina, he would outlast her. She needed for him to make another mistake, anything at all. One solid wound could turn this fight around, for either of them.

She snapped in, feinting high before striking low, a blow seemingly for the face moving into a thrust meant to slip into his shoulder joint. If she could just hit that seam, it would let her put her full weight into it, impale him through the shoulder of his sword arm and…

The blow struck home, exactly as planned, and she felt a sudden shock of fear, every instinct in her telling her it should not have been that easy. The blade pierced leather, chainmail, flesh… and stopped.

She couldn't see her brother's face, but she could see the smirk of triumph in his eyes as he clenched his shoulder on the blade, trapping it between the plates of his armor even as his inhuman muscle held the tip tight in his own body, before whipping his entire body to one side and ripping the blade from her hand with force that bruised her fingers through her own armored gauntlets.

She watched as the weapon clattered to the floor, what might as well have been a thousand miles away from her hands, and Sarevok raised his spiked gauntlets in a stance that told her he most probably knew a lot more about beating someone to death with his fists than she did. He stepped forward…

And the world practically exploded in light and sound as a bolt of lightning slammed full into his right flank. The energy rolled up and down his armor as it lifted him bodily from the ground, hurling him a solid twenty feet, and even Sephiria felt a painful jolt as it ran down his legs into the ground and up her own.

"I think they forgot I was here," Acherai said mildly, the last sparks of evocation dancing between his outstretched fingers. "Can you stand?"

"I… yes. Thank you," Tamoko said, pushing shakily to her feet. "The potions helped, at least enough to let me finish the job myself. I owe you and your sister much."

"Good, you'll be paying it back right now. You have other spells for the day, I assume? I've only six or seven left, and nothing nearly so flashy as that. Must remember to invest in a wandmaker once I start more closely working with Entar…"

"You idiot!" Sephiria snapped, taking a step back. "Why would you do that?!"

"Well I assumed he was about to pulp your skull with his giant bladed fists! Was I wrong?!"

"You were not," Sarevok rumbled, rising to his feet far more smoothly than Tamoko had, despite being literally struck by lightning not ten seconds prior. If he was feeling any pain, it did not show in his stance; if anything, he seemed oddly content.

Sephiria's sword in his right hand, picked up from the floor where he had landed directly next to it, probably helped with that.

"Sister. Brother. I always forget what your gifts from our father were. Tell me, can either of you stop a sword with your bare hands?"


"Minsc has many regrets, friend Khalid!" Minsc sobbed. "To think, Minsc nearly squashed a warrior as brave and true as his great friend Khalid, in the throes of his berserker wrath! A warrior whose heart is as big as his body is tiny! Come, let Minsc hold you close and convey his emotional torment!"

"I would rather not. I ap-appreciate the notion, but you are… a bit filthy…"

"Filthy with dishonor!"

"N-no, with b-b-blood and sewer g-grime. And… y-you erm… y-you have… some mage b-brains on your chest," Khalid said, taking a step back.

"Then Minsc shall bathe! For friend Khalid, he shall bathe a dozen nights in a freezing stream in the dead of winter, until he is cleansed of his failures!"

"… … … T-thank you?"

"Dear heart, do not try to comprehend his insanity? Even in the best case, I'm forced to think it would be the task of a decade to truly process it," Jaheira said. "Who can still fight? I feel like the sooner we get on the move again, the better."

"Mage is dead," Kagain said, rifling through Edwin's pockets and occasionally stopping to wipe some blood or particularly smelly spell components off on the wall. "Shame, honestly. He weren't a friend or nothin', but you expect an adventurer to not go out so… bad. No glory in this at all."

"Are you actually surprised?" Shar-teel asked, winding a bandage around her midsection, blood already soaking into it where the gigantic scab across her abs had started to come undone.

"HA! Nah, just dwarf way to not speak too ill a' the dead. If I'm bein' honest, kind of surprised he made it this long. Always gave the impression a' someone who'd kill hisself falling down the stairs in the mornin'," the dwarf said gleefully. "Think his dress will sell for anythin' if we can peel it off the corpse? 'S got blood all on it, but it was already red."

"… Your concern for your compatriot is truly touching," Jaheira said. "I've cured the poison in Xan's veins, but I'm nearly out of other healing. He needs a medic, and soon. So, since the undead seem to have lost whatever force animated them, I propose one of us take him above ground and find a healer willing to not ask questions. The Umberlant temple near the docks, perhaps; her priests may overcharge, but they also care nothing for the law."

"I'll do it," Shar-teel said. "I'm bleeding like a stuck pig over here anyway, I won't be much use in another fight after running a damn cave marathon to reach it. Besides, I want this one to make it. He's the only man in the world I can actually respect."

"… … … … H-h-he is?" Khalid asked.

"Darling, what did I just say about not trying to comprehend the mind of lunatics?" Jaheira muttered. "That's fine, and a good journey to you both, if we don't meet again. The rest of you, patch up as best you can, we move out in five minutes and hope the rest of the party still lives."

"Might need ten minutes, if'n ye don't mind?" Kagain said, with a slightly distressing squish-crack sound emanating from the water in front of him. "His damn shoes are all covered in muck and I'm havin' a devil's own trouble getting them off. Might need to rip his feet off an' bring them along."

"… Why do you need his shoes, dwarf?"

"Might have coins in 'em."

"We're going to die in the company of sociopaths and maniacs, my love," Jaheira whispered to her husband.

"W-we always knew that would be the case, my d-darling. We j-j-just assumed we w-would be f-f-fighting them," he murmured back.

"You are all that keeps me sane, love."


The sword was balanced for an ogre, and as strong as Sephiria was, she needed two hands to use it effectively. Sarevok barely seemed aware of its weight in one.

Sephiria was enough of a warrior to admit that sheer professional respect meant she would have been extremely impressed by the uncanny power and grace he demonstrated… if he hadn't been demonstrating if by lashing it forward at her neck with speed that should not have been possible.

Dodging was out of the question; between the length of the blade and his forward momentum, either stepping back or trying to duck would still leave her taking a hit to a crucial point. She did the only thing that her instincts told her left a chance of survival: jumping back with all her might while simultaneously bringing her arm up to take the hit before it opened her throat in mid-leap, and…

Oh, gods.

Sarevok was moving faster than her eye could properly follow, and so she knew it wasn't this slow. But from the moment the blade struck her armor and pierced the metal like it was cloth, it was like time had slowed to a crawl and she felt every second, every millimeter of progress as steel met flesh and just… kept… going.

Her quick maneuvering was, most likely, all that kept her alive. But as her hand hit the floor, followed a few seconds after by the rest of her body as it essentially shut down from inability to process the pain, she found she couldn't really appreciate the idea.

All she could do was look up through vision bleary and ringed in red, into Sarevok's glowing gaze as the sword came down slowly, so slowly, and the whisper in the back of her mind said you brought this on yourself, you miserable little traitor…

And another lightning bolt lit up the darkness, slamming full on into his chest and carrying him back halfway across the courtyard.

Acherai sighed as he stepped over her, dropping a wand that shattered into dust on impact with the ground, and pulling another from the inside of the mage robe he wore as a coat, while moving his other hand in a pattern that traced lines of light in the air. "You are a pest, you know that? Tamoko, try to keep this twit from bleeding out, I'll hold him."

"Where… do you get… all these wands…?" Sephiria mumbled as the priestess pressed her hand to the stump of her arm, murmuring a discordant prayer over it. She hoped Torm would not take exception to her being healed so often by priests who were, frankly, morally lacking.

"I steal them, mostly. You'd be surprised how many seem to be lying around," Acherai said mildly, raising one hand and running the fingers through a few intricate gestures, soft gray light dancing between his fingers before he slashed the hand down, the sparks of energy spinning themselves into a rapidly expanding web that resembled something that might have been made by a spider the size of a bear, centered on the armored figure already coming fluidly to his feet. "I found three in the Iron Throne tower, and I didn't even have time to really look around. Now please hurry, Tamoko, this will not hold him."

"The bleeding is stopped, but the hand did not reattach. I'll need time and prayer that we don't have to save it," Tamoko said, setting the limb down with a gravity that made Sephiria slightly sadder, if that was possible. "Sephiria, can you walk?"

"I… I don't know…" she murmured, trying to push her legs under her body and meeting a wave of dizziness and nausea for her efforts. "M-maybe. Not far, though…"

She paused.

"But then… shouldn't need far. Help me, and hurry."


You're not enough on your own. You were never enough. Your mother died while you watched, small and helpless. You spent 19 years failing to become something that could avenge her, wasting your time and effort on games. Playing the dashing thief. Playing the ruthless criminal. Playing the cunning mage. All of it playacting to disguise the fact that on the inside, you're still that same helpless child. A mask to cover up how useless you are.

And where did it bring you? A cold, dark cave where nobody will ever even know you died.

And the worst part of it, in Acherai's mind, was that he genuinely wasn't sure if the voice telling him how bloody stupid he was to be here was Bhaal's influence or his own thoughts, because at the moment they were genuinely pretty much in agreement.

The spell Web was, supposedly, inescapable. It was possible to avoid getting caught in the strands, but once you were, they could not be broken until the spell ended. Blades, fire, acid, nothing would remove the binding web short of some anti-magic effect that ended the spell itself. And so, when Sarevok charged through the area of effect with no concern to avoiding it, he should have been bound to the stone by the webbing, unable to move.

And he would have been, if he hadn't sort of brought the stone with him.

The spell worked as advertised. The strands of magical webbing held tight to the stone floor and walls. It was the stone itself that shattered, Sarevok's power ripping it from its mooring with every superhuman step. Frankly, under any other circumstance, it would have been almost comical, the spiked, metal-coated titan stomping forward with strands of silk and shattered rock clinging to him.

As Acherai leaped back to barely avoid the swing of a sword so coated in broken rock it was more like a stone maul, he found laughter wasn't really the first thing on his mind.

Sarevok's first swing missed him by scant millimeters, so close he felt the wind on his skin, and slammed into the stone floor with force he was painfully aware would ignore his robe's magical protections to shatter his bones into powder. Shards of stone flew in every direction like arrows, deadly in their own right, and white-hot agony ran up the side of his head as one took the tip off his left ear.

Women love scars, ignore it and keep moving please!

He danced back again and again, lighter on his feet than most literal animals, but it felt… wrong. Cumbersome. His first duel with Sarevok had been easy. Natural. He had lost, in the end, but during the battle itself he had felt invincible, and now it was like his legs were weighed down, the blade getting a little closer with each swing…

Because you don't deserve to win anymore. You're corrupted. You could atone, though. Your mind may have been led astray, but your blood is still holy. Come back to the fold. Accept your destiny, and you may yet live to claim it. Is it so bad, to have a path to walk? Particularly when the end has many rewards…

I have no destiny. My future is mine to make, and you are nothing but a dead god's instincts screaming from the void.

THEN YOU WERE NEVER WORTHY OF BHAAL'S BLOOD, AND YOUR BROTHER WILL KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND.

Loose gravel slid under his boot, a piece of the very shrapnel their battle had created, and his ankle turned, just slightly. It was enough.

With a perfect dodge the blade would have cut only air in front of his chest, but with that slight slowing of his pace, the troll weapon clipped across the side of his chest, and oh gods. The armored enchantments on the robe he'd taken from Davaeorn was enough to keep him alive, but it was like being punched by a giant. The weapon did not cut, but he could feel bone snap where the metal struck his ribs, and the breath burst out of him as he was sent tumbling backward along the floor like a stone skipped across a pond. Sarevok leapt, his single eye burning gold with triumph and bloodlust as he brought the weapon down again in an overhead swing onto his form…

Which vanished in a blur the moment the blade touched it.

Sarevok narrowed his eye, watching in absolute contempt as five elves, moving in perfect unison, rolled to their feet and smirked at him, wiping away a line of blood from their mouths.

"I've gotten pretty good at casting spells under duress, little brother. Thanks for the practice, I suppose," Acherai said, the illusion making it obnoxiously unclear which of the mirror images was actually speaking. "Though you don't seem impressed, for some reason."

"You're gifted at avoiding death, not so much at dealing it. At least the paladin was willing to face me on her own instead of flitting around like an insect."

"What can I say? I put a premium on my own survival."

"Then you've made a terrible life choice in coming down here."

The armored giant was in motion before the sentence even finished leaving his lips, his sword lashing out like a striking snake for the neck of one of the images, which vanished in another blur of motion as soon as the weapon struck it. The remaining images winked in a manner absolutely calcualated to be infuriating, their fingers shifting through a quick pattern that ended with hurling a dart of acid at Sarevok's chest from five feet away. He didn't even bother to sidestep it, assuming it would move to track him, and simply stepped into the spell, ignoring the impact as the viscous liquid clung to his armor and began to hiss against the metal.

PATHETIC. WOULD YOU STAND AGAINST A HURRICANE AND TRY TO WARD IT OFF WITH YOUR BARE HANDS? WOULD YOU TRY TO EXTINGUISH A VOLCANO WITH A CANTEEN?

The blade lashed out again, dispelling a second image, and a third. The three remaining images, one of them having to be the actual elf, jumped back out of range, trailing a line of red magic bolts that lashed out, unerringly seeking out gaps in Sarevok's armor and digging into his flesh like a swarm of wasps that burned instead of stung, and he barely felt it…

HE CAN DO NOTHING TO YOU. HE IS NOTHING TO YOU. YOU ARE A GOD AND HE IS AN INSECT IN YOUR PATH, KILL HIM, KILL HIM, KILL THEM ALL, KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL…

There was the scent of blood hanging in the dark cave air, and it was the ultimate intoxicant. He could taste his own blood on his lips and feel his blood pounding in his ears, and all other thoughts faded beneath the need to immerse himself even further in that purity, feel it running between his fingers, burn away his rage at this insignificant thing beneath the pure unadulterated joy of murder.

One more step, as the insect cast some spell that had no form, made him feel no pain, slowed him not at all.

One more swing, and the luck of the illusions finally ran out.

He saw his brother, weak, small, a geyser of blood erupting from his very real chest as the weapon punched past the enchanted cloth armoring him to cut through flesh and bone alike. He saw the light of shock in his eyes, as his body began to shut down because allowing him to feel the pain would have killed him all on its own, watched in sick joy as the smaller man crumpled backwards to the stone floor, his blood beginning to pool beneath him so quickly he actually splashed in it.

Sarevok stepped forward one final time, a gasp of absolute joy leaving his lips almost involuntarily as his food stepped into the pool, like a surge of lightning running up his entire body at the thrill of ending another Bhaalspawn's life. He raised his blade again, tip down, to plunge it through the dying elf's heart...

And behind the pain and the shock, behind the fear and the knowledge he was not going to make it, he saw Acherai's bloodied lips curl into a smile, and the haze of power and battle parted for just one moment to allow a thought that was Sarevok's not Bhaal's.

The final spell was not an attack.

And it was not aimed at me.

He spun, his heels digging up furrows in the rock as he lashed out at the sound of metal scraping on stone, but for the first time Sephiria, wounded as she was, was the faster, her body moving with the artificial speed of a spell meant to push her beyond her limits. Like a bird of prey in full dive, she slipped past his guard before it was even fully raised, driving the weapon in her hands into his chest like a bolt of black lightning.

And even as it struck, even as his blessed and enchanted armor began to crack like glass beneath it, the golden flames of Bhaal leaking out of not only his chestplate, but out of the sword that was digging into it he realized with a shock of dread that she was swinging his own Sword of Chaos...

And then sickly, poisonous golden flames roared over him as both blade and armor shattered, and he could feel nothing else beyond the voice in his blood screaming.