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

I like to think she's doing amazingly well for someone who's been repeatedly mindwiped, brainwashed, and gaslighted for thirty effing years, and walks around with a shock collar personally operated by the goddess of misery and mindfucking nailed to her hand through which she's repeatedly Pavlovian conditioned.

Honestly, I am trying to imagine other fictional characters who could go through ten percent of that and still come out even barely functional, let alone sane.

Not to mention, depending on the path you take, capable of remembering her mind is her own, no matter what she's been taught. She just has a way to go before she gets to that point.
 
At least Lolth is honest about how horrible she is. She has her own Abyssal realm, rules demons and allows her worshippers to have some form of happiness (as long as they make others suffer for it)
Eh, remember that Lolth promotes all of her followers killing each other for the lulz, even cancelling spells from their most radical followers ( costing them their deaths ).

Hell I remember there was an heretical following in Menzobarranzan that Drizzt was a (n accidental) champion of Lolth, because of how many deaths in that city he is directly or indirectly responsible for...

The fact that we know that she will never support a Neutral Good character should be enough to disprove that little bit of trivia... if it weren't a fact that canonically she has at least several neutral priestess ( and several priests, though those were pretty evil ).

If Shar is more Evil than Chaotic, the Spider queen is more Chaotic than Evil. Neither are a "good idea" to follow, in any case.
 
Damn, that's going to be inconvenient for an epilogue point I'm tentatively outlining. *shrugs* Ah well, I'm the author, I can change things. (In this case I'm appending an unspoken 'because they were the co-creators of Toril' to Aylin's statement.)

Even that is Selunite copium. Shar has always maintained her level of power while Selune's fluctuates; she spent a few centuries serving Sune prior to the Avatar Crisis. It helps that Shar's portfolio is metaphysically more consistent than the waxing and waning of Selune's moon.
 
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Chapter 20 New
I stuck Gale with the unpleasant job of explaining things to the others, because I really didn't want to go over what had just happened between me and Shadowheart with more than one person. In fact, I'd rather not have gone over it at all except that a minimum outline of what had happened was necessary information for the group, so nobody accidentally detonated an emotional landmine while we were out in the field. So I gave him that outline and then made myself scarce before anybody else tried to give any sympathy to me. Not that I didn't want any, I just didn't want it coming from people who had to work with her on a desperate and dangerous mission tomorrow. Keep our minds on the job and all that.

And a certain ruthless part of my mind also whispered that if Shadowheart really had made the choice to embrace Shar in the end then this would be necessary tactical knowledge for them as well... just in case.

But as if my evening weren't going poorly enough already, I then found out to my shame that I'd been so wrapped up in tunnel vision on mission objectives that I hadn't even spoken to the tiefling refugees enough to find out who'd survived, who was still missing, and who was confirmed dead. Particularly when I discovered that Zevlor was still in the 'missing and likely dead' category - the last anyone had seen him he'd been helping hold the rearguard against the attacking cultists, fighting to his last breath to give at least some of them a chance to run. And I'd only found out he wasn't here because I'd gone looking for someone to drink with - someone that I had at least some things in common with and wouldn't be coming with us to Moonrise tomorrow - and only then discovered he'd never made it here.

And he wasn't the only one. Despite everything I and Shadowheart had done to minimize casualties there had still been several losses among the refugees and Harpers, and the fact that they weren't anyone I'd known personally had only somehow made it worse. Mol had somehow mysteriously vanished during the attack as well, even if nobody could figure out why.

"Where is he?" my dark thoughts were disrupted by the roar of a drunken tiefling. "Where is that miserable devil-kissing bastard?"

"Oh, what now?" I cursed viciously as I walked across the taproom to confront the angry mage. I dimly remembered him from the Grove as the one who'd been urging the rest of his family to just abandon the refugees and try to make it to Baldur's Gate on their own, an intention that had been cut short by our quick victory over the goblins. And then I noted that he was also the belligerent drunk I'd asked Wyll to go handle earlier-

"If you've got a problem with Wyll, talk to me." I confronted the - what was his name? Ah, Rolan, that's right.

"Oh, are you the one who told him to drug me?" he slurred.

"Weren't you about to slap a pair of children because they were trying to cut you off at the bar?" I shot back.

"Yeah!" one of the junior bartenders contributed from where he was crouched down safely behind the counter. "Jaheira told us to serve drinks, not drunks!"

"This is your fault!" Rolan exploded, and I easily blocked his clumsy swing with my upraised forearm.

"What is my fault? Talk sense, man!" I barked, catching him by his collar and shaking him once, twice, like a misbehaving terrier.

"Cal! Lia!" he sobbed as he collapsed. "My siblings! If we'd headed for Baldur's Gate on our own instead of sticking with this useless lot-"

"You'd have walked straight into the Absolute's minions on your own and died even faster." I said contemptuously. "Do you know how many dead refugees and wrecked wagons I passed by on my way to Last Light? They've been preying on the Risen Road for weeks."

"So that's your solution?" he swore. "Cut your losses, save your own skin?"

"If I were doing that would I be here?!?" I roared at him as my fist clenched with the nigh-irresistible urge to just knock his fucking teeth out. "I'm starting to think Wyll had your drink spiked because there was no reasoning with you and he was hoping you'd sleep it off - but apparently he underestimated just how thick your head was. So how's about you get started on taking that nap peacefully, before I help you along?" I began to raise my hand-

"Right, sleep here safe and sound while they're dying at Moonrise! I've-I've got to go save them!" he screamed.

My fist unclenched. "Of course someone has to go save them! But you're barely able to stand right now! You wouldn't get a mile in your condition, you're no Elminster to solo that entire tower, and you don't have any protection against the Shadow Curse!"

He scoffed. "Maybe you don't, but I can magically create light-"

"That only works in the outskirts." I interrupted. "If you run into one of the deeper shadows closer to Moonrise, no light source is bright enough. Even the priestess' blessing would fail, much less normal light spells. That's why the Harpers have been stuck here this whole time. Didn't you know that?"

"Oh." he suddenly deflated. "You're- you're not just making that up?"

"By my Oath, I swear it." I insisted.

"Then... then there's nothing we can do?" he started to sob.

"We've just captured one moonlantern. Three guesses who's gotten stuck with the job of infiltrating Moonrise Towers with it." I said sardonically. I didn't want to try explaining pixies to someone in his condition, he was probably seeing enough of them already.

"Then let me come with-" he staggered. At this point my hand on his collar was one of the only things holding him up.

"No." I shut Rolan down. "I want you still alive to welcome them back here, and-" I sighed, my anger fading back into bleak resignation. "You were sincere about trying... but you were also welcoming death, weren't you?"

"That's... probably why I got so damn drunk before trying to head out on a mission that would need me sober." he agreed drunkenly. "All right. I'll- w-which way's my bed?"

I led Rolan over to the nearby infirmary and let him fall onto the nearest empty cot, and he gave up resisting and let the sedative take him back under.

After that unpleasant experience I abandoned the idea of finding a sympathetic ear and decided to just get some useful work done instead, so I sought out Isobel for that promised briefing on the interior layout of Moonrise Towers. She couldn't guarantee that Ketheric hadn't made any substantial changes since the prior century, but she did have a detailed knowledge of both the original setup and the passageways that she'd personally seen - and used - during her recent escape.

But when Isobel also mentioned to me that she'd sussed out Shadowheart's true allegiance but had advised Jaheira to take no action in that regard I suddenly found myself hysterically venting all my frustration, grief, and outright petulance on a captive audience even when I hadn't planned to. Isobel listened to all my ranting compassionately and without any impatience, letting me find what catharsis I could while contributing only a sincere sympathy and the occasional wise observation. Then again, she was a priestess of one of the gods of light - it wasn't surprising that she had experience at comforting the troubled.

"Although perhaps I'm not the best counselor for either of you regarding this." Isobel concluded. "My partner - Selune bless her memory - was even more devout than I was, so a conflict between love and the commands of my deity is one that I have no experience at dealing with. And I doubt my experience with confronting Father's fall into Shar's embrace is applicable to your case." She smiled at me sadly. "Not to pour bitter gall on your wound, but I do concur with your belief that her feelings for you were sincere - before Shar twisted them somehow."

"And that only makes it worse." I agreed. I still wasn't really feeling better, but at least expelling all that curdled bile I'd been holding in left me no longer feeling like I wanted to punch the first idiot who gave me an excuse.

"I've only just met the both of you, so I'm reluctant to give you overly specific advice." Isobel demurred. "But even if she no longer desires you I am certain that she will still need you. Shar's favorite device for cementing her followers' loyalty is to force them to do something that they will never forgive themselves for. Something that makes them believe that an eternal existence in the darkness is all that they deserve. I'm almost certain that Shadowheart is coming to such a crux point."

I shivered as if someone had just walked over my grave - after all, I'd given the same advice to Gale earlier tonight, about how he needed to be able to forgive himself at least as much as he needed Mystra's forgiveness. I just hadn't thought about that truth in any other context-

"How do I stop someone from doing something they're so hellbent on driving themselves towards when I've promised to let them go?!?" I swore.

"By being there." Isobel urged me. "The woman I spoke to earlier tonight was someone who was still deeply conflicted, however much they tried to pretend otherwise. So even though you cannot force her to choose rightly - and I doubt you could even if your oath didn't constrain you from trying - you can still do your best to help her. Even if it's only by being a support, to help remind her of what she would lose." She smiled ruefully at me. "As I told you the first time we talked, Shar's handiwork is to induce her victims to do it to themselves. And her most useful tools towards that end are isolation and despair."

"I'm almost wondering if Shar intends to force that isolation, despair, and unforgiveableness by ordering her to kill me." I worried.

"If she were that simple-minded, my calling would be much less arduous than it is." Isobel snorted.



A good confession and a good night's sleep got me at least mostly fit for command again, and after finalizing what plans we could with Jaheira we set out. Shadowheart was now wielding a minorly enchanted mace that Jaheira had loaned us from her supplies while the Blood of Lathander remained safely back at Last Light in Isobel's custody - we didn't dare try bringing into Moonrise Towers for as long as we were pretending to be cultists of the Absolute, because it was simply too identifiable. We might as well hang a signboard around our neck saying "INFILTRATORS" if we did that.

Although none of Jaheira's scouts had made it as far as Reithwin Town, she of course had access to old maps for this region that had been drawn before the Shadow Curse came down as well as her and Halsin's personal experience with the area to draw upon. While the terrain had been warped and distorted by the Shadowfell intrusions into the Prime Material plane the gross distances and directions between landmarks had only been incrementally shifted, not catastrophically. So we set out in reasonable confidence that we knew the direction and distance to our goal, particularly since the "lake" that I'd thought Last Light Inn was situated against was actually a wide bay of the Chionthar river - which Reithwin Town and Moonrise Towers were both adjacent too. Reithwin had originally been built to collect road and river tolls on what had been the main route to Baldur's Gate, a route that had only been forced in recent decades to shift to another branch of the Risen Road due to the Shadow Curse.

"So there a reason we're not just taking a boat there, then?" Karlach asked after I finished explaining this to my team while we marched.

"Our primary goal on this run is reconaissance, remember?" I pointed out. "That includes our scouting out a viable land route to Moonrise Towers. Eventually this is going to come down to assaulting the place with her full force, and we don't have enough boats to float them all."

"Got it." Karlach replied despondently. "Guess this sort of thing is why I never got promoted-"

"Hangover?" I asked her solicitously. Yesterday she'd been ecstatic over how Dammon had been able to use the second piece of infernal iron he'd found to finish repairs on her artificial heart, meaning that she didn't have to restrict her bodily contact with others just to brief periods anymore. I'd been too distracted by my own woes to pay as much attention as I should have, but I got the distinct impression that she'd spent last night rushing off to end a decade-long dry spell with the first handsome and willing partner she could find. I said a brief inward prayer for the hips of whoever he, she, or they had been, and then returned to wondering why she seemed so down in the dumps now-

"No." she smiled bravely, her voice bright with false reassurance. "Just- a little tired."

I raised my hand in the signal for 'Column, halt.' and after a brief look around to make sure we wouldn't have lurking shadows jump us I turned to face her. "Karlach..." I gave her my best 'Older brother is not falling for that one' glare and voice tones, the ones that always worked on Bethany.

"Shit." she said, her shoulders slumping. "Look, is it all right if I don't want to talk about it? There's nothing anyone can do about it, it's not an immediate problem, and we really don't need to get distracted."

"You're already distracted." I pointed out.

"... my heart's not working right." Karlach finally admitted. "Everything Dammon could do to retune it was just a patch job. It's not burning out as fast as it was before, but it's still burning out. The metal just won't stand up to the operating strains over the long-term without a particular set of planar conditions." Her voice broke in a sob. "Zariel's final joke - to stick me with a lump of infernal iron that's built so it won't work right at all outside of Hell!"

"You're dying?" I shouted, my voice aghast, and everyone else's expressions mirrored mine.

"See why I didn't want to talk about it?" Karlach gave a tearful grin. "Before it was just me unhappy, and now nobody's happy."

"How long?" Shadowheart asked softly, the first words she'd spoken since breakfast this morning.

"A couple months." Karlach said. "Any longer than that, and I'm either back downstairs or else I'm dead."

"Is there any chance he's mistaken?" Wyll begged.

"Really doubt it." Karlach sighed. "Remember back when Raphael yanked us downstairs into his 'House of Hope' for a quick chat and I told you that I could feel that we were in Hell for real, that it wasn't an illusion?" She thumped her chest. "Now I know why. Soon as I was back down there, this was running all smooth and cool. And as soon as we left it went right back to how it was, how it's been ever since the minute that nautiloid made the final jump back home. I didn't know what the difference meant at the time, but looking back?"

"You know we'll help you with anything you need, right?" Gale insisted. "If our quest for the Absolute finishes early enough, I promise I will do everything I can to research alternatives-"

"That'd be nice if you could pull it off, but it'd also be nice if the Absolute just up and died of a brain stroke right now and saved us all a long walk." Karlach shook her head. "No, near as I can figure it I've only got two choices. Go back to Hell or die." She squared her shoulders resolutely and lifted her chin. "Fuck Zariel. I said I'd die rather than go back, and I'm sticking with it."

"Karlach-" I began.

"Look, I know how you're all feeling. You're my friends, what else could you be feeling? Just like I'd be feeling horrible if it was one of you going into this." she said. "But I'm a big girl and I'm not-" She took a deep breath. "I'm not afraid enough to jump back into a devil's collar just because it'll keep me breathing longer. Because way I see it, it's a choice between living free or dying a little piece at a time for years on end. So... I'll just have to enjoy what I've got left." She laughed, weakly and sardonically but still laughter. "Almost want to thank the Absolute. At least my last ride's going to be a chance to become part of a new team of heroes, just like Jaheira's old crew did when they saved the city from a mad god the first time. Have my name live on even after I'm not." She shrugged. "Could be worse."

I turned and walked away without a word, leaving the others behind to share their reassurance and commiserations with Karlach as I tried to coldly focus on the road ahead, the objectives we needed to accomplish, the-

"DAMN ALL GODS AND DEVILS TO OBLIVION!" I heard myself roaring with outrage as I hacked clear through a petrified tree. "Damn the Maker, damn Mystra, damn Shar, damn Selune, DAMN THEM ALL! WHY THE HELLS DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS?!?" I shouted. "Why is it always noble sacrifices and tragic ends and wasting away from incurable blights and madness and tragedies?!? Why can't good people just be allowed to live?!?" I sobbed. All their faces flickered before my eyes - Carver on the road from Lothering, Bethany dying of darkspawn taint in the Deep Roads, Mother as that mad necromancer carved her up and animated her pieces, Anders bending his head as my blade came down for his execution- all the friends and family I'd lost, all the innocents I'd seen suffer and die as casualties of wars and battles they weren't even part of, all the friends I couldn't save- all the loved ones I was losing right now, watching them drift away from me towards darkness or death as I stood helpless to change the courses of their lives. Wyll and his soul already damned to Hell by Mizora, Shadowheart and her dark goddess' inexorable demand that she damn herself, Gale's suicide already commanded by his own goddess, Lae'zel's outcasting and deathmark from her entire race and world and everything she'd ever known and cared for... and now Karlach's terminal condition-

-and a man who'd already lost almost everything in his world before losing his world as well. Our group really was a unique band of buggered, weren't we? All of us betrayed, or abandoned, or damned, or just lost. All of us still marching forward anyway despite our dooms, because we were too proud or too stupid or just too damn tired to do anything else. But why? Why did we even bother?

Another memory flashed before my eyes - a young tiefling struggling to keep singing even after she'd lost everyone. A teenaged thief and loner finding herself as an older sister to a whole pack of newly-made orphans, and somehow keeping them alive through multiple catastrophes even despite all her flaws. An old warrior whose family had given generations of loyal service to a city that had scapegoated and exiled them without hesitation, still fighting to the end to save what few people he could. An old friend who'd never stopped trying to help the rest of us with his smiles even as he lost his own family and friends to Kirkwall's madness right alongside me losing mine. An Inquisitor who fought ceaselessly on to save the entire world I'd lost, despite a mark on her hand killing her as inexorably as Karlach's heart would- all these and more, all of them.

We kept doing it because even if we could never save ourselves, other people still needed us. It was as simple as that.

"I'm okay." I reassured them quietly as I turned around. "I just needed to let it out a little."

"Hawke-" Shadowheart began, her eyes full of concern, before she flinched away. "You're sure you're all right?" she continued, her voice taut and even.

"Good enough to go on for now." I reassured her, maintaining my own distance. "And that will have to be enough. Everybody else all right?" A chorus of nods answered me.

"Just one more thing then." I said, and stepped forward and pulled Karlach into a comforting hug. "Take a minute and let it out. I can testify that it helps."

"Thanks, boss." Karlach sobbed, crushing me gently with her arms. I let her sob it out a bit before she nodded and stepped back. "Thank you. For everything."

"Come on." I finally answered, at a loss for words otherwise. "We've still got a job to do."

The closer we drew to Reithwin the more distorted things got. The patches of deeper darkness weren't everywhere, but they were common enough and shifted around enough that without a moonlantern or similar protections you'd have to have the luck of fools and gods to survive this far in. Despite our diligence we didn't see any signs of patrols or lookout posts - Ketheric Thorm was clearly relying on the Shadow Curse as his primary defense against incursions. The only trail signs we saw were of supply and troop caravans heading either towards or from Moonrise.

"Reithwin." Shadowheart said quietly, as we drew over a low rise overlooking the town. The buildings were there, so were the streets, but everything was bathed in an eldritch eerie green, a glow suffusing up from the bottom of deep rifts in the ground that had spontaneously torn open almost at random. Strange thick black vines also grew, entwining around the smashed-open ruins of low buildings. The makers of Reithwin had clearly built it at the narrowest neck of the Chionthar they could, because the river here was narrow enough that it could be readily spanned by several great stone bridges built between the north and the south sides of the town that straddled it. No wonder they'd put the toll station here - you couldn't hope to sail past this place without passing under the bridges and through the water gates.

"Moonrise Towers." I said forebodingly. We were looking down at Reithwin Town from outside its east gate, having approached from the north - the Chionthar ran north-south here, and if we got in a boat and rowed straight north from here we'd return safely to Last Light. Moonrise Towers stood to the south of Reithwin on the west shore of the Chionthar. It was a brightly lit pillar of dark stone thrusting up against the murky cursed skyline. Although on the small side for a castle it was still a true castle and not just a fortified tower - it had a moat, a bridge, and an outer battlement, with the tower of the main keep surmounting a low structure. The bright silvery bubbles of multiple moonlanterns helped shield its entrance and walls from the Shadow Curse, and gave us sufficient visibility to note the presence of well-maintained ballistae mounted on the exterior walls and the tower. Dozens of torches flickered in mountings, keeping the entire inner courtyard brightly lit to spot the presence of intruders, and more moving torches showed the location of guard patrols. For all that Thorm had scorned to deploy troops on patrol in the lands surrounding Moonrise he clearly had a well-drilled and well-disciplined force here, who were taking security quite seriously.

"Gods, he's even using the river for a moat." Karlach swore. "See how they've dug in there?"

"That is formidable defensive architecture." Lae'zel agreed. "They have excavated deeply, allowing the river to surround the castle on all sides. There is only one route of approach by land - across that stone bridge there, that leads to Reithwin Town. But both the battlement straddling the bridge and the main tower have a clear field of fire on the bridge. Siege engines and archers - likely spellcasters as well." She shook her head. "Dozens of paces of wide-open killing field, with any invaders funneled into a tightly packed column by the relative narrowness of the bridge. No cover, no way to evade attack, no alternate routes of approach to force the defenders to split their fire. Even if they all assaulted as one, Jaheira's Harpers would never make it across the bridge."

"See that ledge there? And how it swings gives the defenders up top a good field of fire on the river?" Wyll pointed. "Makes sense - the castle was originally built to protect and control the trade route. Even if we had enough boats for all of Jaheira's troops to try an amphibious assault, we'd still be sitting ducks on the water."

"No drawbridge, but there is a portcullis." I noted. "Even if any survivors made it to the far end of the bridge, they'd still be trapped there while Maker only knows what rained down on their heads from the top of the wall and through murder holes."

"And that's before we deal with the fact that they're all tadpoled or brainwashed fanatics, or how the master of the castle is an unkillable horror." Shadowheart swore.

"I'm starting to wonder if Mystra suggested what she did because we really didn't have any other options." Gale sighed. "Well, if the heart of the Absolute is in that place, then-" he trailed off helplessly.

"Then it was a privilege fighting by your side. All of you." Lae'zel agreed.

"Let's not light the martyrdom torch just yet." I pleaded. "Before we can even begin scouting Moonrise for weaknesses, we need to finish up that recce of Reithwin. We can't even get the Harpers to Moonrise at all unless we either find a wagonload of moonlanterns lying around for the taking or find what Halsin needs from here to help weaken the Shadow Curse."

Reithwin brought a new level of horror to the Shadow Curse. We'd seen undead monsters aplenty, but here towards the epicenter of the curse we ran into townsfolk who were still trapped - oh, undead townsfolk, mere distorted wrecks of who they'd been in life, but still able to remember their names and speak with their voices. The toll collector, a corpulent horror plated in gold and weighed down with chains of greed, endlessly demanding more and more in pursuit of a duty she was decades past understanding had ended - the bartender of Waning Moon Tavern, an undead monstrosity as tall as an ogre and fat as a broodmother, endlessly swilling down a corrupt and steaming essence that had once been ale - all these and more challenged and delayed us. Some of them we'd been able to lay to rest merely by talking to them, and the bartender had been defeated when I'd challenged him to a drinking contest and then used sleight of hand to only pretend to swig that fetid poison and he'd drank until he'd burst, but for the rest of them there was nothing for it but to fight.

"The Mason's Guild." I looked up at the sign of the half-burnt building. "We haven't even found the House of Healing yet, so secondary target first I guess."

"Corpses on display." Shadowheart noted distantly, looking at the skeletons still hanging from the walls by hooks. "Apparently-" She broke off.

We entered the building weapons drawn, and the mystery of the corpses on display was solved when we saw the plaque adorning a pedestal on which were the elaborately, thoroughly and methodically crushed bones of a man

"Here lies the Grand Mason, his bones and his lies exposed." I read. "Apparently his work for the Selunite resistance was found out."

"If this building follows the pattern of the resistance cell at Last Light, they'll have hidden their lair in the basement." Lae'zel noted. "Let us commence."

We eventually found a keyhole subtly built into one of the basement walls, but it took Shadowheart multiple attempts to finally pick the damned thing.

"I should have known." she swore. "This was a craft guild, and the resistance was being led by the master mason. Of course they'd have elaborate construction-" The lock clicked. "Finally."

The basement hideout of the main Selunite resistance cell was still occupied - by the undead shadows of some of the resistance fighters. Fortunately we were getting fairly used to shadow ambushes by this time, and even without the Blood of Lathander we were able to deal with them with only minor wounds. Shadowheart's power of rebuking undead came particularly in handy, letting us split up their rush and defeat them in detail instead. It was almost a mockery how well we could still fight together, and then go right back to long silences and awkward distances afterwards-

"I found their records." Wyll said. "Although 'found' isn't the proper verb - the Master Mason had left his journal right out on the table."

"The Dark Justiciars never found this room?" I wondered. "Well, let's see what it says." I opened the tome and laid it out, and we all began to read. The most relevant entries told a clear pattern once we isolated them-

How quickly things change. The Thorms are Selunite through and through - or so I believed. Perhaps Ketheric only converted for Melodia, and with her death - and then his daughter's - his faith died too. But to turn to Shar? It beggars belief.

Ketheric's Justiciars are growing greater in number, and more determined to rout out any traces of Selûne in Reithwin. Why do they think this town was built? One cannot rip out the foundations of a building and expect it to remain standing.

Brother and I remain the last two bastions of Our Lady of Silver in the town. A few - the trusting few - come to worship in secret by moonlit nights. Others - converts, all. Whether they truly believe, I cannot say. Impossible, isn't it?

Sick of standing idle while Justiciars gain power in our humble town. What will become of us if we allow it? I met a man who was no man. Touched by a devil. Or maybe worse. But he offered me something I couldn't refuse - help.

The time is now. Ketheric's Justiciars, their stronghold in the temple below - they will be wiped out. All of them. I didn't ask how. I just want them gone. Let the Harpers have at Ketheric now. They'll make short work of him.


"Melodia Thorm." Wyll noted. "That must have been his wife."

"So he turned to Shar for surcease from his loss, after losing all his family." Shadowheart said softly.

"But he didn't stay there." I grimly noted. "Perhaps that was-" I cut myself off, because I couldn't explain how I knew that Thorm had abandoned Shar for lying to him without explaining how I knew that, and I wasn't going to breach Isobel's secret without her permission.

"Who was this man who was touched by a devil?" Gale wondered. "A warlock?"

The copper dropped. "Raphael." I swore. "I told you about when he showed up in the inn to taunt me, remember? He said that the last time he'd successfully tempted someone in this region, he'd profited off that job for decades. And he hinted that whatever had slaughtered Thorm's Dark Justiciars after Moonrise fell, before they could counterattack from the underground temple, it had not been the Harpers. Add in those clues we found in the Grymforge? The ones that hinted that something large and powerful and from the hells had smashed its way all through there? The ruined bridge between the forge and the underground temple complex that we must practically be standing on top of right now?"

"The Master Mason sold himself and who knows what else to Hell, in exchange for revenge on his enemies." Wyll sighed. "I'd hope it was worth it, but I already know it wasn't."

"If Moonrise Towers were constructed after Reithwin Town, and the Mason's Guild was so prominent here, then logically they would have been involved in the fortress's construction." Lae'zel noted practically. "Perhaps this is how the Harpers were able to successfully besiege that place the first time - with the cooperation of someone who knew all the secrets of its building."

"Then let's hope that history repeats itself." I noted, and then realized I needed to cover myself. "And let's hope that when they ransacked this place, they missed at least some of the blueprints."

A thorough search of the guildhall produced the disappointing news that no, Thorm had not been so careless as to overlook that possibility. The Master Mason had inconveniently not kept a copy of the plans in the secret basement, and everything in the more accessible regions of the building had been either looted or burned. I still had the few suggestions I'd gotten from Isobel, but now I'd really have to hope at least one of them would work-

"At least that map of the town told us where the House of Healing were." I sighed. "Let's go there and try to find what Halsin needs."

As it turned out the House of Healing were barely an arrow-shot away from the Mason's Guild, and finding it was as simple a matter as crossing the street. However, we'd barely even made it halfway across before we knew that this was going to be messier than our simple exploration of the guildhouse.

"Twist 'em up!" a child's voice suddenly called out through the night, and we ran towards the sounds just in time to see a young tiefling conjure two magical vines out of the ground and use them to restrain a pair of undead shadows that were lunging at her. "And now- damn it! Why won't these things die when I squeeze them? I can't hold this forever!"

My magical sword lashed out and cleaved through both of the undead, laced with a bit of my oathbound power to inflict extra spiritual damage. The shadows puffed away like they were never there.

"Arabella?" I said incredulously - because it was the very same tiefling child I'd saved from Kagha's madness.

"Hawke!" she looked at me gratefully. "And the rest of the gang! Hey guys!" she waved.

"How did you even get here?" Wyll said, aghast. "The Shadow Curse should have killed you!"

"I dunno, it stays away from me for some reason." she shrugged. "I thought I was done for too when I got too far outside the lights, but-" she shrugged that away. "Look, I need your help. I got separated from mom and dad, and I've been looking all through town for them but I haven't found 'em! And there's a couple buildings I couldn't get into by myself, even with-" She waved her hands as if conjuring more vines.

"When did you learn magic?" Gale inquired.

"Didn't learn it." she shrugged. "I've just felt different ever since I touched that druid's idol. Although I didn't realize I could do this until after I got jumped by shadows the first time-" She paused to organize her thoughts.

"Wild nature magic." Shadowheart thought out loud. "It must have had a similar effect on her as the pixie's blessing."

Arabella shrugged and kept going. "We got caught when the Absolute nutters hit our camp, and we were marched off with the survivors towards their base. They had this magical lantern thing that kept the shadows back."

"We've seen them." I agreed.

"Anyway, the cultists said that to leave the light was death and if we wanted to run, we might as well try and die." Arabella continued. "And then they grabbed one of us and threw him outside the lantern's light to prove it. Nobody dared put a toe out of line then. But just as were passing through the town streets Mum saw lights on in one of the buildings and thought we could hide in there where we wouldn't need their creepy lantern and then try to make it out on foot once we found torches or something." She shrugged. "We made a break for it, and they didn't even bother to chase us. But right after we got inside then something else came out of the dark at us and they told me to run, they'd be right behind me. Except they're not." She looked up at us pleadingly. "Please find them?"

"You've been stuck in this town for how long?" I said incredulously. "What have you been eating? Or drinking?" I immediately reached into my pack for some rations and a canteen, which she eagerly started gulping down.

"Oh thank the gods!" she mumbled as she chewed. "I managed to find some clean water, but I haven't had a bite to eat for so long-"

"We've already searched half the buildings in town looking for something else, no reason we can't search the other half." I assured her. "But first thing first, we've got to get you to safety."

"How are you going to do that when we're all stuck right here?" Arabella asked confusedly through her full mouth.

"There's a place called Last Light Inn, where all the ones who got away are holed up under a magical protection of their own - plus a bunch of Harpers to help keep them safe." I told her. "And the inn has a magical travelstone nearby that we can use to take you there in an instant, just like there's one near the entrance of town here to take us back. So one of my friends will escort you there right now, and if we find them we'll send them back to you."

"When you find them!" Arabella insisted angrily.

"He cannot promise you that, child." Lae'zel said compassionately. "He can only promise to try."

Wyll took Arabella in hand and warped out with her, and I turned to the rest with a grim expression I hadn't let the child see. "If she was separated from them for that long in the middle of all this, and they still haven't come out to her yet with all the noise she was making-"

Lae'zel nodded back. "Then we are looking for a pair of graves and naught more. Still, we must know for certain - and so must she."

"No comments about 'foolish sentimentality'?" Shadowheart jabbed at her old verbal sparring partner with almost her full measure of usual snark.

"I have seen where the teachings of Vlaakith would lead me, and I no longer wish to go there." Lae'zel replied simply.

Shadowheart drew back, literally gasping with shock. "But... then where will you go?"

"Where Hawke leads me." Lae'zel confronted Shadowheart boldly. "And there I will either find what I seek, or else learn to appreciate what I find."

"Come on." I told them both after a long awkward pause had settled in, and we resumed our march.

Arabella had said that her parents had fled towards a lighted building as they were being marched towards Moonrise, and there were only three of those visible from the town square - the tollhouse, the tavern, and the House of Healing. Since we'd already searched two of those, that meant our destination was clear.

And we were barely inside the front door before we already had a confrontation.

"Here to see the doctor?" the ghastly corpse-woman wearing the rotted remnants of a healing sister's robes greeted us cheerfully. "Are we poorly?"

"Err-" I blinked in shock.

"Not so well, but well enough to wait then." she determined. "Join the line, and you will be seen."

I turned to look at the several skeletons still sitting on the chairs behind me in the reception area, and turned back to her. "The line doesn't seem to be... moving." I understated.

"Yes, yes, but all must wait. The doctor's hands are full. Join the line, please. You will be seen." the receptionist's revenant insisted.

I considered just smiting her, but given the multiple lights on in rooms and the sounds of movement I could faintly pick up I was afraid that most if not all of the entire staff of this hospital was still animate, and I didn't want to be hacking through an entire horde of undead today if I didn't have to. But if I played along with her delusions and waited, then obviously we'd be stuck here forever-

"There's been a misunderstanding." Gale broke in smoothly. "We're not patients. These are my... medical students! And I am a distinguished visiting specialist in maladaptive necromantic malaise." he rattled off confidently.

"An answer to our prayers!" she gasped dramatically. "Oh please, come in, come in! The doctor has desperately been waiting for a consultation on several difficult cases!" She gratefully ushered us inside and then returned to standing her eternal vigil at the front desk.

As we walked further into the haunted hospital I muttered an incredulous aside to Gale. "How on Faerun did you even think that would work?"

"Whether alive or undead, the bureaucracy of academia never changes." he grinned back.

According to the receptionist the 'doctor' was waiting for us in the main surgical theater. We decided that for as long as we apparently had free run of the floor we'd do better exploring the side rooms before risking another conversation that might expose us. What we found was fully as horrifying as you'd expect an exploration of a hospital that had been overtaken by cursed undeath to be, and that was on top of its already having been corrupted by Sharran ways before the Shadow Curse came down. We found ancient weathered papers telling of deliberate euthanasia of healthy civilians so as to clear out space for wounded Dark Justiciars, of orders to deliberately withhold medical supplies save for important people, and of the chief surgeon's growing obsession not with treatment but experimentation. If his undead self was 'the doctor' the receptionist had encouraged us to consult with, we almost certainly weren't getting out of here without a fight.

And in one side room off on the ground floor, adjacent to an exterior door that the undead nurse attending the room hadn't even bothered to close, we found two very familiar people each laid out in a bed.

"Arabella's parents." Wyll looked sadly down at the pair of corpses, who had both apparently been lengthily tortured - or vivisected - prior to dying. "I don't even want to imagine how long they took to die."

The nurse bending over them and muttering to herself finally acknowledged our presence. "They're not dead, sir. Merely medicated. To ease the pain."

"I'm pretty certain they don't have a pulse anymore." I couldn't help but snap back.

The undead nurse reached down and briefly touched the wrist of Arabella's mother, then touched her own wrist. "Her pulse is fully as healthy as my own, sir."

"Well then, if they're that healthy you can move on to the next room on your rounds, can't you?" I desperately improvised, and the zombie nurse seemed to have something shake loose in her rotted brain.

"My rounds? Yes... these patients are doing fine. I should finish my rounds." she muttered absently, and wandered off.

"Come on, let's get them outside." I muttered angrily. "The least we can do is take them back to Last Light to bury them... even if we'd better use closed coffins."

"We can do that after we find what Halsin sent us here for." Shadowheart reminded me. "I very much doubt she's going to come back any time soon."

"These cuts are surgical. Precise." Lae'zel dispassionately examined their wounds. "No weapon did this, but the instruments of a ghustil - a doctor."

"Then I think he's long overdue for a house call." I growled, and we all turned as one to head towards the main surgical theater.

As we entered the main surgical theatre we saw a rotted gray corpse still dressed in elaborate noble's clothing standing surrounded by a circle of undead nurses, posing dramatically over the flayed corpse - I certainly hoped it was a corpse - of a man whose skin had already been partially removed, strapped to an operating table.

"The objective of the scalpel, sisters, is to soothe. For the scalpel is indeed an extension of Shar." the surgeon was lecturing. "See how the patient reacts when I but stroke the right nerve?" He made a subtle motion with his hand and the man being vivisected jerked, horribly. "Hear the very melody of-"

The surgeon's lecture was interrupted by Wyll's eldritch bolt slamming into his face and sending him skidding back across the tiled floor. The rest of us were barely half a heartbeat behind him.

"Spirit Guardians!" Shadowheart called, and a brilliant ring of radiant energy sprang into existence around her. Since the half-dozen undead nurses had all turned to rush at us, they all collided with the area of effect like moths rushing onto a torch. Already wounded and with the momentum of their atttack entirely disrupted, Lae'zel, Karlach, and I had little difficulty beating them all to the ground.

"Heretics! Unbelievers!" the doctor spat. "The Dark Lady will-"

"Righteous Smite!" I shouted and struck, and what the 'Dark Lady' was going to do with us remained forever unanswered as the doctor was distracted by a slight case of spontaneous radiant combustion. It didn't kill him - it didn't even seem to slow him down very much - but it did certainly distract him, and however tough this master undead whatever-it-was might be, it wasn't tough enough to survive six-to-one odds - particularly not since I was able to pulse my anti-magic to disrupt his spellcasting every time he tried it. Which was a good thing, seeing as how after the fight Gale explained to be that what he'd been trying to do is reanimate his assistants, which would have definitely swung the balance of the fight entirely in the other direction.

At any rate, we finally finished killing the bastard and incinerating the severed pieces, and dealing with the several scattered nurses who each individually rushed in to see what the trouble was was not that much more difficult. We'd used up a few spells and would need a little healing, but we were still quite fresh.

Unfortunately, there was no amount of healing that would save the doctor's latest "patient". He barely lived long enough for us to minimally comfort him before he died, and we weren't even sure if he ever knew we were there. We never even got his name.

At any rate, searching all through this charnel house eventually turned up what we were looking for - Art Cullagh had indeed been here back when Reithwin Town was still alive, investigating reports that Dr. Malus Thorm - Ketheric's uncle, and the chief surgeon of this hospital who we'd just killed again - had been leading a secret cult of Sharran worshippers. And among the confiscated personal effects of patients was a lute with his name on it.

"Well, this is definitely something of personal significance to him." Wyll said. "I'm not sure how they intend to use it to bring him out of a catatonic trance, but I'm not an archdruid and experienced healer."

"At any rate, it's what we were sent after. Let's get this back to Last Light before we risk trying Moonrise Towers - we've got travelstones at both ends to make it an easy trip." I sighed. "Also, we'd better get Arabella's parents ready for burial."

"I wonder where they're going to bury me." Karlach muttered under her breath. "Sorry." she turned to us. "I promised to stop moping about it."

"Why? It's quite the mope-worthy topic." I replied darkly, my mood turning fey again. Walking through this charnel house of death had been morbid enough, and then Arabella's parents, and then this maddening perversion of surgery and healing-

"Hawke?" Shadowheart finally asked me, concerned by how I'd been standing visibly shocked and struck mute.

I turned back, shocking them all with a grin extending from ear to ear. Or perhaps worrying them all with how i was grinning like a madman, because I imagined that I was looking just a bit over-enthusiastic. "I just had an idea."

"An idea for what?" Gale asked me worriedly.

"Withers! I need a word!" I ignored them.

"Why hast thou requested my presence?" Withers said, standing right there next to us like he'd never left. "All of thy party are quite alive at present."

"Give us a minute." I shot back. "But first, a question. If, hypothetically speaking, one of our number had happened to have our corpse horribly mutilated before dying, you'd restore it intact, yes? Like when Wyll had his legs torn off and digested, but he's fine now?"

"Of course." he sniffed, mildly offended.

"And if, hypothetically speaking, one of our number happened to have a highly complicated magical prosthetic that got ripped out and smashed up while they were dead, would it be simpler for you to simply restore the original flesh-and-blood part or to recreate the prosthetic?" I kept on speaking.

Withers actually had the first visible change of expression I'd seen on him since I'd met him - an eyebrow raise. And then the faintest, barely visible quirk of one corner of his lip twitched upward in an almost-smile. "The restoration of the original organ would be more convenient. Unless, of course, the personage involved insisted on the restoration of the prosthetic instead."

"Karlach, get on the table." I ordered her. "We're fixing that heart problem of yours, and we're fixing it right now."

"You've completely lost your bloody mind, boss!" Karlach gaped at me. "... but I am like hell saying no to this!"

"Gale, find out which one of those chemicals is anesthetic - if any. We definitely don't want to do this while she's conscious."

"I'm on it!" he dashed over to Dr. Thorm's rack of surgical supplies, now infected by the same mad enthusiasm I was. After a few moments he triumphantly held up a small glass bottle. "Here, this should work. You could knock out a dragon with enough drops of this."

"Right, inject her with it and then we'll - do what we're about to do." I awkwardly finished. "Unless she's had second thoughts-"

"Boss, the worst that happens is you botch the job and I just get resurrected the normal way. I mean, hell, I saw what happened to Wyll and Shadowheart, I know damn well Withers can fix what you're about to do." Karlach was now grinning ear to ear as well.

"Scalpel!" I orated dramatically while holding out my hand, and nodded to Gale to start the anesthesia.

Using a double overdose of the stuff was the most humane way to make Karlach not only unconscious but dead, and that vastly reduced the amount of blood spurting around once her heart was no longer pumping it. Removing the organ from her chest took several minutes of outright hacking away at all the connections - whoever had installed this thing had really wanted it to stay put - but since we didn't have to worry about excessive damage, the meat-ax approach served well enough. And while I no doubt would have been massively upset at the excessive mutilation I was doing to a good friend's corpse right now, it was amazing what the mind could get past if you didn't stop to actually think about what you were doing but instead let mad inspiration and adrenaline carry you through on its flow.

So soon enough it was done, and we'd discarded our borrowed surgical gowns, washed up, and were ready for the most critical part of the whole procedure. "Do it now."

"By doom and dusk, I strike thy name from the archives! Rise!" Withers intoned proudly, and Karlach - an entirely intact, bloodless Karlach - opened her eyes where she lay on the table.

"Karlach?" I whispered tentatively.

"It's beating." she whispered back, her voice full of wonder. "Not that damned piston noise, or all the whooshing - just thump-thump, thump-thump." she started crying. "And I don't feel anything." She sniffled again in purest happiness. "It's been so many years since I wasn't burning."

I helped her off the table and pulled her into a hug. "Thank you." I sniffled as well, into her shoulder. "Thank you so much."

"The hell are you thanking me for?" she looked incredulously down at me. "You just saved my life - my whole life! I owe you everything!"

"Thank you for giving me a chance." I smiled back at her. "A chance to finally be in time to save someone I care about." I breathed out in purest satisfaction and laughed. "Because it's been a very long time since I've done that."

"Congratulations, Karlach." Wyll was the first to join the group hug. "You've escaped Hell for good this time. Have fun making Zariel gnash her teeth out for the rest of your natural life."

"Congratulations!" Shadowheart echoed, wearing the first genuine smile I'd seen on her in far too long, and everyone else echoed her sentiments and her eager hug.

And even though we stood in the heart of a haunted hospital in the middle of a shadow-cursed land under an endless night... just for this one moment, everything seemed bright as day.



Author's Note: If Withers can bring someone back from total bodily disintegration - which he entirely can, because people have gotten their party straight-up nuked in the vaporizing of Rosymorn Monastery and still gotten them back alive and intact at the rez station - then why not just amputate her prosthetic post-mortem and let the man bring her back fully organic? I've been asking myself that for ages, and now that I'm finally writing a BG3 story, I get to have it my way.

As for Isobel - she's a very minor presence in the game, really, so I have no idea why she just keeps talking to me so much. But hey, one of the privileges of fanfic is being able to give more screentime to NPCs who didn't get it - and as long as you don't waste it, no harm in an author indulging themselves.

Lae'zel? Lae'zel is a very stoic personality, but she actually works through shit just fine by herself if you give her the start of the road and a little time to think. But I'm amused that her moment with Shadowheart in this chapter was not planned - I was just having her give the tough love observation about Arabella's parents when suddenly my fingers kept typing and before I know it an entire party banter moment was just happening, complete with significant emotional punches.

And yeah, Hawke was past due for a moment of just being done with all this. He's really been taking it hard the past few chapters... or the past few years... so him finally being able to poke Fate in the eye and go "No, you're NOT taking this one. I'm getting her BACK, and you can't do SHIT to stop me!" was worth more to him than all the gold in Orlais.
 
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I'm still waiting for somebody to point out to Wyll that he's only trapped so long as nobody gets strong enough to invade Hell, kill his demon, and burn the contract.

This is DnD. Adventurers can do that.


Heck, the very Gods themselves can be killed. Shar should watch her back.
 
"DAMN ALL GODS AND DEVILS TO OBLIVION!" I heard myself roaring with outrage as I hacked clear through a petrified tree. "Damn the Maker, damn Mystra, damn Shar, damn Selune, DAMN THEM ALL! WHY THE HELLS DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS?!?" I shouted. "Why is it always noble sacrifices and tragic ends and wasting away from incurable blights and madness and tragedies?!? Why can't good people just be allowed to live?!?"

Fucking preach, Hawke.

If Withers can bring someone back from total bodily disintegration - which he entirely can, because people have gotten their party straight-up nuked in the vaporizing of Rosymorn Monastery and still gotten them back alive and intact at the rez station - then why not just amputate her prosthetic post-mortem and let the man bring her back fully organic?

....

....

....well, fuck a duck, that there's a plot hole the size of Texas. Zariel's jaw is going to drop so hard it'll punch clean through dimensions when she hears about this!
 
Withers actually had the first visible change of expression I'd seen on him since I'd met him - an eyebrow raise. And then the faintest, barely visible quirk of one corner of his lip twitched upward in an almost-smile.

"Oh dear. My duties appear to have screwed over a devils attempt to make a mortal suffer. Whoopsie-daisy."

I do like Lae'zel showing compassion and being able to recognize what she was taught being wrong. I feel like that will be important for Shadowheart later.
 
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That's sure a nice resolution to Karlach's heart problem. If the protagonist wasn't romantically involved with Shadowheart I think he'd be getting his pelvis demolished that bedtime :p

The house of healing was always pretty creepy to me. Horror doctor and staff, blah.
 
I'm still waiting for somebody to point out to Wyll that he's only trapped so long as nobody gets strong enough to invade Hell, kill his demon, and burn the contract.

This is DnD. Adventurers can do that.


Heck, the very Gods themselves can be killed. Shar should watch her back.
Hell is paved with the bones of people who have tried invading it with similar goals in mind.
 
On the heart thing. I always assumed it was magic forcibly attuned soul artifact and it just comeback as a part of her unless a high level artificer did astral surgery and disinentangled it.


And that is a lot of blasphemy about shit almost entirely cause by mortals being dicks or lemmings or lazy.
Quite literally evil only prospering when good men do nothing and good men suffer doing the deed cause there are not enough.

Also we like the stories that way. That have more hope than life.


Also evil factions don't get enough shit. Like you blew up the creche in the temple of a bunch of hard riding good boi who ever gooded who gets super powers from adhering to law and good , but the Fifth were a people to talk to and deal with in more than just need.
 
Hell is paved with the bones of people who have tried invading it with similar goals in mind.

Sure, it's the kind of thing you have to be seriously powerful to do, but, like I said, this is DnD.


Gods and demons can well die, and even the very Hells themselves are not safe from the most powerful adventurers. They fuck with you, you just have to get strong enough, and they'll find out.
 
Sure, it's the kind of thing you have to be seriously powerful to do, but, like I said, this is DnD.


Gods and demons can well die, and even the very Hells themselves are not safe from the most powerful adventurers. They fuck with you, you just have to get strong enough, and they'll find out.
Oh sure it's possible to storm hell and find one particular Devil and get to them and murder them and find their contracts and burn them, but even when the invaders are a higher level party than the protagonists of this story it's still a major gamble because invading hell is something that multiple factions of beings from across the planes are doing on a regular basis. To say nothing of the resources that devil movers and shakers can bring to the table - they certainly can bring to bear more dedicated resources to protecting themselves in the center of their power (including pacts with other devils that they can call on for support) than a party of even high level adventurers are going to have access to.

And the cost of failure is up there on the high end of "now your souls are playthings for the creatures you were trying to kill" level.
 
Let's not forget that Mizora put penalty clauses into her contract that specify that if Wyll kills her or has anyone else kill her on his behalf, he gets immediate eternal damnation.
 
Let's not forget that Mizora put penalty clauses into her contract that specify that if Wyll kills her or has anyone else kill her on his behalf, he gets immediate eternal damnation.

Certainly true.

But, if he doesn't ask, and his friends just do it anyway?


Well, it's not an easy thing, but, well, in a game like DnD, there's a reason why everything short of Ao, the Overgod, has stats provided. That's because if it has stats, it can be killed.




Not easy. But, possible. So, in DnD? Never, ever, give up. For there's always a chance, for those who're hard enough.
 
Mizora materialized a scroll in her hands, which she made a show of consulting. "Clause G, Section Nine. Targets shall be limited to the infernal, the demonic, the heartless, and the soulless." Mizora smirked at him as she put the scroll away. "Karlach meets the criteria by way of having a prosthetic heart. So, are you going to live up to your obligations? Or does this need to get messy?"

Since Karlach has a heart now, does that mean that she's (legally) off-limits to Wyll?
 
A prosthetic heart is still a heart unless the contract specifically defines 'heartless' as meaning 'lacking a biological heart', so it's possible that Karlach always had a heart by that definition.

When the contract was drafted, Wyll clearly thought that the term 'heartless' was a metaphor for "beings devoid of compassion and/or morality", and did not realize that it could also apply to someone without a physical heart.

But I don't think he would have overlooked that possibility if the contract had included a 'prosthetic hearts don't count' clause. So the contract probably doesn't have one.

If someone in the party figures that out, Mizora might be in a bit of trouble.
 
But as if my evening weren't going poorly enough already, I then out to my shame that I'd been so wrapped up in tunnel vision on mission objectives that I hadn't even spoken to the tiefling refugees enough to find out who'd survived, who was still missing, and who was confirmed dead. Particularly when I discovered that Zevlor was still in the 'missing and likely dead' category - the last anyone had seen him he'd been helping hold the rearguard against the attacking cultists, fighting to his last breath to give at least some of them a chance to run. And I'd only found out he wasn't here because I'd gone looking for someone to drink with - someone that I had at least some things in common with and wouldn't be coming with us to Moonrise tomorrow - and only then discovered he'd never made it here.
then found out

"What is my fault? Talk sense, man!" I barked, catching him by his collar and shaking him once, twice, like a misbehaving terrior
terrier.

"If I were doing that would I be here?!?" I roared at him as my fist clenched with the nigh-irresistible urge to just knock his fucking teeth out. "I'm starting to think Wyll had your drink spiked because there was no reasoning with you and he was hoping you'd sleep it off - but apparently he underestimated just how thick your head was. So how's about you get started on taking that nap peacefully, before I help you along?" I began to raise my hand-
'
"Right, sleep here safe and sound while they're dying at Moonrise! I've-I've got to go save them!" he screamed.
You've got a stray character in the space between the paragraphs.

Reithwin brought a new level of horror to the Shadow Curse. We'd seen undead monsters a plenty, but here towards the epicenter of the curse we ran into townsfolk who were still trapped - oh, undead townsfolk, mere distorted wrecks of who they'd been in life, but still able to remember their names and speak with their voices. The toll collector, a corpulent horror plated in gold and weighed down with chains of greed, endlessly demanding more and more in pursuit of a duty she was decades past understanding had ended - the bartender of Waning Moon Tavern, an undead monstrosity as tall as an ogre and fat as a broodmother, endlessly swilling down a corrupt and steaming essence that had once been ale - all these and more challenged and delayed us. Some of them we'd been able to lay to rest merely by talking to them, and the bartender had been defeated when I'd challenged him to a drinking contest and then used sleight of hand to only pretend to swig that fetid poison and he'd drank until he'd burst, but for the rest of them there was nothing for it but to fight.
aplenty,

And yeah, Hawke was past due for a moment of just being done with all this. He's really been taking it hard the past few chapters... or the past few years... so him finally being able to poke Fate in the eye and no "No, you're NOT taking this one. I'm getting her BACK, and you can't do SHIT to stop me!" was worth more to him than all the gold in Orlais.
go,
 
Karlach: "I'm not doing this for him! This is 100% for me!"
This is the sort of thing where you can only find out if it works by trying it, and Wyll's not quite ready to play 'flip a coin and see if I die'.

Since Karlach has a heart now, does that mean that she's (legally) off-limits to Wyll?
Yes, but the point is moot - Mizora's already cancelled that order.

"Don't worry about Karlach, that particular ship has long since sailed the Styx." Mizora said.

And remember, Mizora wanted Karlach dead not because she'd escaped but because she hated how Zariel paid attention to Karlach instead of her. Wyll was sent to Avernus to kill Karlach while she was still working for Zariel. Because Zariel would have gotten pissed at someone taking away her favorite wind-up toy if she just did it herself, Mizora sent in a hero from the Prime to do it, That's just an adventurer killing a servant of devils, shit happens.

But now that Karlach's run away, Mizora doesn't need Wyll to do it anymore because the way Mizora sees it either Zariel's bounty hunters will cap her or else Karlach's terminal heart condition will. Plus, Karlach isn't hanging around taking Zariel's attention away any longer, which was the original point of her ordering the hit. She just punished Wyll because Wyll had dared say 'no' to her even before she'd cancelled the contract and MIzora is really, really fucking petty.

BTW, note that in theory Mizora could have damned Wyll to hell the instant he refused to kill Karlach - that clause about 'refusal of orders' that was in the letter she sent to Wyll recently? That's canon, from the game. The game does not explain this inconsistency, so I'm going with 'Mizora is having far too much fun forcing a good man to do the slow slide down the slippery slope to just end the game now unless she absolutely has to'.
 
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