Matrix Dragon
Getting sticky.
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I really need to finish it all the way through. We're into somewhat uncharted territory for me at this point.
YES. She's not even PRETENDING to repent!
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The Once and Future Champion (Baldur's Gate 3/Dragon Age)
- Thread starter cliffc999
- Start date
I really need to finish it all the way through. We're into somewhat uncharted territory for me at this point.
YES. She's not even PRETENDING to repent!
Chapter 34
New
cliffc999
Connoisseur.
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"At last, the hero of the hour arrives." Raphael drawled elaborately. "Even if he apparently forgot which hour he was supposed to turn up at."
"Sorry I'm late." I said - to Kith'rak Voss, not Raphael. I'd intended to show up for the rendezvous at Sharess' Caress a little earlier, but we'd kept getting sidetracked. The unexpected Sharran hostage crisis alone had taken up a good chunk of our morning, and I'd had to leave Shadowheart behind with most of the others to help get her parents settled in and start healing them up while I hurried to take care of this errand. The only people with me right now were Lae'zel and Jaheira.
When I'd arrived at Sharess' Caress I'd been expecting a tavern, or maybe an inn. I hadn't known enough about Faerunian lore to know that Sharess was the goddess of hedonism and sexuality, which was why one of Baldur's Gate's most opulent whorehouses - or 'festhalls' as the Faerunians liked to innocently rename them - had been named that. You could also rent luxurious suites here for non-sensual purposes, if you were willing to pay for them, and this would be perhaps the absolute last place that you'd expect to find a githyanki. They were famously ascetic and militaristic but also clannish and often xenophobic, so I thought that taking up residence here was simply part of Voss' concealing himself.
Until I arrived at the suite that had been 'permanently booked' for an 'illustrious client' to find the kith'rak arguing heatedly with the proverbial bad copper piece himself.
"Hawke!" Voss said relievedly. "Thank heavens you finally arrived. Maybe this insufferable devil will speak more productively with you."
"Oh, he certainly will." Raphael lounged arrogantly at us from a gilded armchair. "Because unlike you, Hawke actually has something that I want."
"When last we met, you said that you were on the trail of the key to unlock the prisoner's chains." I told Voss. "Let me guess - Raphael found it first, and is holding it to ransom."
"Ransom?" Raphael pouted. "Why my good man, you malign me most unfairly! I am the rightful owner of the- ah, but before we get down to the heart of the matter, we should first ensure our privacy." With an arrogant smirk Raphael raised one hand, poised to snap his fingers... and then hesitated in puzzlement. "That's odd. The insufferable illithid isn't monitoring you?"
"If you mean our erstwhile 'Guardian', he came down with a slight case of decapitation," I said as Voss and I both took our seats around the table. "Oh, and thank you very much for the seal you provided. Kith'rak. It proved instrumental in his defeat."
"If the would-be 'Emperor' is dead, then how do-?" Raphael blinked, before his eyes opened wide in realization. "You made it back inside the Prism and awakened Orpheus. And you came to amicable terms with him. That's the only way the Astral Prism would still be working to protect you without that annoying upstart's machinations."
"The Prince of the Comet is awake?" Voss gasped eagerly.
"Yes, and I'll be taking you to an audience with him as soon as we're done here." I glared at Raphael. "You've been building up to this ever since we first met you in that damned swamp. All right, I'm finally sitting down at the gametable. Now you need to convince me to actually touch a piece."
"I must admit, you have very much impressed me Hawke." Raphael said brightly. "Most people wouldn't have made it even this far. Many of those who might have would still be floundering around in the dark at this juncture. But you're not only scheming several moves ahead, you've already figured out at least some of my endgame. You have my most effusive and elaborate congratulations. Feel free to enjoy them."
"Get to the point, devil." Lae'zel growled.
"I like you, Hawke. Well... I respect you. Somewhat. So let me tell you what's going to happen. This way you can... prepare yourself." Raphael said smugly.
"All right." I motioned to him to go ahead.
"Soon you will finish obtaining the other two Netherstones by either fair means or foul, and then set out to confront the elder brain in its lair. You will of course have mustered all your allies, girded your loins, polished your armor, rehearsed your heroic speeches, et cetera, et cetera." Raphael waved a hand dismissively. "With the power of the Astral Prism to prevent you from succumbing to your tadpoles you will fight your way through the brain's last lines of defense and finally come face to tentacles with the Absolute itself." Raphael smiled. "And then it will crush all your minds without a thought, slay the last being in the universe who carries the genes for Gith's unique mutation, re-assimilate the Netherstones back into the crown, and rule all the known spheres as an ascended elder brain. The Grand Design reborn, with all of creation either thralls, food... or more ghaik."
"That will never happen so long as a single child of Mother Gith draws breath!" Voss thundered.
"And the elder brain will gladly accept those terms." Raphael shrugged. "But your failure is inevitable, Hawke. It's not even a question of courage, or willpower, or ability. It is but simple fact. The power of the elder brain, as augmented by the Crown of Karsus, will simply be too powerful for even Orpheus to shield you from once you enter direct mental contact with the brain."
"Unless we unshackle him." I'd already gotten this far once Raphael had given me the start of it - after all, we'd already known that Orpheus could only exert a tithe of his power while he was still restrained.
"And allow him to wield his full power once again." Raphael nodded. "There was a possible alternative of having Orpheus' unique mind and powers assimilated by a illithid devouring his brain... but you foreclosed that option yourself before I could even advise you to do it." He smiled. "It is as I already told you outside the Gauntlet of Shar, Hawke. The more brilliantly you figure out my schemes, the more you deliver yourself right into the palm of my hand." He held out and then elaborately closed said palm. "Your only path to victory now requires the Orphic Hammer, the one artifact in all the planes that can shatter the infernal chains my peers forged to encage Orpheus in the first place. And that hammer lies where it has been ever since the day I originally commissioned its creation - in the most secure vault of the House of Hope." Raphael leaned forward imposingly with a wicked smile. "So you will deal with me and meet my price, Saer Hawke. You simply have no other option."
"A likely story." Jaheira snorted. "But do you think us fools? Orpheus only began to become relevant to whatever your schemes were after the Astral Prism was stolen in the first place, and that was very recently! The key to Orpheus' chains was forged at the same time he was chained, centuries ago!"
"You forget yourself, my good Harper." Raphael said equably. "Why would the first Vlaakith ever commission a key for a prisoner that she never intended to release? When Orpheus' chains were first forged, it was the intent of both pacter and pacted that he remain bound for eternity. The creation of the Orphic Hammer was my idea, and came much, much later."
"What do you want?" I said exasperatedly. Admittedly, I'd already had Gortash tell me this, but the more ignorant Raphael believed I was the better.
"You want to destroy the elder brain, and in so doing make yourself the great hero of Baldur's Gate." Raphael said smoothly. "To save the city, the entire Sword Coast, quite likely the entire world... oh, and your own precious skin and that of your beloved, as well. How fortunate for you that I am opposed to absolutely none of this! Indeed, I'm eager to help you fulfill those dreams... in return for just one little thing that you will no longer need once the elder brain is dead." He let out a long, slow breath of anticipation. "The Crown of Karsus. Swear to give it over to me once the elder brain is defeated - seal yourself to this pact - and I shall give you the Orphic Hammer immediately. I wouldn't even make your soul part of the bargain... except as the penalty for breach of contract, of course."
"Take the deal!" Voss urged me immediately. "Whatever this Crown is, it matters less than the fate of both my people and your world!"
"Giving the Crown to Raphael would be like feeding a barrel of runepowder to a fire elemental." I said. "It's the most powerful artifact in the world, and would very likely let someone elevate himself to the status of an archdevil."
"To the status of the Archdevil." Raphael grinned eagerly. "An Archdevil Supreme, to at long last unify and rule over all the Nine Hells themselves! Oh, when I first saw the Crown of Karsus on the day that ancient Netheril fell, I openly wept to see such beauty! The mad genius of Karsus had forged a Crown imbued with all the power of magic itself, a Crown that would make any who wore it a god. It was as if someone had taken the very concept of ambition itself and crystallized it, forged it, into a perfect jewel." Raphael's face turned thunderous. "And then my insipid father snatched up the Crown before I could, and did nothing with it! The key to such power, such glory, in the palm of his hand... and he filed it away in a box!"
He rose rapidly to his feet and began to pace with vexation as he fumed madly. "That foolish, blind, short-sighted, lethargic archivist! For centuries I schemed and I plotted and I planned, but my every attempt was forestalled before I could even make them! So much power, so much potential, and all rendered inert by his cowardice! He made a miracle into a museum piece!" Raphael suddenly stopped pacing and began to laugh. "Until Gortash of all people dared to commission a heist on the vaults of Mephistopheles himself." He snorted. "And then that young man placed the Crown directly on the head of a being far superior to him and tried to walk that being on a leash like a dog. And now he's trapped by the consequences of his own mad ambitions, with no way out. What a fool. But... a fool whose foolishness has given me a wonderful opportunity to exploit." He turned back and grinned menacingly down at us. "So learn from his example and don't be a fool as well, Hawke. Swear to give me the Crown, and your victory is assured." He shrugged. "Or don't, and march on to your inevitable defeat."
"If we fail, doesn't that mean that you will never obtain your heart's desire either?" Jaheira probed.
"No, it merely means that I have to wait centuries longer." Raphael said. "Frustrating, yes, but hardly an insurmountable task. Even if it wins victory here and now the would-be 'Absolute' will eventually do something that gives me another opportunity. The only people here facing their last chance to salvage their situation are you four."
"I'm not deciding one way or the other until I've had an opportunity to discuss this with my entire team." I said matter-of-factly.
"Fair enough." Raphael nodded back. "Even with the Hammer your victory will still require all your people to be well-organized and on point. And Sharess' Caress is one of my favorite watering holes, so I'll have ample opportunity to amuse myself while I wait here for your reply." He shrugged. "Don't dally too long, though. The elder brain is closer to breaking free than you think, and if you haven't obtained all three Netherstones and the Orphic Hammer by then...?"
"I understand." I said. "Come on, everyone. We've got a tight schedule."
"I... understand your desire to make sure your team is unified behind you." Voss said as we paced away. "I even agree that it's necessary for victory. But to have the key to his freedom within our grasp, and then deny it-?"
"To give such a powerful artifact to such a devil is a horrible idea." Jaheira agreed. "But what else can we do?"
"Hawke has already thought of that something else before he ever decided to leave the room, or I have learned nothing in all my time with him." Lae'zel said smugly.
"I don't want to say anything until we're back with the others." I answered.
We arrived back at the Elfsong and I brought everyone up to date. The Hallowleafs had passed out after their exertions today and Isobel's first healing session with them, and were sleeping quietly in the next room under Nocturne's supervision.
"All right, you said you'd speak freely when we got back. But what makes you think he can't monitor us here?" Jaheira asked.
"Because he was actually surprised to find out that we'd killed the Emperor." I said. "And while we did that inside the Astral Prism, we talked about it later outside... and yet he still didn't know. Which given how closely he'd been monitoring us earlier, and how smug he was about that knowledge in all our earlier conversations with him-"
"Aylin." Lae'zel realized. "Every other conversation we had with Raphael was prior to her joining us. He cannot closely monitor us while we are in the direct presence of the celestial."
"He likely could... but not without my sensing his presence, however he tried to shield himself." Aylin agreed. "Which I do not... wait, a devil approaches!"
With a flash of brimstone a silent, masked merregon devil materialized in the corner. Aylin's drawn greatsword was met with a simple raise of its empty hands, as it clearly signaled 'Not here to fight'. It then reached into its pouch and withdrew a folded note, which it handed to me.
You've had your meeting with him, so now it's time for you to be given this message..
To enter his house without his knowledge, seek out Mammon's Picklock at the Devil's Fee.
Be warned - even if you successfully sneak in, you will have to fight your way out.
As repayment for this advice I want the Hellfire Crossbow, if you ever get a chance to hand it to me.
Good luck and good hunting. Destroy this message.
I tossed the note in the fire and nodded to the merregon, which vanished.
"That was Yurgir." I said. "I wasn't expecting to hear from him, but apparently Raphael's newest disgruntled employee was happy to tell us how to sneak into the House of Hope."
"That was your plan." Lae'zel grinned. "To steal the Hammer without pacting for it."
"Ever since the moment Raphael made the mistake of telling me where the Orphic Hammer was in the middle of all his bragging and boasting." I agreed. "So first we'll need to step inside the Prism again and bring Orpheus up to speed on everything that's happened."
"And then?" Shadowheart asked.
"And then I need to go talk to the only other person we know who's ever been there before." I replied.
"I seem to be spending this entire accursed day telling you how I am not allowed to help you." Aylin fumed, her feathers actually starting to ruffle out of place in the depths of her frustration.
"Yeah, was pretty sure the rules wouldn't allow you to go crusading into Hell without permission from higher up." Karlach agreed. "That would be defying the celestial order and all... and we both knew somebody else who made that mistake and where she ended up."
"Zariel the Fallen." Aylin agreed. "In addition, we have been more than adequately safeguarding our own camp against the servants of Bhaal... but now we have the Hallowleafs and Nocturne to watch over, who are far more vulnerable. For the duration I must concentrate almost entirely on safeguarding our base of operations, and Isobel must remain with me to help care for our invalids."
"You'll also need to watch over the Astral Prism until we get back." I told Aylin. "We won't need it while we're on another plane of existence from the elder brain, and I damn sure don't want to risk losing it down there."
"Certainly not!" Voss agreed emphatically.
"But the rest of are all gearing up for this expedition, right?" Wyll asked.
"That part of the planning I'm still working on." I admitted.
'Mammon's Picklock' turned out to be Helsik, a female dwarf who owned an alchemy shop in the Lower City named 'The Devil's Fee'. She'd cleverly hidden her actual activities as a diabolist and agent of the NIne Hells underneath a pose of merely being an alchemist and trinkets vendor who had a fetish for infernally-themed curios. And for an extremely large fee in gold, that we'd managed to bargain down to a promise to fetch her another artifact from Raphael's vaults instead, she was willing to sell us a route to the Hells by which we could sneak in and burgle the place. Amusingly, she was the same person that Gortash and his fellow Chosen of Bhaal had contracted with for their theft - even if Yurgir hadn't tipped us off, we'd still have been able to come here.
Since Gortash had lived in the House of Hope as a young slave, I had of course consulted him before starting our theft. And while his knowledge of the layout of the House of Hope was several decades old and only limited to those rooms he'd had access to, it was still far better preparation for us than jumping in blind. He'd also been able to explain to us that our only hope of moving around inside would be to disguise ourselves as damned souls or mortal slaves, much like he himself had been at one time. This meant that we couldn't take in the entire group, as a party of eight or more moving around with purpose would be a dead giveaway. After much debate we'd finally pared the entry team down to myself, Karlach, Wyll, and Gale, as the two people in the party who had the most experience dealing with infernal matters as well as our main magical support.
Helsik had given us a set of ritual materials and exact instructions, as well as free access to the elaborate ritual circle she had engraved in the floor of the sanctum she kept above her shop. She'd refused to do any of it herself, though, citing 'plausible deniability'. Fortunately for us, as a servant of Mammon she was anything but friendly with the factions of either Zariel or Mephistopheles. And the House of Hope was located on Avernus, in the domain of Zariel, as well as being owned by one of Mephistopheles' cambion sons.
We stepped through the flaming portal to arrive in an elaborately furnished foyer. Four pillars each set in one corner of the room glowed a pale eldritch green, very unsettlingly.
"Avernus." Karlach said lowly. "Even with all the boudoir atmosphere and perfume Raphael's got spread around here, you still can't miss the brimstone." She gulped. "Boss? Not that I'm going to dip out on you or anything, but I'm scared shitless."
"I'm sorry I felt obligated to ask you." I said. "But we needed you. You've fought more devils than the rest of our group put together."
"Yeah." Karlach agreed. "But- anyway, we need to find some disguises so we look like all the other damned souls stuck down here paying off our debts. But there's none in the room-"
"You came. Such a shame." a soft female voice interrupted us, and we all spun around to stare incredulously at the astral projection of a beautiful redheaded female dwarf in faded clerical robes that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Curiosity killed all the cats, but it won't be so kind to you!" she wailed. There was a distant rattle of chains and she winced in pain. "The jailer will hear us! I shouldn't be talking to you! I need to go... it's not kind to me." she whispered urgently as she started to fade.
"Please don't go!" Karlach insisted. "Maybe we can help you?"
"Help me?" she echoed. "That's ridiculous, you can't even help yourselves. You're mice trying to steal the cat's bells, and soon enough the cat will stop being away..."
"I'm Hawke." I tried to refocus the barely-coherent woman. "Who are you?"
"Who am I?" she begged. "That's my favorite question. I scream it into the dark while I sleep, and whisper it to my memories when I wake. I'm the thing that kills you, and the only reason you stay alive. I'm made by a promise, and unmade by the truth. A handshake, a hug, the first beat of a newborn's heart..."
"You're Hope." Gale said wonderingly. "And this is supposed to be your house, not his."
"Hope." she echoed faintly. "That's what he calls me. That's why I'm kept here. It wasn't even my real name, but it's all I've got left..." Hope visibly tried to refocus herself. "I'm not much of a friend to anyone anymore, but I could use a friend myself. Do you want a friend to help guide you through this madhouse?"
"How can we free you?" I asked.
"The hammer breaks my chains." Hope whispered.
"Where's the vault?" Wyll asked quietly.
"The vault is the archives. The archivist is the vault keeper." Hope chanted. "Sssh-ssh-ssh! If the jailor hears he'll call Raphael and then we'll all be screaming so loud..."
"How can we sneak through the House?" I asked.
"You can't creep, because most everybody here's dead and the dead never sleep!" Hope giggled. "But being dead and damned makes them pretty stupid so I'll provide a glamor. Make you look lost and wretched so nobody raises a clamor." Hope raised her hands and with a flare of magic we were all cloaked in an illusion - instead of our gleaming armor and weapons we now wore chains and rags, as despondent as any other lost souls.
"Now find the key, take the hammer, and smash my chains!" Hope insisted. "Find the KEY, take the HAMMER. smash my CHAINS! And remember, once you touch the hammer the fire will come. He'll know, and he'll come, so you'll have to run run run!" Hope suddenly convulsed in agony. "But don't forget me, please please please!" Hope trailed off in a whisper. "I don't want to burn. Not again."
"We'll come for you, we promise." I urged her. "Now stay safe."
"You seem nice. I really hope you don't stay." Hope smiled weakly, and faded away.
There was only one set of doors leading out of the foyer and it led to a very familiar chamber - the grand dining room in which Raphael had first regaled us, when he'd temporarily taken us into the House of Hope. There was a short stairway leading up to a door at each point of the compass. I noted with grim interest that while the elaborate furnishings and decor were the same, the food heaped upon the table was now rotten filth, covered with maggots and flies.
"Damn, good thing we didn't eat any the first time." Karlach gulped. "I feel sick to my stomach just looking at it."
"Filth and ruin sold underneath an illusion of wealth and beauty." Wyll said. "How typically diabolical."
"If you're going to pose as debtors, you'll need to act better than that." an old man's voice greeted us. We all turned to notice a servant that we'd overlooked in all of our gaping around - a hooded skeleton in a long black robe, still holding the broom he'd been sweeping the floor with.
"Not calling for help?" Gale asked idly, as he prepared to spellcast-
"I sold my soul to Raphael, and in fulfillment of this obligation I helped rebuild this house and now must help maintain it for eternity." the skeleton said. "Nothing in my contract obligates me to either fight or spy for him. And I am not fond of him."
"Was selling your soul really worth it?" Wyll asked. "Sorry, impolite question, I know. But I did the same once, and it wasn't worth it for me."
"My mortal life was already in the thrall of a great and horrible evil even before I pacted or died, young man." the skeleton said amusedly. "I had very little left to lose. And while Raphael has been a cruel master, he has done very little to me that Ketheric Thorm already hadn't."
"Ketheric-?" I startled. "You're the Master Mason of Reithwin! Or what's left of him. You sold yourself so that Raphael would send someone to slay the Dark Justiciars in their barracks."
"You've been to Reithwin?" the Master Mason wondered. "But it was destroyed. The Shadow Curse swallowed everything, and Myrkul eventually raised Thorm from the dead to continue his depredations. Raphael took exquisite pleasure in telling me how even Thorm's defeat did not save my home..."
"Yeah, well, not surprisingly he left out all the good news." Karlach said. "It's been a century and change since all that happened but Ketheric Thorm's finally dead again, for good this time. Moonrise Towers is getting cleaned out. And the druids and the Harpers finally broke the Shadow Curse. Word of honor - we were there!"
"At last." the Master Mason gasped with relief. "Then... we finally won." He exhaled with pure satisfaction. "As damned as I am and forever will be, it still gladdens my heart to hear that.
"If you want to help get one over on Raphael, could you tell us which way is the archives?" Karlach asked.
"Through that door and straight ahead." the Master Mason pointed. "Sadly I lost my key somewhere-" He deliberately pulled a key out of his robe and dropped it right on the floor in front of us as he said this. "But I'm sure you'll find a way to open it on your own."
I pocketed the key and nodded to him. The key opened the west door leading out of the feast chamber without any trouble, and directly across the hall from us was the archives.
"Right. According to Gortash, the Archivist was so beaten down by Raphael that he was mindlessly afraid of authority figures." I said. "So all we need now is to convince him that we are one."
"No worries, I got this." Karlach said. "We're in Avernus - Zariel's domain. Her High Inquisitor is called Verillius Receptor. Absolutely terrifying bitch, everybody was scared shitless of her. Not least because she loved to go around in disguise, so you never knew if you were talking to her until it was too late."
"Right." I said, and we formed up and marched boldly into the archives. The Archives were more properly a museum, with several artifacts or particularly treasured contracts each visible on their own podium in an alcove. The Archivist was a middle-aged male tiefling in a robe and hood, who came over to greet us in a polite yet distant manner
"Visitors?" the Archivist said mildly. "I trust you are authorized to be here?"
"I don't know whether to note you down favorably for diligence or unfavorably for insolence." Karlach sneered. "Still, it's a better start to an audit than some I've had. I am Verillius Receptor, High Inquisitor of Zariel, and I am here to inspect this collection as per the agreement."
"A thousand apologies, oh majestic magistrate of the infernal court." the Archivist groveled. "Your tiefling disguise was so exquisite that I found it entirely convincing. I would prostrate myself before you and kiss your scars, but my spine is ruptured in a thousand places. You know Raphael likes to... play." He bowed again. "As always, the Archive is yours to peruse. You'll find everything accounted for, and I can present certificates of procurement if necessary."
"I'm here to verify the Orphic Hammer." Karlach stated arrogantly. "Where is it?"
"Ah, the gem of the special collection." the Archivist said smarmily. "My infinite regrets that I cannot unseal it for you. Raphael alone has the password necessary to unseal its containment barrier." He waved his hand at the far end of the chamber, where an opaque spherical force field surrounded one of the exhibits. "You are of course entirely at liberty to await the master's return in his own private quarters. I shall provide you with a writ of entrance." He withdrew a sealed scroll from his robes and handed it to Karlach.
She turned and swept out of the chamber without a word, and in our pose as loyal retainers we dumbly followed her.
"Shit." Karlach swore as we made it to the hallway outside. The hallway ran around the circumference of the House of Hope in a wide circle, with the feast chamber providing a shortcut across the center. The private quarters were on the north side of this level of the House of Hope, just as the archives were on the west.
A magical barrier across the door to Raphael's quarters dissolved smoothly to let us through into an opulent set of chambers for which the word 'seraglio' was the only adequate description. Decadence of every variety was on display, from the sculptures to the paintings to the furnishings.
"Oh? More visitors?" a very familiar voice greeted us as we froze in terror. Raphael came around the corner from behind an ornamental screen-
"What in Limbo are you wearing?" Gale goggled. Because Raphael was dressed in some leather fetish wear that would have been considered too risque for the Blooming Rose back in Kirkwall, let alone Sharess' Caress.
"Oh gods! I thought I knew all the torments of the hells, but I never imagined! I'd rather bathe my eyes in lava than look at that again!" Karlach winced.
"I am never going to look at Raphael the same way ever again." Wyll was trying not to laugh.
"Laugh all you like." the devil said disgruntledly. "It's not like I chose to wear this. I generally prefer to bring some actual class to my seductions, but no. He insists I wear these incredibly tacky clothes and-" he sighed. "I'm an incubus, darling, so I'm hardly opposed to nudity, let alone skimpy clothing. But bad fashion? Archdevils spare me, I positively loathe this assignment."
"If you're not Raphael, what are you doing in his bedroom wearing his face?" I asked.
"Indulging the carnal appetites of a pathological narcissist." the devil pouted. "Sadly, my patron insists that I remain here to both help keep an eye on his wayward offspring and distract him, and Raphael insists that we play our little bedroom games with me shapeshifted into his body and wearing... this." The incubus pouted. "And he bottoms as well, would you believe that?"
"Too much information!" I cried out. "Can we please change the subject to something more wholesome than Raphael's incredibly sad love life, like, I don't know, murder? And wait, did you say that Mephistopheles placed you here to watch over him? Does Raphael know that?'
"No, he doesn't, and it's a measure of how incredibly frustrated I am at this horrible assignment that I actually said that out loud." the incubus said. "Oh well, I hadn't planned to exert myself today, but-" He flexed his fingers and began to extend his claws-
"Before this devolves to the violence level, would you like to buy some information on Raphael's latest plot against Mephistopheles... and how you could ruin it all before it gets going?" I said. "If it's valuable enough, then it might get you relieved of this assignment."
"I'm all ears." the incubus smarmed. "But I doubt that any word of his latest petty plot would do much to convince my superiors to let me leave."
"He knows where the Crown of Karsus is, and he's trying to blackmail a group of mortal adventurers into giving to him once they've retrieved it by holding an artifact they absolutely need to save their world to ransom for it." I said.
"Oh." the incubus stated hollowly. "Yes, that's decidedly not petty at all. But which adventurers? What artifact?"
"The Orphic Hammer, and the people you're talking to right now." I said. "We came here to steal it so that we wouldn't need to take his deal. And if you help us steal it, then that's Raphael's little plot frustrated. Do you know where he stores the password to that section of the archives is?"
"Why darling, I know the password." the incubus smirked. "Pillow talk. And... hmmm, yes, I think that this will work. You do know that password or no password, the instant you touch the hammer he'll be alerted and come right back here, yes?"
"We know." Wyll agreed. "But this works out for you either way. If we succeed in stealing the hammer, that's Raphael dead and you'll be free of this assignment. And if we fail, all the witnesses are dead without you having to lift a finger."
"Win-win." the incubus agreed. "My favorite kind of deal. Very well, the password is 'Give me my heart's desire'."
"... was he even trying?" I sighed.
"Sometimes I wonder." the incubus pouted. "At any rate, good luck with your theft. Oh, and if you actually do by some miracle manage to defeat Raphael then could you please pass on a message from me before he departs?" It smirked. "Tell him that Haarlep says that he was absolutely shit in bed, and that I never enjoyed a minute of it."
"Thank you very much for your help." I stated, and we got out of the boudoir as fast as we possibly could.
"Well, that was a giant pile of I really didn't want to know." Karlach sighed as we walked back to the archives.
"Fortunately we're going to be up to our ears in almost everything in this house trying to kill us in several minutes." I said. "When we get to the archives, you get behind the Archivist while I take the Orphic Hammer. As soon as the alarm goes off, cut him down."
"Got it." Wyll nodded.
We arrived back at the Archives and took our places. "Give me my heart's desire." I stated confidently and the force field faded away. The Orphic Hammer was revealed - an artifact warhammer made of pure infernal iron, with a large red crystal of solidifed hellfire for the head. It was sized so that it could be wielded either one or two-handed.
"What's the history on this artifact again?" Karlach asked in her guise as the Inquisitor, leading him over to be in better position for the kill.
"Ah yes." the Archivist said proudly. "My master had that hammer forged not as a weapon, but as an insurance policy. Its core is a metalliferous compound combining the purest essence of all nine of the hells. My master planned ahead, you see - sometimes it is far better to strip away souls from your rival than to harvest your own, and with this hammer any bound soul may be freed of infernal bonds."
I was awestruck with realization - not necessarily at the power of the Orphic Hammer, but at the Archivists' words. I now understood what Withers had meant about the plot of the Dead Three. The fact that illithid conversion destroyed the souls of people was not a consequence they had foolishly overlooked, but their true goal all along. For if the entire souled population of Toril were obliterated save for their own most faithful... then no god would have any worship empowering them any longer except for the Dead Three. Even when reduced only to the status of quasi-deity they would still be able to reign freely on the Prime and have supreme authority among the gods... because if the Absolute converted the souls of all Toril to illithids, then the lack of worship would within a single generation wither away all gods save the Dead Three into nothingness. A cosmic extension of the particular precept of Bane that Gortash had boasted about to me in our first meeting - that you could strengthen your own power as much by denying alliances to your enemy as you could by claiming them for yourself.
No wonder Mystra had demanded that Gale blow himself up to destroy the Absolute. If we failed here, we were facing the end of everything. And if she'd only thought to tell us about that-
-well, then we'd all already be dead when Gale had destroyed himself and everyone in or under Moonrise Towers. So I was still of distinctly mixed feelings on that issue.
Without hesitation I reached out and picked up the hammer, and Wyll stabbed the Archivist in the back before he could react. The lights flickered and went dim, and wailing alarms echoed through every corner of the House of Hope.
Hope's astral projection flickered into view. "Now I've got good news, bad news, and worst news! Good news, you got what you came for! Successful visit, great success, fantastic work!" she gushed while eagerly jumping up and down. "Bad news, so many things are going to be on fire when you step out of this room - you included!" She blinked. "But that's okay, right? I mean, it's Hell. You expected it to be hot."
"Thanks for reminding us." I said, and we each of us - except Karlach, who had it naturally as part of being a tiefling - drank the fire resistance potions that Gale had prepared for this occasion.
"WORST NEWS, RAPHAEL IS ON HIS WAY HOME AND OH BOY IS HE SPITTING MAD!" Hope shrieked. "But you planned for this, I know you did, you have everything under control..." she babbled. "IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DON'T PANIC EVEN WHEN YOUR EYEBALLS EVAPORATE FROM THE HEAT!" She flinched. "Come to my prison, east side hatch, break my chains, and then we'll exit stage anywhichwaywecan!" She breathed deeply. "Please?"
"We're on our way!" I assured her, and after swiping the gauntlets that Helsik had wanted us to grab for her we all broke into a dead run.
Hope hadn't understated things - as soon as we stepped outside the archives, literally every damned soul we saw was trying to kill us. Raphael's ownership of them forced them to the attack even when they didn't want to, and they had no choice.
But I had the Orphic Hammer, which Raphael had forged specifically to free damned souls from infernal bondage. Its ability to destroy the infernal chains sealing Orpheus was merely a bonus - the name of the hammer must have been a misdirection Raphael had perpetrated to delude his fellow devils about his intended true use of it, a lie that ironically was coming true now. But the hammer could strike the indebted souls free of Raphael's bondage of them, once I wielded it with the intent to do so, and upon seeing what I was doing every damned soul in the place rushed eagerly towards me and fought as ineptly and inaccurately as they could, allowing me to strike them down and banish them from this plane. I made particularly sure to seek out and banish the Master Mason - we owed him that much.
"Oh wow oh wow that's so good!" Hope's astral projection flickered back into view. "Raphael's going to be soooo screwed when he sees this! BUT THE DEVILS GUARDING MY PRISON WON'T DIE THAT EASILY." Hope sniffled. "He doesn't use damned souls for me, you see. I'm too hopeful for them..."
Hope's prison was a cavern underneath the main level of the House of Hope, guarded by five imps and two spectators. Wyll demonstated exactly why the Blade of Frontiers had been a legend of the Sword Coast when he solo'ed one of the spectators, the crazy bastard - his warlock powers let him cast a Darkness spell to render it helpless and blind, his devil-sight let him see through his own darkness, and then he simply impaled each one of its eyes in turn with its rapier while it was unable to use its gaze weapons due to lack of a target. I used my anti-magic to withstand the ray attacks of the other spectator while Karlach and I beat it to pieces, and Gale summoned an air elemental to distract the imps and then froze them all with a Cone of Cold.
Hope herself floated in the center of the chamber, suspended by two beams of red energy from two infernal crystals in the same way Orpheus had been. Two mighty blows with the hammer were all it to to set her free.
"Free!" Hope leapt ecstatically up and town. "Never thought I would be, barely believed I could be, always hoped I might be!" She sighed and continued more fearfully. "But we might address the hollyphant in the room. I see how you all look at me... I must be so terribly, terribly mutilated after all those decades of torture..."
"Hope... you're beautiful." I insisted. Because she really was - Raphael had preserved her entirely intact, and she was a lovely young woman. My heart was entirely elsewhere but even I could still notice that.
"I'd blush if I had any skin left to redden, and I'd kiss you if they hadn't torn off my lips." Hope replied quietly. "Thank you."
"I think you might still be under several of Raphael's illusions." I said. "But we can deal with that later. Right now we've got to get back to the portal chamber."
"Yes!" Hope insisted. "We'll carve our way back to the entrance hell and chop Raphael into messes. That's the hopeful version of course. The likely version is that we'll be the messes and he'll be the chopper!"
"Any advice for fighting him?" Karlach asked quickly before Hope could fugue out again. Raphael must have been working her over for years-
"Make sure he sees me with you." Hope insisted. "He'll be as mad as all get-out when he sees me walking free, and he makes mistakes when he's mad." Hope tried to smile. "I never signed, you see. He wanted me to sign so badly, like my sister had, but no matter what he did to me I told him to just go fuck off! That's why he renamed his house after me, or renamed me after his house, I'm never sure which. It was like I was the embodiment of hope, and hope is everything he wants to crush. Breaking me became a point of pride to him, but joke's on him!" She twitched. "I hope..."
"Let's move." I insisted, and we ran back to the foyer we'd entered through as quickly as we could. We all gasped in relief when we saw the chamber empty and clear, and the portal back to Baldur's Gate and the Devil's Fee still open and humming merrily away. Without breaking stride we all headed towards the portal at a dead run-
-and screeched to a despairing halt as the portal winked out of existence barely five feet in front of us.
Time seemed to slow down as the air became thick enough to drink. A giant red nimbus of energy exploded in mid-air, and solidifed to reveal Raphael.
"You." he snarled, his voice as thick and furred as that of a beast's. He snapped his fingers, and more figures began to materialize in flashes of flame. A female dwarf who looked very much like Hope, only with her expression twisted and sour and her hair done up in elaborate braids instead of Hope's simple coiffure. The towering figure of Yurgir, flanking his employer Raphael like a loyal bodyguard as the orthon loomed imposingly over the entire tableau. Multiple armed cambions, flashing into existence at all corners of the room to surround us.
"There are many things in your world that I loathe." Raphel snarled at us. "Litters of kittens. Chattering children. The noise and the chaos of it all. But in my world - in my house - there is order! And there is decorum!" he roared. "You came here uninvited, and you STOLE from me!" Raphael visibly fought to gather up the remaining scraps of his self-control. "And in doing so, you brought the chaos of your world into mine! I will not abide it!"
"Sister Korrilla!" Hope said to the dwarf. "This is your chance! Come with me and be free!"
"Come with you?" Korrilla sneered at her. "The only place you're going from here, sweet sister, is your grave." she laughed mockingly. "I told you I was the one who'd made the smarter choice! For decades I've lived with everything I could ever want, whlie you suffered in his kennel like the mongrel dog you are! I have no idea why he was ever so obsessed with you! I'd told him all along that you were an ignorant fool who would never give him what he wanted... and here you are." She turned to sneer at us. "And just look at you idiots. You could have taken the deal. You could have been smart and be forever famed as the heroes who'd saved the world. But now you're just going to crumble and burn, and nobody will even remember you existed."
"It is the fatal flaw of mortalkind." Raphael thundered. "Take away their freedom, and they call you a tyrant! Give them their freedom, and they become tyrants! If you'd only dealt fairly with me, then you'd have won! Instead you insist on repeating the folly of Karsus - over-reaching your limits and rebelling against the rightful order of things, and burning your world to ash with your hubris!"
"Wrong wrong wrong!" Hope shouted. "They will save their world and smash you to smithereens!"
"Oh, it's precisely that charming naivete that makes your company such a joy to me, Hope." Raphael laughed mockingly. "I'll even forgive your little rebellion enough to let you live... once you're suitably chastised."
"This isn't a rebellion, it's a revolt! I'm revolting!" Hope shouted back.
"Then Hope dies today!" Raphael screamed, his eyes wild with rage. "And as for you, Hawke, if you have any last words I'd suggest you make them quick. It will only take a moment to finish you." Raphael sneered.
"Funny. That's twice as long as Haarlep said it takes to finish you." I mocked him.
"YOU CONTEMPTIBLE CREATURE!" Raphael shrieked, and leapt forward to strangle me with his bare hands- forgetting his entire battle plan or to give any orders to his troops before starting the brawl. "Resilient Sphere!" Gale cast, just as we'd planned him to, and Raphael was trapped in an impenetrable bubble of force.
"Commander!" one of the cambions asked Yurgir. "What do we do?"
I winked at Yurgir... and he winked back.
"You die." Yurgir replied, and charged into the thick of Raphel's troops with reckless abandon. The broken bodies of cambions began to fly into the walls as the living infernal siege engine vented his rage upon them and Karlach and Wyll began to help. "Hawke! The pillars are full of souls, thousands of them! Raphael draws on them to augment his power! Smash them!" Yurgir cried.
Unfortunately, Raphael had thought ahead enough to shield his own soul containers from his soul-freeing hammer, even if I had found it useful for dealing with individual debtors. I'd barely managed to smash one pillar by main force, and Yurgir another one, before the duration of Gale's spell ended and Raphael was yet again free.
"You think you've defeated me?" Raphael raged. "And you, Yurgir! Your treachery will not go unpunished! I'll have you spend eternity as a lemure for this stunt!"
"That requires you to survive, Raphael." Yurgir replied with quiet menace. "Do you think I'm a fool just because I prefer to fight rather than scheme? I knew that you'd spend my entire term of service here trying to trick me into a more permanent bondage, just as you did with our first 'simple contract'. And I didn't like my odds of surviving that entire time without falling for one of your tricks. So when I saw that you and Hawke were heading towards a possible collision course, I made sure to give him this chance. I knew that if I did then it would end with you and him fighting to the death... and that you'd rely on me to tip the odds in your favor." Yurgir's laughter boomed. "I would never get a better chance to kill you."
"Foolish, foolish Yurgir." Raphael smiled. "You have vastly underestimated my power - especially given that you were only able to destroy half of my soul pillars." he sneered. "So even with your might added to these four adventurers, that won't be sufficient to save you."
"You know, Raphael, I'm almost glad you turned out to have one last hole card to play." I said calmly. "I was almost afraid that we were going to beat you all by ourselves... and then there would be a whole lot of other people who'd be annoyed with me that they didn't get a chance to get their licks in."
"Hawke, has the certainty of your imminent demise damaged your brain?" Raphael laughed. "You're in the depths of Avernus, in my own house! The piddling little portals of Mammon's Picklock can't reach here with my attention focused on blocking them, and your allies have no other way of breaching the planar gulf to get here! And since you had the prudence not to bring the Astral Prism into my domain, you can't even be smuggling them in your pocket."
"For a guy who comes up with what I'll acknowledge are some elegant plan As, you are far worse at coming up plan B than I expected." I said. "It's like you haven't even considered that the entire reason I'm stealing the Orphic Hammer in the first place is because I want to use it to set free the rightful ruler of the githyanki." I paused just long enough to let the realization start to sink in before I dropped the reveal. "And what are they most famous for again?"
And with that I gave a single squeeze to the githyanki device I'd had in my pouch - a githyanki signal beacon, one that was psionically linked to a twin beacon that could be used to track its counterpart down even at interplanar distances. And a dimensional portal opened up in the foyer right on cue, as my distress signal told the rest of the group - as well as Orpheus' Honor Guard - exactly where to have the githyanki planar travel adept open up his portal to send the reinforcements. Kith'rak Voss and Prelate L'ir'ic were the first two out of the portal, his Silver Sword and her ki-chargd fists raised proudly high. Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and half a dozen githyanki warrior-monks followed them.
Because the thing that the githyanki were most famed for was, of course, their mastery of planar travel.
Raphael was a very powerful devil, but he was now fighting three times as many people as he'd planned on with far fewer soldiers than he'd intended to have available. With Yurgir and me to help tank his blows while the rest of us surrounded him, Orpheus' honor guard had a free hand to smash all the remaining soul pillars and then provide a bulwark against late-arriving reinforcements. He acquitted himself respectably, and several of us had some noteworthy wounds we'd need Shadowheart or Hope to help us heal later, but at these odds the fight could only have one outcome. After we finally downed him Yurgir imploded his skull with a final spiteful crunch, and then his booming laughter rolled out to shake the very walls.
"FREE!" Yurgir celebrated joyously. "At long last, the trickster is dead - dead forever, as he died in Avernus!" He sighed with ultimate satisfaction. "You have my thanks, all of you, for your aid."
"I believe I owe you this." I handed back his infernal crossbow.
"You fought well. Strength as yours would have excelled in the Blood War." Yurgir complimented us. "And now I can finally return to the frontlines, without Raphael's infernal contract holding me back."
"We've got our own frontlines to return to, in Baldur's Gate." I said. "Good luck with your war."
"Good luck with your own." Yurgir nodded. "And given the size of the foe you hunt... when it comes time for your final battle against the elder brain, I will lend my strength to yours without further obligation. It will be a worthy battle indeed!"
"I never thought I'd be saying this to a devil... but we'll be glad to see you there." Wyll acknowledged him.
"Until we meet again." Yurgir nodded to us, and vanished in a flash of fire.
Author's Note: Hawke's plans are all turning into some variant of 'get the homies together and jump a motherfucker'. On the other hand, it keeps working...
If you help him out, or even just win his respect by killing him in the Gauntlet of Shar and then passing a sky-high Persuade check at the end of the House of Hope, then Yurgir is surprisingly chill for a literally baby-eating monster. He's brutal but straightforward, gladly helps you fight Raphael, comes in to ally with you again in the final battle against the Elder Brain, and never asks you for anything except what he's already gotten (his freedom from Raphael) and doesn't screw you. Raphael is one flavor of lawful evil. Yurgir's another flavor entirely.
In-game the Orphic Hammer has no special powers versus anything except Hope's or Orpheus' chains. Boooo-ring! I punched it up a little.
The bit about being able to insult Raphael with how bad he is in bed is entirely canon to the game, even if we used an entirely non-canon way to get it from the incubus. Then again, the canon route would have put this story in the NSFW forum, so...
And honestly, game, why doesn't Voss pitch in with some more help when we're trying to steal the Orphic Hammer? He's the guy we're stealing it for! I grant that in-game Orpheus' honor guard never survives because the Emperor manipulates you into killing them to save his ass and that's scripted with no way around it, but there are other Orpheus loyalists out there man.
And you all have my deepest, most sincerest apologies that I couldn't find any way to work in the single most awesome thing Raphael has ever done. But there was just no remotely in-character way to get Hawke to actually stand around long enough to let Raphael finish singing his own theme song.
"Sorry I'm late." I said - to Kith'rak Voss, not Raphael. I'd intended to show up for the rendezvous at Sharess' Caress a little earlier, but we'd kept getting sidetracked. The unexpected Sharran hostage crisis alone had taken up a good chunk of our morning, and I'd had to leave Shadowheart behind with most of the others to help get her parents settled in and start healing them up while I hurried to take care of this errand. The only people with me right now were Lae'zel and Jaheira.
When I'd arrived at Sharess' Caress I'd been expecting a tavern, or maybe an inn. I hadn't known enough about Faerunian lore to know that Sharess was the goddess of hedonism and sexuality, which was why one of Baldur's Gate's most opulent whorehouses - or 'festhalls' as the Faerunians liked to innocently rename them - had been named that. You could also rent luxurious suites here for non-sensual purposes, if you were willing to pay for them, and this would be perhaps the absolute last place that you'd expect to find a githyanki. They were famously ascetic and militaristic but also clannish and often xenophobic, so I thought that taking up residence here was simply part of Voss' concealing himself.
Until I arrived at the suite that had been 'permanently booked' for an 'illustrious client' to find the kith'rak arguing heatedly with the proverbial bad copper piece himself.
"Hawke!" Voss said relievedly. "Thank heavens you finally arrived. Maybe this insufferable devil will speak more productively with you."
"Oh, he certainly will." Raphael lounged arrogantly at us from a gilded armchair. "Because unlike you, Hawke actually has something that I want."
"When last we met, you said that you were on the trail of the key to unlock the prisoner's chains." I told Voss. "Let me guess - Raphael found it first, and is holding it to ransom."
"Ransom?" Raphael pouted. "Why my good man, you malign me most unfairly! I am the rightful owner of the- ah, but before we get down to the heart of the matter, we should first ensure our privacy." With an arrogant smirk Raphael raised one hand, poised to snap his fingers... and then hesitated in puzzlement. "That's odd. The insufferable illithid isn't monitoring you?"
"If you mean our erstwhile 'Guardian', he came down with a slight case of decapitation," I said as Voss and I both took our seats around the table. "Oh, and thank you very much for the seal you provided. Kith'rak. It proved instrumental in his defeat."
"If the would-be 'Emperor' is dead, then how do-?" Raphael blinked, before his eyes opened wide in realization. "You made it back inside the Prism and awakened Orpheus. And you came to amicable terms with him. That's the only way the Astral Prism would still be working to protect you without that annoying upstart's machinations."
"The Prince of the Comet is awake?" Voss gasped eagerly.
"Yes, and I'll be taking you to an audience with him as soon as we're done here." I glared at Raphael. "You've been building up to this ever since we first met you in that damned swamp. All right, I'm finally sitting down at the gametable. Now you need to convince me to actually touch a piece."
"I must admit, you have very much impressed me Hawke." Raphael said brightly. "Most people wouldn't have made it even this far. Many of those who might have would still be floundering around in the dark at this juncture. But you're not only scheming several moves ahead, you've already figured out at least some of my endgame. You have my most effusive and elaborate congratulations. Feel free to enjoy them."
"Get to the point, devil." Lae'zel growled.
"I like you, Hawke. Well... I respect you. Somewhat. So let me tell you what's going to happen. This way you can... prepare yourself." Raphael said smugly.
"All right." I motioned to him to go ahead.
"Soon you will finish obtaining the other two Netherstones by either fair means or foul, and then set out to confront the elder brain in its lair. You will of course have mustered all your allies, girded your loins, polished your armor, rehearsed your heroic speeches, et cetera, et cetera." Raphael waved a hand dismissively. "With the power of the Astral Prism to prevent you from succumbing to your tadpoles you will fight your way through the brain's last lines of defense and finally come face to tentacles with the Absolute itself." Raphael smiled. "And then it will crush all your minds without a thought, slay the last being in the universe who carries the genes for Gith's unique mutation, re-assimilate the Netherstones back into the crown, and rule all the known spheres as an ascended elder brain. The Grand Design reborn, with all of creation either thralls, food... or more ghaik."
"That will never happen so long as a single child of Mother Gith draws breath!" Voss thundered.
"And the elder brain will gladly accept those terms." Raphael shrugged. "But your failure is inevitable, Hawke. It's not even a question of courage, or willpower, or ability. It is but simple fact. The power of the elder brain, as augmented by the Crown of Karsus, will simply be too powerful for even Orpheus to shield you from once you enter direct mental contact with the brain."
"Unless we unshackle him." I'd already gotten this far once Raphael had given me the start of it - after all, we'd already known that Orpheus could only exert a tithe of his power while he was still restrained.
"And allow him to wield his full power once again." Raphael nodded. "There was a possible alternative of having Orpheus' unique mind and powers assimilated by a illithid devouring his brain... but you foreclosed that option yourself before I could even advise you to do it." He smiled. "It is as I already told you outside the Gauntlet of Shar, Hawke. The more brilliantly you figure out my schemes, the more you deliver yourself right into the palm of my hand." He held out and then elaborately closed said palm. "Your only path to victory now requires the Orphic Hammer, the one artifact in all the planes that can shatter the infernal chains my peers forged to encage Orpheus in the first place. And that hammer lies where it has been ever since the day I originally commissioned its creation - in the most secure vault of the House of Hope." Raphael leaned forward imposingly with a wicked smile. "So you will deal with me and meet my price, Saer Hawke. You simply have no other option."
"A likely story." Jaheira snorted. "But do you think us fools? Orpheus only began to become relevant to whatever your schemes were after the Astral Prism was stolen in the first place, and that was very recently! The key to Orpheus' chains was forged at the same time he was chained, centuries ago!"
"You forget yourself, my good Harper." Raphael said equably. "Why would the first Vlaakith ever commission a key for a prisoner that she never intended to release? When Orpheus' chains were first forged, it was the intent of both pacter and pacted that he remain bound for eternity. The creation of the Orphic Hammer was my idea, and came much, much later."
"What do you want?" I said exasperatedly. Admittedly, I'd already had Gortash tell me this, but the more ignorant Raphael believed I was the better.
"You want to destroy the elder brain, and in so doing make yourself the great hero of Baldur's Gate." Raphael said smoothly. "To save the city, the entire Sword Coast, quite likely the entire world... oh, and your own precious skin and that of your beloved, as well. How fortunate for you that I am opposed to absolutely none of this! Indeed, I'm eager to help you fulfill those dreams... in return for just one little thing that you will no longer need once the elder brain is dead." He let out a long, slow breath of anticipation. "The Crown of Karsus. Swear to give it over to me once the elder brain is defeated - seal yourself to this pact - and I shall give you the Orphic Hammer immediately. I wouldn't even make your soul part of the bargain... except as the penalty for breach of contract, of course."
"Take the deal!" Voss urged me immediately. "Whatever this Crown is, it matters less than the fate of both my people and your world!"
"Giving the Crown to Raphael would be like feeding a barrel of runepowder to a fire elemental." I said. "It's the most powerful artifact in the world, and would very likely let someone elevate himself to the status of an archdevil."
"To the status of the Archdevil." Raphael grinned eagerly. "An Archdevil Supreme, to at long last unify and rule over all the Nine Hells themselves! Oh, when I first saw the Crown of Karsus on the day that ancient Netheril fell, I openly wept to see such beauty! The mad genius of Karsus had forged a Crown imbued with all the power of magic itself, a Crown that would make any who wore it a god. It was as if someone had taken the very concept of ambition itself and crystallized it, forged it, into a perfect jewel." Raphael's face turned thunderous. "And then my insipid father snatched up the Crown before I could, and did nothing with it! The key to such power, such glory, in the palm of his hand... and he filed it away in a box!"
He rose rapidly to his feet and began to pace with vexation as he fumed madly. "That foolish, blind, short-sighted, lethargic archivist! For centuries I schemed and I plotted and I planned, but my every attempt was forestalled before I could even make them! So much power, so much potential, and all rendered inert by his cowardice! He made a miracle into a museum piece!" Raphael suddenly stopped pacing and began to laugh. "Until Gortash of all people dared to commission a heist on the vaults of Mephistopheles himself." He snorted. "And then that young man placed the Crown directly on the head of a being far superior to him and tried to walk that being on a leash like a dog. And now he's trapped by the consequences of his own mad ambitions, with no way out. What a fool. But... a fool whose foolishness has given me a wonderful opportunity to exploit." He turned back and grinned menacingly down at us. "So learn from his example and don't be a fool as well, Hawke. Swear to give me the Crown, and your victory is assured." He shrugged. "Or don't, and march on to your inevitable defeat."
"If we fail, doesn't that mean that you will never obtain your heart's desire either?" Jaheira probed.
"No, it merely means that I have to wait centuries longer." Raphael said. "Frustrating, yes, but hardly an insurmountable task. Even if it wins victory here and now the would-be 'Absolute' will eventually do something that gives me another opportunity. The only people here facing their last chance to salvage their situation are you four."
"I'm not deciding one way or the other until I've had an opportunity to discuss this with my entire team." I said matter-of-factly.
"Fair enough." Raphael nodded back. "Even with the Hammer your victory will still require all your people to be well-organized and on point. And Sharess' Caress is one of my favorite watering holes, so I'll have ample opportunity to amuse myself while I wait here for your reply." He shrugged. "Don't dally too long, though. The elder brain is closer to breaking free than you think, and if you haven't obtained all three Netherstones and the Orphic Hammer by then...?"
"I understand." I said. "Come on, everyone. We've got a tight schedule."
"I... understand your desire to make sure your team is unified behind you." Voss said as we paced away. "I even agree that it's necessary for victory. But to have the key to his freedom within our grasp, and then deny it-?"
"To give such a powerful artifact to such a devil is a horrible idea." Jaheira agreed. "But what else can we do?"
"Hawke has already thought of that something else before he ever decided to leave the room, or I have learned nothing in all my time with him." Lae'zel said smugly.
"I don't want to say anything until we're back with the others." I answered.
We arrived back at the Elfsong and I brought everyone up to date. The Hallowleafs had passed out after their exertions today and Isobel's first healing session with them, and were sleeping quietly in the next room under Nocturne's supervision.
"All right, you said you'd speak freely when we got back. But what makes you think he can't monitor us here?" Jaheira asked.
"Because he was actually surprised to find out that we'd killed the Emperor." I said. "And while we did that inside the Astral Prism, we talked about it later outside... and yet he still didn't know. Which given how closely he'd been monitoring us earlier, and how smug he was about that knowledge in all our earlier conversations with him-"
"Aylin." Lae'zel realized. "Every other conversation we had with Raphael was prior to her joining us. He cannot closely monitor us while we are in the direct presence of the celestial."
"He likely could... but not without my sensing his presence, however he tried to shield himself." Aylin agreed. "Which I do not... wait, a devil approaches!"
With a flash of brimstone a silent, masked merregon devil materialized in the corner. Aylin's drawn greatsword was met with a simple raise of its empty hands, as it clearly signaled 'Not here to fight'. It then reached into its pouch and withdrew a folded note, which it handed to me.
You've had your meeting with him, so now it's time for you to be given this message..
To enter his house without his knowledge, seek out Mammon's Picklock at the Devil's Fee.
Be warned - even if you successfully sneak in, you will have to fight your way out.
As repayment for this advice I want the Hellfire Crossbow, if you ever get a chance to hand it to me.
Good luck and good hunting. Destroy this message.
I tossed the note in the fire and nodded to the merregon, which vanished.
"That was Yurgir." I said. "I wasn't expecting to hear from him, but apparently Raphael's newest disgruntled employee was happy to tell us how to sneak into the House of Hope."
"That was your plan." Lae'zel grinned. "To steal the Hammer without pacting for it."
"Ever since the moment Raphael made the mistake of telling me where the Orphic Hammer was in the middle of all his bragging and boasting." I agreed. "So first we'll need to step inside the Prism again and bring Orpheus up to speed on everything that's happened."
"And then?" Shadowheart asked.
"And then I need to go talk to the only other person we know who's ever been there before." I replied.
"I seem to be spending this entire accursed day telling you how I am not allowed to help you." Aylin fumed, her feathers actually starting to ruffle out of place in the depths of her frustration.
"Yeah, was pretty sure the rules wouldn't allow you to go crusading into Hell without permission from higher up." Karlach agreed. "That would be defying the celestial order and all... and we both knew somebody else who made that mistake and where she ended up."
"Zariel the Fallen." Aylin agreed. "In addition, we have been more than adequately safeguarding our own camp against the servants of Bhaal... but now we have the Hallowleafs and Nocturne to watch over, who are far more vulnerable. For the duration I must concentrate almost entirely on safeguarding our base of operations, and Isobel must remain with me to help care for our invalids."
"You'll also need to watch over the Astral Prism until we get back." I told Aylin. "We won't need it while we're on another plane of existence from the elder brain, and I damn sure don't want to risk losing it down there."
"Certainly not!" Voss agreed emphatically.
"But the rest of are all gearing up for this expedition, right?" Wyll asked.
"That part of the planning I'm still working on." I admitted.
'Mammon's Picklock' turned out to be Helsik, a female dwarf who owned an alchemy shop in the Lower City named 'The Devil's Fee'. She'd cleverly hidden her actual activities as a diabolist and agent of the NIne Hells underneath a pose of merely being an alchemist and trinkets vendor who had a fetish for infernally-themed curios. And for an extremely large fee in gold, that we'd managed to bargain down to a promise to fetch her another artifact from Raphael's vaults instead, she was willing to sell us a route to the Hells by which we could sneak in and burgle the place. Amusingly, she was the same person that Gortash and his fellow Chosen of Bhaal had contracted with for their theft - even if Yurgir hadn't tipped us off, we'd still have been able to come here.
Since Gortash had lived in the House of Hope as a young slave, I had of course consulted him before starting our theft. And while his knowledge of the layout of the House of Hope was several decades old and only limited to those rooms he'd had access to, it was still far better preparation for us than jumping in blind. He'd also been able to explain to us that our only hope of moving around inside would be to disguise ourselves as damned souls or mortal slaves, much like he himself had been at one time. This meant that we couldn't take in the entire group, as a party of eight or more moving around with purpose would be a dead giveaway. After much debate we'd finally pared the entry team down to myself, Karlach, Wyll, and Gale, as the two people in the party who had the most experience dealing with infernal matters as well as our main magical support.
Helsik had given us a set of ritual materials and exact instructions, as well as free access to the elaborate ritual circle she had engraved in the floor of the sanctum she kept above her shop. She'd refused to do any of it herself, though, citing 'plausible deniability'. Fortunately for us, as a servant of Mammon she was anything but friendly with the factions of either Zariel or Mephistopheles. And the House of Hope was located on Avernus, in the domain of Zariel, as well as being owned by one of Mephistopheles' cambion sons.
We stepped through the flaming portal to arrive in an elaborately furnished foyer. Four pillars each set in one corner of the room glowed a pale eldritch green, very unsettlingly.
"Avernus." Karlach said lowly. "Even with all the boudoir atmosphere and perfume Raphael's got spread around here, you still can't miss the brimstone." She gulped. "Boss? Not that I'm going to dip out on you or anything, but I'm scared shitless."
"I'm sorry I felt obligated to ask you." I said. "But we needed you. You've fought more devils than the rest of our group put together."
"Yeah." Karlach agreed. "But- anyway, we need to find some disguises so we look like all the other damned souls stuck down here paying off our debts. But there's none in the room-"
"You came. Such a shame." a soft female voice interrupted us, and we all spun around to stare incredulously at the astral projection of a beautiful redheaded female dwarf in faded clerical robes that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Curiosity killed all the cats, but it won't be so kind to you!" she wailed. There was a distant rattle of chains and she winced in pain. "The jailer will hear us! I shouldn't be talking to you! I need to go... it's not kind to me." she whispered urgently as she started to fade.
"Please don't go!" Karlach insisted. "Maybe we can help you?"
"Help me?" she echoed. "That's ridiculous, you can't even help yourselves. You're mice trying to steal the cat's bells, and soon enough the cat will stop being away..."
"I'm Hawke." I tried to refocus the barely-coherent woman. "Who are you?"
"Who am I?" she begged. "That's my favorite question. I scream it into the dark while I sleep, and whisper it to my memories when I wake. I'm the thing that kills you, and the only reason you stay alive. I'm made by a promise, and unmade by the truth. A handshake, a hug, the first beat of a newborn's heart..."
"You're Hope." Gale said wonderingly. "And this is supposed to be your house, not his."
"Hope." she echoed faintly. "That's what he calls me. That's why I'm kept here. It wasn't even my real name, but it's all I've got left..." Hope visibly tried to refocus herself. "I'm not much of a friend to anyone anymore, but I could use a friend myself. Do you want a friend to help guide you through this madhouse?"
"How can we free you?" I asked.
"The hammer breaks my chains." Hope whispered.
"Where's the vault?" Wyll asked quietly.
"The vault is the archives. The archivist is the vault keeper." Hope chanted. "Sssh-ssh-ssh! If the jailor hears he'll call Raphael and then we'll all be screaming so loud..."
"How can we sneak through the House?" I asked.
"You can't creep, because most everybody here's dead and the dead never sleep!" Hope giggled. "But being dead and damned makes them pretty stupid so I'll provide a glamor. Make you look lost and wretched so nobody raises a clamor." Hope raised her hands and with a flare of magic we were all cloaked in an illusion - instead of our gleaming armor and weapons we now wore chains and rags, as despondent as any other lost souls.
"Now find the key, take the hammer, and smash my chains!" Hope insisted. "Find the KEY, take the HAMMER. smash my CHAINS! And remember, once you touch the hammer the fire will come. He'll know, and he'll come, so you'll have to run run run!" Hope suddenly convulsed in agony. "But don't forget me, please please please!" Hope trailed off in a whisper. "I don't want to burn. Not again."
"We'll come for you, we promise." I urged her. "Now stay safe."
"You seem nice. I really hope you don't stay." Hope smiled weakly, and faded away.
There was only one set of doors leading out of the foyer and it led to a very familiar chamber - the grand dining room in which Raphael had first regaled us, when he'd temporarily taken us into the House of Hope. There was a short stairway leading up to a door at each point of the compass. I noted with grim interest that while the elaborate furnishings and decor were the same, the food heaped upon the table was now rotten filth, covered with maggots and flies.
"Damn, good thing we didn't eat any the first time." Karlach gulped. "I feel sick to my stomach just looking at it."
"Filth and ruin sold underneath an illusion of wealth and beauty." Wyll said. "How typically diabolical."
"If you're going to pose as debtors, you'll need to act better than that." an old man's voice greeted us. We all turned to notice a servant that we'd overlooked in all of our gaping around - a hooded skeleton in a long black robe, still holding the broom he'd been sweeping the floor with.
"Not calling for help?" Gale asked idly, as he prepared to spellcast-
"I sold my soul to Raphael, and in fulfillment of this obligation I helped rebuild this house and now must help maintain it for eternity." the skeleton said. "Nothing in my contract obligates me to either fight or spy for him. And I am not fond of him."
"Was selling your soul really worth it?" Wyll asked. "Sorry, impolite question, I know. But I did the same once, and it wasn't worth it for me."
"My mortal life was already in the thrall of a great and horrible evil even before I pacted or died, young man." the skeleton said amusedly. "I had very little left to lose. And while Raphael has been a cruel master, he has done very little to me that Ketheric Thorm already hadn't."
"Ketheric-?" I startled. "You're the Master Mason of Reithwin! Or what's left of him. You sold yourself so that Raphael would send someone to slay the Dark Justiciars in their barracks."
"You've been to Reithwin?" the Master Mason wondered. "But it was destroyed. The Shadow Curse swallowed everything, and Myrkul eventually raised Thorm from the dead to continue his depredations. Raphael took exquisite pleasure in telling me how even Thorm's defeat did not save my home..."
"Yeah, well, not surprisingly he left out all the good news." Karlach said. "It's been a century and change since all that happened but Ketheric Thorm's finally dead again, for good this time. Moonrise Towers is getting cleaned out. And the druids and the Harpers finally broke the Shadow Curse. Word of honor - we were there!"
"At last." the Master Mason gasped with relief. "Then... we finally won." He exhaled with pure satisfaction. "As damned as I am and forever will be, it still gladdens my heart to hear that.
"If you want to help get one over on Raphael, could you tell us which way is the archives?" Karlach asked.
"Through that door and straight ahead." the Master Mason pointed. "Sadly I lost my key somewhere-" He deliberately pulled a key out of his robe and dropped it right on the floor in front of us as he said this. "But I'm sure you'll find a way to open it on your own."
I pocketed the key and nodded to him. The key opened the west door leading out of the feast chamber without any trouble, and directly across the hall from us was the archives.
"Right. According to Gortash, the Archivist was so beaten down by Raphael that he was mindlessly afraid of authority figures." I said. "So all we need now is to convince him that we are one."
"No worries, I got this." Karlach said. "We're in Avernus - Zariel's domain. Her High Inquisitor is called Verillius Receptor. Absolutely terrifying bitch, everybody was scared shitless of her. Not least because she loved to go around in disguise, so you never knew if you were talking to her until it was too late."
"Right." I said, and we formed up and marched boldly into the archives. The Archives were more properly a museum, with several artifacts or particularly treasured contracts each visible on their own podium in an alcove. The Archivist was a middle-aged male tiefling in a robe and hood, who came over to greet us in a polite yet distant manner
"Visitors?" the Archivist said mildly. "I trust you are authorized to be here?"
"I don't know whether to note you down favorably for diligence or unfavorably for insolence." Karlach sneered. "Still, it's a better start to an audit than some I've had. I am Verillius Receptor, High Inquisitor of Zariel, and I am here to inspect this collection as per the agreement."
"A thousand apologies, oh majestic magistrate of the infernal court." the Archivist groveled. "Your tiefling disguise was so exquisite that I found it entirely convincing. I would prostrate myself before you and kiss your scars, but my spine is ruptured in a thousand places. You know Raphael likes to... play." He bowed again. "As always, the Archive is yours to peruse. You'll find everything accounted for, and I can present certificates of procurement if necessary."
"I'm here to verify the Orphic Hammer." Karlach stated arrogantly. "Where is it?"
"Ah, the gem of the special collection." the Archivist said smarmily. "My infinite regrets that I cannot unseal it for you. Raphael alone has the password necessary to unseal its containment barrier." He waved his hand at the far end of the chamber, where an opaque spherical force field surrounded one of the exhibits. "You are of course entirely at liberty to await the master's return in his own private quarters. I shall provide you with a writ of entrance." He withdrew a sealed scroll from his robes and handed it to Karlach.
She turned and swept out of the chamber without a word, and in our pose as loyal retainers we dumbly followed her.
"Shit." Karlach swore as we made it to the hallway outside. The hallway ran around the circumference of the House of Hope in a wide circle, with the feast chamber providing a shortcut across the center. The private quarters were on the north side of this level of the House of Hope, just as the archives were on the west.
A magical barrier across the door to Raphael's quarters dissolved smoothly to let us through into an opulent set of chambers for which the word 'seraglio' was the only adequate description. Decadence of every variety was on display, from the sculptures to the paintings to the furnishings.
"Oh? More visitors?" a very familiar voice greeted us as we froze in terror. Raphael came around the corner from behind an ornamental screen-
"What in Limbo are you wearing?" Gale goggled. Because Raphael was dressed in some leather fetish wear that would have been considered too risque for the Blooming Rose back in Kirkwall, let alone Sharess' Caress.
"Oh gods! I thought I knew all the torments of the hells, but I never imagined! I'd rather bathe my eyes in lava than look at that again!" Karlach winced.
"I am never going to look at Raphael the same way ever again." Wyll was trying not to laugh.
"Laugh all you like." the devil said disgruntledly. "It's not like I chose to wear this. I generally prefer to bring some actual class to my seductions, but no. He insists I wear these incredibly tacky clothes and-" he sighed. "I'm an incubus, darling, so I'm hardly opposed to nudity, let alone skimpy clothing. But bad fashion? Archdevils spare me, I positively loathe this assignment."
"If you're not Raphael, what are you doing in his bedroom wearing his face?" I asked.
"Indulging the carnal appetites of a pathological narcissist." the devil pouted. "Sadly, my patron insists that I remain here to both help keep an eye on his wayward offspring and distract him, and Raphael insists that we play our little bedroom games with me shapeshifted into his body and wearing... this." The incubus pouted. "And he bottoms as well, would you believe that?"
"Too much information!" I cried out. "Can we please change the subject to something more wholesome than Raphael's incredibly sad love life, like, I don't know, murder? And wait, did you say that Mephistopheles placed you here to watch over him? Does Raphael know that?'
"No, he doesn't, and it's a measure of how incredibly frustrated I am at this horrible assignment that I actually said that out loud." the incubus said. "Oh well, I hadn't planned to exert myself today, but-" He flexed his fingers and began to extend his claws-
"Before this devolves to the violence level, would you like to buy some information on Raphael's latest plot against Mephistopheles... and how you could ruin it all before it gets going?" I said. "If it's valuable enough, then it might get you relieved of this assignment."
"I'm all ears." the incubus smarmed. "But I doubt that any word of his latest petty plot would do much to convince my superiors to let me leave."
"He knows where the Crown of Karsus is, and he's trying to blackmail a group of mortal adventurers into giving to him once they've retrieved it by holding an artifact they absolutely need to save their world to ransom for it." I said.
"Oh." the incubus stated hollowly. "Yes, that's decidedly not petty at all. But which adventurers? What artifact?"
"The Orphic Hammer, and the people you're talking to right now." I said. "We came here to steal it so that we wouldn't need to take his deal. And if you help us steal it, then that's Raphael's little plot frustrated. Do you know where he stores the password to that section of the archives is?"
"Why darling, I know the password." the incubus smirked. "Pillow talk. And... hmmm, yes, I think that this will work. You do know that password or no password, the instant you touch the hammer he'll be alerted and come right back here, yes?"
"We know." Wyll agreed. "But this works out for you either way. If we succeed in stealing the hammer, that's Raphael dead and you'll be free of this assignment. And if we fail, all the witnesses are dead without you having to lift a finger."
"Win-win." the incubus agreed. "My favorite kind of deal. Very well, the password is 'Give me my heart's desire'."
"... was he even trying?" I sighed.
"Sometimes I wonder." the incubus pouted. "At any rate, good luck with your theft. Oh, and if you actually do by some miracle manage to defeat Raphael then could you please pass on a message from me before he departs?" It smirked. "Tell him that Haarlep says that he was absolutely shit in bed, and that I never enjoyed a minute of it."
"Thank you very much for your help." I stated, and we got out of the boudoir as fast as we possibly could.
"Well, that was a giant pile of I really didn't want to know." Karlach sighed as we walked back to the archives.
"Fortunately we're going to be up to our ears in almost everything in this house trying to kill us in several minutes." I said. "When we get to the archives, you get behind the Archivist while I take the Orphic Hammer. As soon as the alarm goes off, cut him down."
"Got it." Wyll nodded.
We arrived back at the Archives and took our places. "Give me my heart's desire." I stated confidently and the force field faded away. The Orphic Hammer was revealed - an artifact warhammer made of pure infernal iron, with a large red crystal of solidifed hellfire for the head. It was sized so that it could be wielded either one or two-handed.
"What's the history on this artifact again?" Karlach asked in her guise as the Inquisitor, leading him over to be in better position for the kill.
"Ah yes." the Archivist said proudly. "My master had that hammer forged not as a weapon, but as an insurance policy. Its core is a metalliferous compound combining the purest essence of all nine of the hells. My master planned ahead, you see - sometimes it is far better to strip away souls from your rival than to harvest your own, and with this hammer any bound soul may be freed of infernal bonds."
I was awestruck with realization - not necessarily at the power of the Orphic Hammer, but at the Archivists' words. I now understood what Withers had meant about the plot of the Dead Three. The fact that illithid conversion destroyed the souls of people was not a consequence they had foolishly overlooked, but their true goal all along. For if the entire souled population of Toril were obliterated save for their own most faithful... then no god would have any worship empowering them any longer except for the Dead Three. Even when reduced only to the status of quasi-deity they would still be able to reign freely on the Prime and have supreme authority among the gods... because if the Absolute converted the souls of all Toril to illithids, then the lack of worship would within a single generation wither away all gods save the Dead Three into nothingness. A cosmic extension of the particular precept of Bane that Gortash had boasted about to me in our first meeting - that you could strengthen your own power as much by denying alliances to your enemy as you could by claiming them for yourself.
No wonder Mystra had demanded that Gale blow himself up to destroy the Absolute. If we failed here, we were facing the end of everything. And if she'd only thought to tell us about that-
-well, then we'd all already be dead when Gale had destroyed himself and everyone in or under Moonrise Towers. So I was still of distinctly mixed feelings on that issue.
Without hesitation I reached out and picked up the hammer, and Wyll stabbed the Archivist in the back before he could react. The lights flickered and went dim, and wailing alarms echoed through every corner of the House of Hope.
Hope's astral projection flickered into view. "Now I've got good news, bad news, and worst news! Good news, you got what you came for! Successful visit, great success, fantastic work!" she gushed while eagerly jumping up and down. "Bad news, so many things are going to be on fire when you step out of this room - you included!" She blinked. "But that's okay, right? I mean, it's Hell. You expected it to be hot."
"Thanks for reminding us." I said, and we each of us - except Karlach, who had it naturally as part of being a tiefling - drank the fire resistance potions that Gale had prepared for this occasion.
"WORST NEWS, RAPHAEL IS ON HIS WAY HOME AND OH BOY IS HE SPITTING MAD!" Hope shrieked. "But you planned for this, I know you did, you have everything under control..." she babbled. "IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DON'T PANIC EVEN WHEN YOUR EYEBALLS EVAPORATE FROM THE HEAT!" She flinched. "Come to my prison, east side hatch, break my chains, and then we'll exit stage anywhichwaywecan!" She breathed deeply. "Please?"
"We're on our way!" I assured her, and after swiping the gauntlets that Helsik had wanted us to grab for her we all broke into a dead run.
Hope hadn't understated things - as soon as we stepped outside the archives, literally every damned soul we saw was trying to kill us. Raphael's ownership of them forced them to the attack even when they didn't want to, and they had no choice.
But I had the Orphic Hammer, which Raphael had forged specifically to free damned souls from infernal bondage. Its ability to destroy the infernal chains sealing Orpheus was merely a bonus - the name of the hammer must have been a misdirection Raphael had perpetrated to delude his fellow devils about his intended true use of it, a lie that ironically was coming true now. But the hammer could strike the indebted souls free of Raphael's bondage of them, once I wielded it with the intent to do so, and upon seeing what I was doing every damned soul in the place rushed eagerly towards me and fought as ineptly and inaccurately as they could, allowing me to strike them down and banish them from this plane. I made particularly sure to seek out and banish the Master Mason - we owed him that much.
"Oh wow oh wow that's so good!" Hope's astral projection flickered back into view. "Raphael's going to be soooo screwed when he sees this! BUT THE DEVILS GUARDING MY PRISON WON'T DIE THAT EASILY." Hope sniffled. "He doesn't use damned souls for me, you see. I'm too hopeful for them..."
Hope's prison was a cavern underneath the main level of the House of Hope, guarded by five imps and two spectators. Wyll demonstated exactly why the Blade of Frontiers had been a legend of the Sword Coast when he solo'ed one of the spectators, the crazy bastard - his warlock powers let him cast a Darkness spell to render it helpless and blind, his devil-sight let him see through his own darkness, and then he simply impaled each one of its eyes in turn with its rapier while it was unable to use its gaze weapons due to lack of a target. I used my anti-magic to withstand the ray attacks of the other spectator while Karlach and I beat it to pieces, and Gale summoned an air elemental to distract the imps and then froze them all with a Cone of Cold.
Hope herself floated in the center of the chamber, suspended by two beams of red energy from two infernal crystals in the same way Orpheus had been. Two mighty blows with the hammer were all it to to set her free.
"Free!" Hope leapt ecstatically up and town. "Never thought I would be, barely believed I could be, always hoped I might be!" She sighed and continued more fearfully. "But we might address the hollyphant in the room. I see how you all look at me... I must be so terribly, terribly mutilated after all those decades of torture..."
"Hope... you're beautiful." I insisted. Because she really was - Raphael had preserved her entirely intact, and she was a lovely young woman. My heart was entirely elsewhere but even I could still notice that.
"I'd blush if I had any skin left to redden, and I'd kiss you if they hadn't torn off my lips." Hope replied quietly. "Thank you."
"I think you might still be under several of Raphael's illusions." I said. "But we can deal with that later. Right now we've got to get back to the portal chamber."
"Yes!" Hope insisted. "We'll carve our way back to the entrance hell and chop Raphael into messes. That's the hopeful version of course. The likely version is that we'll be the messes and he'll be the chopper!"
"Any advice for fighting him?" Karlach asked quickly before Hope could fugue out again. Raphael must have been working her over for years-
"Make sure he sees me with you." Hope insisted. "He'll be as mad as all get-out when he sees me walking free, and he makes mistakes when he's mad." Hope tried to smile. "I never signed, you see. He wanted me to sign so badly, like my sister had, but no matter what he did to me I told him to just go fuck off! That's why he renamed his house after me, or renamed me after his house, I'm never sure which. It was like I was the embodiment of hope, and hope is everything he wants to crush. Breaking me became a point of pride to him, but joke's on him!" She twitched. "I hope..."
"Let's move." I insisted, and we ran back to the foyer we'd entered through as quickly as we could. We all gasped in relief when we saw the chamber empty and clear, and the portal back to Baldur's Gate and the Devil's Fee still open and humming merrily away. Without breaking stride we all headed towards the portal at a dead run-
-and screeched to a despairing halt as the portal winked out of existence barely five feet in front of us.
Time seemed to slow down as the air became thick enough to drink. A giant red nimbus of energy exploded in mid-air, and solidifed to reveal Raphael.
"You." he snarled, his voice as thick and furred as that of a beast's. He snapped his fingers, and more figures began to materialize in flashes of flame. A female dwarf who looked very much like Hope, only with her expression twisted and sour and her hair done up in elaborate braids instead of Hope's simple coiffure. The towering figure of Yurgir, flanking his employer Raphael like a loyal bodyguard as the orthon loomed imposingly over the entire tableau. Multiple armed cambions, flashing into existence at all corners of the room to surround us.
"There are many things in your world that I loathe." Raphel snarled at us. "Litters of kittens. Chattering children. The noise and the chaos of it all. But in my world - in my house - there is order! And there is decorum!" he roared. "You came here uninvited, and you STOLE from me!" Raphael visibly fought to gather up the remaining scraps of his self-control. "And in doing so, you brought the chaos of your world into mine! I will not abide it!"
"Sister Korrilla!" Hope said to the dwarf. "This is your chance! Come with me and be free!"
"Come with you?" Korrilla sneered at her. "The only place you're going from here, sweet sister, is your grave." she laughed mockingly. "I told you I was the one who'd made the smarter choice! For decades I've lived with everything I could ever want, whlie you suffered in his kennel like the mongrel dog you are! I have no idea why he was ever so obsessed with you! I'd told him all along that you were an ignorant fool who would never give him what he wanted... and here you are." She turned to sneer at us. "And just look at you idiots. You could have taken the deal. You could have been smart and be forever famed as the heroes who'd saved the world. But now you're just going to crumble and burn, and nobody will even remember you existed."
"It is the fatal flaw of mortalkind." Raphael thundered. "Take away their freedom, and they call you a tyrant! Give them their freedom, and they become tyrants! If you'd only dealt fairly with me, then you'd have won! Instead you insist on repeating the folly of Karsus - over-reaching your limits and rebelling against the rightful order of things, and burning your world to ash with your hubris!"
"Wrong wrong wrong!" Hope shouted. "They will save their world and smash you to smithereens!"
"Oh, it's precisely that charming naivete that makes your company such a joy to me, Hope." Raphael laughed mockingly. "I'll even forgive your little rebellion enough to let you live... once you're suitably chastised."
"This isn't a rebellion, it's a revolt! I'm revolting!" Hope shouted back.
"Then Hope dies today!" Raphael screamed, his eyes wild with rage. "And as for you, Hawke, if you have any last words I'd suggest you make them quick. It will only take a moment to finish you." Raphael sneered.
"Funny. That's twice as long as Haarlep said it takes to finish you." I mocked him.
"YOU CONTEMPTIBLE CREATURE!" Raphael shrieked, and leapt forward to strangle me with his bare hands- forgetting his entire battle plan or to give any orders to his troops before starting the brawl. "Resilient Sphere!" Gale cast, just as we'd planned him to, and Raphael was trapped in an impenetrable bubble of force.
"Commander!" one of the cambions asked Yurgir. "What do we do?"
I winked at Yurgir... and he winked back.
"You die." Yurgir replied, and charged into the thick of Raphel's troops with reckless abandon. The broken bodies of cambions began to fly into the walls as the living infernal siege engine vented his rage upon them and Karlach and Wyll began to help. "Hawke! The pillars are full of souls, thousands of them! Raphael draws on them to augment his power! Smash them!" Yurgir cried.
Unfortunately, Raphael had thought ahead enough to shield his own soul containers from his soul-freeing hammer, even if I had found it useful for dealing with individual debtors. I'd barely managed to smash one pillar by main force, and Yurgir another one, before the duration of Gale's spell ended and Raphael was yet again free.
"You think you've defeated me?" Raphael raged. "And you, Yurgir! Your treachery will not go unpunished! I'll have you spend eternity as a lemure for this stunt!"
"That requires you to survive, Raphael." Yurgir replied with quiet menace. "Do you think I'm a fool just because I prefer to fight rather than scheme? I knew that you'd spend my entire term of service here trying to trick me into a more permanent bondage, just as you did with our first 'simple contract'. And I didn't like my odds of surviving that entire time without falling for one of your tricks. So when I saw that you and Hawke were heading towards a possible collision course, I made sure to give him this chance. I knew that if I did then it would end with you and him fighting to the death... and that you'd rely on me to tip the odds in your favor." Yurgir's laughter boomed. "I would never get a better chance to kill you."
"Foolish, foolish Yurgir." Raphael smiled. "You have vastly underestimated my power - especially given that you were only able to destroy half of my soul pillars." he sneered. "So even with your might added to these four adventurers, that won't be sufficient to save you."
"You know, Raphael, I'm almost glad you turned out to have one last hole card to play." I said calmly. "I was almost afraid that we were going to beat you all by ourselves... and then there would be a whole lot of other people who'd be annoyed with me that they didn't get a chance to get their licks in."
"Hawke, has the certainty of your imminent demise damaged your brain?" Raphael laughed. "You're in the depths of Avernus, in my own house! The piddling little portals of Mammon's Picklock can't reach here with my attention focused on blocking them, and your allies have no other way of breaching the planar gulf to get here! And since you had the prudence not to bring the Astral Prism into my domain, you can't even be smuggling them in your pocket."
"For a guy who comes up with what I'll acknowledge are some elegant plan As, you are far worse at coming up plan B than I expected." I said. "It's like you haven't even considered that the entire reason I'm stealing the Orphic Hammer in the first place is because I want to use it to set free the rightful ruler of the githyanki." I paused just long enough to let the realization start to sink in before I dropped the reveal. "And what are they most famous for again?"
And with that I gave a single squeeze to the githyanki device I'd had in my pouch - a githyanki signal beacon, one that was psionically linked to a twin beacon that could be used to track its counterpart down even at interplanar distances. And a dimensional portal opened up in the foyer right on cue, as my distress signal told the rest of the group - as well as Orpheus' Honor Guard - exactly where to have the githyanki planar travel adept open up his portal to send the reinforcements. Kith'rak Voss and Prelate L'ir'ic were the first two out of the portal, his Silver Sword and her ki-chargd fists raised proudly high. Lae'zel, Shadowheart, and half a dozen githyanki warrior-monks followed them.
Because the thing that the githyanki were most famed for was, of course, their mastery of planar travel.
Raphael was a very powerful devil, but he was now fighting three times as many people as he'd planned on with far fewer soldiers than he'd intended to have available. With Yurgir and me to help tank his blows while the rest of us surrounded him, Orpheus' honor guard had a free hand to smash all the remaining soul pillars and then provide a bulwark against late-arriving reinforcements. He acquitted himself respectably, and several of us had some noteworthy wounds we'd need Shadowheart or Hope to help us heal later, but at these odds the fight could only have one outcome. After we finally downed him Yurgir imploded his skull with a final spiteful crunch, and then his booming laughter rolled out to shake the very walls.
"FREE!" Yurgir celebrated joyously. "At long last, the trickster is dead - dead forever, as he died in Avernus!" He sighed with ultimate satisfaction. "You have my thanks, all of you, for your aid."
"I believe I owe you this." I handed back his infernal crossbow.
"You fought well. Strength as yours would have excelled in the Blood War." Yurgir complimented us. "And now I can finally return to the frontlines, without Raphael's infernal contract holding me back."
"We've got our own frontlines to return to, in Baldur's Gate." I said. "Good luck with your war."
"Good luck with your own." Yurgir nodded. "And given the size of the foe you hunt... when it comes time for your final battle against the elder brain, I will lend my strength to yours without further obligation. It will be a worthy battle indeed!"
"I never thought I'd be saying this to a devil... but we'll be glad to see you there." Wyll acknowledged him.
"Until we meet again." Yurgir nodded to us, and vanished in a flash of fire.
Author's Note: Hawke's plans are all turning into some variant of 'get the homies together and jump a motherfucker'. On the other hand, it keeps working...
If you help him out, or even just win his respect by killing him in the Gauntlet of Shar and then passing a sky-high Persuade check at the end of the House of Hope, then Yurgir is surprisingly chill for a literally baby-eating monster. He's brutal but straightforward, gladly helps you fight Raphael, comes in to ally with you again in the final battle against the Elder Brain, and never asks you for anything except what he's already gotten (his freedom from Raphael) and doesn't screw you. Raphael is one flavor of lawful evil. Yurgir's another flavor entirely.
In-game the Orphic Hammer has no special powers versus anything except Hope's or Orpheus' chains. Boooo-ring! I punched it up a little.
The bit about being able to insult Raphael with how bad he is in bed is entirely canon to the game, even if we used an entirely non-canon way to get it from the incubus. Then again, the canon route would have put this story in the NSFW forum, so...
And honestly, game, why doesn't Voss pitch in with some more help when we're trying to steal the Orphic Hammer? He's the guy we're stealing it for! I grant that in-game Orpheus' honor guard never survives because the Emperor manipulates you into killing them to save his ass and that's scripted with no way around it, but there are other Orpheus loyalists out there man.
And you all have my deepest, most sincerest apologies that I couldn't find any way to work in the single most awesome thing Raphael has ever done. But there was just no remotely in-character way to get Hawke to actually stand around long enough to let Raphael finish singing his own theme song.
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Balorak146
They of the Bullshit-Seeing Eye
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Given that as far as I know, Hawke's theme only plays if they die in Inquisition, here's the Battle For Haven theme instead!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGbxrB71CVM
Mizu
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I was wondering about that, trying to recall if it worked that way in-game. I think your route is more fun overall - doubt anyone there wanted to remain enslaved to Raphael.
So how powerful is the devil, anyway? A lv12 team of 4 can defeat him from memory, so likely not the highest totem pole of DnD monsters?
cliffc999
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People have cheesed him(*), but he's perhaps the toughest boss fight in the game in that way only an optional boss (there are multiple paths to endgame that don't involve fighting Raphael) can be allowed to be. Only the Netherbrain is tougher and that only because the SOB has multiple phases and a literal army worth of adds, while Raphael only has one phase and a squad.
(*) In addition to things like barrelmancy or Celestial Haste Slayer Form cheese, Raphael's Wisdom save is absolutely mediocre... and unlike his Dex save, it's not boosted by the soul pillars. Use the right kind of mind-affecting magic and you can keep him in perpetual stunlock. I didn't have Hawke use this strategy because there's no way to know about it without peeking at his character sheet.
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ZodiacDivine
Know what you're doing yet?
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That's honestly pretty fitting for someone who loses his shit at the first sign of things actually going substantially wrong for him like that. Bastard's a great planner and manipulator, but he fumbles hard once you manage to outfox him.
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Ghost in a Wall
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You know, in whatever afterlife Raph is dealing with, or lack thereof, I can't help but enjoy the thought of him bemoaning the fact that Hawk wasn't born a Devil that he could take under his wing. I know it's out of character and more besides that, but it's a thought that stuck and made me chuckle a bit.
RedX
Not too sore, are you?
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I just sort of assumed Voss had to lay low and not do anything too weird because he was prominent enough that Vlaakith was keeping an eye on him. Meetings in bars and sewers, sure, but if he starts bouncing across planes smacking random devils rather than doing his assigned task of hunting for the Prism, she'd have noticed.
cliffc999
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He's already blown his cover by that point in the game.
Lucid Lunacy
Seeking the Threshold
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As someone who hasn't played Baldur's Gate 3, finding out about Raphael's sexual preferences was like being hit with a literary flashbang. >.<
sicksock
Pigs can always find mud.
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Yeah. Another fun fact is that his lover's name is his own name rearranged.
I have to imagine that after centuries of people telling Raphael to 'go fuck himself' he decided to give it a shot, and found he quite liked it.
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Simonbob
Really? You don't say.
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Beholders, I think.
Domino
I trust you know where the happy button is?
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Spectators are a specific subspecies of Beholder
Simonbob
Really? You don't say.
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Huh.
Didn't know they existed.
Well, there's a lot of DnD monsters.....
Matrix Dragon
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The rest of the team is going to be so sad they missed his moment of discovery.
Well well, the devil doesn't know something...
Call back to their interaction at the Last Light? Either way, nice phrase.
And I think the devil just fucked up.
I love the faith she has in Hawke by this point. They've achieved so much that there's no doubt in her mind.
This a canon detail, or something you added? Because it does certainly make sense.
Ha, I was right. And it fits. We've seen Hawke notice details in the devils comments the devil wouldn't prefer before, after all.
Poor Aylin. Hopefully a few dopplegangers try something while the others are out so that she can get some quality enrichment.
I love Karlach at moments like this. Being scared out of her mind and admitting it, but damn well going to help her friends.
I rarely feel bad for a devil. But there's something so perfect about the reasons for his job frustrations that I can't help it. He is a PROFESSIONAL, dammit!
Well she's about to have a bad end...
It's like a law of the universe. You HAVE to take that option! It doesn't hurt that it makes him even madder.
This is the kind of moment that, if animated, would have a nice closeup of Raphs face the moment he realizes what's about to happen.
I think it's his priorities and skill set. He's got a war to fight, and Raphs antics are all a distraction from the more important issue for him.
DIT_grue
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This should probably be a comma, not a full stop?
The possessive apostrophe and "that of" are redundant with each other.
here
us
And while
deniability
Its
I think this would read more smoothly if you used something like chosen or used here instead.
Picklock
Also, when I went back to try and see if there had been previous mention of that epithet "the Fallen", I spotted one rough spot in an old chapter:
Probably delete this first one since it's redundant with the elaboration later in the sentence.
cliffc999
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Something I added.
It hasn't been used before. It's not even an official epithet, I made it up. But for obvious reasons Aylin is going to put a greater emphasis on the fact that Zariel is a fallen angel than almost anybody else does, especially given that very few people on the Prime know Zariel's origins. (Even Karlach only knows it because she spent a decade working for Zariel.)
Particularly since Zariel's fall was... well, it was a whole thing that was a big story arc of its own and was, like Anakin Skywalker's fall from grace, deeply rooted in a lot of things including her own pre-existing personality flaws. But the point of no return was when she defied the orders of her superiors to try leading a crusade into Avernus as a rogue operation... i.e., the exact choice Aylin is being faced with in that scene, if on a much smaller scale than Zariel's. And that was less than two centuries ago, so unless Aylin is really young by celestial standards (there's no canon on her age) she'd have seen that one go down.
More generally, I find that Aylin is seriously underused in Act Three. She's basically just there to hang around your camp and say almost nothing, cuddle with Isobel (who is even less used in Act Three), do her one sidequest regarding the wizard who hired Aradin to go kidnap her in the first place, and then be a summonable ally in the final batle. I know that Larian didn't have infinite time or resources to code in the entire universe, but if you're going to put an immortal warrior angel in the supporting cast list you might want to do something with her. So even if I'm sidelining her from some battles I'm at least trying to include her in scenes and have people actually react like having a literal angel from the heavens riding along with your peeps is a noteworthy event.
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trebuchet
Your first time is always over so quickly, isn't it?
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"I'd tell you to go to hell, but I think you're already there."
cliffc999
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Somebody spotted the reference!
(Specifically, the final scene of 'Lord of War'.)
cliffc999
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Oh, belated new data point.
I got to the elder brain scene again, this time with my evil Tav who was doing an alliance with Gortash, and we got different dialogue from the brain. Specifically, the brain didn't try making the claim that it had originally inspired the Chosen to go after the Crown in the first place. It just claimed that after they'd woken it up and put the Crown on its head it had then subliminally inspired Gortash to go after the Astral Prism and then deliberately released the Emperor from its control once it reached the Prism - knowing that the Emperor would immediately recruit a team of killers to try coming after the Netherstones, and thus in the process waste at least one of the Chosen and give the brain a chance to slip free.
So apparently its claims of being behind everything were at least partly lies - lies the elder brain doesn't bother trying it one of the original Chosen is present to dispute its version of events.
Frankfawn43
Not too sore, are you?
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I find it much more believable that the Brain subtly encouraged the Chosen to bumble into the artifact that would burn their plan down than some overcomplicated grand plan that involves letting the Dumb 3 have control over it. Shows the danger of the Elder Brain while respecting the other villains and plot points. Good to hear that info.
Zanfib
Not too sore, are you?
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"Mind flayers are so invincibly convinced of their own cleverness that their collective history is just an endless litany of them suffering completely predictable ass-kickings at the hands of their own creations, to the point that they've lost their empire and been forced to live in caves and still can't figure out what they're doing wrong." - David J Prokopetz