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

[Simonbob]

Minsc?

That's..... Ok, yes, he's strong enough, but he usually wouldn't do this kind of thing.


Must not be with Boo. That hamster's smarter than that.

 

[cliffc999]

That's..... Ok, yes, he's strong enough, but he usually wouldn't do this kind of thing.

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Not a spoiler - remember how it was said that the 'Stone Lord' runs for the Absolute? He's tadpoled. They're also doing some other stuff.

 

[Mizu]

The Emperor is no more. Dunno why he thought his pedigree would impress Hawke either, as a foreigner to Faerun.

Sometimes the game puzzles can be very silly, as solutions go. I can definitely see "stop doing X to break Y" as a note from management to incompetent staff though

 

[Simonbob]

Poor bastard.

I hope they can get it out. He's a pretty good guy, if not that bright.

 

[TyricGaias]

Wonder how Ansur is gonna take it?

 

[cliffc999]

Wonder how Ansur is gonna take it?

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I'm still wondering what to do with Ansur. I mean, by one token he shouldn't be around any more because like any other unquiet ghost the only thing tethering him to this plane is his unfinished business and Lae'zel just cut that business' head off.

On the other hand, without the Emperor hanging around fucking everything up undead Ansur has no reason not to be totes chill with the party, should he still be extant to talk to them. It is an author's conundrum, but I have some chapters to go before I have to decide.

The Emperor is no more. Dunno why he thought his pedigree would impress Hawke either, as a foreigner to Faerun.

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There are three native Baldurians in the room, one of them expat Baldurian high nobility to boot. And at that point the Emperor was pretty desperately shotgunning.

 

[2 Hot Crown Subdues the Sinful]

Minsc is peak, as always.

 

[TyricGaias]

Minsc is peak, as always.

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Naw it's Boo. It's always been Boo. He goes for the eyes ya know

 

[cliffc999]

Naw it's Boo. It's always been Boo. He goes for the eyes ya know

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If you use Minsc's 'Summon Familiar: Boo' ability in-game and then throw Boo at the enemy, he actually has a chance to inflict 1 turn of Blind. I have tested this.

 

[civiulas]

The Emperor is no more. Dunno why he thought his pedigree would impress Hawke either, as a foreigner to Faerun.

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Its a false pedigree anyway. Balduran died and his soul was destroyed. The tadpole he was infected with has his memories and stole his (mutated) body, but what remained was not Balduran.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

."

"And so that your true goal - to usurp the power of this Crown. I see." Orpheus frowned mightily.

"Gale?" I turned to him, lifting an eyebrow inquiringly.

"It was just an... intrusive thought!" Gale insisted, his face red with embarassment. "One of those niggling little temptations we all feel but never actually act on!"

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"... twice!"

"...Wyll, we have a new candidate for team idiot."

"If you keep lying, I'm going to start cutting tentacles off until you've either run out of bullshit or tentacles."

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This line makes me giggle far far too much.

"No matter what we pressure him with, he'll just keep lying. And I really doubt his oh-so-convenient story that we have to keep him alive to do a job we already saw three non-illithids doing just the other day."

"I agree." Orpheus said. "Guards, dispose of it."

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On the one hand, this may be a problem later. On the other, GET FUCKED EMPY!

"In fact... Lae'zel, do our people still hold to the principle that a crecheling may not claim the full privileges of adulthood until they have claimed the head of a ghaik and presented it to their superior?"

"They do." Lae'zel bowed.

"Lae'zel, formerly of Creche K'llir." Orpheus recited formally. "I, Orpheus, Prince of the Comet, do hereby accept your offering of this insolent ghaik's head as proof of your loyalty and skill. From this day forth shall you be deemed a true warrior of the gith, adult and beholden to no creche master."

Lae'zel bowed formally to the captive prince. "I accept this honor from your hands with pride, Your Radiance. Sha'vah Orpheus!"

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I am amazed Lae'zel managed to resist squeeing as loud as Karlach did when meeting Jaheira. To be the first to be named an adult by Orpheus in thousands of years... that's a tale to tell her grandkids.

"Because when I originally came up here, I was intending to apologize."

"For what?" I asked her confusedly.

"For what?" she echoed incredulously. "Does a certain conversation by the river at Last Light not come to mind? Where I pretended to be a jealous idiot?"

"You were doing that under duress." I reassured her. "I don't hold it against you."

"Truly?" she asked nervously. "Because..." her eyes closed in shame. "Back when she thought I was as at least as bad as any other Sharran Isobel once challenged me that the worshippers of Shar had 'made mental cruelty both a science, a fine art, and a competitive sport' - and she was not wrong. Hawke, I hurt you." she said mournfully. "When I pretended that you'd let me down the same way you'd let Merrill down, I took your greatest fear and greatest shame, which you'd told me in confidence, and deliberately used it against you. I was so desperate to fulfill Shar's will that I manipulated you in the cruelest, most underhanded way I could possibly think of - and for no better reason than because I thought it had the best chance of working." Without actually moving she seemed to painfully huddle into herself and pull away. "Remember what we both said that night about how a relationship can't survive once the trust has been so gravely violated by the one that the other can never entirely overcome the fear that they might do it again? That was false in your case, of course. But I'm afraid-" she looked up at me with moist eyes. "I'm afraid that I've made it true in my case, with what I did to you. That's... the real reason I've been so busy the past several days. The longer I could postpone this conversation, the longer I could pretend I still had-" She gulped. "Still had the best thing that's ever happened to me. But- but I can't pretend forever. And I'll... understand, if you can't-"

"Shadowheart, stop talking nonsense." I cut her off firmly. "I am not mad at you, I certainly am not breaking up with you, and you have very little to apologize for." I paused momentarily. "All right, you have something substantial to apologize for but you just did that, and a sincere apology is all that you needed." I smiled at her. "Because I already understand why you did it. And you already understand why it was wrong. And we both understand why it's not something to be afraid of happening again." I quirked a lopsided grin at her. "I mean, I think we can rest assured that the next time Shar tries to hold a loved one hostage on you then you'll actually tell someone about it, yes?"

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Talking over their relationship drama like reasonable adults? Is that legal?

If you use Minsc's 'Summon Familiar: Boo' ability in-game and then throw Boo at the enemy, he actually has a chance to inflict 1 turn of Blind. I have tested this.

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Everyone gets unique lines for doing it too

 

[Toad]

Ahh, proper Minsc, without the Strength debuff.

His miniature giant space hamster hooked him up with that good rejuvenat.

 

[MissileTeatime]

Spoiler: suggestions

not very scared is because - not to sound like I've got a big head - because you all think that I'm handling it.

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This is valid, but the effectively-doubled 'because' feels weird to me.

a long-list prince of a multiplanar kingdom from an ancient era

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Should be "long-lost" instead of "long-list".

Pretty sure there was a "his" that should have been "us" when doing disguises between the Guild hall and the Counting House, too, but didn't grab a quote for that one.

And yay for Shadowheart actually talking about her stuff! Very important skill, that.

 

[Mizu]

Ahh, proper Minsc, without the Strength debuff.

His miniature giant space hamster hooked him up with that good rejuvenat.

Click to shrink...

He has a strength debuff during bg3 gameplay? What's his actual strength stat, then?

 

[cliffc999]

He has a strength debuff during bg3 gameplay? What's his actual strength stat, then?

Click to shrink...

Minsc, like all other playable characters, is reduced to the standards 27-point stat array you all get. Which means his stats are far lower than they should be.

 

[DIT_grue]

Spoiler: Suggestions

"Hah. No, I did not." she agreed. "And I looked into the access situation. First off, we can forget the about the Guild getting us in via the sea route. There's a new outfit in town, led by someone called the Stone Man, and they are on a rampage. In just a few weeks Nine-Fingers' people have already been pushed out of half of their territory - including both the harbor and the coastal inlets on the Chionthar where smugglers like to dock when they are avoiding the harbor. She's busy hiring mercenaries to try and hold on to what she's got left. Oh, and worse yet, it's common knowledge among the thieves of Baldur's Gate that the Stone Man serves the Cult of the Absolute."

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Delete this word.

"Shadowheart was right about the access controls. Wyrm's Rock has raised the drawbridge from the South Span - nothing is being allowed into the city from Rivington at all until after the coronation without an official pass, and those are rare on the ground as hell. The access controls on other gates are being even stricter. Rivington is a giant refugee camp now. Even our old tiefling acquaintances are stuck out there." Jaheira said.

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It took me a while to track down the previous mention for a reminder of what this was about. Maybe a time cue so at least readers aren't trying to look in the same chapter?
This seems to me a more awkward phrasing than ordering it as rare as hell on the ground.

The Guild had existed in Baldur's Gate for decades. At its height it had been an organized crime syndicate whose fingers reached all the way from the humblest streets of the Outer City to peeking through the windows of the High Hall itself. Although the Guild traditionally restricted itself to the less objectionable categories of criminal behavior, they were still as ruthless as any crime syndicate needed to be when necessary. Not paying your Guild debts led straight to a very unpleasant encounter with its enforcers, and excessively getting in the way of the Guild's operations often led to the Guild spending good coin to ferret out your secrets and then make sure they ended up in the hands of the people you least them wanted to. Even the patriars of the Upper City or the Flaming Fist didn't casually cross the Guild, although they certainly had more ways to make their displeasure known than the common Baldurian and thus earned a measure of restraint in how hard the Guild would fleece them. Not that weren't any number of guardsmen or nobles engaged in perfectly willing arrangements with the Guild, for everything from to contraband luxuries to strategic blackmail. They smuggled, they sold protection, they spied, and they did almost anything except murder for the right price - that latter was saved solely as a matter of in-house discipline.

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wanted them
that there weren't

We moved past them and headed down into the Guildhall proper. It was a giant underground - literally - tavern and festhall built on several levels surrounding a giant open-air atrium along with multiple offices and storerooms where people were busy collecting Guild 'taxes', inventorying 'merchandise', and bustling around making sure that the Guild's business kept running smoothly day and night.

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I'm not certain whether or not this is a word, and it could easily be a typo for feasthall (although the dictionary I checked didn't have that one either).

A generous use of cloaks and hoods, as well as a quick non-magical change of hair color for a couple of his at Shadowheart's skilled hands, was the best we could do to hide our more distinctive members as we headed through the early evening streets. The 'Counting House' was one of the city's largest banks and safety deposit houses - Jaheira was as startled as I had been to find out that it was apparently a Guild-owned front business. Still, if the Stone Man was going to go for something as high-profile as outright bank robbery then helping stop that would be a public service. And even if we wouldn't earn as much of Nine-Fingers' gratitude being an assist on the job as we could have if we'd solved the entire problem for her, at this point we'd settle for what we could get.

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us - This one that MissileTeatime pointed out is still in the text, unlike the other two.

The chief clerk at the bank did indeed accept our contact's name as proof of our bona fides, and gave us a written pass that let us through all the multiple layers of security to to the main vault. I honestly wondered how the hell the Stone Man even thought he could rob this place, given that we had passed through three separate checkpoints that had multiple barred gates that could be closed in an instant to trap intruders in a solid barred enclosure, complete with teams of armed guards. We then passed through a hallway lined with multiple rooms for examining safety deposit boxes to reach the inner door of the high-security vault at the absolute far end of the secure vault section - but the door was shut.

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Delete this word.

 

[cliffc999]

I'm not certain whether or not this is a word

Click to shrink...

'Festhall' is indeed a Realms-specific word consistently used in the D&D lore all the way back to at least 2nd edition. Amusingly it was Ed Greenwood's way of sneaking 'whorehouse' past the censors - everybody thought it meant 'feasthall' until he finally dropped a Word of God about what it had really been in his original homebrew campaign that he eventually published. Man, the original supps really take on a new meaning when you realize what is actually happening re: festhalls being a common thing in Faerunian cities. Then again, I don't think prostitution is actually illegal anywhere in Faerun.

And I should have thanked you earlier for all the work you've been doing regarding typo corrections, and didn't. Thank you very much.

 

[LeonT]

You know, this helped remind me just how sweet and soft Shadowheart is when Shar has been told to piss off.

The girl who just likes fluffy animals and flowers. I can see her being extra huggy with Hawke now that she knows she isn't about to lose him and, honestly, I am all for it.

Also anyone else find it hilarious that Orpheus and Hawke seem like budding pals? Bet Lae'zel is feeling pleased right now at her choice of party leader.

 

[cliffc999]

You know, this helped remind me just how sweet and soft Shadowheart is when Shar has been told to piss off.

The girl who just likes fluffy animals and flowers.

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I have said and will keep saying that Jenevelle Hallowleaf had a solid destiny ahead of her as a Disney Princess before her abduction into Shar's cult.

Which was actually the point. Shar was spitefully trying to prove to Selune that even the purest could be corrupted. Great plan there, Shar.

 

[S!ËGFR!ÊD]

I have said and will keep saying that Jenevelle Hallowleaf had a solid destiny ahead of her as a Disney Princess before her abduction into Shar's cult.

Which was actually the point. Shar was spitefully trying to prove to Selune that even the purest could be corrupted. Great plan there, Shar.

Click to shrink...

I mean, she's not wrong, but she really should have cut her losses when Hawke showed up. Guy's like Geralt, he bulldozes through anything between him and his loved ones.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

I have said and will keep saying that Jenevelle Hallowleaf had a solid destiny ahead of her as a Disney Princess before her abduction into Shar's cult.

Which was actually the point. Shar was spitefully trying to prove to Selune that even the purest could be corrupted. Great plan there, Shar.

Click to shrink...

And it took so much brainwashing there was seemingly nothing left of the disney princess, and then, every time she reacted according to instinct, the princess returns!

Shar must have been taking bites out of her surroundings in frustration, and that was before Hawke showed up

 

[OrkKaptin]

Neither Baldur's Gate or Dragon Age are my style, so I'm reading this solely because it's you writing it, Cliff.

Glad to see you've found something that compels you enough to get back in the saddle.

 

[cliffc999]

What the hell?!?

I was familiar with the name from Jaheira's tales of her old adventures. 'Minsc the Mad Rashemaar' was one of the old heroes of Baldur's Gate just like Jaheira had been, an instrumental part of the defeat of Sarevok the Bhaalspawn and the cult of Bhaal over a century ago. Jaheira had been oddly silent about his fate after that, and I hadn't pressed, but his presence here was inexplicable. He was human, not half-elven like Jaheira, and still clearly in the prime of life. What, did we have three impossible resurrections after a century now, just like Ketheric and Isobel had been?

According to the old tales Minsc had been a berserker from the far-away nation of Rashemen, faultlessly loyal to his friends but almost entirely uncontrollable in battle. He'd also been reputed to be one of the toughest fighters in the history of the Sword Coast... and judging from what the 'Stone Lord' had been doing to the Guild for the last month, that reputation wasn't overblown.

And since by now I was getting very familiar with their methods, a quick probe with my tadpole confirmed the suspicion I'd had ever since I'd realized that one of Jaheira's old friends was now unaccountably serving the Cult of the Absolute. He'd been tadpo-

"There is no gold in here!" Minsc roared in outrage at the bank manager while angrily pointing at the dying mimic.

"Did he actually expect-?" I stammered.

"If there is one thing that Minsc hates more than beasts with bad breath-" the bald giant began to declaim, only to be interrupted by the mimic's spasming tongue brushing against his leg. He reached down, effortlessly swung the mimic around by its tongue like a child twirling a ball on a string, and threw it into the nearest wall. The mimic squealed and died with an audible crack of breaking cartilage.

"-it is those who are tricksome with the truth!" Minsc thundered. "Oh, and turnips." he immediately segued in an incongruously light and conversational voice. "But you are no turnip. Let that be of comfort, in your final moments."

"Is there something wrong with his brain?" I asked helplessly as we all goggled at Minsc's display.

"You have no idea." Jaheira moaned as she buried her face in both her hands. "And speaking of damaged brains, why the hell is he working for the Absolute?"

"They tadpoled him." I replied soberly.

"Shit!" Jaheira swore. "Then I need to speak to him - I'm the only person he might still listen to. Minsc!" she called out loudly before I could stop her. "It's me! Stand down and let me take care of you! Everything will be all right now!"

"You." Minsc spun around and glared up at Jaheira with a mad, searing hatred that was positively frightening. As in Karlach hadn't looked half that angry when talking about Zariel or Gortash frightening. "Your false face does not fool my eyes! I will cut you until you look like the monster you truly are!"

"Minsc, they used magic on your mind." Jaheira begged him. "I have brought what we need to dispel it! Just... just don't hit anyone! Let us show you!"

"Oh, he's already been shown everything he needs to see." Jaheira's voice floated mockingly through the room... but not from Jaheira. A woman faded out of invisibility on the other side of the cowering bank employees, facing us - a woman exactly identical to the woman we were standing next to. "The Stone Lord sees through your lies, doppelganger." the insolent Jaheira doppelganger smirked at the original. "Count yourself lucky he cannot stay."

"Karlach, shut the door." I immediately ordered, and she immediately pulled the hatch shut behind us and spun the manual locking wheel. Orpheus! I thought at the Astral Prism as hard as I could, including a mental image of Minsc. We've got a friend with a tadpole in his brain, and could really use your help!

The berserker is in the heat of battle, blind and deaf to all but his rage. Orpheus' mental voice came back to us. You will have to subdue him before I can hope to break him free.

"The hard way it is." I sighed.

"Hmph." the false Jaheira sneered, as more Absolute cultists faded into view. "Nine-Fingers may have set a better trap than I originally thought... but she still did not bring nearly enough."

"Wyll, Shadowheart, hold the door. Gale, high ground. Everybody else, on me!" I called, and we leapt into action.

"HAHA!" the Stone Lord laughed mockingly. "Go for the-!" and then suddenly he clutched his head with one hand and staggered for a moment.

"He's still in there!" Jaheira shouted plaintively. "Don't kill him!"

"Non-lethal on the big guy!" I acknowledged as our frontline fighters split up and half of us each headed down the left and right stairs leading from the entrance balcony.

The false Jaheira and her fellow cultists sneered and went invisible again - only to immediately fade back into view at Shadowheart's casting of Faerie Fire on me, creating a wide circle of light around me in which no invisible person could hide. "Nice try!" she mocked them from the balcony.

With an incoherent scream of rage the charging Minsc barrelled straight into me and Karlach, as we'd both moved to engage the biggest target. Our combined strength allowed us to keep our footing, but we actually skidded several feet backwards across the marble floor.

"Just keep his flankers busy! We'll handle the Stone Lord!" I yelled to the bank guards.

"You heard the man! Now start earning your pay!" the manager roared, and he and his troops moved to help the rest of us surround the now-visible Bhaalite cultists. The false Jaheira and the real one squared off - I sighed inwardly at Jaheira's not having the sense to stay the hell away from her body double so that we could keep track of which one was which - and then I had no time to pay attention to anything else except the maddened giant I was going toe-to-toe with.

Neither Karlach nor I were newbies at this, and she could match his size and - with the aid of her own barbarian rage - his strength. And we had the advantage of outnumbering him two to one. On the other hand, we had the disadvantage that we were trying to take him down without seriously damaging him while he was fighting in a maddened trance and utterly heedless of his own safety. Also, given that this man had just killed a mimic with his bare hands after starting from inside its stomach... I wasn't going to lie, I was just a bit intimidated.

"I'll keep his attention, you circle around!" I muttered to Karlach, and then used a combination of my adamantine armor, the Bulwark stance, and some aggressive parrying to withstand Minsc's flurry of blows while Karlach moved to flank him from behind. Unfortunately the man's instincts remained unaccountably sharp even while he was in a blind rage, and he skittered away from our attempted pincer movement.

"A doppelganger's clothes are illusory, actually part of their flesh!" I overheard Lae'zel's non sequitur. "Jaheira, remove your gauntlet and throw it on the ground so I know which one of you to kill!"

"Good idea!" I heard Jaheira reply in the background, followed shortly thereafter by the death squeal of a doppelganger.

"JAHEIRA!" Minsc roared in despair at the death of his doppelganger handler, and then exploded in a storm of fury that made his earlier rage look like a synod of philosophers. Karlach and I both backpedaled as quickly as we could-

"Hypnotic Pattern!" Jaheira cast, and our awarenesses faded away.

I snapped back to consciousness as Shadowheart shook my shoulder. "It's over. Gale's grease spell meant none of the assassins could even climb up to reach us, or stay invisible while they walked on it. My Faerie Fire meant none of them could hide down here, and between you and the Guild's people they were outnumbered. Jaheira's got Minsc in a trance. It's all over except for him."

"I should have thought of this first." Jaheira admitted embarassedly. "I apologize. When I saw what this bitch had done to my friend-" She angrily kicked a doppelganger's corpse, its true form revealed now that it was dead. "I lost my head."

"I should have realized that the best way to tackle an opponent with a ridiculously strong body but a... less strong brain, was to lead off with mind-affecting spells." I agreed. "At any rate..."

A quick thought towards the Prism got an affirmative response from Orpheus, and now that Minsc's mind was essentially blank due to the magical trance-light he was still staring captivatedly into it didn't take much work from Orpheus to snap him free.

The more people I extend protection over, the less effective it is - and do not forget that in the endgame, you must draw closer to the elder brain than you have ever done before. So I cannot do this for everyone you meet.

"Hopefully you won't have to." I agreed. "All right, you-know-who says that he's got the tadpole suppressed. You can drop the spell now."

"The hell do you mean 'drop the spell'?" the bank manager said incredulously. "You've got him paralyzed, now cut his thro-" The edge of Jaheira's scimitar being placed suddenly against his throat interrupted him rather decisively. "Or I could just stay quiet and let the specialists deal with this. Right. Got it."

"Good man." Jaheira smiled wickedly at him, and then let her concentration on the spell lapse.

"HAH!" Minsc snapped back into alertness. "And now, evil, prepare your buttocks for-!" he roared, before happily interrupting himself. "Jaheira! You are safe! I had thought you were - a-ha, Minsc sees now! It must have been the doppelganger you were killing!"

"Yes." Jaheira said gratefully. "The fake Jaheira is lying dead over there. I am the real one. Now let me-"

"Good!" Minsc said cheerfully. "Now we can continue with the taking of the gold, to help the Absolute!"

"... you did say that the tadpole was dealt with, right?" Wyll asked doubtfully.

"Minsc. We are not helping the Absolute." Jaheira said flatly. "They are evil and horrible and secretly working with mind flayers."

"But you explained it to Minsc so patiently and for so long!" Minsc pleaded. "How they were helping clean the corrupt thieves and evil nobles from the city! How they would reform all the government and make the streets safe for the people!"

"That was the fake Jaheira telling you all that!" Jaheira exploded. "You have been talking to that false-faced liar for weeks! If it was not for the fact that they stuck something in your brain that made you unable to tell the difference I would kick you so hard between the legs that you could not sit down for a month!"

"Oh." Minsc said dully. "And this thing they dared stick in Minsc's brain. You have taken it out, yes?"

"We've turned it off. Temporarily." I tried to keep the explanation simple. "A permanent cure will require us to defeat the Absolute and take it from them."

"Good! Then Jaheira will do the making of plans and Minsc will do the crushing of evil, just like the old days! What have I always said, Boo-" Minsc suddenly gasped in horror and started frantically patting himself down and searching through all his pockets. "Boo? Boo? WHERE IS BOO?!? This is a calamity! Minsc has somehow lost his most precious friend!"

"Oh shit." Jaheira turned pale.

"BOO! WHEREVER YOU LANGUISH IN THE DARKNESS, MINSC MUST FIND YOU!" Minsc screamed wildly, and charged back up the stairs and tore the vault door open and ran screaming down back up the main hallway before anyone could stop him.

"Tell Nine-Fingers that Minsc was under the mind control of the Absolutists but now he is free, and the 'Stone Lord' will no longer exist." Jaheira said to the bank manager. "So she can cancel the contract out on him - and she can also start imagining just how much she will owe me for solving her little problem, not to mention saving all the gold in this bank. I'll stop by the Guildhall later to hand her the bill in person."

"You're sure the problem is under control?" the bank manager replied doubtfully as he pointed up at the now-open vault door.

"Your problems are. But mine may be just beginning." Jaheira sighed. "Come on. With his handler and most of his watchers already dead, Minsc should not run into much that he cannot handle. Either he will find Boo or he will not, and either we will catch up to him or he will come to my house later to speak to me again."

"Who is 'Boo'?" Karlach asked confusedly.

"Someone who most of the bards who tried to tell our tale left out, because they were entirely at a loss for words to explain." Jaheira said wearily as we tried to pick up Minsc's trail. "But hopefully you will have a chance to see for yourselves - not least because Minsc will be inconsolable if they have been-"

Minsc's trail was easy enough to follow up to the lower level of the bank, both because the guards could tell us which way he'd gone and because there was only one real path to follow. We then diverged from the route we'd entered by to instead head out the back door in the cellar, which led out onto the private dock the Counting House had in Grey Harbor. Minsc was on his knees at the foot of the pier, despairingly calling out to someone we couldn't see.

"You gaze into Minsc's soul and see his foul crimes!" he moaned. "You smell the stench of evil upon him, pointy claws primed, ready to scratch out his eyes! I am sorry, my friend! I am at the mercy of your faultless justice! And now, if you must burrow through my blackened heart - I am ready." Minsc dramatically raised his eyes to the sky, his expression that of a man despairingly facing the executioner.

I swore I could hear a faint chittering before Minsc continued, his tones shocked. "No? You are certain?" He gasped in relief before continuing joyously. "Such boundless compassion! You are all heart! And whiskers! And cute little nose!" As we drew nearer we could hear more squeaking. "You are right, of course! There is still much evil for Minsc and Boo to stamp out - but we need not fight it alone!" Minsc stood up and turned to face us cradling something we couldn't see in his cupped hands, with a smile that beamed from ear to ear. "You! This is Boo. And Boo, this is you." His hands dramatically opened to reveal-

-a small orange-and-white furred rodent about half again as large as a mouse, with a tiny stubby tail and big round cheeks and ears.

"Oh my goddess he's so adorable!" Shadowheart squealed, while Jaheira rolled her eyes while sighing in relief.

"A-ha! Minsc knew you were righteous people! Only the most innocent and purest of hearts, one that has never been touched by the stain of evil, could have such perception! To so thoroughly see past the unassuming exterior of Boo and know his magnificent truth even upon first meeting!"

"That... is certainly a wonderful compliment." Shadowheart acknowledged embarrassedly. "Thank you, Minsc."

I just looked at Jaheira, and she shrugged back at me. "Separating Minsc and Boo is a task even gods would find difficult. I mean that literally. One so-called Chosen of Bhaal actually tried, and he needed a regeneration spell to restore his legs afterwards."

"Minsc remembers that!" he guffawed. "Such a funny expression on his face when Minsc bent them backwards! It was disappointing that Minsc could not actually fit his feet up his buttocks, though. At any rate, this is the legendary Boo. He is a miniature giant hamster. From space."

"I'm glad he's safe." I tried to move the conversation right past the awkward part. "But now we need to get off the street before the Absolute's spies spot us."

"And I don't want to go right back to the Guildhall, we need to give Nine-Fingers time to get the news before we try to march the former 'Stone Lord' back in there." Jaheira said. "Which means..." she slumped despairingly. "There is only one place nearby we can go."

"Surely you do not mean there." Minsc said in hushed tones of foreboding.

"I know, but we have no choice." she said disgruntledly. "I will not lie, I could have wished to postpone this confrontation - but it must be done."

"What are we about to get into now?" Karlach said worriedly. "I mean, it's already been a bit of a rough night!"

"The peril that Jaheira will face at our destination is not one merely of blades and cutting." Minsc said. "Murder and death, such things are a trifle to face in comparision to this. The wounds that can potentially be suffered in such a challenge as Jaheira must face tonight are not visible to the naked eye but can still take many years to even begin to heal! Yet when we get there, you must let her face the peril head-on. Do not attempt to interfere!" Minsc shuddered. "Some battles, even Boo is not brave enough to fight." he whispered.

"Seriously, what the hell are we about to march into?" I demanded worriedly, but there was no answer.

Jaheira led us through winding back alleys for a little while we arrived at a nondescript townhouse much like any other one surrounding it, in an obscure but not excessively poor neighbhorood of the Lower City. A smug-looking ten-year-old blonde girl dramatically waving around a wooden sword greeted us on the doorstep.

"Someone's in trooooooouble!" she smirked up at Jaheira.

"I can only imagine." Jaheira said wearily. "How mad is she this time?"

"Mad enough!" she giggled. "I've got a bet on with Tate about how loud you'll be yelling."

"Well, I hope that you're about to win big." Jaheira said affectionately. "Now stand aside, o faithful door guard. I have business with the deputy commander."

"What's the password?" she challenged.

"A little Fig is still not too big for a spanking!" Jaheira glared down at her, and Fig saluted her mockingly with her wooden sword and fell in behind us as we all headed inside.

"Wait, you have grandchildren?" Karlach gaped in awe.

"Children." Jaheira admitted embarassedly. "Several of them, all adopted. Three are still little, and two are-"

We entered the house to see another little girl, flanked by a half-elven woman in leather armor and with a warhammer slung on her back and a half-orc in druid robes.

"Everyone! She's back!" Fig called out loudly to the entire household.

"Are we quite sure she hasn't actually died this time, brother?" the half-elven woman drawled to the half-orc. "She looks dead."

"Smells it, too." the half-orc replied amusedly.

"It has been a long, hard road." Jaheira huffed at them. "But I could still clip you both about the ear to prove I am no ghost, if it would help?"

"Forgive us, Mother." the woman replied sarcastically. "We're just surprised that you still knew how to find your way home."

I carefully made sure I was not standing between Jaheira and any of her disgruntled relatives and muttered an aside to Minsc. "I think I see what you meant." He nodded soberly back to me.

"And she always brings the smartest people home, too." Jaheira's oldest daughter huffed sarcastically. "Oh, and hello Minsc."

"Enough, Rion! I taught you better manners than that!" Jaheira snapped at her.

"No you didn't." the half-orc shook his head at her amusedly.

"A Sending spell can carry twenty-five words." Rion replied heatedly. "Do you know how many Jaheira's only message contained, in all this time she's been away? Seven."

"Met. Dashing. Hero. Out. In. Shadow-Lands?" I tried to puncture the buildup to what would almost certainly be a screaming family argument with a joke. "Wait, is 'shadow-lands' one word or two?"

"Stop trying to help!" Jaheira moaned.

"The message went 'I'm sorry. You know what to do.'" Rion fumed. "Nothing else!"

"So why haven't you done it?" Jaheira stepped forward challengingly. "That was the 'run' signal! You were supposed to get the younger ones safely out of the city!"

"And you were supposed to be dead!" Rion shouted back. "That was what your oh-so-stoic message meant, yes? Yet here you are. So what happened out there?"

"We almost got massacred by the Avatar of Myrkul and his undying warlord leading a massive army of undead and humanoids." I interrupted grimly.

"What?" Rion blinked as everybody else jawdropped. "He's- he's not joking this time, is he Mother?"

"No." Jaheira said wearily as she pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. "It was a complete and utter shitshow. We only survived on a last-minute miracle... several of them, in fact. And the job isn't even half done yet, and we're still up against the tougher half."

Rion and her oldest brother pulled up seats as well, while the younger children huddled nearby on a couch. "All right. So where do we start?"

"We are not starting anywhere!" Jaheira exploded. "The Dead Three have returned and have all selected new Chosen, even if we just barely managed to take down Myrkul's! Bane's Chosen is going to be the new Archduke of this city! Bhaal's is a shapeshifting master assassin who has reinstated the old assassin cult with doppelgangers and all! Gods only know how many people in this city have mind flayer parasites in their heads that lets the Cult of the Absolute secretly control them, and as if we didn't have enough problems there is a goddamn elder brain slumbering beneath this city and it's about to break loose - and when it does, nothing in Baldur's Gate will survive! I don't want you to fight, I want you to leave! Get down to the harbor, get on a ship, and get the hell to anywhere else but here!"

"Oh, because we're not good enough for-" Rion shot back.

I slammed my hand down on the table. "Enough! I've had enough family arguments of my own to know when there's one that's entering its umpteenth repetition, and we don't have time!" I looked at Rion. "Don't pretend you don't know exactly why your mother doesn't want you mixed up in this. You obviously don't agree with her reasoning, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't acknowledge what it really is - and I'm certain it has nothing to do with believing you incapable, and everything to do with the fact that you're her daughter." I sighed. "I had this same argument with my mother about heading out to fight any number of times - and she wasn't even an adventurer, so I had to do the heavy lifting with my own sword whenever the family was in danger. But I never for a minute thought that she didn't have faith in me. She was just being my mother."

"Thank you, Hawke." Jaheira said. "Because he is correct. Of course I know you're capable. Gods above, I let you join the Flaming Fist and watched you earn officer rank there without a word of protest, didn't I? I cursed just as loudly as you did when your corrupt idiot of a superior discharged you precisely because you tried to stop his corruption, didn't I?" She sighed. "If it were just you and Jord I would be giving you your marching orders right now. But it's not just you and him. Fig and Jhessem and Tate will still need their big sister and brother if they cannot have their mother. They cannot stay here, and I will not send them away without you to look after them."

"Baldur's Gate is their home. It's our home too. I'll accept moving to a safer position than the frontline, but we're not cutting and running when our city needs us!" Rion insisted.

"How's about the refugee situation in Rivington?" Shadowheart suggested. "We don't have very many people there, and we're probably going to have to pull them out as soon as we find one of the primary targets because we'll need them then."

"We can help with that." Jord agreed. "Even if we can't get any refugees inside the gates, somebody still needs to help them prepare for what's coming."

"For that matter, what is coming?" Rion said. "You gave us the outline, but we're going to need details."

---

Nine-Fingers Keene turned out to be a brunette woman in her late thirties or earl forties, and a very good-looking one at that - even if she visibly hadn't smiled in years, except occasionally in that nasty not-quite-a-smile way.

Jaheira had told me the outline of her story. She'd gotten her nickname when she'd been kidnapped as a child by a drug addict and freelance thug, and her left pinky finger had been sliced off by her kidnapper to send to her parents along with the ransom note. Her parents had had to borrow from a Guild loanshark in order to afford her ransom, and when they couldn't repay she'd negotiated a deal by which she traded her servitude to the loanshark in order to clear their debt, and that service had persisted even after her parents had died. From that humble beginning as a teenaged runner for the Guild she'd worked her way up to full member, then crew boss, then ward kingpin, and finally Guildmaster. She preferred bloodless competition over gang wars and exercising influence over the city via bribes, threats, debts, and blackmail rather than more overt methods - but nobody lasted as long or rose as high as she did in organized crime without getting their blades wet more than once, and there were more than enough unsuccessful and now-dead challengers for her title cluttering her backstory to discourage people from trying it now.

And they still told stories about how she'd dealt with her kidnapper, once she rose to power. Most people would have just murdered him, but Nine-Fingers had made sure that the man in question would live - live with enough of a stipend to guarantee him a rented spot in a flophouse and regular meals, and a free line of credit at his dealer for all the drugs he needed to slowly wither away into a brain-damaged wreck. The man had been killing himself an inch at a time for years and years, with Nine-Fingers watching every slow step of his painful march to self-destruction and laughing on the inside. Jaheira had made very sure we'd all heard this story before we entered her office, so that we'd understand better what kind of person we were dealing with.

"You know, when Rakath reported to me about what had gone down at the Counting House I was already prepared to hear that you hadn't killed the Stone Lord." Nine-Fingers greeted Jaheira frostily. "But I still didn't expect you to have the balls to march him right into my office!"

"You know who he really is, and you expected anything else?" Jaheira challenged her back.

"I don't care if he's your best friend or not. He's put dozens of good earners - my earners - in the dirt, and that's not going to go away just because he says he's sorry." Nine-Fingers glowered back.

"When somebody cuts you, do you stab back at the knife they used or at the person who was holding it?" I asked Nine-Fingers. "The Cult of the Absolute put a tadpole in his head and rode him around like he was a horse. Now that he's free he wants to kill them all... and we thought you'd like a piece of them as well."

"And who're you and why should I give a shit?" she snorted at me.

"I'm the man who's making sense when he talks. That's not enough by itself to get heard in the Guildhall?" I replied with equal bluntness.

Nine-Fingers glowered back at me for a long moment before her expression lightened. "Well if you've actually got a logical argument, then I suppose I'm all ears."

"Do you know what a mind flayer elder brain is? Because there's one under the city right now, and soon enough it will break free of what's holding it. When that happens, Baldur's Gate will be a crater on the map." I said.

"Well, that would be an entirely logical reason... if I believed a word of it." Nine-Fingers narrowed her eyes. "The Cult of the Absolute, I'll believe in. Even the Dead bloody Three, I'll believe in. I've dug up enough on my own to confirm at least part of that story. But this? It's too convenient, and more importantly, you've got no proof."

"Word of honor, Astele." Jaheira said soberly. "Every word is true."

"I told you to stop using that name." Nine-Fingers hissed at Jaheira, and then angrily turned her head as the office door opened behind us. "And I said- OH SHIT!"

Whoever had entered the office behind us had thrown a two-gallon keg of lamp oil with a lit smokepowder charge strapped to it directly at Nine-Fingers' desk, intending to immolate everyone standing in the office. The only reason we weren't all on fire is because Minsc had caught it out of the air before it could land, giving Lae'zel - who'd been standing the next closest - an opportunity to grab the fuse with her gauntleted hand and smother it before it detonated. We all spun around just in time to see the door slam shut.

"Go!" I shouted, and led a charge towards the door. In only several seconds the assassins standing outside would know that their plan had failed, and that was the time window we had to get through the bottleneck while we could still possibly surprise them. I crashed through to be confronted by a floating Hypnotic Pattern spell that I only looked away from just barely in time - one that had been used to momentarily stupefy Nine-Fingers' bodyguards so they didn't notice that the several grim-faced people in Zhentarim colors coming to visit her had just armed and lit the fuse on a bomb.

"What the-?" one of the Zhents looked up from where she'd started to cut the throat of one of the helpless bodyguards as I deliberately cleaved directly through the spellcaster who was concentrating on holding the spell. The woman she had a knife to the throat of snapped out of her trance, and by the time the unlucky Zhent could catch up his would-be victim had shoved him to the floor and then started to put in the boots. Shadowheart's spear impaled the last Zhent would-be assassin before he could flank me, and all of us plus Nine-Fingers stopped in the antechamber outside her office to look at the chaos filling the Guildhall.

The attempt on Nine-Fingers had apparently been the signal to start, because as soon as they'd kicked in her office door every Zhentarim in the Guildhall had drawn weapons and gone on the attack. Jaheira's mutterings about Zhentarim treachery had proven all too true. Since they'd been the hired security in the first place they already had teams of men strategically positioned to control all the access points to the Guildhall and have clear fields of fire across most of the trading floor and the tavern pit. Very few of Nine-Fingers' thieves were cowards but they weren't all trained warriors either, and they'd been split up and relaxing all over their own home base. The Zhentarim surprise attack would have momentum-

"OI!" Nine-Fingers' parade-ground bellow filled the entire hall. "YOU FUCKIN' MISSED ME, YOU CUNTS!"

Many of the Zhentarim actually turned in surprise at Nine-Fingers' announcement of her presence, and the shocked thieves simultaneously began to rally. "Have your people sweep the balcony and the upper floor!" Nine-Fingers rapped out briskly to me and Jaheira. "I'm gonna pull 'em into the pit, so you'd better keep 'em from raining shit down on me! Ladies, let's go!" she called to her surviving bodyguards, and then with a running leap Nine-Fingers jumped straight off the third-floor balcony into mid-air, swung off a suspended lamp, and then let go to soar in an arc until she could reach a hanging chain and wrap her arms and legs around it, riding it down straight to the bottom of the open-air pit. Her team of female bodyguards went right over the edge after her, although they used a Feather Fall spell cast by their wizard rather than Nine-Fingers' more dramatic swashbuckling

"RALLY TO ME, BOYS!" her confident voice shook the rafters. "PUSH 'EM DOWN TO ME! IF YOU BLACK NETWORK FUCKS WANT ME THEN I'M STANDING RIGHT HERE! SO YOU BASTARDS JUST COME ON DOWN AND TAKE YOUR SHOT IF YOU THINK YOU'VE GOT THE STONES!"

The Zhentarim archers all lined up on the railing of the topmost balcony were hit by a Darkness spell from Shadowheart and a Fog Cloud from Gale, neutralizing their ability to fire. And then we split up into two teams and started sweeping left and right around the top-floor balcony, clearing the rim.

The entire hall was chaos. I caught scattered glimpses of unarmored bouncers with clubs taking down fully-armored Zhents by hitting them with thrown tables and barstools before stomping them while they were down. One Guild sorcerer or wizard had deliberately feigned being a hopeless coward to suck in a whole team of Zhents to point-blank range before blinding them all with a Color Spray and then stepping back as several cutpurses murdered their temporarily-helpless targets with table knives and then 'borrowed' the Zhents' weapons. Here and there crew bosses were calling their own crews together, forming at least semi-organized squads, and then maneuvering them to try and pincer more Zhent squads between their own teams and the defensive position anchoring around Nine-Fingers at the bottom of the hall. Because the Zhentarim had to kill her, no matter what else they did or did not accomplish, or else they'd never achieve their mission of neutralizing the guild. I doubt that Nine-Fingers had ever had any formal training in warfare but she'd still executed one of the classic strategic masterstrokes all the same - it didn't matter where your enemy wanted to go if you controlled where an essential target was located, because then they'd have to go there sooner or later.

I made a mental note to myself that Nine-Fingers thought fast in a crisis. With one dramatic move she'd shifted the entire momentum of the battle. The tactical position was largely the same now as it had been a moment ago. The same number of people were in the same positions with the same armor, weapons, and skills. But surprise was an event that took place in the mind of an enemy commander and whoever was in charge of the Zhents had not had a page for this in their plan, and by the time they caught up and started adjusting it was too late. Too many individual Zhentarim had gone after the number-one target on their list by reflex, seeing only that she'd entered an apparently vulnerable position with no line of retreat, and that meant they were all moving the exact wrong way - down into the depths of the Guildhall where they could be surrounded by the rallying thieves who'd have a high-ground advantage on them, as opposed to falling back upwards to consolidate with their overwatch team of archers and just rain down missile fire until everybody was dead. Meanwhile the surprised thieves would have the morale advantage of seeing their leader still alive, fighting, and apparently without a care in the world, and while the Zhentarim had heavier weapons and armor they were still outnumbered - and surrounded by angry people fighting desperately to defend their own home and livelihoods.

And, of course, there was an entire crew of veteran adventurers and Harpers that had not been on the Zhentarim schedule either, and we were free to seize and clear the high ground before moving down to help the beleaguered Guildsmen. Although none of the Zhentarim here were green recruits, they didn't have any really experienced fighters capable of contending on even terms with adventurers of our experience. So after our spellcasters had temporarily neutralized the Zhentarim archer teams by shutting down their visibility, we then permanently neutralized them the old-fashioned way. The only event there that was worthy of note was when I'd encountered two armored Zhents cornering a teenaged tiefling with a short sword, visibly enraged over how she'd taken down a third Zhent to protect a couple of unarmed young servants I saw cowering behind her.

"We're gonna use your horns to pick our teeth with, you little devil-brat!" the man on the left growled viciously. "But that's only after we'll-"

"I'm sorry to interrupt your storytelling hour," their would-be victim smirked back at them, "but it's time for you to get your sorry arses kicked! Look out behind you!" she warned them - in the most exaggeratedly over-the-top and unconvincing manner possible. Sure enough, neither of them remotely believed her. Which is why they weren't looking behind them even as I came up and smashed them both into the ground.

"Well look at who the cat dragged in." I grinned down at Mol. "Small world, isn't it?"

"Seems as if, and lucky for me that it was!" she laughed back.

"Get them to safety." I pointed at the unarmed children behind her. "We'll finish up here."

"You got it!" she saluted me with her blade and they headed off back towards the kitchens.

Soon enough the Zhentarim assault was dealt with, and we all regrouped and went looking for Nine-Fingers to resume our conversation. I noted with amusement that Mol had come up silently behind us and was tagging along as if she'd been with us the whole time.

"These thieves need more practice with their weapons." Minsc noted idly as he stood there blithely ignoring more than a few wounds, which Jaheira exasperatedly started bandaging. "Many of them actually hit Minsc while aiming at the Zhentarim!"

"They probably were aiming at you." Wyll explained. "They think you're the Stone Lord, remember?"

"Oh." MInsc realized. "Yes, Minsc did not exactly have time to stop and explain things." He shrugged. "Minsc shall consider it an honest mistake, then. They did not draw very much blood anyway."

"What a fucking mess." Nine-Fingers swore as her people started to clear away the wreckage... and their casualties. "You." she glared at Minsc. "You saved my life in there. Why?"

"You are asking Minsc to think about and explain the whys of his doing what he has been doing?" Minsc replied amusedly. "This is not a thing Minsc is much known for doing."

"Believe me, it isn't." Jaheira moaned.

"It's like we told you. The 'Stone Lord' never really existed - he was just a man under mind control by the Absolute cultists. And now that he's free, he's got no grudge against you." I repeated.

"And seeing as how I'm not a slab of roast pork right now, I can't really claim any grudge against him either." Nine-Fingers reluctantly admitted. "Come on. Let's find a private corner and finish our discussion."

"So, you're sure you don't want to take my chair anymore?" Nine-Fingers challenged Minsc as we re-entered her office.

"Minsc has never had any interest in your furniture, Nine-Fingers." Minsc replied confusedly. "Only in the wicked rump that fills it?"

"Excuse me?" Nine-Fingers burst out.

"You have been a stone in this city's boot for far too long. And it will be no Stone Lord that reaches between Balduran's sticky toes to dislodge you. It will be Minsc!" Minsc thundered proudly.

"What language is he even speaking?" Nine-Fingers asked us helplessly.

"Minsc, we came here to ally with her, remember? Both us and the Guild working to stop the Absolute?" I said patiently.

"I'm beginning to understand why you're such a ball of sunshine all the time, if this is what you've had to work with." Nine-Fingers groused to Jaheira.

"I am not touching that one with an eleven-foot pole." Jaheira glared.

"The really funny thing is that he was sort of a hero of mine when I was younger." Nine-Fingers admitted.

"Even now you twist the truth! When you were young and ten-fingered still, Minsc and Boo were petrified - mistaken for a statue, and left in a city square!" Minsc contradicted her.

"Aye, you were." Nine-Fingers nodded. "I remember the spot well - it was by a garden on the Wide. A soft thicket near the market, with careless pockets to pick. Mount Celestia itself for a street rat looking for shelter. You might not have been wrestling monsters, but... you helped keep the wind and the rain off. Heroic enough for me."

"Bah! You try to dampen Boo's eyes with sentiment, but do not think you will be spared his teeth! Evil is evil, even if evil was once... innocent." Minsc trailed off.

"Minsc, that's my girlfriend you're talking about." I glared at him firmly. "Shadowheart." I immediately clarified. "Not Nine-Fingers."

"Shadowheart? The pure and sweet priestess who was the first among you to praise Boo? But she is not evil at all!" Minsc replied confusedly.

"But I used to be." Shadowheart admitted. "I was raised in the cult of Shar, and only recently escaped it to turn to Selune. If you'd met me just the year before, I would have been very different - and you'd likely have killed me and never thought twice."

"Well I'm certainly no innocent." Nine-Fingers chuffed. "But evil? You tell me. With half the Flaming Fist, way too much of the Upper City Watch, and the Council itself all licking the Absolute's boots through Gortash, who's one of the only groups left actually trying to protect Baldur's Gate? The Guild, that's who!" She snorted. "Heroes come and heroes go, but the Guild's always been here and always will be."

"She has a point, Minsc." Jaheira said. "We are outnumbered and with very few possible allies right now. And even if Nine-Fingers and I have agreed on little over the years, we still have always trusted each other to never knife the other in the back. And sometimes that is more valuable than anything. The Guild wishes to help protect Baldur's Gate? Then I say we allow them their chance."

"Minsc is so confused! If everything is changing then how does he know which is which? Boo, what do I do?" A brief chittering from Minsc's pocket answered him. "Pay my debt to the Guild for those the Stone Lord killed by fighting alongside them? Are you sure?"

"He's... actually talking to the rodent? And it's talking back?" Nine-Fingers asked Jaheira confusedly. "Is this some ranger speaks-to-animals thing?"

"I am a druid and I have still never been able to understand what that hamster is saying. How Boo speaks to Minsc and what is actually being communicated is a mystery neither man nor god have ever solved." Jaheira replied.

"You know what? I don't care where a good idea comes from as long as it's good." Nine-Fingers finally decided. "All right, Minsc. If you really want to make it up to us, as well as help make this alliance against the Absolute work better, then you can work with the Guild." She sighed. "And Tyr's honest truth? This play that Gortash almost pulled off, creating a 'Stone Lord' to pressure us so hard that we'd turn to the Zhents in desperation? Tricking us into inviting the real threat into our home ourselves so he could take us down from the inside? We should never have fallen for that. I should never have fallen for that. We've gotten soft. Soft, lazy, and complacent. We should never have needed to hire mercenaries - we should have been ready to deploy a genuine fighting force of our own! One that we could count on, where we couldn't count on the Watch or the Fist!"

"Like a berserker lodge of my homeland!" Minsc said proudly. "No army or militia, no kissing the boot of local lords. Just brave men and women, all working together for the common good! Very well... Minsc and Boo accept!"

"Wait, what?" Nine-Fingers replied dazedly.

"Boo and I shall help you found your berserker lodge, taking the ugly ways of the Guild and beating them into a more virtuous shape! And there will also be much kicking of the soft and lazy buttocks, until all weakness has been conquered!" Minsc replied cheerfully.

"That... that is not even slightly what I had in mind!" Nine-Fingers stammered.

"But you were right! I cannot serve the city if I was so easily turned against it. If I cannot know my own mind... then perhaps I no longer know what is good." Minsc said doubtfully.

"Minsc, I am fairly certain that 'good' is literally the only thing you do know." Gale said diplomatically.

"I am touched by your kind words, and so now I must live up to them! When the Absolute is slain, Boo and Minsc shall join with Nine-Fingers and help show her the ways of goodness!" Minsc declared authoritatively.

"Is it too late to go back to an hour ago when we just wanted to kill each other?" Nine-Fingers begged desperately.

"Welcome to my life." Jaheira replied smugly. "I have lived with this for more years than I count. I am pleased that I will finally have someone to share the load with."

"If I'd actually let you adopt me back then, would I have been safe from this?" Nine-Fingers despaired.

"With our luck? Probably not." Jaheira admitted.

---

Author's Note: Yes, I know Boo is canonically supposed to be trapped in that sealed room next to the sewer cistern where the Stone Lord takedown is supposed to happen after his cutscene escape at the bank. Except I hate cutscene escapes except when they make my plot easier, not harder, so Boo shows up tagging along after Minsc. It's Boo, that hamster has never made sense and it doesn't have to make sense. Sometimes I honestly wonder if it's not a tiny god or something.

About 90% of the Minsc/Jaheira/Nine-Fingers dialogue is straight from the game. It is hilarious to take him there after you've finished the Stone Lord questline. The rest is just me throwing it in.

Nine-Fingers and Jaheira's connection is never actually explained in the game, so I threw in 'Jaheira once tried to adopt her after she was orphaned, but she wasn't having any'. I know Nine-Fingers is originally from a tabletop supplement that I don't have, so if I contradicted that one in my ignorance, meh.

The fight in the Guildhall is not quite so cinematic in the game, but hey, they have game engine limitations and a finite production budget. I don't.

And I was as surprised as all get-out when the party was just walking past a random house in the Lower City with Jaheira in rotation and suddenly the next thing I know I'm finding out that she's got like five adopted kids and now I'm standing in the middle of a family argument at the dinner table. *g*

 

[Simonbob]

...... Ah, Minsc.

Kicking Evil's buttocks, in ways that no rational man ever could!


The hamster is most definately the smarter one.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

"Who is 'Boo'?" Karlach asked confusedly.

"Someone who most of the bards who tried to tell our tale left out, because they were entirely at a loss for words to explain." Jaheira said wearily

Click to shrink...

... I can't blame the bards for that, honestly.

"Oh my goddess he's so adorable!" Shadowheart squealed,

Click to shrink...

DISNEY. PRINCESS.

 

[Mizu]

Minsc is great fun as a character, and utterly confusing at the same time. Guess that's what you get from min-maxing strength and using intelligence as a dump stat.

 

[The Uninspired]

And this is why Int is in fact a perfect dump stat. This is the shit I wanna see at my table and in interactions.

 

[Matrix Dragon]

Nine-Fingers and Jaheira's connection is never actually explained in the game, so I threw in 'Jaheira once tried to adopt her after she was orphaned, but she wasn't having any'.

Click to shrink...

This reminds me of an idea I had for an AU, were Karlach gets adopted by Jaheira instead of ending up in Gortashs employ. Still be easy enough to have the Nautiloid abduct her, although you'd have to come up with another reason to have Mizoria transform Wyll, but I'm sure she could think of a reason to be awful. It'd make the reunion at Last Light both even more entertaining and awkward.

Rion: Her sending message would still be non-existent....

 

[DeadlySoren]

Op, I hate to say it but I think you've bloated the party way too much in this one. Just have Jaheira tagging along was fine for the most part but I'm pretty sure that most of the original party didn't get to talk or really do anything this chapter (if they said anything at all). Even our MC didn't really feel like he did much and I think that's down to how much of this chapter has been taken straight from the game in terms of story beats.

This set of event was kinda unavoidable when the party decided to talk to nine-fingers however I don't think it needed the entire team. Maybe split the party a bit to cover more ground and objectives, give a different POV for the split party? Just spit balling ideas.

 

[cliffc999]

Op, I hate to say it but I think you've bloated the party way too much in this one.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, it's turning out to be a limitation of first person POV that I hadn't anticipated when I started this. If Hawke isn't there then I either have to use interludes, which I want to use very sparingly because it ruins focus if you overdo it, or else a scene can't happen on-camera at all. So Hawke's going to be present for as many of the main plot beats as possible, and he's had no real reason to split the party yet (although he's already started to, given that isobel and Aylin are busy handling Rivington right now).

Well, I always knew Act Three would be the toughest to storyboard precisely because it's the least organized act in the game and one where linear time is barely even a suggestion, so, we'll figure this out somehow.