#bjk plays BG3 Durge

[blackjackkent]

Trotted over to the bank to go ahead and quickly drop off Rakath's gold, and got this delightful banter between Minsc and Wyll:

I love them, your honor.

[blackjackkent]

Decided to give Wyll a kiss in the middle of the street outside Sorcerous Sundries for no particular reason and he opened up the conversation with this gutpunch:

"Mystra wants to meet Gale? Impressive. The only thing a god's ever offered me is a cold shoulder."

...Oh. :(

Poor young Wyll, cast out on his own with Mizora's glass eye in his head, praying for deliverance from the Triad and receiving nothing but silence in return. :( :( :(

[blackjackkent]

As I mentioned in my post last night, I love this cutscene between Minsc and Jaheira very much - and I also love the devnotes on it when looking through the parsed dialogue files, since they further emphasize all the things I love about these characters and their relationship.

So I have compiled all of it here because I need you all to experience the Emotions with me. XD

-----

MINSC: Jaheira... Boo is trying his best to explain, but I still do not understand your anger. (Devnote: Hesitant, a little apologetic - wants to get it but doesn't.) JAHEIRA: Do not hide behind your hamster, ranger. You do not understand, because you do not listen. We were the first to discover the cult. And if you had only waited, we might have marshalled our numbers and - MINSC: Good does not wait for evil to button up its britches - when it offers buttocks for the smacking, Minsc and Boo greet cheek with hand! (Devnote: Quietly scandalised at the notion that he should have stopped and waited for reinforcements, rather than wading into incredible odds alone.) PLAYER: That sounds like a fun evening. MINSC: It is well that Boo's innocent ears still ring from all this shouting. (Devnote: A little offended - the player is being inappropriate in front of his hamster.)

-----

JAHEIRA: You meant well, Minsc. But you exposed the city to harm. You helped the cult spread. And worse, perhaps, than any of this: You forced me to leave you behind. MINSC: But... this is where Minsc falls short of the understanding, Jaheira. (Devnote: Puzzled - a little wary to contradict Jaheira but working it out.) What else is a berserker for, if not to charge into danger ahead of his Wychlaran? (Devnote: Genuinely bemused. He would happily throw away his life to protect Jaheira, and takes it for granted that she knows this.)

-----

MINSC: Boo agrees, you are a queer kind of witch. But this city is a queer place. And Minsc, you may have noticed, is sometimes strange himself. (Devnote: Tone is "I know it's strange, I agree, but hear me out.") The titles matter not. Only this - when Minsc does as Minsc does, and charges in to make a mess: (Devnote: Brushing aside Jaheira's discomfort with the title of 'wychlaran', getting to the point of what he means.) Jaheira does as Jaheira does, and finds a way to save us all anyway. (Devnote: Absolute unshakeable faith that Jaheira can and will solve any problem.) PLAYER: Aw. That's actually kind of sweet. JAHEIRA: ...I fight alongside fools. MINSC: You hear that, Boo? We fight alongside a Wychlaran again. (Devnote: Utterly unconcerned by the "fool" part, quietly excited by the "Jaheira fights alongside us again" part.)

-----

PLAYER: Speaking of feelings - does Minsc know you were ready to kill the Emperor for him? [INTIMIDATION DC10] [CHECK PASS] JAHEIRA: ...My own foolishness does not absolve Minsc of his. [CHECK FAIL] JAHEIRA: A sad and desperate bluff. I need to be sure that Minsc understands I cannot make such a threat twice. MINSC: I have already pledged my sword and hamster both. What more does Minsc have to give? (Devnote: At a loss.) JAHEIRA: Your word, ranger - that next time, you will stop and think. I will not always be here to tell you what to do. MINSC: If not here, then where? Wherever there is, Minsc and Boo will go too! My hamster... he would not be parted from you again, Jaheira. (Devnote: Heavy emphasis on 'there' in second phrase. Jaheira has suggested she won't be around forever - Minsc won't hear of it. The last is the closest he gets to sincerely telling her how much he missed her.) JAHEIRA: ...I missed him, too. And try as you might, I know you have not missed my point as neatly as you pretend.

[blackjackkent]

I'd like to present my nominee for the best Ambient Dialogue NPC in Baldur's Gate. All hail Pritt Yellowbreath.

(if negative article published about player) "Those folk in the Baldur's Mouth headlines recently. Horrible. While they're hogging broadsheet pages, the puzzle section shrivels and dies."

(if positive article published about player) "Forget adventurers. You know what'd be *really* heroic? Someone bringing back the bloody puzzle section."

(if Gortash dead) "Gortash this, Gortash that - nothing but the dead duke in the Gazette right now. The *real* tragedy here is the Baldur's Mouuth cutting its puzzle section!" "That bloody Gazette - nothing but death, death, death. What the people want in a broadsheet is something *fun*. Puzzles for instance!"

[blackjackkent]

Wyll is trembling like a leaf when Jaheira pokes her head into his tent.

"I brought you some stew, cub," she says, setting a bowl down just inside the tent flap. "You will not want to come out to the fire tonight, I think." Her lips twitch with a brief flash of rueful humor. "Gale is holding forth about something or other that no one is in the mood to hear - least of all you."

She watches the Blade uncurl himself slowly from his hunched position. He wipes hastily at his eyes, his head tipped away from her in an attempt to hide his face, but she clicks her tongue dismissively. "Come now, boy," she says - and her tone is gentle in contrast to the curtness of the words. "Do you think I have not seen tears before? You have cause of crying; do not hold back on my account."

(Hypocrisy, of course. She would not be caught dead crying in his position; she would be swallowing down the tears and hiding the weakness, and she knows it perfectly well. But what use being so old, she thinks sardonically, if not to give advice one has no intention of following oneself?)

He tries to laugh but it doesn't quite come out right, a shaky, whimpering sound. "I'm-- sorry, I..." he mumbles. "I can't--"

Silence. She waits, watching, until he's ready to speak. "It didn't seem truly real till now," he finally whispers. "That they'd taken him, that my father--" He swallows. "He threw me out for listening to Mizora, and then he goes and gets himself taken by that-- that thing--"

His voice cracks and he looks down at his hands in his lap. "Like father, like son, eh?" he mutters. "I thought I'd failed him, all those years ago. That I was simply weak, that he would never have allowed anything to touch him as Mizora touched me. Seems I was wrong."

"The bitterest cut of growing up," Jaheira says with the ghost of a humorless smile. "The moment when you must learn that those who raised you are no more perfect than you are; some simply put on a good show of it." And some do not.

He nods. "All this time, I thought maybe... one day, there would be a reconciling," he admits. "And now this... he might be lost, with so much left unsaid..." He squeezes his eyes shut and she sees the glimmer of tears between the lids. "What if I can't save him?" he whispers.

She debates her answer before speaking - groundless hope or harsh practicality. "If it can be done, you will do it," she says at last. "And we will all be beside you."

She wishes there was some bit of certainty she could offer him in place of these empty words. Her own parents died in the flames of the crisis that toppled Tethyr; she has no memory of them. Sometimes it occurs to her, in vague terms, to be envious of those who know the faces of those who bore them. Other times, like now, it feels far easier never to have known.

"You should eat, Wyll," she says, gently nudging the bowl towards him. "It will gain no flavor by cooling off."

"I'm not hungry." He breathes out shakily. Then his head snaps up and he looks around with sudden wildness, starting to push up onto one knee. "I should-- I need to-- Rakha..."

"Stlarn. No," Jaheira says, and the word is suddenly so curt that it slaps him backwards into a sitting position again. "Do not trouble yourself with Rakha."

"She'll-- she'll need me, I--"

"She will keep." Jaheira frowns darkly. "The things she needs will not be found tonight, and they are a weight heavier than you need to carry. And for once, Wyll Ravengard, you will take care of yourself first, or I will know why."

He swallows. "Yes, mum," he says, and it's supposed to be a joke, but his voice cracks a little on the word.

There's a long silence. He leans over, puts his hand on the side of the bowl and drags it a few inches towards himself, but doesn't lift it. "She knew him," he mutters. "She was one of those behind the whole blasted plot, and he-- you saw the way he looked at her. And it's because of her that we have these things in our heads..."

He presses his fingertips to his temple and looks up at her with a lost, uncertain expression. "How do I look past that?"

"Wyll..." She sighs.

It is so much harder with Rakha than it was with Caden. Caden had Bhaal's blood, he stood on the precipice, but he never had the chance to truly fall into that dark god's clutches. Rakha, meanwhile, has spent her life submerged in blood; the best she can hope for is to be able to break the surface and draw a new breath.

"This is no better nor worse than what we have already learned of her," she says carefully. "The question to you remains the same. Do you hate her for what she has been, or do you love her for what she is, what she may yet be?"

She smiles ruefully. "No one but you can answer that question - and in truth I think no one would have cause to judge you if you decided it was too much. I hope you will not, but I would understand--"

"No," he says. "No, I-- I love her." He swallows and rubs the heels of his hands against his forehead. "It's just... it's just hard, that's all."

She nods. "I have loved many with darkness in their hearts," she says softly. "It is no easy matter. But you are equal to it." Her lips twitch. "Or you will be - if you will do as I say, and eat your stew, and sleep."

This startles a very low, very shaky laugh out of him, and he finishes pulling the bowl towards him and picks up the spoon. "All right. All right," he says. "I will. Blade's honor."

-----

"She was his friend?!" The flames around Karlach's body are high and wild, the highest Jaheira has yet seen them. The pale gold of her eyes has turned near blue with the incandescent heat. "She was his FUCKING FRIEND?!"

Jaheira watches the young tiefling warily, deliberately positioning her body between Karlach and the corner of the camp to which Rakha has retreated. "So it would seem," she says, her voice calm in contrast to Karlach's rage. "Though it cheapens the word to use it."

"I'll kill her," Karlach growls. "I'll fucking kill her. All this time, she was old buddies with Gortash? For how long, huh? Were they palling around the night he decided to pack me off to Avernus? Were they sitting about with a nice cocktail, talking about how my blood money paid off their first shipment of fucking worms?"

"I do not know, Karlach." Jaheira shakes her head. "Nor does Rakha."

"Yeah. Right. We sure of that? Maybe she remembers more than we think." Karlach's lips twist in a hard, manic smile; the rage is bright and blinding in her eyes. "Seems like the only thing I'm sure of right now is that she went into that fucking keep and swore an oath not to hurt him. Well, y'know what? I haven't sworn any fucking oaths, and I'm really, really, really ready to hurt someone."

She pulls the heavy sword from her back, makes a half-turn, and takes a step forward, about to break into a run.

In an instant, one of Jaheira's scimitars is out of its sheath. Without hesitation, she snaps her arm forward so that the hilt knocks smartly against Karlach's wrist.

Karlach yelps and drops her sword with a clang, shaking her suddenly stinging hand. "Ow! Shit!" She grips her wrist with the opposite hand and looks at Jaheira with wide eyes; surprise has muffled the rage for a moment, along with a hint of admiration. "Whoa."

"Do not think I do not understand your anger," Jaheira says curtly. "But I will not allow you to act on it. We both know you would regret it after."

A muscle works in Karlach's jaw with frustration, and then she spins and lashes out with a kick at the tent behind her, which immediately topples into a messy pile of fabric and poles. "Fuck..." she snarls down at it. "I can't believe we're working with that motherfucker. After everything I've been through..."

Jaheira cocks her head, looking at the young woman with no small amount of sympathy. She is all too familiar with the need for vengeance; a sudden memory flashes through her, of the sight of Jon Irenicus vanishing out of their grip deep within Spellhold, his mocking laughter lingering in the air behind him. No - she knows full well what Karlach is feeling. Unfortunately, it does not change the situation at hand.

"It is a practical matter," she says. "We have many enemies. This 'alliance' removes one of them for a time. It will not be forever." Her eyes narrow minutely and she folds her arms across her chest. "You will have your vengeance yet, Karlach."

Karlach leans over to pick up the sword she dropped, absently wiping a clump of dirt off the handle with her thumb. Her lips are pursed out, an attempt at masking her emotion but not a particularly successful one; Jaheira has seen many times already that Karlach's heart is worn firmly on her sleeve.

"I hope you're right," Karlach mutters. "But... what if she decides she likes him better'n us, huh? What if she decides she likes who she was then, better'n... all of this?" She waves a hand in a vague gesture towards the camp around them. Then her hand falls to her side and her shoulders slump.

"He welcomed her home," she adds quietly. The blue rage-glow is fading out of her eyes, and she stares at the ground next to Jaheira's boots. "Time was, not too long ago, I'd've done just about anything for someone who welcomed me home..."

Jaheira waits in silence for a moment. When she is certain that the immediate crisis has passed, she begins to slowly and methodically resheathe her scimitar on her back. "Do you trust Rakha?" she asks after a short pause.

Karlach laughs ruefully. "Ask me a tough one, hm?" She drops the sword with a low clunk on top of the pile of fabric that used to be her tent. "I think so? I mean, I did. I have. All the way through the shadowlands and all. We knew she was fighting some bad shit, but so are the rest of us, and I know Wyll loves her like fucking mad. But this..." She rubs at the bridge of her nose. "A Bhaalspawn, and now I find out she was working with Gortash too... It's just a fucking lot to take in, you know?"

"I know." Jaheira considers, then amends the question: "Do you trust me?"

Karlach's head snaps up and she blinks rapidly. "What? Of course I do, ma'am. You're--" She grins sheepishly. "I mean, you're Jaheira. Be stupid not to trust you, right?"

If only that were always the case. "Take my word, if you do not take hers," Jaheira says firmly. "This is the correct choice."

A short silence. Karlach studies her expression closely. "You're that sure of her?" she asks. "That she'll keep fighting and won't turn on us?"

Jaheira's eyes flick away.

The truth is that of course she isn't sure. Rakha is, at her worst moments, a feral animal struggling to hold onto its own leash; Jaheira would be foolish to think she is not capable of being supremely dangerous.

But... she sees snatches of someone else, buried deep in all that darkness - a curious, doggedly determined, oddly guileless, deeply frightened woman clinging onto sanity by her fingernails, a dark-mirror echo of one of Jaheira's oldest and greatest friends. She can't turn her back on that - no matter how uncertain the path.

"I would stake my life on it," she says gravely.

Karlach tilts her head, and then laughs suddenly. "Yeah," she says wryly. "Guess we all will, huh?'

-----

Rakha has dragged Lae'zel's training dummy away from the camp. She stands in the seclusion of nearby trees and another rotted-out building, and is pacing around the dummy like a stalking animal. Every now and then, with a sudden spasm of movement, she lashes out with a punch, a kick, a gripping rip to pull a piece of fabric away from the wooden frame. She has been at this for some time. Her knuckles are bloody.

As Jaheira draws near, she can hear the half-orc mumbling to herself, inarticulate phrases, frantic nonsense sounds. Her mismatched eyes - one blank white, the other pure black - glint almost imperceptibly in the dim light.

"Don't come near me," she snarls, hearing Jaheira's footsteps behind her.

Jaheira halts at once. "As you say," she says mildly.

"I mean it." Rakha's breath sounds ragged and rough; she inhales in a gasping, mewling groan, as if struggling for air. "I'm broken. Dangerous."

"You sound very certain of that," Jaheira says, keeping her tone carefully measured.

"I am. You heard him. Gortash." Rakha puts a strange twist on the name that is hard to define - it sounds like a curse, like a groan of pain. "He knew me. Blood and all, every bit on my hands. He was glad to see me. We were-- partners--"

"So it would seem."

Rakha growls hoarsely. Magic pulses around her body and then erupts outward, a thunderous shockwave that knocks the dummy ten feet backwards. It crushes the grass in a circle around her. "We were partners," she snarls. "We built this." She presses her fist against her temple, leaving a bloody smear from her knuckles across her skin. "All of it. The worms. The cult."

Again that strange whimpering gasp; she hunches over as if shielding herself from some unseen blow. "Bhaalspawn. Chosen. I wanted them all dead. Blood spattered, entrails spilled, thanking me as they died for the Absolute..."

She lifts her head, and for a moment Jaheira truly is frightened to see the manic desperation that has taken over her expression. "I did this," she rasps. "I did all of this. What happened to Wyll... it's because of me. What happened to Lae'zel... to Minthara... to you-- it's all-- because-- of me--"

Her breath is coming in rapid and uneven gasps now, hyperventilating, choking. And the words start coming faster, too, not her usual clipped-off sentences but a waterfall of terrified thought. "I could feel it, there, when he looked in my eyes, I remembered-- I remembered how I wanted to tear off his skin, how I had a greater plan, to bleed every last soul of the world into a pile of rancid carcass--"

She stops abruptly, her eyes wild, her fingers curled into desperate clawing shapes as she struggles for control. Her gaze rakes over Jaheira's body, and Jaheira is reminded all too clearly of the madness in Caden's face in the moments when the Slayer form took him. Subtly she shifts her weight, ready to dart to the side, to fight back if the need should come... but Rakha shakes her head suddenly, staggers backward and falls to her knees.

"I can't make it stop..." she gasps out. "What if I can't make it stop...?"

"You can." It takes a great deal of effort for Jaheira to keep her voice steady and even, not to betray any of the fear and revulsion that is rising in her in spite of herself. What if you can't, indeed? "You are strong enough."

"Am I?" Rakha laughs. Jaheira is not sure she's ever heard her laugh before, and certainly not like this; it's a bitter, hysterical sound full of pain. "It would be easy to give in. No more fighting. He wanted all of me, all of the broken parts. I could just give in... give in, and it would all be easy... no fighting, no wondering, just blood, and blood, and blood..."

She rocks spasmodically side to side, her fingers clawing restlessly at the uneven scar along her hairline. "Oh, gods, I can't make it stop..."

With a sudden movement that is more instinct than thought, Jaheira crouches to eye level with her, reaches out and cups both of Rakha's cheeks, wrenching her head up so their eyes meet. "Look at me. Hold on. Breathe," she snaps.

Rakha flinches back from the touch, her lips curling back from her teeth. "Why do you help me?" she snarls. "You should hate me. All of you should hate me."

Her eyes lock onto Jaheira's, desperate, feral. "Hate me."

"No." Jaheira's eyes narrow and her jaw sets, staring back just as fiercely.

"Gods. I'm broken. Shattered. Hate me."

"No." No doubt it would be easier if she could. She wishes she could, for then the path would be clear.

"HATE ME!" Rakha screams, and curls backwards into herself, her head hunching down into her arms. "Please..."

"I will not." Jaheira's pulse is thundering in her throat. She feels the delicacy of this moment, not so different from taming a beaten and frightened animal in the woods. "Those thoughts are in you, but they are not you. They do not define you. Who you were is not who you are. Breathe."

Rakha draws a ragged, sobbing breath that wracks her whole body. "It hurts..." she groans.

"I know. Look at me." Jaheira waits, carefully unmoving, until Rakha lifts her head and their eyes meet again. The frantic terror is ebbing away, slowly replaced by an exhaustion that makes something in Jaheira's heart twist to witness.

"I don't want to slip," Rakha whispers.

"I know," Jaheira repeats, more gently.

Rakha breathes in, shuddering. "I don't want to-- for Wyll--" she mumbles unsteadily.

"No." Jaheira shakes her head, just slightly. "Do not think of Wyll. Do not think of me. What do you want?"

The question seems to give Rakha some pause. She looks down at her hands, the blood on her knuckles, and then closes her eyes. "I want peace..." she says, almost too low to hear. "But I don't know where to find it..."

Jaheira relaxes a fraction, rocking her weight back. "You will not find it with Gortash," she says.

Rakha doesn't answer aloud, but raises one shoulder in a stiff shrug.

A long, long silence passes. Neither of them moves. Then Rakha shifts, and her eyes hood over again as she looks away. "I don't want to sleep in camp," she mutters. "I'll sleep out here."

Jaheira nods. "Then I will join you," she says brusquely. Without waiting for a response, she moves to the edge of the clearing and sits down with her back against a tree.

Rakha hesitates a moment. She seems as if she wants to say something, but though her mouth opens, no words come out. Then she shrugs again and turns away. Finding a patch of uncrushed grass, she lies down and curls her bulky frame into a tight ball, her back to Jaheira and to camp.

-----

Only when the half-orc's breathing turns steady and shallow does Jaheira allow herself to relax. She slumps, suddenly aware of all the weariness that adrenaline has been holding back, and rubs a hand down her face.

Ye gods... she thinks ruefully, leaning her head back against the comfortingly solid tree trunk behind her. How do I keep getting caught up in things like this?

In this brief moment of quiet, with no one to witness it, she allows herself the acknowledgment - she is frightened. This may be the second Bhaalspawn she has known, but Rakha is not Caden; that fact is becoming clearer with every moment, with every new revelation about the half-orc's bloody past.

And regardless of the confidence she expressed to Wyll and Karlach, Jaheira is not at all certain that they will win the battle for Rakha's mind.

I may have to kill her, she thinks bleakly. All of this may yet be for nothing in the end. The thought makes her scowl.

But not if I can help it. I will hold onto her with every bit of strength I have, before I will let Bhaal have her. I will hold onto them all...

[blackjackkent]

Family photo: Jaheira and her latest crop of degenerate children. XD

(And Wyll.)

[blackjackkent]

All right. That wraps up Rakha's story officially. Took much longer than my first playthrough with Hector - partly because I had to take some hiatuses in the middle, and partly because Rakha turned out to be way more complex to write about and I ended up getting very wordy. XD

But I'm honestly deeply proud of Rakha's story and of how she's ended up. I've ended up putting a lot of myself into her (into Hector too, but even more into Rakha), and her coming to a satisfying ending means a lot to me.

Also means a lot to me how many people have followed her story, either all the way from Act 1 or finding her somewhere along the way. The comments, interest, support, suggestions have all meant so much to me and helped me to want to keep writing and developing her character more. I hope you have had as much fun seeing her development and her resolution as I have had writing it. <3

Tomorrow, I will be kicking off a new liveblog with a new character in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. It'll be weird to go (back) to Dragon Age after so much time writing about Baldur's Gate.

I don't intend to stop writing about BG though; I have plenty of fic still in mind, and at least one more playthrough to do in the future. But in the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the other adventures to come.

TY again all for following along and reading my work. <3

To once again pull the same quote from this comic with which I ended Hector's story:

”let’s all keep telling each other stories until the sun explodes.”

[blackjackkent]

Thus ends Rakha's story, which I am deeply gratified to realize has ended very softly and positively. To quote Charles Dickens:

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

As the night begins to fade down into quiet, she finds Withers paging slowly through a book in the ruins near the clearing. He gives her a slow sideways look.

"This one night," he says gravely, "is like any other... and yet... different." He closes the book deliberately and sets it down, turning to face her.

"Thou art the savior of Baldur's Gate... until such time as it requires saving again. How dost thou feel?"

Rakha draws a long breath slowly and then lets it out. The answer still feels strange to say aloud, as strange as the life that she is living, quiet and steady, day in and day out.

"I'm proud," she says quietly. "You gave me a new life, another chance. I did my best with it."

Withers makes a soft humming noise that is almost but not quite a laugh. "I am pleased to hear it," he murmurs. "The satisfaction of one's intention is, to my surprise, a rare accomplishment." He gestures with one skeletal hand back towards the door behind her. "Enjoy the revelry of the day. Thou deservest at least that much."

Rakha hesitates. The night is winding down and she has little left to say, her energy fading, the desire rising to retreat into solitude. But she has been to few enough parties that she is unsure of the steps. "I think I've caught up with everyone," she says slowly. "What comes next?"

Withers' lips curl in a slight smile. "What indeed," he says, and moves past her out into the open air. "Prick up thy ears and listen."

-----

He gathers them all out in the center of the clearing, next to the long spread of food not yet eaten.

"Hear me!" he calls, his voice resonating through the night air. "Thou heros, wastrels... friends. I have waited long to tell you these words."

"it is over... for now." A flicker of amusement touches his desiccated features. "Thou played thy part in weaving the fabric of fate itself. But for every thread you sewed, so did the gods unravel another. Sleep, rest, revel - for thou mayest yet be needed."

Rakha listens quietly to the speech. Perhaps he speaks the truth - but she hopes not. She is done with her adventures, and it would take the world ending again to convince her otherwise.

But she suspects this part of the speech is not fully meant for her, as he turns next and focuses his eyes on her as he speaks again.

"Until we meet again," he says gravely, "I wish thee every possible fortune. Health. Wealth. Love. And above all... problems worth solving."

Rakha considers this, then slowly raises her glass with a quiet smile. To that, she will happily drink. All of the short life she remembers, she has wanted nothing more than this. To find answers to her questions, to see the light of the Weave on her skin, and to see the work that needs doing and do it.

Attack with purpose, she told herself, when attacking was all that she knew how to do. But there is more now, more to life than that.

There are problems worth solving ahead of her, because of the people here and the help they have given her in climbing out of the dark and shedding the brutal fate she was born to.

"To all of you," she says abruptly, looking around, meeting each pair of eyes one by one. "My real family."

Each glass lifts in her direction in answer, including Withers'; he meets her gaze last of all and raises his goblet like a salute.

"To you," he says.

[blackjackkent]

Astarion doesn't hesitate once the fight is complete. Still covered in the blood of the werewolf he just finished killing, bare-chested and battered, he hurls himself at the stone coffin into which Cazador retreated.

"No, no!" he roars. "No healing sleep for you! WAKE UP!"

Grabbing Cazador by the collar, he hurls him out onto the stone floor.

Cazador scrabbles backwards across the bloodstained platform, struggling to retain his disdainful expression around the fear suddenly in his eyes. "Get your hands off me, worm!" he spits.

Astarion towers over him, the master he has hated for so long finally brought low. "I'm not the one in the dirt," he snarls, like a kicked dog finally showing its teeth.

He reaches down, picks up a dagger that has fallen to the floor as Cazador was thrown across it. It's a strange blade, not like one Rakha has ever seen.

At its center, held within curving strips of polished metal, is a stake of wood. Wyll has told her of how vampires die; she can see the purpose of such a blade. That is not a weapon made for mortal men.

Astarion looks at it, then lifts it to point the tip at Cazador. It trembles almost imperceptibly in his grip. "One last thrust," he hisses - and his voice is trembling too. "And I'll be free of you. I'll never have to fear you again."

He swallows, then flicks his eyes to the staff on the ground at Cazador's side. "But if I finish the ritual you started... I'll never have to fear anyone. Ever." His eyes glow with manic, desperate hunger - and fear.

Cazador laughs hollowly. "You think me a fool?" he cries. "That I would allow anyone to usurp me, speak the words, and ascend in my place?!" He leans forward a little, headless of the sharp tip of the dagger pointing at him. "The runes I carved into your flesh bind you and all seven thousand souls to the ritual! Complete it, and those bearing the scars will be sacrificed - you included."

He pushes himself up on his knees, even now striking out against Astarion with word after word. "You are simply a means to an end! I made you to be consumed!"

Astarion's fingers tighten on the dagger's hilt. A muscle works violently in his jaw as he stares down at his unrepentant tormentor.

"I am so much more," he whispers, "than what you made me."

There's a long, strained pause. Then he looks up abruptly, fixing his eyes on Rakha. "Get over here," he snaps brusquely. "We can do this."

Rakha doesn't move, doesn't say anything for a long time.

She knows what Astarion wants her to do. She even, on some level, knows why he wants it. This ritual, whatever it fully entails, is the ultimate throwing off of the shackles that have held him for centuries. He wants to be free. He wants not to be afraid anymore.

He wants peace, just as Rakha wants it. But he wants to obtain it by accepting the darkest version of the monster that he has become.

The idea makes her skin crawl. She has stood on the same precipice as him, offered a gift that came with the selling of her soul. She wants to grab him by the shoulders, pull him away, out of reach, before it can swallow him.

"Didn't you hear him?" she asks hoarsely. "If you complete the ritual, you'll be consumed..."

Astarion barks a sharp laugh. "Trust me. I know what I'm doing."

Perhaps he does. So many times before, her friends have faced choices of this magnitude, and she has trusted to their judgment rather than her own. Shadowheart with her spear, and Lae'zel's stand against Vlaakith, and Wyll's choice of his future, and Gale with the Crown of Karsus. She has never believed that she might know better than them, and this hardly seems the time to start.

This is Astarion's choice, not hers.

Isn't it?

"All right," she mutters haltingly, one hand rapidly flexing into a fist at her side. "What... do you need?"

"I need your eyes," he says. His voice sounds hollow and exhausted - but brittle with determination. "In a manner of speaking."

"What do you think you are doing?" Cazador hisses.

"Unmaking what you made me," Astarion growls, his eyes not leaving Rakha. "Use the parasite," he tells her. "Link your mind to mine. Through your eyes, I can see the scars on my back and copy them onto his."

Cazador's eyes widen, showing the whites at their edges. "You... would not dare."

"I would," Astarion murmurs. "And I will. You will be consumed. And all the power you've lusted after will be mine!"

"And what then, Astarion?" Jaheira asks flatly at Rakha's side. "You would use this power born of so much death for *good*, I suppose?"

Astarion ignores her. His eyes have not left Rakha's, not even to blink. "Help me do this. Please."

Rakha hesitates. She can feel Jaheira's sardonic disapproval, and Wyll's gaze digging into the back of her neck. She senses Minsc vibrating with barely-restrained anger. Even Lae'zel seems somewhat disquieted, her fingers tapping restlessly against the hilt of her sword.

But it is... Astarion's choice. Not hers. Not anyone's....

Mechanically she takes a step forward, and then another.

Enter Astarion's mind so he can proceed with the ritual.

Narrator: Your minds join and your two selves become one. You can feel the knife in your hand, see the scars on his back, and taste his hunger for power.

The bitter, brutal emotion pours through her like a waterfall, like a burning flame. Rakha grunts with sudden pain, clutching at her temple, but Astarion's eyes go wide with exhilaration.

"Yes. Yes - I see it!" he hisses.

In a quick, smooth, harsh set of motions, he steps behind Cazador and rips the robe off of him, baring his back and shoving him to the floor.

And Cazador screams as Astarion, over and over and over, sinks the knife into his flesh and begins to carve.

(A/N: This is a truly unpleasant little sequence and goes on for quite some time before eventually fading to black to indicate that it goes on even longer.)

All sense of time fades out. For a while Rakha is conscious only of the screaming, and the blood, and the overwhelming sense of delighted rage flowing into her from Astarion's mind. She doesn't know how long she's been standing there when the connection finally breaks.

She comes back to herself standing at Astarion's side. He and Cazador are both soaked in blood. The others look on with expressions ranging from appalled to enraged.

"There," Astarion hisses. "Perfect."

"Ungrateful child," Cazador chokes out. Tears are streaming down his face, cutting lines through the red painting his cheeks. "Wretched child!"

Astarion just smiles. "Time to take your place!"

He lifts the staff from the ground, and it glows with blood-red power in his hands. With a jerk, he lifts Cazador from the ground and hurls him into the socket where Astarion himself was held only minutes earlier.

Everything begins to happen at once. Astarion slams the staff into the sigil at the center of the platform, and around Rakha the Weave seems to explode with that same red, writhing light. All around them, the suspended spawn begin to scream, their voices echoing and rebounding on each other and mixing with other screams from below and behind, from the seven thousand other souls prepared to burn for this ascension.

Rakha staggers with the intensity of it, the overwhelming wall of sound and light and pain.

Behind her, barely audible through the chaos, she can hear her companions begin to shout, unable any longer to hold themselves back.

"No!" Wyll cries. "What are you doing?"

"Enough!" shouts Minsc. "We can still stop the nonsense words in his mouth!"

"This isn't the way!" shouts Lae'zel. The three of them break into a run towards Astarion - but the wall of power around him rises to meet them, slaps them back like a physical blow.(*)

At Rakha's side, Jaheira reaches out and seizes her forearm with a sudden fierce grip. "Are we truly to be party to this?" she asks, her voice low enough to cut underneath the screaming around them.

Rakha has gone completely still. The magic is pounding at her like a creature with fists and claws, and the screams echo in her mind, resonating with the memories of a thousand other deaths at her hands in a life she does not remember.

It is Astarion's choice. She is a broken thing, with no right to believe she knows better on this or anything else.

And yet...

I am so much more than what you made me, Astarion said.

An image flashes through her mind, painful as the edge of a knife, of the last moments before her death in the Temple of Bhaal, another moment soaked in red light and blood. Her father's rage as she rejected his 'gift'.

You refuse me? You are my spawn! Your veins course with my unholy blood. Your life is mine!

You were made to conquer! To devour! You reject my blood, and so I will reclaim it!

I will make another who is worthy...

She opens her eyes and stares at Astarion's body, writhing in the grip of the gift he has stolen from his own monstrous 'father,' on the precipice of the oblivion she rejected. And she knows, suddenly, that wrong or right, she cannot let this go on.

This ends here, I said. It ends... here...

We are more than what they made us.

Stop Astarion.

With more instinct than thought, she hurls herself across the platform, lifting the knife with the stake at its core from the place where Astarion discarded it.

Astarion's head swivels to face her, and for a single instant his eyes widen as he recognizes what she is trying to do.

"What are you doing?" he cries over the screams around them. "No - stop!"

She does not stop.

She hurls the knife like a javelin into Cazador's chest.

Silence, abrupt and complete. The swirling power fades. The screaming stops. Cazador, pouring blood from the wound in his heart, slithers to the floor and lays still.

Astarion staggers, then collapses to his knees, letting the staff clatter onto the stone beside him. "It's... it's gone... All that power..." he whispers.

Rakha releases a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She is trembling all over, her eyes fixed not on Astarion but on Cazador's bloodsoaked body. In the moment of her attack, she was striking not just at him but at Bhaal as well - but Bhaal is not here, just the vampire who dies along with Astarion's hope for ascension.

"You don't need it," she mutters. "You're more than strong enough as you are."

We... are so much more than what they made us. Come with me. We will live, and be damned to them all.

But Astarion's head lifts and he stands and rounds on her, and there is no gratitude in his eyes, no hope. They are like burning coals set in the paleness of his face.

"Don't you tell me what I needed!" he snarls. He looks hollowed out, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. "I was so close - I could have had it all," he says with desperate, furious grief, stepping closer to her. "But you took everything from me!"

His voice lifts to a sudden scream of violent despair, and he grabs her by the collar of her robes, jerking her forward.(*)

The rage in his eyes shows no understanding of why she did what she did, or the similarity she sees between them, or the terrible things that have been done to them both. He needs an enemy, and he no longer has Cazador, and she is the only target that remains.

"Cazador won after all," he says - and his voice is suddenly soft again, hollow and mournful. "I'll never escape the hell he built."

And then his face goes hard for the last time, until it is nothing but steel and rage. "And if I can't escape... then no one can. Not them--"

He drops suddenly, lifts the staff, and without hesitation snaps it across his knee. The power still within it - the power that would have released the seven thousand trapped spawn - bursts in a sudden supernova around his hands... and then fades to nothing.

Through the fading, dying ripples of the Weave, he stares into Rakha's eyes, and if there was ever friendship between them, it's gone now, gone forever to the same place as all that power.

"And certainly not you," he growls. The pieces of the broken staff clatter to the ground, and his fingers close around Rakha's throat.

-----

(*) Artistic license in this whole bit. Only one companion actually speaks up here (in-game it was Minsc), and none of them actually do anything but watch. But I wanted to give everyone a little more activity, so I dug all four characters' lines out of the dialogue files.

(*) Also artistic license obviously.

[blackjackkent]

(tldr: read to end for my new favorite thing to have EVER happened because of RNG in this game, holy shit)

So. Yeah. When Orin said that Bhaal demands a duel, I was thinking the usual situation for "duels" in CRPGs, where it's nominally a duel but you're also allowed to bring your 2-4 closest friends who happen to be in the party with you.

AND BOY WOULD IT BE GREAT IF THAT WAS THE CASE HERE.

This is deeply not what I expected. I was actually low-key kind of excited for the standard Tav fight, because Rakha just hit level 12 and got the Spirit Guardians spell that I sank six levels of bard for, and I was real excited to see if they worked for buzz-sawing through the Sanctuary'd cultists.

No such luck, however. It's just us and Orin.

[slowly and carefully taps the reload button and examines Rakha's spell loadout]

There is actually some good news here too. I'm playing on easy so Orin's hit points aren't particularly terrifying, and far more significantly, she doesn't seem to have the buff from her cultist buddies, meaning she does not have stacks of Unstoppable and we can damage her immediately.

The downside is basically everything else. :P

Everyone else in the party currently has a condition called Duel: Murder's Chosen -

Very ominous. Even switching to any other character makes everyone get Big Mad:

At this point, the fight basically converts to normal, Orin recovers her Unstoppable stacks, the cultists start chanting, etc.

So I guess, ultimately, we could play this the Tav way if we wanted, but that seems counter to the spirit of the thing. XD Let's do this duel.

-----

POST FIGHT REPORT:

holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit

Y'all know how in tabletop games sometimes the RNG just plays out perfectly to do something never expected that nevertheless makes perfect story sense and feels like a brilliant thematic conclusion to everything that happened previously?

Rakha's fight with Orin started off pretty bog-standard. It's a pretty scary duel, but Rakha has her level 6 spiritual weapon out from the Harper Sacredstriker staff she's wielding, and it's doing a pretty good job of distracting and confusing Orin's AI and running her in and out of the Spirit Guardians that Rakha has up. She also landed a solid hit of Dethrone, "pulling on strands of the Weave" to "shred [Orin's] very essence."

All well and good.

Second round, she casts Misty Step to bring herself close to Orin for Burning Hands, and...

...well...

She wild-magic surged and unlocked Lae'zel's restraints on the altar.

Incredible. In-fucking-credible.

AND she is under our control as, basically, a summon for Rakha.

AND the Bhaalists don't consider this fight interference.

------

Perhaps it is simply random chance. It's happened before, after all - moments when her magic surged wildly out of her control, chaos incarnate to match the chaos in her brain.

But it feels like something more than that at this moment. A desperate reaching through the Weave in this moment of greatest need, her heart pounding with terror as she faces down her dark sibling. Jaheira and Minsc and Minthara and Wyll are beyond her reach, but something in her - mind or magic or something deeper still, some guidance from some force even Bhaal cannot stand against - reaches out and breaks the chains on her closest, oldest friend.

Help. Me.

The bonds break, and with them the enchantment that held Lae'zel unconscious. Her eyes snap open and she is on her feet in an instant, a sudden bursting release of tension and rage to match Rakha's own. For a moment their gazes lock, and Lae'zel blinks with recognition and astonishment and something like joy - and then her face hardens and she moves to stand at Rakha's side, shoulder to shoulder against the beast before them.

Her blade glints in the torchlight like sharpened flame.

[blackjackkent]

One of the things I've been excited about regarding reaching this point in the game is that @astreamofstars informed me that there is Additional Minsc Content which I missed during Hector's playthrough! Specifically, last time I was so excited to follow him and meet Boo that I completely missed that you can see Minsc's little hideout down in the sewers, with his living area and some of his keepsakes. c:

He's actually got kind of a cute little setup here - bed area (complete with a cute little divider), cooking firepit, washtub, dining table. A lot of random chests and boxes and papers lying around. It amused me that the first thing I noticed was that the only thing on the dining table is "Whole Chicken" which feels on-brand.

The washbasin has several soap bars and sponges next to it. I know I'm hung up on the presence of this washbasin but for some reason I am deeply charmed at Minsc living in a sewer with his rodent and nevertheless having an elaborate bathing setup. (Alternate interpretation - he has it because it is His Home and Should Have a Bath but never actually used it. XD )

On a table next to the bed is a book labeled "The Stone Lord's Sketches," which is both adorable and heartbreaking:

Buddy. :( It's okay, you can remember him and have him back now.

The real treasure trove, however, is in the next room, past the wall Minsc smashed through, which has a number of items in what seem to be places of honor on pedestals along the walls.

It seems like someone at Larian forgot to make models for these items, because all of them (with the exception of the "Cracked Wooden Mask" look in-game like inscribed stone tablets. But we can use our imaginations!

All of the characters have commentary on each one if they're the active character to click on them, although Minsc's comment takes precedence if he's in the party even if he's not the active character. I'm going to list out all of them because I like digging through the dialogue files, but obviously Minsc and Jaheira have the most relevant things to say about each.

-----

Starting with "A Mailed Fist":

Narrator: A mailed fist in the Firecam armor style. RAKHA: Gorgeous mail on that fist. ASTARION: A mailed fist, for all your punching needs. LAE'ZEL: A mailed fist? Brutal indeed, but I prefer weapons with a more elegant profile. GALE: The mailed fist of a paladin of Torm. No doubt many felt the steely grip of its wearer's righteous justice. SHADOWHEART: A mailed fist. There must be a story behind this. WYLL: A mailed fist? Great for a paladin. Not so much for a warlock. KARLACH: Nice mail. HALSIN: A mailed fist. What tale does this have to tell? MINTHARA: A mailed fist - an inelegant but brutal weapon. JAHEIRA: Keldorn Firecam. He tried to teach Minsc much - a happy thing, that paladins are so patient. MINSC: Keldorn Firecam! He spoke much of honor and faith, but he fought like a berserker when it counted.

Keldorn! In this worldstate he traveled with Caden for a little bit and was a good mentor to the young Bhaalspawn for a time - although Caden eventually forced him to stay home and fix his marital problems. XD

-----

Next, "A Turnip":

Narrator: A humble turnip, preserved by drying. RAKHA: Huh. Dinner? ASTARION: It's - it's a turnip. Just a turnip, for all to see. LAE'ZEL: A turnip. Or is it a swede? Could never tell them apart. GALE: A humble vegetable depicted amongst such adventurous company. That is a turnip for the books. SHADOWHEART: A turnip? Not the most exciting of keepsakes. WYLL: A turnip. That's, er, something all right. KARLACH: All right, explain the turnip. HALSIN: A turnip? Not my favorite of nature's root vegetables, I must admit. MINTHARA: Is this animal, mineral, or fungus? I have not seen its like before. JAHEIRA: Jan Jansen. I admired his respect for growing things. Less so, his disregard for his own ripe smell. MINSC: Jan. A strange little man, but a fine friend. I can forgive him his love of turnips.

LOL. Of the five past companions represented here, Jan is the only one Caden never traveled with. He witnessed the little gnome getting carted off to prison early in the game, promptly decided that was something well worth minding his own business about, and never followed up further.

Also holy shit, that world-class pun from Gale out of nowhere.

-----

"A Warhammer":

Narrator: A worn but still capable warhammer, sized for a halfling. RAKHA: What a hammer. Looks like it has a history, too. ASTARION: Ah, a warhammer. A beautifully messy weapon. LAE'ZEL: Quite the warhammer. I imagine it's crushed more than a few skulls. GALE: No ordinary warhammer. Carved with the Luiric symbol for the number three. I wonder why. SHADOWHEART: It must take quite some brawn to wield a warhammer like that. WYLL: A warhammer like this cracks your skull, and you won't ever be the same after. KARLACH: Oh, wow. I bet that can do some real damage. HALSIN: An impressive hammer. MINTHARA: This hammer could shatter even the thickest of skulls. JAHEIRA: Mazzy Fentan. A living lesson not to trade tankards with a halfling; they have much less distance to fall. MINSC: Mazzy Fentan. Hah - not even the gods dared deny her when she sought to become a paladin!

Mazzy! Definitely Caden's favorite of the "flex slot" companions he traveled with in BG2. She was a super fierce halfling and wasn't officially a paladin but wanted to be. Nice to hear that maybe she reached that pinnacle in the end. :) (And LOL Jaheira.)

I'm not sure what the significance is of Gale's comment about the number three, and Google is unrevealing.

-----

"A Pair of Wings":

Narrator: A woodcarving of a pair of wings, like an eagle's but longer somehow. RAKHA: A pair of wings. ASTARION: Some discarded... wings? All right... LAE'ZEL: A pair of wings... GALE: The sylvan pinions of an Avariel. No easy task to capture their hollow delicacy in stone. SHADOWHEART: Wings? Who did these belong to? WYLL: A pair of wings? Hm. KARLACH: Some... wings? HALSIN: A pair of wings? MINTHARA: Wings. Were these plucked from some unfortunate celestial? JAHEIRA: Aerie's wings. She didn't need them, in the end. MINSC: Aerie. A brave avariel, who agreed to be my witch while I needed. She went in search of new wings.

Haha, the whole Act 1 gang is pretty befuddled by this one apparently. (And it seems like there might have been some confusion among the writers about whether they were carved wings or real ones.)

But awwww, yay, Aerie! Jaheira's comment on her is very sweet. :3 In this worldstate, of course, Aerie is safely in Faenya-Dail with her husband Caden and (by this point) several generations worth of descendents. I choose to believe that Minsc is speaking in a poetic metaphor, and the new wings Aerie went in search of were those of her son Quayle. :)

-----

And finally... the "Cracked Wooden Mask":

Narrator: A cracked wooden mask with female features, in the Rashemi style. RAKHA: Nice mask. What's the story here? ASTARION: A wooden mask. Not bad, but it's seen better days. LAE'ZEL: A wooden mask, perhaps of some cultural significance? GALE: A wychlaran face veil, worn by powerful witches in the Urlingwood wilds of Rashemen. The adornment of a skilled spell-weaver. SHADOWHEART: A wooden mask. Looks old. WYLL: A wooden mask - the sort worn by Rashemen's witches. KARLACH: Nice wooden mask. HALSIN: A wooden mask. For what purpose? MINTHARA: This mask is beautiful. I envy the one who had the authority to wear it. JAHEIRA: Hah. Even the wychlaran's mask could not hide Dynaheir's beauty - nor dull her daggered eyes. MINSC: All over Rashemen, they raised statues to Dynaheir. But this is Minsc's true monument to her - her wychlara mask.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. <3 <3 Dynaheir. <3 Minsc is such a good, loyal boy.

I love that Gale was able to clock the significance of all of these items (except the turnip) on sight. Wyll picks up on this one too which is interesting; wonder if a Rashemi envoy or two came through Wyrm's Rock when he was younger.

-----

All in all I'm a big feels puddle about all of this. I love that (more or less by chance) these are almost all characters that Caden did indeed hang out with extensively in the past games. And it is very bittersweet to see Minsc, who had the past ripped away from him by force, clinging on to these little remnants of it - particularly pieces of his past witches - with all of his strength.

[blackjackkent]

This time I happened to remember that we can enter the Guildhall from the direct entrance in Heapside, which coincidentally brings us in right next to where Roah is hanging out. This, as it turns out, is quite fun, because we get a cutscene that I definitely did not get with Hector, and which is at least partly specific to having Minsc in the party.

"So it's that simple!" Roah is holding forth from a high platform in the Guildhall, shouting down at the Guild criminals lining the hall below. All of them have weapons drawn, as do the Zhents, and everyone is practically vibrating with rage. "Drop your weapons, bring out Nine-Fingers, and this can all end peacefully - for you at least!"

Hearing the unexpected footsteps behind her, Roah spins - and fixes her eyes on Minsc with a slow smirk. "What's this, Stone Lord?" she asks mockingly. "It's a little late to change the terms of our deal. The pieces are already in place."

Minsc bristles. "The Stone Lord is no more," he growls. "Boo and Jaheira and my friend would not let me stay cursed."

(A/N: I know they can't actually say Rakha's name here for obvious reasons, but I feel like this could have been phrased literally any other way and it would feel less awkward. XD Usually the game is better at this.)

He leans forward, towering threateningly over the halfling. "And the only terms we offer are between my boot and your treacherous buttocks!"

Despite the monstrous difference in size between her and the man threatening her, Roah does not flinch, does not even blink. She just smiles, slow, derisive, and flicks her eyes towards Rakha. "I see," she drawls. "That's unfortunate. And what about the adult in the room?"

Rakha's eyes narrow icily. Roah, it seems, has not gotten the memo that insulting Rakha's friends is a fast-track ticket to pissing her off.

"Whatever I told that lot below," Roah continues casually, oblivious to (or uncaring of) the anger she is eliciting, "this *will* end in bloodshed. All you have to do is pick the right side."

Rakha is conscious of Minsc's bubbling rage, of Jaheira's colder, wary fury. The outcome of this conversation was decided before they even came in the door; Roah is only making things much, much worse for herself.

"I will," Rakha says flatly, "but I don't think you'll like my choice."

"Hah. A hero!" Roah barks a laugh. "There's a time for heroics, my friend, and a time for common sense. This is the latter."

She steps forward, ignoring Minsc completely and focusing only on Rakha. "The Zhentarim have been trying to crack Baldur's Gate for years, but Nine-Fingers' grip has become too strong. And look what it's come to. Her Guild is disorganized, undisciplined. The cult broke them in a matter of days, while my Zhentarim still stand strong."

Her eyes glint eagerly. "A Guild under *our* control can do what Nine-Fingers failed to - drive the Absolute out of the city once and for all. And then remain on in the city, to protect its good citizens from any future threats... for a reasonable fee of course."

(A/N: I truly enjoy Roah as a character. XD Nothing phases her; she knows what she wants and is supremely confident at literally every moment. It won't save her, but it does make her a lot of fun.)

"My hamster can smell your lies, villain!" Minsc cuts across her with a roar of anger. "Foul not his little nose!"

"Fine," Roah says calmly, turning towards him with a disingenuous smile, her gaze hard and pointed. "Let us talk of *truth*, then. Do your friends know how many you killed in the Absolute's name, Stone Lord? Do *you*?"

(A/N: Ohohohoho ouch.)

Minsc stiffens, backpedaling a step. "I-- do not call me that!" he snarls. "Minsc is Minsc!"

"Oh?" Roah takes a step forward, pressing her advantage, a smirk spreading across her face. "Oh? I don't recall any tales of Minsc helping the likes of Nine-Fingers," she sneers. "A known thief. A *murderer*. I thought Minsc of Rashemen served the side of good?"

Her eyes widen in mock-astonishment, and then she laughs as Minsc sputters, his shoulders hunching away from the accusations. "I'm the last to judge, big man," she says with casual condescension. "You were just following orders. And hey - that's all you have to do now."

Her eyes return to Rakha, who has been following this whole conversation without moving a muscle except the one twitching in her jaw. "If you don't know what's right, just let the grownups talk. Because I *know* your friend will make the smart choice."

Rakha scowls.

Up until this point, Roah has been, at best, a small fish in the very large pond of this ever-shifting and incredibly tangled situation. But she is doing a very good job of shoving herself with express speed to the top of Rakha's shit list.

I know your friend will make the right choice.

Perhaps Roah knows perfectly well who Rakha is. Perhaps she knows that Bhaal's blood ran in her veins, and that up until very recently she would have gladly thrown in with the Zhent for the pure joy of the bloodshed to follow. Or, perhaps, she simply thinks Rakha is an easy mark to be lured with coin and flattery.

Either way, it doesn't matter, because she has insulted Minsc, taunted him with the memory of the terrible things he did under the Absolute's influence.

Minsc, who Rakha has seen as an aspirational figure almost from the moment she met him - a force of chaos and madness and violence nevertheless devoted to doing good. A man who called Rakha 'friend' without prompting, while knowing the state of her wretched blood. One of the few who has truly made her believe that she is a creature worth salvaging.

And Rakha herself carries too many memories of the evil she's wrought to listen to Minsc being abused for his. She can see the way that he has slumped under the barrage of verbal fire, the way his shoulders have hunched in and his eyes narrowed in pain.

It will not stand.

"You're mistaken," she growls. "Minsc of Rashemen *always* knows the right thing to do."

(A/N: In-game it only showed Minsc approving here, but according to the dialogue files, it's ['Wyll 2', 'Karlach 2', 'Jaheira 10', 'Minsc 10', 'Halsin 2'], which is delightful.)

There's a long, long silence. Minsc turns his head to look at Rakha, and then he draws himself to his full height, his shoulders squaring, his eyes losing the haunted expression. With one long stride he moves to stand at Roah's side, overlooking the Zhent and Guild forces below.

"Your leader is not wrong!" he bellows out to them. "The Guild is a band of treacherous scoundrels, and Nine-Fingers the worst among them!"

Rakha blinks, shoots a look sideways at Jaheira. Jaheira says nothing; her eyes are fixed on the back of Minsc's head, unblinking.

"But the Stone Lord... Minsc..." Minsc goes on, with a touch of bitterness, "was many times worse. I have no right to judge."

He reaches into his pocket, then lifts one hand, his hamster balanced on his palm.

"So it will not be Minsc who does the judging!" he cries.

With a loud squeak, Boo scurries up his arm and onto his shoulder. Minsc narrows his eyes, his voice lifting to echo through the huge room. "MY HAMSTER WILL COUNT TO THREE!" he roars. "LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS, ZHENTARIM, AND BOO WILL SPARE YOUR LIVES!"

Roah gapes, then turns to stare up at Rakha disbelievingly. "Truly?" she snaps. "I am handing you the Guild, and you'd throw it all away on the word of a madman?"

Rakha stares back at her wordlessly. There's a loud squeak from Boo, shrill enough to make their teeth ache.

Roah's veneer of cool is starting to slip; there's a flash of anxiety in her eyes. "Think about this!" she hisses. "It defies all logic! I--"

Another squeak, louder this time, a warning in it. Minsc's hand hovers over the hilt of his greatsword.

Roah scowls. "Oh, enough of this," she snaps, and darts away, setting an arrow to her bow as she goes. "ZHENTARIM! TO ARMS!"

[blackjackkent]

All right, time to finish out the final bits of Rakha's story. <3

Kicking off our remaining epilogue adventures with something a little lighter. HI SCRATCH!

Narrator: There's something strange in your old friend's mouth. What is it?

"What have you got there, Scratch?"

"*BARK!*"

Narrator: A familiar invitation. He wants you to throw the object he's dropped. But it isn't a ball. It's the Astral Prism.

"Where the hells did you find this, boy?"

Narrator: He whines. Less talk, more throw!

As with Hector, I choose to believe Rakha has kept Scratch with her during these six months, rather than her seeing him here now for the first time since the brain. (Technically I think there are rules about dogs in Baldur's Gate, but we literally see one running around in Bloomridge Park, so I am choosing to ignore this fact completely. XD

Scratch (and Buddy, who we'll talk to shortly) were critical parts of Rakha's support network during her darkest periods. Petting them, or curling up next to them to sleep, could be a tonic against some of the darker thoughts that her godspawn blood drove her to; it wasn't perfect peace, but it was notes of it, and sometimes that was enough.

These days, Scratch tags along with her to her various rebuilding jobs in the city. Sometimes he helps haul materials or carry things, and sometimes he just entertains the workers or their children, and sometimes he just watches. He seems to have appointed himself Rakha's unofficial guardian.

And he sleeps on Rakha's bed in her little home by the docks, and when she wakes with a shout at some lingering nightmare, he curls a little closer to her side and licks her face and helps her calm down.

Good boy, Scratch.

Best boy.

-----

On to our much larger companion! HI BUDDY!

"*Hoot. HOOT!*"

Pet him.

"It's good to see you," Rakha says quietly, scritching underneath the giant owlbear's chin.

And it is. She hasn't seen him since the brain and is less sure what he's been up to, but he was also one of her great comforts in dark moments and it brings a little extra softness to her mind just to see him again.

Narrator: He looks coyly at the ground, suddenly shy.

"What have you been up to since last we met?"

Narrator: He snaps the air and wiggles. He's either miming fighting a many-limbed creature, or dancing. It's unclear. He is, however, exhausted. He's had plenty of adventures without you.

(A/N: I do love sending Buddy with Shadowheart, but Hector did that, so we'll mix it up a little.)

Rakha smiles slightly. She is no stranger to exhaustion, in herself and in others. The cub should be allowed to rest, as she has, as the others have. But unlike with Scratch, she can't hope to keep a giant owlbear in her house in Baldur's Gate.

Perhaps she can help him settle somewhere else, though. She cocks her head, thinking - and remembers that strange loneliness in Halsin when she spoke to him earlier, and his tales of the children he is taking care of. She remembers how Buddy would often sleep curled up near Yenna and Grub, protecting them, comforting them with his warm, solid bulk.

And Reithwin is a place with life being brought back into it, and wide open spaces around the settlement where an owlbear could roam.

"You look tired. What say we find you a home?" she asks quietly. "How about with Halsin?"

"*Hoot HOOT!*"

Narrator: The joy in the owlbear's eyes is clear. He longs to have a home, and Halsin is perfect.

Better go make sure Halsin's okay with this.

-----

(A/N: The in-game line here is "I may have volunteered you for something, if you'll forgive me. Might your new community have room for a well-behaved owlbear?" But realistically - while Rakha has come a long way in many regards, I don't think she has in any way shed her usual clipped-off and short speech patterns and her general habit of directness.)

"Halsin," she says, approaching him so suddenly that he jumps where he is sitting at the table. "The owlbear needs a home. Would you take him to Reithwin?"

"Do you truly even need to ask?" Halsin smiles from ear to ear. "Of course! Who could not open their home to a befeathered hero of Baldur's Gate?" He laughs. "And I did promise the children I would bring them back a surprise. Imagine their faces!"

Narrator: The owlbear's eyes are alight with excitement - he can't wait to go home with Halsin.

Aw. <3

[blackjackkent]

Annoyingly, not a single companion has any commentary in their individual dialogue trees on Karlach becoming a squid. This seems, if you'll pardon my French, fucked up.

Karlach herself does have a bit of dialogue though, and to be honest, she's not completely dissimilar from her previous personality, although the differences are definitely there. (Personally, I think my headcanon is that her personality continues to get more and more subsumed the longer she remains an illithid, so for right now there are more traces of Karlach than there will be in a year, or a decade.)

"This is wild. I'm myself but... but *more*."

"More? How do you mean?"

"It's like I'm... beyond myself. I can sense things I never knew were there." Her voice is the same, but the tone is very different, not quite the Emperor's monotone but far more subdued than the energy with which Karlach has always been infused. She sounds more thoughtful, and very curious - and, for the moment at least, content.

"And my engine," she goes on. "It's... it's... silent. No heat. No gears. Still there, but no longer threatening to explode." Those strange black eyes lift to Rakha's, glittering. "Soldier..."

"Are you certain?" Rakha asks warily. "Maybe your new form has just cooled it down for the moment."

But Karlach shakes her head. "This is... something else," she murmurs. "Something far deeper. Whatever ceremorphosis did to me, it... it fixed me. That means... I won't burn out."

It's very odd to listen to. It's like all of her usual energy and exuberance is in there somewhere, but stretched, elongated, muffled, muted. Each word comes slow upon the heels of the last.

"Shit. I'm gonna be all right," she says, in that strange slow warm rumble. "I get to be alive. I get to stay." She tilts her head, and makes an unexpected whistling exhalation like an attempt at a laugh. "As a hideous monster, sure. But one that can feel. Think. Live."

She lifts her head, peers at Rakha intently. "But I'm still myself," she says firmly. "And I know what our mission is. I'm glad I get to do the honors."

-----

Ahhhh, and now the other characters can chime in! Well, one other character; in-game it was Minsc, but all of these lines are pretty good so I'm gonna write them all out here.

Unless otherwise noted, all of these lines have the rather charming devnote: (devnote: Karlach will live! Yay! But she is a mind flayer.)

GALE: I can imagine no finer ceremorph for the job. HALSIN: A hard-earned chance at life. You deserve it, Karlach. JAHEIRA: Already at home in your new skin. They never took your heart, girl - they never even touched it. (devnote: Shaking head quietly, amused wonder / pride at Karlach's resilience.) LAE'ZEL: I never thought I'd be happy to hear a ghaik will live. Yet my heart is very glad, Karlach. MINSC: Do you hear that, Boo!? Karlach lives! And this new form will make her all the slippier to grasp in our berserker bouts - a battle for another day. (devnote: Excited, then thoughtful, then getting back to excitement.) MINTHARA: I feel your mind evolving, Karlach... it is beautiful. You are more alive than ever. SHADOWHEART (Selunite): I'm glad for you, Karlach. It's hardly the life anyone dreams of, but, well... it's a life. SHADOWHEART (Sharran): You'll have to face oblivion another time, it seems. I'm glad for you, if it's what you want. WYLL: Oh, Karlach. No news could have made me happier in this house of horrors. (bonus even though he isn't here) ASTARION (Spawn): You are indomitable, aren't you? I'm so happy for you, Karlach. (devnote: Genuinely impressed and very pleased for her) ASTARION (Ascended): I'm so pleased your mind survived the transformation intact. As for the rest of you... well, your mind survived and that's what matters. (devnote: Astarion's pleased Karlach's surviving, although she has turned into a gross mind flayer, so…)

-----

Rakha listens to the others chime in excitedly about Karlach's fate. For her own part... she doesn't really know what to say. This is such a monumental change to the person she knew and trusted - even though Karlach seems content with the outcome, Rakha is in no way blind to the sacrifice that was made here.

She has to keep fighting. They have to make this worth the cost.

"We've got a brain to defeat," she says gruffly.

"Hell yes we do," Karlach says gravely in return. "Let's finish this thing, Soldier. It's time. And I'm ready if you are."

[blackjackkent]

POV: Software development

[blackjackkent]

Illithid!Karlach's ambient party dialogue is... uh... ominous.

o.o;