It Never Healed the Pain

Sarevok rose slowly, his eyes wide with anger and his triumph gone. Balthazar had discarded Keldorn already and was after Peri who had taken quite a few hits from Abazigal.

- "You sanctimonious bastard," Sarevok growled and attacked the monk, his eyes never leaving the agile man's limbs. Tamoko, guide me! He recognized some of the techniques Balthazar was using, and avoided even his more devious maneuvers. Pure rage, tears of anger. But it was not Bhaal-rage. It was rage of his own, rage at someone killing a good man who had done his best.

Balthazar had a powerful ability to send earthquake-like waves across the battlefield, waves that knocked the warriors reeling and stunned, making them drop their weapons. He used that, but Sarevok gathered each ounce of his willpower and managed to resist it, the triggering of the ability costing Balthazar too many precious seconds. Sarevok ran him through with his sword, enjoying the squishing sound it made as it ripped his guts.

- "Peri respected you," he spoke through his teeth to the monk, staring and bleeding, "but I do not. You are a hypocrite, and a fanatic."

But Sarevok might as well have been talking to a log. This Balthazar was like a golem, with no mind of his own. So Sarevok stabbed him again to make sure he wouldn't trigger some sort of weird resurrection power from Kara-Tur.

- "Sarevok, ye come here! Yon bitch is down!" Korgan cheered, gleefully. True - the growling Peri had just brought Melissan on her knees, and the battered group panted and gasped around them.

- "Killed Balthy on your own, big bro!" Imoen said, her eyes shining. "Well done! And look, Keldorn is all right! We had a charge in the Rod of Resurrection."

Sarevok barely had time to recover from the good news, when the solar appeared to all of them.

- "The gods have decreed. The contest is over," she said.

- "No! Noooo! It is not over until I say so! I am a goddess!" Melissan growled, causing Imoen to roll her eyes.

- "You are no goddess, priestess of Bhaal. You play with stolen energies making you immortal, but that does not make you a goddess."

- "NO! The Bhaalspawn has not won! I refuse!"

- "You will do nothing, Amelyssan, but accept your fate," the solar said, her voice slightly angry.

- "As for you, Peri of Candlekeep... there is the matter of what to do with the remaining essence. Choose wisely."

- "What are my options?" Peri's eyes were hard as flintstones, gleaming like steel. She looked wild, and very angry. Sarevok felt an uneasy chill.

- "The first option is to give up the essence. It would be buried deep into the depths of Mount Celestia, and you would be free to live the life you want, as a mortal. That is, if you also would want to give up the essence," the solar said, nodding at Imoen.

- "Brrr. Take it. With pleasure. I never wanted it," Imoen said, shivering.

- "And the other option?" Peri's mouth was a tight line.

- "The other option is to assume all the essence to yourself, and that would effectively make you a god. I am unsure how you would deal with that inheritance of yours. You occasionally show decency and heroism, occasionally just unstable and cynical attitude. As for Amelyssan, she will be destroyed either way. She has welded the essence in her soul, foolishly. But then, the price of ambition is always high."

- "Couldn't care less," Peri said, pondering for a while.

- "Perhaps I should take it after all! Damn it, I will kill all the Reiltars and Nebs and Cors and Melissans of the world... I would just see them all dead… all those who always ruin everything… I would use my power to make sure no-one ever hurts my family again!"

- "Peri! No! You have said it yourself. It can not be controlled," Imoen said, shocked.

- "I don't care! I don't care about anything but that you and Sarevok won't suffer again! In fact... I control the essence now, don't I?" she said, glancing at the solar, whose face was revealing nothing.

- "At my approval, yes," she answered.

- "Fine! I summon here one Reiltar Anchev!" she snarled, almost looking like the Ravager, Sarevok noticed with a shiver.

Sarevok still recognized his stepfather. His body was strangely deformed, full of whiplashes and blisters. His eyes were sunk in his head, fear and submission marking his face like it never had in life.

- "Take it out on him! Torture him! I can borrow a few demons to you! Sarevok, kill him, gut him, whatever and I will resurrect him and then you can kill him again!" Peri's anger was frightening to behold.

- "Please, Sarevok..." Reiltar whispered. "They have tortured me so much already..."

- "Oh, and you tortured him all his life! And his mother!"

- "Peri..." Sarevok tried.

- "Pardon if I don't pity you, you cowardly child- and wife-beating bastard!"

- "Peri! I have done too much torturing and killing in my time, and it never healed the pain I shared with you the night before," Sarevok said quietly.

- "As for you," he spoke to Reiltar, "it is difficult, but not impossible, to find a better afterlife. If you want to redeem yourself, and cease the torment, reach to the little child even you must once have been. A child desperate for kindness and love you always so despised. Only then can you hope to stop the suffering."

He turned his back to Reiltar, who was taken away.