The Throne of Bhaal
Pocket Plane bloomed like tulip, ready to show its splendor to the world, spreading gray petals to open up to the entirety of Bhaal's mad kingdom, a near-limbo of whirling energy, chaos, rebirth and death at once. The essence was returning to it's source, to breathe life into its skeletal corpse. The realm was falling apart just as much as it was reviving, for now life and decay forming an ever shifting balance. Even standing in the very heart of this chaos Daria couldn't tell which force would prevail if left on it's own.
What remained of her little sphere that served as a safe spot, an annex to this madness, Daria fashioned into a platform, where her party could safely stand and be shielded from the overflowing essence. She could feel its pulse, the influx of pure mana, its raw nature. The first time she came here in a vision, her senses completely exposed, she almost lost her mind. This time the very same essence filled her veins, pulsed in her heart. This was the place she missed all her life, without ever having been there, a place she was part of, a place where she would be whole. There would be no more tests, no dry-runs. This was her last battle.
She said it before, didn't she? To Xan, after she summoned him to the pocket plane. But only now, in a mixture of trepidation and elation, she understood it fully. Her life, as she knew, would end here.
This was the finale.
A deep breath. Air felt like ice entering her lungs, fear painting her insides like frost paints a window. She couldn't divine much of this place, it was too bright, too… dense. She pushed her limits, looked forward to see if a plan she devised before entering, had worked.
And essence poured into her like a river filling a lake through a broken dam. And she only made a small hole. Strength filled her body, clarity entered her mind, power danced at her fingertips…
Daria smiled. She wanted more control over this place, to give her a fighting chance against Amelyssan… And she got it. She turned to her party.
"Whoah, Daria! What's with the fireworks?!" Imoen shielded her eyes from her sister's shape, suddenly more of a figure made of golden light than an elf. "You look like Wintrop's winter decorations!"
"Melissan isn't the only one who's cheating" Daria, the godchild laughed. This power was more she ever felt in her life and yet she couldn't help but nervously wonder – would it be enough? She tried not to show any of her fears. "I'm not above going behind her back to get what I want either."
"Melamin… can you control it?" Xan took her hand, tried to look into her face through the overflowing power.
"This much… yes" she sobered up and squeezed his hand back. "Amelyssan is close and soon she will sense our location. Cast your defenses."
They started, setting the pace for a long magical battle. Energy drain, abyssals, a fallen angel… Daria tried to read as much as she could from the upcoming minutes. She approached Anomen.
"Helm the All Seeing, the Ever Watchful… Allow me to aid your servant in our time of need" she asked. Anomen swallowed, his throat suddenly so very dry. He nodded to her. Bright light instantly flowed from her and enveloped his armor. His faith was like a conduit to a type of power she now wielded, each of his prayers she could now empower. As for herself… She knew how to manipulate energy, as a wizard. The essence could be used to supplement her drawing from the Weave, but that wasn't all it could do. Unfortunately there wasn't much time for experimentation. In that regard Amelyssan had a clear advantage.
"She's close" Daria warned her friends. "I will face her, but she will try to summon demons and Bhaal's former servants to stop me. Please lend me your strength."
"RhaaaaRGH!" Minsc began his warm up, drawing the two-handed sword.
"Let's end it" Jaheira sounded grim.
"I'm right behind you, sis" Imoen readied her bow.
Bhaal's crumbling kingdom gripped their little platform into it's toothless maw, drawing it to it's very center, at the behest of its regent. A pillar of energy, bright and pure, shot down into a smaller platform, it's heart, a figurative throne. Amelyssan stepped out from the beam, now just as much a goddess as Daria was. Bhaal's essence was being cleansed here, the diviner realized, but not so the old God of Murder would return, no. It was so he would never get the chance. This was his funeral.
"We meet again" Daria greeted her last adversary. The past of over twenty years ago weaved itself around the pair. A feral elven child stepped up to the sacrificial pyre and a woman stood before her. More of a silhouette, a shadow cast by the roaring crimson fire, an element she just fed an innocent life to. Bhaal's must trusted confidante, one that protected him during Times of Trouble, his most lethal Deathstalker. His children he entrusted to many, but his secrets, only one. Only she knew what needed to be done, for the God of Murder to overcome his own death.
It was all meant to begin and end then, twenty years ago, in a temple lost long before Ao cast the gods out to walk among the mortals. All children were to be gathered in an utmost secrecy – and that was Amelyssans first failure. She didn't count on maternal instincts not being that easy a kill, even for priestesses of Bhaal. Some children, especially from unwilling mothers, were rescued or lost. Some were deliberately hidden from her – treachery most foul, going against the very life of Bhaal. But those they had, needed to be killed, essence in them had to return to where it originated from. And that also she failed at. They were found even in the most secret of their temples, by Harpers no less, a group of righteous do-gooders.
And thus the Children scattered to the wind and spread throughout the world… Some fed the death that flowed in their veins, some fought it, some never even found out about it. Until a time came, one foretold by sage Alaundo.
And one rose above others.
"But you gave up on resurrecting Bhaal long time ago, didn't you?" Daria stepped up to the throne, looking at the woman that only barely resembled the ragged and weak defender of Saradush. Now she wore a tight and comfortable assassins clothes, infused with the stolen essence and clawed gauntlets, blood ever flowing from its tips. She was perfect in every detail, sculpted by her own will and the stolen essence into a flawless killer.
"May he remain ash!" Amelyssan noticed the purified essence flowing in Daria, one stolen from the very throne behind her and her anger grew. How dare she steal from a god?! How did she manage?!
Portals opened behind them and wind blew through, a gust that easily threw the adventuring party off balance. From there the air elementals came out, a retinue and a prince of the plane, just behind the mages backs. Xan and Solaufein immediately drew their swords, enchanter cringing as he entered a defensive stance. Imoen tried to escape behind Minsc's back but was a second too late. The elemental prince Yan-C-Bin chose her for a target, pinned her to a ground with a whirlwind of a hand, harming her – and thus activating a contingency. Imoen flash-teleported back, leaving but a mirror image behind and wasted no time diving behind the nearest shield. She chanced a glance at her sister. Hopefully she didn't notice or the smugness would know no end.
The party shifted formation.
"For the Fallen!" Jaheira called to counter attack.
Daria didn't join her friends, her enemy was before her. She wouldn't throw herself forward with a battle-cry, swinging her sword like a maniac, like her brother would. And the essence itself wouldn't decide on its master, no matter how much or how used. It wasn't about the amount of power consumed at all, though Daria's little trick helped to even the field in that regard. After all, it wasn't the strongest that always thrived in this or any world. An assassins' blade was just as viable a way to victory as an axe. The deciding factor would be intelligence, skill in battle and force of will.
And the breaking of said will.
Amelyssan reached to the ground and picked something from it, with her bloodied claws. She threw the immobile form at Daria's feet. A body of a mage, cold and wretched like the person it was never should be. Xan laid dead before her, like Gorion before. Gone forever.
Just an illusion. Her beloved enchanter fought beside her right now, the beat of his heart a quick melody in her ears. It was an old fear, but one she tamed already. Such parlor tricks would make no difference.
Daria ignored the false visage and reached into Amelyssan's past, looking for a wound, a weakness to exploit. She found it – an image of a widow, a simple village woman humming a melody under her breath, doing the laundry by a lazy river. Her older daughter, a blonde teen, was supposedly helping, but more often than not chased after the youngest, a giggling toddler trying to take a swim in the mud. Amelyssan assassinated the father of the family last year, paid by his business rival, and was now checking up on the results of her handiwork on her way to a next assignment, a little quirk of hers. She expected to find the family still in mourning, destitute, their spirits crushed. She didn't expect to see them… happy.
That night she killed the mother. No one paid her to do it, this wasn't a mission from the clergy… As far as she knew no one but her cared that her task had already ended. But she had to do it. It all felt… unfinished.
She was coming back the same way a month later. The deathstalker dallied a few days, watching the laundrywomen by the river, looking out for the blonde teen. On the fourth day she finally noticed the older daughter, wearing the proper black, carrying a basket full of laundry. She chatted her up, posing as a kind stranger, her usual routine, feigning worry about the dark shadows under the girl's eyes. She shared her tragedy readily, saying how she and her sister lived in an orphanage now.
"But we'll survive this, me and Daisy" the girl was smiling through her tears. "Now we have live to make both of them proud."
Life triumphing against death.
"No!" Amelyssan tore herself from the illusion Daria answered with. "I could kill her too! And her sister! All of them!"
"And it wouldn't have mattered. Life would go on" Daria cut deeper.
"That was Bhaal's failure, not mine! This is not how death is supposed to be!"
Blood dripping from her gauntlets pooled by her feet and now rose back up in a thin stream, forming a spear's tip at the end. Bhaal's former priestess grabbed the weapon and swung it at her enemy. Daria easily dodged, the blow forewarned with brightly shining rage, now accentuating Amelyssan's every move. The elf gathered mana and shaped it in a head-sized meteor between her palms. She heated it up, waiting for a moment, when Amelyssan was passing her, once more missing with her spear, trying for a kick… Instead getting a meteor in her stomach, pushing her from the platform into the void filled with tainted essence.
Daria had few seconds to act.
The bloody throne, the pillar of energy purified and harnessed by Amelyssan, the same essence Bhaal's successor would wield, was now unprotected. But the throne was damaged, deeply, and tied to this place like a baby to a womb, unable to live without. It wasn't the best of ideas to tether yourself to such a chaotic plane, especially mid-battle, but having already done so, Daria had little choice.
She stepped into the light.
And saw everything.
Her friends fighting, now a second wave of elementals, frost painting their armors and blades. Anomen falling, frozen solid by the elemental prince, Imoen and Solaufein too late to save him. Xan hesitating for just a moment, caught in a thought, a question if he truly wanted to survive this battle, and then suffering a wound to a shoulder from the falling ice…
And in the past, just from a few minutes before, her very own self, reaching forth to this very moment, following a vague plan she got from the time she was woken in Suldanessellar. Because if one person could see into the future and another into the past, then theoretically those two could talk. Theoretically, because of the vast ocean of time and probability separating the two… But if it was only one person and one wielding the essence of the god, looking back at herself, willfully sharing… The very essence that Daria knew already could flow through time, like it clung to her in her hasty retreat from a vision…
She reached out to her past self. And shared the stolen power. After all, having already done so, she had little choice but to do it again. If she hesitated, decided to caution against using the crumbling throne, then the power she gained would have no source. And she had no idea what a paradox could do to a torn up plane like that.
Daria climbed down from the throne, exhasting mana. It only took a deeper thought to raise Anemen back from the dead, to empower all of her friends, all frost-burned and battered from finishing off the elementals. With her senses now as close to fully divine as could be, she looked around the throne of Bhaal. Its instability was intentional. For a new goddess to build a throne to her liking, first she needed to raze this one to the ground. But perhaps the current regent overestimated how much this dying world could take.
Before her Amelyssan climbed back from the void, her features barely resembling human anymore, so twisted with fury. And they faced each others as equals.
The mana forge shook to its very core, its pulse interrupted, as the two powers collided, Amelyssan summoning blades and bones, barriers and weapons, Daria showering her with prismatic sprays and redirecting the blades, dipping her hands into and harnessing the chaos to harm the last line of her enemy's minions rather than her friends. The plane shook again and again, fractured, a line of void appearing, and then mended itself back, raved and regenerated, healing and breaking, its rule contested most violently. The battle of the would be goddesses devolved into a primitive brawl, but only harm could be achieved this way, not a victory.
Amelyssan was the first to cool of, reaching into her experience as an assassin to look for a way to exploit the turmoil. This was a stale mate when it came to raw power but by now she could exploit the link they shared, Bhaal's very soul, to look into her targets head, to find a spot as soft as that accursed diviner did.
"Your foster father, Gorion, died after you abandoned him, didn't he? I wonder if the other elven child, the one he was truly searching for, could have saved him? Because I think she could have. She was the true Gorion's Ward, wasn't she? And you couldn't save her either. You're just a stand-in, destiny's mistake. It would have been better for everyone if you died in temple's pyre, like you were meant to."
Daria stopped, trying not to listen, not to lose focus, but unable not to. Because it could all very well be true. Alveola was the child Gorion was looking for, Ruby's daughter. Xan could have been happy with her, nothing in the prophecy would change. Maybe it would have been better if she burned. Gorion would keep looking and find the right child. Even the name was should belong to Alveola. Daria truly was just Nonaphir, Born to…
Amelyssan's spear pierced her chest.
Daria choked, her throat suddenly filling with blood, she fell to her knees. To hesitate during a battle like that was to lose. Fire died on her fingertips, a words of a spell got mixed up and abandoned… The feeling of being all-powerful, all-knowing… suddenly just wasn't there anymore.
Daria sighed, feeling the pain receding. It didn't matter. Maybe she was meant to die twenty years ago. Maybe it would all be better if she did. But she was here now, she, not Alveola. And she had people she needed to protect, no matter what. Her sister, Xan, Minsc, Jaheira, Solaufein, Anomen… Even her moronic half-brother. Too much was at stake for the past to stop her.
"I have to live." She broke the spear's shaft, tore it from her chest. Amelyssan recoiled, surprise for once erasing the angry scowl on her face. Daria was no mortal elf to be stopped like that anymore.
Daria leaned closer to her disarmed enemy, whispered into her ear.
"Bhaal awaits thee
Bhaal embraces thee
None escape Bhaal."
The chant of a Deathstalker, one that followed their victims into the Abyss. And as close as Amesyssan was to immortality, she couldn't help the shiver that ran through her spine as she heard those familiar words whispered back to her, the chill of approaching death.
"No!" She knew she wavered and immediately tried to hide it with anger. But fear was there. The deathly terror couldn't be that easy to erase. "No! You don't understand! I! I have to make it right!" She slashed her broken spear to stop Daria from coming any closer. "I know how death should be! Bhaal couldn't make it right! He was a false god from the very beginning… It was supposed to be final! You feel it too, don't you?! There should be no coming back! No moving on! Once you feel it, it's breath on your neck, nothing in life could come even close! Death should be engraved onto very souls of those who felt it near! Nyeegh…!" Amelyssan's sermon became stifled by the fire from Daria's fingertips, fire as hot as dragon's breath. The very world around them felt her resolution breaking and abandoned the treacherous priestess to fend for herself.
In a way Daria understood her. Gorion died after she abandoned him. No power, no penance would ever change that. Even if, after rising to divine power, she could somehow achieve the power to grant him his life back, that wouldn't erase the fact that when he needed her the most, she let him down. If by some miracle she was allowed to life through that day again, the day he died, she'd leave Candlekeep once more to begin her adventure. But she would have faced Sarevok with him, even if it meant her death.
Even if meant many more deaths. Starting from an enchanter trapped at the bottom of Nashkel mines, waiting for a rescue… Could she truly leave him to this fate? Was there a way she could save everyone, make the best choice every time?
She couldn't. Not even as a goddess. And perhaps one day, she could forgive herself for it. Because she believed in life that thrived even in the shadow of death. Her thorny twisted path lead her to this place, this moment. But she didn't want to follow it anymore. She was ready… for something new.
"I… will not… allow it!" Amelissan now battered and burned didn't say her last word just yet. Gathering the remnants of the essence she committed to her last treachery. If she couldn't have the Throne of Blood, no one would.
With all of her power she struck at the Throne.
"No…!" Daria barely had the time to gasp. The world, the plane, cracked and opened up to the void. She immediately forgot about Amelissan and focused on the crack, halving the entire realm. Darkness poured through, the forgotten, the twisted fallen solars and dead, never fully realized avatars reached out from the dark. The diviner held them back, but the strain was too much. The world was cracking further, the myriad of small black lines spreading, widening, consuming what little stability this world possessed.
The column of light blinked and dispersed, light of essence faded, either claimed of consumed by the darkness. The platform shook and crumbled, ready to fall any second. Her friends! They were right behind her! She needed to get them out of here, she needed to leave…!
But she was tethered to this place and now was doomed with it.
"No…! Close!" She tried to force order into the chaos, but it laughed at her futile attempts. Wasn't it her that summoned elements and magic like it was nothing just a moment ago? Wasn't it her that danced here like it was her playground, that she could demolish as she wished?
"No…!" She tried to banish the darkness, reach something, anything…! The black lines grew… but then stopped. She looked up to see the mana forge stop in its most tense moment, a second before exploding… it's fate was sealed.
But someone stopped time, giving it a moment longer. With all her consumed power she could move… slowly, overcome the time stop spell just a little. But there was nothing she could do.
"Daria!" Xan ran to her side, jumping over the icy debris and cracks on the platform, the remnants of the battle. He got to her side and looked at the source of the destruction, the broken throne she was linked to. On his face she saw, he knew she had no chance to escape in time.
His smile was colored with sadness, but gentle.
"My love… let me stay with you."
Daria felt his arms around her and slowly leaned into him. His Moonblade… he didn't have it with him, she realized and the meaning behind it hit her. He left it with the party, he knew she would send them away no matter what. But he wanted to stay here. To fall into the darkness, become nothingness between the spheres…
With her.
She couldn't allow it. Not even for his clear-headed wish. Not even though she'd ask the same of him, were she in a similar situation. She couldn't condemn him to die with her.
And thus as she felt the time pick up it's lost pace, his arms around her tightening with a whispered 'please...' silenced by the true love's last kiss… She pushed him out, all of them, leading them with her warmest wishes to the first place that came to her mind…
The crossroads, on a warm, slightly drizzly day. Up north the Friendly Arm Inn welcomed tired travelers… But she couldn't follow.
The world around her crumbled, Amelissan falling into the void, her curses echoing long after she was gone. The black rift was darkening so much she was beginning to see it as white instead. Another fissure appeared before Daria and she couldn't escape, it swallowed her whole...
And she saw… her very own face.
"Oh" a surprised gasp escaped her. The other one seemed none the wiser… And then Daria remembered. She saw herself like that. After being poisoned by Sendai, though she wrote it up as a delusion of a dying mind. Instinctively she looked back to see the crack that consumed her, light seeping from it as the raging turmoil was taking it's toll on the broken Throne. "It seems like it's my turn to teach. It… makes sense" she added with a hint astonishment.
"Listen." Daria tried to remember what exactly she said back then to repeat it most faithfully. But it didn't really matter, did it? She could barely remember the conversation and was confused afterwards anyway. She just needed to give herself some hope. Something to go on for. Her last task. Because now she knew how it would end. "The realms bathed in blood, armies marching, cities drowned in blood… all the death and destruction Alaundo's prophecy describes… none of it will happen because of you. Me. Us. The prophecy doesn't warn of you, but of consequences of your failure. You will not become like them. That's why you cannot fail."
"Wait! I, I- already did. It's too late, I can't, I mean..." Daria saw her younger self stuttering.
"You are not dead yet" she didn't pause to listen. There was no point. "Go back. Choose the black gate. There, in the deep..." she hesitated trying to remember the details of the dream. "There you will find how to cleanse yourself. You are not allowed to die here."
"But..."
Daria felt the world ending behind her, the world she was a part of. This was her last duty. To set herself on the path for this end. The path she could see the end of beforehand, but couldn't tell what it was. Funny… No, it wasn't funny. It wasn't. Her effort didn't go to waste. She saved Imoen, snatched her from the maw of Fate itself. She loved Xan, and for a short time they were happy. She even managed to say her goodbyes.
"The Children of Bhaal bring death to the land,
They slaughter each other, and feed their Father.
Death and betrayal walk together,
A river of tainted blood doth not cleanse." She recited the last part of the prophecy, her last verses in the history books. A reminder of what she stopped, the worth her life had. What she was meant to be up to the very end… An axis of a prophecy. Nothing more.
"You will make a difference. You have to make it. But it will be alright, in the end. It will be good" she lied and in that moment understood – this wasn't enough. Gods damn it… She wanted more, so much more. The fissure was consuming her, the world ending, her last seconds becoming dust… How many times did she cheat death already? She needed to find a way one more time, to come back to Xan, see the homeland he loved so much, watch Imoen grow some more and make sure Jaheira never has to cry again, to…
...
...
.
