The Raiments of Chaos, sword and armor both, were not simple items of beaten metal.

Sarevok had sought their completion since he was a teenager, since the day he had learned of his true heritage. He had known he would need to compete with his siblings, with the only beings on this planet who could understand and embody murder in the same way he knew he could. He had known he would need every advantage he could gather, and he had put his entire considerable fortune to the task; the obvious roles of gathering acolytes, building armies, weaving conspiracies, but also going deeper. He had personally delved into long-forgotten temples, pulling forth the crumbling remains of vile rituals and half-finished blueprints, anything at all that might let him understand and temper his power to a degree greater than his more ignorant siblings. Knowledge was power, as Winski always said, and while Sarevok didn't truly love the idea as the old mage had, he couldn't deny the rightness of it when said knowledge literally led to increasing his own power.

The Raiments of Chaos had been, he believed, the final step on this path. Forged over the course of years, tempered in his own blood at each new step, and consecrated with a human sacrifice each month on the new moon during the entire process of their birth and enchantment, they were intrinsically attuned to the power of Bhaal that rested in his soul, drawing it forth and amplifying it tenfold. While he wore the armor, he was not only protected but faster, stronger, more durable even beneath the protection of the metal. While he held the sword, his wounds healed more quickly, the power of enemies were drawn from their bodies and into his own, even his own considerable swordsmanship felt more focused. And since they channeled the power of Bhaal, his power as the future Lord of Murder, they would only get stronger as he did.

Worthy equipment for a future god. An unbreakable armor that could repel any attack, and an unstoppable blade that could cut through any foe.

It wasn't until that moment, with one driving home into the other, that he realized he had never tested the contradiction inherent in that statement, and for the first time in years he felt genuine fear.

With his physical skills and reactions sped up, he could see the process in all its sickening glory, even though it must logically have taken less than a second; black metal against black metal, a razor edge slamming home and digging into the spiked plate with agonizing slowness, cracks spreading up and down the blade even as it pierced into his breastplate one painfully slow millimeter at a time, sickly poisonous golden fire flowing from the wound in the plate, from the cracks in the blade, twisting around metal like a living thing, roiling and furious and spreading…

He didn't know which shattered first, sword or armor, but it didn't really matter. The power released by the essence of Bhaal forcefully clashing against itself very quickly spread from one to the other, a chain reaction of raw power looping back and forth, doubling back on itself, and finally, as he heard the voice of the instinct in his mind screaming in unfathomable rage…

Detonating.

Imoen had been assuming that finding Seffie in the giant mess that was this underground nightmare city would be pretty hard, even if most of the zombies seemed to have finally shut up and gone back to sleep. As what looked like a miniature sun erupted about half a mile south of her, followed by a shockwave the knocked her off her feet and made more than one of the ancient structures collapse like a house of cards, she admitted silently that she probably should have assumed her sister would find some way to cause a disaster big enough to draw attention.

Then something started rumbling above them, and she realized Seffie might have caused a much bigger disaster than even that.

Not even bothering to check if anyone else was following her, she scrabbled to her feet and broke into a sprint right into what she knew was going to be the worst trouble yet, because godsdammit, that's what sisters did.

Torm the True, Torm the Just, please in the future try to stop your faithful from having such terrible ideas, Sephiria thought.

She was not in any pain, not even in the stump of her hand, and she was greatly worried by that because she was vaguely certain she had just been punched in the chest by a dead god and some things were most certainly not good, on her inside. She just felt… heavy, and cold, like her skeleton had turned to lead inside her. Or perhaps iron was a more apt metal to use, given the past few months? Yes, the weak, tainted iron that was still cold and ugly and heavy, but shattered like glass when you struck it too hard, that was just right for how her body felt.

She chuckled at the idea, realizing even as she did that it was probably a bad sign she found her own non-jokes funny right now. How much blood do you have to lose before I seem like the funny sister, Immy? I'd wager it's an unhealthy amount.

Trying her very hardest to put real faith into the idea, she pressed her one good hand against the twisted ruin of her armor, and said, "T-Torm, protect and heal your loyal… you… your… what is the word…" she murmured. She coughed before the final words could come to her, and tasted something metallic in the back of her throat. "Pr-protect and… and heal… your loyal servant. Milord, please…"

Begging like a child was optional to the prayer, but it matched up roughly to how she felt. She was no cleric; whatever prayers the gods saw fit to answer her were both weak and limited. The Loyal Fury's favor to the young paladin came in bolstering feats of martial strength more than serving as a medic to anyone. Still, a rush of cool energy rolled over her body, bringing with it a feeling of fatherly concern… and a wave of absolute, crushing agony.

"AAAAAH…!" she moaned, happy she was already lying on the ground, simply because she couldn't fall. Focus. Think. Analysis. Cool intellect will help keep the screaming down, she thought, trying with all her power to not bite down so hard her teeth broke. Logically, what we have done, you great galumphing dolt, is heal our broken body just enough to bring us out of shock, making sure we can now feel all of the many, many wounds that are still remaining. Haha. Oh, I hope Tamoko is still alive, or I may still die.

She closed her eyes, trying with delicate, agonizing slowness to get her working limbs under her and try to push herself up. It was a slow, awful process, and she felt her head start to swim more than once, but she thought she was making good progress…

Before a heavy weight in the center of her chest slammed her brutally back down to earth.

"You…" snarled a voice that made the sounds of rumbling stone around them (Oh gods is the cavern rumbling, that's really really bad…) seem positively cuddly. Sephiria's eyes snapped open, partially to see the source, and partially out of sheer indignation that it could still exist.

Sarevok, frankly, looked much the same as Sephiria felt. His armor was shattered in a dozen places, most obviously in the huge jagged gash across his chest where the breastplate was simple gone, revealing a slash so deep Sephiria was quite sure she could see the white of ribs beneath the blood and burned flesh. All his exposed skin, in fact, seemed to be burned, and badly; had she not been the cause of it herself, she'd have thought he had been soaked in pitch and set alight, with the skin of his face and chest resembling nothing so much as charcoal with a thin layer of sticky, oozing blood pushing through the cracks. His face was near unrecognizable as the harsh, but handsome man she'd seen beneath the helmet in the past, except for one thing.

The single, burning golden eye gazing down on her with hate so intense she could barely comprehend it, was the same as it ever was.

She did not wait to see what he was planning; the shattered remains of the Sword of Chaos were still long enough to be a shortsword and she wasn't sure she could have released her grip on it if she tried. With a burst of agony and all the speed and power her broken form could muster, she drove the blade toward his heart…

And he, moving with a speed that seemed impossible from what looked more like a charred corpse than a human being, caught it.

The metal tore into his palm, the new wound not even slightly shifting the rictus of fury his face was twisted into, even as his other arm clamped onto her windpipe, slamming her back into the ground with the force of the lunge as his fingers began to crush her throat like a vise. She tried to strike back; to take another swing with the shattered blade, to lash out at him with the stump of her other arm, but the impact on the back of her head and the sudden failure of oxygen to flow had made it so, so hard to move...

"It's all your fault. If you had just died with the old man, it all would have gone perfectly. Why. Won't. You. Just. Die?!"

"You first."

Acherai did not, in all honesty, look any better than Sephiria felt, but at the very least his legs were clearly holding up better, because he had managed to actually walk a short distance and raise one of his arms. Oh, certainly, the other hung limply at his side and one eye was already half-swollen shut, but the advantage of favoring small light weapons was that you didn't really need two arms or two eyes to drive a dagger into the side of someone's neck. And that, Sarevok reacted to.

The giant let out a half-scream half-gurgle, lashing out almost ferally at the source of his sudden agony. The smaller man rolled with the impact, still clinging to his dagger and actually almost riding on the larger in a grotesque parody of a child riding piggy-back. Sephiria would have laughed out loud if she'd had the air to do so, even if the part of her mind that still worked was aware Acherai was only doing it to keep leverage on the dagger he was viciously twisting into his half-brother's throat.

So instead, she just took the time to breathe, each gulp of air making every bone in her body ache but make the swimming in her head fade a little further. Because if there was one thing that life had taught her, it was…

It's not enough. It's never enough.

Rather than waste time trying to remove the lithe elf with arms that were probably only half-functioning, the giant man simply leaned into the weight and let himself fall backwards. Even without his armor, he was still nearly three hundred pounds of solid muscle, and gravity did its work well; the crunch of ribs snapping was audible as he crushed the smaller figure between his bulk and the rough stone of the floor. Acherai let loose his grasp in sudden shock and pain as the air was driven from his body, exacerbating a hundred already existing injuries. He tried to gather his wits, push past the pain and try to get out of there after Sarevok rolled away…

And then before he could move an inch, a hand big enough to cover his entire face slammed down onto it, lifting his head up, and immediately slamming him back down to the stone.

In the tiny, civilized part of his brain that was able to continue processing through the impact, he supposed the only reason his skull wasn't outright shattered was due to Sarevok's own injuries. But he could feel something explode at the base of his head, white lights flaring up behind his eyes and quickly dissolving into deep red spots. He drove his dagger into the man's wrist with what little force he could muster, but if Sarevok felt the new wound he didn't show any sign, merely lifting Acherai's head up to bring it down again with a dull, wet thud.

And then he began to lift again…

Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, oh gods.

Imoen wasn't really able to have another thought. She had known, known, known that something was horribly wrong and Seffie was right in the middle of it; this whole place was already a dank, collapsing nightmare, and then it had exploded, and of course Seffie had caused the explosion, of course she had, big galumphing giant of a woman she was, Imoen couldn't take her anywhere.

So it was that when the rest of the team had pulled back, to find a way around the collapsing structures littering the streets, Imoen had run into them. Because the fastest way to your stupid sister was, in her mind, always a straight line. Every step was pure danger, crawling over, under, and through rubble that could have fallen under her weight or collapsed on her from the impact of a stiff breeze, but she simply couldn't care anymore. She had told Seffie, told her, that they should stick together. Sisters were supposed to stick together. If they didn't have each other's backs, then what even was the damn point?

And now Seffie was in danger, and Imoen didn't have her back, and if the big red-headed goon died, Imoen would spend the rest of her life keenly aware she'd failed the dearest family she had. So, she crawled under the rubble of some collapsed ancient tower, a hundred tons of stone just inches above her, keenly aware of the fact it was held up essentially by blind luck or some god taking her side unbidden, and that her flailing about to get through the opening might well bring the whole thing down on her head.

But you know, can't worry about things you're afraid of. Just gotta get down on your hands and knees and crawl into them without a backup plan, because you're a damn idiot, Immie, you are so very dumb, you're gonna get crushed to death if you don't hurry your cute butt up and then Seffie will have to ask her god to bring you back and he doesn't care about you, let's be totally honest. So just take that stupid fear of your stupid plans, and crawl faster, because if you really stop to think about what a doofus you are, you're just gonna freeze…

Oh.

Sarevok had never been, in her eyes, a super pretty man. Truthfully Imoen hadn't really much thought of anyone as particularly good looking in her whole life, because she was really more interested in what stories they had in their heads or what goodies they had in their luggage, but Sarevok was a special case, what with him being big, scary, and mean. But finally entering his presence again after all the time since their first, very angry meeting, and seeing this… rotted, burned, glowing-eyed demon deliberately and cheerfully crushing Acherai's skull against the stone, she was suddenly, painfully, distressingly aware that she was in so far over her head she couldn't even see the sun anymore. Imoen was a braver girl than she gave herself credit for most days, but the sight very nearly made her turn tail and run, and she wasn't shy about admitting it.

Right up until her gaze shifted to see Sephiria.

Her sister, the… well, the strongest person she knew. Broken, and beaten, and struggling to try to come to her feet with only one hand (Oh, gods, Seffie, your hand…). The sight probably should have completed her descent into panic, because she of all people knew that Sephiria was vastly better at fighting than she had ever been, and look at her. But instead, it sparked something in the young thief.

The deepest, coldest, most primal rage she had ever felt in her life.

Her eyes gleaming with tears of absolute fury… and maybe something else, deeper down… she nocked an arrow and gritted her teeth…

The world went completely black with a pain that pierced even the holy rage of Bhaal, and Sarevok Anchev died.

His body, against all odds, was still on its feet, but to call it Sarevok anymore would be a deep, deep misnomer. A bolt of wood and metal slammed home into his one remaining eye and embedded itself deep in his skull, and through the blood, and fire, and the slow paring down of everything about him… the unholy flames of Bhaal roared within, and with this latest surge of pain, of hate, of thirst for blood, they lapped up to the very heights of his being until there was simply nothing left for them to consume.

Sarevok Anchev died, and in his place was the will of Bhaal in human form, divine and merciless.

A hand leaped to his face unbidden and ripped the arrow from his ruined eye socket, and the empty bloody gaze snapped toward the source of it, blood and ichor running down a face already burned black and cracked. Where the blood touched, something seemed to shift in his skin, like beneath the darkened flesh there was something too large to fit inside it, squirming and trying to rip its way out. He stepped forward, a second arrow slamming into his chest, and ignored it. A third arrow drove into his right thigh, and he ripped it free only because it interfered with his movement.

Imoen pulled back her hand, and the rage in her own eyes flickered as she found an empty quiver, before a rictus grin twisted the face of the Bhaalspawn. He knelt, gathering strength in muscles that should by all rights no longer have worked, and though it might have only been a trick of the light it seemed like his feet were digging into the stone, like they somehow gripped down with a clawed grip like a gigantic bird of prey, before he leaped, his hands held out before him and aimed for her heart as if he intended to just bodily rip it from her chest. Which, of course, he very much did, and were his hands changing as he moved, and was something shifting behind his empty eyes…?

Imoen never got a real answer to that question, beyond nightmares that would plague her for the rest of her life, because something black and red gleaming with a pale light slammed into the thing mid-leap with a crack like a thunderclap echoing through a dead forest.

Sephiria's vision was fully black in one eye, and blurred in the other, but she already knew what she saw in that dark, blighted cavern would never leave her.

Tamoko, her hand glowing with light that Sephiria could feel the vileness of from across the cave, met her former lover mid-leap, and the necrotic power of whatever dark god empowered her roared into the shifting and warping body, sending it spasming to the floor beneath her. He reacted like a wounded animal, lashing out with his bare hands and feet, and Sephiria saw bright red blood flashing from where he struck her armor, somehow… but she also saw the priestess ignoring the pain, and raising her hand, a shard of black metal clasped in her bleeding palm.

The woman brought the fragment of the Sword of Chaos down on her one-time master, driving the black steel into his neck, his face, his chest, wherever she could find purchase with it. Sarevok… if you could call him that anymore… screamed, a keening wail like some kind of bestial predator more than anything human, and what flowed from his wounds was not blood, but some kind of thick blackness that seemed to burn gold when it touched the air, like liquid sulfur. But then, was Tamoko any better, ignoring the strange ease with which he tore into her body, the superhuman strength shredding her armor and bringing up a new flash of bright red with each strike. She ignored pain that should have killed her, driving that makeshift dagger in again and again with machinelike intensity. If Sarevok was a maddened animal, she was like some kind of heartless golem ignoring all damage to herself in exchange for ensuring her mission was completed…

But she won't complete it, Sephiria thought, as she saw full-on what she had fervently hoped was her imaginings, as Sarevok's fingers fully extended into unmistakably foot-long talons, his arms lengthening to accommodate them and splitting at a new joint, like a second elbow spontaneously bursting from his skeleton to let him move in new, inhuman ways.

And she saw as, mid-swing, those blades burst through Tamoko's back as his previously limp left arm snapped up and impaled her completely through five different spots in her torso.

Acherai was unconscious or dead in a pool of his own blood. Imoen had frozen like a rabbit in front of a snake. And as Sarevok lashed his newly monstrous limb and hurled Tamoko halfway across the cavern, she knew in her heart of hearts that the priestess was dead before she even hit the ground.

There's nobody left. Only I might be able to stop him.

He stood shakily, bones audibly cracking inside him as his legs shifted unnaturally under him. He turned an eyeless gaze on her, and she saw his mouth widening across his face like someone had slashed his cheeks open, teeth sharpening behind it.

He's not even human anymore. Just an abomination, a thing exists only to slay and ravage and end every life it can find. He'll kill everyone in the city if I let him leave this place alive. I've fought so hard, and given up so much to turn away from my birth, but do I even matter anymore? What does it matter if I maintain my purity but let so many innocent souls die in screaming agony? If the only way to save everyone is to sacrifice myself, that's what a paladin should do…

And then he turned away from her, and back toward Imoen.

Do it. Do it or he'll kill her. He'll kill you all. He took the only father you ever knew, and he'll take the sister you found and the brother you don't even want, he'll take EVERYTHING from you. This is no longer about something so minor as your morals or your future, it's the simple pure truth that he'll NEVER STOP, THE ONLY OPTION IS TO MAKE SURE HE CAN NEVER HURT ANYONE, EVER AGAIN…

Not again. Never again.

She dug deep, her eyes blazing gold as she focused her will inward, and felt the divine energy roar through her body in a wave of healing light; Bhaal's power, perhaps, but shaped and twisted to something positive. Or so she would have told herself, if she had been able to think in terms beyond those few words at the sight of that thing advancing on her sister. She rose to her feet, ignoring the agony in her half-healed limbs, screaming wordlessly...

And clutching in her ruined hand the hilt of the shattered Sword of Chaos, a full eight inches of jagged black steel still firmly attached to it. Unbalanced, and twisted, and ruined as a weapon.

But very sharp.

She fell more than lunged as she collided with Sarevok's back, driving the blade deep into his warping, shifting muscles and deep into the back of his neck. He didn't scream, he couldn't scream as the metal ripped through his windpipe; he lashed out wildly, but even his bizarrely grotesque new limbs couldn't reach the center of his own back, and as she twisted the ruined blade in, shifted her muscles to rip it side to side, attempts to attack became little more than spasms as his spinal cord snapped...

She heard metal scrap on stone as they fell together, the blade going entirely through his body and into the cavern floor. With that leverage, she twisted one final time, as hard she could, pushing every last ounce of her own considerable physical strength to push the blade to the right, falling on it with all her weight…

She hit the stone floor, hard, the breath knocked out of her and every nerve in her body singing of agony.

Sarevok's head followed, a quarter-second later.

As it rolled to a stop, his eyes empty, his skin burned, his lips twisting like an abhorrent slash across his face to show teeth coated in blood and stretching wounded tissue in ways that looked hideous in ways that her mind couldn't put words to, she would have sworn, sworn, that his final expression was a smile, and that horrified her more than anything. For all the death and violence the previous six months had shown her, this, this last smile of a dying man,was simply, inexplicably wrong.

And then the skin began to dissolve into sparks of golden light, and for a moment, just a moment, she could see the skull beneath the ruined flesh laid bare, and she saw something shining in the empty sockets of its eyes, and she closed her eyes rather than face it. For the second time in her life, the first time since Gorion had fallen in front of her, she fled from reality into the blissful ignorance of blind panic.

Well done.

The skull vanished into shimmering golden dust within only a few seconds.

It took considerably longer for Sephiria to muster the will to open her eyes again.