Ravagekillmurderravagekill...

No human mind monster mind, human not built for power forced inside. At the call of Master of course, shard of power of Lord of Murder forced inside like thorn in red inflamed paw that couldn't dig it out. Giant horned clawed inhuman hands like anvils.

A name, a hope of living, Crimmor, when he was coming and there wasn't anything but to join him. Might as well to be hanged.

The pain was like being burned, licking fires inside veins and blood, things pushing out from the inside. Bones stretched and bent and the pain as if rack-stretched. Pitiless wizards, foul wizards, vile wizards like any Amnian knew. Worse than Cyricists. The golden eyes that made them do it: the Master. Skull-helmed, glowing, bound to him. Gone to his bed in the wreckage of the city, not entirely willingly, taken and thought it was for that alone. Death came. He had no fear of bringing it to others. Ravaging.

Name, name was once Man...

Blood, blood-family and trapped...

Tears would burn to steam against a head of red fire. Only anger and longing to kill. Master was the anger in inferno. The temple crushed and confined the horned giant. Summoned from there, yelled for the blood-scent. LordLady of Murder. Smell the rivals down. But a smell of darkness hid them. The creature called the Ravager sought to soothe its pain by its name.

—

Cythandria fled through the smugglers' dark tunnels, already ill and in pain. As Odesseiron an oath, a demigod's fury inside her body that she could not have removed from her. Inside she burned and froze by turns. Her insides twisted; colour fell from her face and skin. Already she felt ten years older. She had told perfect truth: forfeit for betrayal.

That traitorous whore Tamoko would be satisfied at last.

Distance affected. Anyone wished to prolong their own lives; it was only natural. She had no choice. North where war had not yet struck, if she lived that long; Waterdeep, any metropolis with mages who could mitigate her pain. The rough black stone below her feet gave way; her shoes were fine and dainty and utterly impractical. Her knee was skinned as in childhood, and unlike childhood it was rare if any that she had to see her own blood, to know that part of her skin was ripped away and inside her was pumping out. She picked herself up once more. A coward ran from those pursuing her. She'd have hated Skie to kill her by the sword, even now, but the agonies began to make her wish for a faster death. Like Odesseiron traitor to that which she belonged; only Sarevok could have saved her and he would not. She paused a moment against the wall, but the pause would mean death. Someone would seek to show her the components a betrayer was made of. She flung herself forward once more.

She stopped when she heard the sound behind her. She spoke, slowly for the pain:

"I would not have expected you, Sherdis. Do you desire to gloat that the master pleads to the servant?"

The doppelganger's form changed from a nondescript human man of brown eyes and hair,and retreated to its own self in a stance of magical casting.

"Lady Cythandria, your master pursues the sibling with the giant since he discovered what you allowed her to achieve. I offered this simply because I thought that you would be easier."

She reached for her spell components, breathing harshly; she raised her shield first, a pale cylinder about herself. How long she could cause it to last was very much a matter of degree.

"Sherdis, I taught you, I instructed you; and you trouble to speak of it before you attack me. They are right in what they say of you. You are no true doppelganger," she said. She expected it to cast with what it knew rather than a physical attack; she reached for the magic of scrolls and potions that she had left to her. "Wouldbe primate."

The missiles, iceberg-blue-tinged at their edges, redounded against the edges of her mage-shield. She took from the scroll the words to improve her barrier. Burning fire lashed into her and reddened her skin, hot as if boiling water was poured. She had not taught the doppelganger to master that spell. Magelight, it had mastered, magelight pale blue...

It appeared from Sherdis' hands as if the creature sought to show her. She thought for a moment of complacence and salvation. But then against the existing agonies of her mind an enchantment beat to allow entry. She was weaker; her mind-shield not nearly so strong. She raised her head and smiled in its face as if she had only now found her courage, and then reeled, grasping her stomach as her toils sent further pain through her body.

It flung missiles once more. The shield did not give. "I am a conjurer," she hissed, "whatever parlour tricks you have learned besides those I taught must fail..."

"Those I learned from a primate with a brighter glow of power than you," the doppelganger said, superior, casting its missiles again. Cythandria could feel their impact though they caused no extra pain. She remembered the red-haired mage invading her laboratory, though in her state she could not say why; a vaguely familiar face, raining down spells against her creatures. The six pitiless faces that she could not escape from. She stood and glared within her shell of white. Sherdis must surely come close to exhausting its repertoire of magic; another charm spell was tried against her with no result. She raised her hands in abjuration's gesture.

"Try all you like to enspell me," she said. "You fail..."

Sherdis shook its grey head. "Mages learn more each day," it said. "You taught me that. And yet, of course, you have failed to take all into account, Lady Cythandria."

It charged, almost lazily. She swayed on her feet. This was panic and fear; when the golem chased, her broken ankle, her frightened distress and inability to act when it was truly desperate.

Then Cythandria reached her dagger from the folds of her skirt and struck with the spell of strength she had managed to finish casting. Sherdis knew more of fighting than she; it was only that it was unexpected. She had pierced hard through parts of the grey frame that felt like ribs, and the silver blood soaked her robes. She ripped the dagger downward, marvelling at the temporary strength of a—of a godlike man. But it gave her nothing that could outlast pain.

The doppelganger lay bleeding on the ground. Another spasm of her disobedience to the demigod shook her. It hurt all the more more for fighting against her fate. She did not stop to finish it off; she drew her cloak to try to hide the blood that defiled her, and lurched on in the dark passageway.

—

"Tiax would speak with ye, and there is no right for ye to deny it."

The speaker was a gnome, staring up at the two of us; we'd walked in the shadows of the darkening light, invisible to most on the streets. Searching, for other outlaws. It seemed the gnome was such a one. He stood with us in the shadows.

"Go ahead, shortling," Imoen said. Tiax was a foot-and-a-half or so below her, bearded, carrying a long pipe marked with very dark smoke in its bowl; he wore dirty black edged with dark purple, a sheathed dagger and a small spiked morningstar in his belt. He looked up at me, paying little attention to her.

"This much is owed by ye; for once you said that all were to hail His mighty name, taking it in vain. Tiax has seen this in divine vision."

He was crazy, or something. I shook my head. "We have no time for this, sirrah. We must be elsewhere."

"The great Tiax will protect ye." He waved a hand to the wall of a nearby house, and it opened to show darkness inside. Was this one of the passages that led to the ghouls of the Undercity? The thieves, Sarevok wrote, used the Undercity maze as a decoy getaway and his man there ensured they did not poke about too closely, for after all there were many formidable undead and jellies there.

"Are you a thief?" Imoen asked him directly.

"Time and time I have done such and such for them," Tiax said. He almost sung; he must be mad and nothing else. "I know why you ask; Tiax says that the way through is mazed for ye, but it is not something that adventurers such as you shall not be able to slip through like a few quiet ducks through a net."

Leave us, I wanted to say; you are no help, and I know better now than to listen to any madman crossing our path.

He raised a callused hand and pointed at my face. "It was within the mines below the Cloakwood," he said, "that you swore your fidelity to Cyric. Now shall ye hearken to what Tiax has to say, or must he force your heresy through the god's power?"

The dreadful memory came to taunt me; I hated to think on what I had done then. I wasn't myself, half-possessed, giving into the taint and not thinking about anything it might cost me when I told the guard that Cyric was to be hailed and we belonged to the dark god, but still I'd chosen to do it—

"We don't truck with such as him," Imoen said.

"Daughter of Bhaal, Cyric trucks with you over the family business," Tiax said. I'd thought his eyes were a pale mad violet before; I was wrong and they were a dark black fire. Compulsion or charm, forcing us to follow. We found ourselves behind the closing wall, lost and listening to him, dizzy as if we'd been out of the world for some time.

Tiax rubbed his hands together. "'Tis some time since Tiax had congregation to preach to of the truth of Cyric! Fear not, children of Bhaal, for ye shall not be harmed this day, for Cyric promises it so. Ye shall not even be found, for the Prince of Lies has promised that to another. But now ye are held to listen, for Tiax will tell of the truth of the glory of the Dark Sun and of Tiax himself!

"It began when Tiax was a young gnome, before Tiax knew that one day Tiax the Mighty should come to his destiny to rule the world. And on that day Tiax was suffering, for the boots of Tiax were one size too short to fit the broad feet of Tiax that on the day Tiax rules the world shall trample all the jewelled thrones of Toril below Tiax's thick tall boots...

—

The crimson giant was not so tall as Ramazith's tower, or the ducal palace, or the Iron Throne, or indeed the Gist or the Jannath mansions. It was tall enough that it was visible from a long distance away through the streets, above the height of many houses, and beat through wood and stone as a ranger running through wide plains might clear tall grasses in his way. It was horned and unholy and scarlet-eyed, and none but a few could recognise the terrifying tales from which it had come. In the stories Bhaal's Ravager had been still higher and fiercer and a full avatar of a god; this one was near as formidable by practical terms.

Dynaheir, dajemma-wychlaran of Rashemen, was one of few who had done her reading. The summons was clear for all of good intent. Innocents had been harmed throughout this; she did not hesitate to run to fight in whatever fashion that she could.

Even for her the giant was too large and monstrous to view. She saw yellow fire-hair burning behind the horned, scaled head; she saw a trace of human feature in the distorted face, as in a half-ogre's uncomfortable blend of human with other. She saw black teeth like needles in the too-wide mouth; she saw long and foam-tipped slits in place of nostrils that moved and sniffed; she saw the fists like giant bricks tipped by sharp edges; she saw smooth movement that should have been impossible for one so large. Innocents ran from it.

The Grand Duke walked by it, dwarfed, completely unafraid of it. But without exception his other followers stayed as far from it as they could. From Anchev's booming voice the intention of the Ravager's release was known: that his torment of the city would end the moment the girl Skie was to be turned over to him.

And amidst the cries of those victimised by it were men and women who sought to stand against the monster, Grand Duke or Lord of Murder or no.

He was mad, Dynaheir thought. Missiles flew from her hand the moment she was near enough to range. The young bard was by her. "For Yeslick—" Garrick managed, and followed her example. His song was equally ineffective against the creature's hide. He had grown stronger; Dynaheir had not known him well before, but in the city he was a close ally.

Spells of weakening, Dynaheir thought; one she had learned from Imoen, the student becoming the teacher—

There were others coming. Garrick sung upon them instead, and Dynaheir felt her feet flying like leaves in the wind. His song called others; let those who would defend do so against even this. In this foreign land a bard had stronger power to call others than a wychlaran could call on the earth and the Three. In the air the weave of the Hidden One awaited Dynaheir for thought.

The red-haired officer in rebellion led: Vai. "Fight against this monster!" she called, and there were warriors rallied to her side; Dynaheir and Garrick joined in casting upon them, that they might fight to greater extent.

—And last longer... Minsc.

She could not afford distractions.

"FOOLS," the god's voice came, "FOOLS TO DARE TO STAND IN THE PATH OF MURDER, I AM YOUR DUKE AND I AM YOUR GOD—"

Terrifying madness, far more so than that necromancer.

"BRING HER OR FACE DEATH."

The stones about the monstrous creature cracked open. Druids worked to cast on not the creature itself but upon environs; the cobblestones ate the giant's clawed feet, spiked stalagmites sought to stab its hide and slow it. Dynaheir saw the red-haired warrior of Skie's company, taller and broader than Vai, stab a giant red leg; first that blow pierced the thick hide in a yellow-bleeding slash, and then the claw of the hand snapped about to fend her away. A sword in the hand of a slimmer male warrior did nothing against those scales. The red scales began to knit themselves together in but a few moments.

Dynaheir had but one casting possible of Imoen's spell to weaken against resistances to magic. It hurt her to first cast shielding spells, protecting herself when citizens and rebels lay dead already in the streets; and yet she needed all the concentration that was in her. The creature's scarlet eyes with their golden glint seemed to affix her for a moment. It smelt the air as if it could feel her contact with the sibling of the god it represented. Ilmater's name was cried at a distance far too close. Priests there approached at a far nearer range than those of the Grand Duke's own men, grasping the wounded and those who sought to run; and some died. Garrick sung for swiftness in escaping the monster; and escaping the—other monster.

Dynaheir reached for the threads to bind together. In the sight of the Weave the monster was blood and roiling lava and yellow bile, bright as a shooting star. She gathered the power in spears dull compared to the inferno of the creature, sharpened and able to pierce scale. She took as long as she dared to bind them together in all the strength she could give; and then the idea for a focus struck her, and she threw them all into the giant's right leg.

The Ravager did not fall or even notice, but to magesight the vulnerabilities lay open. Imoen herself was yet not here, and were she it would likely smell her out— She sharply gave Garrick instruction to tell it to others: the right leg. And were any attacks successful, in her mind she formed another plan—

She turned her spellcasting to aid others as best she could. Three renegades fought the Grand Duke, a druid protected by a body of brown bark and a male warrior and a priestess calling the name of Helm, and all they could do was to keep him from killing them. The other druid chanted her spells to change the earth, and a cloud of what looked like nails was summoned by another wizard upon their side. Evocations that affected space around the ones against whom magic failed. Hastes and strengths for escape and lives saved.

"Right leg—" Garrick's voice gave the signal. Dynaheir conjured her missiles once more, and this time they left true traces in the scales. The monster pounded forward, beyond stone the druid had conjured. It was close. Dynaheir refused to run.

Duty; wisdom. "Garrick, back—" she ordered him briefly, "spread thy song—"

But he did not retreat. Dynaheir saw a ragdoll flung through the air, distorted: the shape of a person landed cracked open on the ground. She did not recognise the face of the innocent. The Ravager raised its giant fists once more. Dynaheir felt for her spells, her focus and purpose undimmed. There was another slash opened in the leg of the beast, vulnerable this time; and were the crack widened a little more, a little more...

"Where is she?" called a voice that only wished for aid; "Silvershield's daughter, promised to save us—"

"Swarm of shapeshifters she had Balduran's sword against them—" another rumour voiced; Dynaheir understood that to be closer to work done by a Helmite priestess. Garrick turned his head; and then retreated as Dynaheir had ordered at last. She used spells to invoke ice against the stone for the giant to slip upon; missiles once more to widen that wound. Skie's two warrior companions fought by each other's side, against that leg, and a hooded caster that must have been the drow joined with dark bolts that made direct hits to the vulnerability opened.

Then Duke Silvershield's daughter and the golden sword of Balduran came running to join the melee, and neither the Grand Duke nor the Ravager seemed to notice. The bard—an illusion—

Yet a gain in fighting spirit to those without the power to see through the illusion, Dynaheir thought. She could not allow lives to be lost. The red-haired warrior then made her strongest attack, through path left by the drow. Dynaheir saw the white flash of unnatural bone, and chanted an invocation that was forbidden to cast upon the native lands of Rashemen.

It was fast, even as the wounds of the Ravager closed by its monstrous form; it was powerful; and it needed to be controlled. The air hardened at her will into a mass of metallic darts, each too heavy for human to lift, and these forced themselves through the vulnerability to magic into the joints of the knee. Then Dynaheir secured them to stay. They were poison to earth and flesh alike; far heavier for their size than iron; and they disrupted the weight of a creature too large to support itself without magic. They were Netheril poison that could turn countries to wasteland if exploded in knowledge lost to the ages. They stuck in the joint of the knee of the creature. Then a dispelment drawn from her own bone and blood, resting in the metal pins too heavily rooted to be dissolved. Unweave some of the natural magics that held muscle to broken bone, the giant's magic to walk upright; and then—

The Ravager fell to its side, crippled. The yellow blood gushed from it and it screamed its pain to the air. And then swords could reach to slice through the bared red neck; it could not rise. In the end it was but a human attempt of a true avatar...

The Grand Duke, to whom illusions were nothing, screamed out that Skie was indeed a coward, for she did not dare to show her face while people died. He pointed to the Ravager's fallen form. The creature did not die so much as disappear, roiling and dissolving to something far smaller in a cloud of red thorns. The greatsword pierced through the armoured belly of the priestess, drawn out in heavy blood. Dynaheir saw the golden eyes resting on her for the defeat of its creature. She gathered herself to stand upright; her protections had been long forced out of her by the magic she had wielded.

Then let it be so. Her last missiles clashed uselessly against his armour; by her back was a stone wall and she could not run. One could not defy a god and live. Let others escape him.

Black dust gathered in the air as a small cloud the size of a large man's fist. Garrick, still behind the illusion of Skie, sang out a spell against stone dust and water. A dense mask of mud rose to cover the space before the spiked helm and the unearthly golden eyes. Dynaheir heard the man's scream of blindness, and like others took opportunity to run while they could.

Sarevok Anchev's shouts followed them. They were pursued by a madman, Dynaheir told herself. His gauntlets whirled through the air trying to cut himself though the dust ought to have been simple to remove. He was no human, and screamed like a beast denied.

She and Garrick took stock of the dark refuge and went to see who had to be healed.

—