(It's Saturday night and I have a special treat for all of you! Enjoy! - Nas)

Chapter 18 – A Broken Bottle on the Hull

Lyric, Halsin, and Karlach stood shoulder to shoulder on the narrow stone walkway that led to the great doors of Bhaal's hidden temple. Lae'zel stood several meters ahead of them, eyeing the thick red patina of centuries-old blood doused across every surface, including the lintels and stairs. There was no keyhole that she could see, however. Just a metal plate with the indentation of a skull.

Lyric had no doubts that this was the Temple of Bhaal of course. The massive geometric gate was protected on all sides by thick columns covered in carved runes glowing with the magic of the Hells. For added flavor, several piles of skulls also adorned the corners of the platforms and crevices around the mason work. It was, in short, just the sort of atmosphere she had expected to find once they reached the bloody beating heart of the Undercity ruins. Lyric also couldn't help but glace around anxiously. They still hadn't seen hide nor hair of Astarion throughout the entire tortuous journey down here. Not that he was prone to leaving footprints or broken branches in his wake exactly, but she had certainly thought that he would have rejoined them by now. Since he hadn't though, her worries regarding Orin's taunting use of his form concerned her even more. She must have taken him or was using him for sacrificial bait. But if that were the case, why hadn't she said so back in the tunnels? The Chosen of Bhaal wouldn't have let such a delectable morsel of truth go unsaid for all the suffering it would cause.

Halsin held his hand out towards the doors, as if sensing something. Or trying to. Finally, he dropped his arm and took several pained breaths.

"The air here is thick with evil." He growled. "Nothing blessed with even a spark of natural life can withstand it for long. Orin is very near, I think. We should make haste. It is time to cleanse this pestilence."

Karlach readied her trident, Nyrulna. "Let's get it done then. I can't wait to get out of this shithole."

"Patience." Lyric reminded them again. "We don't know what's in there or how many."

"Orin seeks a duel to the death." Lae'zel interrupted from the vanguard. "One on one. I suspect we will not encounter much resistance from the Cult of Murder, except perhaps for the best vantage point from which to observe it."

With a grim scowl, Halsin approached the door, ready to set his considerable weight against it and break it down. But, to his surprise, the heavily notched stone swung easily, and the doors opened in welcome. There were no locks, no barriers or even guards of any kind. Clearly, they were expected.

Crossing the threshold into the Temple of Bhaal was like crossing a boundary between Planes. A sickening sense of stilted pressure as one's stomach lurched with the force of changing gravity and the suspension of all natural laws as they had once been. It became a world, a hell, unto its own. With a great stone skull suspended above the terrors below; bigger than a dragon with empty eyes deep enough to fill with an endless danse macabre of the murdered and the massacred. Mounted to an equally gigantic stone circle hewn into the granite wall, Bhaal's Grand Death Head had all the appearances of a god floating above his game of dice and miniatures. Gleefully grinning in anticipation to see who's number would come up next.

The main ambulatory, the ring of walkways around the outer edge of the main altar, were also, in fact, swarming with cultists. None of them seemed to take much notice of the new company in their midst though, in favor of watching all that was happening on the dais below. Lae'zel had been correct in this regard. They were not willing to miss even a second of the performance. Oh, and what a performance it was.

Orin, clad in fresh skin and newly bloodied meat for the occasion, danced giddily around a stone table while her favored Unholy Assassins chanted and gestured through a ritual ceremony. Time and again she would stop, turn to the skull high above her and shout "Father, hear me!" before raising her sinister curved dagger and then hopping or skipping about like a schoolgirl at playtime. With a flourishing twist of her fingers, the blade wheeled around as Orin took up the dance in bare feet slick with gore. Chanting in time with her cultists, she continued to stoke their fervor, whipping several of them into a froth as she shrieked adorations into their dead eyes.

But Lyric only glanced at her for a moment, her gaze drawn to the only two figures not participating in the jubilation. The first was Astarion, and undoubtedly Astarion this time. He lay unconscious and wounded in the center of the table. Orin's wanton sacrifice to Bhaal should Lyric fail to appear. Or, her intended sacrifice either way, since Lyric had no inclinations that Orin would ever free a captive once thoroughly ensnared in her talons. The second was a hooded man standing close by. He appeared to be dressed in a rich blue tunic with silver embroidery and shrouded by a layered grey cloak of fine alpine wool. But while most of his face was obscured, she could place those wisps of auburn-black hair and that snide posture anywhere.

Olivet.

In a flash, the ranger put it together in her mind. Astarion had gone scouting ahead after the battle with the Murder Tribunal, carrying the Amulet of Bhaal. He must have found the path to the temple rather quickly but before he could return, he'd encountered Orin and Olivet together. He was alone and they had subdued him; no match for the Chosen and the Masked Cleric all on his own. That was how Orin had been able to assume his form and waylay the group of them as they had attempted to pick up the trail. Olivet had then taken the defeated Astarion to the very rim of Bhaal's communion cup. Laid him out on the Altar of Murder, and prepared the invocation that would be the end of all hope for Baldur's Gate. Such was the duty, and the pleasure, of an avowed war priest. Lyric grit her teeth. She would see to it that every quivering lip waiting to sip from that cup in this horrid place would pay the ultimate price.

"That's Astarion down there!" Karlach exclaimed. "We gotta get him!"

"Careful." Halsin admonished, echoing Lyric's caution from earlier. "One false move and she'll skewer him. He won't be able to break free either. See that glint of orange-like flame around the edges of the rock? He's being kept in some kind of magic-induced coma. My healing talents won't even make it through to him. Not until she's been truly felled."

"Then we cut him out." Lae'zel answered, locking her greatsword up to her side in a ready stance.

"Hang on." Lyric held her hand up. "We need to get closer first. Much closer. These are seafarer rules, I'd know it upside down and blindfolded. They've set this all up for us. Let's parlay."

The companions thus all opted for the first set of stairs, bridging the chasm between the ambulatory and the dais with a solid arc of steps. Lyric went down first, with Halsin and Karlach on either side just behind her. Lae'zel primed her psionic attunement and took up the rear, ready to leap spectacularly into action the moment it was called for.

But Orin did not turn.

Instead, she cradled Astarion's head in her arms, leaning over him as if she were about to kiss him.

"Ah! Hush, hush!" She whined and hissed. "I hear footsteps trip-trapping on the Murder Lord's stones. It refused the Murder Lord's command and comes crawling into his sanctum with the tyrant unpulped."

But then, with a weeping gasp she looked up, meeting Lyric's eyes in a mockery of mourning. "I still haven't forgiven you for what you did. Spilling my grandfather's crimson like that…He was mine! He showed me how to slice and slit. He guides my daggers still." She looked back down at Astarion with a sensuous smile but continued to address Lyric all the same. "Oh, did it think it could protect? Did it think it could save? Only the blades can offer salvation."

With a shiver of excitement, Orin raised her curved Netherstone dagger over Astarion's heart, poised to strike him dead in an instant. But there she paused, looking up at Lyric with an expectant grin. She wanted something out of this, something victoriously sweet to taste. Panic, suffering, fear, pleading, anything would do.

"I will make of your lover the most exquisite offering! Not only shall he be the lamb who bleeds at the hand of the Chosen, he will be taken into eternal suffering wrapped in the gilded chains of my father's throne. There, his screams, his sweetest screams are they not? Will be the music to his courtier's dance!" Here she laughed until tears of sarcasm glimmered on her cheeks. "The perfect poetic ending to your timeless love, as he forever calls out your name in unrequited rage."

Orin was still talking, and suddenly Lyric couldn't help but be drawn to Olivet's form standing close at her side. A strange force pulled at her, a call from the tadpole but also something more, and she met his eyes from beneath the edge of the lowered hood. She felt a connection to the loathsome elf, felt him pressing along a bond, a beautiful, shimmering bond, as he sought entrance to her mind. Lyric didn't know what to say, or what to do. Olivet Ingen Ailil was a callous monster, cold and unfeeling even when he successfully appeared to be loving and filled with faith or ardor. That didn't change the fact that he was, to his very core, indifferent to the world. And, most especially, to her. There was not now, nor had there ever been, a passion that had joined them.

So…what…was this?

The eyes that gazed out at her with uncomfortable intensity shifted. From blue…to red.

Abrupt images flooded into her thoughts. She saw a dusty cellar, somewhere in the city. It was dark and smelled of chemical spirits. Jars lined the walls, with torn and used faces floating above the two figures at the center of the vision just as Bhaal's skull loomed over them all now. She saw Astarion and Olivet, locked in savage combat. They tore at each other with more than blades and teeth. It was a viciousness, a hateful bile, that had brought them skin to skin, wound to wound, as both attempted to mutilate the other.

Astarion had his dagger buried in Olivet's ribs and Olivet had burned the side of Astarion's neck and shoulder nearly to ash. The cleric was raining down divine magical strikes while the rogue picked him apart into vulnerable pieces. They were well matched, and it was impossible to tell who had the upper hand at any given moment. But it also meant that the injuries they were able to inflict on one another were grievous. Olivet was skilled in handling the undead, even a vampire spawn of Astarion's caliber. And Astarion had grown exceptionally proficient in dispatching magic-users in the time since he's been freed from Cazador's restraints. As Lyric watched, the images flashed through her mind in barely a second's time. They fought, and fought hard, to a standstill time and time again.

Until the fatal error.

In only took a moment but Olivet had feinted left, trying to draw Astarion closer as he prepared to bring the entire building down on top of them with a petition to his radiant guardian. But he could not have predicted that Astarion knew the words to this particular divine prayer, having heard Shadowheart utter them countless times as they battled their way through Shadow Cursed Lands. After all, what vampire would know the entreaty to a god? What vampire would have stood in the circles of light cast by heroes in the face of Death itself? In the searing pinpoint of heat that is the moment between life or death, he had gambled on the obvious…and lost.

Astarion followed him as he dashed rightward but before he could finish the words to his supplication, Olivet felt a hand wrap around his neck. The rogue then used their combined momentum to spiral about into a dexterous pirouette before he brought the both of them into a disorienting spin. That was when a pair of sharp teeth sunk into Olivet's throat. The crash to his system brought his instincts to jarring halt. His fingers went numb as the sound died on his tongue. His eyes widened in surprise and though he thought to struggle, he suddenly couldn't seem to force his limbs to move. A kind of exhaustion overtook him, the will to fight draining out of his soul as the blood drained from his body. Inexplicably, he leaned into Astarion's embrace, feeling himself sag into the other man's arms.

For Astarion, the taste was heady and rich as he lost himself in notes of oak-aged wine, lavender, and rosemary. He drank deeply and without inhibition, feeling and hearing the outrage fade from tormented lips. He supped and suckled at the punctures he'd made in that throbbing, angry, vein, ignoring all other distractions to this one and final feast. When the blood slowed, he bit down harder to split the skin and fill his mouth once more.

There, the vision began to fade but Lyric saw several quick moments in succession. Olivet falling silently to the floor and Astarion's battle scars healing as his skin reddened and flushed. The image then of Astarion searching through the jars, picking up several from the shelves as he went. Astarion quickly stripping off his own distinctive armor and boots and pulling on Olivet's expensive shirt, overcoat, and pants. With a little trial and error, he then used the stolen faces to craft their traded images, Astarion becoming Olivet as Olivet was transformed into Astarion. It ended when the new Olivet Ingen Ailil donned the weathered grey cloak, pulled the hood over his eyes, and then lifted the other man onto his shoulder, only to vanish down an ornate hatch and back into the far fires of the ruin.

Lyric came back to Orin's giggles. "The lovers." She was saying. "Together forever at last."

Without so much as a twitch to give her away, Lyric's eyes once again met those of the hooded man at the Bhaal-child's side. A soft red regarded her in return and a wry smile as he tipped his head down slightly. An offering, yes. But not Orin's. It was her choice now. For the first time, perhaps for the only time, Olivet was not only helpless, but he was completely at her mercy. This was Astarion's gift. What he had bled for. What he would have died for had it come to it.

All so that this moment could finally come to pass. Where the life of Olivet Ingen Ailil rested solely in her hands.

Lyric turned back to Orin, who hovered in a lithe crouch over "Astarion's" still body. Her blade remained poised just above his chest, trembling to pierce his heart. Karlach and Lae'zel both hung back, awaiting the word to strike but not willing to jump in unexpectedly, lest they be the cause of their companion's demise. Halsin stood only a few feet away, his body charged with lightening and moon magic.

Orin's dark mouth pulled back into another rictus grin. "Shall I, shall I, shall I?" She whispered to Lyric's stoic expression. "Shall I lay out the roses of your love to father Bhaal? Make them flower? Scatter his red petals onto my altar? Give him ecstasy?"

Lyric folded her arms and stared down impassively at "Astarion's" face, relaxed in infernal slumber. She could see his chest as it barely fell with each breath he took. His pale skin not a trick of the light but a reality of his impotent state. Memories threatened to overwhelm her. The horrors he'd visited onto her life, the satisfaction he had torn from her body. The scars that he had left. The parts of her that he had carved out and consumed just as sure as the forest fire consumes the tree. But now, ironically, she felt that she might be ready to bloom again. That she could dared to think beauty was even possible. All it would take was one reply. One statement of the raw truth to end him.

"Do it." Lyric said. "His fate is no concern of mine."

Laughing maniacally, Orin did not hesitate. She threw her arm back with a shriek of delight and plunged her serpentine blade straight into "Astarion's" chest. He lurched, his eyes snapping open in shock, but the only sound that came out of him was a faint gurgle. He briefly raised one hand to try and reach the dagger, but his arm only shook a little before it fell back to the stone. Orin snarled, as virtually no blood had come from the wound. No spray, no deluge, with which to baptize her penultimate sacrifice. Resentful, she stabbed him again and then again, over and over, searching for some source of the essence she craved. But her reward was nothing but a trickle.

Lyric leaned over "Astarion's" body as the façade began to crumble. The disguising face fell away, and the masking charm dissolved to reveal the slain body of Olivet broken beneath the Chosen of Bhaal.

To weak to move, he managed a frail blink and looked over at the sight of the woman he had pursued for an eon. Lyric. The one he could not possess. The one who had shed all trappings of his control; even including her name. His voice came out in a barely audible murmur.

"I saw…" He said, struggling. "I saw…a man. Withered. Old. Man. And…. a name. A book and…...my….name…"

The ranger smiled.

"This is not goodbye, Olivet." Lyric stated as she watched that last bit of recognition go out of his sky-blue eyes. "This is fuck you."

He blinked one more time and then he was silent. He was gone.

Orin stared down at the bloodless corpse and screamed; long, loud, and unhinged.