"I'm headed straight for the castle
They wanna make me their queen
And there's an old man sitting on the throne
That's saying that I probably shouldn't be so mean...
I'm headed straight for the castle
They've got the kingdom locked up
And there's an old man sitting on the throne
That's saying I should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
Straight for the castle…"
All across the shadow-cursed lands, people stopped what they were doing and looked up at the sky.
To the surprise of the Harpers accompanying her on patrol, Jaheira actually smiled. The sight of the Nightsong fanned the flame of hope that had kindled in her heart when Del and his party had first arrived at Last Light Inn. She called her patrol back toward the Inn - the Nightsong would strike while the iron was hot, and so should they. It was time to prepare for battle.
Back at Last Light, Isobel's heart rose into her throat as she watched the winged form soar past overhead like the avenging angel that she was. She knew exactly who it was, but Aylin was flying too high and fast to notice her. Isobel had no way of telling the aasimar that her former lover was alive and well, right underneath her at Last Light. Isobel desperately wished that she could join the battle at Moonrise Towers… But no - she was needed here, to keep up the barrier protecting the refugees and other noncombatants. If all went well, she told herself, she would reunite with Aylin soon enough.
None of the cultists who saw the brilliant streak of light overhead recognized it for what it was; the harbinger of their doom. They glanced up briefly and then continued about their business, preparing for the moment when they would be allowed to spread the word of the Absolute across the Sword Coast by force. The only one who noted the light's significance was Ketheric Thorm himself. Could it be? He wondered. All of a sudden he felt the weariness appropriate to a man of his age, as if some inner source of vitality was missing. He briefly considered leaving the Towers or going to ground in the illithid colony beneath them, but then steeled himself for the inevitable confrontation. Perhaps he could still recapture the Nightsong and again twist circumstances to his favor…
As soon as they emerged from the Gauntlet of Shar, Del and the others made a beeline for Last Light Inn. Word of the Nightsong's appearance had preceded them, though Aylin herself had been too full of righteous rage to stop and talk to the Harpers. Still, they had seen her, and the inn was a hub of frenzied activity as everyone prepared for battle. Del's party joined them, and within an hour anyone who could swing a sword or cast a spell was ready to march on Moonrise Towers.
As they approached the Towers, Del looked over at Scion, who was picking at his claws and twitching occasionally. "Are you sure you want to join us for this part?" Del asked telepathically. "I know when we found you, the last thing you wanted to do was come back here."
"I'm fine," the dragonborn insisted, clenching his fist around the hilt of the new sword he'd picked up from Dammon at the inn. "I have unfinished business here. Maybe if I bury my blade into Kressa's still-beating heart, I'll finally be able to sleep at night without fear that it'll find its home in another."
Del shook his head at that graphic mental image. Somehow, he doubted that more murder was what Scion needed - but there was something to be said for catharsis. And anyway, their party could use all the help that they could get.
When they flung open the enormous set of double doors leading into Moonrise Towers, the cultists were already waiting for them. In the foyer of the tower's main level stood the cultists' first line of defense: a war party composed of a mix of goblin, human and half-orc cultists, several gnolls, and one enormous ogre.
At first Del was confused as to how they knew of the impending attack, but then he saw the scorch marks scored into the stone floors, still glowing with blue embers - to say nothing of the corpses of several cultists that had been similarly burned. Dame Aylin had been through here already.
The Absolute, too, awaited them. Del shuddered as he heard a powerful feminine voice in his head, somehow battering through the Emperor's line of defense. "I found you… " it gloated. "Submit now, and I will spare you the pain…"
Del flinched, bracing himself for enthrallment or ceremorphosis, or both, but - nothing. His skull began to throb with an oncoming headache - great, must be the tadpole again, eating even more of his brain - but the voice itself faded out as quickly as it had come.
"This place is a psionic tempest," the Emperor said with something like awe. "I had almost forgotten just how compelling the voice of an Elder Brain can be. I will do my best to protect you, but tread carefully."
"Ah, lovely," Shadowheart muttered as they prepared for battle. "Of course Z'rell's here."
Apparently, this was someone the others had met during their first foray into the tower. The one-eyed half-orc looked far from happy to see them back again as invaders. "Filthy traitors!" she shrieked upon sighting them. "You were given the Absolute's greatest gift, and you used it to bring enemies to our doorstep. You aren't fit to lick our boots!"
Shadowheart turned out to be right – Z'rell fought hard, and she fought dirty. She cast some kind of spell that made Del feel as if he were moving through molasses, then used his momentary incapacitation to slash at him with her halberd and open up a long cut along his ribs. Thankfully it was shallow due to his scale mail blocking most of the blow, but it set a bad tone for the rest of the battle.
Karlach was invaluable, taking down not one but two gnolls without any help. Shadowheart managed to heal Del's wound on the run in between casting her own powerful spells to weaken their opponents. Jaheira seemed to be everywhere, wild-shaped into a sleek black panther that snarled and leapt and dealt death with her claws. Halsin, too, was there as an enormous bear, taking down the ogre single-handedly. Astarion and Gale took out the snipers that aimed arrows at them from the rafters, and Scion was deadly with a proper weapon in his hands. The only ones that seemed to be in trouble were some of the less-experienced Harpers, who weren't doing well in their battle against the rest of the cultists. Del wished he could help, but Z'rell occupied all his focus for the moment.
At last, Del managed to interrupt the half-orc's flurry of spells and blows long enough to stun her, at which point Karlach jumped in to finish off the cultists' second in command.
Del shot the tiefling a relieved grin. "So much for the greeting committee…"
After the fight in the entryway, no cultists were around to give them trouble as they wound their way up the stairs. Jaheira decided to stay back and secure the lower half of the tower, while Del and his party went all the way up to the top. Knowing Ketheric's sense of grandeur and his habit of surveying the shadowlands from above, he likely awaited them there.
At last, winded from climbing so many flights of stairs, they found the man in question standing on the rooftop. Though he was flanked by two others, Del knew without having to ask which one of the cultists was Ketheric Thorm, since he wore elaborate armor resembling a skeletal form and bore a look of unmistakable authority.
Though, at the moment, that authority was belied by a sense of weariness. The elderly elf looked exhausted, as though he was feeling every year of his many centuries. His complexion bore a deathly pallor aside from the dark shadows that pooled beneath his sunken eyes.
"You!" he exclaimed upon seeing their party emerge onto the rooftop. "What have you all done to me? How could you stand against me? You should all be thralls to the Absolute!"
"We're not your thralls," Del retorted, joining Karlach at the front of the party. "Not yours, not the Absolute's, not anyone's. Not anymore."
"But you're infected with the tadpoles. How can you resist the Elder Brain's commands?"
Del offered no answer, only drew his weapon.
"Enough of these games!" Ketheric raised his voice, truly angry now - but Del could see the underlying fear welling up behind his eyes. "You will bow to me. BOW!"
The last word practically vibrated with psionic power, and Del felt a momentary urge to obey. But then something stirred in his pocket… The Prism! The Emperor!
The polyhedral object floated up and hovered in front of him at chest-level, glowing molten orange as it had on that day back in the goblin camp. But this time, Del could feel the power radiating out of it; a fusion of the Emperor and Orpheus, their combined force sufficient to resist Ketheric's command from the Absolute.
"The Astral Prism!" Ketheric exclaimed, a deep scowl etching the wrinkles deeper into his face. "You mean to say you've had it all this time? You damned treacherous worms!"
But as he spoke, the force of authority in his voice diminished and then sputtered out entirely. Del could feel the Emperor release his own shield, and the Prism sagged downward as if in relief. Del caught it and hugged it to his chest as it fell, taking comfort in its residual warmth and the proximity of the illithid within.
He looked up at Ketheric, feeling the oddest urge to return his challenge and make the general the one to bow before him. He shook it off – this wasn't like him. They were here to defeat the man in battle, not stoop to his level and play silly mind games.
Ketheric fixed his gaze upon Scion, who stared back unblinkingly. "And you! Orin swore you were dead when she showed up in your place."
"Wait. You know me?" Scion stopped short and looked at Ketheric with an utterly perplexed look on his reptilian face.
Ketheric let out a short barking laugh. "Ha! You mean to say you don't remember? What's she done to you, then?"
Scion cocked his head slightly to the side. "Orin…" he said aloud, then continued privately to Del; "Why does that name sound oddly familiar?"
"Yes, Orin," Ketheric said impatiently. "That damn woman makes me long for the day when you were all I had to deal with."
"Explain!" Scion demanded. "How do… you know me?"
But before he could question General Thorm further, the aasimar landed.
Dame Aylin shone like a miniature sun, her armor glowing from within as her wings spread wide to slow her fall. They hadn't seen her coming from afar, so she must have taken off from a balcony or window elsewhere within the tower, having been busy taking down cultists or else biding her time until reinforcements arrived.
"After all these years..." she stalked in a semicircle around the General, her blade unsheathed and pure rage dripping from every word. "We finally stand face to face."
"Indeed," Ketheric sneered, all his attention on her now. "Finally free, and the first thing you do is return to me, as a falcon set loose flies back to its master."
"I'm not your falcon," Aylin spat. "And you're no master. Just a cowardly man and a terrible father, who kept me imprisoned all these years rather than face his own shame. But no longer, Ketheric Thorm. Now it's time for you to die." Her sword began to shine with an unearthly radiance that matched the glow building in her eyes. She raised her blade, preparing to strike him down…
But something seemed off about this whole scene. Del could feel something building below him, as a current of psionic energy suddenly emanated from Ketheric and reached downward, feeling its way around blindly like a taproot seeking water… Until it found what it was looking for, connecting with something far greater and more ominous down below.
Before Del could find the breath to shout a warning, the stone underneath his feet erupted upward, sending him and his companions flying back like ragdolls and narrowly avoiding being thrown off the roof entirely. (Thank goodness - he'd had enough of falling from great heights for a lifetime).
Out from the newly-opened hole above which Del had stood only moments before, a tentacle emerged.
Del had no words to describe the sheer gargantuan scale of the thing. It was like nothing he had seen before, in Oryndoll or otherwise. It appeared illithid rather than marine, but it was hard to get a good look at the thing as it wrapped itself around Aylin and immobilized her in its grip.
Del struggled to his feet, the wind knocked out of him, but managed to get his sword up and began to charge toward it. But before he could get there, the tentacle withdrew down from whence it came, only for another one to burst out from an entirely different section of the rooftop.
"What the actual fuck?" Karlach screamed from behind him, as Del tried to regain his balance after the second tremor.
"My sentiments exactly," the Emperor said grimly inside Del's head. "The Absolute is evolving - I've never seen the Elder Brain do anything like this, even when I was a part of its colony."
The second tentacle grabbed Ketheric in much the same way as the first had picked up Aylin, but its grip was far gentler and Ketheric lay still rather than resisting. Based on the smug look on his face as it retracted down into the tower, Del realized that he was the one who'd called it up in the first place.
"You coward!" Del roared after the fleeing general, incensed that they and Aylin had fallen for Ketheric's tricks. Had the bastard really lured them all the way up here just so he could recapture Aylin and then make his dramatic escape? Or was this a spur of the moment decision, driven by the realization that he was outmatched and outnumbered?
"We have to go after them," he panted, oddly winded from a brief run across the blasted rooftop. His companions rallied around him, staring down into the deep reddish-black hole in the tower from where the second tentacle had emerged. The tunnel bored down through the stone further than the eye could see, glistening wetly with what looked like mucus left behind by the tentacle's passage.
"You're not seriously going to make us jump down there, are you?" Astarion whined.
"I know the Feather-Fall Charm," Gale said helpfully. "And Prestidigitation to clean the slime off our clothes."
Del nodded. "That should work. Is everyone ready?"
He looked at the circle of faces around him. Unsurprisingly, no one aside from himself and maybe Karlach seemed ready. Astarion and Shadowheart still looked disgusted by the idea of descending into a glistening wet orifice. Gale and Scion wore matching looks of dread - Gale likely considering the chances of having to detonate the magic orb in his chest, and Scion preparing to enter the den of horrors he'd escaped less than a tenday before.
But they all looked to Del and nodded. "We're ready."
Gale cast the feather-fall spell over the entire party. And then they descended into the hellscape that lay beneath Moonrise Towers.