"I'm rolling thunder, pouring rain,
I'm coming on like a hurricane,
My lightning's flashing across the sky,
You're only young but you're gonna die
I won't take no prisoners, won't spare no lives,
Nobody's putting up a fight,
I got my bell, I'm gonna take you to Hell,
I'm gonna get ya, Satan's gonna get ya…"
The less that could be said about Del's time in the Shar temple, the better. The first ominous sign was the appearance of a literal devil named Raphael outside the temple in a puff of sulfurous smoke, and his promise to translate the scars on Astarion's back if only they would kill an inferior devil inside the temple for him so that it could return to the Hells for proper punishment.
"I knew it!" Karlach fumed. "Thought I'd smelled the stink of the Hells around this place."
Astarion, however, seemed inclined to consider the offer. Del thought it was a risky proposition, but said nothing to contradict him - he knew just how important this was to the vampire.
Neither did he share his worries about entering the temple with Shadowheart. As the floating platform descended deeper and deeper underneath the Thorm Mausoleum, Del felt as if they were being lowered into the Nine Hells themselves. Something about the darkness and stale air of the place made his skin crawl, and he hoped that the unpleasant feeling was just nerves rather than some kind of premonition.
Upon entering the temple itself, they found a series of metal plaques proclaiming the place to be something called the 'Gauntlet of Shar.'
"I can't believe it," Shadowheart said, a hushed awe in her voice as she gazed upon a giant statue of her goddess. "The Dark Lady guided me here. She wanted me to find this place."
"What is this place, exactly?" Del asked. He wondered if this was yet another one of those obvious things that only he was unaware of, but luckily none of the others except Gale seemed to have heard of it either.
"The Gauntlet of Shar is the highest test of the Dark Lady's faithful," Shadowheart explained. "Survive the trials, and you're proven worthy of becoming a Dark Justiciar."
"Wait a second." Del was confused by what seemed like a gap in her explanation. "Then why does it look so... abandoned? And does everyone trying to become a Dark Justiciar have to face the shadow curse just to get here?"
"This temple was the original Gauntlet, but the old ways were lost over time," Shadowheart clarified. "Now some claim the rank simply by killing a single Selûnite. But back in the old days when this place was still in use, the Dark Justiciars were a true elite. Aspiring Justiciars had to pass a series of four trials, then a final test at the temple's core. If I prove myself worthy here, the Mother Superior will have to let me become one..."
"That's all well and good," Astarion drawled, "But can you stop waxing poetic about your goddess and help us find Ketheric's relic? We don't have time to do some silly trials just so you can prove something to yourself."
"Really, Astarion, are you that dense?" Shadowheart snapped back. "Did you forget what Z'rell called the relic Balthazar was sent to retrieve – the one keeping the General immortal?"
"The Nightsong... More Sharran poppycock. And your point is?"
Shadowheart rolled her eyes up to the ceiling but said nothing, so it was Gale who answered.
"Another name for Shar is the Nightsinger," he explained. "Therefore, it would stand to reason that this 'Nightsong' is closely intertwined with this temple and the Gauntlet itself. And look at that platform over there," he directed their attention to another platform that looked much like the one they had arrived on. "Shadowheart said there were four trials, and this one has four slots to insert some kind of spherical objects. We may have no choice but to complete the trials if we want to get to the Nightsong before Ketheric's necromancer does."
Indeed, it seemed like there was no way forward without completing the trials that lay inside rooms spaced at varying intervals down the temple's winding halls. At first, Shadowheart was stubborn about doing the trials alone. She insisted on slaughtering her own doppelganger without any help in something called the Self-Same Trial while everyone else anxiously waited outside the chamber. But the second trial, which depended on stealth, stymied the cleric for hours until Astarion insisted she accept his help.
"Maybe the Mother Superior was right..." Shadowheart said afterward, blinking back angry tears. "I'm not ready."
During the third trial, Shadowheart accidentally stepped off the edge of an invisible platform and would have fallen to her death if not for the combined efforts of Del, who managed to slow her fall with his rudimentary telekinesis, and Gale, who then teleported her up to safety.
"Thanks," the cleric panted, flashing a rare smile before resorting to her usual sarcasm. "My heroes."
After gathering the orbs that were given as rewards from the first three trials, the party found no sign of a fourth, but they were still one orb short to trigger the floating platform that would take them to the Nightsong. Exhausted from the first three trials, they decided to camp in the temple for the night and resume their search for the orb in the morning.
Del had only just entered the Astral Prism and was about to call out to the Emperor, when he felt a hand roughly shaking his shoulder. He dropped abruptly from the dreamscape back into his own body and awoke with a gasp. "What do you want?" he snapped uncharacteristically before even getting a good look at who he was talking to.
And then he woke up the rest of the way and apologized to Scion, who was the one that had roused him. The white-scaled dragonborn hovered over Del, his red eyes seeming to glow brighter than usual.
"Wanted to... Protect you," Scion said roughly.
Del sat up, automatically reaching for the sword he kept beside him even while sleeping. There was no need to put up a tent inside the temple, so he'd set the weapon conveniently next to his bedroll.
"What is it?" he looked around in bleary-eyed confusion. "Where's the danger?" Scion put a hand to his forehead, looking pained as he tried to choke out the words. "Hey, just relax," Del said. "No offense, but you look like hell." An unpleasant suspicion wormed its way through his mind. "Is... is it your tadpole?"
Scion shook his head. "It's not the tadpole," he managed, staring down at his own shaking hands with unfocused eyes. "It's me."
Still confused, Del concentrated and tried to reach out to his companion's mind. He couldn't really read specific thoughts yet, but making the connection was easier with someone like Scion who also had a tadpole.
Del reeled back as he touched Scion's mind and was immediately met with a tidal wave of red. Blood. A veritable sea of it, roiling violently as the foaming peaks crested toward him... He saw himself through Scion's eyes, but not as he was now. Instead, a mangled version of his own body lay spreadeagled on the stone floor; eyes gouged out and slashed throat gaping like an obscene second smile. Despite his instinctive aversion to the awful sight, Del forced himself to look closer. There was some kind of intricate sigil painted in his own gore around him...
"What was that?" he gasped, jumping to his feet as the connection broke. "Is something possessing you? Is this like that time with Isobel?"
Scion nodded, visibly swaying on his feet. "That awful imp-creature was here again tonight," he managed. "Since I didn't kill Isobel, it said the Dread Lord demands another sacrifice..." Oddly enough, he chose that moment to yawn, jaws opening to reveal dozens of sharp-looking teeth. "No idea which lord he spoke of, but I'm afraid that the next time I fall asleep, you're going to die."
Before Del could react to this bizarre statement, Scion collapsed to the ground.
The dragonborn stirred again a moment later, but the thing that rose to its feet was not the man that Del had begun to consider a friend. It was an animal; a rabid beast whose only warning was a low growl before it launched itself at his throat.
Del was caught off balance, not having expected such a swift and sudden attack. Scion's weight drove him down to the ground, though he managed to roll free of the dragonborn at the last moment. "Stay back!" he warned with a touch of illithid power, brandishing the sword that he'd managed to hold onto. "Stop attacking me! Come on, you can fight this, Scion. I know this isn't really you."
He was answered by a lunge and a snapping of teeth, and only narrowly dodged a clawed hand closing around his throat. Scion didn't even have a weapon drawn, attacking only with claws and teeth like some manner of feral creature.
The others began to stir sleepily around them, woken by the sounds of their struggle. "Whazzat?" Karlach moaned sleepily, while Shadowheart and Gale roused themselves more quickly. Astarion was nowhere to be found – probably out thinning the temple's abundant population of rats.
"It's Scion!" Del yelled, not wanting to resort to injuring the dragonborn but realizing that his tadpole powers had done nothing to calm the other's bloodlust. "I think he's gone mad!"
Del managed to ward Scion off by blocking and striking with only the dull side of his blade. He kept up this dance until Gale cast a Hold Person spell and Shadowheart reinforced the restraint with a length of rope she'd found in their camp supplies.
"Sorry, Scion," Del panted, catching his breath after that narrow miss. "I know you hate being tied up, but this is only temporary. We'll let you go after this... fit of yours passes."
"You know my name," hissed the thing wearing his friend's face, speaking aloud more fluently than the real Scion was capable of. "But not its meaning..."
"A riddle?" Gale asked. "No offense, but I didn't think our new friend could think so deeply."
"He's not stupid, you know," Del said a bit more sharply than he'd meant to, his nerves frayed by recent events. "Just because he's not as well-spoken as you."
"I never said -"
"I don't think this is Scion speaking," Shadowheart interjected, an odd look on her face. "There's a strange aura around him. Something dark, but not in the same way as Lady Shar."
"Little girl..." Scion hissed, a contorted leer on his face. "False disciple... Shadowed hearts bleed just like the rest."
"Should we go ahead and gag him while we're at it?" Shadowheart asked, looking at the writhing dragonborn in distaste.
"I don't think that's a good idea..." Del said doubtfully. "All he can do right now is talk, and words alone won't hurt us. And if he wakes up like that, he'd be even more freaked out than he would be otherwise."
The cleric snorted. "I can't believe you're still defending him after he tried to murder you. What is it with you and monsters?"
"That was uncalled for," Del started, but was interrupted by Astarion's arrival.
"Monsters? Did someone call?" The vampire materialized out of the shadows, wiping at the corner of his mouth with a sleeve for theatrical effect since his face was already spotless.
"Oh, dear," he added when he saw the trussed-up Scion. "Why do you have all the fun without me?"
No one slept properly for the remainder of that night; Del least of all. He wasn't sure if he was more worried for Scion, or about him. But it wasn't until hours later, right around the time that dawn would have broken in the surface world if not for the shadow curse, that the dragonborn's struggles and curses began to diminish. There was a period during which he lay quietly, and Del managed to slip into a light doze. He was soon awoken again, however, by Scion's raspy attempt at a question.
"What... happened?"
"You didn't manage to kill me, if that's what you're asking," Del said in a thin attempt at humor as he untied Scion's wrists and ankles. "As you can see, I'm still alive and well. But everyone else saw what happened. I think we need to talk."
"Ah, the Sleeping Beauty awakens," said Astarion from the other side of camp, where he had also been sitting and watching Scion as he meditated. Now he stalked over to where the two of them sat. "Del's right. I think you've just beaten him for the title of 'most disturbed member of our little crew' and that's saying a lot. Care to explain what that was all about last night?"
Scion opened his mouth, then decided against it, and broadcast his thoughts directly into Astarion's mind in much the same way he did with Del. Del was glad that Scion had learned to initiate this mode of communication with others aside from himself, but he hoped that Scion would figure out sooner rather than later how to include multiple people in a mental conversation. Del knew something was passing between the two of them, but had no way of hearing the actual words.
Astarion looked startled at first, then suspicious, but finally the furrow in his brow smoothed out and he nodded briefly to the dragonborn.
"That's good to know," he said aloud. "I must say, your eloquence surprises me. And here I thought you were all brawn and no brains!"
"That's what I've been trying to tell you all," Del said. "So you guys are okay with each other now?"
"Let's just say that I know what it's like to have the urge to sink my teeth into your throats now and again, but alas - I, too, must resist," Astarion said. "And in that, it seems I've found a kindred spirit."
Del hoped that the rest of the party would be similarly sympathetic.
After Del and Scion had explained what was going on to the others to the best of their ability, the group vowed to stand by its newest member. It seemed that between Astarion's vampirism, Gale's orb, and Del's past enthrallment and illithid dream visitor, they'd given up on being overly angry about each new personal revelation. However, they'd be taking some precautions to guard themselves from any involuntary murder while they slept, such as keeping one person at a time (aside from Scion, for obvious reasons) on overnight watch, even when they were camped somewhere seemingly safe like the temple.
Once that was decided, they left some of their belongings at the makeshift campsite and set out to search for the final orb. They spent hours wandering the temple's labyrinthine halls without success, but just as they were beginning to doubt the final orb's existence, Del saw something move in the depths of a shadowed corridor as they passed by.
"Did anyone else see that?" Del asked.
"Yup," Karlach confirmed, and everyone drew their weapons.
The shadow resolved itself into an odd shape, something like a panther but with extra limbs and two thorn-tipped tentacles.
"A displacer beast!" Del gasped. "I've seen one before, in the menageries of Oryndoll."
"What does it want?" Shadowheart asked. "Are they intelligent? It looks like it's beckoning us closer… I wonder if this has something to do with the last test."
As if in a trance, the group cautiously followed the beast. It made no move to attack, but simply stayed one step ahead of them as it led them ever deeper into the maze of darkening hallways.
Del thought that they had explored every inch of the Sharran temple already, but he realized that the displacer beast was leading them down a path they'd never managed to find on their own. This wing of the temple was in far worse shape than the others, full of crumbling stone walls and broken fragments of statuary. It reminded him of the Sharran ruins they'd seen in the Underdark, and he realized they must be getting close to the other side of the blocked passageways that had stopped them from entering the temple from deeper underground.
"Wait, guys," Del said as the rest of the group entered a larger chamber ahead of him. "Something doesn't feel right."
"I agree. There's blood here – very old, but plenty of it," Astarion said grimly, noticing the blackened smears on the walls and floor.
"And bones," Del added, eyeing an enormous pile of them with suspicion. "A lot of people died here. What if this is -"
"A trap!" Karlach shouted, dropping into a roll to dodge the arrow that had come at her out of nowhere.
"They're coming from above!" Del yelled as Gale lobbed a fireball in the direction of their unseen attackers.
The globe of fire exploded, briefly illuminating the metallic armor of a legion of masked devils that shrugged off the flames as if they were nothing. The devils stood in a semicircle around the border of a narrow terrace that had once been the floor of an upper level of the temple. The majority of the floor had long-since collapsed, leaving only the edges upon which the devils stood. A similar hole had been punched through the stone flooring of the level on which Del's party had entered through, leading to an even deeper chamber below. But this hole was far smaller, occupying perhaps half the area of the one above.
Del took all this in within a second, but as the fireball's glow faded he saw what was perhaps the room's most ominous feature. Up above, behind the smaller masked devils, stood the silhouette of a much larger figure. This new devil must be the one Raphael had spoken of, but he'd failed to mention that it looked to be at least twice their size.
Shadowheart sent up a Guiding Bolt, which streaked upwards like a firework and struck the midriff of the large devil.
"Ha!" the devil laughed. "That tickled. Was it supposed to hurt? You're just what I needed – fresh entertainment! It's been years since I crushed the last set of puny mortals who dared enter this temple."
Upon his command, the smaller devils readied their bows to fire a fresh volley of arrows, then let loose.
"Shit shit shit!" Karlach was muttering to herself like a litany as she pulled an arrow from her shoulder. "That's an orthon, and his followers are merregons. And we can't reach any of them!"
"Take my hand!" Gale yelled, and Karlach launched herself toward him. He shouted an incantation and they both disappeared, then must have reappeared on the upper level judging by the sudden clang of Karlach's axe against demonic armor.
Ah, right. Dimension Door only allowed Gale to take one other person, and he seemed too busy firing off defensive spells to come back for the rest of them. But how was everyone else going to get up there?
Del looked around and saw Astarion climbing the walls like a spider – a feature of his equipment? Or some kind of vampiric power? Shadowheart downed a potion, then jumped ten feet straight into the air and grabbed onto a ledge.
That left only Del and Scion on the ground. The dragonborn seemed to be holding his own, dodging arrows left and right as he unerringly struck at the displacer beast's real form rather than the illusions. Del looked back at him helplessly but could think of no way to get him up there.
As for himself, however… Shadowheart had given him an idea. Del gathered his psionic power, visualizing the invisible force coiling in his legs like a loaded spring and adding to the action of his own muscles – then launched himself upward, soaring far higher than he could have unassisted. He tried to levitate the rest of the way but was unable to… Yet the attempt slowed down his motion just enough for him to grab the ledge like Shadowheart had done. He wedged the toe of his boot into the broken masonry and managed to pull himself up the rest of the way, then immediately rolled sideways out of the path of a devil ready to meet him.
Scion saw Del's jump and tried to imitate it, getting far closer than Del himself would have without the aid of his psionics. Del reached out to him with both body and mind, managing to hold his companion in place for the extra second needed to grab his hand and haul him up to the second floor.
Now they were all on the upper level with their opponents, but they were still far from being on equal footing. The orthon commanded his minions as seamlessly as an illithid, seemingly only needing to think in their direction to get them to concentrate their fire or change strategies entirely. The displacer beast phased in and out of reality, leaving a trail of chaos behind it. Del was briefly fooled by an illusory copy, swinging his sword into empty air and catching an arrow in the shoulder while off guard. Thankfully, his scale mail armor stopped most of its momentum, and Del yanked out the arrow before whirling on the devilish archer who had shot him.
The fight raged on for what felt like an eternity, and Del felt himself tiring. He couldn't reliably call upon his psionic powers anymore, since whatever internal reservoir powered them seemed to be depleted. Even in swordplay, he was starting to make stupid mistakes, like nearly stepping into the path of a merregon's halberd, or taking down one devil without first checking his back to see if another was behind him.
It was this last mistake that cost Del the battle and shifted the course of things to come. He was pulling his greatsword free of the steaming corpse of a merregon - which had begun to turn to dust as its owner returned to whatever Hell it was born from, but not fast enough for Del's liking - when a hard blow to the back sent him staggering. He lost his balance and went down to all fours for a moment, dropping his sword, then tried to whirl around and get a better look at his attacker...
Only to see another merregon, eyes blazing triumphantly behind its mask, pull back a halberd whose blade was soaked with Del's own faintly shimmering blood.
The pain kicked in right on schedule. Del tried to continue fighting, scrabbling for his sword on the ground, but was forced to retreat back from another of the merregon's wild swings. He found himself driven backwards, still bent over nearly double as the wound in his back screamed in agony every time he tried to stand up fully. He tried to get around the devil's left flank, but was too slow and found the creature's weapon in his way.
Suddenly, Del realized he was nearly at the edge where the floor broke off to expose the levels below. He looked around desperately, hoping for some help from his companions. But Shadowheart was busy healing Karlach, who was bleeding heavily but still putting up a fight. Scion was attacking a merregon with a berserker's rage. Astarion was too far away to do much, but made eye contact with Del and loosed an arrow at his attacker. His aim was true, but he was out of charmed or explosive arrows so the devil barely seemed to notice the shaft sticking out of his back. Gale raised his voice in an incantation, which generated a concussive blast centered upon the merregon that knocked the creature flat.
Del had time for a brief moment of elation, but then he realized that the shockwave had also destabilized the edges of the gaping hole in the floor. Stone and masonry rained down to the lower levels as the edges crumbled, further widening the crater...
Realizing he was in the danger zone, Del tried to throw himself forward away from the edge, but again his injury hampered him. He just didn't have the strength for a large enough leap, and the floor crumbled out from underneath his feet. In a moment of sheer panic, he flailed desperately for the edges of the ledge with his hands, trying to find something to grab onto… But it was too late. He was falling.
He tried to levitate, but had neither the reaction time nor the psionic power required. Before he knew it, he'd fallen right through not one but two floors of the temple, since he was unluckily centered right over the hole in the floor of the room from which they'd entered.
The stone floor of the sub-level came rushing up to meet him, and Del's last thought was a flashback to his descent from the crashing nautiloid over a month earlier. But unlike the fall from the nautiloid, this time he actually felt his body hit the ground.
Author's Note: I KNOW, I'm terrible with the cliffhangers, but I thought this was a good place to end it... :)