The tiny thread of your control snaps, leaving your vision blurred, covered with red. Your senses work in overdrive, everything around you becomes too much and too little at the same time. You feel a wet splash across your face, but can't distinguish what it is. You no longer seem to be laying on the floor, but if that is not the case, what is happening? Are you moving? Or are you standing up, trying to fight whatever force is invading your brain?

No.

You have already lost.

'TAV!' Keith shouts and casts Hold Person on you, which disappears the second it lands on your body.

You watch the scene through your own eyes, but not actually seeing or registering anything that is going on. The sounds coming to your ears are foul but somehow they are not affecting you even in the slightest way. What happened to the spell? Did Keith stop the cast?

The tingling sensation in your fingertips manages to bring back a part of your consciousness. You realize that you cast a Counterspell against the Hold Person. But, this can't be. This is a Weave-based spell and a demanding one at that; you've never used it before.

A flash of light appears in your vision and you try to blink away the blurriness, only to find out that your own eyelids won't listen to your command. Your arm reaches forward on seemingly its own accord and tilts backwards under some unknown force.

Keith grits his teeth, pushing the edge of his enchanted great sword across your right palm. Your skin is covered in scales, protecting the hand from getting damaged, but the radiant light breaks through the barrier, burning it away and allowing the blade to reach the flesh. A trail of blood runs down your forearm, sending an awfully cold shiver down your whole body.

Keith pushes your arm away and hits your head with the blunt handle of the sword. You stumble backwards, hitting a nearby table.

'What's happening?' your own thoughts echo around your skull.

The overwhelming mixes of overstimulation, complete numbness, dizziness, clarity, darkness and dancing lights suddenly make you recall your experience in the House of Hope.

'Is this incubus magic?' you ask yourself as if you were a spectator of your own actions, unable to understand any of them. 'No, it's too strong.'

Your body falls and gets back up immediately after, resuming its assault. For a brief moment, the light is gone from your vision and a tingling sensation appears once again. Your muscles push you forward, dashing ahead at a ridiculously high speed, as if chasing after someone.

You manage to furrow your brows, finally feeling a single clear sensation - the tension of muscles around your eyes and forehead. You focus all of your attention and as the precious seconds pass, you feel it spreading down, towards your nose and your whole mouth. You can sense your tongue moving, chanting some kind of a spell in a foreign to you language. Split seconds later, the hearing comes back and you are capable of distinguishing your own voice amongst other sounds around you. The words leaving your mouth are sinister, unknown, filled with malice, but none of them make sense. You've heard sounds like these before, when Mizora summoned the Sisters of Justice.

'Cleave her head off her body!' the young paladin shouts at Keith. He is crawling away, pressing a deep wound marking the base of his neck.

'Master Keith!' the half-orc woman calls.

As you manage to blink on your own accord, a blinding pain slices through your back. The scar is scorching hot, like a molten lava poured slowly onto your flesh. The agony clouds your vision and despite having your eyes open, you feel as if there were some blind spots on your eyeballs themselves.

You want to groan in pain, feeling the bleeding wound on your right hand, the reopened scar on the back and your skin burnt by the divine, radiant light. Tears flow into your eyes as your muscles command you to dash towards Keith, all without interrupting the casting of some infernal spell. The woman, who you manage to notice just now, is standing in the ruined doorframe to the tavern, the wood around her scorched and emitting a faint thread of smoke.

Your gaze clears out and not just snippets of visuals, but the whole scene in front of you emerges from the shadows of your own mind.

The young paladin is hiding behind the counter of the tavern, a wide trail of blood smeared across the floor all the way from under your feet to his current position. Keith is getting back up to his feet, guarding the doorframe from you. Most tables around have been either burnt, snapped or smashed to small pieces. There is a scent of smoke in the air, sprinkled with metallic tinge of blood and the unmistakable, suffocating hellish reek of sulfur.

Before you have a chance to test if you can move on your own, a Thunderwave sends you flying to the other side of the room, where you slam your bloodied back on a wooden pillar next to where Raphael was.

'Raphael!' you realize, but no word leave your mouth as your tongue continues to change its position, pronouncing an infernal spell. You dart your eyeballs to the sides, desperately looking for the man anywhere in the field of your vision. But all you can see are the spilled drinks, shattered bottles, smears and drops of blood and debris of furniture scattered around the place.

Your head pulses, blood rushing through you at an accelerated rate, as you fight for your body to become your own again. The unknown force lifts you up to your feet and swings your bleeding palm around, emphasizing the spell it is casting with your body.

For a long moment, all you can do is panic as you continue to watch the foreign gestures performed right in front of your very eyes; hear the mysterious and terrifying words slipping past your own lips. All that while the blood collects on the edge of your massacred palm, falling to the floor like droplets of rain during a thunderstorm.

If this doesn't stop, you will not be able to stand for much longer. Not to mention, that the young paladin set his mind on beheading you.

With all of your sheer will, using all of your might, all of your rigorous years of training and battle experience, you reach with your mind outside of the pain your body is feeling, desperate to get rid of the sinister influence ordering you to its will like an obedient puppet.

You manage to close your eyes, shutting down the visual sense to pull even more focus on regaining your control. In comparison, the incubus charm feels like a walk in the park next to what you were going through in this moment.

You hiss and a second later, your own lips twist in a sadistic, amused grin before a small chuckle escapes your throat, accompanying the increased agony of the wound on your back which now begins to glow in a flame-like aura.

Keith stands still, ready to react at any moment, ignoring the pleas of his wounded paladin, begging him to take you down once and for all. As the bleeding from his wound is stopped by the magic of the monk travelling with Keith and the rest of the paladins, you take a step forward, but the rest of your body is trying to protest. Your head shakes once to the side, the face twisting and the lips pushed into a thin line.

Keith has been in the business for too long to not notice the obvious signs of struggle you are showing. To his collected and calm despite the circumstances mind, you are under some sorts of an infernal influence. Could this be that one of the heroes of the Baldur's Gate became a warlock? A pet of a devil? A destruction device dancing to a fiend's whim?

No, he is familiar with your group - your team and companions. The news about the Netherbrain and the whole story of Baldur's Gate struggles reached far corners of Faerun. Keith is aware of one warlock in your team, the famous Blade of Avernus, so he quickly draws the conclusion that it is not a patron pact that you are fighting against.

'Keith! I can cast Hold Monster while she is distracted.'

'End this!'

The voices of his paladins reach to his mind, as the precious seconds slip away like smooth sand falling in between his fingers. For the first time in a long while, he hesitates, unable to make a decision worthy of a leader. Behind him - a whole village full of men, women and children. Dozens of occupied households not just by people, but by animals alike.

He shifts his grip on the great sword, ignoring a long line of sweat falling down his forehead, tickling as it threatens to slide into his thick, dark eyebrows.

Your gaze meets Keith's and you bite on your tongue, forcing the infernal incantation to stop. Deep red marks your lips before escaping to fall down your chin. The pain grounds you further and you can feel your body slowly giving in not to the curse, but completely - the evaporating strength rendering your limbs limp. You gaze in the focused eyes of the Order of the Yellow Rose monk and spit out the blood as you manage to say.

'Mind... Ki.'

His eyes widen and he immediately assumes a different stance. The monk orders the female orc to guard him while he collects his focus to form a spell.

Your vision flashes for a moment, showing you a vision of Mephistopheles. It's so fast that all you manage to register is his frozen throne and a rapid movement of his right arm, as if he was cracking a whip. And maybe that is exactly what happened, because in the next moment a new wave of agony marks your blood soaked back, making you stumble and tremble on your feet.

'No,' you shake your head, the force pushing you forward once again. Terror slices through you at yet another perspective of losing control over your being.

Your body bends against your will and launches forward, fingers curled as if they were claws, ready to tear out flesh from their victims. Keith braces himself and just as he is about to aim a clean strike at your neck, the monk brings his thumbs to his forehead, finishing the spell. A wave of psychic energy passes through his body, concentrating inside his palms which turn towards you. The flash of pink lightning slices through the room, illuminating the blood and shards of glass scattered around the tavern, before hitting your body.

The presence of Mephistopheles is gone momentarily, but along with it - your consciousness. The legs give up under your weight and your body collapses forward. You try to nullify your fall with your right hand, but you end up overestimating your weakened state, breaking your fingers as the ground comes up to meet your face. The world fades away and the darkness consumes you.

He watches, standing near the entrance to the cell, as you slowly gather the strength over the course of a few days to finally be able to lift your eyelids.

The air inside the prison is cold and stale. One's nostrils immediately get assaulted by the lingering stench of moldiness and the sharp smell of rat droppings. Raphael - as always - looks completely unnatural in such scenery. His dark leather boots bear no signs of overwearing, looking freshly cleaned and polished. His perfectly tailored doublet the only splash of rich color on the otherwise dull and greyish-green surroundings.

You slowly raise your head, bringing your chin away from your chest where it was resting. Your neck aches, but so does the whole body. The feeling in your mouth makes you want to spit out, but there is no moisture that could allow for that to happen. Not to mention the heaviness of a dry, swollen tongue.

You manage to move your head just a few degrees, before a painful headache cracks your skull open, making your muscles spasm in protest. It is then when you hear a sound of chains and realize your numb limbs are not just awfully cold, but also tied to some kind of shackles.

Raphael stands in front of you, enjoying the view before him. His gaze lingers on your weakened form, on your blood stained chin and tired, almost life-less pale face. It has been only a few days since the last... incident, but you look a lot worse than that. Some aspects of your poor condition are merely an illusion amplified by the melancholic lighting in the cell, Raphael realizes.

You manage to raise your head up, the back of it leaning onto the brick wall behind you. You hiss and lift your eyelids with extreme caution, careful not to ignite your already protesting senses, fighting against the powerful migraine. You inhale sharply through your nostrils and your eyes water, blurring the figure of Raphael, blending it into an incomprehensible mess of colors.

The devil traces his shapely fingernails on the bottom of his chin, chuckling softly. He takes his sweet time to switch into his rehearsed pose, taking a bit of air into his lungs as he prepares to start a conversation. A conversation he has been planning for at least past twenty-four hours, with all the possible outcomes and your responses as well as emotions accommodating a mortal such as yourself.

When his muscles move to stretch his lips into a satisfied smirk, his eyes scorch through the dimmed light of the cell. Your head falls back to the chest and you lose consciousness once again.

A small sound escapes his lips, as he cuts off the sentence he was about to greet you with. He stares at you in silence, watching your lifeless form before rolling his half-closed eyes.

'Never sticking to the script,' he thinks and sighs.

Sometime later during the same day, your eyes open once more. Your body aches a lot worse that the last time you woke up and you think it might be because of the senses that finally fully returned to you.

'Are you here?' you rasp out, exhausted gaze inspecting the cell around you.

Silence is your only answer, but there is an inviting note of cherries and musk hanging in the air around you, teasing your nose.

'I'm here, little mouse,' you hear his voice as he steps from behind you.

For a moment your brain sends a wave of fear across your body at the unexpected place he emerges from - you didn't even know there is a way to get behind you, as all you thought you saw was a wall you've been chained to and the entrance to the prison in front of you.

'What ha-' the words get stuck in your throat and your efforts at swallowing are futile.

'Happened?' Raphael finishes for you and stops right in front of your face, blocking the light from outside the cell with his broad form. 'As the hourglass emptied, the role has been revealed. The corruption consumed, unleashing a beast whom all feared.'

You raise your chin, trying to look at him from under your heavy eyelids. The silence falls upon the two of you. Your tongue feels far too wounded for you to have an active conversation with the devil, besides even if you were to ask, chances of his further elaboration are quite low. Instead, you just try to keep your eyes on him, allowing him to take the stage. If he is taken aback, annoyed or satisfied, he doesn't show it in any way.

'All that hard work put into building up your reputation, just to see it withering away before the very eyes.'

You close your eyes for a moment, recalling the memories from the tavern, trying to remember anything before you blacked out.
'Are there... victims?

'Of course! A wide variety, at that,' he announces, spreading his arms to the sides, moving his head in sync. 'Do you want me to list them, little mouse? It will be my absolute pleasure.' Your head falls towards your chest, a tight grip squeezing your trembling chest. You nod, the movement barely noticeable, but no detail escapes him; not Raphael's keen eyes. 'The lovely owner of the tavern, the young paladin of the Dawnmasters, a local law enforcer, a woman travelling with her husband and the worried mother of the three beautiful children.'

His words hurt, wrapping tightly and coldly around your pounding heart. You can assign only some faces drawn in your memory to the whole list he mentioned.
'Dead?' you rasp out weakly.

Raphael shifts his weight to his right foot, pushing his hips to the side. He inspects his fingernails for a moment, letting you dwell in the sorrow, like a soup left to simmer. He swiftly hooks his left palm underneath his right elbow and traces the bottom of his jaw with his elegant, long fingers. 'Eventually, as all mortals. But not yet,' he responds then raises his eyebrows innocently. 'Although, the mother lost some precious time she could have used to attempt the rescue of her son.'

He watches you in a hidden satisfaction as you wriggle in the shackles, the rattling of the metal echoing through the cell. You raise your head and he watches a single tears making its way across your dirty, blood-stained cheek.
'What happened?' you ask with a hoarse and dry but surprisingly loud voice.

He smirks, not wanting to hide his small triumph anymore. He loves whenever he tosses some crumbs during the conversations that you sniff out, eat and allow him to lead you onto another upon another, all the way to the final snack filled with poison.

'I'm afraid that the mother won't be baking the son's favorite tart for a long while,' the words fell from his mouth lazily, but with carefully measured intent. Fear and sadness twists your bruised features and he steps forward to admire the fruits of his efforts from up-close. He doesn't clarify, awaiting your verbal response.

'She...' you try to swallow again. 'Did she not make it in... time?' the voice hitches halfway through your throat and for a moment you can taste your own blood.

'Those who went to look for him, found the boy dead.'

You tighten only your left fist, the right palm failing to respond to your command. An awful sob convulses your whole body, shaking it inside the shackles. Your splitting headache flashes your vision with a blinding light, a wave of pain beginning anew. Your chin drops to your chest as more tears flow from your eyes. Raphael watches you, realizing that its bringing him less pleasure compared to his initial estimation. You don't say a word, trying to fight back the tears to prevent any further dehydration.

He gently pushes past your shattered, fragile mental defenses, detecting your thoughts. They are full of sadness and self-blame. But there is also a hint, just a little sprinkle of regret. A weakness he will now exploit.

'You have it in you to choose an end to these people's sorrows. Be neither a burden nor danger. Restore the blissful peace in their everyday life.'

You stare at his shoes, trying to find words entangled somewhere around your dry, wool-like tongue.
'I will not. Become your warlock,' you spit out and he raises his chin, looking at you with longing and hatred. 'There must be another way.'

'You still haven't lost hope, have you?'

You shake your head to the sides. Silence falls upon the two of you, interrupted only by some distant footsteps amplified by the bare, stone walls of the prison. To your surprise, a small smile creeps onto your lips. You look up at Raphael.
'She is actually doing quite well, since the last time you saw her.'

He wants to conjure a whip laced with Hellfire which would decorate your whole skin beyond recognition. He slowly closes his eyes instead, moving his head to the sides, relaxing the tension built up at the top of his neck. He knows your body wouldn't take it and he can't allow himself to lose the composure like his father would.

'Did you do it?' you ask, bringing back his attention to your eyes. 'Did you trigger... whatever happened to me in the tavern?'

'Finally,' he thinks, allowing your aching, overthinking head to fill the silence. 'We move on to the next act.'

He waves his right palm in a hypnotizing manner, angling his eyebrows to give himself a particularly sinister look.
'The blood did. And any blood will trigger it again.'

You glance scared at your ruined right palm, but his gaze doesn't leave your face; it only slides down looking at his favorite color staining your bottom lip and chin.
'Any but yours,' he clarifies and makes another pause, observing your obvious mental struggle. 'I must admit, I was impressed when you stopped the incantation.'

'The inca-' you start but then struggle against your chains. 'Raphael, tell me what is going on,' you plead, the new tears making their way down your cheek.

He takes a breath in, completely unaffected by the heaviness of the air and shifts into his next pose.
'My dear father seems to be somewhat in control of your soul,' he begins. 'But that you know of, don't you? The scar is keen to remind you of its presence. Have you ever wondered when you feel it's pain?'

Your mouth opens and closes again. Your eyelids fall heavier from exhaustion and the constant headache.
'Ra- randomly,' you manage.

'It seems that the insomnia has dulled your wit,' he leans forward and turns his head so that you can meet his gaze. 'Every time you resist, every time you decide to follow the calls of your kind heart, it will punish.'

A wave of realization crushes through you, pushing your eyelids wide apart. Raphael is right. It started when you tended to his wounds, when you buried a mangled corpse of a lone traveler, when you resisted the curse's influence while in the tavern... When you bowed before Raphael, grateful for the perspective of his forgiveness.

He watches your chest raising up and down in increasingly shallower breaths. You are delightfully startled by the revelation, but the expression he wants to see on your face, in your sparkless eyes, is not yet there.

'What does- this mean?'

'Many a things, little mouse,' he straightens up, watching with hidden satisfaction as your gaze tries to follow his face. 'Your unusual balance and connection between the mind, body and soul, makes you a prime target for my father's specialty of a curse. The influence of your soul, as you might already understand, is capable of spreading across the rest of,' he waves his palm 'you. Thus rendering him capable of taking control of not just your very essence, but also the shell that holds it,' he draws lazy shapes in the air, outlining your body. 'All of that to carry out his whims. An almost perfect puppet.'

Cold terror eats at your exhausted skin, sending a wave of goosebumps to decorate your warmth-deprived flesh. No words escape your mouth as an invisible grip tightens your throat.

'Almost... Because you have proved yet again to be as stubborn as you are foolish. Tell me, dear, what is it that you anticipated before venturing to the Mephistar? What possible logic sprouted inside your hollow brain to give birth to such an absurd idea? To make you want to seek an Archdevil? Did you not expect a backlash?' he keeps tormenting you with questions, savoring the sobs and whines escaping your pathetic, damaged form. 'Or was it perhaps the eternal companion of mortal struggles, guiding you to the Eighth layer of Hells - your favorite hope? Did you hope to come back unharmed?'

Your chin attempts to fall, eyes wanting to burst from the overwhelming pressure of tears and the splitting headache. He catches your jaw in his warm hand, forcing it up so you meet his molten-bronze-like eyes.
'I am your only way out of this.'

The inner corners of your eyebrows raise and your eyes stare at him, completely void of any malice or ill intentions.
'You told me the same last time. And there were other ways,' his grasp tightens, holding your jaw; warning that he can draw more blood at any given moment.

'You refused to cooperate.' - is all your eyes tell him.

'Your friends will not be of any aid. Not in this scenario. But maybe the two of us should pay them a visit, hm? Would you want to be the one to tear your druid friend apart before moving on to slaughtering the rest of the refugee camp? Wouldn't that be exquisite? Sheltering the masses of defenseless, lost beings just to lure them into the maw of a much worse, lurking beast.'

A spark appears inside your eyes before turning into a raging inferno. He detects no hatred, but sheer resolve oozing from your body and for a moment he catches himself wanting to step away.
'You can't threaten me into signing away my soul.'

'No? And what will you do? Chained to a stone wall, powerless, without the abilities that make you a monk?'

'It's the resolve that makes me a monk. Not the Ki,' you snap from behind your teeth. He pushes your head to the wall, breathing heavily. 'I am not scared of death, I will bite off my tongue to choke on my own liquids if that is what will protect my friends.'

He chuckles darkly, baring his pearly white teeth.
'It is not the death you should fear, but what awaits after.'

You swallow and attempt to change the angle of your neck, but he is holding you firmly. The rest of your body doesn't even have the strength to shiver anymore.
'If I sign the contract... How does that benefit you?'

'Isn't it obvious? I own you.'

'And the... curse?' you rasp out, determination pushing you past the fog of the throbbing pain.

'How many times do I-'

'I don't give a fuck!' you snap before he manages to finish. 'Tell me! You want me to sign it, tell me what there is... to know! If you are so ce-certain it's my only way out, prove it to me. Let the knowledge sink me to the bo-ttom.'

He grits his teeth for a moment, his mind wondering if he should reopen the wound on your swollen tongue. He slowly breathes out, releasing the hot air, scorching his nostrils like the atmosphere of Avernus itself.
'It is based on the greatest gift of Mephistopheles. The hellfire. Power I am capable of controlling,' he says in a low tone, clearly annoyed but at least cooperating. He looks away for a moment before adding. 'To a certain extent, at least.'

You try to raise your eyebrow in question, but the numbness prevents you from finding out if it works. Nevertheless, he continues.

'I can reverse corrupt it, in a way. Gain control over you through it, without it disappearing completely.'

'But his presence will still- be there,' you point out in a much quieter voice.

He hates to admit it, but it's true. The prospect of sharing you fills him with anger and disgust, but it is the more desired outcome compared to having your soul travel to Mephistar.

'He wants us to think there is no other way,' you rasp out.

His eyes look deep into yours still burning with resolve. He steps away and a mocking chuckle escapes his throat. Your head falls forward, muscles unable to keep up the whole weight upright.
'There is no other way.'

'How can you be so sure?' your voice barely a whisper.

Raphael's brows curve, displaying his boiling anger. His blood rushes through his veins and he realizes how despite you being chained, he is the one who feels cornered. How dare you react this way, keep being stubborn when he shows you nothing else but the reasons to crumble. You should whine and squirm, beg him to save you from the terrors of Cania, the terrors that you yourself witnessed, yet here you are. Asking him foolish questions, looking for even the smallest of holes inside a towering defensive wall, trying to squeeze inside of it like a little mouse you are. All of that to find a solution that is not there, that simply doesn't exist.

Or does it?

For a moment he can't believe that his own brain really asked him this question. It makes him relax the muscles flexing inside his jaw, but then a flash of a memory comes crashing through his mind.

'Because I've seen the curse at work before! I've seen what it's capable of!' he yells in a blood-chilling tone.

Raphael never really shouts. He doesn't allow his temper to get the better of him, even if he happens to be displeased or annoyed, he always keeps his voice on a lower volume.

Except for the times where his weakness shows. You recall his rage in Sharess Caress where you asked him about the chances of him successfully wielding the Crown. 'I AM NO MORTAL!' - he had screamed back then. At the time, you had no ill intentions, your question appeared out of sheer curiosity. Something had to happen in his long past to make him react so furiously again.

You stare at his shoes from underneath heavy eyelids, unable to keep the eye contact anymore. His form begins to fade away, blurring along with the cell. He soothes out his doublet as if any wrinkles have appeared, then turns his head just a bit towards the entrance, hearing someone approaching the prison door. He glances one last time at you and contemplates if he wants to just teleport away or cast an invisibility spell. After a few split seconds, he decides on the latter and soon watches your lifeless form being unchained from the bindings that hold it.

You drop to the floor, your mind dancing on the edge of consciousness. The jailor is here with the task of getting information out of you, but Raphael is able to smell the sadistic intent on his skin. He decides to stay near, either to watch or... yes, definitely to watch, he decides in his mind.

Your honesty will be the end of you, he realizes, watching you idly, chained back to the same spot again. He will never understand the ridiculous vows you took at the monastery and the fact that you decided to keep following them, despite no longer being a member of the Order of the Yellow Rose.

His gaze takes in your tormented form, inspecting your ruined right hand. Maybe you could have kept your fingernails, if you didn't admit to the jailor that you were possessed by Mephistopheles, the Lord of Cania.

Your druid friends are already in the village, looking for you. But no one will tell them what is happening, perhaps not even at a generous gold price.

Raphael watches the chains easily holding all of your weight, before sliding his eyes down your body, watching your left shank bearing a deep wound from the paladin's great sword.

He compares his own right palm to your own, then his leg, the memories of his sealed wounds treated by you coming to his mind.
'How poetic,' he hums quietly for no one to hear. Then, he sighs and steps forward, morphing into the cambion form to slice the chains off with his claws.

You weight nothing in his arms, but the lack of warmth of your skin makes him want to check your pulse. He adjust you in his arms, caring very little about the possible pain he would be causing if you were conscious. It is then, when he freezes, as if struck by a spell or a lightning from a clear sky. It's not the coldness of your form that renders him speechless, but the familiarity of it within his arms.

It was you.

He places his huge in comparison to yours palm on your back, bringing your face to the base of his neck. A foreign feeling clutches his lungs, but this time, he cannot shed into his infernal form to dismiss it, because he is already embracing it. Your body isn't as warm as he remembers it, but the way it fits inside his arms makes him remember the only warm embrace he felt during his time in Cania. The only sensation which didn't end up in soul-shattering agony or an assault on his body, blending the border with the unwanted pleasure and the unwelcome pain.

As a few moments pass, he collects himself and teleports away, quickly finding Halsin and Jaheira talking to some villager, leaning onto a wooden fence serving as an enclosure for sheep, happily trotting behind his back. The druids are immediately alerted to the sound of the teleportation, but they are too slow to react in any way. Raphael teleports all of them again, this time spawning the group inside the Moonrise Towers, where he located an active portal to his House of Hope - most likely created by you.

Jaheira is the first one to take action, pulling out two of her longswords, before recognizing the dirty, bloodied mass of flesh in his arms. Raphael steps forward and plants you inside Halsin's arms. He nods once to both of them and without any explanation, he is gone.

The two druids exchange glances and start a heated discussion, all the while not wasting any more time. They step through the portal and are greeted by Hope and soon after you are surrounded by your friends, watching over your recovery inside the rejuvenation pool.