Adrian: Baldur's Gate

The superior tactics and diversified types of Adrian's army was finally beginning to tell. Sarevok's cultists and undead were falling before Adrian's confederation of fighters, thieves, mages, clerics, and undead.

It was only a matter of time. Question was, would Adrian be around to see the victory?

Jessa Vai had gathered a few of her Flaming Fist together. Forming a wedge, they sliced through the ranks of the enemy, working towards the golden throne at the far end of the temple, upon the steps of which Tiax was still brutalizing the corpse of Semaj.

"Gnome!" she called. Tiax's head snapped up.

"You are a priest?"

"Tiax is!"

"Then we could use your help here!"

Grumbling, Tiax began to tend their wounded.

Viconia found Zavrian, and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him as he faced the single most powerful of the Cultists.

"Our mistress will--" this one began, but Zavrian cut his throat.

A wounded Besheridan had lost Rakal in the fighting. Bleeding from the shoulder and right cheek, he staggered into an undead. His flail barbs wrapped around the skeleton's weapon, and yanked it away.

Adrian and Sarevok were both weakening, Sarevok moreso than Adrian due to the poison. But both could still go on for some time.

Adrian didn't fancy his chances in a long term endurance match against his brother, even with the poison aiding him. So slowly, he began to circle his brother, until finally it was Sarevok who had his back to the Bhaalsymbol.

Sarevok smiled without humor, parrying three hard strikes from his brother with relative ease. "Do you really think I would let you turn my own trick against me and maneuver me onto that trap?" he asked.

"Not in the way you mean," Adrian agreed. And then he did what Sarevok should have anticipated; after all, he remembered it so well from their first meeting, and it was what had made him take Adrian seriously in the first place.

Adrian opened his mouth and Bhaalscreamed. Before it had nearly knocked Sarevok over, and Adrian was much more powerful now than then.

Sarevok cried out in rage and frustrattion as his feet left the floor, and the force of the scream carried him right over the Bhaalsymbol and deposited him dead center on it.

The thunderous BOOM of the explosion that resulted knockd Adrian back several feet himself, and what remained of the battle slowed as everyone turned to look.

The major blast had cracked open Sarevok's armor. Now, as he was lifted by the blast and fell again, smaller, secondary explosions continued to batter him. He would land, then be blasted upwards again. Three, four, five, six times.

Amazingly, Sarevok was not dead. He was still alive after all those explosions. But he was losing too much blood, the wounds to his body too severe and deep.

He coughed, spiting out blood, and offered Adrian a weak, furious smile. "Con---gratulations...b--brother........"

Then he died. And as he did, the Bhall essence within him created a small explozion of it's own, yellow energy bathing the temple in bright golden hues, the faces of the onlookers a sickly sulfur.

As the light of Sarevok's passage faded, the surviving members of the Cult of the Ressurection turned their weapons upon themselves, commiting ritualized suicicide as to the precepts given to them by their Mistress. Their remaining undead were easy to mop up.

Adrian sagged to his knees just beyond the edge of the Bhaalsymbol, far too weary to be triumphant.

Viconia and Imoen staggered through the carnage to him. Viconia embraced him, and wearily he returned the gesture.

"It is over," sighed Imoen with releif.

"I hope so," said Adrian. "But somehow I doubt it."