#tavaria

gee, mysterious stranger, i can't fathom WHY it is that Tavaria KNOWS you're lying to her about who you are and what you want? There's nothing about you or your similiarity to anyone else whatsoever that immediately pings her bullshit detector because she knows she's being played.

"Wait, shit, Rolan was orange? I mean, you must trust me, I'm protecting you!"

so i finally made it to the tiefling party in my Tavaria playthrough now that I know Patch 8 didn't brick my save

And honestly Cal's line made me weepy. Rolan and Lia have been fighting since Elturel was dragged into Avernus months ago. Nonstop, at times to the point that Rolan nearly left or Lia nearly told him off for good.

Cal's been the glue holding the three siblings together for months.

Even though he plays it off as a joke, he means it when he says Rolan and Lia aren't getting along, and remember the very first thing we see between the siblings is Lia fighting with Rolan and pleading with him to stay and help protect the Grove. ("What good are blades and spells if you don't bloody use them!?")

But the player did it. Killed the goblins. They're free, they get to go to Baldur's Gate. Someone in this whole terrible nasty universe, be they an old friend (Tavaria) or a complete stranger (most other chars) - someone stuck their neck out for them for the first time in a LONG time.

And Rolan is so fucking happy to get to do the fireworks show for Cal and Lia. The man is positively beaming.

Of course, it's Act 1 Rolan so his speeches before and after are still full of the usual Rolan pretense and bombast. Even when he finally blows the player off (unless u have mods and smooch him), it's because he expects Cal and Lia will want another fireworks show and he's legit thrilled to oblige.

And then there's Lia. Lia is the most underrated NPC in the GAME.

She's the one who first clues you in to the plight of the refugees after Aradin and Zevlor's fight. She's the one who is begging Rolan to stay so they can help. Because they can help. She's the one who, even in the face of a clearly disintegrating relationship with her older brother is BEGGING him to remember his better nature and HELP.

And Lia's been through nightmare after nightmare after nightmare. She's not a prodigy-level wizarding talent like Rolan. She's not the kind of skilled diplomat that could get a Githyanki and a Bugbear to be friends like Cal is (Cal's mediated Lia and Rolan for MONTHS even through Avernus. He can handle anything). She's just a simple ordinary woman from Elturel who still believes in kindness and trying to help people when all hope is lost.

And still believes in the inner good in people. Like Rolan. And like you.

A line that hits WAY harder if you're The Dark Urge. If you've killed a bard. If you already know the Origin's history and truly grasp what a monster you are. If you've heard the constant dialogues and voice blurbs. All you know is carnage. But then here's Lia - the person who has been to hell and back THEN forced out of her home for nothing else than being a tiefling, trying to help everyone she can while keeping one brother's naivete and the other brother's pride/arrogance BOTH in check.

I'm obsessed with this entire family (aided in part by my Durge romancing Rolan and being Lia's childhood BFF). I truly think they're the heart and soul of this game, and I fully, 1000%, consider "Get the Elturian refugees to Baldur's Gate" to be the true plot of this game.

Yes, you're out to save the world, and stop the Absolute cult, and that's important. But so are the individual lives. They matter. People who just want a better life for themselves and you can help them get there.

And sometimes when you're facing down multiple world-ending life-ruining calamities, all you can do is stick together, care for one another, occasionally know when to take the piss out of one another, and just get loved, idiots.

Why yes I am using a US$60 video game primarily as a wedding and engagement photography simulator. Gods I love Patch 8.

Winner below the cut:

Rolan: In one moment you were returning the sister and brother I long thought dead to me. The next, you presided over the salvation of the very cleric who watched over us all. Time and again, I have watched you prevail over horrors unspeakable. Time and again, I have watched you be the hero we need exactly when needed. Even when I have far from deserved it. I...you...

Tavaria: That's the thing about love, Rolan. It's a decision - to trust the part of us that's the most vulnerable in the arms of another.

Rolan: My family. The only people left alive who know me, understand me, choose me.

Tavaria: My very soul, and everything left in me that's still good.

Rolan: You...I...I know not what the future holds, with my apprenticeship and with your battle against the Absolute and against your own mind...that said...I love you, Tavaria.

Rolan x Tavaria: The Magic of Nature

Lia and Cal had been firm, as had Tavaria's companions. She still held her training as a bard, but she was a druid and a rogue before all else. Given the ways she had worked plants and animals into her part of her parents' show even as a kid, the druid part hadn't surprised him.

How to woo her? How to draw out the passion of someone in touch with nature, and prone to a little tactical deception?

Ultimately, with Lia smirking in delight and a dream for later, it had been Gale who had suggested how to take Tavaria's mind off the crises at hand and put it squarely onto Rolan for one night.

Flora and fauna to please the senses and that of her that was one with nature. A small piece of cunning treachery to appeal to her inner scoundrel. And above all else, clear sky and fresh air in a land covered in oppressive darkness and choking shadow. One night, free of the shadow curse. A promise, of nights to come. Of the stars above; green trees and grasslands at the height of their late-spring fullness.

Lae'zel and Cal had planned the ruse. Lae'zel would interrupt Tavaria in camp just before she readied for sleep and ask her to join her. When they reach the clearing Rolan had prepared, Cal would meet Lae'zel and lead her away back to camp.

The plan had worked flawlessly, and soon, a confused Tavaria found herself walking on green grass untained by shadows - and atop a blanket with Rolan.

Rolan, taught to cast a very powerful illusion spell to woo the girl - now woman - he's loved since he was but a kid himself. Since that evening in Elturel when they were teenagers.

"Im glad you came." Rolan's cheeks flushed, as though he had deeply feared she wouldn't, that this would all be for nothing - that it still might be.

"Anything for you, Rolan. You know that."

His apprenticeship and her fight against the Absolute would certainly part them once more, but Rolan suspected all roads would lead to Baldur's Gate. "I know our time together is short. I wanted to do this, for you. For...us."

"It's beautiful. You made all of this, for me? I was already impressed by how far you made it against the shadows, but this is powerful illusion magic, Rolan."

"It's worth how I'll feel in the morning for how I feel tonight, Tavaria."

"I thought you'd said you hated me? Despised the person I've become?"

"I admit, the you that walked into the grove was a departure from memory. That said, you've saved my own life as well as that of the only family I have left thrice over. You're already healing this land from shadow - both the curse, and, I suspect within yourself. You've even begun to lift the darkness within myself.

On my worst night you saved me from the Shadows . The very keast I can do is return the favor, if just for one night."

"Rolan, I-"

"Tavaria, I love you. I haven't stopped loving you since we were teenagers, on that front porch in Elturel. How even then you were the first, other than Cal and Lia and their mother, to care for me, care about me. My biggest fear, back in the grove...was simply that you'd stopped. That you'd grown incapable of feeling the same."

Tavaria took a long pause, reflecting on her feelings - trying to push through all the darkness held just at bay on the fringes within her mind. As she gazed at the sky above for the first time in weeks, it occurred to Tavaria: Rolan had once again held back the darkness, figuratively and literally. Just as how Gale invoking him at camp had brought her out of the worst of...

Without another thought, on the first instinct she had wholly trusted since she had awoken on that Illithid ship, she turned to kiss Rolan. The man who had somehow kept a part of her soul anchored in the midst of deadly storms.

Above all else, Tavaria was a druid. One with nature. And she knew what nature was telling her right this moment. She could feel it building up inside her. Could smell the slight change in Rolan's scent. She needed him, and she suspected he needed her as well.

The pair rose, and Rolan told Tavaria to simply "fall back".

Her heart held tight in trust, she followed the instruction. As her back drew closer to the earth below, suddenly, it found itself hitting the softest mattress that her fractured mind could ever recall feeling.

Rolan stood beaming with pride a short distance away. Just seeing her truly relaxed and comfortable for the first time since the Grove had been reward enough....

Until it wasn't. Until just a moment later when Rolan looked down upon the love of his life once more to see her waving him forward, bidding him to approach and worship at her altar.

In bed. With Tavaria. Together.

"Are you sure, about this? We can just enjoy the stars?" Rolan was eager, that much was visible beneath his robe - still, fear had gotten the better of him.

"Rolan, I have never been more sure of anything, of anyone, in my life. Come, Rolan. Be greedy."

Climbing onto the bed; climbing on top of her, Rolan knew. As long as Tavaria was with him, he could face anything. Lorroakan, the Absolute, whatever horrors the city had in store for him.

And as Tavaria drew Rolan in closely, for the first time that she could remember, the Dark Urge drew silent. Here, now, in this place, she was finally free. For one night, Tavaria was herself again.

For the Lorroakan fight I plan to have recruit several of the more plausibly combat-capable adult Elturian tieflings into the party to help murder Lorroakan (along with the ENTIRE regular party plus Aylin).

By my measure that's Dammon, Zorru, Lakrissa, and Cerys. MIGHT bring Alfira too, we could use a bard. Although I can see her and Lakrissa fighting over it.

Bex and Danys will remain a safe distance away keeping an eye on the kids in Rivington.

literally an army of like seventeen people burst through Lorroakan's front door.

Like the locket says, 'Strength in Unity', and EVERYONE is unified in that Lorroakan's gotta pay for hurting Rolan (shit, might even try to get Tavaria to bat her eyelashes to recruit Gortash).

My Own Soul's Warning Chapter 14. https://www.archiveofourown.org/works/63702124/chapters/226898621

The first of two previously unreleased chapters. After the next chapter, if I keep going, we're going to take an interesting bridge into Act 2. Possibly with some smut!