The flickering magic danced in the air, casting shadows across the chamber. Shadowheart’s pulse thundered in her ears, every second stretched thin, the room a blur of light, smoke, and violence. Her doppelgänger was wielding her gifts against her.
Their clash was relentless. Shadowheart swung her mace downward, its head glowing faintly with divine light. The clone met the strike, their weapons ringing out like a funeral bell. The force of the impact reverberated up Shadowheart’s arm, and her breath hitched as she staggered back.
The clone retaliated, raising its mace high, divine light shimmering as it channeled Shar’s power. Shadowheart fell to her knees as the clone brought the weapon crashing down, casting a powerful Divine Smite. She blocked with her shield, but the impact sent waves of force through her body, shaking her to her core. Gritting her teeth, she pushed back with a surge of strength, forcing the clone off balance.
In a quick spell, she cast Invoke Duplicity. An illusionary figure identical to herself appeared beside her. They both charged the clone, splitting to either side in an attempt to overwhelm it with a flanking maneuver. But the clone was one step ahead. Raising its arms, it cast Spirit Guardians. A ring of ghastly, sickly green spirits materialized, orbiting the clone like malevolent wraiths. As Shadowheart’s illusion approached, the spirits tore through it, erasing it from existence.
But the illusion had done its job—Shadowheart rushed in from the opposite side, catching the clone off guard. She swung her mace and landed a solid hit, a victorious smile spreading across her lips. That smile, however, was short-lived.
The clone, enveloped in shadow, melted away into the darkness.
“Cloak of Shadows…” Shadowheart muttered under her breath, her eyes scanning the room, pulse racing as dread clawed at her insides. "It's using Shar's gifts against me."
She spun on her heel, trying to anticipate the next move. But before she could react, something cold and malevolent touched her back. Her breath caught in her throat as a wave of dread crashed over her, like a tsunami swallowing her whole. The world twisted and warped around her. The chamber became a grotesque nightmare, its walls contorting into leering faces with hollow eyes. Everywhere she looked, twisted, mocking forms loomed over her, their mouths wide in silent laughter.
In her mind’s eye, she saw Her. Shar, looming impossibly large, like a dark titan of endless night. Shadowheart was nothing before her—an ant, an insect crushed beneath the weight of divine indifference. Shar lifted her sword, a blade so vast and eternal it seemed to slice through the very fabric of existence, and brought it down.
“No!” Shadowheart screamed, running, trying to escape the crushing blow, but it didn’t matter. The short sword of Shar always found her. She couldn’t outrun it. She couldn’t hide.
Then came the explosion, a concussive blast that sent her flying. She hit the ground hard, rolling across the stone floor like a broken doll. The room swam around her, her vision blurred, and her ears rang with the deafening aftermath of the blast.
Her heart pounded as she fought to steady her breathing, her thoughts racing. 'Bestow Curse. The clone cast Bestow Curse with dread.'
She tried to stand, but a sharp pain lanced through her left leg. Looking down, her breath hitched in horror. Her leg was mangled, bone visible beneath torn flesh. Blood pooled around her. 'I must’ve stepped on a Glyph of Warding," she thought, panic rising.
Her mind raced. "I can’t fight like this." Her eyes darted to her companions, who were locked in their own battles against their clones. She could call for help. But no. This was her fight. Her battle.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She sensed the attack before it came. Instinctively, she raised her shield just in time to block the clone’s mace as it came crashing down. The force of the blow sent a shockwave through her arms. The clone’s attacks were merciless, hammering her with blow after blow, each one pushing her closer to the brink. Her strength was failing. She couldn’t hold on much longer.
In desperation, she cast Blindness, hoping to buy herself time. But it failed. The clone wore the ring, the same one gifted to her by Zeus—the ring that made its wearer immune to blindness.
“Think, Shadowheart, think,” she muttered, her arms trembling as they barely held up her shield against the relentless assault. Her eyes locked on the broken mirror hovering beside her, its fractured surface shimmering faintly with psionic energy.
With a surge of determination, she reached for the mirror, rolling away just as the clone’s mace slammed into the floor, shattering the stone where she had been moments before.
The clone snarled and charged again, but Shadowheart had found her opening. Turning the mirror toward her mangled leg, she focused with all her might. Purple psionic energy flowed from the mirror, weaving its way around her leg like liquid light. Her flesh knitted together, the bone resetting as her wound healed before her eyes. The pain vanished in an instant, though a sharp headache pulsed behind her eyes. She ignored it. She could stand again.
“Now it’s my turn,” Shadowheart whispered, a cold determination in her voice. The shadows embraced her as she melded into the darkness.
Moving silently, she circled the clone, her mind racing. She could feel the mirror’s potential, its ability to merge spells and power. Shadowheart combined Enhance Ability with Spiritual Weapon, her body surging with strength as a radiant, glowing halberd materialized beside her. The divine energy hummed through her, making her feel invincible.
With a final burst of power, she unleashed Divine Smite, her mace glowing with holy light. She swung with all her might, the combined force of her enhanced abilities crashing down on the clone. The radiant halberd struck simultaneously, obliterating the doppelgänger in a blinding flash of divine energy.
When the light faded, the clone was nothing but a pile of ash at her feet. Shadowheart stood there, breathing heavily, her body trembling from the exertion.
She took a moment to catch her breath, her heart still racing as she stared at the remnants of her clone. She had won. But something felt… off.
Lifting her gaze, she saw her companions staring somewhere to her right , wide-eyed and frozen.
“What are they staring at?” she murmured, her frown deepening as she turned in the direction they were looking.
And then her blood ran cold.
“What in the shadows’ darkness…?”
____________
Alex moved like a blur across the stone floor, narrowly dodging the necrotic flames that arced toward him with every swing of Ketheric Thorm’s mace. Each strike from the undead general carried with it a sickening aura of death—green flames licking at the edges of his weapon, eager to turn Alex into nothing more than rotten muck.
“Fuck…” Alex muttered as the mace just missed him by inches, leaving a scorched trail where it struck the ground. Ketheric, a twisted visage of death in flaming skeletal form, let out a low, rasping chuckle that echoed eerily through the crumbling temple.
“What’s wrong?” Ketheric growled, his voice a mix of death and mockery, the flames in his skull flickering as though alive. “Tired already?”
Ketheric’s mocking smile was sickening, his flaming skull grinning with a perverse joy as he swung his weapon again, faster this time. Alex vanished in a flash of speed, reappearing beside the towering figure in a blink. With all his might, Alex brought his hammer fist down onto Ketheric’s great shield. The impact was thunderous, reverberating through the stone chamber, but the shield held firm, not a scratch marring its surface.
He knew Ketheric was a juggernaut—his immortality allowing him to regenerate from nearly any wound. It wasn’t just Ketheric’s resilience that worried Alex—it was the way the skeletal warrior adapted. Every blow, every strike, Ketheric was learning. And Alex could feel it. Every second of this fight, the undead general was becoming harder to outmaneuver.
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Alex stepped back, dodging the fiery mace once more, the heat from the weapon searing the air. His eyes scanned the flaming skeleton before him. He had been stalling, holding Ketheric in place to buy his companions time—time to reach the inner sanctum of the temple. But the longer this dragged on, the more dangerous Ketheric became.
“I can do this for days,” Alex taunted, his voice cold and devoid of emotion.
He had been holding back, his mind split between this battle and another—the battle across the temple where his clone was engaged in a duel with a copy of itself.
Through his split consciousness, Alex could feel the struggle of his clone as it fought its own reflection, mirroring every movement, every strike. His clone delivered a powerful blow, decapitating the doppelgänger, but the copy’s head reattached, regenerating in a grotesque display .
'The copy has inherited my regenerative abilities too,' Alex thought grimly. It was a brutal reminder that his own strengths, in the hands of an enemy, could be turned against him. His mind raced through possible strategies.
Alex’s clone, watched as the copy shifted its arm into a grotesque claw, its talons gleaming with a sickly, unnatural light. The copy lunged forward, the talons nearly eviscerating the clone in a blur of monstrous speed.
Alex’s clone barely dodged, retaliating with a swift, powerful blow from Phalar Aluve, the blade leaving a deep, gaping wound in the copy’s chest. But just as quickly as the gash appeared, the flesh began to writhe and knit itself back together, sealing the wound in mere seconds. It was as if no wound had ever been inflicted at all.
Alex's clone stole a glance back at his companions. They stood frozen, eyes wide with shock and disbelief at the horrifying spectacle before them.
Wyll, leaning against the wall, his shoulder bound in makeshift bandages, muttered through gritted teeth, “Those claws... they're like Zeus's claws…”
The clone’s gaze turned back to its adversary, now crouching low, its body twitching and warping as it wrapped its arms around itself. A sickening sound of bones cracking and flesh contorting echoed through the chamber.
'It's about to unleash a Devastator,' Alex thought, his mind racing. His clone acted quickly, phasing out of existence for a moment and reappearing in an instant beside the copy. Before the monstrous copy could fully transform, the clone's arms shifted into hammerfists, striking with a force that sent the copy crashing into the far end of the chamber.
“MOVE AWAY!” Alex’s clone bellowed to his friends, his voice filled with urgency as cracks splintered across the floor beneath him.
With every fiber of his being contracting, the clone dashed forward like a bullet, tackling the copy with a thunderous impact. Their bodies crashed through the stone wall, sending debris flying in every direction as they disappeared .
The two bodies, tangled in a horrific embrace, . Then the copy unleashed its full might. The Devastator erupted from the core of the copy’s being, a writhing mass of flesh and tendrils exploding outward, the sheer force of it carving a massive hole through the walls.
Both the clone and the copy were no longer recognizable as human. Their forms twisted, their flesh warping into grotesque shapes as they struggled for dominance. The copy had abandoned its humanoid appearance, its form now shifting rapidly, chaotically—an ever-changing mass of the many creatures Alex had consumed throughout his time in Faerûn .
In a horrifying display of power, the copy shifted from form to form. One second it was a gigantic spider, its massive legs skittering across the floor as it lunged for the clone. The next, it became a bullette, the armored land shark crashing forward with bone-crushing force. The cycle continued: a drow, then a duergar, a myconid, an ogre, and even a fire elemental, the air around them searing with heat as the copy transformed into a pillar of flames.
The most terrifying moment came when the copy took on the form of a red dragon, its wings unfurling as it let out a roar that shook the walls of the temple. It spewed molten fire, engulfing everything in its path, including the clone.
But Alex’s clone was not destroyed as it was immune to fire .
'There’s no point in hiding it anymore,’ Alex thought, his eyes narrowing with grim determination.
His clone raised his hands, tendrils of flesh surging outward like a torrent. The Devastator exploded from him, a mass of writhing, pulsing tendrils that lashed out with unimaginable speed. They wrapped around the copy, sinking deep into its shifting body, tearing chunks of flesh away with every strike. The copy screeched as the tendrils tore through its various forms, the devastation spreading across its body like a disease.
The chamber around them quaked under the weight of their battle. Every time the copy shifted, the clone adapted, striking back with brutal precision. The copy, in all its monstrous transformations, was a shadow of Alex’s true strength, his stolen triumphs twisted into something dark and perverse.
The clone’s tendrils wrapped around the copy, crushing its grotesque form, ripping pieces away as they dug deeper and deeper into its flesh. The copy howled in agony, its body unable to heal fast enough from the relentless onslaught. In a final, desperate attempt, it shifted back into a humanoid form, its face twisted in a grotesque parody of Alex’s own features, but the clone gave no mercy.
The tendrils wrapped around the copy and consuming it .
Alex’s clone stood tall , panting heavily, his body trembling from the strain of the battle. He could feel the weight of what had just happened, the toll it had taken on him both physically and mentally. But more than that, he could feel the presence of his friends behind him, their eyes wide with awe and fear at the monster he had raveled himself to be
As the dust settled, Alex's clone took a deep breath, his tendrils retracting into his body as his form stabilized. He turned slowly, meeting the shocked gazes of his companions.
For a moment, there was silence. Then Wyll, his voice quiet but filled with disbelief, asked, “What in the gods' name are you…?”
The tension in the room hung thick as Alex’s clone quietly spoke, his voice calm yet heavy with the weight of the revelation. “I’m Zeus’s clone,” he admitted. His words seemed to echo, cutting through the shocked silence. “I’ll explain everything after we’re done with Ketheric Thorm.”
He scanned their faces, noting the expressions of disbelief, betrayal, and hurt. His friends—the people he’d fought beside, bled beside—looked at him now like he was a stranger. And even though he tried to push past it, a pang of hurt hit him deep, even with just emotions almost being nonexistent . Their trust had been shattered, but there was no time to fix it now. Once Ketheric was taken care of, he would explain. They had to understand. They were his comrades.
A strained chuckle broke the silence, coming from Astarion. “That explains a lot,” the rogue said, his usual smirk creeping back onto his face. His tone was light, but there was an edge to it that couldn’t be ignored. The others turned to him, their gazes still fixed with confusion.
“Come on, let’s be honest—Alex was never the most... normal man. I mean, I wasn’t expecting him to be Zeus’s clone, but still,” Astarion shrugged as if this revelation was just another oddity in their surreal lives.
Karlach, stared at Alex’s clone. The flames surrounding her body flickered and then shrank as she returned to her normal form. Her towering size reduced, but the fiery anger in her eyes remained. Her clothes had been singed and burnt off during the fight, but the armor she crafted from her own draconic scales covered her form.
Her voice was harsh but controlled as she stepped forward, locking eyes with the clone. “We’re moving on. But you—Zeus, Alex, or whatever the hell you are—owe us one hell of an explanation when this is over.”
The others nodded in agreement, the shock beginning to settle, replaced by wariness. Even though they were still processing the revelation, Ketheric Thorm remained their priority. One enemy at a time.
Astarion, leaned toward Shadowheart, whispering just loud enough to be heard. “I bet he’s some sort of Illithid experiment. Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top?”
But Shadowheart didn’t respond. She just kept staring at Alex—her eyes filled with conflicting emotions. Anger, confusion, betrayal, but also… empathy. She knew what it was like to hide pieces of herself from the group. She had her own secrets, her own lies.
‘He lied to us,’ Shadowheart thought, her mind racing. ‘But I think I know why. He wanted us to see him as one of us. As a friend.’
Gale, sighed and wiped the sweat from his brow. His voice was measured, more calm than the others, though no less firm. “I’m not mad at you,” Gale began, looking directly at Alex’s clone. “You’ve proven you care about us, even if you hid the truth. But like everyone else, I expect an explanation—an honest one—when this is over.”
Alex nodded, but he wasn’t in the state of mind to give them answers now. His mind was still split, focused on holding off Ketheric in the other room and his emotions muted . All he could do was give them a small, quiet acknowledgment, a promise of the truth once the battle was won.
Lae’zel, however, remained silent. Her expression was unreadable—stoic, almost cold—but there was a flicker of something in her sharp eyes. Perhaps it was understanding. Or perhaps it was suspicion.
As the group moved out of the trial chamber, their footsteps echoing through the stone halls, they found themselves face to face with the hunter—his dark, hulking figure cloaked in shadow, waiting at the doorway. Shattered armor and broken weapons lay scattered around him, remnants of those who had tried to stop them.
The hunter’s presence was unnerving, his deep guttural voice vibrating through the air. “Took you long,” he said, its tone almost lazy, but the threat in his voice was unmistakable.
Shadowheart, still feeling the lingering dread from her earlier encounter with her clone, muttered under her breath, “That’s a fitting voice.” The hunter’s gaze lazily turned toward her, his glowing eyes narrowing before looking away, indifferent to her comment.
The hunter stepped aside, making way for the party. His enormous figure cast a long, ominous shadow across the floor, the air around it heavy with death and darkness.
As they passed, the hunter locked eyes with Alex’s clone. No words were spoken aloud, but Alex’s telepathic command cut through the air. ‘Continue defending the trial room. Don’t let anyone pass.’
The hunter nodded once, a silent acknowledgment, before it resumed its vigil.
The group pressed on, their minds clouded with uncertainty. The revelation of Alex’s true nature weighed heavily on them, but the looming battle against Ketheric Thorm demanded their full attention. The silence between them was suffocating, filled with unspoken questions and rising tension.