The priestess pressed the searing sigil to the goblin's cheek.
The scream that erupted was more than sound, it crashed into William, Brynna, and Andrick like a psychic shockwave, a jagged surge of raw, primal torment.
William's ears rang violently, Brynna staggered under the assault, and Andrick growled low, catching her before she fell.
When the brand lifted away, the goblin collapsed forward, gasping for breath.
The mark blazed like molten silver carved into flesh: a twisted imitation of Selûne's ancient crescent, distorted and bound within the Absolute's haunting third eye.
Yet the scar upon the flesh was nothing compared to the wound in the mind. William felt it, like a rope being wound tight, a knot cinching deep in the goblin's thoughts.
The Absolute's whisper curled along the edges of his awareness, an icy, invasive pressure promising unity, obedience, and purpose.
The goblin's mind was no longer its own. The priestess smiled in grim satisfaction, her voice dripping with reverence and zeal as she declared, "Another of the Absolute's chosen.
Let the goddess who abandoned you bear witness to your rebirth."
She reached for another brand from the cauldron, its molten glow radiating intense heat. But then she froze mid-motion.
Her luminous pupils widened, locking with sudden precision on William.
Slowly… almost with a tranquil grace… her lips curled into a chilling smile, revealing long, razor-sharp teeth.
"Ah. A true soul graces our sanctum." Instantly, the bustling hall fell into utter stillness.
Buckets hung suspended in midair, tools tumbled from motionless hands, jaws slackened, and every goblin's eyes fixed unblinking on the dark elf.
The weight of their collective expectation bore down on William like a slab of lead, the parasites within their skulls shimmering with restless, ravenous psionic hunger.
Brynna's whisper trembled, "William… they think..."
"I know," he replied quietly, heart thundering beneath the low, resonant hum of mental energy.
The priestess advanced, the brand in her grasp blazing with fierce heat, her aura swelling with fervent zeal.
"Welcome, True Soul," she breathed, each word heavy with purpose. "The Absolute has plans for you." The brand sizzled, smoke curling upward.
The goblins bowed low. Andrick and Brynna instinctively stepped back as the priestess closed in, and William felt the crushing psionic pressure saturating the air, her mental presence filling every corner of the chamber.
Her smile stretched wider, radiant with cruel anticipation.
The brand in her hand blazed to life, flaring with the fierce brilliance of a newborn star.
Then the pressure struck, not a mere shove, but a sudden, merciless plunge.
A cold, slick lance of psionic will speared into William's mind, bypassing the surface thoughts he fought to guard and plunging into the hidden depths.
White static exploded across his vision.
His knees gave way, the unyielding stone floor rising to meet him as a strangled cry tore from his throat before he could choke it back.
Brynna lunged toward him, but the priestess's aura swelled like a tidal wave, freezing everyone but William in place.
Goblins quivered.
Andrick snarled behind clenched teeth, straining helplessly.
Copper filled William's mouth; sparks danced and burst behind his eyes.
The Absolute's whisper curled sinuously through his thoughts, seeping into the cracks the priestess forced open.
"Yes… open for me… reveal what you hide…" Her mind pressed inward, serpentine and ravenous, burrowing toward his very core.
Then, without warning, another presence, keen, frigid, unmistakably Drow, sliced through the psychic current like a honed blade through mist. Footsteps rang in the sanctum: measured, metallic, entirely unhurried.
The priestess went still. William gasped as the psychic worm recoiled halfway, leaving jagged splinters of pain in its wake.
The goblin cohort shifted, parting like reeds before a prow, bowing low without thought as a figure strode into the center of the hall. Black armor gleamed with an oil-slick sheen, edged in crimson thread.
Her hair, silver-white, was braided high and tight, and her skin bore the moonlit azure of highborn Underdark nobility.
It was the tattoo on her neck that snared William's whirling thoughts, a stylized spider coiled around a crescent moon, its legs weaving a cage. House Baenre.
She halted just short of the priestess, one hand resting with effortless dominance on the pommel of a mace shaped like a blooming iron rose, its metal petals humming faintly with warding magic.
The air itself seemed to shift under her presence as the goblins bent lower in reverence.
Her gaze cut first to the priestess, pupils like obsidian spearpoints, before sliding to William, still kneeling, sweat glistening on his brow.
A single click of her tongue broke the silence.
"Priestess," she said, her voice velvet wrapped around shards of broken glass, "what precisely were you attempting in my sanctum?"
The priestess swallowed hard.
"M-Matron's agent… I merely welcomed the True Soul…" The Drow's stance did not waver, but her presence tightened like a sprung trap.
"Welcomed him? By trespassing into his mind without sanction? Here, on the Absolute's ground?"
The goblins shrank even further.
The priestess's glowing eyes flicked between the Drow and William, frantic calculations racing behind them.
"I sought only to confirm the will of the Absolute," she whispered.
The Baenre agent leaned forward, her shadow swallowing the priestess.
"And I seek to confirm," she murmured, "whether you value your life more than your curiosity." Silence fell like a blade.
The priestess bowed so abruptly the brand nearly slipped from her grip.
Straightening, the Drow strode past her, casting William a cool, measuring glance as he fought to stand.
Though her expression remained carved from stone, a flicker of recognition lit her eyes. "Stand, True Soul," she commanded.
William braced himself against the cold stone floor, his legs quivering as though sculpted from half-melted wax.
Beads of sweat traced down his jawline, and his vision still shimmered with the ghostly imprint of the priestess's psionic assault. Just as the threat of collapse loomed, Brynna was there, swift and sure, her arm slipping beneath his to steady him.
Heat radiated from her touch, a grounding tether that pushed back against the icy fog clinging to his mind.
"I've got you," she whispered, her voice a quiet fortress in the chaos.
He gave a single nod, swallowed hard, and drew in a deliberate breath. Slowly, the spinning world began to align, enough for him to lift his gaze.
Minthara Baenre's stare met his instantly, razor-sharp, forged steel glinting beneath the weight of her scrutiny.
No flicker of emotion warmed her eyes; it wasn't contempt, but something colder, sharper, calculation, appraisal, like a smith assessing flawed metal, deciding whether it could be reforged or should be discarded.
The moment hung, silence drawn tight as wire between them.
Then, with the barest tilt of her chin, more provocation than courtesy, she issued an unspoken challenge that thrummed in the air like the promise of a duel.
"I am Minthara Baenre," she declared, her voice low yet resonant with authority.
"Of House Baenre. Faithful servant of the Absolute. Paladin sworn to vengeance."
The final word vibrated with a searing intensity, an oath honed to a razor's edge, and even the nearby goblins recoiled as if the very air had grown heavier with its weight.
Her sharp gaze flickered briefly to Brynna's steadying hands on William, then to Andrick's rigid stance, as though committing every nuance to memory.
Without hesitation, she turned, her cloak whispering across the stone as she commanded,
"Follow. Closely." The warning in her tone was unmistakable, promising swift consequence to disobedience.
Goblins scrambled aside, clearing her path as she advanced toward the deeper chambers, each deliberate step radiating authority.
The atmosphere crackled, like the breathless moment before steel leaves its sheath.
William straightened with Brynna's aid, while Andrick moved alongside them, his jaw set, eyes vigilant.
They trailed after her, past chanting goblins whose glowing eyes lingered on William a fraction too long, past the still-smoking brands abandoned in their cauldron, into a grand hall where Selûne's sacred murals had been defaced with spirals of black paint, warped crescents, and the omnipresent third eye.
Minthara never looked back, moving forward with the unshakable certainty of one born to command, and the three companions, still rattled and hemmed in by enemies on all sides, followed her deeper into the twisted heart of the fallen monastery.
Minthara's stride cut a precise path through the monastery's corrupted halls, each step sharp and purposeful.
William followed… and instantly regretted where his gaze lingered.
Her waist moved with a calculated, dangerous elegance, every contour of her form balanced between allure and menace, a beauty honed like a weapon, forged with intent and devoid of softness.
His breath faltered, heat rising to his neck, and he wrenched his eyes away with the kind of discipline usually reserved for resisting potent enchantments.
Brynna noticed, her brow arching in silent commentary.
Andrick noticed, his weary sigh speaking volumes.
William feigned obliviousness, though the tension in his jaw betrayed him.
They continued down a corridor where moonlight once graced frescoes now smothered beneath spiraling black glyphs.
The air grew heavy, and still, silence stretched taut like the strings of an instrument pulled to the brink.
After several minutes, Minthara halted before a broad archway swathed in dark cloth.
Without hesitation, she swept inside, the others trailing her into a chamber clearly designed for strategy and command.
This was unmistakably her domain.
No goblin sentries loitered at the edges, no priests or zealots whispered from shadowed corners.
Only maps clung to cracked stone walls, candles guttered in shallow pools of wax, and a heavy wooden door stood barred from within, a silent warning against intrusion.
At the center of the chamber loomed a massive stone table, its surface marred by deep blade gouges, scorched streaks, and the occasional dagger left buried in its flesh.
Minthara approached, not to linger at its edge, but to claim it.
With a fluid, unhurried motion, she lifted herself onto the tabletop, one leg crossing elegantly over the other.
Every movement radiated calculated dominance, an intoxicating mix of command and provocation, steeped in the sharp, electric scent of danger.
Her body was at ease, but her gaze was a weapon, unyielding, precise, and cold enough to strip a man's soul bare without a word.
When her eyes locked on William, it was like a blade sliding between his ribs, quiet but devastating.
Tilting her head, a strand of silver-white hair slipping forward in an intentional sweep, she extended a single hand in a subtle, irresistible summons.
"Sit," she murmured, her voice a velvet sheath over tempered steel.
The word needed no volume, its weight curled through the air, tethering his focus in an unseen grip.
Brynna's spine went rigid.
Andrick's fingers brushed his hilt.
The room seemed to close in around them.
Still, William stepped forward, heart pounding in his ears, and eased into the chair opposite her, as Minthara's unwavering stare made even the candlelight recoil.
The air in Minthara's chamber was thick enough to taste, a heavy, oppressive weight that clung to the skin.
Torchlight trembled as though wary of her presence, casting long, restless shadows that writhed across the etched obsidian walls.
William sat where she had indicated, though the chair felt less like a seat and more like a beam of scrutiny burning into his spine.
Her gaze struck him once more, a glacial blade tracing the inner curve of his mind.
She neither blinked nor breathed, eyes fixed on him with the precision of someone stripping thought from flesh, layer by fragile layer.
Then, she moved.
A sudden, predatory elegance, she rose from the stone table in one seamless motion, boots whispering over the floor's cold surface.
She began to circle him, unhurried, precise. A dark moon tracing its inevitable path around a trembling, captive star.
Her hand drifted behind him, not touching, yet so near that his skin tingled with the phantom warmth of her proximity, or perhaps the chill of her intent.
Each step was a soft echo of purpose, every glide of her heel deliberate, controlled.
She leaned closer.
A breath, warm from her chest yet laced with the cool ghost of lavender, swept across the curve of his neck.
Another followed, slower, more deliberate.
She bent nearer still, drawing in the scent along the slick sheen of sweat at his nape. William froze, every muscle locked, the tadpole behind his eye twitching with serpentine awareness.
A low hum thrummed in her throat, tinged with amusement, recognition, perhaps even approval, before she withdrew.
When her gaze snapped to Brynna and Edowin, the transformation was ruthless, her eyes hardened into shards of obsidian, and the pair froze, rigid as soldiers awaiting execution.
Satisfied, Minthara glided back to her stone table, perching against it with the lethal grace of a panther poised to strike.
Her stance was upright and deceptively relaxed, yet every line of her body radiated coiled readiness, a silent promise of swift and brutal retribution at the slightest hint of defiance.
"The three of you are followers of the Absolute and bear Her touch," she declared, her voice smooth and dark as polished onyx.
"A sacred gift. A devouring light within the mind.
Through it, the Absolute sees.
The Absolute commands.
The Absolute reshapes."
Her gaze slid to William, a faint, ghostlike smile curving her lips.
"And some of you," she murmured, "bear Her favor more strongly than others."
William's throat tightened as he swallowed.
Straightening, her tone sharpened into something cold and martial. "I have a task," Minthara continued. "One of necessity.
One shrouded.
The Absolute's gaze cannot pierce the druid grove.
Their ancient rites shroud Her sight. This affront will not stand."
She pressed both palms firmly against the cold stone slab, leaning forward with purpose.
"You will go," she commanded, her voice precise and unwavering. "You will uncover their hidden paths, their wards, their leaders, and their vulnerabilities. Every detail. Every whisper. You will bring me clarity."
Her fingers curled tighter, the stone groaning faintly beneath her grasp.
"I demand tactical intelligence, the full layout of their grove, the measure of their warriors' strength, the form of their protections. I want their weaknesses… and their doubts. Bring me all of it."
Her gaze lifted then, locking on William's like a blade finding its mark.
"And do not fail me. The Absolute rewards faith." A pause, deliberate and heavy. "But She punishes waste."
No threat colored her tone; it was unnecessary. The promise of consequences smoldered in her eyes like twin embers, fierce and unyielding.
"Now," she said, chin tilting upward in quiet authority. "Kneel or stand as you choose… but answer me."
A breathless stillness stretched between them.
"Will you serve?"