Part 167: Chapter CLXIII - Your last rape was the one you should better have left undone.

Chapter CLXIII - Your last rape was the one you should better have left undone.

The end is near.



My companions balk at me leaving the Bhaalspawn alive but I manage to convince them otherwise.



You might think there's a choice here but we can't visit Elminster's house in Waterdeep without first going to Bane's Temple.



Back to the Temple of the Black Hand. Hopefully it's not as annoying as the last time we were there.



Our journey to the temple is uneventful, two drow and a priest are waiting for us at the entrance.



Turns out they're some familiar faces! Sendai's mother is also with them.



Her mom's so weak that we manage to kill her in a cutscene.



Sendai and Aschmaan are supposed to teleport away but we manage to kill the latter before he did so. This caused a sequence break and I had to do this encounter again.



Now that that's taken care of we can finally go back to Waterdeep.



Elminster's house was inaccessible until now.



Is it?



Thay again?

Let's go to the gardens so we can talk to Elminster.















Charmed, I'm sure.



It's a good thing we're almost done, I don't know how much more I can take.





We're teleported to the Friendly Arm Inn.



We have to go to Thay on foot.



We're ambushed on the way there but we make short work of them.



We've three places to check out.



The library's a dead end. Nothing new here.



What about Sharkey's?



Nothing new except this dialogue.



Everything points to the Temple of Mask.



Shabella was already running the place, it seems.



Shabella's interested in Godsbane for reasons that may or may not become apparent later.



Oddododdo estate, really...?



On our way there we keep getting attacked by slayers...



...As well as Bhaal cultists. The odd Thayan Knight also joins in.



Two wizards and their entourage are holding the gates.



How old is Edwin?



His personality already shines through, at least.



Within the estate walls a single priest tries in vain to stop us.



After taking care of that we can enter the Mausoleum.



The same enemies we fought outside also try to bar our way here.



Sorry to disappoint.



We don't have to go deep to run into the man himself.



This is making me so uncomfortable.





Way to go, Midnight.



Screw the timeline, we're taking him down!



We catch up to him before he can reach the teleporter.



He's about as tough as BG1 Sarevok, so not tough at all.



This is the canon ending as far as I'm concerned, a world where we never meet Sandrah sounds like paradise.



...I guess we'd better finish this the way we're supposed to.



It doesn't take long for me to regret my decision.

We have to make our way back to Waterdeep on foot.



Would you believe it if I told you that we meant to do that?



We give Elminster some orders and leave him to chase our destiny.



Our next destination is Boareskyr Bridge.



This is the cultists' final stand and they're giving it everything they've got.



Bhaal charges us as we're crossing the bridge, no dialogue precedes this.



Would. You. Stop. Using. That. Word.



Cyric does his thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMdvpnoNxc4



The cinematic plays and Cyric picks up the tablet of fate.



Melissan's also here because why not?



We let her go and head for the Celestial Stairs.



Past the road into Waterdeep..



...The city itself...



...The Temple of Sune...



...The gate which leads to...



...The Celestial Stairs.



Ao is waiting for us at the end.



Midnight takes her role as the temporary Mystra until the REAL goddess comes into her own. Pelligram will assist her in panther form so she can't influence her. (...Why is that not allowed?)



Adon gets converted to Mystra.



Pelligram drops a bombshell that surprises even Ao.



In a twist that surprises everyone Cyric is revealed as Kelemvor's murderer.



Kelemvor and Mystra swear vengeance while Pelligram delivers the last lines of dialogue.







And just like that it's over. For real this time.

It took the better part of 2021, hundreds of hours of playtime and thousands upon thousands of screenshots but we've finally reached the end of Sandrah Saga. I might very well be the only person besides Roxanne to have accomplished this, I can't imagine anyone playing through this thing for fun. I hope you'll permit me to ramble for a minute here.

All in all I'm pretty pleased with how this entire thing turned out. I was extremely paranoid about missing content to the point that I almost considered stopping this thing early on in BG2 when I realized that Sandrah had a lot of cross-content with mods that I forgot to install. Iylos bugging out on us in ToB also caused me lots of anxiety because I was very worried that other mods would be affected as well, thankfully this was not the case. I'm pretty sure Return to Faerun and Time of Troubles Revisited have been showcased to their full extent.

I originally planned to do a second, quick 'things-we-missed' playthrough so I could show Sandrah's content with mods like Valerie, Kivan and Saerileth but I doubt it'd be worth the effort and I'm pretty burnt out on the Baldur's Gate Trilogy for the time being. For all intents and purposes the LP ends here.

I want to thank each and every one of you once again for managing to stick around through this entire thing, both here and on the Beamdog forums. Sandrah Saga hasn't made this easy because things got pretty boring at times once we became accustomed to the awfulness. Your comments were always a blast to read and I laughed my ass off at the works of art you guys created.

I might give this LP thing another shot in the future, but for now I'll take some much-needed rest.