Mephistopheles leads you to the back of the throne room, where another heavy metal door swings open, revealing an ice covered staircase. His massive devil form is used to the ice around him, but you make sure to be careful with your steps as you do your best to keep up with him, while making sure to stay a few meters behind, letting him be in the lead.

Soon after placing your foot on the top step, you hear echoes of groans, screams, yelps, all full of agony, carried across the empty Citadel. You know exactly why he insists on leading you to Raphael's cell instead of teleporting the two of you there. You know what it is. A display of power. A non-verbal promise of pain.

You find yourself swallowing quietly, your mind panicking, the only thing keeping it in place being your iron resolve. You will not back down. You will not leave until Raphael is still a tortured prisoner.

'Tell me, small fry,' his voice is quiet, but slices through the screams from the depths of the dungeon. 'Who taught you the infernal communication spell?'

You can feel a slight pinch on the skin where Mizora placed her mark. She does not want to be discovered.
'I have some infernal contacts, my lord.'

You risk a glance up at him and when your eyes met, you are certain that all blood has left your face. There is a hint of rage that flashes through his features, but he does his best to calm himself down, putting on a charming smile instead.
'I see.'

The two of you continue walking, his expensive robes sliding on top of the permanent layer of snow with a quiet rustle. You have no idea what kind of material is this, but it looks like the value of it could keep an entire city fed for at least a week. The black robe is embroidered with red thread which seems to glow despite the dimmed light of the dungeon. You are not certain, but it makes you think of the infernal ruby that Helsik told you to use as one of the ingredients of the portal to the House of Hope; you wonder for a moment if devils have some kind of infernal fashion designers for such quality to be accessible to the Lord of the Nine.

When you fully descend the staircase, you appear on a narrow, but tall corridor with multiple cells on both of the sides. You see weird creatures, some magical monsters hidden behind the bars, but then there is a gap between one section of the prison and the other.

For some reason, your gut twists and you find yourself strengthening your Ki aura, earning an amused chuckle from Mephistopheles. Before you have a chance to think about the reason behind your survival instinct suddenly kicking in, you see the answer right in front of you.

The second sector of the prison can only be described as nightmare fuel. You've seen what Raphael did to his infernal debtors, but this... This was an image of unspeakable cruelty.

You force your gaze forward, feeling Mephistopheles' eyes curiously inspecting you, as one of the prisoners appears in your sight and falls to his knees before the Lord of Cania. You don't want to see this. You don't want to have the image burnt inside your brain, but your efforts are futile.

From the corner of your eyes you see a moving mass of maggots covering the debtor's skin as he falls to his knees in front of the master of the Citadel. You take a step to the side, careful not to step on his body, but then a freezing hand catches the back of your neck. Mephistopheles' palm is big enough that a squeeze would snap the top of your spine.

'Walk over that worm,' his voice is still quiet, but the cold threat is obvious. You do not have a choice other than obedience.

A gulp suddenly forms at the back of your throat and you force yourself not to throw up. You follow his command and ignore the slippery, gushy sensation under your feet as you step on debtor's leg.

The person yelps and sobs quietly, but doesn't move away. Mephistopheles' takes a step forward with you and you hear a sound of a shattering bone, a sound that you are convinced - burnt itself inside the back of your brain. The debtor doesn't even dare to cry out in agony. You want to close your eyes, turn around and run away to the portal that will take you to Baldur's Gate, but you keep going, feeling your bottom lip tremble in terror.

You do everything not to see the details of the cells around you, but the sight of red spilled on the blue and white ice is hardly possible to go unnoticed. The debtors rolling on the floor, the awful smell of decomposing flesh, the sounds of hidden agony, the wet noises of worms digesting the skin. It's all around you, it consumes your sanity, trying to make you bow down, to kneel, trying to crush your very soul.

Mephistopheles grins to himself and places his palm between your scapulas, gently pushing you to the left.
'Here we are,' he announces.

He raises his right hand towards the cell door and it opens without him ever touching the bars. The lord of Cania stands in the threshold and bows, inviting you with a gesture inside.

You do your best to wipe the images of horror around you and thank him politely with an equally kind bow, then step inside the small room.

The first thing you recognize is the glacier you've seen through the Orb of Infernal Envisioning, but Raphael is nowhere to be found. As if reading your thoughts, Mephistopheles' voice raises above the screams and yelps of prisoners:
'On the other side.'

Just like before, you let him lead the way and quietly follow behind. You stop yourself from grabbing a handful of snow into your fist and pressing it to your pulsing temples. You follow the master of the Citadel and when you circle around the glaciers, your breath catches inside your airpipe.

Raphael, or rather what is left of the form you normally associated with the name, remains chained to the giant ice blocks. He is completely naked and his skin is much paler compared to how you last remember it. But the sight of his state makes you turn your head for a second as a single hot tear escapes your eye. You are glad that Lord of Cania is now hyperfocused on his prisoner, because you use that moment to wipe the sign of sorrow out of your face.

'Worthless, pathetic half thing,' Mephistopheles growls quietly and approaches his son suspended in air at the height of his chest.

The strength leaves your spine and you want to collapse and dissolve into void as your eyes witness the amount of dried blood covering the cambion's body. There are cuts upon cuts, bruises upon bruises, pilling up on Raphael's body, fighting for a millimeter of free space on his skin, as if his flesh was a canvas to the insane artist that his father is. The claws from his right palm have been torn off, dripping bloody trails down the glacier. His left shank is so damaged, that you can see a bit of his bone and the right foot looks as if a frostbite started to form.

You want to look away, you want to cry, but you know that you can't. Not in front of this monster. Not in front of this tyrant. Not in front of Mephistopheles. You cannot allow yourself for a sign of weakness, you cannot trigger his sadistic side, you cannot show how shattered your entire being is, because you know that you will be made to watch him inflict more damage on the cambion before you.

There is not a single part of Raphael's body that hasn't been cut, bruised, damaged, torn or ripped apart. Even his genitals bear signs of abuse and there is a wound spreading from his outer thighs that leads all the way back to his tail.

Your brain buzzes, sanity on the edge of destruction as you keep your emotions on a tight leash, emotions that so desperately seek to flow out and escape. It is then, when the sound of the tyrant's voice snaps you out of the trance of your despair.
'There is one minor detail.'

Oh no. A blood freezing sensation eats its way from inside of your gut all the way to the first layer of your skin, putting your body in a state of high alert.

'You seem to know a lot about the Crown.' Your brain immediately enters overdrive. Mephistopheles steps backwards and turns towards you, your eyes glued to the bloody snow below Raphael. 'It would seem that the half breed wanted you as his associate, did he not?'

Mephistopheles goes silent, taunting you, trying to make you speak without his permission. When his efforts are futile, he stops behind your back and breaks the silence:
'Speak up.'

'Yes, he did offer me a deal, but I never ended up taking it.'

'You did, however consider it, correct?'

What is he getting at? You try to lay out this conversation as if it was a game of chess. What can he ask about next? What does he want to hear?

'I was between the hammer and the anvil. His proposal was very promising, oh Lord of Cania.'

'Still, you knew what his plans were with the Crown. He told you, didn't he? His wet dream about becoming the Archdevil Supreme,' Mephistopheles comes back to Raphael's body and brings his index finger towards his right shoulder, his claw digging right through his skin.

Your heart begins to pound fast but the fear freezes your blood, making your head spin; your entire body is suddenly void of all the energy.

'And still, you DARE to seek an audience with me,' he drags his claw across Raphael's chest and a sudden wave of heat erupts from Mephistopheles' body. 'Why are you here, small fry? Answer me.'

You go down on your knee and bow your head. You are surprised when you hear your voice, entirely convinced that the lump in your throat should prevent you from speaking.
'I am fulfilling my vows. If I break them now, I will not be given a chance of ascending to a Greater Monk at my shugenja monastery.'

It is not a lie, but not a full truth either.

'Mm,' Mephistopheles purrs and removes his claws from the cambions torso, the condensed, unusually cold blood dripping down from his claws. He quickly approaches you. 'Still, such devotion. Going all the way to Cania to rescue a worthless half thing. Will monks ever learn where to draw a line when it comes to compassion? Or is it something else, small fry?'

It's not a question. Is it a question? Stay silent. Answer him. No, he is only taunting you.

'What assurance do I get if the Crown is in Mystra's domain? What if Raphael will come back and plot against his creator again? No, I must prevent this from happening.'

Your heart drops down and you feel as if your soul completely left your body. Your senses tell you that Mephistopheles is right behind you.

Suddenly, his claw cuts through the skin on your back, mixing Raphael's blood with your own. His cut feels deeper than it really is and the pain is amplified by the burning sensation spreading inside the wound. You feel as if your skin is going to scorch off, melt, become liquid just to evaporate in the freezing atmosphere of Cania.

'I must... make sure,' he says quietly, indulging himself in the scream leaving your throat. He loves it so much, he can't stop himself from a gentle roll of his lifeless eyes, going back towards his skull. Oh, how ecstatic this makes him feel.

He removes his fingers from your skin and through the blurred vision, you see a glowing mark on Raphael's chest and feel a sudden heat on your back. You can tell that your wound is glowing in the exact same way.

'Very well, take him away,' he says after what feels like eternity.

With a snap of his fingers, Raphael's chains disappear and he slides all the way to the bloody snow pile below him. You crawl towards the wounded cambion and gently grasp his freezing cold skin, pushing your warm palm underneath his neck, carefully keeping his head off the icy ground.

'See you soon, hero,' Mephistopheles sneers with sheer malice and laughs coldly, then snaps his fingers again and you re-appear in the smaller room of the Citadel with the active portal behind your back.

You grit your teeth and focus your Ki on amplifying your strength. You take off the first layer of your damaged monastic robe and wrap it around his waist, granting him the decency of privacy, before grasping his armpits and sliding him towards the portal.

When the two of you materialize inside Devil's Fee, Mizora and Helsik are still there, waiting beside the portal. You look up at them and notice the third person - Korrilla.

The tears blur your vision, but you have no time to wipe them away from your face.
'Mizora, please transport me back to where I showed you.'

'Fine,' she says, not even daring to look at the cambion in such terrible shape.

'Wait!' Korrilla says and you sit down on your knees, after pulling Raphael's entire body out from the portal. She approaches you in a few rushed steps and puts a bag stripe over your neck. 'Potions. You will need them,' she informs and then Mizora transports herself and the two of you back to a room inside your shack.

The second you appear inside the building, you get up and walk out of the room, then outside and allow yourself to collapse to the snow, as your body twists in an awful gag reflex. Your vision blurs further and you grab the snow with your fist, then press it to your eyes and forehead, feeling an awful headache forming inside. There are no words, no insults in any of the languages known to you, that you could use to curse Mephistopheles.

You quickly push yourself from the wet ground and go back inside the shack. You enter your main, multi-purpose room and collect previously prepared supplies. You grab a wooden bowl, the entire pile of clean, disinfected rags and bandages and a few towels. Then, you pass through the threshold leading to a separate room where you left Raphael. The room is a lot smaller, with only a bed, a desk, a cabinet and a bookshelf in it. The cambion is now taking most of its space, lying lifelessly in the center of it, his fresh blood staining the wooden floor. Mizora is still there, standing idly in the corner of the room.

You walk around Raphael, careful not to step on his broken wing and reach to the cabinet, from which you pull out a single soul coin. You approach Mizora and hand it over to her.
'You don't have to stay. Thank you for your help.'

She accepts the payment and says nothing. You grab the bag Korrilla gave you and set it near the door, then place the towels and rags on the ground near the wounded cambion.

'Do you even think he can be saved?' Mizora asks, surprising you.

Without paying attention to her, you grab the big wooden bowl and leave the room again, then walk to the adjacent doorway, entering a bathroom with a huge, steaming pool. You lean towards the ground, filling the bowl with the rejuvenating, hot water, quickly turning on your heel to go back to the guest room once again. You make a mental note that you should create a doorway leading directly from the guest room to the hot spring pool.

'I have faith,' you respond to the devil.

'I'll be in touch,' Mizora sighs and disappears, her body disappearing inside the floor.

Raphael's damaged body makes you want to cry. Not only because you can't possibly imagine how much agony such state must inflict, but also because you have no idea what to take care of first. Following your medical experience, you decide to focus on the freshest and most severe injuries that are life-threatening. You touch his bruised skin, assessing the temperature of his body and the coldness of it makes you decide to close the door of the guest room, cutting off the heat coming from the lit fireplace. The transition from freezing Cania to a warm, cozy shack should be as delicate and mild as possible. With that in mind, you even decide to create a small opening in the window, letting some of the chilly air inside the room.

You glance at his bruised face, scanning his closed eyes, cracked brow ridge and collapsed cheekbone. It seems that one of his horns has been partially severed off. For a moment, you wonder if it will ever grow back to its original state, while simultaneously dumping the first clean rag inside the pleasantly warm water. You twist the rag and spin it in the chill air a few times, careful not to give his flesh a temperature shock, before gently cleaning the area around his damaged shank. When the tiny part of his body is clear and disinfected, you reach to the bag Korrila has given you and almost gasp with relief, seeing three potions of superior healing.

You grab one of the big potions and pop the cork open, then pour a few drops of the liquid on the open, dry wound, watching as the flesh slowly begins to mend, the fibers of muscles and skin coming back to cover the bare bone. The process is much slower than usual, but it definitely works, so you move to the next part - the chest.

As you move your left arm towards Raphael's torso, you feel the pain on your back and you are suddenly reminded of your own wound. You take a quick sip of the potion of healing and proceed to take care of Raphael's body. You damp the same rag in the wooden bowl, flushing some of the blood away from it, then squeeze the excess of water from the fabric and clear his bruised chest. The amount of shallow and deep cuts is excruciating to look at.

You end up emptying the whole bottle on his torso alone, before removing your monastic robe out of his waist and clearing his thighs and hips. After some time you glance at the big pile of bloody cloths and stretch your spine, then go back to your work.

Nearly an hour and half later, you are able to flip Raphael onto his side to access his broken wings. His damaged claw is already safely bandaged and a clear, warm towel wrapped around his waist. His close-to-frostbitten foot is slowly returning back to its normal crimson color and the deepest wound on the shank is now completely sealed, leaving a smooth spot of fresh, hairless skin as the only sign of previous damage.

You secure his wings with a few bandages, wrapping them around the wings' joints and his chest, knowing that you will have to support yourself with a Ki healing spell in order to put the bones back into their place. Raphael is still unconscious and you anxiously check his pulse again - something that you've done at least ten times in the past forty minutes. It is still there, beating very slowly, but it's detectable.

You stand up, rotate your wrists to decompress the pressure inside the joints, then close the window. You come back to the cambion and look at him for a moment before leaving the room to go to the basement hidden near your alchemy station. You open the hatch and jump down the ladder, retrieving a potion of great cold resistance as well as a salve that is perfect for speeding up healing of bruises.

You come back to the guest room and set the medicine on the floor, then grab the pile of blood stained rags just to transport them to the bathroom. You fill another bowl with snow from the outside and set it near the fireplace inside the main room, waiting for it to melt. When the cold water fills the vessel, you throw the bloody rags inside it, adding a few drops of cleaning solution to it, letting the dirty fabric soak.

When you come back to Raphael's side, he is just as lifeless, but looking much healthier than before. You take a moment to inspect his form and place your palm gently on his frostbitten foot, noticing that there is some warmth coming back to it. You nod to yourself and leave the room, taking a break for some tea. While the water keeps boiling in the kettle, you transport a few small embers into a metal diffuser, then pour a few spoons of hot water on top of the diffuser lid and add two drops of a pleasantly smelling healing lavender oil. You grab the handle of the diffuser and transfer it to guest room, setting it not too far from the bed.

You go back to the kitchen and take a few minutes of a break, sipping on some black tea, before returning to tending wounds of the cambion.

After another forty minutes, you can feel his skin return to normal human temperature, still below the regular cambion state, but much better than before - good, the cold resistance potion was a useful idea. You carefully lift his torso from the floor and slide him towards the bed, then grab the pillow and set it behind his back, as you allow his body to rest against the bedframe. Then, you grab the rag dumped in the hot water and very gently clean his crimson skin from the dried out, brownish blood. You are certain that at least the cheekbone is cracked, and before moving on to cast a Ki based healing spell, you reach towards the small jar with salve inside. You twist the lid open and take some of the salve on your fingers, warming it up by rubbing your palms together, then very gently applying it to Raphael's feet.

Before you have a chance to reach for the second portion of salve, you hear a swoosh and Haarlep appears in the room. You glance at them and watch them sit on the floor beside you.

'You were busy,' Haarlep notices.

'I haven't stopped tending to his wounds since I appeared here. I think it might be two hours or more since when I started,' you respond and apply the gel to Raphael's left leg.

Haarlep watches your efforts without saying a thing.

Moments later, they move behind you and tug on the fabric of your shirt.
'Do you ever take care of yourself? Or is it all about others?'

You roll your eyes, hearing their unconsciously seductive tone.
'Haarlep, I don't have time for your games right now.'

They pull on your shirt again and bring their face closer to your ear.
'You are bleeding.'

'What?' you ask and twist your head to look over your shoulder.

Haarlep shows you the freshly stained shirt and you move to your knees, grabbing the shirt and pulling it over your head. You hiss at the pain of your movement.

'Uh-oh,' Haarlep purrs.

'What?' you ask, but they do not respond. 'Please tell me, is it bad? It was burning me when I was still in Cania, but it stopped since then. Please tell me how it looks.'

'Well,' they scratch their face with their claw. 'I'm not sure. Not... normal.'

You frown, feeling anxiety creep at your core. Then, your mind flashes with a memory of Raphael's blood dripping from Mephistopheles' claws before he moved behind your back.

'Is it the same as this?' you ask and lean forward, unwrapping Raphael's torso from a comfy towel, revealing a deep, not bleeding but weirdly fresh mark spread all the way from his right shoulder across his pecks.

'Yes.'

You look at them like a beaten puppy and Haarlep grabs an almost empty potion of superior healing. They grab your waist and slide you towards them across the floor, then bend you over just a tiny bit and pour some of the mixture onto the odd, burning scar.

'Hmm,' Haarlep hums in thought. 'Doesn't work.'

You turn towards the grey devil and plant a kiss on their lips. Haarlep grunts happily and pulls you onto their laps, as your tongues welcome each other for a warm, affectionate embrace. You pull away after a moment and kiss their cheek.

'Thank you. Are you not in danger by being here?'

'Maybe,' they put their clawed finger on their mouth, smiling at you devilishly. Their true form looks much younger than Raphael's, but you know that Haarlep must be in fact older than his previous master.

'Don't joke around, get out of here if it's not safe for you.'

They shoot you a glance and grasp a handful of your hair, pulling your head backwards. A moan escapes your lips, making Haarlep rise to their knees, using their height advantage to kiss you with passion.

'You are... so lucky... I like you... my pet,' they say between kisses and bring your hips to theirs, teasing you with their obvious arousal.

'Haarlep, not in front of the patient,' you say in a protest, trying to push them away, but that only makes their kisses more violent.

'Oh, a tiny bit of voyeurism never hurt anyone,' they kiss you one last time and you collect yourself from the ground, returning back to your knees. 'Tut-tut.'

You lean forward and caress their cheek.

'You were rubbing his feet a second ago and now you touch my pretty face,' Haarlep says and sticks out their forked tongue.

You slap their thigh and push them away from you.
'Don't endanger yourself, go back to Cania.'

Haarlep brings their two fingers to their mouth and licks the space between them before disappearing in the cloud of cinders. You roll your eyes and sit still for a moment, looking at the now empty space. A while later, you reach with your hand to your back, carefully touching the skin near the scorched mark.

You turn around and finish applying the salve to Raphael's legs (respectfully excluding the most private area), then prepare yourself to amplify his body's healing capabilities.

You take a few deep breaths in and out, focusing on your entire form, trying to control the flow of your Ki, which suddenly feels very thin and fragile. It feels as if you tried to grasp something which is made of liquid. You frown and shift onto the cross-legged position then attempt to amplify your aura again, only to discover that you cannot fully grasp the presence of your soul. Something is terribly wrong and before your mind comes up with an explanation, your legs begin to carry you outside of the shack towards the building occupied by Halsin, in order to ask him for help on casting the healing spells to cure the broken bones.