Everyone in the round hall looked at each other, lacking even the will to continue fighting.
Talos dropped silently from the roof to the ground... That mad mage made him a little nervous, too.
Leaving aside how this Black Robes Archmage had returned to Toril from the Outlands—a place where isolated gods could not easily enter—as long as he was willing to step onto the Path of Fate, it was just a matter of a single thought from Ao.
Otherwise, those gods wouldn't have had to burn a divine power pathway just to send an avatar in.
As long as the toll was paid in full, Ao was actually quite easy to talk to.
And as for why he had returned... the big shots in Waterdeep were all crystal clear on that.
Even though Halaster Blackcloak went mad whenever he appeared in the Underdark, that was because this powerful mage had traded his sanity for power... While he was a level 45 archmage under the sunlight, upon entering the Underdark, he instantly transformed into a level 50 big shot capable of killing even gods.
The home he had built at the cost of his sanity had ultimately been destroyed by a bunch of schemers playing dirty. Over these past few years, the Black Robes Archmage had probably grown angrier the more he thought about it... and he likely suspected that if he didn't return soon, those troublemakers would all be dead.
Who was he going to look for to exact revenge?
There had been no movement for all those years, yet he returned at such a precise time... Who would believe it had nothing to do with the Fate Tablet?
Therefore, he had returned straight to the Underdark, without even pausing on the surface as he once did to ponder