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Chapter Text

When Enver had been the Archduke of Baldur’s Gate, he had been followed everywhere by a posy of personal guards. Two or three body guards at the least. Sure, he had not needed them, given that he had been the chosen of Bane, but it was a nice feeling. To be so important. To be so influential to afford a posy of guards.

Times had changed though. Sure, on paper he held the same title, but it was a worthless title now – precisely because he was the one holding it. And sure, technically there were two Flaming Fists walking behind him right now. But he knew as well as everyone else that they were here to protect everyone else from him, rather than the other way around. To this day he was not fully certain, whether they would even do something if he was to be attacked.

He tried not to show his weakness too much, as he was panting. While he had been allowed to leave his house for a while now, his body had not forgiven him the fact that during that year of house arrest, he had barely moved at all, lying or sitting around all day. He still did not fully understand how he had gained so much weight, though. He had at times not eaten for days, and yet… He really did not understand it. And even though he had lost some of that weight since bloody Avariel somehow had managed to talk Ravengard into letting him leave his home, he was still more chubby than he had been in his life ever before. Add to this his constantly hurting joints, and he was struggling on his way to Wyrm’s Rock.

It was humiliating, given that he was out in the street and everyone could see him.

He was well aware of the gazes following him. Because at least some people knew instantly who he was – and what he had done almost two years ago.

Yes. They all were probably in agreement that in a just world, he would be dead. Maybe he would have died in fight – or things would have gone the way Ravengard once wanted, with Enver being executed in front of Wyrm’s Rock. But it turned out that the real world was not quite that easily predicted, and at times things took a different turn from what one would expect.

Enver admittedly wondered at times why he was bothering. He guessed that yes, indeed, he would like to prevent an outcome of his soul falling to Bane or to the hells once he died. Though he knew quite well, that this would not do much for that.

Still, finally the fortress came into view.

Technically Enver still had his own workshop at home, but in the end, Ravengard had decided, that he would prefer to have an eye on Enver, while he was working. Or would like to have someone else have an eye on him.

Worst of all: Enver did somewhat understand it. Hells, if there was a possibility to get himself out of this all, chances were, he would take it. A possibility that did not involve him giving up everything else, that was.

He was not going to be poor again. And he was not going to be… Ah, he didn’t know.

Compared with the Steel Watchers, Enver’s current work was a lot less challenging, and did not include any infernal technology. Which might be for the better, admittedly.

In some ways it did hurt his pride to be working for the Flaming Fists. Sure, he had used them for his own gains during their wonderful plan, but that did not mean he actually respected them. If anything his whole deal had shown quite readily, that they would even follow a tyrant, and in the end he did wonder how corrupt the entire thing was outside of a plot to take over the city.

Among the many things that Ravengard did not want Enver to touch was any form of traps within the city. While Enver could have improved quite on a lot of those designs, Ravengard seemingly very much expected him to turn those against anyone at any moment.

So instead, Enver was now working on a crossbow. One that would automatically reload.

Technically it was an easy thing to do, if one just knew how to work a few springs and gears into it. He had created such a thing before.

Crossbows were already a fairly low effort weapon for anyone using them. A good archer with bow needed some training to learn how to control the tension on the bow. Enver himself was obviously useless with such a weapon, but he knew the theory. Controlling the tension, leave the bow at half draw while aiming, then commit to the full-draw. Keeping the full-draw was too exhausting if you did it all the time.

However, a crossbow was easy. You put in tension with one swoop movement and the weapon was holding it at full-draw for you. The aiming was easier, too. However, some people still struggled with putting the tension back in – and of course it took some time during a battle, making everything slow down.

He sighed, while adjusting the tension on the spring he was using in the reloading mechanism.

He had indeed build such a weapon before. However, that weapon had been a lot bigger than this one, which came to be a problem right now.

He knew quite well how to do such a mechanism, but it turned out that mechanics did at times act quite sensitive to scale. While yes, the bigger bow on the bigger weapon had had a higher drawing weight, the mechanism had struggled a lot less with it, than this smaller mechanism was.

His first prototype had been found to be too heavy by Ravengard. Some part of Enver wondered if the man was just saying that to annoy him. Enver would not put it past him.

Still, he adjusted the spring tension, as well as the mechanism that put the spring back into that position. It was jamming right now, too, after two or three shots. And of course it all had to be somewhat hidden, because otherwise some idiot would get their fingers stuck in the mechanism. Enver would guess that it would be the end of a finger then.

Right now there was a metal hatchet over the side of it, while the main body of the crossbow was still made of wood. Enver was already seeing it, that next thing they would complain about was the weight – though he would argue it wasn’t that bad. He could carry the thing, and he was many things right now, but not at his physical prime.

Making some more adjustments, he finally closed up the hatchet. He raised the weapon to see whether the balance had shifted, but it was fine.

He sighed. The workshop in Wyrm’s Rock he had been given was a lot smaller than the one he had at home, and as such he would need to drag the darn thing a whole floor lower, where a smaller indoor shooting range was located.

And as he was huffing and grunting, on his way down, the iron steps of his two guards were following him around.

It was all stupid.

There was another issue with his current situation of course. He doubted that building weapons for Ravengard was going to do much in terms of the value of his soul. He was not really doing anything that would count against whatever the gods might blame him for in regards to his failed plan.

Admittedly, he also had no idea what he could do in this regard. After all, he was many things, but not the heroic type. Ha! He could barely walk on his own from his mansion in the upper city to Wyrm’s Rock. He was not the person to go on an adventure and walk for miles. Since the powers he had been given by Bane had been lost to him, he was also no magician. And while he could somewhat defend himself with a knife for a short while, he was also no fighter. He had always relied on others doing the fighting for him.

Well. According to Ravengard he was at the very least responsible for two hundred and eighty-two deaths. But they all knew it was way, way more than that. It was so many, that he had never cared to count.

He had killed people for Bane. He had killed people for the plan. And sometimes he had killed people because it was bored and it made him feel good. Nobody, who had not done this before, could even imagine the feeling of what it was to just murder someone because you felt like it. It was a feeling of pure power. To hold the power over life and death.

He understood it had been evil. He had understood it at the time even – though he guessed that only made it worse.

He finally had reached that stupid shooting range, while still being followed by those not quite as talkative armored shadows.

Right now nobody else was here.

At the very least he was thankful he would not have to make his way to the inner courtyard to go there – it was a lot further and he was still in horrible shape.

He moved the lever to get the crossbow into full tension, before he inserted the arrow. Then he aimed at the target. At least that much even he could do. He pulled the trigger and saw the arrow fly – though it was far from a good hit.

The crossbow started to click, as it went back into the starting position, pulling in the tension once more. He still had to insert another arrow, though.

He did so, firing it anew. And then a third one. Only for the darn mechanism to yam again.

“Darn it,” he hissed.

He was not going back to the workshop again.

Instead he had brought some of his tools down here, now sitting down on the ground by the side of the shooting range.

He wondered what exactly was the issue here. Technically it was a simple mechanism. Once tension was brought in for the first time by the pulling of the lever, it was kept in one of two springs. Whenever the bow was fired the tension was being transferred from one to the other, before a mechanism triggered to push it backwards once more.

Sure, he understood mechanics quite well. As such he knew that after some while it would loose the energy. This was after all not an ideal system, so whenever the bow was fired, a bit of the energy would get lost. But he was of the opinion, that there should be at least ten shots in here to work it properly. Especially as it was not a loss of energy that created the yam, but the fact that the energy transfer did not work properly.

He started to tinker with it once more, adjusting some screws.

He did not actually care whatever darn Ravengard was thinking. Not really. But he had some pride. If nothing else, he knew he was intelligent. He was supposed to be intelligent. He was not strong, or dexterous, or pretty for that matter. But he was intelligent, and as such he should be capable of making this darn thing work.

He adjusted another few of those screws, wondering if they were the thing responsible for the yam. It was quite frustrating.

Once more he tried – and once more it was the same issue.

He sighed.

Once upon a time he was known to have a lot of patience. Of course he had had patience. The entire plan had taken eight years to come to fruition. Nobody without any patience would have stayed on it for so darn long.

But these days he found himself getting annoyed with these things rather quickly.

Maybe just because he had wanted just one thing in his darn life to fucking work.

Once more he tried to adjust, but to be perfectly honest, he had no idea what caused the issue. So he had by now entered the trial and error mode.

He was trying around with the mechanism, wondering if it really could not be scaled down like this. But it should be. Sure, there were limitation, but this… It should still work.

“Have you tried using a thicker spring?” someone asked, making Enver grunt.

“There is limitations of what I can fit in here,” he muttered.

“No, I mean… Use a thicker wire to wind the spring. The spring can stay the same size, but a thicker wire would store more energy – and be able to move smoother.”

Enver considered this. Indeed, that might well be a possibility. He had not tried that before, because he had not thought about the possibility of such a minor adjustment.

Only after a moment did he realize, though, that someone had given him unrequested advise – someone who actually understood what he was talking about at that.

He raised his head only to look a fucking deep gnome, who was small enough to almost be at eye level with Enver, while Enver was sitting on the ground.

Maybe the gnome did now realize, too, that his advise had not been asked for. “Uhm, I am sorry. I did not mean…”

Enver grunted, looking at the mechanism. Of course he had no other spring on him. “It is fine.” He sighed. “You might actually be on to something.”

A rather insecure smile appeared on the gnome’s face. “Well, in that case, I am glad I could help. And sorry again for just… I was just coming by.” He bowed, before moving on, leaving the range and continuing his way down the corridor outside.

Chapter Text

There was some irony to this situation, wasn’t there? Two men in one room, and neither of them wanted to be here. Not like this at least.

Ravengard’s eyes were cold when he watched Enver. And by all the distaste Enver had for the man, he guessed he could not quite hold this one against him. Enver assumed it was a similar gaze like the one he would have looked at his parents with. In the end, if their plan had not been foiled by an idiot, Ravengard would be dead. Not by Enver’s hand, but very much his command.

In the end, though, the Grand Duke took the weapon weighing it in his hand. “So, it does work by now?”

“Yes,” Enver said, sitting opposite the man at the desk. “It works. Six shot. It will put tension back in again. You need to put in another bolt manually, though.”

“Hmm…” Without putting in a bolt, Ravengard drew on the lever, then pulled the trigger, and watched the mechanism pull the string back behind the knob to hold it in place. “Why not more shot?”

“Because this is not a magic mechanism. It is simple physics, Lord Duke.” Enver could not quite stop himself from being quite sarcastic about that title. “And without magic there are limited to how much energy you can keep in a system. Each shot loses some of it.”

Ravengard frowned, but did not say anything. “Would there be a possibility to fill in the bolts automatically too?”

“There would be,” Enver said. “But it would make the entire weapon a lot heavier. And you said you wanted a light weapon.”

Ravengard lifted the weapon, weighing it in the end. “Did I?”

“You did, my Lord.”

“Hmm…” Ravengard seemed to think. “Very well. Could the mechanism be replicated for a ballista?”

“It would indeed be easier than to do it at this smaller scale. I already got it to work for the crossbows I had as a prototype for the Steel Watch.”

“With or without infernal magic?”

“Without it,” Enver said. “As you might remember, I was quite aware of the fact that the general people do not like infernal magic – and someone would have noticed it, if there was too much of it around.”

Ravengard made a dry sound. “Fine. Then that is what I will ask you to do next. The ballistae.”

Enver grimaced, but nodded. “As you wish.”

By the time, Enver made his way home, he was once more panting and in a rather miserable condition. He hated the fact that his home had several stairs at the entrance, though it was at least a tiny solace to find a familiar face waiting for him.

“You look awfully miserable,” Gwan noted, when he made it up the stairs.

“Thank you,” he grunted. “Charming as always.”

“I am doing my best, saer.” She opened the door.

It was clear that Lash heard his uneven steps – and his cane on the ground. “Ah, you are home already?”

“Already?” he replied. “It is evening by now.”

“I guess it is.” She came to the entrance hall of the mansion, bringing him a towel, given that like so often he was sweating. Partly because of the long way here – and partly because of the summer temperatures. “Supper is not quite ready yet, though.”

He sighed. “That is fine.” While she had gotten him to eat regularly by now, he still did not like the idea of eating, and could well do without.

He dried of his face and neck, before handing the towel back to her. “I am going to the sitting room. Could you bring me some tea?”

“Of course, saer,” she said, shooting him a smile.

Mainly, he was glad when he finally sunk into the sofa, he had spent too much time on during the year of his house arrest. He had to admit that yes, he was feeling somewhat better than he had during that year – but it was still far away from good.

He knew in some way, that he should be thankful. If it had not been for Avariel and his stupid pacifism, Enver would be dead. He knew he would be. And despite so many words he had lost on it, he had not wanted to die. Otherwise he never would have agreed to Avariel in the end. No. Enver had not wanted to die. And he had not.

Just that now he was living, he had to see what to do with this life.

“You do look rather down, Enver,” Lash noted, as she brought in a tray with a jug of tea and two cups.

“Do I now?” he asked, not quite able to not be sardonic.

“You do indeed.” She smiled, as she put down the tray, filling tea into each cup before sitting down in the armchair.

“What do you expect, though?” he replied. He gave a rather bitter chuckle. “I am somewhat surprised I am not dead yet.”

“Why would you be dead?”

“Well, enough people have reason to want to kill me, right?” he replied.

The half-orc considered that, but then shrugged. “I guess they do.”

He sighed, but took the tea. It was a flowery tasting kind of tea, making wondering what kind it was.

He was thankful for Lash. By now at the very least he was. She had been by his side for the whole time. No matter how shitty he had been to her at times. He had not appreciated this last year, but by now? By now he understood that few people were like this.

“Do you think, that someone is going to assassinate me?”

“Nobody did so far, did they?” Lash argued.

“Yeah.” He grimaced thinking of the Dark Urge, who other than him was almost certainly dead. A lot of people never had been associated until they had made their encounter with him. So, it was all a matter of perspective.

“You do seem to be in a rather bad mood today, don’t you?”

“I am just once again acutely aware of the fact that indeed most people are not like you or your family, and will hold it against a person if they murder hundreds in an attempt to take over the city,” he muttered grimly.

Lash sighed at this. “I guess you are not wrong about that. But you know that those people…”

“I understand that it is their right to hate me,” he muttered. “But that does not exactly make me feel better about it, does it?”

“Eh…” She shrugged. “My pops always says it is not worth it to get angry about a thing that you cannot change. I mean, I get you. But…” She considered him. “Well, I know you do not want to hear this, but you are quite aware that you should have thought about it before.”

“You mean before I killed all those people?” he replied, once more sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Yeah,” she just said. “Exactly. Before you did all of that.”

He drank another sip from the tea. “Or before I put up all those fucking posters, I guess,” he muttered. Given that in the end, half of the issue was not that most people had clear feelings on Enver Gortash, who had been responsible for all those things that had happened close to two years ago. No, the issue was that even now, that he was chubby and all, most people still recognized him as this person. And as such, people tended to avoid him.

Fucking Avariel. If it had not been for that guy, the plan had succeeded. Or maybe if it had not been for Orin. Who knew? But despite everything, Enver was at least sure of that. The plan could have succeeded. It could have. And it almost would have.

But there was no sense thinking about all those ifs and whens. Because in the end, he had failed, and now he had to live with a world, that had decided to hate him once more.

Lash always kept iterating, that it was good on Enver to leave the home. And in some way it was. While he was well aware that he had more room in his mansion than most people in Baldur’s Gate in their respective living spaces, but not having been able to leave the place for a whole year still had felt horrible.

It did not mean, though, that he particularly enjoyed being out here either. While he guessed there was something positive to being out in the sun for a bit, he still was quite aware of those dark gazes following him all around. People knew who he was. People knew, what he had done. People knew some of the things he was responsible for.

It was even worse at Wyrm’s Rock, given that most people here worked either in the city government or for the Fists. And those? Well, they knew pretty much everything that Ravengard knew at the very least.

So while he was working, there were his two guards always watching his every move. And if he was walking around the long halls of the fortress, gazes followed him. Darn fuckers. He wanted to see what they would have done if they had had his life.

Most of them would probably not have survived hell.

There was another downside to the way Ravengard had him working. The man had allowed him to use one of the forges, sure. But he had not given him any sort of assistant. And it turned out, that it was darn hard to keep a forge running without one.

While he knew this time around quite well what he was doing, he needed to built some of the parts himself. There was neither gears, nor springs around that would suffice for his plan.

He was used to this of course. In a way. Once upon a time – back when he had just returned from the hells – he had been on his own as well. He had somehow managed. However, that younger version of him had been a lot more fit physically speaking. He had not been fat, and while that younger man had struggled with joint pain, it had not been as constant as it was these days.

Technically speaking, he was still the Archduke. And yet it was him sweating and panting as he carried materials to the forge on his own. It was humiliating – especially as he was still being followed around.

“You know, you could at least be helpful in this,” he grunted at the two Fists that were his guard. He got to know them all by now. It was a half-elven woman called Nadonia, and a human man called Gaspar.

“This is not what we were told to do by Duke Ravengard,” Nadona said wryly. She at least could really not stand Enver – though he had never found out if he had killed someone close to her in one way or another. It was not as if he had asked those people about their names or cared to remember.

“Of course not,” he grunted, before continuing on his way.

It was too much to do all at once, having him back on those darn stairs a bit later once more. And yes, he was quite certain this was in a way meant to humiliate him.

He was pausing as he reached the hall down from his forge, gritting his teeth as he had to swallow another bout of anger. Fuck. He would want to see what someone like Ravengard would have done if he had been sold to a fucking devil. But of course, something like that never happened to the noble sons and daughters of the city, did it?

He grunted, before picking up the box he was carrying again – only to almost stumble when someone addressed him.

“Do you need some help with that?”

He looked around, but needed to narrow his gaze before he saw the gnome. The same gnome who he had met a couple of days ago. Deep gnome. Dark skin. Bald-headed. And a bit funny looking, as it usually was with gnomes.

Enver could not help but raise an eyebrow, but he held back a snarky comment wanting to come over his lips. “I doubt there is a lot you could do to help.”

“Don’t underestimate me,” the gnome replied. “I am stronger than I look. And also a lot more… how goes the common phrase? Nifty, I think.”

Enver was not sure what to make of it. If anything he was not much unlike most people. Of course he had treated gnomes among the worst – together with the tieflings. After all, it was easy to mistreat gnomes. Most people did not care. Yet, at least right now this particular gnome did not look at him with malice, which made him wonder what was going on here.

He sighed, putting down the box. “Help yourself.”

The gnome shot him a smile, before taking some of the iron out of the box. “May I inquire what you are planning with this?”

Enver picked up the now somewhat lighter box once more. “Duke Ravengard has ordered an automated ballista.”

“So you are building weapons for Duke Ravengard?”

“More or less,” Enver grunted.

“Not quite unlike us. We try to help, selling some of our knowledge on alchemy and machinations.”

“You as in the Deep Gnomes?”

“The Ironhand Gnomes,” the gnome answered. “You know, those two years ago, with all that conspiracy, a lot of folks got killed. But we were fighting back. We were even there, when that illithid-brain attacked. Though I got to say, it was one of the scariest things I have ever seen.”

“Was it now?” Enver noted.

“It was. Though then again, I was at least lucky. Never ended up with one of those tadpoles in my brain. Oh, and I gotta say, that Shadowcurse at Moonrise was a darn creepy thing too.”

“You were at Moonrise?”

“Oh, yeah. It is actually a long story.” The gnome chuckled. “I am sorry. I tend to ramble.”

Enver was silent as he turned back to the forge and put down the box. “That is… fine.”

As the gnome put down the iron he had helped carry, he turned to the Fists, who were now standing at the door of the forge. “Why do you have two guards, though?”

It was then that Enver realized the reason for the gnomes friendly demeanor. He did not recognize Enver. Which… Yeah, admittedly that explained a lot.

Chapter Text

“I do miss the Underdark at times.” It turned out, the gnome was indeed quite the chatterbox. He had absolutely no awareness if someone was listening to him or not, and would just go on and on at times, only to at some point finally notice that something was off, get awkward and laugh it off.

He had introduced himself as Barcus Wroot of Clan Ironhand.

But frankly, between all those people throwing Enver those angry and hateful gazes, it was somewhat welcome to have someone here – at Wyrm’s Rock – who did not look at him like that.

“I guess there is some beauty in this too, and I certainly got to say there a lot more different food up here. But there is a certain serenity in the Underdark, that I really miss some days.” Barcus gave a deep sigh. “You never have been to the Underdark, have you?”

Enver sighed. “I have, in fact. Once.”

“Oh.” The gnome seemed surprised. “You have? What got you there?”

Enver was silent. The truth was of course that about four years ago, he, the Dark Urge and Katheric had gone to the Underdark to find and tame a Netherbrain. But given the circumstance he could not quite tell that to the gnome, who had willingly volunteered to operate the pump at the forge.

“I was there in a research mission,” Enver said.

Once more the gnome showed an absolute unawareness for tone or circumstance. “Oh, what kind of research?”

“Alchemy,” Enver replied after a moment. “I had heard there are some ingredients to be found in the Underdark that are unlike anything up here.” At least he was still good at lying.

“Ah. Yeah, indeed. You can get anything up here, I would say. But it certainly costs a lot more than just scraping it off the walls.” Barcus chuckled. “I am actually quite the alchemist myself, if I dare say that. More than a mechanic for that matter, though I do understand a bit about mechanics of course – and have learned a bit more since we buried the entire old hatchet with the Gondians.”

Enver better said nothing about the Gondians. While not all of them had been gnomes, most had been – and it just turned out that gnomes were just very easy to enslave, as Faerûnian history would agree with. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. Back in the Underdark, I did a lot of experiments with Runepowder. And I even managed to improve it. Though I obviously cannot share anything about that. It is an Ironhand secret, right?”

“Obviously.” Enver put another bit of iron into the fire, waiting for it to melt. He had decided to do the springs first, given it was the much easier work. All you needed was to create a fairly thick wire and form it into a spire – ideally while the metal was hot.

“People often do act as if gnomes are somehow idiots, even though we do have more knowledge on certain of the sciences than those dwarves,” Barcus rambled on.

Enver grunted. “I know that much. Gnomes tend to be skilled with mechanical work and alchemy. Dwarves make good simple weapons for sure, and elves tend to be good with potions. But complex machinery is something to be found with gnomes.”

“Thank you,” Barcus announced.

Admittedly, Enver was surprised none of his guards had used the chance to note to the somewhat ignorant gnome who he was – though Enver was somewhat thankful for it. Indeed, it was somewhat nice to talk to someone who was not Lash or a relative of hers, and did not look at him as if they were wanting to kill him.

“What even made you leave the Underdark?” Enver asked carefully. “I mean, gnomes do not always have it easy up here. Especially not deep gnomes.”

Barcus forgot to operate the pump for a moment, sighing as he did. “It is a bit of a complicated story.” He remembered the pump once more. “See, I was thinking I could get work up here, especially as the Underdark in recent years has become a bit more chaotic. So I had this friend, and we left together. I went to the city, and he… went off. Only that I guess that he never really was my friend or something. Who knows?” Another deep sigh came over his lips, which was a lot more depression than Enver would have expected from a gnome – at least one that was not enslaved.

The metal was starting to melt, pooling at the bottom of the coals and finally running out into the prepared form.

Enver really had not dealt with this in a while, though he had surprisingly always managed without burning himself too badly.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, as waited for the iron to go from a bright yellow to a mellow orange.

Barcus gave a dry laugh. “Ah, it is a rather sad story and I do not want to ruin the mood.”

“It is fine,” Enver muttered. It was better than him having to think up lies about his own life. “Consider me curious now.”

“Oh well. See, a couple of years back I went to Baldur’s Gate and I started working here at one of the apothecaries. And I did not hear of my friend for a while. But eventually an amulet ended up in my possession. Something I had gifted him before we parted ways. There was blood on it and I became concerned, so I eventually went looking for him.”

When the metal was cooled down, Enver started forming it, pulling it into the right length before cooling it down in water. “And then?”

“Well, let’s put it this way. I am a really bad adventurer it turns out – and I had really bad timing for this adventure.”

Pulling the metal out, Enver looked at the gnome. “How so?”

“You must have heard of the entire Absolute plot that was connected to that illithid-brain and such, have you not?”

“I have heard some of it, yes,” Enver pressed out, before using tongs to hold the metal once more into the fire, allowing it to heat up again.

“Turns out, when I started that entire travesty was reaching its final phase or something. So first I got kidnapped by a bunch of goblins serving the ‘Absolute’ and almost killed by them.”

“But you escaped,” Enver noted. “Otherwise you would not be here.”

“Not really,” Barcus said with a voice full of regret. “No. I was just lucky that it was not too far from where… How much do you know about the Absolute was stopped?”

Enver somehow managed to not grimace. After all, he knew pretty much all of it – more than pretty much any other person in the city, apart from Avariel and his team of fools, who obviously had been the ones doing the saving. He still managed to control himself. After all, he had always been good at hiding his thoughts. Raphael had done well beating that skill into him. “I heard some of it. Did… Was it not that the older Harper lady… What was her name? Jaheira! Jaheira and the Ravengard son somehow managed to fight that brain?”

“Oh, that is not even half of it,” Barcus said, clearly proud to know about it all. “So, the people behind it all, they put illithid tadpoles into the brains of people, but used some sort of magic to stop them from evolving into full mindflayers. And they were using that to make the people think that a goddess was talking to them. Well, so… Uhm… When I was out in the east, down the Chionthar, looking for my friend and those goblins captured me and were about to kill me, it just so happened that a group of adventurers who had those tadpoles noticed that and helped me.”

Just barely Enver managed to hold down an “oh”, when he realized where this was going.

Obviously. There were more than a hundred thousand people living in Baldur’s Gate, but it clearly was the case that Avariel knew at least fifty thousand of them, right?

He remembered what he was doing. The metal was glowing orange again, so he pulled it out of the flames, bringing it over to a pole to start and form it into a spiral. “But if they were infected, why would they help you if… If I am understand it correctly, those goblins were working for the Absolute?”

“They were, but those adventurers, they had this thing that somehow made them immune against the Absolute and the manipulation. Which was a good thing for me. As I said, they saved me there. Though they were a bit of a chaotic bunch. But they let me stay at their camp for a while, until they took care of some of those goblins that were basically making the way back west dangerous and… Well…”

The metal became already harder to form already, forcing Enver to hold it into the flames again. “Well?”

“I still had not found my friend, nor had I learned my lesson. I found some hints that my friend and some other deep gnomes might be working against the Absolute but have been taken prisoners by some drow and brought back into the Underdark. So… I tried to find them there.”

“I cannot help but notice, that you are not in the Underdark.”

“Yeah.” Another very deep sigh came over Barcus’ lips. “I got captured again and enslaved by some drow and duergar that also somehow were working for the Absolute and mining for something down there. But I was lucky, because Tav…” He stopped. “See, that is the guy who kinda was the leader of those other adventurers? A human. A bit naïve, but good hearted and a bit too courageous if you ask me. And he could literally convince people that the sky was green.” Barcus shook his head. “Anyway, they had tried to avoid the entire shadowcurse around Moonrise Towers, and because of that were in the Underdark too. And… well, thankfully they freed me and the other gnomes.”

“So, you got saved by the same guy twice?”

“Indeed. It is funny how fate goes, isn’t it?” Barcus paused, considering this himself. “Either way, I eventually found out that my friend was being kept in Moonrise Towers, but of course I could do nothing to save him. But Tav did. He brought him back. Only for Wulbren – that is my supposed friend, I guess – to tell me basically that he hated me.” He gave another bitter chuckle. “But that is typical for me. I think people like me and then I find out that they actually hate me. I… Yeah. I guess I am annoying and a bit of a fool.”

Enver had turned his back to the gnome, as he was further winding up the spring. Indeed, Barcus seemed quite unaware of what people around him were thinking – but then, Enver could be the same. Just that he always assumed quite the opposite: that people would hate him and would eventually just try to kill or harm him in one way or another.

“That adventurer type, he sounds quite like a foolhearted hero though,” he muttered – not quite capable of forcing all the bitterness out of his voice.

Fucking Avariel, who had ruined all the wonderful preparations.

“He is, I guess. But he is a good person,” Barcus noted.

“Those who place nice and good often are the worst of them all,” Enver replied.

“Not him. He went out of his way to save so many people. Hells! You know what that idiot did at Moonrise?”

“How would I?”

“See, there were goblins at Moonrise too, and they were keeping some gnolls as fighters and slaves. And when the Harpers took Moonrise, they wanted to kill the gnolls, but that guy stopped them. Because he had pity on the gnolls!”

Right. Pity on gnolls. “Does not that make him kinda evil? Given that everyone knows that gnolls are monsters?”

“I don’t know,” Barcus admitted. “But at least before we left, none of those gnolls tried to kill anyone. So… Who knows?”

Once more Enver had to heat up the metal to finish up the spring. “In my experience, people who act all heroic just want riches and glory.”

“One would think so, right? But the guy, he did not even take the money offered to him. And as you might notice, you have not even seen his name in the newspaper and such.”

Of course, Enver was fully aware of this. Which was the thing that still annoyed him so much. Because he just knew that fucking Avariel wanted something out of the entire thing. But Enver had never found out what. The bloody bastard had come visit him almost once every tenday to annoy the hell out of him, had saved his fucking life. And Enver just did not get why.

The memory of what the vampire had told him came back to him. But no, he was still not buying it. Not really. Either the entire naïve façade was an act, or the entire story with the man escaping from slavery was all bullshit. Either way. Something about Avariel was off.

Hells! Enver had tried to kill the man multiple times – and that idiot had not even reacted.

Maybe that guy was in fact some sort of devil or demon or something along those lines. It was the only thing that made sense.

“Uhm, Enver?” Barcus asked.

Enver did take a moment to realize that the metal was overheating. He took it out of the heat, putting it onto the rod one last time to form. “But you said you were here by the time that brain attacked the city?”

“I was. I still followed Wulbren. Because… What else was I going to do? And that Archduke, that Gortash, he had some Gondians – many of them gnomes – enslaved to help him build those metal watchmen. And… Uhm… Admittedly, I do not know all the details. But Tav and his friends, they went to free the Gondians. I mean, those poor souls. They had been quite abused under that Gortash-fellow and his Banite cult.”

Enver was quite glad that he had his back to the gnome, was he was wincing.

“Well, either way. See, Ironhand gnomes… We had always this kind of rivalry going on with the Gondians. Because… I mean, I assume you know Gond, right?”

“Yeah. God of inventors and engineers,” Enver muttered.

“Exactly. And Gaerdal Ironhand is the gnomish god of warriors, but also a patron of smiths and warforgers. And as such we kinda had always this rivalry going on with gnomes following Gond, who is after all not a gnomish deity. It was somewhat silly, if you ask me, but Wulbren… Oh, he was so invested in that feud.” Another deep sigh. “Well, those heroes, they freed the Gondians, and Wulbren tried to start another clan war right then and there. And Tav and his folks were trying to talk to them, and… I don’t know. I told Wulbren he was wrong, and somehow people agreed with me and now…” He gave another awkward chuckle.

Enver put the finally finished spring into the water to cool off. The water hissed and steamed upon making contact with the hot iron. “And then?”

“Well, turns out I am somewhat the leader of the Ironhand gnomes at least here in the city now. And because we helped Tav and everyone, Ravengard actually officially recognizes out tribe now. We are working with the Gondians to help build further defenses for the city.” Barcus smiled. “As you are doing, I guess. But you are not Gondian, right?”

“I cannot say I am,” Enver muttered. “I just always have had a talent for tinkering and engineering, I guess.” He looked over to the door where still those guards were standing. “And then I made a mistake, that I now have to make up for.”

At least this gaze was noticed by Barcus who looked to the guards. “I have been meaning to ask you about that. Are they there so you do not escape? Or are they there so that nobody murders you?”

Enver considered his options, though right now those two were far enough that he was halfway positive that they were not listening. He considered a lie, but decided against it eventually. “As I said, I made some mistakes and I am afraid I am now in Ravengard’s dept.” Though those words tasted like acid in his mouth.

“So you are a prisoner?”

“Something like that.”

Barcus considered this for a long moment. “What did you do?”

“I would prefer not to talk about it,” Enver said.

Much to his surprise the gnome backed off. “I guess that makes sense. Yeah. I… I am sorry.”

Enver sighed. “It is alright.”

Chapter Text

Another day at Wyrm’s Rock, and for once Enver was not tinkering with the mechanism of the ballista – though that did not really mean his situation had much improved.

Ravengard and his version of the Flaming Fists really did not appreciate hard work, as it was shown by the fact that they had taken down most of the traps that Enver had once installed in the fortress. Sure, he understood quite well that originally they might have been bothersome, but they were not magic traps. As such, everyone who knew to avoid them, could use them against their enemies. Taking them down was such a waste.

However, it turned out they had missed some of them. And one of those – a flame trap in the south of the fortress – had started spraying oil all over the place during the last night. Now, it was quite obvious that in any other situation some poor Flaming Fist would have to deal with the situation, but not now. Now Ravengard had the ability to command Enver around. And such it was Enver, who was kneeling on painful knees on this side corridor trying to fix the problem.

One thing was clear so far: While Ravengard and whoever he had once commanded to take down the traps might have indeed taken out the actual traps, they had failed to completely dismantle the entire mechanism. The traps had once been all connected – and those connections were still eating through the wall. Which was exactly the reason why even after hours the darn thing was still spouting oil over an old carpet. There were four central coil tanks in the building, connected to all the traps.

By now the aforementioned carpet very much was ruined – and the oil had left dark stains on the bright sandstone, while Enver tried to close the darn valve.

He was still going to say that those traps were brilliant in their efficiency. However, to work properly they would have to be maintained. And obviously nobody had done that in quite some while.

By the time he managed to close the valve that had gotten loose and properly disabled the entire trap, his own sleeves were soaked in the oil.

Once again he was gritting his teeth. The anger was bubbling in his stomach, because this entire fucking shit was humiliating. In fact, he was rather certain that it was made to humiliate him. In his mind he was fantasizing about at the very least murdering Ravengard – but he knew as well as everyone else that it would not quite work.

As he was right now, he was not a fighter. He did not have magic or anything. Ha, on some days he could not even stand without his darn cane.

Ravengard was older than him, but not by that much. And compared to him, he was a lot more fit and combat ready.

No, the only thing this would end, would be with him dead – and once more in the same wonderful position of either having to face Bane or the hells.

His sleeves still dripping from the oil, he got up, leaning against the wall.

Why did he even bother with all this stuff? It was not as if most people would forgive him. Most people were not like fucking Avariel, or Lash. People who would be willing to look past a minor thing like mass murder. And something told him, the gods were not much different from the mortals in this regard either. He needed another god to claim his soul to make sure it would not end up in the hells or with Bane, but nobody would do that, would they now?

He took a somewhat clean towel to dry his hands from the oil, before taking his cane.

His guards today were a dwarven man and a human, though like most they were not exactly conversational with him.

He just made his way back to Ravengard’s office, like a fucking trained dog or something.

The darn fortress also had to be big enough for him to be out of breath by the time he reached the office.

Admittedly, he did not knock, just opening the door. “I did take care of that trap, Lord Ravengard.” Like always he made sure the other man knew how little he gave on that title. After all, Ravengard did not exactly earn it. He had been born into nobility.

Something Enver only realized when the door was fully open though, was, that Ravengard had visitors. A total of three people other than Ravengard himself were present. They were dressed in clothing that Enver could somewhat identify as Sembian, though the fabrics were fine and well made, and they all wore some jewelry. Some nobles or something.

In the center of the three people was a very tall, but also very thin man. His hair was hidden underneath a sort of black headscarf. He did not wear a beard or anything, his face was fully smooth. Several bracelets were on the mans wrists and lower arms, as well as a golden looking necklace around his neck. There was some intelligence in his dark eyes, as he looked at Enver. “Someone has not been taught to knock.”

Ravengard looked at Enver grimly. “Indeed.” It was the indignation in his eyes, that made Enver feel himself once more boil with anger.

He decided to ignore it. “If you don’t have anything specific for me, I would like to…” He did not get to finish.

“I do still have tasks for you,” Ravengard said. “I will send for you once current matters are discussed.”

Enver right now did not want anything more than to get himself cleaned up. He hated the sensation of those soaked fabrics on his skin. And it was not as if he had any clean clothing to change into here. Not these days at least.

There was a halfling woman sitting next to the central guy. She turned around. “I have heard of black thumbs, but better make sure the hands do not fully turn black.” She smiled, while Enver grimanced.

“As you wish, Lord Ravengard,” he muttered leaving the room.

He sighed.

Once more he thought about this idea he had once had. In the hells, there had been water coming out of faucets in the wall. While some few buildings of the rich people had something like that, not even his own home was created with something. Most folks needed to fetch water from a well or pump, before they would get to wash. It would be a lot more convenient otherwise.

As it was right now, he had to fetch himself water – and ask for soap – to at least somewhat try to clean himself up.

Again, it was humiliating.

He had been the Archduke. The bloody Archduke. He had almost ruled the darn city, and now he was once more reduced to a servant – just like he had been in the House of fucking Hope once.

And while he managed to wring out the oil from the sleeves, and clean his arms and face, he had to admit that he would not get to fully clean himself unless he had fresh clothes. After all, even if he tried to clean the shirt now, it would end up wet, not making the entire thing more sensible.

“Fuck,” he muttered.

He looked out of one of the Fortress’s windows, before emptying out the bucket he had used to wash himself.

Summer was beginning once more, meaning that within a couple of tendays it would once more get hot and harsh in the city. As summers in Baldur’s Gate were often dominated by a rather oppressive heat, if the wind did not blow a storm from the coast up the river.

He started on his way back to his darn forge, wondering what he even was doing. He did want to redeem himself, yes. It was not that he necessarily regretted the things that had led to his own demise. For fuck’s sake. He wanted to see other people in his situation. They would do the fucking same. Being sold by their own bloody parents, and being abused in hell for more than a fucking decade! But it was this memory of hell, that made him certain that he did not want to return to that place – and as long as Bane blamed him for his failure, it was not as if he would see any better outcome if the god of tyranny claimed his soul. But it was highly unlikely that him fixing shit for Ravengard would help any of that, wasn’t it?

But what else could he do?

“Ah, Enver!” He heard the voice once more before he saw the gnome, looking around to see Barcus running with some parchments rolled up under his arm.

“You are here quite often recently, aren’t you, Barcus?” Enver muttered.

“Well, yes. See, since we are working with the Gondians were are going over so many interesting concepts. You know, that Gortash-guy, he might have been a villain, but some of the plans he had the Gondians work with were not even half bad.”

Once more Enver grimaced, but tried to hide it. “Were they now?”

“Indeed. Sure, those Steel Watchmen things, they were powered by some infernal stuff, but some of the base concepts are still interesting. Moving pistons through steam for example. You could probably use that to move things with it, you know? Well, actually not probably. We tried it out. It works. At least in a small model. And if Ravengard will give us the money to further the concept, just think of what one could do.”

“Oh, I have been thinking about such things,” Enver admitted. “Boats that move without wind or magic. And pumps that push water around without being used manually.”

“Exactly,” Barcus agreed. “There would be some interesting ways to use any of this!”

Enver took a breath and nodded. “Yes. I can absolutely see that.” At one point he had been thinking of building an automated army and fleet and then take over the rest of the Sword Coast. Of course he had never gotten to that point.

“It really is too bad,” Barcus muttered.

“What is?”

“Ah, the Gortash-guy. He was clearly quite clever. But instead of using that intelligence to make things better, he just used it to make everything worse for pretty much everyone.”

Enver stopped in his stride, looking at the gnome. Oh, he wanted to disagree so much – but he knew that it would be quite hard to keep his identity still a secret then. So in the end, he just grunted. “I guess he did.”

Barcus turned to him. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just need a moment to breathe…”

“You said, you were struggling with pain,” Barcus noted.

“That’s only half of it.” Enver took another deep breath, before he started moving again. They had almost reached his forge after all.

But just as he opened the door to the forge he found it surprisingly not abandoned.

Instead there were two people standing here. A dwarven woman, and a human man. They were wearing the same kind of clothes as the people who had been visiting Ravengard. Sembian wear, Enver was fairly sure about that.

“Oh,” Barcus said. “Hello? What are you people doing here? Can we help you, maybe?”

The dwarven woman looked at him. “A gnome. Of course.”

“I beg your pardon?” Barcus asked.

Enver cleared his throat. “What is it you want?”

“Nothing,” the human man said. “Nothing but to serve Oghma’s golden light, Lord Gortash.”

Chapter Text

The first thing Enver noticed upon coming back to his senses, was, that he was lying on a rather hard surface, making his bones ache more than usual. The second thing he perceived was the fact it was a lot colder than he would assume. The third thing was a rather moldy smell.

He opened his eyes, finding his surroundings coated in twilight only lit up by two torches in the clearly underground room.

He groaned. “What in the nine…”

“Well, great,” a voice said. “You are awake!”

Given the fact that Enver was literally lying on the ground of what he now found out was a sort of cell of what quite certainly was a sort of dungeon, he was for once eye to eye with the gnome. “Barcus?”

“Don’t you ‘Barcus’ me! Now I am here in this shithole and it’s all because of you!”

Enver could tell the gnome was angry – he just was not fully certain why. “What…”

“When did you plan on telling me who you were?” the gnome complained. “But I guess it is my own bloody stupidity again. Ha! I have even heard that name before. I do remember now. Lord Enver Gortash. Enver! Ha! It is not even that common of a name, is it?”

Things were clearly going a bit fast for Enver right now. He as not sure what was going on. Where was he? How had he gotten here? Why was Barcus here? And how did Barcus know suddenly…

He tried to remember what happened before he… What? He had fainted, right? He must have fainted. Yeah.

He must have fainted.

He had been in Wyrm’s Rock. And he had tried quite unsuccessfully to clean himself up after… He frowned. He had repaired that one track. Right. Yeah. His sleeves were still oily from it. But his throbbing head made thinking surprisingly hard.

“Are you even listening to me?” Barcus yelled, his arms akimbo now.

“I…” Enver looked around in that rather seedy dungeon once more, still trying to comprehend how he had gotten here. “Where are we?”

“That is what I wanna know!” The gnome was still yelling. “In fact it is on top of the list of things I want to know! But given that you clearly don’t know, I guess I will have to wait in this to get further answers.”

“How did we get here, though?”

“I don’t know that either! Maybe we were teleported or something! My main question is also why the hells I am here! What in Ironhand’s name did I do that would get me put here?”

“I…” Enver was still not sure. His mind felt surprisingly slow right now.

Indeed. Why were they here? How did they get here? He remembered he had been on his way back to his forge. And Barcus had been with him. And then… What had happened then? He did not remember. Why…

He tried to go over that day again. He had come to Wyrm’s Rock. He had wanted to start working on the ballista once more. It was about to be done after all. And then he had been told to deal with the malfunctioning trap, had done that. And then…

“Are you even listening to me?” Barcus yelled.

Enver grunted. The gnome’s voice was quite high-pitched as he clearly was getting angrier and angrier by the second. Though it did certainly not help with Enver’s headache. “I would have an easier time listening, if you were not screaming that much.”

“Well, I am sorry, but I am a bit panicking right now. Because as I have in fact told you, because I did not know who you were, the last few times I got kidnapped nearly got me killed! And I cannot exactly hope that Tav will be here again, can I now?”

“Fucking Avariel…” Enver grumbled.

“You are a fucking asshole!” Barcus continued. “You, like… What you did to those people! And killed! You killed! When I was nearly killed it was folks working for you! YOU! How many people was it even? People that you killed?”

Enver sighed. Well, he had known it would eventually end like this. “It is not as if I counted.”

“Of course you didn’t! Because you are a villain!”

Enver looked around. Great. He did not even have his cane on him. So he grabbed one of those bars to his side to push himself up on it, keeping himself steady against the side of the cell to look outside.

He indeed was in some sort of dungeon. And he was fairly certain it was not a dungeon of Baldur’s Gate. At the very least it was not a prison in Baldur’s Gate, because Enver had kept enough people imprisoned in those to recognize them. No, this was somewhere else.

The corridor outside the cell had a light curve. He was fairly certain it was a circular prison or dungeon or something like that.

He looked at the bars of the door. The material was some sort of iron alloy, though without any tools that did not get him anywhere. And there was no lock, so it was probably held close by a sort of magic mechanism of sorts.

“The city was almost destroyed!” Barcus was still raging. “And those tieflings! There were so many of them killed by those goblins! And Zanner Tobin! You had the poor guy being blinded!”

“To be fair, I did not have him blinded, that was of my generals,” he muttered. After all, he had not personally decided the fate of every victim of the Banite cult.

“Because that makes it so much better!” Barcus howled with sarcasm.

Enver still did not remember anything and it was hard to think like this. Darn it. Why were they here?

He would not think it was Baldur’s Gate. If anything because of the fucking Avariel-guy. Gods, Enver hated the guy, but somehow he could not imagine that Avariel would allow him – or Barcus for that matter – getting captured and brought somewhere. Which meant that this was probably not Ravengard’s doing.

While Enver had not figured everything out, he knew that among the troop of idiots following Avariel back then had been Ravengard’s lost son. And he had figured out by now that Ravengard was trying to restore his relationship with said lost son, who was also one of that dumb heroic type. So, Avariel would probably not let Enver get imprisoned – not without something happening first – and most certainly he would probably not allow Barcus getting taken. And if Avariel was angry, the Ravengard son would be angry, and then… Well, maybe Enver was giving too much on the character of a father who had exiled his not quite-adult son from the city. But then again, Barcus was right: Avariel was also quite convincing. Enver knew this. That asshole idiot had convinced him to give up – and had then convinced Ravengard to let him live. So… No, this was probably not Ravengard’s doing.

But then, who?

Obviously, a lot of people had a grudge against Enver. Barcus made sure to remind him of that.

“And you worked with those drow and duergar! And you had so many people brainwashed by those stupid tadpoles! And some of those people turned! And that disgusting illithid brain! That was you too! And you tortured people! And enslaved them! And…”

Again Enver tried to think. Ravengard. He had talked to Ravengard. Right. And there had been visitors. Visitors wearing Sembian clothes. Yes! Yes! He remembered that!

“Not to forget Bane! Bane! You were working for the darn god of tyranny!”

“The people who were visiting Ravengard today. Who were they? Do you know?” Enver asked, ignoring the tirade of the gnome.

This made the gnome blink. “What?”

“Ravengard. He had visitors today. Who were they?”

Again Barcus just blinked in confusion. “They… Oghma. I heard they were with Oghma. And… They said they were currently travelling the Sword Coast collecting stories and history.”

Enver tried to remember them. “They were not bards…” he muttered. “I am sure of that.” Sembia. Oghmanytes of Sembia. Something… There was something. “They were exiled.”

“What?”

“Sembia’s Oghmanyte church, they were exiled from the rest of the church.”

“Why Sembia?”

“Their clothing was Sembian,” Enver said. He tried to recall what he knew about the split of the Oghmanyte church, but it did not seem to come to him.

The good thing was, that after some while, Barcus stopped screaming. The bad news was, that time only slowly drifted by.

Enver could not help but find it ironic. He should know how to pass time, while you were being kept in a dungeon. The Archdevils knew how often that other fucking gnome – Nubaldin had been gnome, too, after all – had thrown him into the dungeon of the House of Hope. But had been a while, and it turned out that today’s Enver Gortash was quite bad in passing time, without having anything to occupy his mind with.

He was sitting on the cold, hard ground again, his entire body complaining against it. His joins were seemingly hurting more by the minute, and his muscles also started to cramp. He was thirsty, which only made his headache worse.

Barcus was now sitting the furthest away from him that the small cell would allow. He had pulled his legs up to his body and wrapped his arms around them. From time to time he was throwing angry gazes over to Enver.

Maybe Enver should have been truthful. But to be frank, it had been too nice to have someone to talk to at Wyrm’s Rock. And, well… Nobody who knew who he was, would ever… Well, nobody but Lash and her family, he guessed.

Sembia. Were they really in Sembia? If so, they were on the other side of the darn continent of Faerûn. Normal teleportation spells would not do that. But then again, this was the Oghmanyte church they were talking about – and they were known for hoarding knowledge. So who knew if they had a spell or an artefact that could do something like that.

Finally, there were steps echoing through the dungeon. They were not hurried, but came towards them slowly, making the both of them look up. Eventually a figure appeared in front of the cell door, carrying a lackluster tray.

It was an older woman. Human, by the looks of it. She looked from one to the other. Then she gave a laugh. “I kinda imagined the chosen of Bane to be more impressive.”

Enver snarled. “I am sorry to disappoint, good Lady. Though I am afraid I no longer am the chosen of Bane.”

“I am not surprised,” she said. “I heard Bane does not tolerate losers.”

“I…”

Barcus fell into his word. “Why the hells am I here? I did do nothing!”

She looked at him. “Ah, yes. The gnome. Right. Oh, well. We will see.”

“See about what, exactly?” Barcus asked.

“Well, the story has it, that you also worked with those outlines, did you not, little man?”

“I am not…” Barcus grunted. “What outlines? What are you even talking about?”

“I really am not surprised though. A follower of Bane. Bane always loved our toys, did he not? So of course he would want to steal this kind of knowledge.”

“What? I am not following Bane,” Barcus complained. “I am a loyal follower of Gaerdal Ironhand. Always have been.”

“Not you. Him. But sadly a lot of people have seen the things he has built, no?” She shook her head, before somehow sliding the tray into the cell – Enver could not quite see how she was doing it. “I do have good news for you, though. There is going to be an Inquisition tomorrow. So you will not have to wait here for very long.”

“An Inquisition?” Barcus echoed.

“Yes,” the woman said. “We will see… We will see.” With that she moved away once more.

Chapter Text

Somehow, Enver was surprised that he slept at all, but he also regretted to have fallen asleep as he woke up with his back aching even more than before. And his waking was not of a slow and gentle kind, either, as it happened when the door of the cell was opened with a clank.

“You!” someone grunted. “Gortash! You come with us now!”

He blinked, too confused for a moment, but the events from the day before came back to him rather quickly.

He was in a cell, still. In a cell. In a dungeon. There were three people in front of the cell now, with the door being open.

“Gortash!” one of them barked. “Now!”

Enver groaned, as he tried to get to his feet, but his legs refused today to carry him. He could not fully straighten them to get up, as the joints were protesting too much.

Then one of the people in front of the cell came in and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Look,” Enver grunted. “I am trying, alright?” He gritted his teeth, trying to walk on his own as he was dragged along.

“And me?” Barcus asked, as Enver was dragged out of the cell. “What will happen to me now?”

“The Loremaster will decide that in due time,” a woman – the same old woman as the day before, Enver realized – said. “For now you will stay put.”

Maybe it would have been the right reaction to this to be afraid, but right now Enver was mainly angry. He was not to be treated like this. He was not to be treated like a common goon. Even if they saw him as a villain, he had been the one who had come up with at least sixty percent of that plan. So fuck them.

Again he tried to walked, but in the end he barely managed to stumble along.

“What is the plan even?” he grunted. “Inquisition?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “An inquisition.”

His mind was racing. He had remembered some things the day before. The Oghmanyte Church of Sembia. They were a lot more conservative than the Orthodox Church of Oghma, as it was spread through most of the rest of Faerûn. While Oghma was said to be the god to govern the steady drip of knowledge to be gained by the mortals of the realm, the orthodox Oghmanytes believed, that knowledge that once had entered this realm, could not be destroyed again. The church in Sembia disagreed however. And Enver was not quite sure what that was supposed to mean.

Like he had thought on the day before, the dungeon was formed like a ring, with several cells being located along it. The inner wall had some bare pieces, and as they were approaching one of those, the wall suddenly split open, revealing a staircase.

“Hells,” he muttered. The last thing his body needed right now was to climb stairs, but it seemed that he was not being given a choice.

Several times he stumbled on the stairs. The only reason he did not fall was, that someone always made sure to keep him going, until they finally reached another door – and from there a corridor, that was fairly dark.

Enver’s head was still throbbing with pain and he was not quite sure, why. But when he entered the throb was not helped by the hum that started to come up in his head.

Worst of all, he did not know a whole mote about the Oghmanyte believes. He knew a bit about Gond – he kinda had been forced to learn that, as he had taken the Gondians as slaves – and Gond was one of those gods closely associated with Oghma, but all he knew about Oghma in general was that he was somehow the god who guarded all knowledge in this world.

Eventually they came to a stop. The woman drew a rune into the air, and a door appeared. She vanished through it, while Enver was left with the two men who had been in the dungeon with her. Both were seemingly human.

“You will meet the Most Learned and the Patriarch, once you step through the door,” one of them said with a flat voice. “Behave accordingly.”

“What?” Enver spat. “Should I do a curtsy after being bloody kidnapped?”

“You better remember your place,” the other guard said. “And that you stand in front of Oghma, too, who knows all there is to know.”

“Then I wonder what this whole thing is for,” Enver muttered. “If you do already know everything.”

He did not get an answer though, as the door opened a moment later, and he was pushed through it, stepping into what clearly looked like some sort of court. There were five high chairs positioned around the one half of a circle painted on the ground. The highest chair – the one in the middle – was occupied by a man, that was surprisingly big, and surprisingly muscular for a cult of professional nerds. To his left sat a gnomish woman and a human man, while to his right sat an elven man and a human woman, who had dark skin and lavender eyes.

The guards pushed Enver into the middle of the circle, where he finally could no longer help it. He stumbled, falling painfully onto his knees.

Around those five judges – Enver was going to guess those were the Patriarch and the Most Learned – a couple of other people were standing. They wore similar clothes to the people he had seen in Baldur’s Gate. Traditional Sembian garbs. But there were also masks covering their faces, making it impossible to read their expressions.

Enver jerked, when he felt a heavy weight around his wrists looking down on himself. Shackles had appeared there, fashioned seemingly from gold, but inscribed with old runes. Netherese runes, if he was not fully mistaken.

“That is him?” the elf on one of those high chairs asked.

“It is hum,” the human man answered.

The elf looked at Enver with some disgust. “I kinda imagined something… more impressive.”

Enver spat onto the ground. “Well, my dear saer, I am sad to disappoint you. And all of you, you still owe me an answer to what in all nine hells I am doing here.”

“Can’t you figure this out on your own?” the gnome asked. “It was said you were an intelligent man.”

“Is it about the darn crown?” Enver asked. “I do not have it anymore, nor do I know who does.” This was the truth. He knew that Avariel and the useless wizard had somehow gotten it out of the river – but what had happened to it next, he had no idea. It was probably with Mystra, he was going to guess.

“Why would we care about the Crown of Karsus?” the Patriarch asked, his voice heavy and echoing in the room, that seemed at once weirdly big and incredibly small and claustrophobic.

“Collect it, I assume,” Enver said. “It was a new form of magic, right?”

“Idiot,” one of the other High Learned snapped. “Our goals are not quite as simple. The Crown of Karsus is and never was our interest. It had been kept from this plane for the longest time – and has left this plane once more.”

“Great.” Enver looked from one to the other. “Then was it about enslaving the Gondians?”

“Gond himself could have dealt with that crime, had he so chosen,” the Patriarch replied.

Enver tried to get up – but found that these stupid magic shackles were forcing him to keep kneeling. “Great. Than what do you people drag me here from the other end of Faerûn?”

“The magic and technology that has entered this realm because of your doing,” the Patriarch said. “For years and years you sold Infernal magic and technology to the people, only to then further these things, and build upon them, creating automatons and other things that this realm has not seen and was not supposed to see for centuries in time!”

Enver stared at them, trying slowly to understand what they were saying.

Right. Oghmanyte Church of Sembia. Conservative. Did not like knowledge getting loose.

And still, considering all those things he had done – all the death and torture, all the conspiracy and betrayal – he could simply not hold down the laugh that came now over his lips. “Really? That’s your problem? The infernal devices I was selling?”

“The infernal technology and magic, that thanks to you has now made it all the way up the Sword Coast and will be hard to contain,” the human woman said. “Not just that, but you had the Gondian’s of Baldur’s Gate work on this machinery, giving them the knowledge about this technology and how to use it as well.”

“You just said it was not about the Gondians!”

“It is not about the enslavement of the Gondians,” the Patriarch said with a voice firm and loud. “It is about liberating a type of knowledge that might well destroy this world soon!”

This was ridiculous. Even Enver could see that. His own morals were maybe not the most sensible aligned, but this? It was silly. “So what? Technology will advance every so often. And there are connections between the realms. So obviously stuff will seep through one way or another.”

“I think you are not quite aware of the situation you are in, Enver Gortash,” the Patriarch said. “This is an inquisition.”

“Yes, yes,” Enver said. “I have been told that much.”

“And it means, we will decide about your fate.”

A shiver ran down Enver’s spine. “So, what? You will kill me for the crime of being an inventor?” he still snarled, not wanting to show the weakness. He already hated it too much to be forced to kneel in front of them – he would not cower additionally to it.

Of course he did not want to die. Because right now there was no way anything but Bane’s torture or the hells would wait for him – and one was as bad as the other.

“Do you really not understand what your technology will do to the people?” the gnome asked.

“I guess that will depend on the people, will it not?” He looked onto those darn shackles. Darn it, it hated how untalented he was with any natural magic. Yes, he could feel the Weave hum with the magic in those things, but he had no way of reaching out and manipulating it. “I suppose some people could build a weapon with it, yes. Though I can tell you. The Steel Watch soldiers, they will not run just like that. I tried it. I tried to let them run. It did not work without having a living brain control them. Their reactions are too complicated.”

“And yes they were automated,” the elven woman said. “They moved as machines on their own. And another bright mind could easily do something else with them.”

The human woman agreed. “Not only that, but the weapons those machines used, could be used to tear down entire cities.”

“And if they do?” Enver asked. “Is the wizard who once invented the Fireball spell responsible for every person scorched by it?”

“Maybe he is,” the human man said.

Enver scoffed. “Even if it was so. What about the good? The same technology cannot only be used to harm, it can also be used to build. I have been thinking myself to use it to automate pumps in the city. And it could be used to make ships move without wind, magic or rowing. Maybe, with the right adjustments, it could even be made to use things on land!”

“An why would you think that would be a good thing?” The Patriarch looked at him, with what almose seemed like glowing eyes.

“Because…” Enver tried once more to stand up, but did not manage. “Because it could help people!” He had learned well enough to be a politician, so improvising something like this was not that hard. “Just imagine. There are whole months at times, when there is no air movement, so fishers struggle to move out and people will starve for it. If one could make the ship move without it – and without hard to control magic – people would not need to suffer it. And a machine that moves on land, might be used to easier and quicker transport critical goods between cities. They could be used if there was a catastrophe and people needed help. They could also be used to help bring in food from the field, I am sure.”

“Yet, fishers not being bound by the weather will easily overfish the waters,” the human woman said.

“And anything that moves on land, can be used to move armies,” the gnome agreed. “We have seen it happen again and again.”

“Indeed.” The elf seemed to share the same opinion. “Before the power of the teleportation spell was limited, it was abused in endless ways.”

“May I argue that a machine that moves is not the same as a teleportation spell,” Enver replied. “A teleportation spell can bring you even through a wall any anything. A machine is still bound by the laws of physics!”

“And yet it will be easily abused,” the human man said.

“We can promise you, Enver Gortash, you are not the first mortal to come up with such a technology and be stopped in these efforts.” The Patriarch spoke harshly once more. “Quite a few inventors before you were taken here, to make sure the advancement of knowledge was curved. Yet, at the same time you are special, for managing to get so much of this technology into the world, that even we will struggle to bring it all back here.”

“Wait…” Enver looked at them. “So you killed other people for the crime of inventing things you did not want to see out there?”

“No, Enver Gortash,” the elf said. “We did not kill them all. Some we kept with us, allowing them to work and create new knowledge for Oghma. Others we erased the memories of, so that they could return to their life without endangering the world we life in.”

“And you are saying that fishermen fishing on a windless day is endangering the world?” Enver asked sardonically.

“No, you dumb man,” the elf said. “We are saying that a simple mortal mind will never be able to know, before it is too late. The mortal mind lacks the foresight to know when knowledge may help and when it may hinder.”

“So? You are mortal, are you not?”

“We are guided,” the Patriarch said. “We are guided by the golden light of Oghma.”

Chapter Text

“Can’t you at least put me in another cell?” Barcus grunted, as he was shoved back in this one. “You have at least twenty empty ones here!”

Enver sighed. He had been put back here almost four hours ago – with Barcus being gone at the time. No doubt he had been interrogated as well.

While Enver was almost certain that the gnome had only been kidnapped to this place, because he had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, those Oghmanytes certainly would not let go of the opportunity to charge someone else with “liberating knowledge”, or however they were going to call that sin.

Enver guessed he could be glad he had not been tortured. Then again, this clearly never had been about the question of “if” he had committed the crimes he had been charged with, but what his motivation had been.

When the door was closed, Barcus groaned in frustration, before once more cowering down in the corner furthest away from Enver.

Enver meanwhile was also sitting on the ground, despite his entire body protesting against it. But what else was he going to do? He could not stand and there was nothing else here that he would be able to sit on.

He looked over to Barcus, who noticed his gaze and just shot him an angry glare.

Really, all Enver was wondering right now, was why those crazy Oghmanytes had only come now. It had almost been two years since the entire plan had failed. If they care so much about it, why had they not done something earlier? Especially as the time clearly had allowed people to sell around parts of those Steel Watchers around the Sword Coast.

But then again, he had no idea what had happened here in the East for the last two years. So what was he to say?

Again, his gaze shot over to Barcus. “What did they ask you?”

There was no answer for a long while. Then the gnome grunted, skuttling in a way on the floor that his back was to Enver. “I am not talking to you!”

Admittedly, those words stung.

But then again, Enver had always known it. That normal people would not forgive anything he had done, just as he had never once forgiven his parents. The same parents who had somehow managed to get themselves robbed and killed just before the plan had failed…

For a while, he was silent.

He was quite good at self-pity. If nothing else, Lash had managed to get him to admit this much. He was quite good with self-pity. And some part of him wanted to wallow in it. After all, there was little chance for him to get out of here – and get out of here alive. He was hungry, thirsty and bloody miserable, and that was without his chronic pain becoming close to unbearable, without any potion being accessible to him to make it better.

But at least these days, the pragmatist that was somewhere inside of him was ready as well.

“Look, I get that you will gladly join the rest of the bloody city in hating me. But right now, you and I are the only people here, and the only people who can help one another to get out of here,” he said.

“Oh, you want to get out of here?” Barcus asked sardonically. “How do you suppose you do that? Will you ask your godly patron to help you?”

“Bane has abandoned me pretty much as soon as I gave up to fucking Avariel,” Enver grunted.

“I know! Tav told me!”

“Of course he did.”

“That idiot also kept talking about how you did not need to be evil. Because he is clearly the kind of guy who would believe something like that.”

Enver swallowed a comment on this. Because yes, apparently Tav Avariel indeed was that kind of idiot. The bleeding-heart kind of idiot. “Look. It does not matter now. Bane won’t rescue me. Neither will Avariel. So if we want to get out of here, we will have to…”

“What? Work together?” Barcus asked. “Even if we did that. What would it get us? Those locks are clearly magic, and by all my own skills, I am not able to touch the weave. And I am going to assume if you had such an ability, you would have gotten out of here hours ago!”

“Which does not mean we do not get out of here at all.”

“I am rather certain it means exactly that,” Barcus replied.

“Come on now. Six years ago, I managed to break into the vault of Mephistopheles in the hells and get out the Crown of Karsus. Do not estimate me!”

Now the gnome got up and turned around. “Well, congratulations on that. As if it was not what got us into this entire fucking mess!” He really was angry now. “You know, if you just one time would have thought if maybe some other gods might have a trouble with you liberating an artefact that according to all I know once nearly ended this entire world, we would not be here. If you had not tried to build an army of murder machines we would not be here either, for that matter!”

“The entire point of the darn gods is, that they do not personally ever involved in anything,” Enver grunted. “And if these assholes would have come up two years ago, I would have easily been able to deal with them.”

“As you have been able to deal with everything else, eh?” Barcus shot back.

“I had an army!”

“Until you didn’t,” Barcus replied. “Because, how was it? Ah, yes, that disgusting illithid-brain rebelled against you and wanted to kill you, after that half-elf general at Moonrise got slain, right?”

As if the Brain had not even started before. It had worked fine, as long as the Dark Urge had been around. His mind had been steady and determined, together with Ketheric and Enver it had been able to hold against the Brain. But once the Dark Urge had vanished – most likely because he had been killed by Orin – and it had been Orin holding his stone, things had already started to get out of hand. Though obviously it had only gotten worse once Avariel had taken out Ketheric.

“It does not matter,” Enver said. “What matters is, that there is a ton of people with all their own little conspiracies, who manage quite well to get away with it. I mean, do you even know half the stories of Waterdeep and the Thieves’ Guild?”

Again, even standing Barcus was just about on eyelevel with Enver. “So, that is the excuse now? That other people are running around with their own conspiracies?”

“Who even cares why I did what? Again, I am trying to think of a way to get out of here!”

“There is no gods darn way. These maniacs will either erase our minds, keep us or kill us. And I do think that you deserve it – but all I ever did was trying to save a friend, and now…” He kicked against a little rock on the ground, which shot against the wall, before plinging back onto the ground. “Buggers!”

“So, you are just going to give up?” Enver asked. “Didn’t you say, you were, like… The leader of the Ironhand Gnomes in Baldur’s Gate? Do you not have pride in that? Pride to get back to your people at the very least?”

“And then get these Oghmanyte maniacs onto them as well?” Barcus shook his head. “No way.”

“So you really will just give up?”

“I just know where my limits lie,” the gnome said. “I am gnome. I am good with building stuff, good with alchemy, but pretty much useless at everything else. I am neither particularly strong, nor do I have any gift for magic. So yes, Gortash, I know when I am beat. And I am beat right now. So, if you excuse me. I will just sit in my corner and wait for the judgement or whatever to come!” He huffed, before turning around and indeed returning to his corner.

Enver sighed.

Darn it all.

He looked over at the door that did not have an obvious lock and yet could not be opened.

He had tried so much to learn more about how magic was done. He had a basic talent after all. He could feel the weave, but he had just never been properly able to manipulate it without a patron.

Sure, he could do little spells. Those spells a lot of people could do. Summon a flame to light a candle or maybe a heath. So some very basic telekinetic manipulation. But that was all he had ever been able to do without anyone guiding his magic.

Some part of him had always wondered, if Raphael had done something about it. He did not remember if he had been able to manipulate magic and feel the weave, before he had come to hells, but he could also very much see the devil just limit his magic to be dependent on a patron.

Then again, the general idea was, that someone who had some magic potential would be able to use any of the many ways of magic. Be it clerical magic, magic channeled through patron, the formal magic wizards were using, or bardic magic – or that whatever the bards counted to be magic.

Sure, and then there were the sorcerers, who were basically the wunderkinder of magic, but he was not even expecting to be one of them.

He just wanted to be able to properly grasp spells in the way a wizard did. Then he might be able to understand how the darn lock worked and…

His teeth were grinding. He did not want to die here. Nor did he want his mind erased. After all, what was the difference between that and death? Sure, his stupid, useless body would still be around, but everything that made him him would be gone!

And frankly, after having spent first twelve years as a prisoner in hell, and then a whole year under housearrest in Baldur’s Gate, he was not going to just accept to be in a prison once again.

No, he would somehow get out of here.

He had to.

He could not just die, after having given up everything to survive.

Some part of him wondered, if there might be people looking for Barcus already. Maybe the Ironhand Gnomes at least, or maybe even Avariel.

He knew that nobody would look for him. For Enver. Sure, Lash would be worried, and maybe she would look in the city for him. But she was no adventurer, who could get here.

And even those other people… Nobody would guess they were in Sembia, right? Nobody would come all the way out here into the east of Faerûn to find them. Were there even spells that could do that? Sure, a god might be able to, but any tracking spell Enver had ever heard about was fairly limited in radius. You might be able to track someone in a city and its immediate surroundings, but not across a whole continent.

So one way or another: Nobody was going to save them.

He got up, despite his body’s protest, and moved over to the door. He tried rattling it, of course to no avail. He tried to feel for any physical mechanism to be manipulated, but he could find nothing. Hells! There should be hinges somewhere, but he could not see them or feel them. Were those magic, too? Or was it maybe the entire right bar of the barred door moving?

He was not certain. One way or another, there was nothing physical for him to manipulate.

Even though his knees were already begging him to sit down once again, but he tried to sense the magic in the darn door. He somewhat could feel it. There was a low hum somewhere caught in the metal. So this was not a mere spell, but the iron was imbued with the magic.

But whatever it was, he could not just undo it.

“Just give up,” Barcus grumbled. “Neither of us is going to get out of here, unless those folks let us.”

“Well, I am sorry, but I am not going to just die, after everything I have fucking gone through to live,” Enver said. “If you just want to give up, be my guest. But at least allow me to at least try to save my own hide.”

“That was all it ever was about, wasn’t it? Your own hide.”

Enver looked at the gnome, but in the end he just grunted, before returning to his attempt to understand the mechanism keeping the door shut. Because he just was not going to give up that easily. Not if giving up meant his certain doom.

Chapter Text

There was a certain kind of relief flooding Enver, as he found himself in a familiar location. While the air around him was heavy with fumes, that were so horrific, it made him wish that his sense of smell did not work at all. But at least the place was familiar, even though he did not quite remember why he was here – and how he had gotten here.

Still, he was relieved, wasn’t that funny?

No. Wait. It was not funny at all. Now that he thought about it. He had been kidnapped, hadn’t he? Yes. Oghma. Oghmanytes. The exiled church of Sembia. He had been kidnapped, and the last thing he did remember was being held in a small cell somewhere under… well, whatever kind of temple that church was using.

So… Why was he now in the sewers of Baldur’s Gate?

Was this a dream? It was probably a dream. But at least one, in which he could be aware that he was dreaming.

He drew in a deep breath, coughing a moment later as he regretted it. He chocked, but then started move. Somehow he knew where to go. And it was a way, that over the years he had walked so many times.

Why? Why was his mind drawing him here now? Even if it was a dream, where it should save… He knew if he went there in the real world, he would be killed. He would be killed for certain. But here, in this dream reality…

It was a dream, wasn’t it? The stink of the sewers felt quite real, and yet…

He hesitated, and looked down on himself. He was his old self. The person he had been a good five years ago. Before things had gone downhill. Yes, this had to be a dream. A dream, or the last five years had never happened.

If only.

He just followed his instinct, walking the hidden paths and narrow corridors, until he got to the door that was hidden from plain eyes and could only be revealed by blood. But it was revealed to him.

Why? Why was he here? In the hidden temple of Bane?

He hesitated in front of that open door. He hesitated for a long while. He knew that if any of this was real, Bane would want revenge. For him giving up. For him failing. But…

He still entered.

A shiver ran down his spine as he entered the now empty temple. Oh, he remembered this place. He remembered it. He remembered watching so many be tortured and killed. Ha, he remembered doing the torture and killing himself. After all, he had been chosen by Bane – or maybe by circumstance – and as such the honor of doing some of the killings in the Black Hand’s name had fallen to him.

He remembered once having had second thoughts about this. Yes. He remembered being hesitant to kill, when he had not yet killed anyone outside of self-defense.

Ha. Now he did not even remember how many he had killed. But he remembered delighting in some of those killings.

He walked among the benches surrounding the altar in a half-circle. Another shiver ran down his back, when he remembered the sacrifices being brought here. Whoever his fellow brothers and sisters in the faith had caught at the time. Men. Women… Children, too.

It had not mattered. They all had to die. They all had to fear the Black Hand.

“So, you have come back here after all,” a cold, snarling voice said from the shadows further back in the room.

It made Enver almost jump, as he turned around, trying to see the person speaking.

“Come on now, you do know my voice, Enver Flymm, Cobbler Boy.” Cold eyes looked at him from the dark.

And indeed, Enver knew the voice, though he had not heard it in almost a year. That had been the last time Bane had spoken to him in a dream, trying to mock him, trying to take his soul before it was his time.

“I am not dead yet,” Enver said, stumbling backwards just a bit.

“Indeed you are not, Cobbler Boy,” the god replied, mocking him with the same nickname the devil had once given him.

“Then why are you here?”

“No. No. You have that question wrong. The right question is, why are you here?”

Enver took a couple more steps back, because he knew rather well, that gods could very much control dreamscapes, even if their influence on the physical realm had been limited by Ao.

Yet, as he was stumbling backwards, he ran into what felt like a wall, and when he turned around, the god was once more standing in front of him. A big, and muscular humanoid, with a face, that looked like a mask, and hands that were smoking black, like coal out of a fire. As he was standing there, the god grew in size, grabbing Enver by the arm, before he could evade again.

“I called, and you came, Cobber Boy,” the god growled, his voice now deeper, echoing from this underground cathedral.

“I…”

“You are desperate, Cobbler Boy. I know it. I rule fear, and I have felt your fear. You are still too much of a coward to die, aren’t you?”

“I am not a coward. I simply refuse to die,” Enver spat, while the god was now lifting him off the ground by his wrists. 

“Of course you are.” Bane was chuckling now. “And yet, you are a bit in a trap, aren’t you?”

“I will figure out a way, just as I figured out a way of hell.”

“Hoping another devil comes by to make a deal with, you mean?”

“There are mortals too you can make deals with,” Enver said, trying to pull himself loose, but the god’s grip was like iron.

“And then what, little Cobber Boy?” Bane asked. “Then what? Do you really think you can redeem your soul in any way? Do you really think there is anything else waiting for you past your death but the hells or my torture chambers?”

“I am not giving up yet,” Enver grunted.

The god let go of his wrist, letting Enver fall. And fall he did. He was falling, falling, falling, through an endless darkness, while the god controlled his dream too much for him to wake up. He screamed, despite not wanting to, trying to find something, reach for something, stop his fall. But there was nothing. Nothing but endless darkness – until the god’s black hand caught him again, this time big enough to grab around his entire body.

“What if I gave you a chance for it?” Bane said.

“A chance for what?”

“Redemption, Cobbler Boy. Redemption.”

Now it was Enver’s turn to laugh. He wanted it to be a harsh laugh, but instead it was a rather sad one. “What kind of redemption could the god of tyranny offer me?”

“Redemption in my eyes,” Bane replied. “A way for me to claim you, and not punish you for your failure.”

“Why would I ever believe you? You already abandoned me once.”

“I abandoned a loser,” Bane said, his voice harsh. “But I can give you another chance.”

“A chance to do what, exactly?” Enver growled.

“A chance to spread terror in my name,” Bane replied. He laughed, before putting Enver down in front of what was a giant throne. “I know where you are right now, Cobbler Boy. And this is quite convenient to me, you see? Because those accursed Oghmanytes have been collecting quite a lot of interesting spells, machinery and alchemy for centuries now.”

Enver properly cleaned up his coat. Then his eyes narrowed. “You want me to steal something for you.”

“At least about that you did not lie, did you? You are a clever one given you are merely the son of cobblers, aren’t you?”

Enver looked at the god’s horrifying face, and considered his options. Bane could keep him in this dream, but technically could not harm him, Eventually the god would get bored and let him wake up. But this only would mean for Enver to return to that dungeon, in which he was caught.

He hesitated.

Of course he knew quite well, that Bane was right. There was no real chance for redemption. Yes, Enver had not lied when he had told Ravengard, that he wanted it. But he knew that it was a senseless fantasy. Something that never was going to happen. He was a useless man, with a useless body. He did not have magic, and there was little he could do to undo any of the harm he had caught. And most people would never forgive him, no matter whether he was regretful or not.

And the truth was, that most of those things… He did not regret them. Because he knew, that everyone else would have done the same fucking thing, if they had been in his shoes. He had had no choice but to trade with the weapons, as he escaped from hells as a nobody without even so much as a family to return to. He had had no choice but to make those deals with Zariel, after already owing her court a dept. He had had no choice, but to join Bane, once he was already a chosen.

Who would have done differently? Who?

As much as he wished it was differently. He knew redemption had never really been an option.

He did not really know how death would come and be done – but he knew that he did not want to be tortured till the end of eternity.

People would still hate him. The one thing he had not wanted. He had wanted them to see him as a hero. But if he had to be the villain… Well, maybe he could at least be a successful villain.

He hated this. He hated Bane. He hated this entire fucking situation. And more than that, he hated himself. But in the end he grunted. “Alright. What is it that you want, and how do I get it?”

The grin on Bane’s face revealed horrific fangs for teeth. “I knew I could count on you, Cobbler Boy.” He leaned down, opening his hand. “All I need it this simple scroll.” An illusion of it appeared. A scroll that seemed to be about two foot in length, with metal clamps on each end, and a crest pushed onto those. A crest of a skull surrounded by four arms.

Yeah, that looked charming indeed.

Still, he memorized the design, before looking at Bane. “Alright, now show me how I can get there.”

Enver shot up from his sleep, sitting up on the hard stone floor of the dungeon. He looked around in the dim twilight surrounding him, wondering if it was night or day.

But then he heard something. A creak. And as he looked at the door of the cell, it was just a little bit ajar.

Could that have been Bane’s doing? It had to have been. Technically speaking gods could not extent their powers to the domains of another deity – which also included the other gods temples. But it might be that these dungeons were actually not blessed by Oghma?

Enver was not sure. But either way. He would take the chance that he got.

He remembered that scroll, that Bane had shown him. And he remembered the way to the Oghmanyte archive. Even though he also knew quite well, that it would be a test for him to see if he would manage to get there or not.

But darn it, he had to try. It was better than sitting around and waiting for death.

He groaned once more, as he got up. Other than in his dream, his body was still quite frail and screamed against the movement – especially after having slept on the cold stone floor twice. And yet, he pushed himself up and stumbled over to the door.

Then he hesitated, as he saw the gnome sleeping there.

Fuck.

He knew that no matter what he did, Barcus would probably still hate him. Again, barely anyone would understand the way Avariel or Lash were thinking. Hells, Enver did not understand it. But in the end, it was his fault, that the gnome had ended up here to begin with.

There was a long moment, but then he tipped against the gnome’s knee with his foot. “Barcus,” he hissed. “Barcus!”

The gnome jerked away, his wide. “What in the name of…” He stared at Enver. “What do you wake me for?”

Enver did not answer, but opened the door, looking left and right once outside the cell.

“What?” Barcus clearly needed a moment to understand what he was seeing. “How?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” Enver said. “We need to get out of here.”

“But… If we try to… We will be caught and then…”

Enver turned around to the gnome. “Then what? Then they will kill us even more than they already want to? Look, either you come with me, or you don’t. But I am not waiting here to die.”

“But… I mean…” The gnome stood there still inside the cell, while Enver already started walking – despite the protest his knees were giving.

“Damn it,” Barcus finally hissed, before starting to follow him.

Chapter Text

“Gortash!” Barcus hissed in the twilight behind Enver. “Gortash! Will you stop?”

“Stop and do what?” Enver hissed back. “Wait for them to come around to kill us? Or erase our memories?”

“How did you open that door?”

“Doesn’t matter now.” Enver was fairly certain that it had been a thing that Bane had allowed to happen – but if it had been Bane, it was most certainly better for Barcus to not know anything about it.

He tried to focus, counting his steps. Because this dungeon was more complicated than he had originally assumed. Admittedly, he was not fully sure if he was doing it right, but after twenty-nine steps, he turned left towards that inner wall, that for him obviously did not just open into a door and staircase.

There was a trick to it, though. And it was not a spell, because all Oghmanytes – no matter whether they had the gift or not – could move to these places. Enver only had to find out what it was, as even Bane had not known that.

Ha. Even Bane. As if Bane was intelligent. He was cunning, maybe, but not intelligent. Mostly he was cruel and strong, but it was the intelligence that Enver was gifted with.

He looked to Barcus. “Stand exactly here.”

“Why would I?”

“Because I need to know this place,” Enver said. “I need a torch – and you are too small to reach them.”

“What would you need a torch for?”

“To see better in the dark,” Enver replied.

The gnome scoffed. “Ah, I forgot. You do not even have that, have you?”

“Just stand here, alright? If you do not want to stay in the darn dungeon for the rest of your life.”

Barcus grimaced at this, yet went to the position he had been shown, while Enver picked one of the torches from the wall. They were clearly somehow enchanted or created from a material that would burn forever.

At least it would allow him to see better at the wall.

When he had been lead to that sham-trial, the door seemingly had opened on its own, but there had to be a trick to it. Maybe the people had a sort of amulet that could open a mechanism, or someone had been inside opening it, or… He was not sure. But he had to find it out.

He looked at the masonry of the wall, running his fingers over it. He was looking for stones that were somehow different. After all, he had seen too many hidden doors in his life, to not go for the obvious solution first. Stones that were movable or had a button or keyhole hidden underneath.

“If they find we are out of the cell, they will kill us for certain,” Barcus noted.

“Come on now,” Enver replied. “They are going to kill us one way or another. It does not matter what we do.”

“This is not going to help our case!”

“So what?” Enver turned to him. “By the nine fucking hells, you are the one idealizing darn Avariel so much. Do you think that idiot would keep sitting in a darn cell? The asshole got Ravengard and the darn Gondian hostages out of the Iron Dome, despite being warned about it.”

“I mean… Maybe. But… I mean. He had the others and… They were not us!”

“Thanks for that confidence,” Enver muttered sardonically before returning his attention to the wall, still trying to find a clue or anything that would help him get through.

He was fairly certain that the staircase inside was still enchanted in some way. Just that the enchantment was inside the staircase and not created by whoever was using it.

Just what… His gaze glid over the stonework. How had it been activated as they had been several steps from the place?

Suddenly, there was a click, and then a low rumble.

Enver jerked, stumbling backwards, but it was Barcus who explained.

“The switch was in the floor.” He had his foot on a spot in the floor, that had clearly been moved a lot.

Enver had to admit, that this made sense, but he did not comment on it.

Holding onto the torch, he started up that darn staircase. Yes, once more his knees were protesting against it, but he tried to keep going as long as he could. He was not going to get better if he kept down in that darn dungeon.

Still, he needed to rest a couple of times, sweat once more running over his face, as he was making his way up.

His clothes were dirty and disgusting by now, not helped by the fact that the sleeves were still oily. What wouldn’t he give for some fresh clothes and a hot bath? But that would have to wait until he had escaped this fucking dungeon and found the archive.

Again, he tried to remember what Bane had shown him. Because he knew he needed to get to that archive. If he escaped this place without that scroll, it would not help him at all. Bane would not suffer him failing another time. As such he once more was trying to count the steps. And it was at two hundred and forty-six that he stopped, once more turning to the side.

Indeed, the mechanism here was less hidden than in the dungeon. When he moved the torch, Netherese runes were lighting up on the stones of the wall. And given how much he had studied those writing about Karsus, his Netherese was fairly good. It took him maybe a couple of minutes to figure out the right combination – but soon enough the wall disappeared, opening to a long corridor.

“How do you know where we need to go?” Barcus inquired.

“Would you rather I didn’t? Making us wander here for the rest of eternity?”

“I would not be here if it was not for you.”

“Well, and you will not get out here if not for me,” Enver replied. He moved out in the hallway that had opened up to them. This one was not too dissimilar to the one they had found before the room where the trial had been held. Again the air was heavy with magic, but other than humming, it was different here. Like a sort of electricity hanging in the air, ready to strike any moment as a lightning if they just made the wrong move.

It made sense, of course. There would be traps here, given that these Oghmanytes were quite afraid of people liberating their precious knowledge.

Already Barcus wanted to step into the hallway, but Enver held him back. “There are magic traps here.”

“So you say,” Barcus grumbled.

“Yes, I say so. And if nothing else, you should know that I know about traps.” After all, he had spent most of his adult life tinkering with them.

Admittedly, the traps he had built had never been really magical in nature. Sure, there was at times some magic in them, but not in the way that they were largely reliant on magic. He had a feeling that this was going to be different.

His eyes darted from one side of the hallway to the other – and he could already see one magic. Because the more he was looking, the harder it seemed to say how wide that hallway actually was. Something was messing with his senses.

But there was something at the wall. It was hidden from plain sight, but when he looked at it from the corner of his eyes, he could see it shimmer.

That was a trap – question was where the trigger was.

He tried the same technique. Looking at things from the corners of his eyes, and found a tight net of runes on parts of the floor.

Alright. He would be able to deal with that. He hoped.

There was something about this, though, that seemed weird. There was so much Netherese around.

He guessed in one way it made sense. Sembia and its neighboring kingdom Cormanthyr were now located, where Netheril had once been. Of course, Netheril was more like a myth to mortals than a place that felt real. Yes, some parts of it had made their way back into this realm. And yes, he knew for a fact that Netheril had been real – given that it had been the place, where Karsus had once created his crown – and he had once held that crown in his own hands. But something about this was strange to him.

He really was not one of the learned kind. He was not a wizard by any means, who understood the intricacies of the weave, but something about the way these spells had been created was off.

“So, what now?” Barcus asked.

“Just step wherever I am stepping,” Enver muttered – and hoped that would do it.

He was careful as he moved into the corridor, trying to keep away from those triggers. Yet, the sensation of walking across this corridor was anything but good. His senses seemed to be under attack by some other magic, as he was feeling dizzy, and the corridor seemed to get longer and longer.

He knew this kind of spell. While he had never been able to cast anything like this, he knew how it was constructed in general. It could easily be circumvented by just closing one’s eyes, but he did that, he would no longer know, where he was stepping.

Yet, as long as he did not know his distance, he would also fail to find the right way.

Looking downwards, the tried to keep focused on those purple runes, rather than anything else, walking slowly, carefully. Just one step after the other. He could not fail. Because darn it, he refused to accept the fate that otherwise would wait for him.

At least there were no guards.

Right. No guards. Which in of itself was strange enough, wasn’t it? But then again, he guessed that a lot of knowledge was purely protected by all sorts of magic and traps. Who would need guards in those cases?

He inched further ahead, further, and then…

Click.

“What was that?” Barcus whispered.

Enver did not move. He looked down – only to see that one of the marble stones on the floor had given way by maybe a quarter of an inch.

Right.

Not only magic traps. He should have expected that.

“Hells,” he whispered, not moving his foot. He breathed slowly. And then he turned to Barcus. “Change of plans. We run.”

“What?”

“Run!” It was not as if he liked it either.

He moved his foot and started running – not that he had ever been very good with it. Even before he had gained all that darn weight, he had been a bad runner. But with the weight and his lack of any training for the last two years? Yeah, running was a bad idea.

All the joints in his legs and feet were screaming at him, as he was trying to get down the corridor.

There were more clicks, and there were other sounds, that he did not like at all. He could feel the heat swell behind him – but he knew that turning around would be a death sentence.

Getting any clue about distances was a senseless concept now, and all he could do was trust some instinct, not that it had done him good in the past. He kept sprinting, sprinting, sprinting, while thinks moved just past him and the heat seemed to become unbearable. Then, at some arbitrary point, he turned just right, despite knowing there was nothing but another wall.

But that was the thing they were using here the entire time. Doors hidden in walls. Somewhere here was a door. But if it was protected with another hidden lock or something, he clearly did not have the time to unlock it.

There was some other instinct inside of him urging him to slow down.

“What in the nine hells are you doing?” Barcus shouted, just as they were about to collide with the darn wall – only that they didn’t.

They passed through it, as if it was not even really there.

Okay, that… was indeed easier to deal with than a hidden lock or something along those lines.

Enver leaned forwards, his hands on his knees as he was trying to find his breath again, while Barcus was turning towards him. “You almost got us killed!”

“Almost,” Enver panted. “That is the right word. Almost.” He was still breathing slowly.

“And now what?” Barcus asked.

“Now we… We find the archives,” Enver said.

“What archives?”

“The archives of Oghma,” Enver replied. “We… I… We need something from there to get out.”

“Do we now? And what do we need?”

“A… A scroll.” Enver still was breathing heavily. “I…”

“How would you even know that?”

“I just know, alright?” Enver replied.

The gnome looked at him with anger in the eyes. “And then what?”

“Then we get out.”

“Right.”

“Well, do you have any better plan?”

“I…” Barcus clearly was grinding his teeth. “Not right now.”

“Then, you are welcome to stay here. But I am going further with my plan.” Enver started to move down the about four yards wide corridor he was standing inside of now. It was not a long one, and at least there was no spell messing with his vision now.

Only that after a moment, he noticed something else.

Heavy steps echoing from somewhere. Really heavy steps.

“What the…” He became slower, as he moved forward, just as he came to a crosssection to see two giant things move towards him. Two giant forms that were so strangely familiar.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Barcus whined as he looked from one Steel Watchmen to the other.

“I…” Enver was not even sure what to answer. “I…” He wondered, who had cursed him.

Chapter Text

“Of course they have those things!” Barcus looked from the corridor that lay behind them to what lay ahead, clearly calculating his chances of running in either direction.

Oh course. Indeed. Of course.

After the entire Netherbrain incident, it had taken a good month before the Flaming Fists had had the city mostly under control. Between Avariel and his ilk taking down the darn factory, and order returning to the city it had been a good forty days total, in which pretty much any enterprising individual would have been able to collect the pieces of any of the Steel Watchers, and sell them to… Who knew whom?

Admittedly, yes, Enver could see how that was a problem – but it was not his darn problem. After all, it was not him who had been responsible for returning order to the city! If Ravengard and his folks were incapable of doing that, well, this was very much on them, right?

One of the Steel Watchers drew a long glowing sword, and Enver knew rather well, that he did not want to find out whether the Oghmanytes indeed had managed to get them to work.

He, too, looked back. But they could not go into that boobytrapped corridor. No, if anything they needed to move ahead.

“Run!” he hissed, before doing exactly that.

Even now his entire bloody body was protesting against it. He was panting and his sides were hurting, while his joints were screaming in pain. But he knew that this was still better than death. Even though he also knew that these things would be faster than him. They were faster than most humanoids.

“How… How are they even…” Barcus was panting too, as he was sprinting along the corridor. “How… How are they running? Couldn’t they not just… be… made to work… some brain in a tank?”

Right. Indeed, that was the issue.

This technology like so many of his was based roughly on infernal designs. But while in the hells there were a thousand and type of devils that could operate all sorts of machinery, this had not been true in the real world.

His original idea had once been to bind elemental spirits to them, but he had found out in quite the explosive manner that it would not work. And then he had learned how to harvest a brain in a way, that it could accept the mechanical body as its own.

But that meant, that either there was a brain somewhere for each of those things to control them – or the Oghmanytes had indeed found a way to anchor a spirit into them.

He did not put either method past them. They were clearly insane after all. But it seemed a whole lot more likely that they…

“Rocks and brittle!” Barcus was cussing, as they were running towards another wall as the corridor seemingly ended in a dead end.

“It is some of trick,” Enver replied. Though he had not seen this in the vision Bane had shown him.

The gnome came to a stop in front of the wall, his shoulders moving with each pant. “So? We do not… have time…”

Which was a good argument. Indeed. They did not have any time to figure this out.

Once more Enver felt reminded of the fact, that he clearly was cursed. Something or someone had cursed him on the day of his birth, probably. Maybe it had been his own useless parents. He was not certain. But hells, he had made it this far!

He turned back, where those automatons were now coming towards him. Just like he had designed them. Elegant perfection, frankly.  He had wanted to at some point create them as armors controlled by a person on the inside. That way even he could have engaged in physical combat. But now…

One of those things had an axe, the other a sword that was glowing orange with heat.

“Just why…” Barcus whimpered, as both machines raised their weapons.

Enver knew rather well that the two of them were not the kind of combatants, who could take out even one of those things. Especially not without weapons. But he refused to give up and simply die. Not now. Not yet. Not that he was so close.

His ribs were still hurting from his uneven breath.

If those things were powered by brains in jars – like he had used – there needed to be a device still amplifying those signals. And if there was a spirit in each suite of armor, there needed to be an anchor.

Spirits in general tended to hate being bound, and had to be kept with proverbial chains.

If only he was a proper mage. If only he knew how to loosen such a spell. But he didn’t. And now…

The weapons came racing towards them, and frankly, Enver did not even know himself how he managed to throw himself aside just in time to evade. He landed hard on the ground though. Not with the easy roll that those knightly heroes would manage, but like a toad tossed to the ground.

He tried to fight himself up onto his feet once more, even though he knew it was senseless. This was a fight – and one of the sorts that he could not win.

“Oh!” That was Barcus, who was shouting now. “Gortash!”

Enver turned his head, but the gnome was pointing onto the ground. “What is it?”

“I think it is another trap!” Barcus kept pointing to a point just by the left metal foot of one of the two machines.

And then Enver saw it too. One of the stones in the ground seemed to ever so slightly move as the automaton adjusted its balance – meaning the stone was loose. And that could mean…

Enver hated this. He hated this so much.

He was not fast. He was not strong. But right now he at the very least was heavier than the gnome, and a lot more likely to trigger whatever trap.

He did not even know how he managed to pull himself onto his feet, but he knew what he had to do.

Again the weapons were slashing through the air, as he stumbled, rather than jumped, forward, and managed to put his foot onto that darn loose stone.

He heard a click. And then a rumble.

It was a pure instinct that made him stumble backwards towards the dead end they had ended up against a moment before, while the stones underneath the Steel Watchmen’s feet became all suddenly quite loose. A moment later a hole opened up beneath those automations. A hole, that was growing, with stones falling into the black darkness underneath, the hole coming towards Enver and Barcus now…

It stopped though. It stopped. Leaving them with not quite two feet of room before the wall.

Enver was still sweating. His heart was beating so hard, that he could feel it in his mouth. Hah, it was throbbing in his ears so loudly, that he could barely hear anything else. And that dark hole in the ground that had opened? Well, he preferred to not look into that seemingly endless darkness there.

Barcus did clearly not feel that different from him. He was panting, too, pressing himself against the wall. “Now… Now what?”

Admittedly, that was a good question. But Enver knew there was a hidden door here somewhere. And all they had to do was figure out how to open it.

Right.

He just needed a moment. A long, long moment. To breathe. Mostly just to breathe.

By the fucking gods, he just wanted to have things that went easy at least once in his fucking life. But of course that was just… That was never how it would it go.

He still looked into the black darkness, before inhaling slowly.

“Alright…” He had to do this. He had to do this. He was still alive after all.

He moved carefully on the ground he had, trying to get a better look of the wall he was leaning again.

There was a trick here. He knew there would be. He only had to find out how it went.

At first glance, the wall seemed to be firm and rock and white, but he knew it was some sort of trick. It looked perfect in the first moment, but it was this perfection that made it unreal. This was just another form of spell, wasn’t it?

Yes. When he closed his eyes and ran his hand over the wall, he could feel the weave vibrate underneath his fingers.

This was a spell.

“Gortash?” Barcus asked, clearly nervous and annoyed. “Do you…”

“Just wait a darn moment,” Enver snarled, before moving his hand further along the wall, until he finally found what he was looking for.

He could not even describe it – but the weave felt different there. It was a knot in the fabric of the magic. Now, he was not a very capable mage or anything, but even he could do this. Even he could feel that knot and open it, making the fell fall about – and him stumble forwards.

“How…” Barcus clearly decided against actually asking that question. Instead he walked into that last bit of corridor that ended in a rather unassuming door.

Enver, too, moved towards the door, knowing that he had finally found it. The Archive.

He allowed himself another deep breath, before he put his hand onto the door knob. Then he actually opened it, almost surprised there was not one last trap waiting.

The door opened to not a room, but a hall that was higher than eyes could see, and wider than he could make out. Endless shelves lined this hall row after row, filled with scrolls, with books, with instruments, with a variety of things and machines, with chained spirits of sorts and many, many other things. Things he could not even name.

“What in the name of…” Barcus took a step forward. “What kind of place is this?”

Enver looked around. “Oh, Raphael would have fucking loved this…” He knew this was true. If Raphael had known of this place… But he had probably known. Heck, knowing Raphael the fucking devil had tried to rob something from here at some point.

But he clearly had not succeeded.

Meanwhile Enver was here. He had actually made it inside.

He smirked. Oh, what kind of miraculous things could be found here. If he had the time, he would love to go through it all, and find something worth his while.

Darn, he was tempted to do it.

But…

No. He needed to get out of here. Because sooner or later there would be Oghmanytes looking for them and no matter how tempting all this knowledge was, he had to get out and fulfill his promise to Bane.

And he knew where the thing he was looking for was.

With a somewhat firm step, he went between those shelves, trying to easily stride forward. He wanted to sit – no, lie! – down, but he could not for now. For now he would need this scroll and then he had to get out of here.

“What… Where are we?” Barcus asked, following Enver, who did not answer.

He could not explain to the gnome that they were doing this for Bane, could he now? No, better he was silent.

“I thought we were escaping.”

“We are escaping,” Enver said. “We just need a small little thing from here, before we do.”

He kept going onwards for what felt like half a mile at least, walking past books, spirits, machines and so many things that did not even make sense to his eyes, let alone his mind.

The entire Archive was filled with a strange glimmering light, that was barely enough to see by, but did feel somewhat right.

And then… It was a feeling more than anything else. He knew it was close. He knew he was right. His eyes were now drifting along the shelf to his right. More books, and scripts and scrolls. Oh, there were so many scrolls here. But then he saw it. The right one. The one with the strange symbol of a skull and arms on the end of it. It was lying nearly three yards up – but he instantly recognized it from his vision.

He stopped in his step, considering how he could get it.

“What now?” Barcus growled.

“That,” Enver said. “We need that scroll to get out of here.”

“That? There is a lot of scrolls there.”

Enver sighed, and pointed upwards. “The one with the simple metal end and the skull symbol. In the sixth’s shelf from the ground.”

Barcus was squinting now. His expression became even more grim, as he saw the scroll. “If we get that thing… Do we actually get out of here?”

“Yes,” Enver said. “If I have this, I can get us out of here.” Unless Bane had lied – something that he could not put past his former patron.

Barcus sighed, but then he nodded. “Fine.” With that he reached out and started to climb up the shelf.

While the gnome man was small and clearly not very strong, it seemed that he at least was quite adapt in climbing, as he reached that shelf rather quickly. “If I throw this down, will it explode?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Enver said.

Barcus gave a heavy sigh, but then he let the scroll fall to the ground, allowing Enver to catch it.

The parchment felt strange underneath his fingers. It felt soft, but also strangely cold.

He looked at the parchment and then… He felt something else. A familiar touch against his actual being. He felt a power flood through him, he had not felt in a good two years. Bane’s power. Not quite as strongly as he had felt it while sitting on that throne – but it was there. And for now it was his.

There was a familiarity to it. A soothing. It even seemed to lessen the pains in his body, or maybe he was just imagining it.

And then…

Yes, he knew how to get out of here. He knew how to get to his master.

Chapter Text

“Why are we back on the bloody stairs?” Barcus asked, his voice a hiss. “I thought you knew how to get out here!”

“You are welcome to find your own way,” Enver grumbled. He really did not want to put up with this any longer. He continued to move down the stairs, knowing somehow that he would find a way out here eventually. He was not quite sure, what he was looking for, but he knew that it would be somewhere.

The darkness around them was almost complete – and that torch he had had, he had long lost by now. But eventually there was something. A shimmer in the wall, that Enver’s left hand continued touching as they moved down the spiral staircase.

It was a similar trick like before when they had left the staircase – and as such was easily replicated.

He managed to open this door as well and smelled… something. A somewhat moldy scent. But it was not the only thing that he noticed. Because he could hear water pitching not too far away.

He carefully moved away from the stairs, before remembering something.

Slowly he drew in a deep breath, before focusing the energy. While he knew the incantation, he had never once managed even this simple spell without borrowing someone else’s power. But now? Now it was almost easy. “Ignis.” A little flame flickered to life in the palm of his hand.

“What? Where is this coming from now?” Barcus had stepped out of the staircase behind him as well, and was now staring at the flame with a rather incredulous gaze.

“It does not matter,” Enver said. He moved further away from that door or portal that had opened only to hear the rockface close up behind him. He was in some sort of cave, though he was fairly certain that this cave was underneath something else and not just in some mountain side.

The ground was fairly flat, which at least was one good thing. It made it easier to move around. Though Enver really would have loved to stop moving by now. He wanted to lie down for fuck’s sake. Still, he would need to get out of here first. And then… He was not sure. He had no real money on him, as clearly whoever had kidnapped them had taken basically anything from him. The hidden knife, his cane, money, and pretty much anything else. But it could not matter now. Because if he got lost in these thoughts, he would just end up giving up, and if he gave up, he had already lost.

He drew another deep breath. Right.

The cave was fairly wide, but moved on to both his left and his right. He decided on the left this time, because it felt somehow more right. He was not sure.

“Would you answer me please?” Barcus complained, while following him.

“Answer to what?”

“You do not have magic. You are not supposed to have magic! You did not have magic before, or you would have used magic to get us… I mean… This… Here is something happening, and I do not know what, and frankly I do not like it!”

“You do not need to like it,” Enver said. “In fact, you do not need to come along with me, if you do not want to. By all means, go off somewhere else and do… whatever a gnome is going to do. I am fairly certain there is way to get to the Underdark from here or something along those lines. And I am certain, you will be much happier there, far away from someone like me.”

“I am pretty sure I will be!” Barcus stomped on the ground and crossed his arms. “Because you are right. You are horrible. And you are a liar.”

“Believe me, I have been called much worse before,” Enver replied, before turning to go.

He could feel a certain disappointment, but he knew he had just given into false hopes. Of course nobody would want to be friends with him, if they knew who he was. Well, nobody but Lash, he guessed, and something told him that Lash would also have her reservations if he actually ended up serving Lord Bane once more.

In some way he wished there was another option, but if he was being realistic, the only other option would be to suffer for all eternity. And he… He had already suffered enough in his stupid life.

He needed to find out where this cave exactly was, and then he would find a way out, and then he would earn back his place. Maybe Bane could also make the pain go away. He had been able to do so the last time around – at least once they had had the stupid crown. It had not been perfect, but it had been a lot easier to just exist without it being the first thing on his mind.

He sighed.

Of course he technically was too weak for a chosen of Bane, wasn’t he? Bane preferred those with combat powess. People who knew how to hold their own in battle in some way. Enver was willing to bet that in another universe – one where Karlach had not decided to still do all this pure-hearted shit – she might have made for a good follower of Bane. She was a skilled fighter and only had become better during her time in the hells. Not that she was ever going to thank him for it.

Again he felt this something. This stupid feeling in his chest. As if someone was putting a needle in there, making it even harder to breathe than it already was.

Darn it. Karlach just did not know what was good for her. And because of that she would never properly thank him.

Short, but quick steps sounded behind him. He did not have to look around to see that it was Barcus following him.

“Oh,” he now said mockingly. “Does it turn out the villain is actually good enough?”

“I need light,” Barcus grumbled. “I can see in the dark, but not good enough. Believe me, I am going to go into whatever other direction there is, as soon as we are out here.”

“Do whatever you want.” Enver moved further.

He noticed that the smell in the air was dense. It was of mold and wet rock, but there was another thing that was mixing with it. While the scent of mold and rock was natural, there was something a lot more stringent and a lot less natural. A scent, though, that was sadly quite familiar to Enver, who had spent too much time in Baldur’s Gates sewers.

This made sense, too. The sewers of the Gates was also connected to some natural cave systems.

As much as his knees would allow him, he accelerated his steps, as the ground sloped downwards.

“What is that smell?” Barcus grunted.

But Enver did not reply. Why even try to make conversation, when the gnome was going to hate him either way.

Enver moved forward, seeing now the first human made things just at the edge of where the light was reaching. Good. He knew how to navigate sewers. Sure, those here in Sembia – whatever city of the realm they might be in – would maybe be different from the Gates. But he was fairly certain that the general rules would apply.

He wondered though, if he should just try and get to the street level and hope to get out of the city like that – or if it would be better to get out of the city underground?

Oghma. Oghma was the god of knowledge, though given how different the two churches of Oghma were, Enver was not fully certain whether the god actually supported the Church of Sembia. After all, the gods could be quite fickle.

But if there was any spell in the church, he was fairly certain that those people would be able to find him, as long as he was close by.

He looked at the parchment roll that he still was carrying underneath his arm, wondering what was in there that Bane would forgive him for. But in the end this did not matter either. All that mattered was Bane’s forgiveness.

There, finally. Enver could see masonry, that was now forming the side of somewhat even tunnels. This work was older than the sewers of Baldur’s Gate, that much he could tell, but in the end it was still not too dissimilar.

“Great,” Barcus muttered, as he looked into the river between that was quite smelly and had some rather disgusting things on top.

Again Enver kept quiet. He tried to orient himself.

Enver knew certain things though: If there was a sewer it meant that the wastewater was flowing somewhere and that somewhere was probably outside of the city, as there was little sense in sewers if the waste was remaining within the city walls. So, by this theory as long as they went into the same direction the water flowed, they would eventually get out of here, no matter how labyrinthian the sewers at first might appear.

He decided that was as good as a plan as any, turning right now and crossing a stone arch to get to the other side of the waste river. He would see where all of this would eventually lead.

Ha, there was almost some nostalgia to this, wasn’t there? After all, he did remember it quite well how he and the Dark Urge had prepared so many things in their different little hide outs in the sewers. It had been quite convenient, given that both their cults also had their temples hidden underground.

Sure, if Enver had had to make the decisions, things might have looked a bit more glorious from the start – but in the end, they had made it work. If anything nobody could say that they had not started off in humble beginnings.

He still would have liked to sit down about now. His body was aching in quite a lot of ways, and the rancid air was making him sick. But he kept walking, because he knew that he could not afford to stop. He also knew that once he sat down, he would not get up anytime soon.

It was funny. If anyone had asked him if he could still walk as much and as far as he had just today, he never would have said yes. But it seemed that if one did have little choice, a lot of things were possible -even though the pain was horrid. It was not even just located in the joints anymore, but seemed to seep throughout his muscles, filling his entire body bit by bit, as just every movement was filled with pain.

He wondered how far until they could go overground – they had crossed at least a couple of manholes by now. But then, out of nowhere, there was a hand coming out of the darkness, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Much to his chagrin he had to admit that he yelped at the unsuspected touch.

“I would be careful with this open flame down here,” a smooth voice said. “You might blow something up.”

“W-who the hell are you?” Barcus asked, his voice tense.

Enver turned around to look at the speaker.

A tiefling. A tiefling woman, to be exact. But not quite like anyone he had seen before. She was a tiefling – humanoid, pointy ears, tail, horns – but her skin was not one of the typical colors one would see. Not blue, or red, or yellow, or the much rarer purple. No. Her skin was almost obsidian black.

There was someone else behind her though. Another woman. A drow, by the looks of it. Dark skin, white hair.

The tiefling now looked at Barcus. “Who is he? A gnome? What would you need a gnome for?”

“Excuse me?” Barcus replied. “I am not his, or with him for the matter. I just… I am going to get out of here, and then never will see this fucking asshole ever again.”

Enver eyed the woman up and down. She was taller than him, though not quite as tall as Karlach had been. There were strange white markings on her neck, that he could not make sense out of. Her clothes were sensible. The kind of clothes a lot of adventurers were going to wear while travelling. Leather, firm, but also not very noticeable.

But there was something around her neck. An amulet. A first.

“That is right, Gortash,” she said. “I was sent to fetch you for Lord Bane. And make sure you and… the valuables get to Lord Bane in one piece, given that your absence was already noticed.”

Enver grabbed her hand and pushed it off his shoulder. “So, what?”

“So, I am going to bring you to Bane.”

“You what now?” Barcus asked. He looked at Enver. “Bane? What?”

Enver once more ignored the gnome. He knew after all, that it would be quite hard to explain in either way. “How will we get there?”

The tiefling smile. “Oh, well. That is sadly going to be a complicated matter.”

Chapter Text

“I do not understand,” Enver said. “Bane is a god.”

“Which can mean a lot of things and nothing at the same time,” the tiefling said. “You and I both know that as of right now Bane is very much still cursed with mortality – and for this is limited when it comes to his activities on this plane.”

“Then we just go to another plane.” Sure, Enver knew himself that it took some serious magical power – more than he was capable of, even with the powers he could feel right now surging through his body. “There are spells for that.”

“Not out here, there aren’t. Not right now,” the tiefling answered.

“What do you mean?” Enver could feel his frustration rise.

It was to his surprise the drow that spoke now: “We are at the outskirts of what once had been the Netherese Empire. This would not be a problem, if recent events had not made the magic unstable.”

“Recent… what?”

“Don’t mind her,” the tiefling said. “When she is talking ‘recent’ she means the last century. You are aware that Thultanthar came back, right?”

“Yes, but Elminster destroyed it,” Enver replied. “Or grounded it, or…” Frankly, he had only read reports, so he was not quite sure on the details.

“That may be true. But ever since Thultanthar came over from the Shadowfell, there is stuff happening with the magic in these parts.”

“That sounds like bullshit,” Enver muttered.

“I do not care what it sounds like to you, loser,” the tiefling replied. “Fact is, portals and teleportation are off right now. It might work, sure, but it also might send you into planes that you do not want to visit.”

“Then how the hells did you get here?” Barcus asked, crossing his short arms.

The drow’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, the slave thinks it gets to have an opinion.”

“Excuse me?” Barcus replied. “I am no slave. I am Barcus Wroot, leader of the Ironhand Gnomes in Baldur’s Gate.”

Now the drow looked to Enver. “Do you need it still?”

Admittedly, it took Enver a moment to understand what she was asking. Thankfully though, he did understand it before replying. “Yes. Obviously.” He made sure to give his voice the same haughty tone that he had perfected as he had mingled with the upper crust of Baldur’s Gate. “He is essential.”

“What are you talking about?” Barcus replied.

Enver glared at him. “I am talking about slaves better being quiet, before their betters use them as an example.”

“An example to whom exactly?”

“I think he will not need both hands, do you?” the drow asked her tiefling companion.

“He does!” Enver quickly said. “He is a mechanic. I have him build stuff for me. He needs his hands for that.”

“What about…”

“Whatever it is, he needs that too. Now can we please start moving? I would prefer to leave the sewers soon enough.”

The tiefling snorted. “He has a point on that. Very well. Gortash, wasn’t it?”

“Enver Gortash, yes. Lord Enver Gortash,” he replied, though it only got a mildly amused smile from them.

“My name is Vinreva,” the tiefling introduced herself. “This is Thirza.”

Enver looked from one to the other. “A pleasure.”

Vinreva gave him a stiff smile, before turning. “Well, if we start moving now, we should be able to leave the sewers around noon.”

“Right.” And despite his body’s protest, Enver just followed them.

He was not sure what to make of either of the two women. Them being here was strange to him – and he was intelligent enough to notice that it was strange. Bane had said nothing of this, though then again Bane was not the most reliable god and Enver was not going to put it past him to just have his chosen fight against each other for his amusement. But if what the woman had said was true and teleportation was not working as it was supposed to… How had they gotten here in a couple of hours?

So yes, something was up, but he was not going to say anything about it. Because frankly, he knew right now his position was a bad one. He could not fight back either way, and if there were Oghmanytes showing up, he would be unable to fight those either. Hence it seemed to be the most sensible solution to keep with these two and eventually try to escape them. But if they were getting them out of this city and eventually maybe even out of Sembia, it would only be in his advantage.

The irony of bad smells was, that no matter how putrid they were, one could get used to them. As they were further walking through those tunnels, the river of waste to their side, now in the light of some glow that the drow had summoned, Enver noticed, how he did not even notice that smell as much anymore.

He just wished they would get out of here – and that he would get to sit down.

“What the hells are you doing?” a voice hissed from his side, making notice that Barcus was walking next to him.

“Getting us out of here, as you might have noticed,” Enver replied.

“By what? Allying with Bane. Again?” While Barcus was whispering, he put a lot of emphasis on his words.

“That does not need to concern you.”

“Given that we are both stuck here right now, I feel it concerns me a whole lot.”

“It does not.”

“They just threatened to kill me!”

“I… I am going to make sure that won’t happen.”

The gnome huffed. “Oh, thank you very much.” Again his sarcasm was not very well hidden.

Enver did not honor this with any sort of reply. If the gnome wanted to be like that, he should be. It was not one of Enver’s problems. If that gnome also wanted to run off on its own and somehow make it across the entire darn continent like that, he was more than welcome.

“And then what?” Barcus hissed after a minute of silence. “Then you go back to being a tyrant or something like that?”

“We will see,” Enver said. “Again, it does not concern you.”

“Well, it certainly does if you are going to try to enslave me or my people. Like you did the last time around, if you remember. Two years ago.”

“Why do you think I should need to justify myself towards you?”

“Because you owe me at least that much, Gortash. After nearly getting me killed, then having me enslaved, then doing the same to my people, then lying to me, and then ending me up in this entire mess of a situation!”

“It was not my intention, alright?”

“You just accidentally enslaved a bunch of people, eh?”

Enver groaned, but he did not reply. Because frankly, he was not even sure what he could say to that.

Worst of all, during these couple days before Barcus had found out who he was, he had actually kinda liked the guy. And he was not going to enslave someone he liked. It was just that he was quite aware that in the end, this was a world in which you were either the killed or the dead body on the floor. It was a world ruled by violence, and the only way to be the one to not die was to be the one to use violence first – and be clever about it.

All politics was, was a whole lot of prancing to silently threaten everyone else with different forms of violence and how one could enact them in a way that people would even agree with.

Ha, if anything the folks those two years back had largely proven him right. He had spun a tale about the tieflings being a corrupting force, and folks had instantly gone out of their way to murder some tieflings. He had told stories about the refugees arriving in the city, and people had gone there throwing stones at the tents.

Had he known that those stories were lies? Of course he had. But it had been a great way to keep the people distracted from what he and his associates were doing. It was how people played politics after all. Even the kind of people who acted as if they were nice and respectable. People like Ravengard and his ilk.

Why had Ulder Ravengard exiled his son nine years ago? Because if people found out that Prince Silverspoon had made a deal with a devil, they would also start to question Ravengard himself, and things that he might have done wrong. It would direct attention to him – and the top rule in politics was, to keep the attention always on other people’s faults.

Of course, the dear lost son was now a member of the family again, now that he had turned out just heroic enough to make him an asset.

“You just cannot be serious about this,” Barcus hissed again after a while. “You know where this is going to…”

“Are you quite sure the slave is not creating problems?” the drow – Thirza was it, right? – asked, letting herself fall back to Enver’s side. Her purple eyes were pinned on Barcus, and something told Enver, that she was quite ready to just use a little bit of violence on the gnome.

“It is fine,” Enver replied.

“Oh, come on. You want to be a tyrant and you let it talk to you like that?”

Enver sighed. “It is fine,” he just repeated. “It is not as if he is doing actual harm.”

This got Thirza to sigh. “As you wish…” She did not seem fully convinced though.

“We will leave the sewers as soon as we get over there,” Vinreva pointed. “It will get us just outside the city gates.”

“Very well,” Enver said. He wondered how long until they could finally rest, given that he was not sure how long he could remain standing. Yet, over the years serving as lord and then Archduke at the very least he had grown quite accustomed to hiding his pain.

They soon enough reached the ladder. “I am going first,” Vinreva said. “Then the gnome, then you, then Thirza.”

Enver just nodded, while he could literally feel Barcus’ glare.

The tiefling still started climbing the ladder, pushing the manhole cover to the side, before exiting, while Thirza got out one of her thin swords, pointing it at Barcus to make sure he would follow.

He shot her and Enver venomous looks, before indeed climbing, followed by Enver.

Before Enver reached the surface though, he already heard Barcus. “Well, that is…” A moment later he himself saw it.

As he put his head out of the sewers, they were surrounded by at least eight of those Oghmanytes who must have been waiting for them.

One of them – a tall human man, whose golden mask covered most of his face – looked at Enver. “This was a very ill-advised attempt of escape,” he noted. “But then again, we might have foreseen it.”

Thirza appeared out of the manhole. “Oh. Look at that. Company.”

Vinreva smirked. “Yeah. I was just feeling like killing some people. So this… Is very much convenient.”

The masked man looked at her. “And you are…”

“Oh, didn’t your god of knowledge inform you about that?” She loosened the two short axes from her sides. “Too bad, I would say.”

“What are you doing?” Enver asked.

The woman smirked. “You know how it is. Sometimes you just need to let loose. And those idiots just volunteered.”

Thirza had now unsheathed both her weapons. “I do wonder, if they will ever truly learn.”

“Probably not,” Vinreva muttered, though her voice was amused. “Shall we?”

Thirza grinned. “Oh, we shall…”

Chapter Text

Just barely Enver managed to keep down a pained groan, as he finally sank to the ground, his back against a tree.

Oh, right now there were quite a few things he wanted. He wanted to wash, he wanted clean clothes, he wanted to shave, as he could feel that what was growing on his face was already out of being anything close to respectable. But right now, he felt as if he would not be able to move for at least three whole days.

He wanted a hot bath, too. He wanted to be home in his mansion. Hells, for once he kinda missed having Lash go all overzealous mother-hen on him, despite her being a good fourteen years younger than him. Right now he could use it.

He allowed himself to close his eyes for a moment. The grim on his skin – and the oil still soaking his clothes – were distracting, but he knew he was incapable of doing anything about this at the moment. He just hated it.

Right now he did not remember the last time he had felt this exhausted. Back when they had still been preparing the big plan, when he and the Dark Urge had been putting all the necessary pieces into position, he had been younger, he had been in a better shape, but even then he did remember how certain things would exhaust him. Still, it was nothing against the pain that had by now spread from his legs and knees up his thighs into his lower back, making it basically impossible to find any position that was pain free.

He wished he had some Fensul bark tea, as it would at least numb the pain, but he did not have anything on himself. Not even money.

Yet, he could not complain. Because complaining meant to show weakness, and he knew better than to do that. Weak people got ravaged by a world, that would only spit out their bones. No matter what he could be, he never would be weak. Never. Because in the end, he was going to live. And be it just to spite them all, his fucking parents, and Raphael, and whoever else had ever stood against him.

“Hey!” The shout made him open his eyes. “Let go of me, you…”

“I do keep saying, this one seems to be more work than it is worth,” Thirza said, holding Barcus up by the collar of his tunic. “I say we…”

Enver gritted his teeth. “Again, he is a valuable assistant,” he said, forcing himself despite his screaming joints to get up. “He will stay alive – and keep all his limbs.”

“He tried to run away,” Thirza said with that harsh voice Enver had only ever heard in drow women. “He will try again.”

“He will still be kept alive,” Enver said.

Vinreva, who was putting up wood for a fire on the clearing where they were now camping out, gave a deep sigh. “We tie him up. Like you do with slaves. Then he cannot run away.”

“You will not dare!” Barcus shouted, trying to free himself. But it turned out that indeed, the gnome was no fighter, and as such struggled to even so much as hit the drow holding him.

Enver considered his options, but he knew quite well that caring too much about the gnome would also be seen as weakness. “Fine,” he said. “Tie him up.”

“You fucking bastard!” Barcus growled.

“And maybe we should also gag him,” Vinreva said.

Thirza did not seem thrilled about this option, but did comply with it eventually. She got out a fine rope from her backpack, making sure to tie Barcus up well, with both his wrists and his ankles being bound together – and both bound to the trunk of a tree.

It was not as if Barcus was not trying to escape, but his attempts were useless.

“I will go hunt,” Thirza announced once she was done with this. She produced a rather small crossbow from her backpack, before leaving for the forest.

There was something about her that was off-putting. More off-putting than your average drow, that was.

Once more Enver let himself fall onto the mossy ground of the clearing. The forest had to be about two miles away from the city, whose name he still did not know. It might be better to walk on further, but he knew he would not manage another step.

“You should teach your slaves more respect,” Vinreva said, as she sat down on a thick, though dead branch lying on the side of the clearing. There was something mocking in her voice, telling him quite clearly that she did not believe for a moment that Barcus was a slave.

“Who cares if they do their work?” Enver replied.

She chuckled, watching him through orange eyes. “I admit, I kinda imagined you differently.”

Enver was aware enough to hear the mocking through those words. “I am sorry to disappoint,” he replied bitterly.

“Then again, you were defeated, were you not?”

“Regrettably.”

She smirked at this, leaning back and stretching out her arms and back. “You know, I have heard a lot of stories about that whole disaster.”

Somehow Enver felt this conversation was quite familiar. He had had it about a year before with that accursed vampire spawn. Some part of him wondered, whether they were right. Could he have gotten much more for himself with less fight for it, if he had just given that crown to any of the gods – maybe even Mystra?

According to that darn vampire spawn, so many gods had tried to get their hand onto that crown, and would have been willing to give a lot for it. Immortality. Maybe even minor godhood.

If he had ascended, at least he guessed his body would no longer feel like this.

But just giving that crown to Mystra or any other deity, it would not have been right. Because it would not have been the same as being the Archduke, and see the city who had once spat him out, cower before him. Right. That had been it, had it not been? It was not the stupid bullshit that the darn vampire had said. No. Who was that vampire even? What would he know about these things?

“I have heard that you worked with a Bhaalspawn on that entire thing,” Vinreva now noted. “Quite blasphemous, isn’t it?”

A bitter smile spread on Enver’s face. Oh yes, the Dark Urge, who was very likely dead. Who had been killed by his own “sister” so to speak. Another Bhaalspawn. Orin. Bloody Orin.

“You do not rule a city without spreading some terror,” he muttered bitterly. “And nobody was better at spreading terror than the Dark Urge.”

“So, how did that turn out for you? Wasn’t it the Bhaalspawn that stood against you in the end?”

“No. That was his sister,” Enver replied. “Another Bhaalspawn. She killed the Dark Urge and took his place. And that was when everything went downhill.”

“Ah, I see. She is the one at fault.”

“Among others,” Enver muttered.

Vinreva gave a high-pitched laugh. “Of course.”

He glared at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Losers will always blame others for their loss,” she said. “Instead of taking responsibility and learning from their mistake.” She scoffed.

“Oh, and I see that you are so much better in your plans of spread terror in Bane’s name,” he hissed.

She grabbed the scroll she had taken from him, once those Oghmanytes had been slaughtered. “Oh, I will be,” she whispered, running her hand over that strangely smooth parchment. “Eventually I will be.” She looked over again. “But of course Bane gives the human a second chance.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Enver asked.

“Oh please, you know it quite well.” She was still looking at the still sealed scroll. “After all, I know all about that plan of yours – and how you used tieflings as your scapegoats. We do make easy scapegoats, do we not?”

Enver did not answer. He did not owe that woman an answer after all. Instead he just sat next to that fire, hoping the warmth would make his pain lessen at least a bit.

His thoughts drifted once more to the Dark Urge. He had been insane. Of course. Like so many Bhaalspawn were. He had been insane, but in the very best way. In the end, he had been the only person who ever truly got Enver. So Enver guessed it had been clear from the beginning. One of them would have to die sooner or later. Not just because Bane and Bhaal would not share power, but because it was the way this world worked.

It was the way in which he was cursed.

Eventually Thirza returned with a slain boar, which she quickly, and rather cruely skinned and took apart, before grilling parts of it over the flames. While she was working she shot looks over to Barcus, as if she was still considering if she would get away with murdering him – maybe while everyone else was sleeping. She did not say anything, though.

Eventually, there was at least some of the meat ready for consumption. And given Enver had not eaten in quite some while, his stomach rumbled when the scent of the freshly grilled meat rose to his nose.

He still hated the thought of eating it, of the food turning into mush in his mouth. It was a disgust that was seemingly never going to fade. But given how light headed he was feeling, he would once more overcome it. Because he just was not going to die. He was not willing to die, after everything he had been through. And be it that he stayed alive out of pure spite.

While they were eating, Barcus was sitting by his tree, trying to scream against his gag.

There was a sensation somewhere inside of Enver at this. Another pain in his chest. But he knew he could not do much about it. Maybe once those women were sleeping or something like that.

He was not sure.

Hells, why did he even care? In the end the gnome was just the same as everyone else. He would not forgive Enver, because no sane person would ever forgive someone like him. Nobody did. Because it was just not the nature of people to forgive. Enver had never forgiven the things that had been done to him, so it would be quite hypercritical of him to expect anyone else to forgive him.

He knew he had had the right to do those things. He knew it was only right and proper he would get to do those things to other people. But he guessed he could not expect forgiveness.

Even fucking Avariel did not really forgive him. Of course not. That asshole was just some sort of idealistic liar who wanted to feel better by being such a goody-two-shoes. But it was not as if Enver was ever going to fall for something like that.

He knew how the world worked. He knew better than most.

Kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. It was that simple.

He somehow managed to gulp down enough of the meat, to at least make the worst of the lightheadedness go away, before he eventually laid down.

He would return to Bane. Because it was the only chance he had to not be condemned to eternal torture and what not. He guessed he would let Lash down, but then again… He should not care. He should not really care about it.

In the end, he was going to be the one to kill – and not to be killed. And then…

He still heard Barcus struggle against his gag, but it was not as if he could do much against it. He… He might try to get the gnome out of this alive. But that would be the most he would do. In the end, he had no doubt, now that Barcus knew who he was, he would leave Enver in a fucking ditch, if he got the chance.

He closed his eyes again, trying to sleep.

He did not owe anyone anything. Because in the end, nobody had ever done shit for him. Nobody! If he had not been clever, and willing to do whatever it takes, he would have died down there in the fucking hells. He would have died in the hells, because his useless parents had not wanted him. So no, he should now owe anyone any bloody pity or anything handouts. He should not…

It was his right to do those things. Because he knew that someone like him would never get the respect he deserved if he did not take it by force. After all, nobody had ever respected him, before he had started taking. Nobody had ever done shit-all for him. So…

He grunted, trying to find a way to lie on the forest floor that was not painful. He tried to shut out the sounds of the forest at night as well.

He just wanted to get back to Baldur’s Gate and then…

No.

No!

He could not return. He should use the fact that he was away now, to start something new and…

Barcus was still not giving up. Bloody gnome. Why was the idiot so stubborn?

Enver turned around. He could not see the drow, but Vinreva was seemly asleep underneath one of the trees.

Ha. It would be easy to kill her. If Bane was going to approve of such an act?

But without the drow being seen… He had seen her kill those Oghmanytes, and he knew quite well, that he would not be able to fight her off. Not even with the big of magic he had regained now.

Still. He hesitated for a moment, before sitting up. He knew it might well be a mistake. But he took one of the pieces of meat that the drow had put up to smoke-dry by the fire. Then he slowly moved over to Barcus, freeing him of the gag.

“Just let me go, Gortash,” Barcus whispered.

“You know I cannot do that,” Enver replied.

“Oh, you can. If you don’t, you just don’t want to.”

Enver pushed the piece of meat into the gnome’s bound hands. “Eat. That is all I can do for you now.”

“Right.” Barcus glared at him, but still took a bite from the meat. Then he looked at the meat, his face dark. “You know, I am close to agree with you one thing.”

“Is that so?” Enver snarled.

“Yes. Tav clearly is a fucking idiot, to think someone like you could change.”

Enver took a deep breath, ready to snap back at him, but then he decided against it. “Yeah, he is indeed a fucking idiot.” With that he turned, moving back to the place he had started to sleep at before.

He knew sleep would not come. But at least…

Ah, fuck. He was weak after all.

Chapter Text

By noon on the coming day, Enver was wondering how long he would be able to keep walking. He wished he had his cane at least, as it would help him to put some of his weight away from his legs. He had not, though, and he did not dare to stop to create one for himself, given it was going to be another sign of weakness. He was not dumb, after all. He could tell that his two new companions did not think highly of him and would betray him, if he gave the slightest reasons. As such he also said nothing to the drow dragging Barcus along, with his wrists still bound and his mouth still gagged.

Even though he did not want show it, something about Thirze really rubbed him the wrong way. He was creeped out by her in a way that he could not quite describe. But this, too, was something he was going to keep to himself.

In the early afternoon they stopped by a small stream, refilling their waterskins, before continuing their march further and further towards the west.

“If you do not mind me asking, Lady Vinreva, where exactly are we headed?” he asked, even though walking and talking at the same time was a challenge. He had decided that for now he would treat this woman at least with respect, trying to earn her favor – because he knew quite well that he was dependent on it.

She had taken that scroll he had stolen now, and he knew he could not protest against this exchange of the goods.

“Anauroch,” she said. “To the Black Gates.”

“The desert…” Yeah, this was not going to get any better, was it?

Of course he knew at least what the general shape of Faerûn looked like, being able to know the regions and about how the places related to another. He could tell, that they were about at the same latitude as Baldur’s Gate, still, just at the opposite end of the continent. Between them and Baldur’s Gate lay at least two month of constant marching, probably more, given that he would not be able to keep this up forever.

Not that he wanted to return to the city. Of course not. He would just be a prisoner, as long as he returned to there.

Still… He was not exactly happy at the thought to continue this march into the desert. While he had never been in a desert, he knew that the conditions there were not actually conducive to life.

“The desert, yes. You have heard of the Black Gates, I assume.” There was a tone in her voice that he did not like at all.

“Of course I have.” It was an old fortress, that the Banites had taken over at some point, after another of their temples had been destroyed. Stories said, that it dug deep into a mountain in the middle of the desert, connecting to some magic minerals, though he could not say what about that was true.

“We will meet with some others there, and then continue to put the plan into action.” She gave a cool smile at this.

“The plan?”

“The scroll. It is a weapon. We can use it to teach the world fear again,” she replied.

He had figured something along those lines. After all, he had been a Banite for long enough to understand the general plan. Though he always had liked his plan a lot more. Because it did not just spread fear but also ended him in a cozy condition. Well, it would have, if it had worked, that was.

“That sounds terrifying,” he said, trying to sound approving of this.

“Obviously.”

Enver was silent for a bit. He needed to breathe as it was still rather hard while he was walking. His ribs were still hurting with each breath. Yet, he once more reminded himself that he could not show any weakness. They would not respect a weakling.

After a while, though, he looked at the woman again, who was a good foot taller than him. “Did I understand you right. You are a chosen of Bane’s, too?”

“Yeah,” she said. “You know about the Second Sundering, right?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“It saved my life.” She smiled, but it was not the pleasant kind of smile. No, it was a smile more akin to the one he had seen on Orin’s face, when she had been plotting to murder a couple of people. It made him almost shiver.

Still, he knew better than to show his discomfort. “That is good to know. After all, who would want to loose another servant in terror?”

She chuckled. “Oh, you are quite the politician, aren’t you, Gortash?”

“I have quite successfully wormed my way into the elite circles of Baldur’s Gate, yes.”

“You had done that – before your scheme was laid out into the open, you mean,” she corrected him. “Now it is more of a miracle, that people have left you alive.”

“But I am alive,” he replied. “Does that not speak to my skill in manipulation?”

She scoffed. “Fair enough. Though personally, I do prefer the direct approach, you know?”

“The direct approach?”

“Yes. No complex scheme that takes years to be pulled off and can fail, just because one person behaves differently than expected. No. Just kill a bunch of people, make sure others see it, and allow the terror to spread. Kill randomly, violently, and make everyone else shiver.”

“That does sound more like Bhaalist thought, though, doesn’t it?”

“Says the man who collaborated with the Bhaalspawn for years.” She smiled at him. “Didn’t you say yourself that it was an effective way to spread terror?”

He was silent for a moment, allowing himself to breathe. “I guess I did.” He continued to hobble onwards next to her, while she was marching quite like a soldier.

There was another silence between the two of them – while Barcus was dragged along and once more gagged, and Thirza clearly was more of the silent and deadly kind. However, Enver knew also other things about politics.

You wanted to know things about your enemies. Back when he was working in the city, he had had his own spies to find out about those things. Now, there was only him here right now. And he was not giving himself into any illusions. Among Banites, there were friends. Just enemies who were not yet in open conflict with one another.

“If I may, Lady Vinreva, you said Lord Bane saved your life. How?”

Another scoff, as she looked at him from the side. “Oh, come on now, Gortash. I am a warrior, not a politician, but that does not mean I am dumb or naïve. I know how these games are played, and I am not going to play them with you.”

“Of course,” he replied quickly. “I was just trying to show interest.”

She laughed. “Oh please. I just will say it again. You know yourself quite well, how most humans think about my kind. And you should be able to guess a few things, if you see me like this. That is all you need to know. The people out there crave monsters. I just gave them what they wanted.”

Now it was his turn to chuckle, as he made his conclusions. Yes. Yes. Of course. One of the few things people knew about tieflings were, that they came from infernal blood somewhere in the ancestry. So a lot of people believed tieflings to be in league with the devils.

Looking at her and her black skin, he was not sure what was going on with that. Word was, that the skin color of a tiefling was connected to the specific hell their ancestor had come from – but he still had not heard of a tiefling with Black skin. But then again, who knew what might be going on in terms of infernal magic?

“Fair enough,” he replied.

“Indeed.” She shot him another side glance. “Meanwhile I do not need to ask about you. After all, I know how it is with your kind.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“You people are just like this. Taking any advantage you will get.”

For a moment he once wanted to disagree, wanted to tell her about his fucking parents and Raphael, and how he just barely had eventually escaped the hells. But then he knew better. After all, this was just what she wanted? Getting ammunition against him, should they come to disagree with one another.

“Indeed,” he just said. “That is what we do.”

Four days of marching later, Enver was not even sure how he managed to keep moving. What had started as pain in his joints, had by now triggered a migraine, that made him see shapes when he was opening his eyes fully. He still reminded himself that he could not show it, even though he knew very well the two women could see that he was hobbling more than actually walking.

They had managed to cross the entire forest, though now that they were out, the summer heat came down on them with a vengeance, while the road they were following was guiding them inbetween some hills.

He somewhat knew where they were. This had to be where many of those flying cities of Netheril had once come down – more than a thousand years ago. He had read about it, and at times he could see some of those ruins in the distance, overgrown by moss and grass.

He wondered what kind of wonders had been lost when Netheril fell – quite literally. And he was quite aware of the role his own deity had played in this.

But then again, why would he care? Those Netherese people also had tended to think themselves above everyone else, right? So in a way, he guessed, they had deserved what had eventually come for them. Just like people such as Ravengard would deserve it.

He still wished they would at least at some point rest at an inn or tavern, just for him to able to wash up properly, and for the sake of all the gods just get shaved.

In that year between their plan failing, and him giving into Avariel’s silly efforts, he had often not shaven for days, more out of spite than anything. But right now he found the itching beard that was growing on his face in a rather untamed way mostly annoying.

It was already afternoon, and he had to wonder how long they were still going to march today, when he heard something in the distance. A roar.

“What was that?” he asked, feeling himself tense up. After all, he was not quite sure what sort of monsters one might expect out here – and he also knew rather well, how many monsters would be able to kill him.

“Some beast,” Vinreva replied, clearly not as alarmed.

“What kind of beasts are living out here?” He tried to look around if he could spot anything, other than a few goats on the slope of one of the hills.

“Goats, as you can see,” Thirze said with a mocking tone.

“I can see that,” he replied. “I mean monsters.”

“Eh. Dragons, dragonnes, manticores, basilisks, sometimes giants, creepers, ogres,” Vinreva replied. “Now come, we…”

Another roar cut her short – and this one was a lot closer than the one before.

Enver could feel himself shiver, before looking up, to see a creature up in the air. A creature he had only ever seen in illustrations so far, but he knew what it was. A dragonne. A weird dragon-lion creature, that was mostly found in deserts.

The creature was circling above, clearly on the hunt. The goats were maybe the more intelligent creatures, as they went running – and it was clearly that reaction, that made the dragonne decide, that the humanoids that were not going to run that quickly, were actually a much easier prey.

The beast changed its direction, now turning downwards, coming down towards them in a steep fall.

Enver did not think. He threw himself onto the ground, while his two female companions gave more of an annoyed grunt.

They both got out their weapons.

When they had fought the Oghmanytes, he had seen their capabilities, but it was still surprising to see how capable the drow was in jumping high and wide. From the standing position, she managed to reach the dragonne that was at least three or four yards above them. Yet, her swords only injured the animal’s scales on the surface – and clearly made it angry in doing so.

The dragonne came down again, trying to grapple Thirze, but she was quick, evading it. And while the dragonne was close to the ground, Vinreva used her ability to attack it, both her axes going for the back, just next to the wings. And while the creature landed and jumped to the side, it did not evade fully, one of the axes creating a bleeding wound.

The beast growled, trying to bite her, but she, too was a quick fighter.

Now the dragonne turned around, attacking with its tail. And while Thirze again evaded with an elegant jump, Vinreva was hit, being thrown through the air.

The dragonne gave a terrifying roar, before turning towards Enver.

Admittedly, he had to guess it made a lot of sense. He had no weapons on him still, was already cowering on the ground, and had a lot more fat on his body than anyone else here. So when the creature pounced him, he could not even hold it against the beast.

One moment, there were the strong lion-esque jaws of the monster coming at him. Claws were digging into his chest just beneath the collarbone. He was ready to feel the teeth of the creature in his throat – when a thrown axe hit the beast into the side of its neck, making it hiss.

However, even this attack had not hurt the beast enough to actually kill it.

It turned around, pushing its wings up to make itself bigger.

It was now in a defensive position, clearly. And then it acted quite quickly. It went for the one target not defended, despite it being the least amount of food among them: it grabbed Barcus between its claws.

Chapter Text

The decision made sense from the point of view of an animal. It did. There were two fighters, and one nice and fat piece of meat cowering, but being protected. So, before you as an animal took all those wounds without any reward, you would just pick the scrabs. In this case: the gnome. The gnome who came nicely tied up in a bundle.

The dragonne pounced Barcus, its claws grabbing the gnome, who screamed against his gag. And then those mighty wings flapped, as the animal took off, clearly trying to retreat and have his meal somewhere away from swords and axes.

And it was Enver’s fault, wasn’t it?

He had magic. At least some magic. He had currently some of his magic back – only that he did not know how much of it. He did not think about it though. Not in that moment. He just cast the spell and the dark lightning shot through the air, hitting the dragonne twice.

The creature screamed, letting go of Barcus, before flying away before any further attacks could ensue.

There was a tiny moment of relief flooding Enver – until he realized that the dragonne had been about nine yards in the air, and the lifeless body of the gnome hit the stony ground rather hard.

Barcus rolled down the slope of the hill, before finally coming to lie, no longer moving.

Enver hurried over to him. He was breathing. At least something. But he was also clearly unconscious.

“That was unfortunate,” Thirze muttered, looking after the dragonne.

“Hey, Gortash,” Vinreva said. “Are you wounded?”

He was. Of course he was. He could feel his own wounds burning, though right now he was a lot more worried about Barcus. He was bleeding too, not just from the wounds on his torso, but also from another one on his head – probably from the fall. And gnomes were a whole lot smaller than humans, so bleeding out did not took as long for them as it did for a human.

“Gortash,” Thirze growled. “Vin asked you something.”

“Just a fleshwound,” he said. “He is worse off.”

The drow gave a grunt, before muttering something – and Enver could feel the energy of the healing spell go through his body.

Oh, he knew Banite healing magic, just as he had once felt the healing magic of Selûne. While Selûne’s healing was a gentle breeze in the spring, Banite healing was like being slapped in the face, yet he guessed he would not complain about getting healed at all.

He swallowed. “Thank you. Now do him. Please.”

Thirze looked at the gnome, before shaking her head just once and turning away. “No.”

He paused, turning around. “What do you mean, no?”

“It is a slave, Gortash. I am not wasting precious magic on a fucking slave.”

“But he is an engineer. He is valuable. He is good at building stuff, and…”

“I am pretty sure that is true for most gnomes,” Vinreva said, rolling her eyes. “It is the reason folks like to enslave them, right?”

Enver looked at the motionless body of the gnome, feeling his heart sink. They were away from any village or town. Chances that someone would stumble across him before some animal did were close to zero. “He has some knowledge that few others have.”

“Everyone can be taught,” Vinreva said. She grunted. “Oh come on. Don’t go teary eyed about a fucking deep gnome. You get plenty of those on every slave market on the continent. Getting another clever one should not be that hard. Also, he was a fucking crybaby, wasn’t he?”

Enver wanted to disagree, but then there was this instinct of his again. He knew the rules. He knew the rules of Bane. He knew the virtues of the Banite church.

For fuck’s sake. The gnome had not cared for him one bit, ever since he had found out who Enver was. And again, Enver knew that this was normal. People just would not forgive. Most people would hold just simple things against their friends forever. They had not even been friends, and he guessed being the leader of a conspiracy that had nearly destroyed the whole city, and had also indeed enslaved a whole bunch of other gnomes was more than just “a simple misunderstanding” between friends. Even if Barcus was to be saved, chances were, he would not forgive him.

So, why did the thought of leaving him here, feel so wrong?

“No wonder, that you lost to some folks,” Thirze mocked. “Getting teary eyed about a bloody slave.”

Enver took a deep breath. “I am not getting teary eyed,” he said with a cold, but careful voice. “I am just thinking how much it will take to train someone else.” He looked around, wondering what would be better. If he left Barcus here in the open, maybe there was a chance that another traveler would find him. It was a small chance, but it was not zero.

But also, if he left him out here, another predator might find the body and consume it.

Then again, he could barely start to get the body hidden, without getting a reaction from the two women, could he now?

Hells.

He was a weakling. He was. Because this felt bad. It felt horrible. Even though it should not. Who cared. It was just a gnome. There were quite a lot of gnomes around indeed. There were a lot of gnomes, and it would be easy to acquire another one. So why was he feeling so shitty about this?

He pushed the thoughts aside. Who cared? Who cared? He should not care, because nobody would ever care about him. Most people had wanted him dead, and the only reason that he had not died was that a fucking asshole of an idiot wanted to be too nice to kill him. He should not care about that. He would not care about it.

He was a Banite. It was his only chance to have power. He was the chosen of Bane. And he did not have friends, just accomplices.

“We should probably get somewhere, where the fucking beast will not look for us,” he said, making sure his voice was firm.

The two women exchanged a look, but then they nodded.

“We probably should,” Thirze said. “Especially as I have heard that their meat is quite disgusting.”

Vinreva laughed. “Oh, look who is start to have standards.”

“Of course I have standards. I am of noble birth,” Thirze replied, her voice chilly, as she cleaned her swords off.

Enver gritted his teeth, as he started to walk once more, despite his body protesting against it still. He looked over his shoulder to the form of Barcus blueish dark against the bright rock.

It should not matter. It should not.

He had killed at least thirty gnome slaves while he had been working on the plan. So this one gnome would not matter. He had killed gnome children. So why would he care about this one specific gnome?

And yet, he felt horrible, as he was following behind the two women. He felt horrible. Like he had just done something a lot worse than most of those things he had done during those years preparing for their big plan.

It was stupid.

The dumb gnome hated him, he tried to remind himself. Because any sane person would hate him. He had done unspeakable things – and if there had been a person in this world he cared about, and someone had done something like this to them, he would never forgive that person. Just as he had never forgiven his parents. Or Raphael. Or Nubaldin. Or fucking Avariel. He was never going to forgive any of them.

It was just not the nature of things.

The gods would not forgive him either. He had killed hundreds of their followers, and had condemned their souls for Bane. Of course they would hold that against him, too. Of course he would not that easily be forgiven.

He guessed there were things that gods – even “good” gods – would forgive. For once, there were absolutely cases of murder they were fine with, as long as the murdered person was “evil” enough. But even if a person murdered someone good, he assumed one or two murders you could make up for. You could make up for doing a bit of evil. But once you had gone down that road for long enough, there was just no turning back anymore.

Especially for someone like him.

He did not regret it after all. He would not regret it. All he had done was his right. Other people would have done much the same. What else was he supposed to do?

When he had come back from the hells, he could have done little other than illegal work. So he had sold weapons, because it was what he was good with. And when Lady Jannath had fallen for him, it had just been reasonable to use it for his advantage. He had also needed Zariel’s help, and given her depts with her people, he could have not denied their requests. And once he had been the Chosen of Bane… It was not as if he had been a Banite before. But who would not use this chance, once it fell into their laps? Most people would just use this. Of course they would!

It was not his fault.

Of course it was not his fault.

If anything it was the fault of his useless parents and bloody Raphael. But he knew quite well that even if he knew that, nobody else would accept this answer.

He did remember the vampire spawn, whining about his own fate and what not. So what? So what if the darn vampire spawn had had a horrible life. It was not Enver’s problem. Just as it was not Enver’s concern if the vampire spawn decided to become Avariel’s lapdog or what not.

Hells, the vampire spawn was probably going to live forever. And if he was for some reason healed from his undead condition, the guy was still a bloody elf who could not have been too old before he had been turned. So, he was going to live for at least a couple hundred more years. Enver would assume that would give him at least a little chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the gods.

Enver himself, though? He was a human. A sickly human. He was already forty-two. He was going to be lucky if he was going to live to seventy. What could he do in thirty years to make up for all the torture and murder he had committed while he had been working for Bane?

No. Returning to Bane was really the only way.

It was the only way.

The only way that made sense for him.

He had no other choice. Because this was how the world worked. Some people were given all the chances – and some were left in the hungry shadows to rot.

Enver was just not willing to lie to himself.

He knew who he was.

Some folks were blessed. Others were cursed. There were people born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Folks like the bloody Ravengard prince. Folks who did not have to do much to be liked or accepted. Other folks were simply lucky. People like bloody Avariel, he guessed. Even if what the vampire had said was true, the asshole was still lucky. Nothing could change that. Had Avariel not been lucky… Well, he could think of several things that had happened during those three months two years ago, that should have killed him.

Enver was not lucky. He had not been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had been poor, and sick, and hated even by his own parents. The gods had probably cursed him upon his birth.

He had never had a true friend. He had never been loved.

Whatever he had gained in life, he had been forced to fight for.

He did not owe anyone anything. He just… He would live. He would live and somehow manage to not be tortured past his death.

For a moment he looked over his shoulder, but by now they had already moved on too far. He could no longer see the gnome’s lifeless body.

It did not matter. It was just another gnome.

Chapter Text

The day seemed to be neverending. Enver had to wonder himself how he managed to put one foot in front of the other. His legs were hurting, his torso was hurting. It seemed like something was burning underneath his ribs, tearing them apart from the inside. The migraine he had already had before the beast had attacked, only grew worse, but he knew he could not show it. He could not show weakness. Weakness was something the world did not allow – and Banites allowed even less for it. If he was weak, he would be killed.

Still, it appeared like a miracle to him that he even managed to keep going until the evening, when Thirza found them a narrow cave to settle in. Not that it made things easier. But Enver guessed at least it was safer than camping by the side of the road.

He sat with his back to the wall, eating some of the smoked meat they still had. The pain in his joints was overwhelming by now. He wondered how the hell he was supposed to even get up in the next day, let alone keep walking for more and more days.

Why didn’t they have a horse or a wagon?

He closed his eyes, only to open them a moment again, when his mind helpfully reminded him of Barcus who was undoubtedly still lying by the side of the road. He was probably dead by now, wasn’t he? If he had not bled out, he would probably get eaten by some wild animal or monster. And he had only been there because of Enver.

But it wasn’t really Enver’s fault, was it? He had not known that those fucking Oghmanytes would kidnap him on that day, that now seemed like an eternity ago. He had not known that Oghma – or some of his cult – were having an issue with him in the first place. So how was he supposed to know that? He had also not known that the dragonne would attack them, nor had he provoked it. In fact, he had not even asked Barcus to come with him, when he had broken out of that darn Oghmanyte temple. So, really, why would Enver blame himself?

It was just that he knew very well, that Barcus would not have been there if it had not been for him. If it had not been for him, Barcus would just be in Baldur’s Gate and do whatever he would do as the leader of the Ironhand gnomes.

Vinreva came into the cave. Judging by her wet hair, she had found somewhere outside to wash herself.

“You still look miserable,” she noted, looking at him. “Are you really that broken up over a bloody gnome?”

“It is not about the gnome,” Enver lied.  He hesitated. “In fact, it is something quite different. Why is it, that the two of us – two chosen of Bane – are travelling this road on foot?”

“Less auspicious,” she said and shrugged. “But also, I could not take a horse when we went here.”

Enver frowned, because it reminded him of another thing. “How did you even get there? How did you find us in those sewers?”

“We had been on another plane before. Long story. Bane gave me a vision, telling me to go there and fetch you – and those plans.” She looked over to her own backpack to which the scroll was attached still.

“Right…” Enver was not sure what to make of this answer. There were things about this, that made little sense. Why were they walking? Was it really not possible to teleport? Or to switch into one of Bane’s home planes?

She smirked before handing him a simple dagger. “There is a stream to the side of this hill,” she said. “You should shave. And wash. You look as if something died on your face – and the smell is there to match.”

“Of course.” He grimaced, quite aware of the insult being true to some degree.

Even though every fiber of his body protested, he got up, moving his body out of the cave once more.

It took every ounce of his will to not hobble. Instead he somehow managed to walk, even though keeping his body properly upright was more painful than anything.

The sky above was yellow, orange, and red. In the east the first stars were already visible, though the moon had not yet risen.

He eventually found the stream Vinreva had been talking about. Not a river, just a shallow stream, maybe two yard across and not even a full foot deep. The water was cool, but not cold, given that the temperatures were rather warm.

Enver hesitated for a long moment. He knew his clothes needed cleaning, too, but he barely had anything to do this with.

He was really useless on his own, wasn’t he? For so long he had had other people care for him, that he barely knew how to care for himself anymore. He knew how to shave – but shaving without a mirror? It was going to be a challenge. And shaving without proper soap was probably not going to make it easier.

Despite his hesitation, though, he stripped down, knowing that he needed to wash. Without the right soap he would not get the oil out of the sleeves of his jacket, but at the very least he should be able to wash his body properly.

He shivered, as he put his feet into the cold water.

His feet also did clearly not like the long journey. They were swollen and red. Several blisters were also covering the skin. His dressing shoes were not made to take a hike in them. Not to mention that he was generally just not in the kind of condition to do something like that.

But he could not show weakness. He could not. Because he knew that at least that drow was already waiting for it – and if he died now? He doubted he had already done enough for Bane to appreciate it, and if he ended up with eternal punishment… Well, he did not want to have made all those sacrifices for nothing, did he now?

He closed his eyes. How long had it been since the Oghmanytes had taken him?

Weirdly, time seemed to be relative in his mind right now. But it should have been about a tenday now, right?

Ravengard would probably think he had fled. If they connected Barcus’ disappearance with his own, they might think he had killed or kidnapped the gnome. Enver wondered what they would think he would be doing. But then again, they were not too far off with the truth, were they? He was going to return to Bane, and he was going to bring him a weapon. And then… Well, he would see what would happen then.

Enver looked at the dagger in his hand, before sighing.

No, he would wash himself first. Then he would try to shave – and hope he would not accidentally cut himself.

It was the better part of an hour, until Enver returned to that cave. By now the sky above was only showing a last bit of red in the fast west, where the sun had sunken beneath the horizon.

He had tried to wash his clothes as best as he could without the proper tools – and given that he had had no mirror, he could feel the burn of several wounds on his face. But at least the worst of the beard was gone, making the feeling on his face a bit easier.

He came closer to the cave once more, only to stop when he heard a moan from within.

It took him just a moment to understand. But then again, he was not really surprised about this. Of course Vinreva and the drow were fucking. He could not say quite exactly why, but he had expected something along those lines. They had just given those vibes.

He sighed.

Technically he should not be too awkward to go back into the cave. He was a Banite, right? He did not care about things like this. And yet, he sat down on the side of the grassy hill, only half-dressed as his other clothes needed to dry. He looked up to the stars above.

Why was it, that his mind was drifting to his former accomplice once more? The Dark Urge. The one, Orin had probably killed. He was not even sure if the bhaalspawn and him had ever been truly friends, but at the very least, Enver had enjoyed the man’s company. It had been good to talk with him, because the Dark Urge had understood him. He had understood him in a way only few other people – if any – had ever done.

Only that this understanding had not been anything Enver could return. Because he… He had not quite understood the Dark Urge all the time. The man had been such a sadistic killer. He had been a maniac. But then there had been this other part of him, like a whole different person. Someone, who at times seemed to regret all the other things he had done.

Maybe it had all been that urge. The thing that Bhaal’s blood had made the man do. Enver was not fully certain about these things. He did not know if he would ever understand it properly. Just as he would never know for certain what had happened to the man.

Banites were not supposed to have friends. Because in the end, friendship, love and those things were weak emotions, leaving one open for exploitation. Every connection to another person was a weakness. Every other person could betray you, or be used against you. If one was to be a tyrant, one had to stand above other people dying. In the end they would just be in the way of one’s own ascension.

He had known that even before becoming Bane’s chosen. He had. That was, why he had sold Karlach. Why he had sold her out of all people. Because otherwise… Who knew what would have happened?

He could not have a friend. So, if anything he should be glad that Barcus was… Well, probably dead.

By now the moans in the cave had ceased, and it was not long before the drow left the cave.

She saw him, her purple eyes narrowing. “What are you doing out here?”

“Waiting for you to finish,” he replied, before forcing himself up once more.

Back in the cave, he put his clothes out by the fire. They would smell of smoke, no doubt, but at the very least that would probably be better than the smell of sweat, oil and dead skin.

“Do you have a blanket?” he grunted in the direction of Vinreva.

She eyed him. “Oh, did I forget to give you a mirror?” She was mocking him, as she saw the wounds on his face.

“I don’t care,” he replied. “Do you have a blanket?” He repeated the question.

“I do.” She got one from her backpack and handed it to him. Looking him up and down, she shot him a gaze that was undoubtedly mocking. But he ignored it.

Wrapping the blanket around himself, he laid down close by the entrance of the cave.

His body would probably not forgive him this torture anytime soon. Days of walking, and nights of sleeping on the cold hard ground. He missed his fucking bed quite a lot.

But it would be worth it, right? It would be better at least than eternity of punishment. Punishment by the devils for doing wrong – or punishment by Bane for not doing enough of it. It did not matter. Torture was torture, right?

He had tortured more than enough people to know it. He had…

There had been those times, when the Dark Urge had asked him, if he – the Dark Urge, the blood of Bhaal – could ever be anything but the knife his father had turned him into. It had been those awkward conversations, in which Enver had never quite known what to tell the man. He had mostly shrugged it off, because doing other things had been easier. After all, how should the Dark Urge, who had been created by Bhaal, ever be anything but his father’s weapon. If he had the choice to do something else, what would it mean for someone like Enver. Someone, who was not chosen, but had just accidentally ended up with those powers?

No. There was no choice. No choice for mortals like them. Anyone who said something else was lying.

There was no choice.

And because there was no choice, there was no friendship or love or anything…

Again he felt that feeling. That rather painful sensation, as if someone was stabbing him right in the chest. What was this? Some sort of illness, maybe? It went along with something close to sickness. He felt unwell, as he was lying there on the ground, as the dark outside was becoming more and more complete.

He knew he should sleep. His body needed sleep. But whenever he tried to fall asleep, he just was reminded of all those things. Of Barcus, who was dead. Of the Dark Urge, who had died, too. Of the people Enver had failed, because he was a coward. And of that hatred in Karlach eyes, when he had seen her the last time.

She would have killed him.

She would have killed him, if it was not for fucking stupid Avariel. If it was not for the darn idiot, who was naïve enough to believe in people making choices.

Fucking asshole.

There was no choice. Not in the real world. Not for most people at the very least. Some lucky few… Yes, maybe some lucky few would get a choice. But Enver had never been lucky. He had been cursed. And because of it he had never been given such a choice. His own darn parents had sold him, so if anything was it not his right to take revenge on this whole fucking world?

So why was he feeling so darn shitty right now?

It was because he was exhausted, right? But if he was exhausted, why wouldn’t he sleep? Why couldn’t he sleep?

He needed sleep. He needed quiet. He needed…

He still did not know what exactly that scroll was he had stolen. A weapon, Vinreva had said. Some sort of weapon Bane could use to spread even more terror. Which was right, wasn’t it? Or at least not wrong.

It should not be wrong. Especially as…

He still did not know what it was.

He still did not know.

Some sort of weapon. A weapon that would kill a lot of people, probably. Maybe in particularly gruesome ways. He did not know. He did not need to know. He should just sleep and relax and not think about it.

He was a chosen of Bane’s. He should do right by his patron. He should do right by Bane, and by himself. Because nobody had ever fucking cared about him. Nobody had ever…

He was feeling so sick.

His head was pulsing with a horrible migraine, and yet, he could not sleep.

He just could not sleep.

He sat up, turning around to find at the very least Vinreva vast asleep and the fire already burned down.

Slowly he felt his clothes. They were still a bit damp, but dry enough for him to wear. And then his gaze drifted over to the scroll.

Of course he knew, that he should not. It did not matter. It did not matter what kind of weapon it was.

And yet…

He hesitated. Where had the drow gone? He could not be certain.

But he crawled over to Vinreva’s backpack, carefully taking the long scroll out of it.

He used the knife he had not given back to open the seal on it, carefully rolling it out in front of those last few embers. His eyes really were not the best.

After another moment of hesitation, he summoned another flame, before looking at the densely written letters – and the drawing accompanying them. The letters were of an old language, but he had seen them before. And after a moment, he was almost certain he understood at least some part of them.

His eyes flew over the lines of text, and then over those drawings.

A weapon.

A weapon indeed. But one that worked quite different than those weapons used most of the time. This was not a canon, it was a bomb – but one that had not just an explosive effect.

No. This one… It would do more than just burn and tear. It would poison. And that was not the end of it.

He felt his heart sink, while he tried to understand the alchemical notes accompanying it. Oh it could be a terrifying weapon indeed, if it was unleashed upon a city for example. To think what it could do to one of the big cities if let loose at a central place. Baldur’s Gate. Neverwinter. Waterdeep. It could be quite devastating.

Why did the thought make him shiver?

Why did it make him feel sick?

He was a chosen of Bane. A chosen of Bane. He should delight in this, just as he had delighted in it before.

He should…

He could not stop this. In the end, without Bane’s powers, he was a sickly man, who could barely walk. He could not stop this. He could not.

And yet…

Chapter Text

Enver had killed hundreds. He had killed hundreds by his own hands. He was responsible for the death of several thousands at the very least. He knew it. He knew it.

What difference should a few more souls make? Was it not a worthy price to pay to once more gain the favor of a god? And yet, his heart was racing, as his mind imagined it. A weapon like this going off in the middle of the city.

So many dead. Once again. So many.

And it would be his fault. His fault.

Enver was a coward. He knew he was. He had learned to fear pain down there in the hells, and he had wanted to avoid it – at least as much as it was possible for someone with his body. He had wanted to avoid it. He did not want to return to the hells. And he did not want to be tortured by Bane either.

Everyone was their own best friend, right? Most people would not be good without knowing there would be some sort of reward in the end. Let alone, when they knew that what was waiting for them was a punishment.

And there would only be punishment. No matter what he did. There would be punishment. Because even if he did… What even? What could he even do?

Even if he tried to do something about this, he would just end up dead – and then punished. It would not be enough to save his soul. He knew it would not be. So why should he try? Why would he do anything about it?

This world was shitty to begin with. And most people were not quite as corrupt as him, were they? They would not end up in the hells, right? So really, killing them would do them a favor. He had told that to the Dark Urge once. If only he could believe it now.

He was trembling, as he put the scroll down.

His head felt almost as if ready to split with the headache. When had he gone so soft? When had his will failed him like this?

Even if he wanted to do something about this, he would be incapable of doing it. He was weak. And as soon as he moved against Bane, the god would take what little power he had restored to Enver from him.

There was nothing Enver could do. Nothing at all. He should not even be thinking about it.

He put the scroll down, rolling it up once more with shaking hands.

Yes, he knew that he could not do anything. But… But why was it feeling so wrong?

He was only alive, because he had taken the chances when they had presented themselves. He was alive, because he had outwitted a devil. He was alive, because he had been ruthless. He was alive, because he had been willing to do whatever needed to be done for the plan to succeed. He could do it again. He would do it again. He…

He was alive, because a fucking bard had decided it two years ago. Because dumb, bloody Avariel had decided to not have him killed.

He was alive, because for the last two years Lash more than anyone had made sure he did not kill himself through his bad habits.

No.

Fuck Avariel. Fuck that asshole. He would not have the idiot be right. He could not…

Enver turned around to put the scroll back into that backpack, but then he hesitated once more.

Even if he took it now, what was he going to do with it? Sooner or later Vinreva and the crazy drow would notice it was gone, and they would find him rather quickly. And then they would undoubtedly kill him and still finish this. There was just nothing he could do. There was nothing…

Why in the nine hells did it feel so wrong?

He took the scroll again, before fighting to get back onto his feet.

He could not do anything. He could not. He simply could not. There was no escaping it. There were no second guesses. And if he died now… Well, even if he tried to play the hero – something that only an idiot would do! – he doubted that one of the better gods would appreciate it enough to save his darn soul.

He knew this. He knew all this. Just as he had always known what any of this meant.

Yes. Once upon a time, he had dreamt of being a hero, but that had been before his useless parents had sold him to Raphael. It had been before those twelve lost years. In the end, heroes were chosen by fate – and real heroes were rare. Most of those adventurers celebrated as heroes were just folks vying for riches and admiration. Influence, maybe. They were not doing it to do right. They were just doing it for the nice things a hero would earn.

The real heroes, those were just idiots. And most of them died either way. Those who didn’t were chosen by the gods – Enver was certain of that. By the gods, or by fate, or some other bullshit.

But he had been cursed. He had been meant to be the villain. It was just how the dice had fallen. He had accepted it a long time ago.

So why couldn’t he accept it again?

He looked at the scroll, still clenched in his right hand. He knew he could do nothing about this. He knew it. And yet…

He folded it together, stuffing it into the folds of his shirt.

He was an idiot. He was a fucking idiot now.

Despite his body still protesting against it all, he left the cave, not sure where to turn to. Baldur’s Gate was hundreds of miles away, on the other side of a darn desert – or if he travelled further south on the other side of mountains. Either way, he could not cross over there.

And if he went back, those darn Oghmanytes would eventually get him.

And if he…

“What are you doing up?” a cold voice asked.

He turned around, finding Thirza leaning against a rock by the entrance of the cave. “What are you doing up? Shouldn’t you rest?”

She scoffed. “I am a drow. We do not sleep. You know that, right?”

Right. Drow. Dark elves. Like normal elves they did not sleep, but trance, needing to rest only very few hours – and if push came to shove they were able to go days without rest at all.

“So, you are standing guard?”

“So to speak,” she said, her eyes narrow as she eyed him. “I told you, there was all sorts of creatures crawling in these hills.” She took out one of her rapiers, swishing it through the air – and only barely missing Enver’s face. “You, however, are not an elf. You are a squishy human, who has barely been able to walk during those last few days. This makes me wonder, why are you up?” Mistrust was almost dripping from her voice, as she looked at him.

There was another shiver running down Enver’s spine. He was under no illusion: She would easily be able to kill him, and his instinct was to take a step away from her.

And yet, there was this instinct inside of him.

He could not show weakness. He knew how to deal with people like her. He had been able to deal with Orin well enough – and Thirza was not worse than Orin, was she now?

He steeled himself. “I could not sleep,” he said cooly, putting one finger against the blade of her sword and pushing it away from himself. He shot her a chilly smile. “It turns out that I clearly have gone soft, based on living in a mansion for the last ten years. Sleeping on the rocky floor of a cave is rather uncomfortable in comparison.”

She chuckled. “Ah, yes. The weak old mortal man, no?”

“Indeed,” he said.

“And you are sure that is all?” she asked, raising the sword again. “You are not still teary eyed because of the darn slave, are you?”

“Please,” he replied. “As you said. It was a slave. There are others we can buy.”

Her eyes narrowed even more. “Right.”

“Say, Lady Thirza, there was one thing I could not help but wonder. I am rather certain I can hear a bit of Undercommon from the way you speak, which would mean that you grew up in the Underdark. Menzoberranzan, I assume?”

She grimaced. “So what?”

“I am sorry if I should overstep any boundaries,” he said slowly, “but I am to assume that you were raised in the faith of Lolth, the Mother of Spiders?”

“That does not concern you, human.” She raised the blade a bit more, until the end was pointed quite decidedly towards Enver’s throat, even though the tip was still a good four inches from him.

“I am just wondering, how you have come to follow Bane now. Not that it would be the wrong decision. It just seems strange, given that Bane is mortal right now – so I fail to see how he could beat out the Mother of Spiders in the eyes of a Menzoberranzanian drow?”

Thirza spat in front of his feet. “Is that any way to speak about your own patron, human?”

“It is, when you want to make sure that everyone who claims to follow Bane is indeed on his side and not ready to betray him for a half-spider goddess.”

“Ha!” She grunted. “Do you really want to know about Lolth? Do you?”

“I don’t know.” He forced himself to bring to life that smile again. That cold smile that told others that he could not be touched – even though it had never been quite that effective against Orin. “You tell me.”

“Lolth has forsaken her people,” Thirza hissed. “She has forsaken Menzoberranzan, while Bane has lifted me out of the dark below into the light. So do not worry, you pitiful thing, I know where my loyalties lie.”

“Despite Bane’s mortality?”

“Oh, come on now.” Her gaze was cool as well. “You are supposed to be a clever one. In this world there are quite a lot of ways to gain – or regain – immortality. You should know, no? Wasn’t that what you promised Lord Bane once?”

“It might have been,” Enver said, trying to not mind the sword too much. He looked the drow into the eyes. But indeed, he was quite aware that all three of the gods had undoubtedly hoped to gain immortality through the plan. After all, they all had lost their full divine status a good century ago. “But I failed, didn’t I?”

“You did,” she whispered. “And Vinreva will make up for it.”

“Right…” he muttered that word, not quite realizing things yet. Just as he wanted to speak on, the realization hit him.

A weapon that could kill hundreds, if not thousands at once. A weapon to spread fear.

That was, what they were after, wasn’t it? Sacrificing all those people to restore Bane back to immortality. Because it was all that the Dead Three were obsessed about since the last time they had died and returned in their now mortal forms.

Thirza’s eyes narrowed. “You are a weakling, and by all respect for Lord Bane, I do wonder, why he would give someone like you a second chance.”

“Because I was at the right place at the right time,” Enver replied. “It turns out, in the end it is all about luck, isn’t it?”

She scoffed. “Maybe.” She pushed the tip of the sword now against his skin. “So, what will you do now?”

“I think, I will go to that stream once more, and get a bit of fresh water to drink,” he said, his heart now drumming against his ribs. “And then we will see.”

“We will see?”

“Oh, come on now. We both know that you would love to cut me down, if I fell behind,” he said, making her laugh.

Finally, she lowered her blade. “Well, at least about this one thing you are not wrong.”

He shot her that chilly smile once more, before turning to go into the direction of that stream. His mind was racing now.

Right. Immortality.

A ritual of sorts to restore Bane’s immortality.

He should have known, but it turned out, that in the end he could be quite naïve – especially for someone who thought himself more intelligent than anyone else. Darn it.

He felt that parchment against the skin underneath his shirt. The two of them would notice sooner or later that he was gone. And he had to find a way to disappear from here before they did.

Ha. As if he could. As if he could do anything.

He would die.

Because it seemed that idiocy was quite infectious.

Chapter Text

Enver was trembling as he was sitting by the stream in the darkness. He knew what he had to do. He knew it quite well. He just did not know how he could do it.

He needed to get these plans away, and then, ideally, destroy them. But how? Would it work to burn them?

The fear was still gripping his heart, because he understood very well that Bane would soon realize – and he understood as well, that Bane would not have him go through with it. The god would try to stop him in some way.

It was objectively dumb to work against Bane. It was dumb. Yet, for some reason the thought to do anything else felt wrong. He really had gotten himself infected with the idiocy.

With his hands, he scooped some of the cool water from the stream to wash his face.

He was exhausted, and his body was aching, but he could not rest. He had to get away from here. And the only thing he could think to do was to return to Barcus. Even though he knew that the gnome was probably dead.

He just did not know anything else to do.

With this thought in mind, he once more had to fight to get onto his feet, before orienting himself in the darkness of the night.

The moon above was only a crescent, though this made the tears of Selûne gleam brighter. While Enver’s steps were staggering in the dark, and his legs were painful with every step, he managed to find his way back to the road they had been following before.

He could not help to look over his shoulder, trying to see if he was followed.

But he hoped it would be at least a couple of hours, before those two noticed that the plans were gone.

They would undoubtedly look for him once they did, but maybe… Oh, who was he kidding? They would find him and kill him. And once he was dead he knew what would be waiting. He should turn around and just do the reasonable thing. He should. He just could no longer do it.

And thus he made his way down the road.

They had been walking a good four hours after leaving Barcus behind, so he would walk at least as long to get back there. If the gnome’s body was even still there. Chances were, that he had gotten savaged by some wild animal.

But what else was Enver going to do?

It had been a mistake to leave the gnome behind. But if he had protested against Vinreva and the drow, they probably would have gotten violent even then.

A bitter thought came into his mind. That bloody Avariel would have stood up against them. But that bloody idiot would not have gotten himself into that situation in the first place, would he now? He was too good and too dumb to even get seduced into helping Bane or any deity of that sort in their plans. No, he would have just challenged them. Ha, and then he would have tried to be nice, undoubtedly. He would have probably tried to somehow reach out to Vinreva and somehow convince her to be good or something. He probably would have gotten himself killed.

Enver grunted. He was not an idiot. He should be more intelligent than this. Cleverer. And yet, he somehow was doing the exact same dumb thing, even though he knew very how it would end. He did not believe some bullshit about everyone having a good core. He most certainly did not believe it about the darn drow, or that tiefling woman. He did not even believe it about himself.

He had killed. He had tortured. There was nothing about it. And at some point he had loved how it felt. To hold the life of another person in his hands. And to crush it, just because he could.

At least in those moments he had not been afraid.

Yet, when he remembered it, there was another feeling inside of him. When he remembered them. Those people he had tortured. Those people he had killed. He did not even remember them all, because it had been too many. And yet, some he did remember. He remembered their tears, their screams, and their pleading. Just as he remembered another thing. That girl. The first one he had killed in anything other than self-defense. A sacrifice for Bane. She had begged. And he had killed her.

A shiver ran down his spine, as a familiar, yet almost forgotten feeling returned to him. The same sickness, he had felt once more before.

He paused, forcing himself to breathe. His teeth gritted, he could almost feel a bitter laugh rise in his throat. For fuck’s sake. It was a bit late for regret, wasn’t it? He had made his choice – and it had already doomed him. Yet, he was still trudging onwards, back up the road he had come from hours before. He knew it was too late to turn around, and yet, back was the only way he could go…

The sky was already starting to get brighter in the east. Somewhere – he could not see where – some birds were singing.

Enver was not so much walking, as he was scuffling along. He was moving forward, because he just knew that he could not stop. Of course it would not make a big difference in the end. It would not. But he was still moving onwards, while trying to keep standing.

His legs were trembling. He was weak, and the pain in his head had gotten so bad, that it was hard to even see what was lying ahead. There were bright spots appearing in his vision again and again, flashing as if to make that migraine worse. He was not sure how long he would be able to keep going, but for now the fear of those two, who would eventually notice the plans gone was enough to keep him walking – or rather stumbling.

He did not know how long it had been since he had left that cave, but the first sunrays were coming over the horizon, as he recognized the hill.

While his vision was blurry, he could make out a small form dark against the dry grass on the side of the hill. Barcus!

Somehow Enver managed to stumble ahead a bit further, until he finally reached the body of the gnome.

He fell to his knees next to it, as he was feeling the gnome’s skin with trembling hands. It was cold. And there was nothing, when he picked up Barcus’ wrist to feel for a pulse.

“No…” He should have known that it was what was waiting for him. His sweaty hands were feelings for the pulse at the neck, too. Just to make sure. Just because he would not know what to do, if Barcus was dead.

Hells, he did not even knew what he would do if the gnome lived.

Even at the neck, he was not sure if he felt something. So in the end, he leaned down to listen to the heartbeat in the gnome’s chest. Only that it was hard enough, given his own head was pulsing with both his own heartbeat and pain. Still, as he hovered there, waiting for a long moment, he finally could hear… something.

A faint beating. A heart. There was a heartbeat. He was fairly sure. It was faint, but it was there.

Only that he still did not know what to do.

He had no potion. Nothing to heal. He was incapable of casting healing spells. He was completely useless in this.

And by now – he was almost certain – Vinreva and the accursed drow would have noticed him being gone and having taken the plans. And they would come looking for him. It did not take a genius to figure out where he had gone. Of course he would come to look here, because that was what dumb people would do.

Darn it.

Darn it all.

What could he do? He had to do something. Anything. But he just did not know what?

He was useless. His body was weak and broken. It had always been, but yes, him giving into his instincts for that first year after the Netherbrain had fallen, had not made things any better.

What should he do? What could he…

What would that damn bard do?

Frankly, Enver did not know. But he was also fairly certain that the idiot was able to cast healing spells. So in the end he was probably less useless than Enver was right now.

Enver couldn’t do anything. Just that he also could not afford to do nothing. He had to do… something. Anything. He had to try to… What? What could he do?

The sun was slowly rising up. As it was still close to the horizon it let the hills draw long shadows onto the ground, as he was sitting there.

He was an idiot.

He had always been an idiot. An idiot and a coward. And now? What should he do now?

His head was aching so much. All he wanted was to lie down and try to sleep. But he knew if he rested now, he would wake up with a sword against his throat. If not with a sword piercing his chest.

He… What?

He had to get somewhere safe.

There had to be a village somewhere around here, right?

They had barely met anyone on the road while they had travelled during the last few days, but he knew there were people living here. By now they should be somewhere in Cormyr, and there were people here. Both folks from Cormyr and those people who allegedly had come from the Shadowfell after getting banished there from Netheril.

It did not really matter, though. He just needed… Someone. He needed someone. He needed help.

More than him, Barcus needed help. Someone who could heal.

Right.

That was the only thing Enver could do. And he was not even sure if he actually could do it.

He drew in a long and shaky breath, before trying to lift up the gnome. It worked, somehow. While his entire body was protesting against it, the good news was, that Barcus indeed was only a gnome, and as such weighing about as much as a human child.

It was a fight to get back onto his feet once again, but somehow he managed.

He knew that he would not be able to make it very far. But he had to at least… He had to get somewhere. There had to be a village. A town. Something. People. A place where maybe a healer could be found. Even if not a cleric. Maybe a druid or… He was not sure. Anything. Anyone who could heal. Or someone who might have a potion. Or…

Enver did not even have any money on him, but it was the only thing he could think of.

He was too weak. And he knew one thing for certain: He could not do this alone. Neither could he heal Barcus – nor would he be able to do anything against the Banites. He needed help. Even though he was not sure if anyone was going to offer it.

In the end, people were all cowards, right? Most people were cowards, who would rather not stand in the way of gods. It was easier to go with what the gods wished in the end. Even if one knew it was bad.

He had known it was bad. He had known it in some way. He had known that working for Bane was wrong. But… It had been a lot easier than standing against him.

The bright light of the sun returning to the world on this early summer morning did not make anything easier. It was becoming harder and harder to see, while his view seemed to be flickering. His entire body was painful by now, and even though the summer heat had not quite spread yet, he was sweating.

He had not even brought a water skin.

He really was also one of those idiots, wasn’t he? Maybe he had always been.

An idiot. A coward. A useless man.

He remembered something. The day that he had finally confronted his useless parents. His useless parents, who had shown not a bit of remorse for having sold him to a devil. They had defended themselves. How hard he had been as a child. How needy. How egoistic. He had been sick. He had cried. He had never shown remorse towards making their life hard. That was what they had said. They had claimed that they had not known Raphael was a devil. But by that time Enver had not really cared either way.

It was true though. He had been sick and weak as a child. That much he did remember. He remembered being sick, and being blamed for it. And he remembered thinking that he would die.

Maybe it would have been better for everyone, if he actually had.

His body was protesting so much against him right now. Every step was taking so much energy. His muscles were aching, and so where his joints. His head was pulsing, while those bright spots were taking over almost his entire field of view.

He would not be able to go much further. But he… He had to find some place where he could be at least somewhat safe. If there was such a place, when a god had a personal vendetta against you. Even if it was a mortal god.

He needed to go.

He needed to.

Only that slowly, but surely, he just could no longer. His legs were trembling, before the finally gave in.

It had simply been too much.

Chapter Text

“Hey.” The voice came from quite a bit away. “Hey, you!”

There was another voice, that seemed even further. “Are you sure the guy is still alive?”

“He is breathing.”

“Are you really sure?”

Enver needed a long moment to realize, they were talking about him. Well, he was fairly of that. He felt someone tugging on his collar.

The next sensation that wormed its way into his consciousness was his pain though. His body was hurting. In fact, there were so many different flavors of pain, that he could not even fully name them all. He groaned, instinctively rolling onto his side in an attempt to lessen the pain.

“See?” one of the voices said. “He is alive.”

Panting in pain, Enver tried to open his eyes. Even now there were flashy white spots in his field of vision, pulsing constantly. But he could see that he was on the ground, and that there were people around him. Two people, to be exact.

They were both rather small.

He raised his gaze, to look at the first of them. A gnome woman. Rock gnome, if he was not mistaken. Her blonde hair was put in a braid behind her head, and her clothes featured more pockets than it was sensible – especially someone as tiny as her.

The guy next to her was a dwarf. His clothes were mostly functional. He had dark brown hair – so dark, it almost seemed black – and a short trimmed beard.

Now he grunted. “Looks like it.”

His gaze drifting further around, Enver realized that there was a wagon, too. Three horses. And people on the back of the wagon. “Who are you people?” And then he realized something else.  “Where’s Barcus?”

“The gnome you were carrying?” the gnome woman asked.

Despite his body’s general disagreement with this action, Enver sat up. “Yes. Him. He…”

“He is in the wagon. I will take care of him.” She eyed him with turquoise eyes. “Which leads me to my question. Why were you carrying an almost dead gnome in the middle of nowhere.”

“Well, technically this is somewhere,” the dwarf argued.

“It is just an expression, Ramur!” she grunted.

“I…” Enver paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “We were attacked by a dragonne. He got injured. I cannot heal. I tried to take him somewhere, where he could heal.”

The gnome lady started to laugh. “And then you keeled over yourself! Ha!”

“I gotta ask though,” someone noted from the caravan. “What are two like these doing out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“It is somewhere!” the dwarf insisted, but this time got ignored.

Enver tried to sort his thoughts. He was not sure who those people were and what were their intentions. He was not sure if he could tell them about the Oghmanytes, though he was fairly certain that it would be a dumb idea to tell them about the plans still hiding under his clothes.

He grunted, holding his head.

“Beryl…” Another voice said. “If you don’t mind me saying. He looks like he can use a healing too. And then probably a tea or something. I am almost certain he is dehydrated and is going to faint if we do not change something about that.”

Enver looked over to the wagon. The person speaking was an elf.

“Right.” The gnome, who apparently was named Beryl, gave a sigh. “Right. I am sorry. I just… Big people can be suspicious. But I guess, you were trying to save that other gnome, and that means, you cannot be too bad.”

The elf who had spoken just now, jumped off the back of the wagon, coming over to him. “You need help, saer?”

Enver hesitated, but then slowly nodded. Even though he hated it, he allowed the elf to help him onto his feet, bringing him over to the wagon.

It was hot by now. Judging by the position of the sun, it was the late afternoon.

Enver grunted, as he climbed onto the back of the wagon, seeing Barcus indeed lie there, albeit still unconscious.

The elf handed him a simple bottle. “This is some tea. Mint leaves, lemon and honey. It should help you regain some energy.”

Again Enver hesitated. There was this instinct of his, to assume someone was going to poison him. But indeed, he was thirsty. He uncorked the bottle, taking a couple of deep sips. The sweet and somewhat sour liquid felt good in his dry throat. He waited for a moment, before drinking even more.

He felt horrible. Not just because he was in pain, but also as he had been sweating a lot – before clearly having collapsed on the ground. So despite him having washed the night before, a mixture of dried sweat and dust was caking his skin.

“You sure are thirsty,” the elf noted.

“I am,” Enver admitted. He closed his eyes, in the faint hope to no longer see the flashing in front of them. But of course it was a useless hope. “I…”

The gnome lady looked at him – still standing outside the wagon. She grunted. “Very well. We shall get going. If we don’t, we won’t reach Melembar before nightfall.” With that she walked around the wagon, climbing on the hog in front.

Two of the horses had been put in front of the wagon. A human was riding on the third horse to the side. A woman, carrying a sword on the side of her saddle.

Enver did not really understand who these people were, but his headache told him, that he might not care enough about this right now.

The elf to his side looked at him for a long moment, while the dwarf climbed onto the wagon floor as well. He looked at Enver, and grunted again.

There was a third person back here. Another gnome, who was dressed in a less practical manner. He was right now busy whittling something from wood, but looked over at Enver.

“I still do not understand,” he said. “What are a deep gnome and a human doing out here in Cormyr, right in the middle of…” He looked at the dwarf by his side. “Somewhere.”

“As I said, we were attacked by a dragonne,” Enver repeated slowly.

“Yes, I heard that much,” the gnome said. “But to be attacked by the dragonne, you first needed to be somewhere, where a dragonne would be. Which makes one wonder, why you would be somewhere a dragonne would be. Because, if you excuse my manners, you do not look like someone who would be found in any areas dragonnes usually would live.”

“Gee, Glimmer,” the elf said, “let the poor guy first rehydrate. He looks like he is… Well, not in a good state.”

There was a jolt going through the whole wagon, just before it started moving. The dirt road was crunching underneath the wooden wheels of the wagon, as the hooves of the horses were starting to clap in a steady pace.

Enver took another deep sip from the bottle, feeling that it soothed at least like one of the many pains echoing through his body. He was not quite sure which one.

“He does look pretty beaten up,” the dwarf noted. “And he does not look like he knows how to travel.” He gave Enver’s outfit a critical once-over.

Enver did not reply. Because he just was not sure what he should tell these people. Normally he was good at coming up with lies. But right now he was not certain if he would be able to even tell the whole truth if he tried. His mind felt as if an illithid tadpole had been eating through it for days, leaving only some sort of mush behind.

He closed his eyes again, allowing himself to lean against the side of the wagon for a bit. When he opened his eyes again, he looked over to Barcus. “Is he still alive?”

“He is,” the male gnome – apparently named Glimmer – said. “Beryl did some healing on him. We’ll take care of the rest once we get to Melembar, no worries.”

“Melembar?” Enver asked. He had heard the gnome lady mention the name before, but it meant nothing to him.

“It was a town once. A trading outpost. Today more of a village. But it is close to the Dalish forest and folks come through there. So you will find an inn, and some suppliers there,” the elf offered.

“I see.” Enver remembered once more, that he had not even a single piece of gold on him. It would have been already bad if he had some money, given that he knew out here they would be using different coinage, but without money… How was he…? He felt the parchment pressed against his skin, probably being by now a bit crusted from the salt of his sweat.

Vinreva and the drow would probably come after him. And if Bane was guiding them, they would find him.

If he just could get to Baldur’s Gate…

He grinded his teeth, when he realized where those thoughts were going.

No, he was not an idiot like those other people who were falling for this whole bullshit Avariel was putting out. No, that guy would most certainly not help him. Because no matter how nice and kind the guy was acting, Enver knew better than to believe it. It was just a way to goat. A way to humiliate him. It was not real.

And still… At least he understood Baldur’s Gate. Even knowing that Ravengard fucking hated him, he was rather certain that Ravengard would stand up to the Banites and would manage to rally some troops.

But Baldur’s Gate was… Quite a long journey away.

“You do look, like you could use some sleep,” the elf said. “I am certain, once we get to Melembar, you will get some support for your journey. Until then… We will wake you when we get there.” They nodded towards the a bunch of bedrolls in the corner of the wagon. “It’s fine.”

It was not Enver’s nature to trust people – no matter whether they were strangers or people he knew.  If someone offered him to rest, he would usually assume they were going to murder him in his sleep. But the pain in his body told him, that maybe right now he did not care one way or another.

So he did not speak. He just nodded.

As well as his aching body allowed him to, he skuttled over, to grab one of the bedrolls – only for his wrist to be in turn grabbed by a long purple tongue.

One of the bedrolls grew a pair of eyes, and teeth, and gave a long hissing sound.

Enver jerked backwards, yelping, as he tried to free his wrist.

The elf groaned. “Morph! I told you a thousand times you should not…”

The bedroll started hopping across the wood. Its tongue let go of Enver, as it gave a further array of sounds that Enver barely could describe.

“That’s… That’s a fucking mimic!” he gasped.

“Yeah, don’t worry about him,” the elf said. “It’s just Morph. He is my… Well…” They looked over to the bedroll. “Morph!”

Morph, the mimic, now rolled over the ground towards the elf, morphing into a marble as it did. The marble hopped into the elf’s hand.

“I told you before this is not funny,” the elf said, while the marble made further sounds.

“We told them a mimic is no pet,” Glimmer, the gnome, offered.

“He was orphaned,” the elf defended themselves.

“He is a mimic,” the dwarf grunted. “Those things eat people.”

The elf looked at the dwarf with a rather hurt look. “Murph would never!” They held the marble carefully in their hands.

The dwarf and the gnome just exchanged a look. “Never.”

Enver would have agreed with them, if he had not been as exhausted as he was. He carefully took another the bedrolls, somewhat relieved that it did not grow a tongue. He did not even care to roll it out, just taking it as a make-shift pillow.

He laid his head down on it, closing his eyes.

Normally he struggled to fall asleep, but not today. The exhaustion took him over rather fast, letting him sink into a deep, dreamless slumber.

Chapter Text

“Hey. Hey.” Someone was shaking Enver’s shoulder, making him slowly awaken.

It took him a moment to remember why the hell he was lying in the back of a wagon, but eventually he did remember it all.

He turned, looking into the face of the elf. He still did not quite know what the elf was, given they had the typical androgynous look of their species. The skin was not quite pale. A bit darker. Probably a wood elf. Their hair was of a chestnut brown color.

“You didn’t even tell us your name,” the elf now said.

“Right,” Enver muttered.

He noted that it was dark by now, and there were further voices somewhere outside of the wagon. The light of torches shimmered through the linen covering the wagon. They must have arrived, right?

“My name is Caeda,” the elf said. “The dwarf is Ramur. The gnomes are duchess Beryl and Glimmer. And the grumpy woman outside is Melis. She does not like to talk.” A knife in their belt gave a hiss. “Oh yeah, and the mimic is Morph.”

Enver still wondered who was insane to keep a mimic as a pet. “Enver. My name is Enver.”

“And that guy is Barcus?” Caeda asked. “You called him that.”

“Yes. Barcus. He… He is with the Ironhand gnomes.”

“Ah.” Caeda nodded. “Well, we are in Melembar now. So… I don’t know. Where were you going, before the dragonne happened?”

Enver hesitated. “Baldur’s Gate…”

“Baldur’s Gate?” The elf looked at him. “That is quite a bit away.”

“I am aware of that,” he grunted, before looking around. His body was still painful, though not quite as bad as it had been before he had lied down to rest. He looked at Barcus, who was clearly still unconscious, before he finally skuttled to the back of the wagon, letting himself glide to the ground.

He sighed, as he looked around. Indeed, this seemed to have been a town once. At least by the number of buildings.

The night had already fallen and where they were – in front of a tavern and inn – there was a sort of town’s square. Some right now empty stalls told him, that during the day there was some sort of market here. Probably just folks selling food and maybe some stuff for travelling people who were coming through the place.

Which reminded him of one of his currently many problems.

He did have no money. No money to stay at an inn. No money to buy himself food. No money to acquire a crossbow or anything he could use to hunt. No money to get a horse or mule or even a darn donkey to help him carry supplies.

How in the nine hells was he going to get back to Baldur’s Gate?

Once more he became quite aware of the plans. Even if he lost them somehow… He doubted it would make a difference. If he knew anything about Bane, then that Bane was a vengeful guy. And given that those Sembian Oghmanytes had been willing to travel to Baldur’s Gate to get him before he had stolen those plans, he had the mild suspicion some of them would be following him now still.

Fuck. What was he going to do?

He remembered the last time being stranded on this plane without money. Just when he had escaped the House of Hope. He had managed to get by through manual labor for a bit, until he had met Wisteria, who was so easily taken by his mind and his charm.

But neither of those options was feasible now. He was older. And he had not treated his already frail body well during those last two years. Physical work? Well, he could still work a forge, but he did not have the time to earn enough money. And he was of no illusion. He had never been conventionally pretty, but while he had had a rough charm as a younger man, he was not that young man anymore. And once more, his body had suffered especially in that first year after his defeat.

“Ah. I see you are awake,” a voice said. The gnome lady. “I’m gonna have Melis bring your companion inside. I assume you will wanna stay in the in, eh? You look like you could use it. I gonna heal that poor fella properly, once I’ve eaten. And you? You kinda look like you need healing, too.”

“I… I am afraid healing will not do much for me,” he replied. Sure, he had some scrapes and some cuts from his attempt to shave. But most of the pain his body was not being touched by any form of healing magic.

His head was still painful, though the headache was not as bad and not as throbbing as it had been before his sleep. Still, he could probably use a night of proper sleep in an actual bed. Just how?

Behind him Melis was carrying Barcus out of the wagon, while Enver was just standing there, trying to sort his thoughts.

He could stay here and then sneak out maybe? Was that a possibility? He had heard some adventurers got by like that. For now he would do a whole lot of just for a hot bath and a soft bed. And then he would just… He was not sure. He was not exactly sneaky these days either. He just knew…

Well, he knew that he could not ask anyone for help, because he knew this world. And in this world, people who perceived your weakness were going to come for you like vultures. He would have to play his cards right. He had to be careful, and then he might somehow…

But that still did not change once thing: He was going to need some help.

He was not a fighter, and he could already feel is magic veining again. Maybe he was just imagining it – but he was almost certain he wasn’t. He could not fight Vinreva or the drow. He could not fight the Oghmanytes either.

“Are you alright?” Beryl raised an eyebrow.

He caught himself. “I am fine. I am just quite exhausted I am afraid.” Slowly he reminded himself of the one important lesson he had learned. He had to be charming. He had to get people to like him. Just as before. “I am sorry, Lady Beryl. I have so far not even gotten to thank you for my rescue, have I?”

She looked at him. “Spare me. You look like shit, human. And you do not smell much better. Besides, I would not have picked you off the street if it wasn’t for him.” She nodded in the direction of Melis – though Enver was almost certain she was talking about Barcus.

He frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, before you fainted, you were carrying the poor bastard,” she said. “Not a lot of big folks care enough about little folks to help out. Especially not gnomes.” She shrugged, before turning and entering the tavern.

Enver just stood there for a moment, making sense of her words. But she was right. Probably. He remembered what the drow had said: ‘You can always get another gnome at the next slave market.’ And it was not wrong.

Gnomes were easily enslaved after all. It was just convenient.

He follow the people into the tavern. Still he was trying to come up with a proper plan, but his mind was still struggling with the one thing: How did one get people to help out without money, and without a tool of control like the Netherbrain had been?

Charm, he guessed. It was a thing that worked. Just that he had not been using it a lot lately. Especially as he knew how to play the crowd in Baldur’s Gate, maybe. But not out here. Out here, in this strange land, that he knew barely anything about.

He needed rest. He needed to think. And then…

“Good evening, saer.” That was a young woman talking to him. She seemed human, though the slight point of her ear told Enver, that there might have been some elven ancestry of hers several generations ago. “Are you with these people?”

He needed to collect himself. “I am not. They just picked me off by the road. I would need a room. For two people. And a bath.”

“Some supper, maybe?”

Eating. Right. It was the other thing he still had to do. “Yes. Probably. After the bath, though.”

“That can be arranged, saer,” the young woman said.

Enver looked over to Caela, who was carrying Barcus still. He was still worried about his companion. But it seemed that at the very least Beryl and those people travelling with her were going to help Barcus at the very least, because of some connection through their common gnome-ness or something.

He sighed. A bath. He definitely needed a bath. And maybe some other clothes.

On the upside: Taking a warm bath actually helped Enver’s pain at least a little. On the downside, though, he still had no idea how to move on. For now, someone from the family owning the tavern had gotten him a set of rather simple clothes. Just a plain linen shirt, and linen trousers. He guessed it was better than keeping the same still messy clothes on. He wanted to wash them properly, still, but… he would take care of that later.

For now he took up those dirty clothes, hiding the folded up scroll between them, before leaving the small chamber in which he had bathed.

He sighed. Caela had brought Barcus upstairs, where some rooms were being rented out. And he guessed he would have to look after Barcus, even though he was not certain what the gnome would do when he woke up.

He groaned, as he fought his way up the stairs, before finding that rather tiny room, that never the less had two human sized beds in there. Right now only two people remained here. Glimmer – the second gnome – and Barcus, who was clearly still unconscious. “How is he doing?”

“He is healed,” Glimmer said. “Beryl took care of that. I assume he is just very exhausted still. Takes a bit when one is really done for someone to wake up, right?”

“Right,” Enver muttered.  He went over to the second bed, sitting down by its side.

He had not yet eaten, as right now the thought of eating once more disgusted him, but at the very least he had drunken some more.

For a moment he just sat there, thinking. Until Glimmer looked over to him. “This one… How was his name again?”

“Barcus,” Enver said.

“Right. Before Beryl healed him. His wrists had rope burn. He had been bound. Probably for several days, given how bad the rope burn was.”

Enver did not reply. He was not sure how he could even explain this.

“It makes me wonder even more. Why were you there?”

“We… We were trying to get to Baldur’s Gate,” Enver said.

“You told that to Beryl. But that is a bit far, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Enver said toneless.

“So, why were you in the middle of Cormyr with a deep gnome who clearly had been bound for days and apparently has been injured by some animal, I wonder.”

“As I said, we were attacked by a dragonne.”

“Who has bound Barcus up?”

“No. Obviously… It…” Enver tried to come up with a good explanation. But his mind was still sluggish. While his pain was a lot better than it had been before, it was still there, and the exhaustion was constantly close to overwhelming him.

“I would suspect he was your slave,” Glimmer said now. “If not for the fact, that he was not bound when we found you, and that you apparently had attempted to carry him. Which makes me wonder. I doubt you freed him from some mine or something. You clearly have not been in the Underdark recently either. So… Where did you come from?”

Enver was silent. Because he just could not come up with a good explanation.

Darn it. Normally he was the person to answer to questions quickly and eloquently with the boldest lies, but right now it seemed that neither his brain nor his body were any longer cooperating with his will. He needed to find an explanation. He needed to explain himself, and make “friends”. He needed support. He needed help. And he needed to get away from here.

Glimmer got up from the bed. “What did you say, was your name again?” he asked.

“Enver,” Enver replied.

“Any family name?”

For a moment Enver hesitated. He did not know how far the story of what had happened two years ago had travelled. Then he carefully answered. “Flymm.”

“Right…” The gnome looked at him.

“I don’t know what you… I mean, what does it concern you?” Enver asked.

“Well,” the gnome said. “Our kind is just quite used to being…” He stopped, as a grunt sounded behind him.

Both of them looked over to Barcus, who had started to move his head.  He was twitching, then jerking. His eye lids were flattering. Then, very suddenly, he opened his eyes and sat up, just to hold his head with a groan. “The…” He stopped, looking around in the room that was only lit by two candles.

Confusion showed on his face, as he saw the other gnome. But then he saw Enver. “Gortash!” He wanted to slip out of the bed, but swayed as he tried to stand.

Glimmer came to his side. “Careful there. You were more dead than alive when we found you.”

Barcus looked at the other gnome. “Who… Who are you?”

“My name is Glimmer,” he said. “I have been travelling with a survey from the university of… You know what? It is not that important. What is important: You are safe for now.”

Barcus’ eyes were fixed on the other gnome’s face for a long moment, before they wandered over to Enver. “Safe?” he asked.

“Yes. As safe as we can make it.” Glimmer, too, looked over to Enver. He smiled just slightly. “And now, I would love if you enlightened me, who that companion of yours is.”

“He… He is not my companion,” Barcus said weakly. “He… His name is Enver Gortash. He… Two years ago he tried to take over Baldur’s Gate, and in it almost got it destroyed. He killed… He killed thousands. At least indirectly. And…” Barcus stopped, shaking his head. “It is a long story. Do you… Would you happen to have something to drink for me? To eat? I…”

Glimmer looked over to Enver, his eyesbrows raised now. He smiled, before turning to Barcus. “I think we do.”

Chapter Text

Enver should be used to it. He should be. After all he had been in similar situations often enough during those last two years. Sitting at a table, while so many pairs of eyes were glaring at him.

He had tried for so long to not let it get to him. He was Archduke. That was, what he had told himself. He was Archduke still. But he knew so very well, that it meant nothing at all. He had singlehandedly managed to reduce the once prestigious title to nothing.

Barcus was the only one not glaring at him. Mostly though, because he had a wooden bowl filled with stew in front of him and was wolfing down on it, after having gotten only little food from Vinreva and the drow during their travel.

“Enver Gortash, you say?” Beryl had crossed her short arms.

“Uhum,” Barcus just managed between two bites. He gulped down some ale, too.

The other gnome frowned even deeper now, while only the elf – Caela – looked a bit confused and lost at this. “And that is supposed to mean… what?”

“That happened in Baldur’s Gate, on the Sword Coast,” Glimmer explained. “Two years ago. It started earlier though. Ten years ago, at least. That guy, Enver Gortash, he made himself a name by selling all sorts of weaponry and got himself a title eventually. Strange things happened. The stories I hear was, that illithids were somehow involved. Or rather, I am certain they were. Because quite a few people talked about a big floating brain over the river Chionthar. So that had to be an Elderbrain. Story has it, it was a conspiracy by the Dead Three, and three mortal chosen. According to those same stories, this guy was the chosen of Bane. Somehow used those illithids to control people and become Archduke.”

“Uhum,” Barcus once again confirmed, without stopping to eat.

“It was not a conspiracy by Bane,” Enver grumbled. “It was me who came up with the plan. Me. Not Bane. He just hoped to gain from it, of course. Because of course he did.” He knew it was dumb to admit to it, but he was too tired to think of any more elegant lies. He just wanted to sleep, even though he was quite aware that by the way things were going, his sleep might end up a bit too permanent.

“So you admit to it,” Ramur, the dwarf, grumbled.

Enver grimaced. “Yes. I do.”

“Then how in the nine hells are you still alive?” Beryl asked.

“Because Tav,” Barcus muttered his mouth full. He poured down more ale his throat, before speaking again. “Tav. Tav Avariel. The guy who lead the people who defeat him. And the Elderbrain. The guy is… I don’t know. He is a good guy. But he did not want to kill him.” He gestured over to Enver. “And because of that, he lives. He was a prisoner in Baldur’s Gate, but then…” He took another deep sip. “Honestly, I am not fully sure.”

Enver looked at the table. It was a very plain thing. The surface had been worn down by years of use. Several dark spots told him, of candles that had fallen over in the run of the years. There were stains, too, that had soaked deeply into the wood.

“Avariel let me live, so that I could redeem myself,” he finally grumbled. He hated to admit this. “He eventually convinced Ravengard to allow me to work. To get that bloody redemption.”

“Ha!” Barcus spat. “And first chance you get, you team up with some other Banites again. Figures!”

Now everyone looked at Barcus. “What?”

Another deep gulp, before Barcus put down the wooden pint, that by now seemed to be empty. “We got grabbed by some of those Sembian Oghmanytes. You know. The crazy kind.”

“Oh,” Glimmer said. “Yeah, I know about those.”

“Yeah,” Beryl agreed. “They are… Strange fellas.”

“Either way, their whole issue was not the Netherbrain or the people dead, but that this asshole has invented some technology that went too far for them. And because I worked with it too, they wanted to kill me or wipe my memory or something.”

“But you escaped, didn’t you?” Caela looked at him.

“Yes. Because of some Banite things that I will openly admit I do not care to understand!”

The gazes drifted back to Enver.

He sighed, knowing he had not a whole lot of different options left. Without an explanation he produced the plans from out of his tunic. He unfolded them, before rolling the parchment open.

“What is this now?” Ramur asked, looking onto the parchment.

“It is what Bane wants,” Enver said, his mouth feeling surprisingly dry.

“What?”

The people stared at the parchment. Those finely written lines, those sketches.

“It is a weapon,” Enver explained. “Using alchemy. I think if it was set off in a city, it could possibly kill thousands.”

Silence fell at the table.

“Bane wants that. Bane is mortal right now. He keeps some of his godly powers, but he is mortal. He wants to ascent to full godhood again. And for this he needs a large sacrifice.”

“And so that was what you were planning?” Barcus asked.

“No.” Enver did not look at anyone. “I thought I wanted it. But I don’t think…” His voice broke, as speaking those words still felt wrong. He could not say that he did not want it. Even though it was the truth, wasn’t it?

There was another silence.

Finally it was Caela who asked: “Why were you out there on that road?”

Enver hesitated for a long moment with the answer. “I was travelling with two other Banites. A chosen and her disciple, I think. We were travelling to the Black Gates in Aunoch, where the Banites wanted to build the weapon. We got attacked by the dragonne, and they wanted to leave Barcus afterwards. And…” He stopped. He could not say that either. That it did not feel right. It was a weak way to think, wasn’t it? To just forfeit something like that because of another person. “When we were resting for the night, I took a look at the plans. I realized what they were. And I…” He knew it was wrong.

But what difference should it make? He had known that it was wrong to sell Karlach, and he had still done it.

Another silence followed, before Barcus – who had by now managed to empty his bowl – grunted: “And you what?”

Enver just stared at the plans. “They will know by now that the plans are gone. And they will come for them. I assume Bane knows where I am – and where the plans are.”

“Then why did you take them?” Ramur asked.

Enver did not answer.

He could not be weak. He could not be. Even though everyone knew that he was.

Caela paused. While Enver did not return the elf’s gaze, he could feel it on him. “You know it is wrong, don’t you?”

“So?” Barcus asked. “What difference does it make? He must’ve known it was wrong to burn down the entire darn city, right? And yet…”

“It does not matter,” Enver muttered. “The only thing I know is, that those two will probably come after me soon. And there might be a group of Oghmanytes after me as well.”

“Then give those plans back to the Oghmanytes,” Glimmer said.

“If it was not for the issue with those cultists probably also wanting to kill me and all my kin who were inadvertently involved in that entire plan to take over the city!” Barcus protested.

Beryl gave a long, and clearly baffled sigh. Then she picked up the plans, looking at them more closely. She showed them Ramur, too, the two of them muttering between one another as well.

“Why don’t we just burn the plans?” This was Melis speaking for the first time since Enver had met this group on the road. She had a very deep voice for a woman, as she was sitting there on her chair, a big pint of beer in her hand.

“Because burning it does not make the knowledge disappear,” Beryl said. She sighed. “He has seen it. We have now, too. Someone capable of higher magic might extract our memory. A god certainly could.”

“So why did he show it to us?” Glimmer asked.

Beryl shook her head. “It does not matter now. The fact is, that we have seen it now, and we know about it. And this is a problem.” She put the plans down. “You. Gortash. Why did you take these?”

Enver remained silent.

“Answer me, Gortash!” She climbed onto the table, pulling out her weapon – a gnome sized morning star, that Enver knew quite well was still perfectly capable of splitting open his skull if she tried. “Why did you take these?”

He looked at the weapon. Indeed, it was very probably gnome made. Fine craftmanship. Gnomes could be very perfectionistic about their crafts.

He made sure not to return the gaze directed at him. But gave into the fact that he had not much of a choice. He could lie, but his mind… His mind would not produce any more lies. So in the end he just sighed. “It would be wrong to kill even more people. And I think… It would be bad for Bane to return to full godhood.”

Beryl still stood there, thinking about this for a long while. Then she nodded. “That I will agree with. Both things.”

Glimmer looked at her. “So, what will we do about it? I mean, might I remind you that we are scientists?”

“That is true,” she said. “However… I still think we can hardly ignore this now that we know about it.”

“And what are we supposed to do about it?” Ramur asked.

“That…” She paused. “I need to think about that.”

“If it is any help,” Enver said carefully, “I have a lot of riches in Baldur’s Gate. If you were to help me, I could make sure you and your people would be properly compensated – once I am back in the city.”

The gnome did something he had not expected. She laughed. “Compensated? Compensated? Me?” She laughed even louder, now drawing the attention of everyone else in the room to them. “Oh, you are as haughty as all you big people tend to be. Do you know who you are talking with?”

Enver shook his head. He had heard the others of course. Or Caela specifically, who had referenced the gnome lady as a “duchess”. But he had no idea what that would mean in regards to a gnome of all things.

“I am Beryl Elliwyck Folza Phiqys, second daughter of Clan Norbamus. I am third in line to the leadership of my clan, and heir to a gem emporium. Whatever kind of money you have, little Banite, I can almost guarantee you, that I have more.”

Enver stared at the tiny woman, blinking twice, before he finally found some words to answer. “Fine,” he muttered. “Then don’t have any...” There it was again. The headache. “Then don’t have any reward. I just…”

“You are just as respectless as the others of your kind.” She jumped back onto her chair, sitting down, even though the human sized chairs clearly had never been made with gnomes in mind.

Enver was silent for a long moment. Then he looked at her once more. “Thank you either way.” Those words tasted like bile on his tongue. “I afraid I am in dire need of help.”

“I am not doing this to help some wanna-be tyrant,” she said. “But because as I said. Bane being returned to immortality would be bad for us all – but especially bad for little people like me. Bane loves taking slaves, and you and I and everyone knows who is going to be the first people his folks will come for.”

“He had enslaved Gondian gnomes, while he had been trying to take over Baldur’s Gate,” Barcus offered.

“I am not surprised,” Beryl said. She huffed. “Well, either way. We have to stop Bane for now. And then, once we are done, we will make sure this guy faces justice one way or another.” She crossed her arms once more.

Enver did not reply anything. Because… Well, maybe it was indeed what he deserved. The fact remained that it had not taken a lot of Bane to tempt him to work for him once more. No matter how he had tried to excuse it those few days ago – that now felt like an eternity. It had not taken a lot. And he had always known it was wrong. He had known it from the very beginning.