Reinvention (open post)

[lettersfrombel]

Being back in Toril made Bel realize how much Caldera had affected him — so many things he had taken for granted living on the surface that had been a result of ‘everyone knowing’ about drow, and Bel’s awareness that he had no idea when he would run into a person who would make it Bel’s problem. He returned for Barcus, and for the slim daydream that he might have more chance at a family reunion beyond finding out Ilphyl was alive and well, and for his old friends… but he’s not going to pretend that he wasn’t also choosing everything that went with it.

At least Baldur’s Gate, especially its human population, seemed to see Bel as a curiosity more than a threat, probably correctly figuring that a lone drow was unlikely to be trafficking in slaves to the Underdark, or at least not without a lot of complicit humans. Bel can work with that.

Bel had chosen to start helping at the Ironhands’ foundry as his first job in Baldur’s Gate. Yes, it was obvious to everyone that Barcus was giving his lover a job, but as near as Bel could tell, no one’s nephew was being put out in favor of him, and he was largely given jobs like ‘sweeping the workshops’ or being an extra set of hands — work they could get a random human off the street for.

It was rather like his first job as a caravan guard, oddly enough. There the attitude was drow merchants resenting a son of a Noble House (though one that only called itself that because Elisund was so small and unimportant that no one outside the town cared) dabbling in their business, and the solution was similar: do your job, volunteer for the jobs you can do especially if no one likes doing them, and put up with any shit that doesn’t affect operations.

As a perk, when Barcus made the coffee or brought in lunch, passive-aggressive behavior about drow poisonings meant that he usually had to take the first sip or bite.

But it did mean that if someone stopped by — that wasn’t Barcus or someone else working, who got immediate attention — Bel might wave from his broom and say ‘give me a moment to finish up’.

—

After work, and on his days off, Bel was making an effort to learn the city. He explored markets and taverns and generally was aiming for a sense of the place — where were the dive bars and the places rich kids could feel daring for visiting but not get mugged. So he could be seen in any place where he wasn’t made unwelcome, trying a drink or street food, and happy to share what he learned.

He also discovered that Baldur’s Gate religious life had shrines to a large number of gods. Someone might catch Bel at Stormshore Tabernacle making an offering to Elistraee, and offering a… prayer? after visiting Ilphyl in Waterdeep on his way to Baldur’s Gate.

“Dark Maiden, I have been informed that you have accepted my bro- sibling into your service. I’m told you are the patron of those of us who turn from the Spider Queen. That may be, but you have my sibling’s allegiance. Treasure it, reward their devotion and do not mistreat them or… well, I’ll have to ask Solas or Loki for help.”

Bel also left a dead wasp for Lolth, of a variety that is known for killing spiders. It was not a living one, because he’s not going to be an asshole to the clergy who run this place, but he hoped the symbolism was clear.

—

But at the end of the day, it was nice to return home, which felt like an expansion of his time with Barcus in Caldera, in a nice house where the main bedroom was becoming as much his as Barcus’s, with a basket of Bel’s current books and his knitting project stowed by the bed so he could spend the extra hours of wakefulness by Barcus’s side, usually with Satchel also sleeping nearby if she wasn’t out on feline errands of her own.

Or he might be just… around the house, doing some of the cooking or just being idle.

Comments

[lost_and_foundry]

Had they chosen to present Bel as Barcus' drow bodyguard, that would have cast a different hue on it, and whether that would have been better or worse, Barcus couldn't say. It is what it is now, and he hopes that in time they will welcome Bel as one of them. That might take a while, though, and in the meantime whatever gets him through without being made miserable will do.

"A job," he answers, giving Bel a brief, reassuring squeeze of his arm, "and potentially a very delicate one. Come, we'll be in the inner conference chamber."

The conference chamber of the Foundry is clean but ruthlessly unadorned except for the broken pipes and wires and pieces of shrapnel embedded in the walls. That's deliberate; they want to remember the battle that was fought here, and why it happened. The Gondians prefer not to enter this part. When they meet with the Ironhands, it's in gentler, more pleasant locations, but in here there is a table and hard chairs, and light, and nothing else.

Usually. There's something else on the table, today, a hulking metal shape that might be humanoid if it had more of its limbs attached.

Barcus waits until everyone has entered before closing and locking the door. Brounce and Bumpnagel give Bel a slight side-eye, but Thulla seems unsurprised. She's taken to him quicker than the others, because she can read Barcus exceptionally well. His judgment of character is far from flawless, but so is everyone else's. She's concluded Bel is an upgrade from Wulbren, at least, and that will do for now.

"Right," he says, and approaches the table. "So everyone but Bel will have seen one of these before. This is about a third of a Steel Watcher," he says for the drow's benefit. "We've been dismantling pieces of them ever since the battle. There's good metal in there."

"Some infernal iron," Bumpnagel volunteers with a little nod. "Rare stuff."

"This is the largest piece we've found," Barcus goes on. "And it's got more than metal in it. There's flesh in the core."

Thulla swears softly. "So we're going to need to get a priest to bless the remains, at least. Put 'em in a decent grave or pyre. I can ask--"

"You're getting ahead of me. This one's not..." Barcus takes a breath and lets it out again. "This one's still reactive."

There's a pause, and then Thulla speaks again: "I thought Tav and the others destroyed the whole bank of brains. You're saying they missed one."

"Let's hope it's just one." Barcus says, and then looks at Bel to see if he's following.

[lettersfrombel]

Bel will take 'an upgrade from Wulbren Bongle'; he doesn't have a high opinion of the man despite never meeting him. (Not just from his esteem for Barcus; the man sounded obsessed with his own grudge over the well-being of his people, or his relationships.)

Bel has heard the basics about the Steel Watch. It's the sort of thing that was filed as 'it is a good thing Enver Gortash is dead, as that is both clever and terrifying'. Bel is not an artificer, but he can understand the psychology of the plan, including not letting anyone know your 'constructs' were animated by a mix of necromancy and fucking mind flayer psionics. (The bit about being confident you have control over an Elder Brain seems full of hubris, but Bel has met priestesses of Lolth who had that level of arrogance, if not the level of magical artifacts.)

He nods, indicating he at least has some of the basics and can get clarifications later. And Barcus is right: if one brain survived, be prepared to find out more did. "Was it being... actively controlled?" As he understands it, with the Netherbrain defeated by Barcus's adventurer friends, the tadpoles weren't a factor. So, if the brain existed, it should just be a zombie... which was not great, but meant random carnage, not an organized plan.

Well, unless it meant a necromancer could direct any intact Watchers, which was worse.

[lost_and_foundry]

The entire plan, from the Steel Watch to the Elder Brain, was genius in an awful, reckless, immoral way. Barcus has examined it repeatedly since the end, tugged on all the threads and found fewer that were loose than one might imagine, and only two that could have truly unraveled the whole thing: the Astral Prism and the Elder Brain itself. There is something about the cobbling together of infernal, otherworldly, and Gondian techniques that simultaneously impresses him with its scope and innovation and irritates him because of its laziness. Real intellectual discipline would have demanded a longer period of testing and adaptation rather than the direct use of tadpoles. Even engineered tadpoles.

Part of him is fascinated to have the opportunity to pick it all apart some more, but it would be nicer if it didn't come hand in hand with the opportunity to be overrun and murdered by psychotic automatons.

The Ironhands are quiet for the moment, rattled on a few different levels, as this information sinks in. It's to Bel's credit that he's able to move past the oh shit so quickly and lean into what now, and it's almost certainly part of why Barcus brought him in on this. "The mechanisms that drive it are too damaged for any movement beyond turning its head. You'll see some of the joints shudder here and there, but beyond that it's immobile. That said, we have to assume its communication matrix is still active, so if there is anyone at the other end of it, they can hear and see us. We won't be having a long conversation here, we'll move to my office shortly. And I'll move this thing to a vault once we've examined it. Mind what you say, all of you."

"Astarion found it in some passages between the Undercity and the Tourmaline depths. Bless that bloodsucking bastard for recognizing the significance so quickly; he's the one that notified Ulder about it."

"We'll have to do further testing to determine how, mmm, cognizent the mind controlling it might be. It's hard to tell whether the activity is purposeful or mere stimulus and response. Unfortunately, we can't sit back and do a proper job of it, because if there are more, even a few, that's a big problem."

"In the meantime, this does not get mentioned to the Gondian contingent. I hate keeping them in the dark but I also don't want to scrape open healing wounds unnecessarily. When we know something for sure, I'll bring it to our closest allies. Bump, any thoughts?"

The smith is circling the table already, like he's inspecting a wild animal. "Gimme a few, Boss. Not sure if all the components are the same as the others we dismantled."

[lettersfrombel]

Bel was taking it all in; everyone knew the technical aspects were beyond him, and he was fine with that. The Ironhands were trained artificers and Bel isn't going to belittle their skills by saying he could pick up anything useful in weeks.

He was making a list of questions to ask once they were out of earshot, but he wasn't sure that he wanted to ask more while being overheard. "Was the damage done by trying to subdue it or did Astarion find it like this?" He figures trying to reconstruct what happened was safe. And it would help the smiths to know what caused any damage, even if imprecise.

He flags Bump's answer, because 'not the same' could mean prototype, or it could mean someone else had found the remains and was trying to repair them, but the questions Bel would need to ask were not the ones he wanted overheard if anyone was listening.

[lost_and_foundry]

The technical aspects are pretty well handled, between the Ironhands and the Gondians. The perspective of an experienced adventurer is what they don't have, between them, and Bel does. Sure they could hire someone, there are plenty of mercenaries around, but you can't just trust random people. Best to start close to home.

Barcus isn't sure whether he hopes to bring the rest of his friends in on this or not. It would be nice not to have to. Just a work story to tell over the dinner table later. Still, he has a nagging feeling he might need them.

"Like this," he answers. "He said there weren't even any remnants nearby, which is curious and a little ominous, because that means it either got there by itself and then lost limbs, or someone dragged this part of it there and left it, which is...creepy?" He shakes his head.

"Astarion will be investigating further on his own. He has...some resources." Seven thousand freed spawn has quickly become about 1500 freed spawn as they slew one another and were killed in the Underdark, but it's still a huge number of potential contacts. And Barcus won't betray that information just now. Best not to put the spawn in greater danger.

"Do you need a notebook?" he asks Bumpnagel, patting the pockets of his own work smock.

"Hgnn," the other gnome answers, which is unhelpful, but after a moment he shakes his head. "Sketchbook. I wanna draw it and take some notes, and I don't want to say out loud what I'm seeing. Let's move to the office and talk, and then I'll come back out on my own and work on it, yeah?"

"I want it watched," Brounce says. "Permission to get Fulgaro and Nimble in here?"

Barcus takes a moment to consider this request, then nods slowly. "Yes, but you have to make them swear on Gaerdal's blood not to speak of it to the others. Not until we know what we're dealing with. You know the proverb: three gnomes can only keep a secret if two of them are dead."

"Which means, between the lot of us, the secret's days are numbered anyway, but control and timing is the point. Anyway, you handle that and meet us in the office." He gestures to the others, and Thulla jogs ahead of him to open up the locked door at the other end of the chamber.

[lettersfrombel]

Bel is keeping silent until he is in the office, and out of earshot. He nods to Thulla, but lets the others enter first. Bel knows he is important, but this is Barcus's office and Barcus's show. And he's right about the control, which includes bringing in the adventurer who lives with Barcus rather than anyone else. (It might help that Bel is also familiar with the Underdark.)

He'll wait for the others to enter and the door to be closed, to look to Barcus. It's still your show.