Ficlet: Mutually Assured Destruction
Mar. 30th, 2025 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lost_and_foundry“You shouldn’t go anywhere alone,” Thulla tells him. “Not after dark.” She’s the most practical amongst the Ironhands, free of Philomeen’s breakneck determination or Laridda’s wary introversion. Wide-minded enough to attend to things other than the forge, but more of a thinker than Brounce or Fulgaro. Barcus likes her. She’ll be his second-in-command if he has anything to say about it. The Ironhands need her balanced approach.
Right now, though, he’s prepared to ignore her advice, pulling his coat over his shoulders. “I have to check on my old flat in the Upper City sooner or later. If it survived, there are some tools and journals I want to bring to headquarters.”
Headquarters being Angleiron’’s cellar, for the time being. It’s belonged to the Ironhands for weeks now, and everyone seems a little loath to leave it, even now that they’re welcome in Baldur’s Gate proper. He’d be hard-pressed to call it home, but it’s a safe place to camp, and rest, and plan, until the city resettles. “Don’t worry, dear, I’m sure the mindflayers are well and truly gone.”
“That’s not what I’m warning you of, and you know it,” she says, and takes a step closer to him, lowering her voice. “I know it has to sting, Barcus, but Wulbren doesn’t make threats he doesn’t mean.”
It does more than sting. It’s salt in an open wound, but somehow he manages not to wince, merely looking down at the ends of his sleeves and picking invisible motes of lint from the fabric. “Yes, well. Thank you, but I’ve been sufficiently disillusioned as to the nature of his character already. I’m well aware I’ll be seeing him again sooner or later.”
There’s a pause, and then he glances up, silver eyes locking with her darker violet ones. “Best if that’s a private discussion, I think, when it occurs.”
“He’s not half the fighter Brounce is, but that doesn’t mean he can’t best you. You can’t be careless. We need you.”
In point of fact, he’s not sure they do. Or, at least, once the alliance with the Gondians is fully cemented, they won’t. Group work is tedious and difficult and no one really likes it, but any clan is better ruled by council than by a single master. Still, it feels good to be appreciated for once, and he smiles at her, reaching out to clasp her shoulder warmly. “I’m not the careless type. No worries. If I’m not back by dawn, send out the search parties.”
She hesitates for a moment, desperately wanting to argue, but in the end she just nods, draws her dagger, and presses the hilt into his hand. “Your head is hard as a rock, you know. Keep it that way. In one piece.”
His smile widens, but he nods and takes the weapon, tucking it inside his jacket. It’s nice to be looked after a little.
She’s right, of course. Once he gets out into the streets of Rivington, he’s fully prepared to acknowledge that. She is right, and he’s counting on that. This is the first night since the battle that curfew hasn’t been enforced by the remnants of the Fist, for the safety of all citizens. The mindflayers are gone, but some fanatics linger, and guards and adventurers have been picking them off on by one. Even here, the streets aren’t pretty, and further inside the City proper, they’re full of debris and scorched ruins.
At least the corpses have been buried now. A hard time for Baldur’s Gate, but the city will rise from the ashes as it always does. Ulder Ravengard is prepared to lead, and the Ironhands are prepared to do the work of rebuilding. Who better to cut stone and smelt rebar for bridges and homes? At the end of this, they will have redeemed themselves and then some. The power and acknowledgement Wulbren craved will be achieved through altruism and collaboration, not Gaerdal’s ruining fire.
He must be seething.
Barcus makes his way through streets and alleys like a tiny shadow, seen by few save perhaps the guards at the bridge, who he acknowledges with a somber little nod. He doesn’t have to give his name. They know, because the Hero of Baldur’s Gate made sure they would remember who helped in that final battle. For someone less than four feet tall, Barcus Wroot is suddenly high profile.
Which is why Thulla is right. The Fist has never been, nor never will be, beyond taking a bribe here and there. He’s barely a quarter-mile past Wyrm’s Crossing when there’s a sudden flurry of motion from an alleyway, a body the size of his own lunging forward, slamming him into the cobblestones. Small, strong hands scrabble for his wrist, then his neck. Barcus kicks and struggles, but it’s perfunctory. Thulla’s right: Wulbren doesn’t make threats he doesn’t mean, but he also has to have answers to questions that perplex him, and when the metaphorical dust settles, there’s one angry gnome pinning Barcus to the ground, but not a hammer in sight.
Barcus coughs around a bruised throat, but his old friend, his once-lover, has him by the wrists now. He needs him to be able to talk.
“Took you long enough,” Wulbren sneers. “To come skulking out of your hole.”
“I could say the same to you,” Barcus tells him. “I half expected you to waltz into the cellar before now.”
“You turned them against me.”
“You did that to yourself. When you ordered them to kill one of their own.”
“You are NOT an Ironhand!” Wulbren’s weight shifts as if he’s ready to haul off and punch Barcus for intimating such a thing. “It was only on my word that you were allowed to join us at all!”
That, Barcus knows, is patently not true. He was in the Grymforge with half of those gnomes. Diverted the duergar’s attention from the others when he could. Patched up steam burns and whip-wounds. Collaboration. Cooperation. There is nothing to be gained from arguing the point with Wulbren though, so he remains silent.
Amethyst eyes blazing, Wulbren goes on: “And you betrayed me. Twice. I should have seen it coming after you bungled the inner casing for the bomb. That was deliberate, wasn’t it? Sabotage.”
“You would have taken out half of the Lower City with that abomination.”
“And half of Gortash’s sycophants with it!”
“And you expected the remainder of the city to be grateful for it?”
“I expected them to fear and respect us. With that kind of firepower, we could have handled the Absolute ourselves. Broken Bane’s hold, buried the Bhaalists, and owned the Gate. For us. For our kin, our kind, Barcus!”
“I have a wider view of kin than you do, Wulbren.”
There’s a moment of silence as his eyes narrow, as his grip on Barcus’ wrists tightens until the bones creak. They’re the same size, but Wulbren has always been stronger. Iron hands, indeed.
“So this is how it ends,” Wulbren says finally. “I’ll kill you for betraying me, and the others will click their tongues, shake their heads at my methods, but in the end they’ll take me back, Barcus, because they will know I’m right.”
“You don’t have any more questions for me first?” Barcus’ wrists ache, his hands are going numb, his back is sore against the cobblestones, and his heart is pounding like a rabbit’s on Terazul, but for the first time in many, many weeks, he’s not afraid. “If you’re done, I have a proposal for you.”
“...what are you talking about?”
He takes a deep breath, willing his voice to stay even. “You’re banished, Wulbren. You’re going to leave the city, like I told you, and you’re never going to make Runepowder again. If you don’t do as I say, if you raise a hand to me or the other Ironhands, the living Gondians, if you go out and build Runepowder explosives and use them anywhere I hear of it, Gaerdal’s holy recipe will be released to the High Artificer of the Church of Gond, to use as they see fit.”
Wulbren looks at him like the bottom of the world has dropped out from beneath him, and he’s falling. Barcus loved him once, loves him still, but some bitter part of his heart is well-pleased to see that.
“I’m a master of alchemy, Wulbren. I can make explosive arrows with the grit under my nails. You think I couldn’t reverse-engineer your Runepowder after twenty-four hours of working with it? Try me. Given a year and a proper workshop, I dare say I could improve it.”
This, this is tantamount to blasphemy, and it makes Wulbren draw back in shock. Barcus is no fighter, but he knows how to take an advantage when one presents itself, when it’s life and death and there’s no one coming to help him. The moment he can twist his hands free, he jabs his elbow into Wulbren’s chest, writhes and struggles until he can scramble out from under him and stagger to his feet.
And now it’s Wulbren on his back on the pavement, panting and stunned. Barcus’ hands are too numb to retrieve the dagger Thulla gave him from his pocket, but he plants a boot on the center of the other gnome’s chest.
“I’m not lying,” he rasps after a moment. “I could tell you the components, the ratios, I could recite the processes–right now, right here in this alley. I wrote everything I know into three reliquaries. One is already hidden here in the City. One is on its way to Waterdeep. The third is in the Underdark. If I die or vanish, if a massive explosion occurs to trouble this city, they’re to be opened by the nearest Gondian cleric or paladin.”
“You’ve proven to me you don’t care about the innocent and you don’t care about your friends or kindred. Wulbren, you left me no choice but to threaten the one thing you do seem to care about.”
There is nothing else to say. Wulbren seems to realize it. He just stares at Barcus, hatred and bewilderment burning in his eyes, but he believes him. He believes every word, and that’s satisfying in its own way, not because Barcus wanted to hurt him like this, but because it means Wulbren remembers, he knows, how brilliant Barcus Wroot can be when he sets his mind to something.
There’s a long, dark silence, and then Wulbren says, “But you’re not going to kill me.”
“Obviously not.” Barcus isn’t trying to make his tone sound withering, like an irritated librarian scolding a child having a noisy tantrum, but that’s how it comes out. “I’m not a killer, I’m a craftsman. Besides…maybe you’ll find your way back, some day, to something resembling the man I thought you were.”
He takes his foot off Wulbren’s chest and backs away.
“You should've.” Wulbren sits up, rises, staggering. “You should have when you had the chance. I’ll…I’ll think of something. This isn’t over. As long as I’m alive, it isn’t over.”
“If you’re determined to get yourself killed, I can’t stop you,” Barcus says, and can’t quite veil the pleading look in his eyes. “But I’m not going to do it. Not now, not here, maybe not ever, but if you come after the Ironhands, we’ll fight.”
They’re Barcus’ Ironhands, now. He’s not sure if even half of them like him, but he’s damned sure they’ll follow him. He can tell from Wulbren’s expression, he believes this too.
“You have until dawn to leave. Again.” Barcus says, almost gently. “Go back to the Underdark. Rethink things. Find yourself. Go home, Wulbren.”
It’s not until after Wulbren has spat on the stones, then turned and fled, that he realizes the irony of what he said, the echo of his words in the Last Light. Maybe revenge is a dish best served…unintentionally?
Once he’s sure Wulbren has gone, Barcus rolls a bruised shoulder gingerly, turns, and makes his way back toward the Wyrm’s Crossing bridge. Back to Angleiron’s now. This was enough excitement for one evening. He can visit his old flat in the morning. With company, this time. Thulla will have her ‘I told you so’, and he’ll have someone to help carry his things.
Now that’s collaboration.
Right now, though, he’s prepared to ignore her advice, pulling his coat over his shoulders. “I have to check on my old flat in the Upper City sooner or later. If it survived, there are some tools and journals I want to bring to headquarters.”
Headquarters being Angleiron’’s cellar, for the time being. It’s belonged to the Ironhands for weeks now, and everyone seems a little loath to leave it, even now that they’re welcome in Baldur’s Gate proper. He’d be hard-pressed to call it home, but it’s a safe place to camp, and rest, and plan, until the city resettles. “Don’t worry, dear, I’m sure the mindflayers are well and truly gone.”
“That’s not what I’m warning you of, and you know it,” she says, and takes a step closer to him, lowering her voice. “I know it has to sting, Barcus, but Wulbren doesn’t make threats he doesn’t mean.”
It does more than sting. It’s salt in an open wound, but somehow he manages not to wince, merely looking down at the ends of his sleeves and picking invisible motes of lint from the fabric. “Yes, well. Thank you, but I’ve been sufficiently disillusioned as to the nature of his character already. I’m well aware I’ll be seeing him again sooner or later.”
There’s a pause, and then he glances up, silver eyes locking with her darker violet ones. “Best if that’s a private discussion, I think, when it occurs.”
“He’s not half the fighter Brounce is, but that doesn’t mean he can’t best you. You can’t be careless. We need you.”
In point of fact, he’s not sure they do. Or, at least, once the alliance with the Gondians is fully cemented, they won’t. Group work is tedious and difficult and no one really likes it, but any clan is better ruled by council than by a single master. Still, it feels good to be appreciated for once, and he smiles at her, reaching out to clasp her shoulder warmly. “I’m not the careless type. No worries. If I’m not back by dawn, send out the search parties.”
She hesitates for a moment, desperately wanting to argue, but in the end she just nods, draws her dagger, and presses the hilt into his hand. “Your head is hard as a rock, you know. Keep it that way. In one piece.”
His smile widens, but he nods and takes the weapon, tucking it inside his jacket. It’s nice to be looked after a little.
She’s right, of course. Once he gets out into the streets of Rivington, he’s fully prepared to acknowledge that. She is right, and he’s counting on that. This is the first night since the battle that curfew hasn’t been enforced by the remnants of the Fist, for the safety of all citizens. The mindflayers are gone, but some fanatics linger, and guards and adventurers have been picking them off on by one. Even here, the streets aren’t pretty, and further inside the City proper, they’re full of debris and scorched ruins.
At least the corpses have been buried now. A hard time for Baldur’s Gate, but the city will rise from the ashes as it always does. Ulder Ravengard is prepared to lead, and the Ironhands are prepared to do the work of rebuilding. Who better to cut stone and smelt rebar for bridges and homes? At the end of this, they will have redeemed themselves and then some. The power and acknowledgement Wulbren craved will be achieved through altruism and collaboration, not Gaerdal’s ruining fire.
He must be seething.
Barcus makes his way through streets and alleys like a tiny shadow, seen by few save perhaps the guards at the bridge, who he acknowledges with a somber little nod. He doesn’t have to give his name. They know, because the Hero of Baldur’s Gate made sure they would remember who helped in that final battle. For someone less than four feet tall, Barcus Wroot is suddenly high profile.
Which is why Thulla is right. The Fist has never been, nor never will be, beyond taking a bribe here and there. He’s barely a quarter-mile past Wyrm’s Crossing when there’s a sudden flurry of motion from an alleyway, a body the size of his own lunging forward, slamming him into the cobblestones. Small, strong hands scrabble for his wrist, then his neck. Barcus kicks and struggles, but it’s perfunctory. Thulla’s right: Wulbren doesn’t make threats he doesn’t mean, but he also has to have answers to questions that perplex him, and when the metaphorical dust settles, there’s one angry gnome pinning Barcus to the ground, but not a hammer in sight.
Barcus coughs around a bruised throat, but his old friend, his once-lover, has him by the wrists now. He needs him to be able to talk.
“Took you long enough,” Wulbren sneers. “To come skulking out of your hole.”
“I could say the same to you,” Barcus tells him. “I half expected you to waltz into the cellar before now.”
“You turned them against me.”
“You did that to yourself. When you ordered them to kill one of their own.”
“You are NOT an Ironhand!” Wulbren’s weight shifts as if he’s ready to haul off and punch Barcus for intimating such a thing. “It was only on my word that you were allowed to join us at all!”
That, Barcus knows, is patently not true. He was in the Grymforge with half of those gnomes. Diverted the duergar’s attention from the others when he could. Patched up steam burns and whip-wounds. Collaboration. Cooperation. There is nothing to be gained from arguing the point with Wulbren though, so he remains silent.
Amethyst eyes blazing, Wulbren goes on: “And you betrayed me. Twice. I should have seen it coming after you bungled the inner casing for the bomb. That was deliberate, wasn’t it? Sabotage.”
“You would have taken out half of the Lower City with that abomination.”
“And half of Gortash’s sycophants with it!”
“And you expected the remainder of the city to be grateful for it?”
“I expected them to fear and respect us. With that kind of firepower, we could have handled the Absolute ourselves. Broken Bane’s hold, buried the Bhaalists, and owned the Gate. For us. For our kin, our kind, Barcus!”
“I have a wider view of kin than you do, Wulbren.”
There’s a moment of silence as his eyes narrow, as his grip on Barcus’ wrists tightens until the bones creak. They’re the same size, but Wulbren has always been stronger. Iron hands, indeed.
“So this is how it ends,” Wulbren says finally. “I’ll kill you for betraying me, and the others will click their tongues, shake their heads at my methods, but in the end they’ll take me back, Barcus, because they will know I’m right.”
“You don’t have any more questions for me first?” Barcus’ wrists ache, his hands are going numb, his back is sore against the cobblestones, and his heart is pounding like a rabbit’s on Terazul, but for the first time in many, many weeks, he’s not afraid. “If you’re done, I have a proposal for you.”
“...what are you talking about?”
He takes a deep breath, willing his voice to stay even. “You’re banished, Wulbren. You’re going to leave the city, like I told you, and you’re never going to make Runepowder again. If you don’t do as I say, if you raise a hand to me or the other Ironhands, the living Gondians, if you go out and build Runepowder explosives and use them anywhere I hear of it, Gaerdal’s holy recipe will be released to the High Artificer of the Church of Gond, to use as they see fit.”
Wulbren looks at him like the bottom of the world has dropped out from beneath him, and he’s falling. Barcus loved him once, loves him still, but some bitter part of his heart is well-pleased to see that.
“I’m a master of alchemy, Wulbren. I can make explosive arrows with the grit under my nails. You think I couldn’t reverse-engineer your Runepowder after twenty-four hours of working with it? Try me. Given a year and a proper workshop, I dare say I could improve it.”
This, this is tantamount to blasphemy, and it makes Wulbren draw back in shock. Barcus is no fighter, but he knows how to take an advantage when one presents itself, when it’s life and death and there’s no one coming to help him. The moment he can twist his hands free, he jabs his elbow into Wulbren’s chest, writhes and struggles until he can scramble out from under him and stagger to his feet.
And now it’s Wulbren on his back on the pavement, panting and stunned. Barcus’ hands are too numb to retrieve the dagger Thulla gave him from his pocket, but he plants a boot on the center of the other gnome’s chest.
“I’m not lying,” he rasps after a moment. “I could tell you the components, the ratios, I could recite the processes–right now, right here in this alley. I wrote everything I know into three reliquaries. One is already hidden here in the City. One is on its way to Waterdeep. The third is in the Underdark. If I die or vanish, if a massive explosion occurs to trouble this city, they’re to be opened by the nearest Gondian cleric or paladin.”
“You’ve proven to me you don’t care about the innocent and you don’t care about your friends or kindred. Wulbren, you left me no choice but to threaten the one thing you do seem to care about.”
There is nothing else to say. Wulbren seems to realize it. He just stares at Barcus, hatred and bewilderment burning in his eyes, but he believes him. He believes every word, and that’s satisfying in its own way, not because Barcus wanted to hurt him like this, but because it means Wulbren remembers, he knows, how brilliant Barcus Wroot can be when he sets his mind to something.
There’s a long, dark silence, and then Wulbren says, “But you’re not going to kill me.”
“Obviously not.” Barcus isn’t trying to make his tone sound withering, like an irritated librarian scolding a child having a noisy tantrum, but that’s how it comes out. “I’m not a killer, I’m a craftsman. Besides…maybe you’ll find your way back, some day, to something resembling the man I thought you were.”
He takes his foot off Wulbren’s chest and backs away.
“You should've.” Wulbren sits up, rises, staggering. “You should have when you had the chance. I’ll…I’ll think of something. This isn’t over. As long as I’m alive, it isn’t over.”
“If you’re determined to get yourself killed, I can’t stop you,” Barcus says, and can’t quite veil the pleading look in his eyes. “But I’m not going to do it. Not now, not here, maybe not ever, but if you come after the Ironhands, we’ll fight.”
They’re Barcus’ Ironhands, now. He’s not sure if even half of them like him, but he’s damned sure they’ll follow him. He can tell from Wulbren’s expression, he believes this too.
“You have until dawn to leave. Again.” Barcus says, almost gently. “Go back to the Underdark. Rethink things. Find yourself. Go home, Wulbren.”
It’s not until after Wulbren has spat on the stones, then turned and fled, that he realizes the irony of what he said, the echo of his words in the Last Light. Maybe revenge is a dish best served…unintentionally?
Once he’s sure Wulbren has gone, Barcus rolls a bruised shoulder gingerly, turns, and makes his way back toward the Wyrm’s Crossing bridge. Back to Angleiron’s now. This was enough excitement for one evening. He can visit his old flat in the morning. With company, this time. Thulla will have her ‘I told you so’, and he’ll have someone to help carry his things.
Now that’s collaboration.
