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Language:
English
Series:
Part 22 of Swan Song
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Durgetash Week 2025, Baldur's Gate 10x100, Baldur's Writers 3 - Fics Written by Discord Members
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Published:
2025-11-15
Words:
1,000
Chapters:
1/1
Comments:
12
Kudos:
27
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140

Desperation D̶r̶e̶a̶m̶s̶

Summary:

After being kidnapped from his own coronation, Enver Gortash is being held under the watchful eyes of Team Tadpole.

Durgetash Week Day Six: Reunion

Notes:

This can be read standalone, but is a direct followup to Return in the End.

Work Text:

Conversations drifted through the splintered walls of the barn alongside a cold draft of late autumn air. It was strange to not hear their voice in the mix. To know they were present but not accounted for. 

And they didn't speak to him, either, when they sat next to the bars of his prison like a guard dog.

They had a million burning questions, Gortash could tell. Occasionally they would sit up a little straighter. Would square their shoulders and turn to him. Would open their mouth and look him in the eye, but words would fail to tumble forth.

 

 

"Looks like I didn't give those fools enough credit," a blond stranger spoke amicably, but there was something off about his posture, his expression. Arms that moved like a marionette. A smile with too many teeth. "I was certain that someone would lose their temper and they'd all be dead or jailed by this point. Never thought they'd actually succeed."

Gortash scoffed. The acid reply on the tip of his tongue died the moment he glanced over the stranger's shoulder, through the bars of his cell, to where the once-formidable assassin struggled to lift a soup spoon to their mouth.

 

 

The years hadn't been kind to Karlach. But that wasn't surprising— the years were kind to no one.

She laughed less. Smiled less. And when she did it didn't reach her eyes. Gortash could see it, even from a distance. Casual confidence replaced with hypervigilance, her hands never strayed far from weapons. 

Counting Exits. 

Watching. Always watching. 

Twisted and scarred and bent but not broken.

She had finally learned all the lessons he had tried to teach when she was younger, when the world was younger, but some people only learn the world burns by jumping directly into the fire.

 

 

The animals visited more often than the people. The cat. The dog. The cat with wings. The owlbear runt. The thing that pretended to be a dog or a mink or an ox depending on its mood. A trio of large spiders nested in the corner of the barn and he was certain that they, too, were part of the bhaalspawn's menagerie. 

Most of them stayed carefully out of reach, aside from the not-dog which would slip through the bars and sit next to his feet as it chittered in one-sided conversation.

Whenever Gortash kicked it, it seemed to laugh.

 

 

They never spoke when they visited his prison, just passed waterskins through the bars with shaking hands. Gortash couldn't tell if the tremble was due to nerves or injury.

"I missed you," he said with the hopes of igniting a spark of recognition in the inky blackness of their one remaining eye. "Will you let me out? We can go home and talk like civilized people. You probably have a lot of questions."

But there was nothing. No smile, no frown, no words. Just a twist of their eyebrows as they peered at him like a bug in a jar.

 

 

The stranger was back, with his strange smile. 

"Your foundry is burning. Did they tell you?"

Gortash didn't respond, though his jaw clicked audibly as he ground his teeth.

The stranger seemed genuinely curious about the science behind the Steel Watch, but Gortash didn't trust him. Didnt trust the too-wide smile or the glassy, unblinking eyes. Didnt trust the way this stranger pried for secrets. It would be easy to reply, to lord his accumulated knowledge over someone with the audacity to imply that they might be intellectual peers, but it was easier to stay silent and save his strength.

 

 

Karlach only came to see him once. To scream. To shout. To point fingers. Her rage was palpable as fire burned through her skin, as sparks smoldered on damp straw and filled the barn with choking smoke. And still she continued as her voice grew raw, as the weight of the lost decade caused it to crack.

There was so much he wanted to say in reply--- how she should be thankful; she's still standing so she came out the other side stronger. But there was safety in silence, so he let her scream until the fires burned to embers.

 

 

They appeared again, like a ghost, their silence only broken by the cackle of the crows which had settled on the roof of the barn. 

Everything about them was strange now. Their movements, their posture, their uncharacteristic silence. New scars which told the tale of their harsh journey since Gortash last saw them staring hollow-eyed from within the sarcophagus of glass and flesh which had caged them all those months ago.

"Enough of these games," he said. "Let's go home."

He almost wasn't surprised when their body twisted and their skin boiled away, until the not-dog remained in their place.

 

 

It had been nearly a day since Gortash had seen another person. Since anyone had brought him food or checked the locks. Since the cleric had recast the spell which made his own magic slip through his fingers like ether and smothered his prayers before they could leave his tongue.

There was silence beyond the walls. No conversations or crackling fire. No barking dogs or shuffling feet.

Suddenly, the air shifted as the magic dissipated and Gortash knew it was time. With all of his strength he wrenched the wooden bars his prison. They dry-rotted wood crumbled in his grasp.

 

 

The column of smoke and fire grew with no sign of stopping. Buildings toppled like dominos, one into the next and into the boiling sea. The scent of acrid, oily magic carried on the wind. Everywhere people were screaming. Crying. Pleading for their god, any god, to step in and grant mercy.

But there was no mercy and no justice. Baldur's Gate was no longer a city, but a scar. A place where heroes are buried in mass graves alongside the faceless dead.

Gortash stood frozen on the cliffs of Rivington as he watched everything he built burn to ash.

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