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for Ashton
Dec. 11th, 2024 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lost_and_foundryThe months after the defeat of the Absolute have been nothing short of a whirlwind for Barcus and his Ironhands. Alliances have been formed and strengthened, with the Gondians. They've committed to volunteer work repairing the city's ruined infrastructure, in order to seal their reacceptance into Baldur's Gate. After that, a stream of requests for work from both Upper and Lower City citizenry began to fill their days, and their coffers. The Ironhand-Gondian alliance is still an upstart laborer's guild, but it's already a powerful one.
Fortunately, at this point, most of the hard diplomatic work is complete, and Barcus can unclench a little, take time for his own pet projects, and at long last send a letter home. For years, he's intended to bring his youngest brother to Baldur's Gate as an apprentice, and the timing is right now. What's not right is the fact that the roads all up and down the Sword Coast are still teeming with danger. Even some Mindflayers may have survived, free of the Netherbrain, to find their own way.
He can't go alone, but at the same time, he can't drag his fellow gnomes away from their work. Even if he could, very few are fighters. The only solution is to hire, and so he makes a few discreet inquiries around town.
The upshot of all of it is a meeting in the Elfsong in the early evening. Barcus is waiting at a table, with a mug of ale neglected by his elbow, as he scribbles notes in the margins of a ledger. At this point in his career, he could be wandering around in clothing as ostentatious as Lord Gortash's was, but that sort of thing is no good for working at the forge, and so he cuts a rather unassuming figure, in a brown wool tunic, a plain doublet, and a knit scarf that's a little too long for his small frame. He also has reading glasses, but he must have forgotten they exist, because they're perched on his forehead, rather than over his eyes.
Fortunately, at this point, most of the hard diplomatic work is complete, and Barcus can unclench a little, take time for his own pet projects, and at long last send a letter home. For years, he's intended to bring his youngest brother to Baldur's Gate as an apprentice, and the timing is right now. What's not right is the fact that the roads all up and down the Sword Coast are still teeming with danger. Even some Mindflayers may have survived, free of the Netherbrain, to find their own way.
He can't go alone, but at the same time, he can't drag his fellow gnomes away from their work. Even if he could, very few are fighters. The only solution is to hire, and so he makes a few discreet inquiries around town.
The upshot of all of it is a meeting in the Elfsong in the early evening. Barcus is waiting at a table, with a mug of ale neglected by his elbow, as he scribbles notes in the margins of a ledger. At this point in his career, he could be wandering around in clothing as ostentatious as Lord Gortash's was, but that sort of thing is no good for working at the forge, and so he cuts a rather unassuming figure, in a brown wool tunic, a plain doublet, and a knit scarf that's a little too long for his small frame. He also has reading glasses, but he must have forgotten they exist, because they're perched on his forehead, rather than over his eyes.
