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It was a strange relationship the two of them had, was it not?
The Dark Urge could not help but think about this, while he watched the man grinding up the dried pieces of metal in a mortar.
“Whatever it is the gnomes are doing to that stuff, it is probably a resource readily available in the Underdark, right?” he mused about it, while still continuing to grind.
There was a spark in his eyes, while he was thinking about things like this. He could loose himself in it. In the science. In the experiments. He could fully lose himself in it.
“And I keep thinking about it. We know how normal black powder is made. Salpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. But it is not as strong as smoke powder. So I have been thinking about. What is it. What makes the smoke powder so strong?”
The Dark Urge had come to visit his coconspirator fairly early today, and had already found the man in the workshop in the basement of his rather marvelous mansion. Well, not that the Dark Urge found that house much alluring. If one asked him, he was perfectly fine with sleeping in the caves underneath the city. But he understood quite well, that having a nice house, a place that conveyed riches and status, meant a lot to Enver Gortash, who was in the end still a very vain man.
“I am assuming you will share your thoughts with me in just a moment,” the Dark Urge mused. He was sitting on one of the low stools of the workshop, just watching the man.
“Well, I have several theories,” Enver replied. “It can of course be just a simple matter of purity. It is hard to get minerals completely purified, and if the gnomes had found a perfect method to do just that, it is possible that the purity would make the effect much, much stronger.”
The Dark Urge leaned back, moving his body just a bit back and forth, as he was not good at sitting still. “But you do not think so, do you, little tyrant?”
“I don’t,” Enver agreed. “I think they have another reagent in the mix, that is creating the stronger blast.” He stopped finally with the grinding, looking at what he had in the mortar now.
“Have you slept at all, last night?” The Dark Urge was well aware that his dear companion was often struggling with his sleep. Be it, because of the pain in his body, that he would not talk about, or the pain in his mind, that he would not talk about either. Not that the Dark Urge wanted to know. They were in the end just coconspirators, doomed to eventually kill the other. Meaning, that it was the Dark Urge’s fate to kill this man – in the name of his dear father, Bhaal.
It was too bad, really, because in moments like this one, he did remember, why he liked this man. The manic, but enthusiastic look in his eyes, and the way he would speak, the words no longer carefully chosen but following so quickly, that one was to expect one falling over the other.
“I slept enough,” Enver just grunted. He put a sheet of paper onto the workbench, before carefully emptying the fine dust from the mortar into it.
“So…” The Dark Urge watched him carefully. “What is it you have concluded?”
“Just a moment.” Enver got a scale over, putting weights on one end of it, before starting to measure out the fine dust on the other end.
“Well, I was thinking…” He was careful to now breath or speak in the direction of the dust. “One of the most commonly traded Underdark metals is Mithril, but while it can have interesting reactions with magic, it is not really alchemically reactive, is it now?”
“It is poisonous if you feed it to people,” the Dark Urge offered.
This got him a short, but lightly irritated glance. “Everything can be poisonous if ingested in certain amounts.” Enver returned to the measuring until the scale was in proper balance. “I figured it had to be something that was magically reactive. Especially with the way that quite a lot of gnomes follow Oghma or one of Oghma’s servants.”
“Because of the entire forbidden knowledge thing?” the Dark Urge guessed. He did not know much about this – after all, he rarely dealt with gods such as Oghma, who cared so much about what was available to the mortals and what was not. But he knew, given that he had listened to quite a lot of long rambles from his dear companion, that Oghma had once given out certain rules for knowledge allowed on Toril of knowledge that was permitted.
“Exactly!” Enver looked at him. “And so I have been thinking… It would probably be magically reactive. I have read some accounts that claimed it was made from the bodies of Crystalins, but those are not very prevalent in the Underdark.”
“Well, there are surface gnomes, and Crystalins are quite common in caves, right?”
“That is true,” Enver said. “Currently most smokepowder however is smuggled up here from the Underdark, and it makes me think that even if it was made from those originally, there might be a proper alternative.” He stopped, to look over to the Dark Urge once more. “However, obviously I also arranged for some Crystalins to be brought here.”
It was somewhat silly, but the enthusiasm in the man’s eyes. It was what made this entire arrangement so surprisingly… comforting to the Dark Urge.
He knew so well, that this was nothing but a relationship based on the fact that neither of them could bring the plan to fruition without the other. But at times he caught himself thinking that it would be just fine by him, if the plan just never succeeded, and they could continue like this for much longer.
Oh, he liked to make this man whimper and scream. But this… This he liked too. Listening to him ramble on, knowing fully well the man would do the same in return, whenever he explained the differences in anatomy between a human, a elf, and an orc, and what kind of things could enhance the torture of either.
“But your main theory is still a different one,” he concluded.
“It is.” Enver held up a finger. “Have you ever heard of Mica?”
“It is a type of stone that usually sets in thin layers. Some dwarves and gnomes are capable of separating it by layer. The fragments are also quite sharp in the edges, but brittle.”
“Yes,” Enver agreed, looking at him with the gaze of an overenthusiastic teacher. “But there are some ranges of this being found in the southern Underdark, that have been shown to be slightly magically reactive.”
“In what way?” Because the Dark Urge knew at least one thing: Mica should not be ingested.
“It has been used as a spell-ingredient,” Enver replied. “It seems to enhance elemental spells.”
“So you think, given that you are trying to find a way to non-magically create a fireball…” The Dark Urge watched, as his dear companion filled the fine powder into a marble bowl, stirring the ingredients carefully.
Enver’s eyes were sparkling. “Exactly.” He put the bowl next to another one into a mostly closed up box made entirely from steel. “Now, Durge, I would advice you to stand back.”
The Dark Urge chuckled. “I am pretty sure I am more lasting when it comes to blasts then you are, little tyrant.”
“But I know what I am dealing with.” The man used a simple fuse, connecting it to both of the bowls. “Now, we will see which does better.”
At this the Dark Urge was silent.
Because the truth was, that obviously, in the grand scheme of their plans, it was rather unimportant whether they managed to recreate smokepowder. What was important was to get their hands onto that crown and then find a way to use it in their advantage.
After all, Ao had forbidden the gods to act. Which made this their moment. They could use the crown without fearing an army of gods coming after them.
And in the end, he would be the one to bring his father back into immortality. And then…
He just sighed, as the mixtures in both bowls lit up suddenly, both with a loud puff and bright white flames, one of them burning brighter and higher than the other though. A reaction that took only a split second.
“Interesting,” Enver was muttering, as he got a piece of parchment to write his observations down on.
Indeed. It was such a shame. Because in the end, the Dark Urge knew it was wrong to not want to kill this man. Outside of his father’s plan, there was the simple matter that he was a creature of Bhaal. Any murder should delight him. The thought of killing this man should delight him. And yet…
This was so much nicer. Just being here. Planning this. Together. A plan to take the city, and make them all cower in front of them.
The Dark Urge did not want power. He was perfectly fine with murder. But… It was nice to have someone, who could at least understand the way in which he was thinking. The ways in which his mind worked. Someone, who made at least a bit of sense to him.
