Chapter Text
"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."
— Macbeth, Act V, Scene V
The sky above Baldur's Gate was golden.
Not the warm gold that leaks through the gaps in the clouds, but a thick, heavy hue—like molten gold pouring down from the vault of heaven. It shone upon every street, every window, and every face too terrified to look up.
Memories of the Absolute had faded into a sort of half-believed folklore in Baldur's Gate. Elders occasionally whispered the name in private—the colossal, talking brain, the writhing tentacles, the citizens transformed into mind flayers—but their tone was vague now, like describing a nightmare from which one had been startled halfway through. Most youths reacted to these tales with polite nods, while secretly thinking: If such a monster truly once ruled the Sword Coast, how on earth did the Sun King drive it away?
No one could answer. No one remembered for sure. The exact crash site of the nautiloid colony now formed part of the palace's foundation; the deep crater had been filled, paved over with black marble to build the Sun King's audience hall. The marble was brought in by merchants from Amn, laid by craftsmen chosen from the Ironhand Gnomes, every tile polished until it mirrored a man's reflection.
Newborn children knew nothing of the night. In the childhood memories of the latest generation in Baldur's Gate, there was no moon, no stars, no deep indigo darkness that made candlelight feel so warm. The sky was forever golden, hovering somewhere between amber and honey—approaching platinum at noon, darkening to deep bronze at midnight, but never black. Never, ever black.
Children would ask their parents: "What does 'nightfall' in the books mean?"
And their parents would think for a moment and offer rather unhelpful explanations: "It means it gets dark, and you can't see anything."
"Why can't you see anything?"
"Because the sun is gone."
The child would point out the window at the glowing orb still suspended above the palace spire: "Isn't the sun always there?"
Yes, the sun was always there. That artificial netherese core never set, burning day and night atop the tallest tower of the palace like an unblinking eye. Some said it was an energy crystal refined from the wreckage of the nautiloid colony; some said it was an artifact the Sun King had plundered from an outer plane; others said it was actually the Sun King's own heart—no longer needed after his ascension, and thus carved out to hang in the sky. That last rumor sounded the most improbable, yet it spread the widest throughout the Lower City. People always preferred the most dramatic version.
Beneath the sun lie the shadows. This was written on the walls in blood by the rebels.
The blood belonged to spawn. The spawn had been unleashed by the Sun King.
At first, only a few were kept inside the palace. Then a dozen or so. Later, every dark corner within the city walls became a hunting ground. They no longer needed to hide. For the night was gone, and they had a new master. The Sun King granted them leave to do what he had once done—to pin victims in the alleys, sink their fangs in, and drink the warm blood dry.
The nobles were the first to be turned. They lined up to enter the side doors of the palace and walked out with pale faces, crimson pupils, and high collars turned up. They carried the scent of blood, along with official titles, personal guards, and the right to go on living. Those unwilling to comply were left beside the long tables of the banquet hall. It was said the feast lasted three days, the air thick with the smell of wine and rust. After that, those people's names never appeared on another official document.
The Dark Justiciar system formed by Shar's faithful handled the intelligence and interrogations in Baldur's Gate. They maintained a peculiar relationship with the Sun King's guards—neither interfering with the other, occasionally cooperating. If the guards dragged you off, you might return; if a Dark Justiciar took you, you would wish you had never been taken at all. But there wasn't much difference in the end; the outcome was largely the same.
Some tried to leave in the tenth year.
On the east side of the Lower City lay an abandoned warehouse district, sitting right against the old wall's foundation. There were entrances to underground passages there leading to the drainage system outside the city walls. But the Dark Justiciar network quickly took over the area, the Sharrist cultists setting up hidden lookouts at every exit.
In the fifteenth year of his reign, the Sun King began to look outward.
His gaze turned northeast toward Neverwinter, northwest toward Waterdeep, and further still toward the Silver Marches. He wanted to know if the people there also looked up, if they could see the sun he had hung in the heavens. He wanted everyone to see it.
And so, armies marched forth from Baldur's Gate. Walking at the front were not men, but vampire spawn. They needed no torches on the march, for their King had set an unextinguishable sun above their heads.
This was the Baldur's Gate of the Sun King.
"The sun shall shine across all of Faerûn."
Waterdeep never cared about the affairs of Baldur's Gate.
It wasn't out of cold indifference. Waterdeep simply did not care about anywhere more than a three-day journey away. The City of Splendors had its own troubles: guild feuds, Weave fluctuations, and the tedious, generations-long vendettas of its nobility. What did a vampire tyrant founding a realm in the south have to do with them?
Baldur's Gate was far too distant. So far that by the time news brought by refugees reached Waterdeep, it had been filtered several times over, sounding like mere myth. Adventurers would debate it briefly in taverns, then return to their tankards.
People went to the markets as usual, went to the beacon tower as usual, and looked up at the sky as usual when seagulls flew past. Waterdeep did not look toward the southern sun.
Professor Gale Dekarios had taught at the Academy in Waterdeep for twenty-five years. He was sixty years old—not particularly old for a wizard who had once shared an intimate bond with Mystra herself, but a body torn by netherese orb and the Weave over many years made him look older than his actual age. His hair was entirely white, neatly groomed, as was his beard. He stooped slightly when he walked.
His life was simple.
Every morning at seven, he would get up, boil a kettle of water, and brew a cup of tea. He didn't drink coffee; that stuff made the orb's scar on his chest ache faintly. He would sit by the window reading until eight-thirty. Outside was the ordinary streetscape of Waterdeep—cobblestone roads, the scent of flour wafting out as the bakery opened, Mrs. Miller's orange cat squatting on the fire escape, licking its paws.
At nine, he went to the academy to teach two introductory classes on arcane theory to the apprentices. The classroom always bore a smell of old books mixed with chalk dust, laced in summer with the salty breeze blowing in through the window. His lectures were clear and methodical, and he never lost his temper when students answered incorrectly.
At noon, he ate lunch in the faculty lounge—bread, cheese, and some seasonal fruit. In the afternoon, he immersed himself in his own research in the library, staying until the keeper came to urge him out. Returning home in the evening, he occasionally graded papers, but spent most of his time reading, dousing the lights precisely at eleven.
The students liked him because his lectures were easy to follow, he never made things difficult for them, and his written feedback on essays was always long and thoughtful. Occasionally, when a student wrote overly radical arcane theories in an essay, he wouldn't outright dismiss them, but would neatly write in red ink along the margin: "This direction is theoretically sound, but if you truly intend to attempt it, please ensure you have a complete last will and testament first."
If a headstrong young student ever tried to inquire about Karsus, Gale would gently shift the topic: "I am not particularly well-versed in the matter."
The nautiloid, the crash, the mind flayer tadpoles, and that months-long whirlwind of madness that followed—looking back, it felt like someone else's story.
Time was kind to a solitary wizard like him, for time knew he had nothing left to lose. Year after year, the leaves outside his window turned green and then yellow, apprentices came and went, and Waterdeep experienced the occasional grand event before quickly forgetting it. He was used to this rhythm, and had even come to enjoy it.
The orb in his chest remained sealed by Mystra—a dead shard that no longer required an endless supply of magic items to suppress its power, like a reservoir drained of water.
He had never tried to contact any of his former companions. His life seemed to be the most tranquil of them all, like an extinguished wick. He didn't know where they were, nor did he wish to. Halsin had likely returned to some grove; Lae'zel was probably riding a red dragon in pursuit of her Queen (he had only learned a few years ago from ancient texts that Prince Orpheus, whom they had slain, seemed not to have been a simple traitor); Wyll and Karlach—if still alive—must be in Avernus. Shadowheart governed a cloister, and Astarion...
No. Best not to think of that.
He had allowed himself to think of that name only during the first few years, and even then, restricted to "what if" scenarios, always feeling he should have done something. But alas, what was done was done. If you could not bear the consequences, you shouldn't have made those choices to begin with—a wizard's most fundamental self-discipline.
Yet sometimes, deep in the night, as he sat in his rocking chair bathed in the cool sea breeze, in that slit between waking and sleep, he would lean against the window and gaze toward the harbor in the distance. The mastheads of a few merchant ships swayed in the rain, the trails of light shattering across the water's surface like gold dust scattered by the wind. And then, for no reason at all, a meaningless vision would float into his mind: beside the campfire, a silver-haired elf wiping a dagger clean, the firelight catching his cheekbone, his expression intent, his hands steady.
Gale was sixty-five the year Waterdeep was dragged into the fires of war.
When he heard the first explosion coming from the direction of the harbor, he was boiling a kettle of water. His hand froze on the handle. Bells began to toll outside the window in chaotic alarm, as if the entire city were finally being startled awake from a long sleep. The sea breeze blew from the south, bearing a familiar stench of sulfur mixed with blood. Standing before the window, he watched as the sky far off was painted golden.
That was no dawn.
The Sun King had come.