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Taako might not be the smartest guy in the multiverse, but he’s not stupid. Most of the time, anyway. Math? No, siree. Don’t ask him about multiplying exponents or quantum mechanics (whatever the hell that is) — he doesn’t have a clue. Solving a murder mystery on a train? Maybe, given a few minutes to figure it out, two other idiots with him, and some boy genius to show them all up.
But there are things in life that Taako knows. He knows how to make himself invaluable to traveling caravans who haven’t had more than stale bread and salted beef to eat for months. He knows how to bat his eyelashes and sway his hips just a little bit more to distract a storekeeper while he slips something pretty in his sleeve. He knows what boots go with what skirts and what wines go with what dinners, and at this point in time, he has a solid grasp of Magic Missile.
He also knows that Something Is Up with his umbrella.
So, no, Taako’s not smart, but he’s not stupid.
“I’m not stupid,” he says over dinner. He’s picking at something the kitchen staff has cooked up — the vegetables are soggy and the chicken is dry — and the Mess Hall is fairly vacant. The Tres Horny Boys are eating a late-night supper after a long evening of training.
“Sure you’re not,” Magnus says, half-listening.
Merle grunts.
“I’m not, ” Taako insists, finally pushing his tray away. He can cook something himself later, if he wants — which, hey, speaking of! He can do so with a clear conscience, more or less.
“What the hell are you on about?” Merle asks.
Taako sighs, heavy through his nose. “I’m, like, ninety-nine percent sure that my umbrella is possessed.”
Merle and Magnus look at him for a long time.
While he had been suspicious before, his date with Kravitz had cemented the idea in his head. The umbrella had acted on its own before, burning whatever-the-fuck into the wall while he was with Angus, and Kravitz had been sure that there was a lich hanging around and the Umbrastaff had definitely tried to kill him, which. Not cool. There was also the incident last night, in which Taako had been unsuccessfully trying to avoid Angus, who would do nothing except rant about the latest Caleb Cleveland book.
“And, sir! I managed to deduce the central plot twist an entire five chapters before it was revealed,” Angus had said. “We find out that Caleb’s long-time mentor actually had a long-lost twin, who had—”
“Ugh,” Taako had groaned. “Secret twins are the worst plot-device.”
And then the Umbrastaff, which had been resting nicely at his side, loosely gripped in one delicate hand, had twisted upwards of its own accord and thwaped Taako upside the head.
So, yes, Taako is pretty sure the umbrella is possessed.
“Or haunted,” he adds. “Or… sentient? My point is, I’m not stupid, and there is some undead fuck hiding inside my vore umbrella.”
Magnus nods, lip pushed forward almost comically in order to imply a serious contemplation, and then he says, “And you know this… how?”
“For many reasons that I don’t feel like explaining,” Taako says.
Shrugging, Merle says, “Sure, why not?” He places a hand on Taako’s arm, stretching across the table, and looks into his eyes. “I believe you.”
“You do?”
“Hell no,” Merle laughs.
Taako looks to Magnus, who holds his hands up in surrender. “Look, I don’t know anything about magic stuff, but if you believe that your umbrella thing has a ghost in it, then, uh. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
Merle squints at him. “You believe this quack?”
“Maybe,” says Magnus. “I mean— I don’t know! Weirder things have happened.”
“Like what?”
“UH, like the fact we were just trapped in a time loop and that we’re on the moon and literally everything that’s happened to us in the past year?”
“Yeah, okay,” Merle acquiesces. “That’s fair. But what exactly are we supposed to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” says Taako. “I mean — I don’t think it’s… bad? Or at least, not toward me.”
“I could try to punch it,” says Magnus. “Or! Or I could break it.”
Taako clutches the Umbrastaff close to his chest. “You’re not going to break my umbrella!”
“It’s the only thing I know how to do, really,” Magnus says. “If it had arms, I would volunteer to rip those off, but it doesn’t.”
“I bet you would,” Merle mumbles under his breath, although loud enough it was definitely supposed to be heard. “Should we tell the Director?”
“No,” Magnus and Taako say at the same time, then give one another an uncomfortable glance.
Magnus shifts, raising one shoulder in a half-shrug. “She’s been giving off some weird vibes lately — what, with all the upped training and all? And, I mean… I don’t know. Things just aren’t adding up.”
“Oh, same hat,” says Taako. “I don’t doubt she could figure it out, but, like I said, I don’t think it’s bad and…”
“No, no, I gotcha,” Merle sighs through his nose. He adjusts his glasses, deep in thought. “But who the hell else is gonna help us figure it out?”
Taako frowns, eyebrows low, a mix of disgust and resignation crossing his face. Magnus, on the other hand, is already beaming.
“Oh, no,” says Merle, coming to the same conclusion the other two had. There was only one person they could go to for help.
—
“Oh, boy,” says Angus McDonald, on the verge of tears. He had been excited when he walked into their complex some few minutes earlier, hopped into a seat and swung his legs, up until the moment where Taako had begrudging admitted to needing help for this particular mystery.
“Oh, boy,” says Merle, but with a much different inflection.
“I just—” Angus sniffles. “I never thought you would ask me for help. And I swear I’m going to make you proud!”
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Taako says. “Oh— God, stop crying. Stop.”
Angus nods, wiping tears off his cheeks, and smiles.
“There’s one more thing,” Magnus cuts in, after ensuring that no one is in the hallway to overhear. “You can’t tell the Director about any of this.”
The smile drops off Angus’s face. “Can I ask… why?”
“No,” says Merle.
Magnus shifts, looking unusually heistant. “Here’s the thing,” he says. “There’s something I haven’t exactly told anyone? Mostly because I don’t know what it means. I just… Here.” He turns to his quarters, and quickly digs out a roll of parchment that he then hands to Taako and Merle. As they unroll it, Angus peering at it with unadualted curiosity.
“What the fuck?” Taako asks. “What the fuck is this?”
On the parchment is a drawing of a statue — one in which the face of a Red Robe can clearly be seen.
“June gave it to me,” Magnus says, in lieu of an explanation. “Back in Refuge. And I don’t— I don’t remember this. But that’s me. That’s my face.”
The picture is of a Red-Robe. The picture is of Magnus. Therefore, Magnus—
“I don’t get it,” says Merle.
“That’s why I don’t exactly trust the Director,” Magnus says. “I don’t know what’s going on. Because I know that the Red Robes are evil, but I also know that this isn’t fake. I mean, that’s me, right?”
“So you’ve said,” Angus says, humming. The other three startle slightly, forgetting that the boy had been in the room as well. “Mr. Magnus, sir, this is quite the predicament. I assume this is what you wanted me to work on, when all of you asked me for help?”
“Actually,” says Magnus. “It’s something else.”
“My umbrella is possessed,” Taako says.
Angus blinks at him from behind his thick glasses. “Well, yeah. No shit.” Taako rolls his eyes. “I mean, sir, to be frank, it did write of its own accord. I was there for that. I kinda figured there was some sort of entity residing within the umbrella or that it had some sentience.”
Taako mutters something under his breath.
“But,” says Angus, something lighting up in his eyes — not arrogance or excitement, exactly, but realization . “Now knowing about Magnus and the Red-Robe situation, I think I have a new lead to work off.”
“You think the Umbrella and this are connected?” Magnus asks.
Fixing him with a look that would better accompany the face of someone much older, Angus says, “In my experience, sir, things are very rarely a coincidence. And I can’t remember what the umbrella wrote on the wall. Do you, Mr. Taako?”
“I— What’s that got to do with anything?” Taako asks. Then, “And… It said. Uh…”
“Exactly,” Angus says. “I may be a little boy, but I have a very good memory, sir. It comes in handy for all my detective work, and I remember that the Umbrella wrote something on the wall, but I don’t remember what was written. When I try to remember, it feels all static-y. Like something has been scratched out.”
Magnus lets out a soft breath. “Like the Voidfish static.”
“Like the Voidfish static,” says Angus. “And when I try to comprehend the drawing of you, I get the same feeling. Like I can’t quite reach the conclusion, even though it’s right in front of me.”
“Now, hold on a minute,” Merle says, frowning. “We’ve all been indoctrinated. Like, we all drank the Voidfish goo. So, this can’t be the Voidfish, right?” His heavy brow furrows, and he lets a groan fall past his lips. “This doesn’t make any sense.”
“You’ve arrived at the same conclusion I have, then,” Angus murmurs. “Something is very strange, indeed.”
—
As Taako makes his way to the hanger, clutching his fur coat tighter around his shoulders, he thinks about his life choices and how they lead him here. Somehow, the elf with no family and no inheritance and no home and no food— somehow that elf had ended up on the moon, where a secret organization hunted down old magical relics. Relics which had caused entire wars, that he promptly forgot about, until he drank water from a giant light-up jellyfish.
The Umbrastaff rests against his hip, a comforting weight that he needs now. He feels light-headed, in a way, that sends his pulse racing. Look, Taako’s no stranger to danger. He’s not even a stranger to screwing over the people he works for. He’s not a saint by any means, but this seems off in a bad way. Heels clicking, as he makes his way to Avi, a forged note in his hand — this is wrong .
There’s a couple of ways we can go about this, Angus had said. The first is we lay low, collect clues as they come along. The second is that we go for them, and there’s only one place — one entity, I should say — I can think of which might have them
The Red Robe, said Magnus.
The Red Robe, who was always lurking somewhere on the surface. It seemed that no matter where they were, they were found by him. Surely, Angus had reasoned, it wouldn’t be hard to get his attention on the surface of the planet. But the plan was risky. Really risky. Although the Red Robe had never tried to hurt them, he wasn’t exactly stable — that much was clear. And there was no promise that the Red Robe wouldn’t try to do something now.
Magnus had volunteered to go down to the surface, and Taako had been happy to let him — until he had realized this meant letting Magnus take the umbrella down there, and no. That wasn’t happening. And, as much as Taako hated to admit it, he had grown kinda fond of the guy, and letting him go by himself with a weapon he couldn’t use would be a dick move. So for the first time in his memory, Taako had decided that he actually wasn’t good out here, and in fact, he will be going in there. How’s that for character development?
He was going to find the Red Robe. If he needed it, he could call Kravitz for back-up, which would be a weird second-date, but whatever. Taako would find the Red Robe, ask about the static, ask about the Magnus Red Robe, and hopefully get some answers about his goddamn umbrella.
Lost in thought, Taako didn’t notice that he had actually walked into the hanger until Avi was saying, “Uh, hey! Taako. Didn’t see you there. What’s, uh… What’s up?”
“I need to go down,” Taako says, relaxing his shoulders. “I got some good old fashion shopping to catch up on. Garfield keeps trying to give me bad deals, y’know.”
“Right,” Avi says, uncomfortable. “Well, normally, I’d say go for it, but the Director has this place on lock-down for the moment? I’m not supposed to be letting people in and out all willy-nilly.”
“No, no, yeah,” says Taako. “No, she’s cool with it. She gave me a note to give you.”
“Really?” Avi raises an eyebrow but takes the proffered letter and reads it. “I… She wrote this?”
“Yep.”
Avi stares at Taako. Taako stares back, sweat dripping down his back.
“Okie dokie, then,” Avi shrugs.
Nat fuckin’ 20. Hell yeah.
—
Meanwhile, it was up to Magnus to successfully distract the Director, on the off chance she might be headed to talk to Avi or do cannonball inspections or whatever it was she did when she wasn’t frowning and rolling her eyes at the Reclaimers.
Naturally, Magnus blanks on a good tactic for doing this and decides to resort back to the basics: rushing in.
As the Director is walking out of the library, looking down at an old book with a wispy smile, Magnus steels himself and lets instinct takeover. Somewhere, deep inside, he knows what it is he should do, and so without giving it much thought, he jumps from behind the corner he had been hiding around, and yells, “MAGNUS!”
The Director screams, just a little, and drops the book she was holding.
Then with wide, wide eyes, voice shaking, she asks, “What— Magnus, wha— I don’t… What are you doing?”
“Uh,” says Magnus, searching desperately for an answer. “Attacks can come at any time, you know. Always gotta be ready.”
There’s a pregnant beat of silence.
“Right,” says the Director, shell-shocked. She smooths her dress and picks up the book from the floor. “I…” She seems to be simultaneously searching for something to say and waiting for Magnus to act. When all he does it stare back at her, her shoulders relax — he hadn’t even realized she had been so tense before — and a familiar sigh of sadness returns to the curve of her face.
“Uh, bye,” says Magnus, suddenly uncomfortable. He does some finger guns at her and then disappears back around the corner.
He’s a little bit down the hall, thinking, why the hell did I do that, when he hears her say, “Goodbye, Magnus.”
—
Taako’s not in Neverwinter very long before he feels a familiar chill creep down his spine. He’s half-tempted to turn around on the spot and make a scene — only because he has been waiting for, like, an hour, and Taako doesn’t do waiting — but he manages to keep his cool long enough to collect the drink he’s paid for. It’s a pale pink in color, and he gives it an experimental sniff, before laying it wayside with a heavy sigh. Trusting his instincts, he left the tavern without even taking a sip — what a waste — and walks down the cobblestone path toward a more deserted area of town. A self-assured smile flits across his lips as he catches a brief glimpse of red in the corner of his eye. Tapping his umbrella along the road, he walks until he’s out of the heart of town and is standing in a small patch of wilderness, where an underdeveloped field stretches into the horizon. The road here is empty, abandoned, a chill setting in as the sun sets.
Taako knows the Red Robe is following him, considering the entity in question is not nearly as sneaky as it seems to think it is, and decides that here is as good of a place as any. He stops suddenly, heels dragging in the against dirt and stone. A pulsating warmth from the Umbrastaff, a deep breath, and show time. “I know you’re there,” he calls out, although the only thing that answers is a rustle of wind. “You can come out. I’m here— to, uh. Talk, I guess.”
The Red Robe hesitantly showed itself, floating a foot or two above the ground. DO YOU KNOW, it says, WHAT CONSUMES—
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Taako interrupts, flipping his hand in the air. “Listen, I need some spooky advice, capiche?”
I— The Red Robe gave him a convincing sigh, although it had no face or lungs or anything like that. YEAH, OKAY. WHAT’S UP, TAAKO?
“So,” Taako starts — then stops. Where does he even start with this shit show? “My vore stick is haunted.”
YOUR WHAT.
“The umbrella.” Taako holds it in the air and waves it around a bit for show. “Haunted. Yeesh, keep up.”
The Red Robe flickers, shrinking into itself, before suddenly coming to its full height again. OH SHIT.
“Yeah,” Taako says, intending to explain further, but then the Red Robe is nearly vibrating and it makes a half-aborted movement toward the umbrella. Taking a quick step backward, Taako levels the Umbrastaff at the Red Robe and says, “Chill it, kemosabe. This doesn’t mean I trust you.”
The Red Robe acquiesces, and when it talks, it uses the voice that it had outside of Refuge. “Right, of course,” it — he? — says quickly, as though he can’t get the words out fast enough. “I just… What exactly do you mean? Possessed how?”
“Uh… like your standard level possession? I’m not exactly an expert in ghosts, my dude.” Taako shrugs, attempting to hide his uneasiness. . “It just. Does thing. On its own, I mean.”
The Red Robe is quiet for a long second. “Taako,” he whispers. “I know you don’t trust me right now, but I need… Can I see it? Please.”
Taako’s fingers curl tighter around the handle, and his breath hitches. No is already forming on his lips, followed by a quick desire to call Kravitz just in case, but he hesitates — and that hesitation is enough.
When Taako was a child, his aunt taught him how to knead bread. She would take him through the process step-by-step, and once the dough was ready, they would wait for it to bake. “It’s the honey,” she would tell him. “That’s the most essential part.” And as it baked, the smell would fill the entire house. No matter how tired or angry or sad Taako had been, that smell alone had been enough to settle him. It was a smell that he never forgot, and occasionally, walking past a pastry shop or in his own kitchen, he would smell it again and instantly remember the jade of his aunt’s necklace, and the tiles in her kitchen, and the cool pressure of dough between his fingers.
It was like that. Not a smell, but a voice — and something deep inside of him knew that this voice was home. And it said: Trust Barry. Love Barry.
“Please,” the Red Robe says again.
Taako hands him the Umbrastaff.
—
Meanwhile, Merle was doing an abysmal job of sneaking around. Luckily for him, Angus was a little bit more experienced, and they had managed to talk their way past the guards with relative ease.
“It’ll only be a matter of time until the Director finds out we were here,” Angus is saying. “We should move quickly, but not too quickly, so as to not arise suspicion.”
Merle groans. “What are we doing again?”
“We need any information we can get about the Red Robes,” Angus says, apparently not bothered by Merle’s attitude. “While Mr. Taako is talking with the Red Robe we know, we’re going to speak with Robbie—”
“Who?”
“Pringles. He might be able to shed some light on this situation.”
Generally speaking, Merle didn’t have the best luck. Lately it seemed that his bad luck was tending more toward the fatal variety, and it had been going that way ever since Magnus had cut his arm off. So of course, it makes sense that Merle and Angus would turn the corner and run straight into Davenport.
The gnome blinks at them.
“Uh,” says Angus, arithmetic flying around his brain. “I, uh. Mr. Davenport, sir. We can explain! Honestly, we were just… We—”
“I cast ZONE OF TRUTH,” says Merle.
“What— WHY would you do that?” Normal, polite Angus brain shuts off. Confused, tired Angus brain picks right back up. “WE’RE THE ONES LYING!” Oh, Goddamnit.
“I— I panicked,” Merle answers, honestly.
Davenport gave them both a quizzical look. “Davenport…?”
Angus pushes his hands into his curly hair and takes a deep breath. “Mr. Davenport, sir, please don’t tell the Director about this. We really, really just need to talk to Pring— er, Robbie.”
Nodding, Davenport says, “Davenport.”
“Right,” says Angus. “We… There are a lot of things that don’t make sense. In all honesty, sir, I’m tired of being given half the answers to a question I can’t physically understand. Merle and I… We’re not trying to hurt anyone. We just need the truth.”
Merle nods in agreement, but adds, “I’m not promising to not hurt anyone, though.”
Terrible luck aside, today seemed to be a good day. Maybe Pan really was smiling down on him or some shit like that.
Davenport smiles at them. “Davenport,” he says, one last time, then steps aside and lets them pass.
Their trip to Pringles unhindered, the two of them quickly made their way to his cell, where Pringles explained that he had been locked away because he had somehow gotten into the Director’s private office. Somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be. But he knew nothing of the Red Robes.
“So this was a waste of time,” Merle says, throwing his hands in the air. Pringles did his best to look apologetic.
“No, it wasn’t,” Angus says. “Because I know what we need to do next. First, throw your Stone of Farspeech to Pringles.”
“Whatever,” Merle says, tossing it.
“And you,” Angus says, looking at the prisoner. “I need you to make a call.”
It was around this time when the Director found them, naturally. Merle takes back whatever good thing he thought about Pan.
—
Meanwhile, on the astral plane, Kravitz frowns, propping his skull-head in his hand — a habit left over from living. “I just… I don’t get him,” he says. “I mean, I really like him, and he’s cool and funny and he’s not scared of me. But I just. I don’t get him? How does someone die so many times, but not remember it? And why is there always something lich-y around him? It’s so… Ugh.”
From behind the bars of his cell in the eternal stockade, Magic Brian rolls his eye.
—
It’s like a bomb goes off. One moment, Taako is handing the Red Robe the Umbrastaff, and the next — boom. The Red Robe breaks the Umbrastaff clean in two, and Taako has a single moment to think aw, umbrella, no, before a pillar of fire was erupting in front of him. The flames weave around him, and he thinks of the Chalice in Refuge, when he watched Phandalin be consumed by bright, hot fire.
He watches, wide-eyed, as the flames dance around him and then slow and then fan out, and then there is the Red Robe and him and… her. Between the two of them, her own robe flowing gently in the vacuum of air as the flames are extinguished. And she’s there, the cowl of her hood looking first at the other Red Robe, then turning to him.
And she says, “You’re DATING the GRIM REAPER?”
Without really knowing why — although later, he will — relief shudders through his body. For the first time in what seems like a very, very long time, Taako laughs. Clear and bright. He laughs without the usual mockery or sarcasm — just pure, unfiltered joy.
“I— Oh shit,” this new Red Robe says. “Barry, babe, I never meant to—”
“I know,” says the other Red Robe. “I…” He cuts off, choked up. “ God, L̶̨͠u͠͏p̴͞͝, I should have fucking known that you were in there—”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I’m here now. And I’ve got a bone to pick with a mutual friend of ours about whose memories she can and cannot erase.” She turns again to Taako, and although she doesn’t have a face, Taako would swear that she smiles at him. “Hey. There’s something I’ve always wanted to say, but I never got the chance. Just roll with me here, ‘kay, bro?”
“Def,” says Taako. “I have so many questions right now, but I have the sinking suspicion that the answers will be all static to me.”
“I promise you will get answers. But first—” And Taako knows that this expression is nothing less than a full out grin— “I need you to take me to your leader.”
—
“Do you have… any idea. Of what you’ve done?” The Director closes her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. They’re sitting in her office — the public one, not the secret one that Pringles went into, and the portrait of Lucretia looms over them.
“Can’t say that I do,” says Merle.
Angus grimaces beside him.
“The two of you broke into our security facilities to talk with a known associate of the Red Robes, the very people who created the Relics, which nearly tore this world apart.” She opens her eyes to glare at them.
“Yeah,” says Merle. “That about sums it up, actually.”
“The thing I don’t understand,” she says, “is why. Angus. Do you care to enlighten me?”
Looking as though he just swallowed a frog, Angus hesitantly speaks. “With all due respect, ma’am, the answer to your question is… noooo ? I don’t necessarily… care to, uh, enlighten… you.”
“Fuck yeah,” Merle says, holding out his fist. “Stick it to the old people.”
“You’re older than I am,” Lucretia says, flabbergasted. “I— why would you be doing this? Taako, maybe I could see, but the two of you…” The Director pauses, eyes far away, as a resigned sigh breaks free of her lips. She groans, low in her throat. “And where , exactly, is Taako?”
“He’s shopping at Fantasy Costco,” says Angus, at the exact same time that Merle says, “He’s dead.”
At this, the Director has full-on buried her head in her hands. “I can’t believe this,” she mutters, the sound muffled. “One more Relic. Just one more and then this would have all been over.” She looks up at them from behind her fingers. “I suppose Magnus is in on this plot, too?”
“No,” Merle lies, as an alarm blares somewhere in the background.
—
Magnus was in on the plot. Pringles had called from the confines of his cell, and as Angus and Merle were distracting the Director, he was making his way to the private office. Unfortunately, Magnus is neither subtle nor well-versed in magic, so he almost immediately tripped the alarm and struggled to find his way through the illusion. But, hey, persistence is good for something, and Magnus manages to make his way there.
The room was covered in journals and books, and there was something in a tank he couldn’t quite make out, which was trippy. Now what? Magnus thought, sitting on the Director’s desk and inadvertently destroying the holy symbol upon it.
“Oh, shit.” Magnus jumps from the table, and bumps into the tank. Which he still couldn’t quite look at, it was like his eyes kept skipping whatever was in there— which. Egg babe. “Oh HELL yeah.”
Cupping his hand in the liquid, Magnus drinks.
—
Taako didn’t think this thing through, maybe.
“Uh, the problem with that,” the Red Robe named Barry says, “is that Lucretia kinda put up some warding against liches on the moon.”
“What the fuck,” says the other one.
“Yeah, I had to possess someone to get up there last time, which was not the best experience. It felt icky, but. I guess we can try? Or we can get her to come down here?”
“I’m not sitting her and waiting for Lucy to get her shit together.”
“I guess it won’t hurt to check. Who knows, maybe someone sat on the holy symbol and now we can get up there?”
Taako stands to his full wizarding height, after having taken a short rest upon a convenient stone on the side of the road. “I have a wonderful idea that I think you should all consider. And by consider, I mean you do what I say. And my idea… is this.”
He pulls his Stone of Farspeech from his pocket and makes a quick dial. “Yeah, hey, babe. Can you pick me up? And also not kill the people who are with me.”
Kravitz is quiet on the other line. “Why… why would I kill the people with you?”
“They may or may not be spooky liches?”
The Red Robe from the umbrella yells, “I’m Taako’s si̴̷̛st҉ę҉r̨̛!”
“What the fuck?” Kravitz asks. Before Taako can respond, a dimensional rift is opening in the air, and the Grim Reaper steps out. “You have a si̴̷̛st҉ę҉r̨̛?”
“I have no idea what you’re saying to me right now,” Taako says, “but I’m digging the incredulous gaze. Kinda hot.”
Kravitz’s head swivels between the liches and Taako. “What do you mean— What is going on?”
“That’s what I want to know!” Taako says.
“Listen,” says the second Red Robe. “I promise I will explain everything. But first, we have to get my bŗ̴͘o̧͜t̸̵͜he̷r up to speed. And to do that, we need to go to the moon. Pronto.”
“This is so, so illegal,” Kravitz says. “But it might as well happen.”
—
Which is how the Grim Reaper, two liches, a flip wizard, a cleric who was notoriously bad at healing, the Director of a secret moon-based organization, the world’s greatest (kid) detective, and a human fighter who had just downed a handful of Voidfish piss came to be occupying the same office.
“LUCY!” The Umbrella-Red Robe laughs.
Lucretia goggles at all of them. “I—L̶̨͠u͠͏p̴͞͝,?”
“Yeah, hey, so we need to talk about some things? Mostly about, uh, all of this.”
Magnus, curling into himself, says, “Oh fuck. ”
“The hell is wrong with you?” Merle asks.
Angus peers at Magnus and then at the tank, surreptitiously making his way toward it.
“I want to know what’s going onnnn,” Taako whines. Kravitz pats his back sympathetically.
“Can we please stop talking over one another?” Barry asks, as Merle continued to poke at Magnus, who continued to groan loudly, as Taako continued to whine, as Lup and Lucretia continued to argue.
“HOLY SHIT!”
The room quiets, as each occupant turns to the source of the exclamation. Standing next to Angus, a small paper cup in his hand, is Davenport.
“He can talk?” Merle asks.
Davenport looks at the cup, then at the tank, then at the Director. “Lucretia,” he says. “I think it’s time to end this.”
And Lucretia nods. “Yeah,” she says. She looks at Taako and Merle and Magnus, and then she sighs, long and heavy. “I think I have some explaining to do.”