#and i want to do like...purple and blues maybe for the voidfish?

[words-writ-in-starlight]

hey star! i’m thinking about watching (listening to?) taz, but i know absolutely nothing about it except that it might be vaguely related to some brothers called the mcelroys? and that they have something to do with critical role and a bunch of other podcasts. should i watch/listen to (is it a podcast too?) taz, why is there “adventure” and “amnesty” and etc, and what do the mcelroys have to do with anything? thank you and i hope the job is going well!

OKAY, so, The Adventure Zone (TAZ) is a DnD podcast done by the three McElroy brothers (that’s said “Mackle-roy,” btw, not “Mick-elroy”), Justin (oldest), Travis (middlest), and Griffin (youngest and DM), and their dad.  I unconditionally recommend it as some of the best, funniest comedy I’ve ever encountered, as a genuinely good and heartwarming narrative that brought me to tears more than once, and also just as...like...sometimes a bitch wants to enjoy media that centers around a family that actually loves and enjoys each other as people.  If that last sounds like your cup of tea, I recommend the entire McElroy podcast empire (that’s a separate post), but ESPECIALLY The Adventure Zone.  

Now, in terms of DnD, a lot of people are nervous about starting TAZ because they associate DnD with a very rules-heavy exhaustive kind of activity, which they assume will be zero fun whatsoever.  Now, I...play a lot of DnD, so that wasn’t really a concern for me.  Regardless, the McElroys absolutely do not understand the rules of DnD and have never allowed a rule to stop them from making a good joke or having a good time, and frankly I think that is a totally valid way to play the game!�� It’s also extremely accessible to people who may not have ever played DnD before, because hey, half the cast has no idea which dice to roll at any given moment.  They are right there with you.  Go forth.

(On the other hand, if you HAVE played DnD before and you don’t mind committing yourself to an ungodly amount of content, I whole-heartedly recommend Critical Role!  It is a YouTube series that also exists as a podcast, both equally fun ways to consume the material.  The seven players and DM are all famous voice actors that you have definitely heard in something somewhere, their characters are fucking clutch, and they play a much more rules-heavy game, classic in every way right down to the dungeons and dragons, that is a ton of fun.  The main reason I usually tell people to start with TAZ, however, is this: TAZ episodes run about an hour, with few exceptions, and release every other week.  Critical Role episodes average four hours and release weekly.  So if you have that kind of time, that’s awesome, absolutely do it!  I’ve finally started watching through their first campaign and it’s great, I’m mostly caught up on their current campaign and it’s also great.  Watching their DM work is just...competence porn, and the characters are fucking destroying me in both campaigns.  TAZ is more approachable in terms of content volume, though.)

Narratively speaking, you should start at the beginning of TAZ, at the start of their Balance campaign.  You asked about the “Amnesty” thing, and this is your answer--you can’t run a DnD campaign forever, all stories end eventually, so their first campaign that kicked off the podcast is called “Balance” and is 69 episodes long.  If you hear people talking about Taako, Magnus, Merle, “the seven birds”, etc, those are all from Balance.  Then they ran some mini campaigns where they tried new stuff out, specifically “Commitment” and “Dust,” and then they settled on “Amnesty” as their new campaign.  Each campaign is set in a totally different world with wildly different rules and they’re all pretty radical, but here’s a short breakdown:

BALANCE: It’s fucking DnD, babes (although remarkably short on both dungeons and dragons).  They fight goblins, they get magic items, they have a wizard and a fighter and a cleric.  They go to the moon to join a secret society and get in a deadly car battlewagon race, there are liches and time loops and Wheels of Misfortune, there’s a giant mindwiping jellyfish and Garfield the Deals Warlock.  There are elevators.  ...okay, so they get pretty far from your traditional DnD universe build, the universe gets weird pretty quick, but like.  Just trust me, get a good giggle out of two or three arcs worth of dick jokes, and then buckle in for the emotional shit.

COMMITMENT: A superhero mini-campaign!  Three people get superpowers from their place of business and trash shit at an abandoned amusement park, it’s a good time.

DUST: Urban fantasy old Western murder mystery.  What else do I even need to say, honestly.

AMNESTY: The new arc!  If Supernatural took place in small-town West Virginia where half the monsters were pretty chill actually and the cast was Sketchy Con Man With Car, Long-Suffering Chosen Forest Ranger, and Punk Magical Bisexual With Pet Rabbit.  This one has a much more cohesive aesthetic than Balance, but I love it anyway.  

TLDR: yes you SHOULD listen to The Adventure Zone.  It’s hilarious when they’re busy telling dick jokes at first, and heartwrenching when they realize they have the ability to get heartwrenching, and those two things happen within minutes of each other more often than not.  And if you have gotten this far and you are sitting there thinking “Huh, this is weird, normally this is where Star goes the fuck Off about pitching the narrative,” it’s a DnD game! They go on quests to find shit!  There are seven shits to find!  They have mixed success at finding the shit!  What do you want from me!  

Oh, also, something that I have come to really appreciate lately: the McElroys put a lot of work into being funny without being mean.  Balance and Amnesty and the mini campaigns are all diverse, enjoyable universes, the punchline of a joke is never “ha ha, that person is [whatever]”, queer characters live long badass lives--I dunno, this might not matter to people, but I just find it incredibly restful.  Four cis white heterosexual men are not necessarily who I expected to provide that restful universe, but damned if they didn’t deliver in spades.  Plant your gays in healthy topsoil and water regularly and you too could mysteriously end up on the NYT bestseller list.

[anistarrose]

The Liching Hour (TAZ Balance AU)

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/22963831

Summary: Taako is a lich, but he doesn’t die alongside Barry when his memories start to fade. In fact, he doesn’t die for another whole decade… until he arrives in Refuge, and first hears the clock strike noon.

Characters: Taako, Lup, Barry Bluejeans, Kravitz, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch

Relationships: Lup & Taako, Kravitz/Taako, Barry Bluejeans/Lup

Additional tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Major Character Undeath, Angst with a Happy Ending, relationships listed in order of focus

“Taako is a lich too” is definitely an AU that’s been done before, but I couldn’t resist giving it my own unique twist! I actually started writing this fic exactly eleven months ago, when I was still fairly new to TAZ, but I forgot all about it until a few weeks ago when I came back to dust it off and finish the last few scenes.

(if you want an accompanying soundtrack for this fic, then I strongly recommend Lifetime Achievement Award by Lemon Demon! the song has big lich energy)

***

The set of planar systems traversed by our IPRE was indescribably vast, but far from the only one of its kind. Over eons, countless other universes are forged and then left to their own devices by elusory, non-interventionist creators — and in more than one of those universes, a ship called the Starblaster takes flight, propelled between planar systems by the strength of the bonds between its crew. In more than one of those universes, members of the IPRE put enough faith in those bonds to undertake a great risk — fusing their life forces with their magic and becoming liches, constructing a failsafe to protect their family from the Hunger that pursues them.

In one of those universes, Taako joins Lup and Barry in taking that risk. The ceremony goes as smoothly as the transformation into a lich can go, and the three of are all able to hold themselves together, thanks to their love for each other and their crewmates...

But when Lucretia feeds her records of their journey to the Voidfish, when Lup is already trapped in the Umbra Staff and Barry cleverly cheats amnesia by falling to his death off the deck of the Starblaster, Taako stays in his living form. Being undead isn’t the first thing he forgets — no, it’s Lup that he loses first, for Taako’s bonds with his twin are more carefully documented in Lucretia’s journals than anything else he’s done or cared about over the century — but the second that awareness of lichdom vanishes from his mind, the second he forgets the safety net he has in place in case of death, a self-preservation instinct kicks in again after nearly two decades of lying dormant. No need to go charging into uncharted and potentially deadly territory — Taako’s good out here.

For over a decade, he avoids death, and he never remembers what happens to him when he dies. Sometimes animals will shy away from him for no apparent reason, and maybe that faint burning sensation that fills his chest whenever Merle channels Pan to cast a healing spell on him is a little weird — but there’s no dogs on the moon and Merle hardly ever casts healing spells in the first place, so Taako just... tries to forget about it when he can, and convince himself it’s normal when he can’t.

He has a vague suspicion that he hasn’t been like this forever, but he can’t remember a clear date of onset for these symptoms, so he just brushes them off and keeps them to himself. It’s no one’s else’s business, anyways.

Or so he thinks, until he meets the Grim Reaper one fateful Candlenights.

***

There are two presents left under the shrub, both in similar silver-wrapped boxes — but one is addressed to all three Reclaimers, and the other is specifically labeled for Taako. Neither indicates the name of the sender.

Magnus and Merle don’t even attempt to hide the jealousy in their stares as they watch Taako pick up his gift, but something compels them to all stay silent and open the boxes as subtly as possibly while the Director makes conversation with Johann on the other side of the room. There’s nothing inherently suspicious about them other than the lack of a “from” name, though the handwriting on the tags is extremely familiar, but Taako still positions his arm to shield the box from the view of the others before he opens it and sees the contents…

The interior is plush purple velvet, cushioning two items: a coin and a note. The coin is golden and about as big as the circle made by Taako’s index finger and thumb when curled to meet at the tip, and it’s engraved with runes he doesn’t recognize — but he can read the accompanying note, though he has no idea what to make of what it says.

Keep this to yourself. If you ever encounter a situation in which you need it, you’ll know what to do with it when the time comes.

A quick use of Detect Magic reveals that the box and note are completely mundane, but the coin is enchanted. Nothing feels inherently volatile or dangerous about the complex divination spell it’s imbued with, but it still gives Taako a sinking feeling, like it’s something he should be forbidden from possessing.

So he casually slips the coin into his pocket and pops the note into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as he peers over Merle’s shoulder to examine the other gift — an identical box, this one holding three circular blue patches with twelve smaller circles embroidered around the circumference and an unreadable acronym word lying in the center. There’s another accompanying note here too, this one simply reading: “For your eyes only.”

Then, three different noises happen in very quick succession: Magnus turns to Taako and whispers “What was in yours?” and a second later, the Director echoes “What is that? What did you guys get?”

But before any of the boys can blurt out some lie despite not knowing why they feel so compelled to hide the gifts, the Director’s necklace unexpectedly interrupts the conversation, glowing faintly as a staticy, panicked voice yells “Lucretia!” The Director instantly whirls away from the boys, angrily whispering into her pendant which replies with words that are hard to make out from a distance.

Almost on reflex, Taako slips one of the patches into the same pocket as the coin and disposes of the second note with the same method he’d used for the first, cleansing his palate with an elderflower macaron immediately afterwards. He doesn’t think about the patches or the coin for a long time after that — but then again, he ends up getting distracted by a lot over the course of the next few hours. With the impeding crystal apocalypse, and the floating lab, and the death crimes and all.

***

“Well, that’s weird,” Noelle says. Her satellite dish is blinking green as it rotates, scanning the perimeter of the Cosmoscope two, three, four times. “At first, I thought it musta just been interference, but… one of you guys isn’t a lich, are you?”

“A what?” Magnus asks.

“A lich. The signal was real faint at first, but it just got stronger, and now it’s fluctuating a whole lot…”

“Nope, not me!” Magnus declares, with surprising confidence considering that he doesn’t appear to have any understanding of what being a lich means.

“Well, not that I’m aware of,” Taako answers slowly. “But I think even ya boy here would know if he was a lich. Right?”

“I’m friends with a few liches!” Merle adds. “They’re fun at parties.”

Noelle sighs at Merle’s comment, and then continues: “Yeah, Taako, I guess you’d hafta know if you were one. Guess my scanner’s just on the fritz.”

***

“Now Taako, Taako, Taako,” Kravitz mutters from within the sapphire mirror, and the pure exasperation on his face is almost adorable. “Care to take a guess what your bounty is for? I would really hope that you, at least, would know.”

Taako has a feeling he’s been saved for last because his crimes are the worst, but he’s got no clue why — there’s no way he’s died more than fifty-seven times, right?

“I dunno, is it about that tentacle thing? 'Cause don’t worry, my dude, this is a safe and non-judgmental environment where you don’t need to be afraid of being yourself —”

Kravitz's eyebrows raise and he looks aghast for a moment, but recovers quickly. “Taako, you've died twelve times — but alone, that makes you practically a law abiding citizen, compared to the company you keep! I never thought I’d see the day that I’d thought Magnus, with his 19 deaths, would be the least of the evils present, but — but —”

He sputters. “But you three all seem determined to make your crimes as unprecedented as possible —”

“Unprecedented, that’s me!” Taako laughs, and tries to ignore the half static-drowned screams of all his instincts, telling him to run as far away from Kravitz or any portal to the Astral Plane as he can get. “But uh, what is the deal with my bounty if —”

“Playing dumb about dying is one thing,” Kravitz growls, “but you’re really playing dumb about being a lich?”

“But I am dumb,” Taako blurts out, before the accusation really sinks in. “I’m just a humble idiot wizard!”

Kravitz bursts into bitter laughter. “An idiot necromancer, more like. Do you really —”

“There’s no way,” Magnus cuts in. “If Taako was a lich, we would have to know!”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you would, given how long the three of you have been cheating death together!” Kravitz replies.

“Okay, first of all — how do you know we’ve actually been cheating death for that long?” interrupts Merle. “We could’ve just died all those times in the span of, I don’t know, a month or two! We’re really incompetent.”

Magnus and Taako nod in enthusiastic agreement as Kravitz sighs.

“And second of all?”

“Uh... I forgot what I was going to say second.”

“Of course you did! What won’t you three conveniently forget — GAH!”

A giant skeletal hand reaches out of the Eternal Stockade and grabs Kravitz by the robe, dragging him inside the Eternal Stockade. It slams the door of the prison with a force that Taako winces at, all the way on the other side of the sapphire mirror.

“Did we solve the lich puzzle?” Merle asks. “Are we free to go?”

“Gonna be honest — just personally, I’m not too worried about the lich puzzle!” Taako shouts back, as a high-pitched hum emanates from the crystals around them and the room begins to shake. “Mostly just thinking about how much I don’t want to remember what dying feels like!”

“You know, that’s fair,” Merle agrees as he watches a complete skeleton materialize behind the hand, wading through the Astral Sea and towards the mirror. “That’s pretty fair.”

***

“Look, you saved my bacon back there,” Kravitz tells them after Legion is defeated. “Not just my career, but the world too. Things would have gotten very, very nasty, in a way that I wouldn’t have exactly wanted to put on my résumé…”

He sighs. “And Merle, Magnus… I would be willing to let you off with a warning, because you’ve technically never escaped the Astral Plane, and that leaves a convenient little loophole in the law for you two to slip through. Even Lucas — he’s learned his lesson with necromancy, it looks like. But Maureen, Noelle, and especially you, Taako — you’re all going to have to come with me. I can’t make exceptions for those of you who have succeeded in a jailbreak — nor can I do so for a lich.”

This time, he doesn’t spit the word lich with any of the disgust or outrage that were in his voice before, but rather speaks slowly and solemnly — and if Taako didn’t know better, he might think Kravitz actually felt bad about having to lock him up.

“Look, Ghost Rider.” Taako’s heart is racing just a little bit faster than he’s comfortable with, and the worst part is he doesn’t know why. It’s tempting to blame it on the slight crush may or may not be developing, but his crushes — although few and far-between — definitely never send his pulse up this fast this early in the relationship.

“You seem like an okay fellow who’s just trying to do your job, so I’ll be honest with you — I can’t remember ever touching necromancy with a ten-foot pole. Look, I used to make my living as a chef, and when you’re cooking the last thing you want is your meal coming back to life in front of you. I’ve got no motive!”

“Does your book with the bounties say anything else about the charges against him?” Magnus asks. “The charges against any of us, actually?”

“Not a single thing, I’m afraid. The bar’s not very high, but you are some of the… less unsavory bounties I’ve hunted, which is why I genuinely hate to say this, but —”

“Oh, so it’s savory you like? Let me take you out for an evening at Taako’s Bar and Café, and I’ll cook you up as many savory dishes as you like —”

“The — the bar,” Kravitz stammers, slipping out of his Cockney accent, “is so not high —”

“He just wants to help you broaden your horizons!” Merle chimes in. “You must not get out of the — the, uh, whatever your plane is called very often, do you?”

Kravitz sighs. “It’s the Astral Plane, and — and look, we just… we need to get going, alright? Taako, I… I could give you the benefit of the doubt, I suppose, and let you stay here until you die and return to your lich form, but I still need those two souls in the robots to come with me —”

“Wait!” Magnus interrupts. “Gambling with death is a trope for a reason, right? Can we play cards for their souls?”

Kravitz shrugs. “You know what? Sure! This day can’t get any wilder!”

***

Boyland’s rites of remembrance aren’t until tomorrow, but Taako is down in the Voidfish’s chambers ahead of time, Umbra Staff clutched tight as he stares at the twinkling galaxy pattern within the jellyfish’s bell.

“Uh… do you need something?” Johann asks after Taako’s stands there silently for about a minute.

Taako twirls his umbrella and shifts it from hand to hand, half expecting it to fire on its own again like it had when talking to Angus, but it stays dormant.

“Can your jellyfish pal, like… I dunno, choose what it innoculates you for?”

“Uh… no? At least, I think we woulda noticed if it could… why are you asking?”

“I was bored.” Taako turns to leave, but before he can get back in the elevator, he hears the Voidfish sing a short tune — not quite as loud as when Magnus had touched its tank, but definitely the same three notes.

***

Taako dies a few times in Refuge before he notices anything weird about it — well, not that dying and being revived continuously isn’t weird albeit familiar, but at first he’s just immediately whisked off to the white space alongside Merle and Magnus. No special treatment for him — until the first time that they die before the hour ends, and everything starts unraveling.

Magnus leans away from locker as he opens it, but it proves to be a futile precaution as the sound of an explosion blows out their eardrums and shockwaves tear through the room, sending the floor beneath their feet blasting towards the ceiling at the same time that massive boulders rain down from above, crushing the cave’s occupants before there’s even a chance process what happened.

As the dust settles and the roar of the explosives and falling rocks dies out, Taako blinks — except it feels strange, like it’s not his physical eyelids moving as much as it is his vision shifting into another spectrum, as if someone had just cast True Seeing on him.

Huh, he thinks. Thought that would’ve killed me.

And then: Of course it killed me. I’m a lich.

(Well, there goes any chance I had with Kravitz —)

I’m a lich like the Red Robe — no, like Barry. And like —

Like Lup.

How could I forget Lup?!

The sensation of incorporeality hits him on a delay and doesn’t stop hitting him, harder and harder until he feels like he’s about to disintegrate. His red-tinged skeletal hand drifts through the air, catching the silver threads that hang lazily like cobwebs in the space all around him as his spectral fingers curl into a fist. He clutches those bonds with every ounce of strength he has but they’re unraveling now, just like his robe, like his magically deformed essence…

He’s ready to disintegrate, to unravel, to crumble into ash just like Lup’s skeleton in Wave Echo Cave, because of course it was her, it was all that was left of her —

I found her but she was gone — everything was gone, except for her robe and —

“Taako?”

Lying just a few feet away from the hem of his robe is Lup’s Umbra Staff, pulverized into a dozen smoldering fragments — and above it floats another red-cloaked figure, eyes blazing red like miniature versions of the explosion that freed her.

“Taako, I’m here!” she assures him, and her echoing voice is a chorus of too many simultaneous emotions to count — it’s worried, and desperate, but joyous and relieved and comforting all at once. “Don’t break down on me now, Taako! It’s okay!”

Something solidifies in Taako, a grounding sensation so powerful he feels almost corporeal again, but words are failing him, motion is failing him. He stays frozen as the bonds he’d clung to wind back into place, stretching from his arms to Lup’s and pulling them together into the closest thing to a hug that liches can achieve, and he feels warm.

“You idiot,” he finally chokes out. “You didn’t think that absorbing magic shit would make a bad combo with being a fucking lich?”

Lup is literally beaming with happiness, emitting beams of light that would blind someone with physical eyes. “You didn’t exactly realize either, you dingus!”

They stay in the embrace for a few more minutes — and Taako may or may not let out an ugly, messy sob or two, complete with tears and snot made of pure magical energy that crackles like lightning when it strikes the rubble below — before he finally feels stable, and Lup quietly asks:

“How much time do we have? Forty minutes? Thirty-five?”

“What?” Her words don’t sink in immediately, but the second they do, Taako immediately feels like the victim of a sick joke. “Oh, shit. The Umbra Staff’s gonna get fixed next loop, and — and I’m not gonna remember you’re in there —”

“It’ll be okay,” Lup assures him. Taako can tell from the tone of her voice that she’s just as frustrated as he is with the irony of the paradox, except trying to redirect that anger into stubborn optimism. It’s a lifesaving skill for liches of their particular breed, that ability to channel destabilizing negative emotions into sustaining positive ones — a skill Taako hasn’t had much practice with, lately.

“There’s got to be some way to cheat the loops — you know, a loophole.” Lup laughs — a rasping, echoing noise that would probably be terrifying to anyone who didn’t know her, but is a massive relief for Taako to hear. “It’s practically in the name. We’ll figure something out — we always do. Let’s just think — and besides, I’m sure Magnus will get you blown up at least another two or three times, so we’ve technically got even more than forty minutes.”

“Right, right, okay. Physical objects are a no-go, Magnus figured that out after his bank robbing stunt —”

“Yeah, I think I caught that. So we’ll have to try something magical —”

“Wait.” A thousand different realizations are slowly coalescing together all at once in Taako’s mind, and he struggles to find words to articulate any of them. “How much could you, like — how much could you see from in there? You helped me out fighting the vine monster, right, and — and ruined Ango’s cookies, so… you musta been pretty aware to do all that —”

Lup looks down at the remains of the Umbra Staff, now reduced to mostly ash.

“I could see and do plenty, if I put enough effort into it,” she explains, “but it wore me out quickly, especially casting spells. After I spelled my name, I was just… clinging to consciousness for the next few weeks. That stunt might not have been the best idea, since I’d figured out by then that you couldn’t remember, but… I had to try.”

“Did you see Barry, in… let’s see, Goldcliff and the Cosmoscope? He, uh… wasn’t doing so great that second time…”

“He’ll be able to hold it together,” Lup declares confidently. “He’s stubborn like that.”

“Do you think he realized… your situation? He was pretty stable until he saw you —”

“He would have done something about it by now if he’d known, though…”

“Yeah, of course, you’re right. But he definitely seemed like he had some kinda plan — wait, I think I got it! Where’s my body?”

“Wait, got what?”

Taako levitates a few boulders out of place, and summons two Mage Hands to rifle through the pockets of his corporeal form. “Our way out of this time paradox shit, courtesy of Barold himself! As long as it didn’t get crushed — ah, here we go!”

One of the Mage Hands procures a familiar golden coin, imbued with a divination spell of Barry’s own engineering that Taako finally recognizes. “Well, I guess I don’t know for sure that Barry sent it to me, but it’s his spell and came alongside some IPRE patches, so I’m gonna say it sure wasn’t from Lucretia.”

“Is that — is that the spell he made when Magnus was worrying about the Temporal Chalice overwriting things without us knowing?”

“Yeah, storing info across timelines is its whole gimmick! He knew we were going to go after the Chalice eventually, and musta realized that I would forget anything I did as a lich if a time loop like this revived me —”

“Gods, I love him!” Lup shouts, laughing and lighting up with joy all over again. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s send Amnesiac Taako a message!”

***

Taako faceplants in the dirt alongside Merle and Magnus, alive again and holding an unbroken Umbra Staff. As always, Roswell stands guard outside the gate, and Taako and Magnus immediately start running through their explanation.

“Great job, Maggie!” Merle mutters under his breath. “Now we’ve gotta go through this whole shebang again.”

“We’ll be able to make a great speedrun video on Fantasy Youtube by the end of it, though!” Taako whispers back, and Roswell tilts their bird head in confusion.

“What? What’s a speedrun?”

Taako opens his mouth to reply, but a slightly muffled yet incredibly familiar voice from within the pocket of his skirt beats him to it.

Yo, Taako! T to the double A-K-O! I’m you from half an hour ago now, so listen up!

“What the fuck?” he blurts out, digging out the coin. “That’s — that’s not me! I never said —”

I know you don’t remember recording this, but there’s something you’ve really gotta do, the coin goes on, still in Taako’s voice, and he drops it to the ground and stares at it in horror. It’ll make sense later — well, maybe a long time later. Eventually, I hope!

“I don’t trust you!” Taako shouts, not sure if he’s expecting the coin to respond or not. “I don’t know who’s behind this, but I know a trick when I hear —”

You need to break the Umbra Staff, Taako, a second speaker explains, and Taako goes stiff at the sound of her voice. And you need to break it again in every new cycle — or every loop, I should say, until you get out of here. Please, Taako, trust us. We’ll explain as soon as we can, I promise.

Magnus kneels on the ground and pokes the coin gingerly, as if expecting it to explode. “Taako, where did you get this? Do you know what triggered it to —”

Taako snaps the Umbra Staff with his bare hands, and a column of fire erupts around him.

As his vision turns into an orange blur, he can just barely hear Merle yelp in shock and Magnus shout in concern over the roar of the flames, but he doesn’t feel afraid — which is itself a deeply unsettling feeling, because he should really be terrified out of his mind — but he just can’t fear this fire no matter how hard he tries. The warmth of the flames that weave so deftly around him is not harsh, but rather, comforting — almost fiercely comforting, in a way Taako wasn’t prepared to be comforted, a way that makes his heart seize up just like the woman’s voice that he couldn’t help but trust.

The blaze consolidates into a spectral figure in red who floats in front of him and nods, face obscured by the cowl of her robe but a smile manifesting clearly in her voice nevertheless.

“Thank you so much, Taako. I knew you’d come through.”

Then Magnus swings Railsplitter through her — harmlessly, of course — and she turns to face him.

“What do you want from this town, Red Robe?” Magnus yells. “Why did you bring Jack and June here?”

“Magnus, calm down! Really, I should be asking you about Jack and —”

She pauses, noticing Magnus’s disoriented expression. “Shit, was that static? You know, that’s probably for the best. Let’s start over: Magnus, Merle, Taako, earth elemental who’s name I missed —”

“I’m Roswell. Could you please identify yourself?”

“Magnus, Merle, Taako, Roswell — but mostly you Tres Horny Bois, or whatever you call yourselves these days — first things first, I’m not the Red Robe you met before. Second and on a related note, yes, I’ve been in Taako’s umbrella this whole time. Yes, it sucked. And third…”

She sighs. “You’re just going to have to take my word on this one, but I literally can’t explain who I am or why I’m on your side. It might seriously damage your minds, but I should be able to tell you my name, which is Lup.”

“Lup, why do I trust you?” The name feels strange in Taako’s mouth — familiar, except it shouldn’t be, except it is, except it couldn’t be, except…

The contradiction just spirals on forever, boring a hole in his mind that aches like hell and makes his stomach churn.

“Taako — oh, Taako, you’re not thinking about it too hard, are you? You can’t think about it too hard — you see why I can’t try and explain anything else. I would if I could…”

Slowly, with help from Lup’s Mage Hand, Taako stands up. He can’t even remember when he fell to his knees, but… he tries not to think too hard about it. Just take things one step at a time.

“Lup can help get us out of here,” he tells Magnus and Merle. “I don’t know why, but I’d trust her with my life even outside of a time loop, so… we’re doing what she says now.”

Magnus shrugged. “You know, I guess we could do a lot worse than putting a competent woman in charge, even if she’s undead. Lup, whatever your plan is, I’m down for it.”

***

By the time the purple worm dives back down beneath the earth with her children, Taako’s just about ready to collapse. Physically, he’s uninjured — he had a lich and an earth elemental watching his back, after all — but mentally, he’s a wreck. The persistent roar of static in the back of his mind has taken its toll, especially since the loop where he died before anyone else, and woke up to find Magnus and Merle giving him the two most confused and concerned looks he’d ever seen on their faces.

So when Avi freezes, glowing red, and everyone’s Stones of Farspeech go dark, Taako barely has the energy to wonder why until another robed figure materializes, holding a finger to his lips —

“DID YOU RETRIEVE THE…”

Every fold of fabric freezes in place, as lightning washes over the Red Robe’s form.

“LUP?!”

“Hey, babe,” Lup whispers, unfazed by the lightning bolts as she floats forward to wrap her arms around the other lich. “Thanks for the coin.”

“But — but how?” the Red Robe stammers. “How are you finally —”

Several curls of hair, made up of ghostly orange fire, escape from under Lup’s hood as she explains, and the Red Robe gently twirls a coil of flames around one of his skeletal fingers. “How are you really here?”

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Lup explains, “but it turns out that magic-absorbing staffs and beings made of pure magic aren’t actually the best combo.”

“Oh my god, we’re idiots,” the Red Robe gasps. “We’re magical undead idiots.”

“Love you too, Barry,” Lup murmurs.“God, I missed you so fucking much.”

“Wait, like Barry Bluejeans?” Magnus asks, at exactly the same time that Taako mutters: “Ugh, get a room.”

Barry whispers something to Lup that Taako doesn’t catch, and then both liches turn around.

“So, slight change of plans,” Lup announces. “It looks like the bubble isn’t quite down yet, but once we get that taken care of… anyone else up for a moonbase infiltration?”

“I’ve got one condition,” Taako immediately announces.

“What’s up?”

“If we run into the Grim Reaper, neither of you crimson lovebirds know me.”