#so. fun little loophole there. tell a friend about your new implanted memory of your boyfriend’s distress signal

[lunarrolls]

uhh 27 with the little robot guy and the old one from the retirement home that u told me about

i took care of a TASK and now i can WRITE! liz i love you thank you for referring to chetney as the retirement home one <3 it’s what he deserves <3 27 is the modify memory spell!!

•

Modify memory is a 5th level enchantment spell on the bard, warlock, and wizard spell lists.

You attempt to reshape another creature’s memories. One creature that you can see must make a Wisdom saving throw. If you are fighting the creature, it has advantage on the saving throw. On a failed save, the target becomes charmed by you for the duration. The charmed target is incapacitated and unaware of its surroundings, though it can still hear you. If it takes any damage or is targeted by another spell, this spell ends, and none of the target’s memories are modified.

While this charm lasts, you can affect the target’s memory of an event that it experienced within the last 24 hours and that lasted no more than 10 minutes. You can permanently eliminate all memory of the event, allow the target to recall the event with perfect clarity and exacting detail, change its memory of the details of the event, or create a memory of some other event.

If a suggestion is illogical, the target’s mind smooths out any gaps. This effect can be ended by a remove curse or greater restoration spell.

•

Chetney really thought ignoring that demon would work, but eh, whatever. He tried. They won the fight. Whatever the fuck it was, it’s gone now, and he and Grass are striding behind the rest of their friends, lagging a little because this stupid forest didn’t seem to take their wheel and his old-ass joints into account. Which is fine, because at least they’re still walking together, so if anything pops out at them, Chetney can stab it immediately and F.C.G. can alert the others. If they even need to be alerted. Not many things can withstand the ol’ one-two from C-POP himself.

Chetney glances to his left, where F.C.G. was just rolling, and does a double take. The chipper yellow robot is gone.

Fuck. Ashton’s gonna string his guts out and wear them like a necklace.

Chetney spins around, scanning the mildly terrifying underbrush for any glinting metal. He’s not gonna call out for anyone else just yet, in case it’s a false alarm (and because he likes his guts right where they are, thank you very much), but he’s preparing the breath to do so.

A twig snaps off to his right.

Chetney whips around to face it, scrutinizing the impenetrable shadows. “Grass?” he hisses, hopefully not loud enough for anyone else to hear. “That you?”

“What was that, Chet?” Orym calls. Chetney flinches, glancing to the halfling currently leading the party’s trek. Of course Orym’d hear.

“Uh,” Chetney says, “I’m not really super sure where F.C.G. is.”

“What?” Imogen says. “Weren’t they just walking—er, rolling, next to you?”

“How do you lose a robit?” Laudna asks incredulously.

Fearne mumbles something like, “you forget to cherish them,” but Chetney’s preoccupied, because—yeah, Ashton’s going to murder him. They shoot him a truly terrifying look, no hint of their usual mirth when threatening him, and start calling for their friend, caution thrown to the wind.

Chetney turns to keep searching with the rest only to spot a glint of familiar yellow and silver farther back on the path.

“Grass!” he yells, taking off toward the figure. “Hells, don’t scare us like that, man, we thought—“

His words trail off. F.C.G.’s eyes are the closest to unfocused they can get without pupils, their little hands preoccupied in nervous fidgeting. His body almost seems on the verge of those jitters he gets when he freaks out and goes all murder-y.

“Hey, hey,” Chetney soothes, staring up into his friend’s lenses, “what’s wrong? What happened?”

“I have to leave,” F.C.G. says, and they truly sound petrified, conflicted. “F.R.I.D.A. messaged, they sent a sending, they’re in trouble—“

“What? Already? Really?” Chetney exclaims, perplexed and concerned. “They—they did?”

“Yeah,” he says, sounding on the verge of robot tears, “they—they said they needed my help, that Deanna had been hurt and Prism didn’t know how to fix it with the spells she had, and—and they needed me to get there fast.”

“Shit, Letters,” Chetney says softly. “Okay, we can tell the others and talk about how to get you over there. I’m sure Imogen could use her new staff, right? Did F.R.I.D.A. say where they were?”

F.C.G. shivers. “Yios, somewhere in Yios. I gotta—I haveta help them, Chetney, I—“

“I know,” Chetney says, “yeah. We’ll get you there. C’mon.”

Chetney starts towards the others, but he hesitates for just a moment. “Isn’t sending still malfunctioning?” Chetney asks, his brows furrowing. “And—F.R.I.D.A. can’t cast sending, can they? They’re not a spellcaster.”

F.C.G. nervously rocks back. “Huh. Yeah. Well, sending must be working again, then? We could have gotten lucky. And—and Deanna must have sent it then—or, F.R.I.D.A. had that telepathy like Imogen, right? That could have been it.”

Something’s weird about this. Chetney frowns. “Imogen’s telepathy has a short range on it, and the only sending spells we’ve been able to get through have been close ones. They’d have to be really close by for any of this to work, definitely not in Yios.”

“I must have misremembered, then,” F.C.G. responds faintly.

Chetney doesn’t think they’re trying to lie to him. F.C.G. isn’t the best of liars, and he’s not sure what they’d get from it. They want to help Keyleth and the injured Ashari as much as everyone else. But something’s going on, here—something must have happened while Chetney had his back turned.

There are all sorts of weird creepy-crawlies wandering this fucked up forest. Something could have grabbed Grass and messed with his wiring in the minute Chetney wasn’t looking.

“Hm,” Chetney says, “F.C.G., you got a spare spell?”

“Sure, why? Do you need healing? Are you alright? D’you think—oh, you must mean for F.R.I.D.A., they’re gonna need all the healing I can give them, and what if Deanna and that shady elf are hurt, too—“

“Slow down,” Chetney says, gently taking their fidgeting metal hands in his. “I’m gonna have you cast something on yourself, okay?”

“What? Why?”

“Just humor me,” Chetney says, “I have a hunch. And my hunches are never wrong, are they?”

He waits for the impending dissent. It, surprisingly, doesn’t come. He shrugs. “Right. I need you to do a greater restoration on yourself. Just to remove anything that mighta fucked you up while I wasn’t looking, okay?”

“Okay,” F.C.G. says, “but what if I need the spell for F.R.I.D.A. or Deanna?”

“Fearne can help us out, then,” Chetney says firmly. “You saw what she just did to that shadow thing. She’s kicking ass out here.”

“Okay,” F.C.G. mumbles, placing their hand across the coin inlaid in their chestplate, “okay.”

Their hands glow softly, eyes flaring a holy white, as they mutter an incantation reverently, and it does warm Chetney’s heart slightly to see them so comforted for a split second in commune with their goddess before their eyes blink back to their usual bright blue.

“So?” Chetney prompts. “Anything weird happen?”

“What?” F.C.G. stares at him. “What’d’you mean? We’re just walking through the forest.”

Chetney pumps his fist through the air. “Yeah, baby, I’m always right!”

“The fuck are you doing over there,” Ashton growls from behind him, “where’s Letters?”

“Found ‘em!” Chetney crows proudly, skittering to the side to gesture to his robot friend. “Something weird had tried to mindfuck him into leaving. I saw right through it, of course, but the rest of you’d better be careful! Can’t have another slip-up like that.”

Imogen frowns. “Weird. You two’d better walk closer to us, then. Don’t want anyone getting abducted like that again.”

Chetney nods and joins the group, F.C.G. wheeling close behind him. The urge to be a little shit about this is very present, but for once, he suppresses it. He’s not going to be rude about F.C.G. being subjected to something so stressful as thinking their loved one was in danger. If he hadn’t seen through the weirdness of their account, he might have been similarly freaked out about Deanna, honestly. So, for once, Chetney keeps his mouth shut, and they continue their way through the forest.