#Magnus bonded with the voidfish long before he knew it was Fisher!

[iamjusttrash]

Sometimes I think how TAZ Balance showed just how much the McElroys know and love each other. The fact that Griffin was able to write about what they would do for A HUNDRED YEARS down to the tiny details and they happily carried out everything he said is insane.

He KNEW his dad as Merle would willingly risk his life over and over to try to save them. He KNEW Travis as Magnus was NOT going to allow Fisher to stay on that planet.

And, most devistatingly, he KNEW that the one thing he could take from Justin as Taako that would tear his heart up was a sibling. He knew he could count on Justin to play into that heartbreak and he did it so well it literally broke all of us. "Who?" "You took EVERYTHING from me!" "The world is ending and I DONT CARE" like are you joking? Griffin knew that would be Justin's reaction to finding out he had lost a sibling!!! Imagine knowing your brother felt like that and playing him like a fiddle with it! Literally teeing him up for some of the best moments in fiction ever and Justin hits a home run every single time!

I guess what I'm saying is it's not railroading if you know what the answer is gonna be to every question. Griffin didn't need rails to keep these guys on track, he knew what path they would choose and every time they rushed in.

[jelloopy]

Moonlighting Notes

Previous: Character Creation, HtbG

Moonlighting Ch 1

Boys are dizzy upon entering moon base (Why exactly was this a thing? Like was it because Lucretia made it so the bureau couldn’t be remembered/ comprehended by anyone not inoculated?)

AAVVIIIIIIII!!!!! He is from Brandybuck and gives them some brandy to ease the dizziness (Team player, I want someone like Avi in my crew.) 

JOHAAANNNNNN!!!! Half elf! v v sad boy. So talented!!! (I kinda forgot how mopey he was since I’ve been catching up with the rest of TAZ )

Magnus why you tickling a grown-ass man? (This is so funny and weird considering how their relationship grows later on?)

Best god damn musician that ever existed. Plays violin like a mad man (He plays the Violin… I feel like Lup would have challenged him so god damn fast. But still, is he the legit best Violinist in Faerune?)

Magnus drinks the Ichor first. Remembers everything that was static before now being clear as day. Months and years ago there was a war that ruined and killed entire towns, loved ones, and people he knew. (Juliaaaaaa! God that sucks realizing that tbh. But also later on Travis says that Magnus was the leader of a Militia going against Governor Kalen. So what was that about exactly? They might actually explain that later on so I gonna wait and see.)

”You have never seen anything like this”~griffin about Fisher (Oh, how incorrect that statement is. Especially for it to be Magnus he’s talking about.)

Taako drinks next then Merle (Ahh, Taako the trust issues are showinggggg! But I don’t blame you it’s okay you have full right to be sus)

Taako has a memory of working on his grandpa’s farm where he leaves the milk out too long and remembers sour cream (he was 65yrs old) (God, does that mean Lup was there too? )

Johann came up with the name “voidfish”? (To be fair the IPRE gang only called him Fisher so it actually is pretty neat if Johann really was the guy to come up with the name.)

Magic Brian was 121yrs old and a drow elf (A young man just looking for mischief)

Magnus tries to tickle Johann again bit he smacks his hand away (YES JOHANN Stand up for your self!!!!! What a king.)

Johann is in the “gamekeeping” department? (I mean he is the guy that feeds and takes care of Fisher by means of feeding him information that needs getting rid of. So it kinda makes sense.)

Moonlighting Ch 2

They meet Lucretia!  (I want to punch her so bad. I’m sorry if yall like Lucretia but she infuriates me. She actually is a really cool character with a complex personality that I can actually appreciate but I still hate what she did and I will go much deeper into it later on.)

Griffin makes a joke about having to “create a new monster that takes away memories” so that he can get Taako to unlearn some of the components to making a taco (Good god. That came back to bite us in the ass didn’t it? Huh, JUNIOR. Didn’t it? That hurts a lot too.)

Lucretia doesn’t know” what the umbrastaff is (I saw a post with some Lucretia angst which I can appreciate because she could have been “in denial” about it being Lup’s umbrastaff but I got angry nonetheless.)

She believes that they are much more capable than they believe that they are (YEAH HUH? Its almost like they have less faith in themselves because someone took away their memories and the knowledge of their powers or something and they had to start all over. Wild.)

The Bureau of Balance has only been in operation for less than a year and they were not able to do anything until they discovered the Voidfish (More like Lucretia had only then figured out the logistics of her organization enough to introduce Fisher to everyone. Which in retrospect is very smart and it’s the same thing I would do at that point in time but anyway.)

Magic Brian was a wayward seeker who worked for the bureau of balance (aHA! So technically in the Graphic Novel, he should have had a bracer on unless he used a spell to conceal it which is reasonable (I won’t hate on Carey I just remembered it and noticed he didn’t have a bracer on. it’s nothing wild))

CUE TRIAL OF INITIATION! (Ngl I forgot this was a thing because of how little attention I was paying at the beginning.)

Magnus is the strongest, Merle is the smartest, and Taako is the bravest. (In all aspects, I would have switched Taako and Merle but considering at this point Taako really was a dullard I can agree with their placements.)

The smallest ogre is blue the middle ogre is green and the big ogre is red (Awe I think Griffin used all of their fave colors to Mirror the three of em. <3)

Magnus’ first blood with ripping arms off (And so it begins. God, I love that Lil character detail in Magnus. It’s so frickin funny.)

”I thought I knew him! he’s an animal!” ~Taako (I mean in The Stolen Century he waaaas taught by a bear so… not far off there bud.)

Taako falls back and breaks his wand and in return, the umbrastaff begins to shift and wiggle in his bag until he gets it out. (It never clicked that this was the time that Griffin listed in Lup’s return in the finale. Until now… That’s so cute and so sadddddd)

Moonlighting Ch 3

Magnus got to keep the robot arm(s?) (Yay! Sadly he will give them up later on :( but it is for good reason so :) )

Lucretia came up with the name “Bureau of Balance” (Why? Like why Balance. I would name it Justice or Equity or something else but Balance doesn’t seem right in line with what they are doing.)

Lucretia treats davenport as her charge or ward (Rude. For one. It also hurts a lot more when you realize he is her superior. I hate it so much.)

”We very quickly cut your hand off take the bracer then reattach the hand so its no big deal” in reference to how they’ll get the bracers off after they find all the relics. (1- I forget how they get the bracers off in the end but did Lucretia really not plan for that?) (2- heheh *cut to Merle in three Arcs*)

The seventh relic is love “after we find the sixth item we’ll come back here” (She has the 7th in her hand actually so yeah you’re only gonna need to find six. But also it kinda was Love. The bonds they all had together helped Lucretia do what she needed in the end with the help of Taako’s idea and together they ended the Hunger’s reign over Faerune.)

”who called themselves the Red Robes- are all gone- most of them killed in the hunt for their relics- bring them back here if you find one” (Uh. Lucretia really named her family the “Red Robes” and made them sound evil because they did what they could at the time. Also they aren't “all gone” the only one(s) you don’t know their whereabouts of yet are Barry and Lup. AND YOU PUT ANTI- LICH WARDS ON THE DAMN MOON DUDE. If you really wanted to find Barry to talk then you would have not done that.)

Leon the artificer! (He is trying his best and I love him)

The umbrastaff is a magical umbrella created by the Umbrawizards “very few” of them exist (Boy HUH? Did Lup like… start a gang of wizards? Or did Lucretia feed Leon false Information?)

Taako being inept at the gashapon (My favorite thing. He is played as stupid at the time but if we consider his character, in general, knowing everything we do he is just fucking with Leon and I love him for that.)

RAILSPLITTER!!!! Phantom fist!!! Wand of switcheroo!! The X-treem teen bible and SCUTTLEBUDDY!!!! (Pay close attention! These Mousekatools will be useful later on!)

Awe Magnus got everyone the stones of far speech 

They are moving to Level 4!!!

Next: MotRPL, Lunar Interlude I,

[the-ipre]

Maybe an AU where Davenport wipes everyone’s minds instead of Lucretia?

- Davenport is the captain, and he shouldered responsibility for a hundred years. He started off as a boss and then become a part of the family, but at the end of the year he was still the one they trusted to drive the ship. He was still the one who could finalize votes, and there were times that he certainly took matters into his own hands. It wasn’t an obsession with control or anything like that; instead, he knew that he could fix things, and he had a responsibility to. He was their captain, he was the one who interviewed them for this mission, and it was his job to make things right after a war broke out on the world below them.

- Fisher didn’t trust him as much as it did Lucretia, and he didn’t have her way with words either, but he was used to working through problems. The entire past hundred years had been a series of problem after impossible problem, and when it’s crunch time, Davenport is willing and able to do what it takes. He composes an opera of their adventures, capturing the essence and the bonds but still trying to leave out what made those individuals who they were. It’s tough, because so much of who they became over that century were due to the people they were around, but he kept going. Always, he kept going.

- He wrote letters to them all, a last thing to erase to cut himself off from their memories. For Merle, a love letter, mentioning the moments of their first kiss, and the first time that Merle broke down Davenport’s walls and made him laugh, and the first time that Merle made up his own rules to their card game and Davenport let him because in that moment he had realized that he had fallen in love. To Barry, it was a sincere thank you note, detailing the ways that he could never have made it through if Barry wasn’t there to figure out the why while Davenport worked at the how, touching on one of their journeys to get the light that allowed them to both let their walls down and be honest about the strain they were under. For Taako, he wrote down the cure for scurvy, and the memory of the time that Taako had made him soup and left it outside his door when he was sick, and even though Taako denied making it he knew that the only person who walked around that late at night with those light of footsteps was Taako. To Magnus, he left the countless rescues to be consumed by the Voidfish, along with all of the pranks that Magnus had pulled and Davenport had turned back on him, breaking down that wall between boss and uncle-figure.

- Writing to Lucretia was difficult, because who would he write it to? The quiet girl who he had picked to go on a mission to the stars, who had written down the world even as it fell around her, who stayed up with her veins full of caffeine because she had to remember their plane, she had to write it down so that they wouldn’t be forgotten? Or would he write it to the woman who had lived longer than she ever should have, who had survived against all odds for a year by herself, who had made her relic a way to protect and defend, and who wanted to carry the world’s weight on her shoulders? In the end, it is both: he honors who she has become, but remembers where she came from. At the end of it all, he doesn’t know who she will be, but at this point he is just writing frantically. The others have heard him practicing his songs, and some of them grow suspicious. He has to fix this.

- To Lup, he writes of her bonds. The duet with Barry and their eternal love story, her refusal to back down and stand idly by while a world is killed, and of course, Taako. The other half of her heart, and it breaks his own to know that this will be lost, but it is something that must be done. He bundles up the letters, tied with string, and stacks them on top of the opera that he wrote. Dropping the papers into the Voidfish’s tank to disperse and be erased, he begins to sing.

- Back at the Legato Conservatory, Lucretia did not get splashed with water, and she was never inoculated, and so when those papers are absorbed into Fisher’s jellycap, she forgets. She is with Magnus, and he is carving while she is painting, and for the moment they have found peace. Lup is missing and the world below them tears itself apart, but together they carve, and they paint, and then there comes a moment where Lucretia doesn’t know what she is painting. She turns her head, and doesn’t know the man next to her, and when he looks up, there is no look of recognition in his eyes. Magnus is left in Raven’s Roost, where he will find and lose yet another family, and Lucretia is placed in Goldcliff, where she will write for a newspaper and once again tell other people’s stories.

- Taako goes to talk to Barry on the deck of the ship, looking for Lup, and then everything falls apart. They don’t know the man across from them, and they don’t know the woman that they were just talking about, and Barry is killed as he is thrown from the deck of the ship, and Taako is left standing in the middle of the sky as everything turns to static. This story is the same. Taako is given a stagecoach and a show, and he is given fame and fortune and is always so alone. Barry would have become a professor, Davenport had the teaching job all lined up, but he was unable to control everything, despite his best efforts. Barry continues searching for Lup, and he continues not finding her, and he relentlessly keeps searching.

- Back, many cycles before this day, the crew had been daring each other to take a drink from Fisher’s tank. Davenport had walked up, taken a sip, and left amongst assorted exclamations. On the day this story kicks off, Davenport once again stands in front of the Voidfish’s tank, except this time the only noise is his singing, until the door opens behind him. Merle had heard his partner’s voice and had come in to see how this secret project was going, but as the gnome in front of him turned around, he couldn’t recognize his face. There was a mustache, and eyes that were brimming with tears, and it was as familiar as his own face, but he didn’t know who it was. For once in his life Merle is speechless, and in that moment Davenport decides to be selfish. He had found a community of beach dwarves, one that would certainly welcome Merle among them, but he couldn’t do that anymore. He was cutting away so much from himself, and he had to let himself be selfish, in just this one thing. In the end, Merle became his right-hand command, and while he was more aware of himself than Davenport would have been if he had been erased, there was always something missing. He defined himself by the people around him and the joy that they brought, and when those people were gone he lost something.

- From the start Davenport builds an organization, because that is what he is good at. He can fight toe to toe with any magic user on the planet, but he has always been a delegator on some level, and despite his best efforts he still has something to lose. Merle was told that he had gotten a job that he had applied for, one meant to help save the world, and even if he couldn’t know what he was saving the world from he still agreed. His memory was spotty enough that he didn’t know if he had applied for a job or not, and something about this gnome made him want to trust the guy. At least he doesn’t have to file much paperwork, though, and most of his job seems to be chilling on an unanchored island and acting as HR for all the folks that get hired to do…something that he doesn’t quite know.

- Lucretia and Magnus are both in their thirties when they meet up with Taako to take a certain job, and none of them know each other but they can fight together as easy as breathing, and they can lean on each other even easier, and so they take the job with these strangers. Taako finds an umbrella, the Barry Bluejeans that they met along the way is burned to the ground along with the town of Phandolin, and the three of them are brought to a strange drifting island via flying boats summoned by a lizardfolk woman who introduces herself as Carey. Their story is the same, but shifted to the side just enough that it is their own.

- Merle greets them, and now he finally knows what the organization is searching for, and he doesn’t get why he wasn’t told until now, but he keeps trundling along. He bonds quickly to the three new recruits without knowing why, and when they meet Davenport (who stands on a dias so as not to be loomed over by all the taller folk) he welcomes them to the Institution for the Possession of Ruthless Echoes, or the IPRE for short. They are in search of relics that are little more than thumbprints on the public conscious, and they hope to make the world a better place by confiscating these weapons. Davenport hopes to reconstruct the light and keep running, because running is all that he knew for so long, but as the years pass he doesn’t quite want to run anymore.

- The reclaimers reclaim relics, and Merle works with Davenport, and the first time that Davenport finds himself laughing at something Merle said he feels a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He built up walls, and he did his best to make this different than before, but he can see the cycle happening again. His walls come down, and he laughs, and they kiss on the beach of this floating island, and Davenport’s surety that they will leave this world afterwards isn’t quite so sure anymore. He doesn’t know what he is going to do when the time comes that they all get their memories back, because at this point he knows that it will have to happen someday, but he keeps pushing that back.

- When the Hunger returns and their memories come flooding back, when a world is sung an opera of seven fools who tried their best to save plane after plane, when they hear the six letters to six almost-lost members of a family that was torn apart in an effort to do something good, there is another song lying underneath it all. A repeating seven notes, a note for each bird and two words for the lost child who allowed the Starblaster crew to come back together, and it pulls together the scattered sheets of paper like thread. This, too, is a story that we all know: the people of Faerun are afraid, and then they aren’t, and then they take up arms to protect their homes. The Hunger is cut off from the inside, and the seven birds don’t have to keep running. Finally, they can find a home.

- The others are betrayed, understandably, but most of them do not hold grudges. They may hurt at what was lost, they may hurt at the fact that their captain didn’t trust them to help him with this terrible undertaking, but they stop running. They are a family, and this is a home that they have fought for, and they can not hold grudges in this last life that they will have.

- Davenport is prepared for Merle to…well, he doesn’t know. Turn away? Break things off over what happened? Move on like nothing had happened? Merle, always one to surprise him, does none of those things. He doesn’t run, or separate, or ignore. He remembers both times that they fell in love, after all, and he can certainly admit that what Davenport did was kind of fucked up, but they lived through a hundred years of fucked up. They still have many years left, and he doesn’t want to waste them. All he asks is that Davenport will meet him halfway, that when he stands with a hand outstretched Davenport will take it, and that they can finally, finally make a home. Davenport agrees, of course, and they build a house on an island that never sees the same beach twice.

- An IPRE is built on this planet, the Institute for Planar Research and Exploration hoping to bring Faerun into a new era of technological advancement, and when Davenport gets a letter asking him to take a leadership position he tears it up. He’s good with his life as is, thank you very much, and he’s had enough time in charge. For now, he just wants to live on a beach, go boating when he pleases, and grow old with one Merle Highchurch.

[fully-realized-creation]

I was (and still am) full of so many emotions about The Adventure Zone finale tomorrow that I wrote my first ever fanfic for it. So that’s a thing, and here it is.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11826000

And below the cut, if you prefer to read it that way:

It’s almost like poetry.

The blue and green lights are dancing above your head to a melody that everyone (/everyone/, gods, on every plane, in every existence, it’s something your mind can still barely comprehend), /everyone/ can hear. Fisher and his child are radiant. They glow proudly as the story–/your/ story–is shared with the universe.

And suddenly no one is alone.

You feel this sharply and keenly. You have been alone, especially when Julia died, when Raven’s Roost was lost, though you don’t know what caused the two events (it leaves a sour taste in your mouth regardless). Then there was Taako and Merle and Angus and the Bureau and Lucretia and yet. And yet you felt the loss every day. In every moment you rushed in you knew that if it went bad, well, then you wouldn’t be so alone anymore.

But in this moment, watching the lights above and before you, as everyone in existence shares in the knowledge that the world is ending, shares in the fear of the Hunger descending, you are connected to people in a way that you haven’t truly felt since Lucretia erased your memory of those fateful hundred years.

As the realization hits you, you swear you can see the world around you glow white. But it’s not from the eyes of the agents of the Hunger. It’s from the bonds created between you and the IPRE crew and the /world/.

And you feel complete. Like the period at the end of a sentence, this moment of connection is both something ending and something beginning. It’s a new stanza, a continuation, because–and it’s almost enough to knock you off your feet, this realization– /no one is ready to stand down/. You take a deep breath, and somewhere, deep within your heart, you feel everyone take the same breath, and look deep into the face of the apocalypse, and as one, say, “No.”

So you stand up straight and tall, and think about your crew–your family–and the rest of the world. All of those people that you need to /protect/.

The story and the song fly above your head and through your heart, and mind, and soul. You feel the universe balance precariously between destruction and survival. You know what you need to do, and it fees so right, like the perfect rhyme.

You take one last look at the two voidfish, at the lights, and simply /feel/ everything for one more moment.

It’s so beautiful. It’s almost like poetry.

——————————————————————————————-

It’s almost like poetry.

Each line in a couplet must have a mate, something so similar and yet different enough to distinguish between the two, and allow the meaning to come across.

You had lost your meaning, though you didn’t remember it ever existing in the first place. The other rhyme was gone, and so yours barely made sense, for so long. It explained a lot.

Then she was back and gone again in a flash, and the world was ending and all you wanted to do was make sure everyone felt this double loss that you had. Who cares if the world was ending? Without the next line in your story, it made no logical sense to keep going.

You feel fire in your veins, and imagine your body is hers, imagine that this is how she must have felt all the time, so powerful, so /resplendent/. You imagine the umbra-staff in your hand vibrates, your last connection to her reaching toward the anger and the loss and the hurt, and clutch it to your chest.

There’s a break in your line of thought when the Hunger attacks. You ready for battle and someone appears at your side and your heart soars, thinking, hoping–and it’s not, of course, it’s Angus, but damn if that isn’t just as good, and the realization of that almost knocks you down.

You fight with Magnus and Merle, because /that’s/ what you know now, that’s who you know how to work with, and you wonder if maybe your rhyme scheme has changed in the years that you’ve had together to unknowingly relearn their ways.

There was once a time when your couplet was part of a larger verse, two lines within seven and they all somehow made sense. Through the bonds you created, your hearts beat almost as one, keeping time with the rhythm and the flow of your lives. There was chaos, and there was destruction, but there was also balance and love. And you and her were a part of that.

When you and Magnus and Merle had (re)connected, without realizing it, you (re)connected three out of the seven parts of the original story. Not enough to make sense, but enough to begin your epic once more. You hadn’t changed, you had simply found your rhythm again, those slants that you could fit your rhyme against, not perfectly, but just enough.

And you think that’s maybe okay.

Until a fireball too big for a young boy to conjure up emerges from your umbra-staff, and your heart and mind and soul /reach/ for the magical instrument and you know what to do, break it in half and /there she is/, and you truly remember what it’s like to be a fully realized creation, now that you and her are whole, together, balanced once more.

She shines before you, the grin on her face matching yours exactly.

It’s so beautiful. It’s almost like poetry.

——————————————————————————————-

It’s almost like poetry.

There’s a beginning, and an end, and in the middle is love and plants and dancing and praying. And through it all, a constant thread, a reminder that you’re never alone, keeping everything together.

Until one day, it’s gone.

And you fall apart.

Pan was your constant. He was the rhythm you followed (whether you wanted to or not) because He was always just /there/. Your doubts and your complaining could not dissuade Him. He was the one thing in your life that stuck by you. Perhaps you were just fated to lose everything you cared about.

But you look up, and you see Magnus and Taako, and despite their jokes about how you “never used your healing powers anyway,” you know that they are worried and afraid. And you consider what you know about constants.

It’s not a lot, you realize very quickly. You’ve never known much about regularity, about rhythm. Your life is a disjointed stream of consciousness, of starting and giving up and restarting and running away. But with you, the whole time, was Pan. And with you, most of the time, were Taako and Magnus.

The way you three fit together was proof, your were sure, that the gods had a sense of humor. Two capable adventurers in their own rights, and you. You spent your entire quest waiting for the day they realized that even a kid like that annoying Agnes was a better and more capable companion than you.

They never did though, and that’s what’s getting you, as you stand here disconnected from everything that once grounded you to the universe. This whole time, you thought it was just you and Pan against the world, but Taako and Magnus were there too. And they’re still here, as you deal with the loss of your god.

And you realize that, at some point, you found your rhythm, that place where you fit into the story, where you make sense. You thought Taako and Magnus had their own arcs, beginnings that didnt include you and middles and ends that didnt need you. Your own story was separate, smaller, /lesser/. In reality, it all blended together to make something so perfect and balanced that nothing could destroy it, not even the apocalypse itself.

So when the memories hit you, when the century that was stolen from you by Lucretia returns, and the initial shock of the flood of so much information wears off, you can’t help but smile. The connections you made, those bonds, return in full force and it almost feels like Pan has returned. It brings the same comfort, the same sense of familiarity, of /home/.

It’s so beautiful. It’s almost like poetry.

[charmandhex]

Pen to Paper

Read Part 1 here.

Read on ao3 here.

Part 2: Chapter’s End

None of them can explain Lucretia’s mysterious ability, not fully, not when her talents lie in abjuration (not the sort of school you’d expect to find this sort of work in) and not when she’s never shown any sign of sorcery before. But it is a remarkable talent, born of the love and work Lucretia had poured over the course of decades into her earliest skill.

There are limits, of course. She can’t produce a walking, talking, thinking duplicate built of the written word alone, and certainly, producing an illusory dog that Magnus can chase around is more difficult than making a far less mobile mushroom. (Though she does do just that on more than one occasion).

But Lucretia’s talent in both figuratively and literally giving life to words only grows over the years.

She draws out the sun in a world of storms, music of past worlds in quiet spaces, and small moments of peace on inhospitable planes. Merle can see so much of what he’d missed those cycles before they’d swayed him into staying for longer than a few days, and when one or more of them is missing, well, it’s something. She’s even able to conjure things from their home world they’d all thought they’d long since forgotten.

And on restless nights where the world is too still while the Hunger swiftly approaches and surrounds the plane, the sound of waves from the Beach World can soothe most of them to sleep.

It’s toward the end of Cycle 47, when Magnus has introduced her to the source of what this world calls the Light of Creation, that a curious comparison is drawn.

Magnus is looking between her, as she’s still attempting to spit out the taste of the water and shake it from her clothes, and his new friend. “You’re like Fisher!” He exclaims.

“Fisher?” She raises an eyebrow. She might not get rid of this taste until she resets entirely. She makes a mental note to NOT record this.

Magnus gestures to the jellyfish as though that should be obvious. “Yeah, Fisher.”

“How am I like Fisher?” Lucretia asks, amused.

“You know...” Magnus waves his hand in a way that communicates exactly nothing, even if you’ve known him for over 47 years now. “Fisher and their family take in what’s good in the world and project it out to everyone. You write down everything, and you can bring it to life again and show people. You’re like Fisher!”

Lucretia laughs. The Hunger comes the next day. They bring Fisher with them.

Lucretia quickly learns that she can’t call up images of the other voidfish or mimic their calls. Fisher becomes despondent for days the first and only time she does.

During Cycle 65, she talks to her family. They don’t reply, and they aren’t real, but it’s as close to not alone as she can make it.

In the Empty World, she learns Shield of Faith from Merle. It’s both nothing like her magic with words and so much like it. Faith, bonds, and inner strength are the source of both. And both only grow more powerful over time. It’s strange, Lucretia thinks, that as certain as she’d been that she would never be like the heroes of stories she’d read decades ago, she’s more like them now than she ever thought possible. They’d been strong enough to guarantee a happy ending. Is she?

Later, several cycles later, when they disagree, when they fight, about how best to finally win, and her family seems to ignore her carefully considered plans, Lucretia is more... frustrated than she’s been in years. Her shields static and falter as surges of the feeling hit her, shimmering unstably as doubt, for the first time in a long time, creeps in. Her words rise from the pages jerkily and lackluster, as something festers within the new cracks of the bonds Lucretia shares with her family. Something has broken between them, and it shows.

When they arrive on their hundredth world and the Light lands practically in their arms, Lucretia continues writing and documenting. She notes the first few incidents, but surely, hopefully, things will turn out right in the end. But that same doubt that had crept in the first time the plan was discussed, planes ago, again takes root. And when the Relic Wars reach a boiling point, magic, madness, and mayhem exploding outward and sweeping over Faerun, nothing, not even Lucretia’s small family still floating distantly above, is left unscathed.

And so Lucretia begins her redaction. The ghosts of worlds, loved, lost, left behind, rise up in bits and pieces as she writes, a sort of farewell, she thinks, as soon she’ll be the only one who remembers them at all. It’s a heavy weight to bear. But she will. She has to, to save them, to save them all.

She feels no joy, no triumph as Fisher consumes her words. She feels abject horror as that same emotion crosses Magnus’s face, understanding in moments what his sister has done. A wooden duck drops from his hands as the light of recognition dies in his face, cast into sharp relief by Fisher’s glow.

When it’s done and Lucretia’s family is scattered just as they had scattered the Light of Creation, she starts her work anew, tracking down the Relics.

It’s hard to say what the problem is. Perhaps her ability had been more dependent on her bonds than she ever knew. Perhaps she’d sacrificed it when she’d hidden the most important story she’d ever written, never to be told. But the problem is there all the same.

Lucretia cannot give life to words anymore.

Read Part 3 here.

[jelloopy]

The Forgotten Bird

What if our favorite Plane Jumping Embezzling Janitor was more than just that? 

Here’s my crazy long one shot of Clint McElroy being the Forgotten 8th member of the IPRE Crew. Be warned it is 8.2k.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No one really knows who Clint McElroy is. 

He seemingly popped up out of nowhere one day and continues to show up at random times and places. Little did the IPRE gang know that Clint was also on that mission with them. He was with them every cycle, every attack from the Hunger. He just disappeared after 48 long years when he learned about the Voidfish. 

Like the others, he was chosen for the simple 2-month excursion into space to explore the outer reaches of the planar system to potentially see what lies beyond it. He shadowed under Davenport in the year after finding the Light of creation. Helping him figure out how bonds work and assisting him with any sort of research. He met Barry while he worked at the institute as well. Never got to know him too well but worked alongside him in a few research projects. On the Mission, he was “Lieutenant”, second in command under Davenport.

He knew the mission was risky but his family supported what he did and urged him to go. So he waved his goodbyes from the hull of the Starblaster and went to his room as they took off. He is thankful most days that he didn’t see the attack as they exited the atmosphere. The last thing he saw of his homeworld was his family’s smiling faces and that’s all he needed. So when they reentered the atmosphere only to see a planet that wasn’t their own he didn’t know how to feel. 

When Magnus died at the end of the first cycle as they retreated from the Hunger and he was so afraid of what that meant. Just as the sinking feeling of losing a member of his crew began to set in they all were repositioned. Magnus was back. Clint was in his room on the ship. Everyone was still in their Red Cloaks from the first departure. How was this possible? No one knew. But as the next few years went by they fell into that routine of trying to find the light before the Hunger could. 

Some years they found it before the Hunger others took months and the Hunger had already spotted it. But every year within the first 2 weeks the sky would be filled with eyes for just a second. Those eyes, filled with fear, hunger, and hatred, burned into the crew. At that moment the clock started to tick. They had one year. In one year’s time, the Hunger would fill the sky and decimate the planet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

47 years they had been doing this. 47. This cycle was fun though. They were at a place called the Legato Conservatory. The locals said that the light of creation was in the mountain. So to follow their tradition on the planet the crew decided they could spend some time mastering certain arts to appease the mountain in order to get the light. They could have some fun. So everyone got to work. Magnus worked on carpentry, Merle danced, Taako gave motivational speeches, Davenport sang,  Barry played piano, Lup played the violin, and Lucretia and Clint took painting lessons. 

The year passed and they all submitted their works with pride. There was a moment with Barry and Lup that Clint saw growing over time and was ecstatic to see it coming to fruition. Everyone’s submissions were accepted and yet there was no Light of Creation. This made everyone in the crew on edge. Later that night Clint saw Magnus go for a jog probably from the nerves. 

However, the next night after the crew submitted their pieces Clint went to investigate the cave himself. When he peered into was greeted by a weird sort of jellyfish. The creature somehow gestured in a way as if to say “follow me” to him. So he did and it lead him into the cave. Looking around he notices a bunch of other creatures like the one he was following that start to float towards him. They are larger than the one he is following but stop short and float away as the smaller one in front of him hums and glows as if saying ‘he’s cool, he’s with me’.

 As they make their way further into the cave he spots another smaller creature with the duck that Magnus submitted in its tendrils and chuckles. Finally, they reach a back corner of the cave and Clint understands why the jellyfish brought him here, the painting he submitted leaned against the wall. He smiles as he approaches it.

The painting pictures a park from their home planet. Three boys are playing around in the sunlight, laughing. The smallest one in a blue shirt chasing what seems to be his older brother in a green shirt grinning ear to ear the whole way with joy in their faces. The last one who looks to be the oldest in a red shirt is hiding behind a big tree watching the other boys chase each other. Sitting in the foreground on a blanket leaning against one another is a man and a woman watching the whole scene take place.

“That’s my family. My wife ‘n I, then my three boys running around,” he says.

The creature hums softly. And floats closer to the painting touching a tendril to the man in the frame. 

“Yep, that’s me alright,” Clint assures. The tendril moves over to the woman. 

“That’s my wife Leslie. An absolute wonder of a woman. Always supported me. Took care of the boys. Never failed at bringing a smile to my face,” Clint tells the creature. Some tears start to well up in his eyes as he talks, smiling the whole time. The creature hummed a soft tone and glowed blue for a moment, brushing up next to Clint. It then pointed towards the Boy behind the tree.

“That’s my oldest Juice. His real name is Justin but when he was like 10 he had an obsession with drinking juice for a while so it just stuck. He’s such a good kid, always lights up a room when he enters, crazy funny too,” He explains, now sitting on a rock next to the painting. A few tears have begun to fall. The creature now points at the boy being chased in green.

“Ahh, Travis. He’s very passionate. Horribly afraid of spiders though. Insanely funny too. He and Juice butt heads some times but that’s what brothers do am I right?” He wipes a tear from his cheek as he chuckles. The creature finally points at the smallest boy in blue. 

“Now that’s baby Griffin. Spoiled Lil shit he is. Never will not bring up the fact that he has his “own birthday”. See Justin and Travis both share a birthday but they were born 3 years apart oddly enough. But Griffin got his own. He’s a little ball of energy. Used to help me out with stuff for the Institute before the Mission.” Clint can only smile looking at the painting now. He wipes a few final tears from his eyes and stands up. 

“Thank you for bringing me here to see this.” he turns to the creature, “I was hoping I’d see it again. Before we left this world.” He begins to walk away when the creature grabs his wrist and seems to hug him. Clint is very confused but goes with it. The jellyfish hums and glows bright colors but eventually let’s go. 

He visits again the next night but doesn’t tell the others about where he went the night before or tonight. This night as he is leaving he trips. He trips into the pool of water that most of the baby ‘voidfish’, as the crew wants to call them, are chilling out in. They all shine bright and hum a shrill note as they scatter away from him. He sits up in the pool wiping the hair from his eyes and spits out some water. 

“Damn I knew I was old but not that old!” he chuckles, looking at his voidfish friend while getting up. The voidfish hums another tune and glows what he can discern as happy colors. He leaves the cave making sure to not trip next to the second pool of voidfish on the way out. He only goes back once in a while, especially after he sees Magnus with another voidfish a few nights later.

The last few days of the year go on by, the crew is searching for the Light of Creation still and everyone is on edge. He tries to keep the peace as much as he can. 

However, about a week after his last visit to the cave he notices something weird while attending another submission ceremony. When the students offering was taken he still remembered the offering while everyone else forgot. Then when it was accepted and everyone remembered he still never forgot. He was very lost for a while and decided to attend a few more to test this. It wasn’t until a student’s submission was declined that he realized that he was in fact not under the effects of the voidfish. He tested it some more and asked Magnus if he could remember the submissions. When he got a very quizzical look from Magnus and an offer to take him to Merle to get his head checked out he also became very confused. 

It wasn’t hanging out around the voidfish that made him immune to their effect. Magnus was proof of that. So he brought it up in conversation one night. He slipped the question into the conversation about whether Magnus had drunk any of the water from the pools in the cave. Magnus denied ever having done so to his memory and Clint had his answer. If you drank the water that a voidfish has been in the effects of the memory alterations is nullified! He didn’t know what to do with this information. It was all so fascinating. 

He didn’t tell anyone. Not yet at least. He knew his crewmates and its not that he didn’t trust them it’s just that they could become very thoughtless and reckless at times and he didn’t know what they would do. Plus nothing would come of it since when they would leave this world the Voidfish wouldn’t even be in their grasp. He would just wait until the next year to tell anyone about it. 

That was the plan until Magnus smuggled Fisher onto the Starblaster and didn’t disappear. That changed everything. Still, no one knew what Fisher was capable of anyway, besides wiping memories and sometimes giving them back. 

Halfway through the next cycle, Clint hit a very grim point mentally. He was deeply depressed. He missed his wife and kids so much it pained him beyond belief that it had now been almost 50 years without them. Had they survived the Hunger’s attack? Was Leslie alright? How old were the boys now? Had they gone to College? So many questions he would never know the answer to. In this time no one really knew what to say or how to act. Clint was really the only one with any attachments back on their homeworld. Besides Davenport or Merle, everyone was really too young to have really set in stone a family. Davenport tried his best to comfort him, Taako made him his favorite meal one night in an attempt to cheer him up, Merle offered some medicinal options to help him out a tad, and Barry tried to offer his condolences but they fell on flat air.

To Clint, he was utterly alone at this moment. He had memories yes but he would never get to hold his wife again. He wouldn’t get to see his boys grow up. 

In a spark of inspiration after seeing Fisher while walking about the ship, he realized what he could do by the next cycle. He could wipe everyone’s memories of him and just disappear every cycle. Being around the crew reminded him too much of what he left behind. Plus he would just respawn the next year on the ship if he died or not so what was the difference. He can live a little. Thankfully he was in his room when the ship left their homeworld so he didn’t have to worry about respawning in the same room as everyone else. That was the new plan.

He spent the rest of the year writing down every memory possible that he needed the crew to forget. He didn’t mind if he would run into them in the years to come because they wouldn’t know who he was. He could say “Hi” then disappear. When the last few days came around he was finally finished with the journal full of memories of himself. 

Standing in front of Fisher’s tank he made sure he drank a little bit of the water just in case. He hesitated for a moment. Should he do this? It’s a drastic decision but if it was needed it could be reversed. He could just have a good few years and when he decided he could sneak some of Fishers water into the tap and bam they all remember him no big deal! 

He did it. Right as the Hunger made its first appearance. He dropped the journal into the tank and waited. 

No one called his name to make sure he was alright. So he waited. He would have to until they re-entered the atmosphere and landed when he could see if his plan actually worked. So that’s what he did. 

Upon finally landing he ran from his room with a bag of personal belongings and jumped ship. He ran into the nearby woods but stayed close though, just to make sure it had worked. Merle was the first one to exit the ship and was alone, he decided it was time to test it out. He set his bag and cloak on a low nearby branch and walked out. He acted as a curious native to hopefully catch Merle’s attention. And it worked thank the gods. Merle called out to him,

“Hello, sir! Do you speak common?”

“Oh! Uh hello! Yes, I uh, speak… Common?” Clint replied acting startled by the dwarf, trying to seal the deal.

“Ah! Well, that’s great! I guess you’re wondering about our ship here! Do not worry we are just humble explorers!” Merle explained.

“Well, that’s nice. I suppose… I’ll be on my way now don’t want to disturb your eh… exploring. Nice to meet you though!” Clint said walking back into the woods away from the ship. He needed to get away quickly. Merle shouted a goodbye as they parted ways.

When Clint traveled far enough away he cheered with excitement. His plan had worked! They don’t remember him! He felt a pang of loneliness for a moment but shrugged it off in favor of finding shelter. He was free to live life as a tourist, a nobody. 

Clint repeated this for the next 18 years. As soon as they would land he would jump ship as fast as possible and live his life whether it be in a new town or out in the woods. He would have his own adventures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they went into cycle 65 something extremely unexpected happened. The ship was attacked and they went down, hard. When Clint woke up he was thankfully on the ship and only had a few bumps and bruises. He was shaken from his hazy stupor when he heard Lucretia’s voice ring out through the ship calling for everyone. When no one answered Clint began to get worried along with Lucretia. He ran out and found her in front of her room with her own cuts and bruises. She saw him and backed away already preparing an offensive spell. 

“Wait wait wait! Don’t attack! I’m not an enemy! I can help you!” he shouted holding his hands up. She eyed him up and down and dropped the spell for a moment.

“Don’t move. I swear to the gods I will magic missile your ass so fast if you do.” she threatened. Clint swallowed and nodded his head. He was with them for about 50 years he knew what she was capable of. She began to back away and call out for the rest of the crew while running around the ship. She came back into the hall minutes later extremely flustered. No one was with her and Clint hadn’t heard any responses from the others. 

“Have you seen anyone else on this ship?” She demanded.

“N-no I swear.” He answered hands still up in the air. “I can help you through. You don’t know me but I know you and I can help.”

“What the hell does that mean how do you know me.” She faltered.

“It’s really hard to explain. I don’t know where everyone is but we obviously need to last the year until we can regenerate next cycle.” Clint offered.

“How do you know about the cycles… what is going on? Who the fuck are you?” She has tears in her eyes. Clint feels so much sorrow for her. She was only 16 coming on this mission. She’s too damn young to have been going through any of this. She reminds him of Travis though and he can’t just leave her stranded like this. He would have to just wipe her memory of him from this year when the Hunger comes around at the end of the year.

“Look we need to get this thing into the air and away from here I can explain more later but we need to not die for now.” he tries to compromise with her. She looks him up and down again and breaks.

“Fine let’s go but you better fucking explain what the hell is happening or you’re not going to like how you end up.” She starts to walk towards the helm of the ship. He follows in-suite and takes a moment to survey the situation before getting to work.

He is able to start the engines but is unable to get in the air. He takes a lap of the ship, making what repairs he can. The worst was the Bond engine at the stern of the ship. Though it could start up it there was no power going to the thrusters. He was able to fix it enough to get them in the air for a while and that’s all he needed. Someone obviously knew that the ship was here since the rest of the crew was missing. They needed to hide. 

Lucretia watched in confusion as Clint bounced around the Starblaster working on the repairs. How the hell did he know how to fix the bond engine let alone anything about the ship at all? While he worked she cleaned up the helm and readied the ship for the ascent. They made it a good distance flying around the planet aimlessly until they were attacked again. He made quick repairs as they flew leaving the steering to Lucretia. She could at least aim away from the enemy. Obviously neither of them were as good as Davenport but they survived. 

Once in a while, they would find a place to hide and make semi-proper repairs to the ship but as soon as they had any downtime they were back on the run from this relentless attacker.

In the short resting periods, that they did get, he tried to explain his situation as simply as he could to her. He took these times to write down their experiences as well, so he could wipe her memory in the new cycle. 

He loved his team. He really did. But he was having a blast living his own life from the non-stop mission that had stolen his family away from him. He had time to cope without the concerned looks from his crewmates. Most likely he would do this for a few more years then let them remember everything and deal with their wrath then. 

For now, he had to make sure Lucretia survived the year. It was drawing to a close and they were still on the run. He taught Lucretia everything he could about the ship in that time. So when the Hunger appeared in the sky he gave her the order to fly out of the atmosphere as he went to “check on the engine”. Really he ran to Fishers tank and dropped the small journal into it and waited. 

When they re-entered the atmosphere he heard Lucretia’s cry of relief. They- She had done it. She survived on her own the entire year. The crew was so worried about her. She was more than just a mess at this point. She had to live an entire year on the run, ‘alone’ without anyone to help her with the ship. 

Clint hid in the ship for the first day to figure out what the hell happened to everyone in that last cycle. He overheard them debriefing with Lucretia, saying that four giant statues killed them? They judged them on the sins they had committed? That’s insane. After he learned what happened he jumped ship and continued his lonesome adventures.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end of cycle 82 threw him for a loop though. When the hunger appeared he saw a humanoid figure in a red cloak fly up into the air and destroy the first tendril from the Hunger. He couldn’t believe what he had just seen. But before he could even begin to process what had happened he respawned on the ship.

He grabbed his small go-bag and went to his normal spot where he jumps ship as soon as they land when he overhears a conversation in the helm. Davenport is yelling at Lup and Barry about something. He finally hears something about them becoming Liches when he has to jump because someone was walking down the hall near him.

When he found a place to settle down for a little while he tried to process what he heard. Barry and Lup became Liches? What does this mean for his disappearing act? How did the Voidfishes powers work with undead beings? I guess he will figure out when that comes to pass if ever.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Something weird happened around cycle 90 though. He doesn’t stray too far from the ship this time and see’s Barry die within the first week. He makes sure to distance himself a little more just in case anything with memories pops up with Barry being a Lich and all. That was until he was laying in a big grassy field one day and a Lich in the IPRE robe appeared over him. 

“Clint.” It says.

“Uh who?” he replies. His heart jumped into his throat and his stomach sank.

“Cut the shit Clint what the fuck did you do. Why does no one remember you?” It demands.

“Ahh fuck. Barry?” Clint asks quickly. 

“Yes, it’s fucking Barry now answer the damn question, they all think I’m insane.” Barry shoots back.

Clint sits up and sighs. There was no escaping it now. He spilled the beans and told Barry everything. There was no point in hiding it. 

Barry now sat next to him. Seeing him in a Lich form was very odd but he got used to it after a while. A sigh came from him after a minute of contemplation.

“Well fuck… Shit man. That’s a lot. How long were you gonna keep this up for?” Barry asked.

“I don’t know. As long as I needed I suppose. It’s been fun living out here on my own. None of yall really had anything to leave behind. That’s why you all were chosen to go on the mission besides your expertise. Me? I had a wife and kids. I left them behind. I don’t know if they survived that attack, Barry. I know you all know about them but I can’t just not miss them. I miss Leslie’s hug, reassuring me the mission would go fine and that I’d be back home in no time. I miss my boys. Justin’s big ol’ smile, Travis’ dumb jokes, Griffin’s insane laughter. I miss them. I never got to see them grow up if they were able to. I don’t get to be by the love of my life anymore. And being out here alone has let me cope in my own way.” Clint explained, looking down at his hands.

“God damn Clint. I’m… I never thought of it that way. I knew you missed your family but. Damn, I’m so sorry man.” Barry tried his best. He didn’t know what to say.

“This is kinda why I left Barry. I know you mean well but it makes me feel broken and weak when you guys don’t know how to deal with me. I’m not trying to be the stereotypical guy who has to hide his feelings it just got to be too much. I wasn’t going to be gone forever. I’m gonna come back one day. I just want it to be on my terms. Please don’t take this as me blaming you because by all means its the opposite. I made this decision on my own. Plus you have Lup now and I can only hope that she makes you just as happy or more than Leslie made me. You two are amazing together.” He doesn’t know what to say anymore either. 

Barry lets out a small “thank you” before they sit in silence for a while. Later on, just as the sun is about to set, Barry turns to Clint as he gets up. 

“Well. Your secret is safe with me Lieutenant. I appreciate you telling me all that. Just come back when you’re ready alright?” 

“I will bud. Thank you.” Clint nods at him as he floats away. 

For the rest of the year, Barry and Clint meet once in a while to talk. It’s pleasant. Clint is happy to have someone to talk to again that he knows. They exchange all sorts of stories over the next few months. One day though Barry rushes into Clint in the woods. He talks so fast it’s a blur. Once Clint got him to calm down Barry explained.

“I don’t know what it means or how it works but when Lucretia and I sing a certain tune the rest of the crew hears static. I don’t know if its a big deal but its wicked weird.”

“Alright, that is really weird. What is the tune?” Clint questions him. Barry hums the tune and Clint can hear the notes just fine. He grunts and leans against a nearby tree, thinking. How is this possible and what does it mean. 

If Lucretia drank Fisher’s water that would mean she remembers Clint but she obviously doesn’t. Did she ever go in the cave with the Voidfish? Yeah! With Magnus that one time near the end of the cycle. So was it possible she accidentally drank from the pool too? Well if she did she would remember Clint. Then it clicks for him

He fell into the smaller pool of voidfish. That must be where the baby voidfish swim. It’s possible that when Lucretia was in the cave with Magnus that she accidentally drank from the Adult pool and can remember music from the conservatory. The adult voidfish must stay in one pool while the babies stay in another until they grow up.

Clint turns back to Barry and lies to him. He doesn’t know why but he does, “I don’t know how she knows the song but can’t remember me. I already told you what I know about Fisher. So it is pretty weird. I’d let it go though I doubt there’s anything to worry about.” 

Barry nods in agreement and begins to float away. “Yeah your probably right. It is pretty weird though. Oh well, I’ll see you later!”

Later that night the Hunger entered the atmosphere and then cycle 92 began.

This next time around he watches them as they all learn artificing and get to create their own magical items. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the next 7 years, he lays low and lives out his own adventures. Staying in various Inn’s in nearby towns, learning different trades here and there, and overall just having fun

Cycle 99 was different right off the bat though. He hadn’t even had the chance to jump ship when the crew found the Light of creation and began discussing how to split it up. He listened in and learned what their plan was. It was actually a really good plan that could end the chase. He still jumped ship though and was awestruck with how similar to their homeworld it was. The only difference was the sky and the lack of one sun. He found a village to live in fairly easy and chilled out in a nice Inn for a while.

After 10 months of being on this planet, Clint heard word of some war for a powerful item start to spread. Everywhere he went that’s all anyone could talk about. He realized that it was probably from the plan of splitting the Light of Creation. After a year passes and the Hunger was nowhere in sight a dawning realization fell upon Clint. He could settle down again! Not start a new family, he was too old for that nor was he ready, but to find somewhere permanent to live out the rest of his years.

Another year passes and he finally settles down in Phandalin. He lives on the outskirts of town and works with the local authorities to make money from time to time. Within the first few days of being in town, he hears word of some man falling out of the sky on the outskirts of town. Other than that he lives in relative peace.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Then after 10 years Barry, Taako, Magnus, and Merle roll on into town talking about some guy named “Gundren”. Clint follows them into the bar and spy’s on them trying to figure out how they’re doing. When Taako, Merle, and Magnus leave Barry behind Clint decides it’s time to figure out what’s going on. 

“You and those guys here to look for those powerful relics?” He asks, approaching Barry who turns and looks him up and down.

“Not to my knowledge. Don’t know anything about ‘em personally. Just here on some escort business.” He replies and gestures to the bartender for a drink. 

“Well, you ever wonder about who created them? Some say its a group of powerful wizards, others say it was an evil Lich. What do you think?” Clint prods. Barry obviously isn’t going to just come out and say that he made the relics. So Clint has to try and trick him into it.

“Look pal, like I said I’m just here on some escort business. I could give less of a shit about those stupid relic things.” He snaps at Clint.

Clint moves away and leaves him to be. Something isn’t sitting right with him though. There is an odd feeling in his gut so he heads home and packs a bag. 

About two days later he looks out his window to see a trail of fire leading into town. He grabs his bag and a nearby horse from the stables and ditches town. Whatever that was, wasn’t good.

By nightfall, the entire town has been reduced to a sea of black glass. Clint watches though as three figures crawl out of a hole in the glass lugging a fourth behind them. He watches as they talk for a while then a glass ball comes from the fucking sky and flies them away to somewhere. Nearby though he spots movement in the woods and sees a flash of red. He knows that color anywhere. Must be Barry.

Clint mounts his horse and shouts for Barry as he rides towards where he saw the cloak. A few seconds later Clint and his horse are frozen in place. A red-robed figure comes out of the woods. When the figure sees Clint the spell is dropped and Clint calms the horse down.

“Clint, what the fuck are you doing here?” It asks.

“What am I doing here? Barry? What the fuck are you doing here?! What just happened with Taako, Magnus, and Merle? Why aren’t you with them?” Clint pressures.

“Listen you need to come with me. I’m not surprised that you don’t know yet. I’ll explain when we get somewhere safe. I can’t have her listening in somehow.” And with that, he simply turns around gesturing for Clint to follow him. So many more questions flood Clint’s mind but he gives up and just holds them for later.

After a long trek, they arrive at the entrance of a cave in the middle of nowhere. Clint ties the horse away to rest and goes in with Barry. The inside is insane. Papers everywhere, words scribbled on the wall, a fucking human floating in a tank?!

“Now I hope you’re going to explain all of this, because… What. The. Fuck.” Clint says just staring around the cave taking everything in. 

Barry does explain. He explains everything that happened in this cycle. What Lucretia did, what she's created. How he is trying to stop her and what he has to do, to do so. Clint is in awe. Lucretia knows about everything now. What Clint did. And she is using it against the crew too. This is why he didn’t want to tell anyone. Something bad was bound to happen with that information. 

Barry turns to one of the cave walls where the seven relics are listed and crosses out the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet. 

“Holy shit. You were the guy that I heard about falling from the sky? Oh, fuck Barry. and Lup? I’m so sorry man. I’m sure she’ll turn up. But that’s a lot to take in holy shit.” He begins. They discuss all the implications behind everything that has happened.

“Wait there’s something I still don’t understand. Did you say that potentially there is a second voidfish? Not just Fisher?”

“Potentially yes. So everyone in the Bureau drinks Fisher’s ichor and they are able to learn about the Bureau and the Relics. But they just went to the base with one of the members of the Bureau so I don’t think Lucretia is going to let them drink Fishers Ichor unless she has a backup to keep everyone from remembering the mission.” Barry posits.

“But if there is a second voidfish then how am I able to remember everything. I haven’t drunk any of the second one’s ichor, as you call it.” Clint pushes.

“Well, that’s the question really. Because obviously Lucretia drank Fishers Ichor meaning she remembers you. But I think what happened was that she didn’t write you into the first story because she couldn’t remember you just like the rest of us. Maybe she just wanted to leave you be when not writing you in the second time around? It could be possible that she worded the journal to be that just the crew forgot each other. No one else in this world knew who we were so there wasn’t a point in deleting us from the world. So I guess she just left you out of the crew as you kinda wanted?” He shrugs. Clint hums in agreeance, thinking of the implications that this means for him.

They spend the next few days together talking about potential plans for Barry. Clint ends up leaving and goes to search for a new place to live. He liked living in a peaceful town. He misses the crew dearly but there was obviously too much drama for him to get involved again. After about a week Barry has a rough plan and Clint leaves to find another place to settle down.

He ends up in Never Winter and is chilling out in a nearby Inn when he hears screaming. He runs out of the building and follows some people down to the train station where he sees the tail end of a train seemingly disappear out of thin air. He looks over into a nearby field and sees about 6 figures get up after a while. Once again he recognizes Taako, Magnus, and Merle. He keeps his distance and instead works on keeping the peace around the town. As he debriefed with the local militia he met a young boy named Angus who claimed to be the world’s best detective. It was odd, but he reminded Clint of Griffin back home. Always curious and a bit vain at times, it brought a smile to his face. 

He ended up not liking Never Winter that much so he skipped town and headed towards Goldcliff. A Town he had heard nothing but praise for. It was now no surprise when all of the sudden vines began causing havoc around the bank. So he stuck around and met Captain Captain Bane who brushed him off. Yet no more than five minutes later those three boys came rolling up. Clint watched from a distance as Magnus tried to chop the vines, then as Merle sweet-talked the plants and got them inside. He saw when someone jumped from the top floor and flew away, he watched a few minutes later as the boys got carried out looking like actual shit. 

He never got to see them race but he heard stories of what happened. He was too busy helping clean up the dead vines from around the Bank and repairing what he could. He did go and visit the cherry blossom tree that sprouted from the race though. He saw the two women at the base of the tree and he knew that they had made sure that the boys were safe. He thanked them and made his way out of town. 

 On his way out Barry in his Lich form appeared out of nowhere and lead him back to his hidey-hole. Barry explained what had been happening. The Oculus and the Gaia Sash had been found, he was suspecting something was happening with the Philosophers stone soon so he has been combing radio signals for any word on it.

Clint found it funny but fulfilling that he ended up running behind the boys and helping clean up after them. He just happened to be where ever they were. He talked it over with Barry and decided that he would make it his job. When he could he would follow the boys and clean up what he could in their wake. 

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He couldn’t do much when the incident at the Miller lab happened but he was watching, just in case. He followed them with Barry to the town of Refuge. He watched in the woods while the four of them stood there talking about the town and what was happening. The statue of the boys in town was so amazing it made him tear up a little bit. He watched the reunion after the town caught up with the timeline, smiling the whole time.

When it came time for Wonderland Clint became very anxious. Barry told him what he knew of the place and it worried him. This was Barry’s relic after all, but the two Liches that ran the joint where a force to be reckoned with. It was decided that Clint would deter anyone from coming into the area, while Barry followed the boys inside to try and help them out. When they finally came out and he didn’t see Magnus but a fucking mannequin in his place he became extremely worried. He stays behind a-ways and follows them to Barry’s cave. He overhears everything Barry tells them. This was not in the original plan but it might just work. 

He listens to Barry now in his body forget everything and Merle and Taako talk to the Mannequin about the Bureau. He stays and just listens to what’s happening. He figures something big will happen when they go back to the base so when they leave the cave Clint chooses to go back to Goldcliff. It seems like a fortified enough place to be if hell breaks loose. He doesn’t know what is going to happen but he does know it isn’t good. The sky has been becoming darker and darker by the minute. Not only that but the saturation of everything around him has been sucked away.

He makes it to Goldcliff faster than he thought was possible, but he makes it in time just as the first wave hits the city. It’s the Hunger. It’s back with a vengeance. He runs through the town and banging on doors urging people to weaponize themselves and run for the Trust. The Hunger’s tendrils strike the earth and hundreds of Black opal Soldiers come flowing out of them. The insane and horrible noises already has enough people running throughout the streets. He sees the Hunger’s soldiers grab people from their families. What’s weird is that people seem to be running into the creatures. Clint can see them though, so he starts pulling people out of the fray and pushing them in the correct direction. He tries to gather the attention of as many of the figures as he can. He fights well with what weapons and spells he can. 

He takes out dozens as he makes his way towards the Trust himself. He reaches the Cherry Blossom tree from so long ago and finds the two women who are actually dryads protecting a young girl from the Hunger’s soldiers. He helps the taller one defeat a few before he shares a moment of comradery with her and he takes the young girl to the trust.

When he gets to the Trust he finds out the doors are closed but manages to get the girl inside after a lot of convincing people through whispers. He turns and goes back to fighting the soldiers. There’s a small lull of enemies until four figures come tumbling towards him. He readies himself for the fight when his heart sinks.

He recognizes them. 

He can’t even begin to process it when Justin lunges towards him, hands like knives swiping at him, slashing with animalistic movements. He can’t hurt him. Not his son. He plays on the defensive side, trying to figure out what to do. 

In the meantime, Leslie has grabbed broken pieces of wood from a nearby rubble pile and is beginning to advance. Travis and Griffin are following in suite. 

Seeing them like this brings all of Clint’s worst fears to light. They arent is family. But they are. Just corrupted. The Hunger took them. For the last 111 years, he has been mourning for them. He’s had time to cope but this changes everything. They didn’t die. They were taken by this evil world eating being that’s been chasing his crew for 100 years. 

And here they are. His family. But not like he remembered them. He can’t do it. He isn’t strong enough for that. He can’t hurt his boys. His wife. He can’t. He won’t.

He quickly casts hold person on all of them, and immediately starts to prepare to cast Imprisonment. He won’t have to fight or hurt them. They freeze in place and barely move when the hold person spell wears off and the Imprisonment spell takes over. 

Clint falls back and catches his breath. He looks up at his family tears flowing. All he wanted to do was see them again but not like this. Whatever was going to happen this time around needed to happen quickly. He hopes to the gods that he either dies now and stays dead this time time around or that the crew figures out to start over in the next cycle. 

He slowly gathers enough strength to stand back up. He walks over to Leslie. She is just as beautiful as the day he left her. Her face is filled with rage as shes frozen in place from running at him. Clint caresses her cheek one last time and kisses her forehead. He moves over to his boys one by one and does the same. None of them deserved this fate. He will figure out how to avenge them. In the meantime he leaves them be. They don’t need to die a second time.

He walks back towards the two Dryads from earlier and joins them in fighting the Hunger’s soldiers. One by one they all work together slaughtering the figures. Back to back, throwing weapons back and forth, and covering for eachother as they prepare spells.

He doesn’t know how long he has been fighting for but it feels like hours when the Hunger creatures just stop in place. They begin to glow white and slowly float into the sky turning into nothing. He takes a moment to catch his breath. Sitting down he looks around. Hurley and Sloan, as he now knows, join him in sitting down. No one knows what the hell just happened but they do know that they fought long and hard. They deserve to rest.

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While helping slowly repair someone's home in Goldcliff Clint feels a tap on his shoulder. Wiping sweat from his brow he turns around to find Barry. They embrace, laughing about how they survived. Barry explains that they did in fact finally win. That the hunger was gone for good and they were safe. 

“So does everyone… you know… know?” Clint asks as they walk back to his makeshift house. 

“Clint, buddy? The universe knows, about everything.” Barry replies slapping him on the back. They make their way to the newly named Bureau of Benevolence. 

When they arrive Clint sheepishly greets everyone and is surprised to be met with a dogpile of hugs. Here is nothing but smiling and laughter filling the room. 

“Holy shit Clint it is so good to have you back.” Davenport exclaims, releasing him from a hug. 

“I would say that its great to have all of you back!” Clint jokes, “Barry told me the basics of what happened when we arrived here. We have a hell of a lot to catch up on.” 

Lucretia nervously laughs, “I suppose we do, huh?”

Clint walks over to her and scoops her up in a deep embrace. “Its alright. You know? Everyone fucks up. You just happened to follow in my footsteps and then out do me.” 

Once everyone is settled down in what seems to be a very luxurious lounge area they begin to tell their own stories. Lup’s is very brief , Barry and Taako sit next to her acting as guards. Very understandable. Clint already knew Barry’s story but there were a few things he had forgotten to mention before so it was a bit eye opening. There wasn’t much to Davenport’s story though he was most impacted by Lucretia’s wrong doings. Everyone already knew Lucretia’s story too, she just filled in some small blanks here and there even though she wasn’t very keen on talking a lot. What she had done was still pretty fresh and she didn’t want to make her case worse.

Then it came to Taako, Merle, and Magnus’ stories. Those three idiots had everyone rolling with laughter and crying within two minutes. Taako mainly joked about his whole experience, but that was just his way of coping and everyone knew it. He had gone through a lot of shit that he wasn’t ready to talk about and they all understood that. Magnus and Julia’s story hit home for Clint, he was silently bawling as Magnus explained it. He felt Davenports hand on his back as he cried. Then Merle with Mavis and Mookie, how he spoke of them resembled how Clint spoke of his own boys. Clint smiled, he knew how Merle felt. 

“Did you say Mavis?” Clint interrupted a moment.

“Yeah that’s my daughter.” Merle affirmed.

“No shit? She have red hair, teenageish, glasses?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah actually. You know her?” Merle questioned.

“Surprisingly yeah! She was in Goldcliff on that day and lost her glasses. Sloan and Hurley Protected her from the Hunger and I lead her to the Goldcliff Trust.” Clint explained.

“Holy shit. Thank you Clint! Thank you for protecting my baby. I had no idea that you were the one who did that!” He jumped over to Clint and bear hugged him.

Last but not least Clint shared his story which was shorter than everyone was expecting. The only thing they were really surprised about was him helping Lucretia during the Judges cycle. Other than that it was a bunch of jumping from Inn to Inn, meeting new people, catching low life thieves here and there, and so on. The night continued on with Taako and Lup cooking everyone a big dinner. They stayed up until the late hours of the morning joking and just being family once again.

“We really need to go to therapy huh?” Clint jokes at some point and everyone agrees. But life goes on. Clint is back with his family. Sure they grew apart and started living their own lives but they still talk and that’s what matters. Taako has his school, Merle has his camp for adventurers, Magnus made a school for dogs, Barry and Lup are now Reapers with Kravitz, Lucretia is helping people, and Davenport is doing what he loves. 

He may have been the Forgotten bird but at least he isn’t lonely anymore. He gets to live on his own still in a cottage out in the woods with a nearby town that calls on him for help every once in a while. Life is good.