Chapter Text
To prepare for one’s death is not so unusual a thing. Communicating religious desires, writing wills, alerting families to desired burial practices are all expected for mortal creatures.
Barry Bluejeans’ preparations are a bit more unorthodox. Each of the members of IPRE had at least one clone on standby at any given time. Thus why he stands in front of his own motionless form stuck behind green glass. The ship is quiet and only lit by glowing green strips; it was what passed for nighttime in space.
Barry knows he should be asleep. There’s hardly a good reason to be creeping through the clone room, much less with a mission briefing the next day. It’s not like staring at his possible backup body will change whatever might happen. He runs his hands through his hair, taking comfort in the physicality of the movement. Glancing again at his clone, he ducks in the thin space between the glass tank and the wall, withdrawing a piece of chalk from his pocket. Kneeling, Barry draws a short line at the base of the tank. If he dies on this mission, it will be his sixth body.
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The various members of IPRE- every person yet alive who he would count among his kin- had ranged for two months throughout the prime material plane in this particular version of the universe. All striving to find something or someone who could help them to destroy the Hunger. This catastrophic entity they had drawn to world after world. Universe after universe.
Barry wasn’t sure how many deaths they had caused. He knows that the Hunger would've been gnawing on similar universes and planes even without their existence to attract it. But still, sometimes the guilt catches him off guard.
Davenport and Lucretia and Merle all stayed on the ship. They stay in contact with the two landing parties while tracking the Hunger’s path through the planes. Merle had wanted to go with one of the parties- use the Gaia sash to keep them safe- but Davenport had vetoed that. They had to keep the Relics safe.
Which was all well and good, but Barry suspected the real reason Merle was being kept back. Barry didn’t keep strict count of the others’ deaths, but Merle was easily at twice the deaths of any of the others. He had a real knack for protecting his friends at his own bodily expense. Last reality, his lich form had barely escaped the waves of the Hunger as it crashed down upon the prime material plane. So Merle was kept back to strategize and grow crops to refill their food stores.
Taako and Lup were dropped off on the other side of the continent of Faerun, trying to track down the Double of a woman who they’d met several universes ago. She had posited a way to use planar doorways to trap the Hunger between universes. Her name was Maureen. Barry hoped that she could deliver them from the nightmare relentlessly pursuing them.
He and Magnus land along the coast, tasked by Davenport with finding a natural gemstone prevalent in the area. In quantity it could deliver the abundance of power their ship’s engine used to punch between realities. He misses his partner Lup dearly. But he knows she and Taako are more than capable of looking after themselves.
Huddled in the small camp he and Magnus had been living in for the last few weeks, Barry warms himself at the fire. After a haul of those dark orange gemstones sent up to the ship earlier that day, they had earned a coveted day of rest. Magnus hums tunelessly while carving something from a block of wood. They’re within a cluster of natural rock formations, a small tent tucked away with two logs for seating ranged around the fire. Except for this cluster of boulders, there’s windswept heath moors as far as the eye can see east, west, and south. To the north is a cliff with a sharp drop to the sea not 200 paces away from their camp. Peat earth and wooden-stemmed plants rest underfoot, and Barry breathes easy.
Magnus glances at him. “How are you, Barry?” His voice is casual, absorbed in his woodcarving.
“I’m alright. Got to send a message to Lup via Davenport earlier. Hopefully the message he delivers is the same one I sent her.” Magnus grins, eyes shooting up from his carving for a second.
“Better hope he doesn’t pass message duty off to Merle, cause he’ll definitely add something lewd on just to fuck with Taako.”
Barry laughs hard at that, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Well I got a promise from Dav that he’d pass on the message himself, so I guess we’ll see.”
Barry looks more closely at Magnus. Since they all consistently die and reenter younger bodies, their chronological and physical ages didn’t always line up. Magnus hadn’t died for a while. As a result, his hands possessed the scars and scratches from woodworking that Barry remembers were present when they first met. His heart surges with some unidentifiable emotion, remembering the first time they all met, the path their lives had taken to reach this reality, universe, plane, place. God, why couldn’t they have been left alone, scientists and explorers and family.
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Then the Hunger did what it always did. It caught up to them.
Barry and Magnus’ stones of farspeech both light up at the exact same time a single pillar of black oozes from the sky, dripping in shimmering hues and landing half a mile south.
“Hello-” Davenport’s voice is muffled as he shouts into the stone, terror evident in his tone. “Please, do you hear me, the Hunger is landing close by you, you need to get to the extraction point now.”
Magnus whips the stone of farspeech up and says a terse, “We copy, heading for the point.” He grabs his shield and axe before turning to Barry. Barry has drawn a short wand, and nods once at Magnus before they take off running for the cliff’s edge. Columns of darkness are leaking onto the ground around them. One patch lands not 20 paces to their right and figures of darkness begin to form as the two men sprint past. Barry blasts magic missiles back at intervals, only turning to look once they reach the edge of the cliff.
Backs to the roaring sea, he and Magnus can see hordes of the Hunger’s minions forming. Several groups of the grotequeries had already formed bodies and were running up the cliff towards them. Even now, in what must be the tenth or eleventh encounter with them, Barry feels a chill infect his spine looking at them. The monsters trample the grass underfoot, unnervingly silent in their approach.
Magnus speaks from his right side as Barry fires spell after spell into the wave of encroaching darkness.
“Do we want to jump off?”
It’s not an unreasonable question; they’ll almost certainly die before the ship can teleport them away regardless. Better to jump off and ensure their lich forms can escape. Flashes of blue and red from Barry’s wand carve into the horde, and the answer to Magnus’ question comes too quickly for Barry to dodge. A shard of darkness flies through the air, lodging itself in his chest. It’s cold, and it hurts, and it means Barry has seconds before going lich.
Turning his head to the side, Magnus looks stricken. It's nothing any of them hadn’t had happen before (though the Hunger’s idea of using projectiles is new). But Barry knows how shitty it is to see your friend run-through and sort-of dying in front of you.
“Well,” Barry smiles, clapping a hand on Magnus’ shoulder with his remaining strength. “We’ll get 'em next time.”