Chapter Text
It had been a rather uneventful day before it happened. Those weren’t too rare, even as a reaper with a rather busy job, there was still a decent amount of downtime that happened when you worked on the same issues for centuries. The time between bounties was spent in relative ease, mostly doing the more menial tasks to help keep the astral plane running as efficiently as possible.
That’s what he’d been doing when they arrived. Kravitz hadn’t known it, he had been sitting in his office, casually going through some of the paperwork.
Then the large book of bounties began to glow, opening on its own and flipping open rapidly to a new page. That happened occasionally, but never with this amount of energy. Immediately Kravitz stopped what he was doing, checking the book for the new bounties.
And okay. Okay, there had to be something wrong here.
Seven new bounties. That wasn’t the strangest part, about the right size for a decent small cult. And they were all obviously from the same cult or occult organization or something, despite their wildly differing charges.
At the bottom of the list, a man named Davenport, no given last name, with 6 deaths. A pretty heinous crime, but it was dwarfed in comparison by the others on this list.
Seven and eight deaths for the next two bounties, Lucretia and Taako, both no given last names, respectively. Then a man named Magnus Burnsides, 18 deaths. Those four alone could put records in the eternal stockade. The idea that a group of people had managed to hide so many repeated deaths from the astral plane until this moment was unthinkable.
The last three though. The last three were where Kravitz’s head started to spin.
Two liches. Two liches that hadn’t existed before a few seconds ago, as far as all of their records were concerned. One Barry Bluejeans and Lup, no given name. Each with 13 and 17 deaths respectively. The death counts combined with the lichdom would have set them at the highest bounties Kravitz had ever seen, if it wasn’t for the last person on this list.
Merle Highchurch. Merle fucking Highchurch. Kravitz couldn’t help staring in incredulous disbelief at the bounty in front of him.
Fifty seven deaths. Fifty seven deaths, that according to all account had happened in an instant.
Absolutely none of this made any sense, and Kravitz was not going to waste any time getting to the bottom of it.
It took longer than he would have hoped, several weeks before he was finally able to find them. Kravitz had been looking in the usual spots, casting around dark caves and crypts with large concentrations of necromantic magic. Places low and cold and evil. He probably should have guessed that a group of bounties so odd would not have been in such a predictable place.
He found them in the sky, and that alone was befuddling enough. What took the cake was the thing they were staying in, some sort of flying ship. Kravitz had been around for a very long time, and he’d never seen anything quite like that before.
It wasn’t going to stop him from going right up there and figuring out what in blazes was going on.
There weren’t any magical guards, nothing preventing him from simply cutting a slice through the plane and walking right onto the deck of the ship.
“Oh shit, you guys are fast here,” a man standing on the deck of the ship said, not seeming fazed in the slightest by his entrance. Kravitz wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t a very casual man in blue jeans and a red robe barely bothering to push himself up from where he was leaning against the side of the ship.
Glaring at the man, Kravitz summoned the book, it flipping open to the right page and- there. Ah, this one.
“Barry Bluejeans, you have been charged with crimes against the natural order of life and death by her majesty the Raven Queen,” he started. Infuriatingly this man just nodded.
“Yeah, figured we’d have to talk to someone like you eventually. Uh, you want me to go grab everyone else? Merle and Luce are down at the planet right now grabbing some groceries, but they should be back soon,” Barry said. Kravitz found himself unable to speak for a moment at the sheer… audacity of what was happening right now.
“The rest of your… cult, you mean?” he asked, and this man laughed at that.
“Yeah no, not a cult. Eh, well, maybe technically I guess? Started a cult once, but that was totally unintentional,” he said. Kravitz stared him down, his arms crossed as he waited for this lich to get on with whatever his point was. “Okay, look bud, I get that you’ve got a lot of questions of us, and if we’re gonna be living in this world we should probably explain some shit,” he said, and Kravitz raised an eyebrow at that.
“This world?” he asked, because that wasn’t the first time he said something like that. The lich sighed, already starting to walk off towards the doors leading into the ship.
“Yeah it’s- you might wanna grab a seat. I’ll get everyone else,” he said, and Kravitz very pointedly did not sit down. He could hear Barry shout once he was inside “Hey everyone! Death’s here! Family meeting!”
Kravitz sighed heavily, resting his head in his hand and for the first time since he started his job as a reaper of the Raven Queen, wondering if maybe this was above his pay grade.
It didn’t take long for the rest of this ‘family’ apparently, to show up, although they did have to wait a bit longer for the last two who were down planetside. Kravitz expected a fight, but despite the fact that everyone here clearly knew who he was and what he was here for, none of them seemed that interested.
And then they began to tell him a story.
It was hard to believe. It would have been impossible to believe, if they didn’t have proof to show him. Items and books written in languages he knew were not from this world, that couldn’t be from this world. It had been a long time since Kravitz had been afraid, but as they described this force that had been chasing them, the hunger, Kravitz was worried. Scared of the idea of it coming to this world too. Of this place he protected and kept in order for so long becoming another footnote in a long list of casualties.
Except apparently that wasn’t going to be the case. They had a plan, it was decades in the making, and this had been the cycle they had managed to execute it. They had hid the beacon drawing the hunger to this world, and they would simply have to wait it out. The artifacts were already out there, and thus the world, essentially, saved.
It was all a whole lot to take in.
“Alright, alright,” Kravitz said, resting his head in his hand once they had finished telling him everything. He didn’t know what to think, other than he was certain these people were telling him the truth. “This is- I cannot think of a situation that could be more appropriately described as extenuating circumstances,” he said, pushing himself up out of his chair.
He hadn’t intended to sit down during this discussion, but it had ended up going on for far longer than he expected.
“So like, we good? The whole death checklist wiped clean? Since it really wasn’t our fault,” the man, Magnus, asked, and Kravitz sighed.
“I’m going to have to talk to my Queen, but yes. I can’t- to say those deaths were out of your control would be an understatement,” he said, before turning to look at Lup and Barry. It was subtle, hidden underneath their living forms, but they were both still clearly liches, and the energy around them made Kravitz’s soul feel like it was crawling.
“You two on the other hand, we’re going to have to figure out something,” he said.
“Hey now bucko, I’m not sure if you were listening to all of this, but we already explained the lich thing,” the other elf broke in immediately, a defensive edge to his voice. Taako, he hadn’t spoken much during the whole meeting, in fact most of the time it was hard to tell if he was even paying attention.
“You did, and it was… it’s about the closest thing as I can think of for a noble reason to become a lich. You have to understand though, that’s still not something we can allow out in the world,” Kravitz said, and he was trying to be sensible about this. His conscious wouldn’t rightfully allow him to lock them up in the stockade, but they couldn’t roam free either.
“We just saved your whole goddamn world! I don’t think you get to decide what is and isn’t allowed here,” Taako snapped, and Kravitz was frowning now.
“Taako,” his sister cut him off before Kravitz could retort, a somewhat pained smile on her face as she put a hand on his shoulder. “Just relax bro, I’m sure we can think of something that everyone will be happy with, right reaps?” she asked, and Kravitz nodded.
“Of course,” he said quickly. Taako didn’t look very moved, still staring at him with distrust and suspicion. Instead of saying anything, he slipped out of his sister’s hold and marched right back into the ship.
“Just ignore him, he’s protective,” Barry spoke up after a moment.
“Hey, I thought that was supposed to be my thing,” Magnus said, which got a snort out of the other man. Kravitz nearly found himself smiling as well, before sighing deeply.
“Right, well as I was saying, this is all a lot to consider. I’ll need to talk to my Queen of course, but I think you can all be sure that you aren’t going to be spending any time in the eternal stockade,” he said. With that, he made a quick promise to continue to keep in contact with them and to keep them updated on what they would do about Lup’s and Barry’s situation, and then he left.
When he did come back, there still was not much progress on what was to do done about the liches. Kravitz hadn’t placed it quite at top priority though. He’d never seen liches so stable, and as long as they were in living bodies, it wasn’t exactly an urgent matter.
What did seem to be somewhat more urgent was the wars that had started sprouting up across the world. They had described the relics to him, had said they would be immensely powerful, but he hadn’t- Kravitz hadn’t expected this.
This time when he went up to that strange floating ship, he was met with Taako. Which honestly, wouldn’t have been his first choice. It was clear that the elf was not exactly fond of him.
“Oh hey, you’re back,” he said, not bothering to look over from where he was staring off the side of the ship down at the world below. Kravitz only needed to glance down off the side for a moment to see what he was looking at. Some other battle raging below, he could feel the deaths piling up.
“Yes, it’s- this isn’t about your sister and Barry,” he said, hoping that maybe getting that out of the way would put some of the sharp edges the elf had towards him down.
“You even got a point being here then?” Taako said, and okay, apparently not.
“I wanted to talk to all of you… about, well,” he said, and he gestured down towards the battle. Taako sighed, still seeming more annoyed than anything.
“What about it? We already told you the deal,” he said, and Kravitz knew that was true. He had heard the explanation as well as the warning, and he understood death. As far as he was concerned, death wasn’t the end. The hunger that was coming, that would have truly been the end. So he had approved. But it was still…
“I just… hadn’t expected it to be so much ,” he said, which at least finally got the elf to turn towards him. It was strange, he and his sister looked so similar, but if Kravitz had to guess on looks alone which was the lich, he would have picked Taako. His stare was so much colder, so much more detached.
“Yeah, you can say it took us all by surprise, okay? But what can you expect from some super powered ball of light that can create worlds,” Taako said, and that was a bit of a surprise. Kravitz hadn’t realized they had all been caught off guard by the powers of these weapons as well.
“I mean, maybe there’s something we can do? To help mitigate the damage done? If this is more than you all expected, maybe we can-” Kravitz started to suggest. Taako cut him off though, not looking interested.
“That ain’t how it works. We just gotta let it go, let this shit run its course until the hunger ain’t a problem,” he said, and Kravitz felt himself deflating somewhat at that.
“Surely there’s something,” he tried, but Taako shook his head.
“There isn’t. We made a choice and now there’s nothing we can do but live with it,” Taako said. Kravitz wished he had ended up talking to anyone else about this, but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.
“And you’re just… fine with this? With watching things like that happening every day?” Kravitz pressed, and Taako glanced back down at the battle still waging, before shrugging.
“Yeah,” he said, and Kravitz could only stare at him incredulously.
“How?” he asked, because it wasn’t like Kravitz hadn’t seen devastation and hardship throughout his long undeath before. This was something else though, and he couldn’t understand how someone could be so callous.
“I mean, at some point you’ve seen enough people die that you kinda just have to focus on other things,” Taako said, and Kravitz couldn’t help scoffing a bit at that.
“You do realize you’re talking to death, right? Or well, an aspect of it,” he asked, and Taako just shrugged.
“Yeah, of this world. I’ve left 99 versions of you in the dust before stepping foot on this plane. Trust me, you get used to it,” he said, finally pushing himself off the railing he was leaning against. “Anything else you were needing my dude?” Taako asked, and Kravitz slowly shook his head.
“No, I suppose not,” he said, and without another word Taako turned and walked back into the ship.
Kravitz visited the ship a few more times after that, but mostly to check the status of how everything was going. Apparently they couldn’t be sure the Hunger wouldn’t arrive until a year after they had appeared, so Kravitz had decided to wait until then to make any official decisions on Barry and Lup’s status as liches.
He didn’t run into Taako often, but when he did it was all that same uncomfortable tension as before. It was almost a shame, because there were small moments where Kravitz would see him talking to his sister or one of the other crew members. Moments where that hard shell seemed to crack and Kravitz would see a truly pleasant person underneath. They never lasted long though, and they were never directed at him, or even at the world.
Kravitz pushed it aside, because there was no need for him to be friends with or even like all of the people on this ship.
A year passed, and the world didn’t end.
The next time he went to check it, it was as though the world might as well have, with how the crew was acting. Kravitz couldn’t even say he didn’t understand why, when he found out what had happened.
Lup was gone, and no one could find her anywhere.
Kravitz tried to help, after all it was sort of his job. A part of the reason he’d been coming back here was to keep an eye on the two liches. He couldn’t just have her running around Faerun unsupervised.
That was the formal reason for trying to help at least. Despite everything, Kravitz had actually become quite fond of Lup in the time he’d known her. He felt like that was not an unusual thing either.
Any hint of that kind person Kravitz had seen in Taako was gone now. The man cold and closed off and so very tired.
He really did try to help them find her.
And then one day, maybe four or so months after Lup went missing, everyone else did too. He tried to find the ship, any sign of where the others might have gone to.
The only thing he did find was the corpse of one Barry Bluejeans. That was concerning, but not as much as it would have been for any of the others. After all he was a lich, it would take much more than that to get rid of him entirely.
There was no sign of the lich though, and everyone else was just… gone.
Kravitz didn’t know what to do, but immediately after that the wars had just… stopped. Sightings of the relics were few and far between, and they still drew casualties but nowhere near the destruction that had been before.
He didn’t know what they had done or where they were now, but it seemed to have worked. It wasn’t perfect, but the world still existed, and it was- it was manageable.
And as strange as it was, Kravitz had other work he had to attend to. He couldn’t put all of his effort into finding seven people who seemed to disappear off the face of the world.
There didn’t seem to be much else he could do but more forward.