Chapter Text
What will our heroes find on the moon
I hope it's not aliens because I'm afraid of those…
… It’s The Adventure Zone.
~~~~
Taako, Merle, and Magnus are sitting inside one of the moons they previously thought was just, you know, a moon, with inky blackness all around them, an orc woman they still don't entirely trust as their guide, a dangerous mass murdering artifact in their possession, and absolutely no idea what awaits them beyond the inky blackness.
What's the saying, that things can only go up from here? It better damn well be true.
The big floating glass ball emerges into intensely bright light. It takes a moment for their eyes to adjust, and when they do, they're faced with a dome-shaped room that looks a little like the inside of a segmented mirror ball, with glowing triangles of light lining the walls. It's a very ornate hangar for what looks like several of the floating glass spheres all docked neatly along the walls, and standing on the platforms are several people wearing blue and white soldiers' garb. On one end of the room are holes in the floor that could be other tunnels, and mounted above them are giant cannons.
They touch down on one of the landing platforms, and Killian taps on the glass to open up the door so she can climb out. Merle, Taako, and Magnus, all feeling a little wide-eyed and a little surreal, follow suit, and Killian leads them down one of the circular flights of stairs leading off the platform.
Dizziness and nausea overcomes them the moment they step foot outside. It's like a hazes presses down over the three adventurers, dampening their senses, making it difficult to concentrate or to hear what anyone is saying.
"We did survive the explosion in Phandalin, right?" asks Magnus. "This isn't heaven, right?"
"Oh," says Killian, turning towards them, "by the way, things are going to be… a little weird, for a bit, but I promise that's going to pass."
"Just stick with your buddy," Magnus murmurs, "drink some orange juice…"
"Yeah, and lie down, because you don't want to faint on these stairs. That'll be bad news bears. But I promise, I'm gonna get you guys taken care of very quickly, I just need to run out and get you all authorised. It'll take a few minutes — just hang out here, sit down, take it easy, don't overexert yourselves — you're going to be just fine."
Killian turns and walks out a door. Magnus, Merle, and Taako plonk down on the stairs and hope that the world will, very soon, stop spinning.
Two guards are watching the door Killian left through. One of them seems completely unmoved by the strange situation unfolding at the bottom of the staircase, but the other looks at the three adventurers with sympathy in his expression. He hesitates, then breaks his post to walk over and offer them a flask.
"Here," he says. "Drink this. Trust me, it's —"
Taako snatches it out of the guard's hand immediately and takes a swig from it. "Mm, go-gurt," he says.
"Oh. Wow. Eager beaver. It's not, it's just brandy."
"It tastes like go-gurt to me, darling." Taako passes the flask over to Magnus, who figures that since Taako drank it and didn't immediately keel over, it's probably safe to drink, so he takes a swig as well.
"Mhm," he says. "It's delicious."
"It is delicious brandy," the guard agrees. "That's from my hometown of Brandybuck."
"Oh," says Magnus. "I'm really glad you're not from Phandalin."
"Why's that? I've got an uncle in Phandalin. Were you just there?"
"Correction, darling," says Taako, "you had an uncle in Phandalin."
"He was probably away on business," Magnus adds, "he's probably fine."
"I mean, he wasn't my favourite uncle or anything, but —"
"Good news!"
"Check with the executor of his will," says Merle. "Just saying."
Magnus shakes his head. "Nope, the executor's dead too."
Maybe it's a mark of how many strange things have happened to the group today, but the three of them collapse into minor fits of hysterical laughter while the guard stands and looks at them all, utterly bemused. It may also be the brandy, and the way it actually does help with the dizziness a little bit by increasing the surrealism of everything around them.
When they've all had some, the guard takes his flask back. "I know things are going to be pretty confusing for a little while, I know that you've got the — the staticky stuff going on, I know that you're kind of dizzy. Listen, every single person that you're going to meet up here went through the same thing, so, don't worry — it's going to get a lot better really soon, and we're all really excited to have you."
"Do you guys know this guy?" Magnus asks Taako and Merle in what he thinks is a subtle side whisper, but thanks to the dizziness and nausea and brandy, really really isn't.
Merle nudges Taako. "Use your ways. Your ma — your wily ways. Get some information."
"Oh, sorry!" says the guard. "My name is Avi."
Taako gestures. "There you have it," he says with a wide grin. "He wasn't going to say that, and then I made him say that."
"Afi?" asks Merle.
"Avi. A, V, I. It's actually a very common name in Brandybuck. After everything's over, why don't you guys come find me? If you want to hang out or whatever. We can just… lift some weights, or something, whatever you guys like to do. It's all up to you. I like to lift some weights."
"That sounds totally great," Magnus assures him. "We need a minute just to process everything that's going on, so —"
Killian chooses that moment to come back into the room. "OK, you guys are clear!" she announces. "Just follow me, and we can get this show on the road."
"Nice to meet you guys," says Avi with a wave. "You seem like sweet dudes."
"Right on!" Taako replies with a smile.
They follow Killian out of the hangar, and they come out onto what is presumably the moon itself, where they're surrounded by dozens of other dome-shaped buildings that look a lot like the hangar, and standing in a lush green grassy field.
"This goes against everything I know about secret moon bases," Magnus whispers to the other two.
"We're not in a secret moon base," Taako whispers back.
"It's the moon, it's a base, and it's a secret."
"We're on the moon!?"
"Don't you remember? We flew into the moon in the glass ball thingy."
"We did? Really? When?"
"Well, I thought we did."
Above them is the night sky, with only one moon, and several twinkling stars. Judging by the area of the base — roughly the length of a football field — they can't possibly be on a moon, and yet, because the second moon is gone from the sky, they have to be. It must be some sort of facade they flew into, revealing this place behind it, and the ground they're standing on must be some sort of elaborate set piece.
They discuss this, haltingly, for about a minute, but all three of them find it insanely difficult to think seriously about this for very long. It's much easier to believe that everything's a trick, somehow. Much easier to just forget about it and go with the flow.
Killian leads them across a quad to a dome that's a little shorter and shallower than the other domed buildings surrounding them. It has a large spear coming out of the top, made of completely translucent crystal — or possibly glass.
There's only one thing inside, and it's a large column in the center of the small room. Killian uses the runed bracelet on her arm to call an elevator up — an elevator that, as far as they can tell, doesn't run on ropes and pulleys? — and the door slides open to let them inside.
"I can't actually go with you guys down there," says Killian. "It's sort of high-security. But, uh, yeah. This is where you need to go next."
The dome doors slide open behind them and a half-elf man stumbles through. "Hey, can you hold the elevator please?" he calls out. His voice is an odd mix between extremely melancholic, and the sound a panflute would make if a panflute had a human voice.
Magnus almost tries to push the elevator doors shut. He doesn't know what they're about to encounter next, but whatever it is, he'd much rather face it with just Taako and Merle. He can trust Taako and Merle. In the end, however, his rustic hospitality wins out, and he holds the door open instead.
"Thanks, guys." The half-elf man joins them inside, nodding at Killian as he passes her. He's wearing very colourful and moderately silly clothing, not the standard-issue uniform everyone else seems to be wearing. Pantaloons, a bard's garb. A little feathered cap. A fiddle strapped to his back. He also exhibits the general demeanour of a funeral director, which, in anyone's opinion, would be a pretty odd combination.
"OK, can you press the button now?" he asks, because no one has actually pressed the button yet.
"Yeah." Magnus pushes it. There's only one button on the panel, which makes the choice pretty clear. The doors close, and the elevator smoothly descends down into the depths of the secret moon base.
"No problem," Taako echoes. Then, bluntly: "Do you work here?"
"Yeah. What gave it away? Is it the fact that I'm, like, here? No, man, I got lost and I ended up on a moon base. I'm just kidding."
"That's… funny," says Taako, who honestly can't decide if that was meant to be funny or not, given the monotonous delivery. "'Cause we're here, and we don't work here, so. I dunno."
"Oh, are you guys initiates or whatever? That's cool."
Merle, Taako, and Magnus look at each other. Silently, collectively, they decide on: "Yes."
There's a short silence, during which the half-elf man heaves a sigh, and it's one of the most sullen and unhappy sighs any of them have ever heard. Magnus feels like he has to do something, and because he gave up on social norms a while back, what he does is try to tickle the half-elf man.
"OK — hehehehehe — stop, stop stop. Hehehe — Stop, stop it, seriously."
"May I ask your name?" says Merle. "Bard-garb — garbed — person?"
"My name is Johann."
"OK. What's wrong, dude?" asks Magnus.
"Yeah, what seems to be bothering you?" asks Taako.
Johann sighs again. "Everything, I guess. If you think about just where I ended up, my life choices, and…"
"You're on a moon!" says Magnus. "That's pretty great."
"Yeah," Taako agrees, "and you're a bard."
"I guess that's true. I mean, I don't get a lot of customers. The problem is, fellas, if I'm going to be frank with you —"
"I thought your name was —" Taako and Magnus say at the exact same time, and they both laugh.
"Oh," says Johann, "good one. Assholes."
"Well, mine wasn't a joke, I'm an idiot," Taako assures him.
"Just ignore 'em," says Merle. "That works most of the time. Go ahead, buddy, tell us what's on your mind."
"I'm, like, the greatest violinist basically ever."
"Oh. OK."
"I mean, I don't see any point in worrying about being humble about it. I don't want to lie to you guys. I'm basically, like, the best violinist ever. But nobody's ever gonna know who I am. I dunno, it just gets to me sometimes, you know?"
Magnus puts his hand on Johann's shoulder. "We know who you are, Frank."
"Don't fucking tickle me again, man, I'm not — I'm like an adult man, and you're an adult man."
"Magnus," says Merle, "easy."
Magnus elects to ignore both these pieces of advice and tickles Johann again, making Merle sigh and shake his head.
"Hehehehehe — stop it."
"Don't you feel better now?"
"Not really, no." Johann pulls his violin off his back. "Would you guys actually mind if I —"
"Threw it away?" Taako offers.
"— played for you?"
"Will you do Devil Went Down To Georgia?" Merle asks.
Johann gives him a funny look. "Do — what? No. But I'll do Asmodeus Went Down To Phandalin."
"No, don't do that. No."
Johann starts to play, and very quickly the other three go completely silent. It's been hard, for any of them, to try and take things seriously after what happened in Phandalin. Pretending nothing's changed, aggressively pretending that jokes and wisecracks are still OK, is how they've gotten to where they're standing in the elevator on the secret moon base feeling like they're dreaming about being very sick. But when Johann plays the song on his violin, something about that changes, and no one says a word.
He wasn't kidding about being the best violinist in the world. It's the most gorgeous goddamn piece of music any of them have ever heard, and certainly the most gorgeous goddamn piece of music anyone's ever heard on an elevator. It's tinged with magic, like all bard music is, but there's nothing fake or forced about the way Johann plays. Like bagpipes, his music forces you to face every feeling you've repressed this century, and by the time he finishes, all three of the adventurers are in tears.
They'll never find a list of Phandalin residents who were abruptly and unceremoniously killed. They'll never pursue surviving friends or family of any of the deceased. But in that moment, it feels like they have, all at once.
When Johann finishes playing, he nods at the utter silence and puts his violin back in its carrier. "See, I told you guys."
Magnus, who ended up crying on the floor, picks himself back up and tries to piece together some semblance of normalcy again. "Johann, why — why aren't you using this gift out in the world, you should be like — singing before, playing before kings."
"It's in the contract, you guys, you know? I wish there was something I could do about it. I'm not complaining, like, it's hard out there to find a job as a bard. In this economy, you don't get a lot of tips, you get a lot of staying in unclean lodging, there's a lot of syphilis, like, just a lot of syphilis."
"In the contract?" asks Magnus, horrified.
"An unconscionable amount of syphilis."
"This is a really slow elevator."
Bing bong.
The doors slide open.
"First floor," says Johann. "Mens' wear. Just kidding." And he walks out.
The elevator opens onto a short hallway with a very large, very secure door at the other end. Standing rank and file on either side of the short hallway are roughly fourteen guards. Johann walks forward without incident. "Oh," he says, "these guys are new recruits, they're about to get inoculated, so. Don't worry about them."
Several of the guards nod in understanding.
"Wait," says Taako. "Before we take another step." He squints. "I don't see any mens' wear."
They all laugh. The guards don't laugh, but the adventurers do, and immediately they feel better. Apart from some red around their eyes, you could hardly tell they were crying.
"You're, like, really dumb, aren't you?" says Johann.
"Or," says Merle, "crazy like a fox."
"Or crazy like a fox," Taako agrees with a self-satisfied nod. "Dumb like a fox."
"OK," says Johann. He rolls up his sleeve to reveal another runed bracer like Killian's, and taps it on the secure door. One of the guards walks over and does the same with his own identical bracer. The room that opens up behind the massive secure door is very large, very dark, and very important-looking, with a surreal bio-luminescent glow spilling out into the hallway. There's a large tank in this room, lit from underneath with the same bio-luminescent glow, filled with a dark and opaque liquid. There's something in the tank — but there isn't. But there is. But there isn't, there's nothing in there. Except that whatever's in there is massive and takes up the entire space in the tank. Except the tank is completely empty, and they're not on one of the moons, and there's no dangerous artifact in Taako's bag.
There sure aren't any whale noises coming from the tank, either.
The disorientation and nausea are worse here than anywhere else on the base.
"I think we need that flask again," Merle murmurs, one hand over his mouth.
Johann walks over to the base of the tank, opens up a panel, and puts the rolls of parchment he's carrying inside it. Then he shuts the door and pulls the lever next to it, saying: "There goes another great composition."
The parchment floats up inside the tank. A tendril reaches out, wraps around it, and pulls it towards the centre of its mass.
Something very odd happens then. All three of them feel it, but none of them have any idea how to put the feeling into words, so it's a very good thing all they need is a shared collective glance to understand they're not the only ones feeling it. It's like a hole appeared in their minds, a gap encompassing the entire elevator ride. They can vaguely remember coming down on the elevator, vaguely remember talking to Johann, vaguely remember that Johann took his violin off his back to play it for them — but the music, that's completely gone. The associated emotional memories are completely gone. It's like having something on the tip of your tongue, and no matter how hard you try, you can't remember what it is. Magnus, in particular, can remember thinking that he was never going to forget that beautiful music or the way it made him feel. Yet, somehow, he… just did. It's a ragged, noticeable gap in memory, half-obvious, half-undetectable.
"Okay," says Johann, "feeding time's over. You guys ready for stuff to get weird?"
Magnus laughs nervously. Johann takes that as a yes, and beckons them over to the base of the tank, to a spigot on the side where several phials sit. When he opens up the spigot to fill three phials, a black, inky liquid comes out, looking about as appetising as rotten tomatoes or mouldy bread.
"No," says Taako.
Johann fills each phial in turn.
"No."
Johann passes each of them a phial full of the black, inky liquid.
"No."
"This isn't going to taste great," Johann admits. "I'll warn you guys, once you drink that, there really isn't any going back."
"Going back from what?" asks Magnus.
"From… from not… from not drinking it."
"OK, so once we drink it, we can't undrink it, is what you're saying, Johann, very helpful."
"Johann's very pragmatic," Merle comments.
"I just cut through the bullshit, you know?"
"Can we ask some questions?" says Merle. "We've got to make this big decision and we don't even know what's going on!"
"We're not going to be able to know what's going on," Taako reminds him. "We can try to ask, but… I bet we'll just get that static."
Magnus grips his phial and drinks the whole thing in one gulp.
It may be the first time in history that a black inky definitely-not-drinkable-without-contracting-cholera drink actually helped someone feel less nauseous.
He immediately remembers the music in the elevator, which drives him nearly to tears again. With every passing second, he remembers more and more, snippets of conversations that were originally faded out with static — he remembers Killian, in the mine, asking them if they were there for the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, currently sitting nestled in Taako's bag, which is not a thing that anyone in their right mind should forget. He remembers the Black Spider asking if they were members of the Bureau of Balance. Even beyond that, months and months and years ago, he remembers war. He remembers war that tore Faerun apart, war that triggered the destruction of his home, war that you couldn't not hear about, even in a quiet country town like Raven's Roost. Violent, aggressive, all-encompassing war and bloodshed that he had somehow completely forgotten about. It destroyed entire towns, that violence and carnage, exactly like Phandalin was destroyed by the gauntlet. Magnus can remember it now, still foggy in some places, but there, unmistakeable in his memory, large and looming.
He looks up, and he can see, clear as day, exactly what the thing in the tank is. It's the size of a whale, but jellyfish-shaped, with thousands of giant tendrils coming off its body. Inside of its body is what looks like a whole galaxy, like a swirling nebula of bright blue-green-white light and stars. It's gorgeous, and all Magnus can do for a while is stare at it, awestruck. The weight of the memories that came back might have completely overwhelmed him, if it wasn't for this massive beautiful jellyfish creature in front of him making him feel warm, and safe, and above all hopeful.
"Guys," he says slowly. "It's all clear. I remember everything."
Merle, who quietly believes that that's exactly what someone who's brainwashed or possessed would say, casts a quick and invisible spell called Augery. It's very simple, and completely un-nuanced; all it does is tell him whether the next thirty minutes will bring good results, or bad.
It tells him, unhelpfully, that the next thirty minutes will bring both.
"Here's the thing, you guys," says Magnus, "so basically what's going on is ⛓⛓⛓⛓ and in the cave, when we were looking for the ⛓⛓⛓⛓ she was explaining that ⛓⛓⛓⛓ so basically, what's going on is ⛓⛓⛓⛓
"Well," says Taako, "this is just annoying now."
And he drinks his phial.
"Thank you," says Magnus, relieved. "Merle, you should drink too."
Merle reluctantly follows suit.